Lorain Olympic 2008

On Sunday was NCN's Lorain Sprint/Olympic tri, at Lakeview Park [1] on the far west side. I opted for the longer distance; I missed my chance at an oly earlier with the swim cancellation at GTC, and needed to offset a fair amount of couch-sitting watching the actual olympics.

First, if you're driving an hour to a 7am race registration, remember to leave time to find a bridge completely closed for repair and investigate detour possibilities. I did so, surprisingly. The sprint waves were scheduled to start at 8 but started late (par for the course, I learned), so the olympic wouldn't depart until 8:30. That left me just enough time to break off my front valve stem while topping off to 120 psi, then jog over to the Bike Authority tent for a quicker (and more reliable) tube change than I could have managed myself. I racked the bike, dropped my gear into little piles on my stripy blue towel and headed toward the beach.

The weather was beautiful, though we could tell at 8:30 that the run a couple hours later would be toasty. The swim was largely outside the breakwall and featured reasonable rollers, enough that breathing into the waves was (for me, at least) impossible. Once I got that rhythm down I reduced my intake of crisp, clean Lake Erie and was able to start swimming; yet, it took me a solid 15 minutes to do so. That swim ate my lunch like a sixth grade bully. [2] (Fortunately, it would be nice enough to return it halfway through the run.) Regardless, starting at about the halfway point I did really start to enjoy the swim. I was slow, and a wetsuit wouldn't have hurt, but I had a steady crawl going and it started to feel like a nice pool workout interjected by the occasional panicked search for and realignment toward the next buoy. I express my displeasure in histogram form.
The bike and run were uneventful. The bike course was fairly flat, two loops. I averaged 19.4 mph for 22-ish miles, which is about right for me but sub-median in this crowd, composed mostly of the 20-22 crowd. Transition to the run was fair; I had taken in one bottle on the bike but needed more, not having hydrated well before the race. That hit me on the run, which started off as expected (painful for the first mile, then picks up) but just died at about mile 4. I ran / jogged / limped through cramps and dizziness for most of miles 4 and 5; either my gel and generous use of gatorade stops or fear of a weak-looking finish in front of the crowd helped pick up the last mile or so. 10k at 9:19/mi, bringing me one bar further left in the aforeshown histogram.

[1] Not to be confused with Lakeside Park (willows in the breeze / so many memories?)
[2] As I recall, no bully ever actually did this to my lunch, not even on cucumber sandwich day

Twilight Trail Run 2008

On 8/14, I joined the local Twilight Trail Run, an 8-km, moderately-hilly trail route. It's halfway between an actual race and an after-work jogging party. There are numbers and a clock, but the start is a fun stagger by age (with bumps in exchange for small charity donations) and you receive a can of domestic on your way through the finish chute. It was a nice chance to say hi to numerous folks I'd met or seen at various training groups throughout the summer.

The route is the same year-to-year, so I thought it provided a nice benchmark.

This year: 39:08 (7:53 pace, 59th/160)
Last year: 44:01 (8:52 pace)

It was a little cooler this year, but still humid, so I'll chalk up the improved time to my increased level of awesomeness.

Attribution

The "quote of the day" on my Google mail header attributes to self-help charlatan Tony Robbins [1]:

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.

Of course, those of us of a certain impressionable age in 1993 might remember the proper phrasing [2]:

Cause if you do what you've always done / you'll always get what you always got / (Uh... could that be nothin'?)

On an unrelated note, so to speak, I listened to the Muse album Black Holes and Revelations recently. I think it's really good, although I haven't listened to enough Muse to compare this to their other work. Their style is right up my alley: it's generally rockous and progressive, overuses textural synthesizer and orchestral punctuation, and combines electronically driven tempos and overarching, squealing-dude vocal in a way that clearly follows, but is implemented distinctly from, the Radiohead archetype. Their use of instrumental synthesizer plucks some of the best from, perhaps, Gentle Giant; vocal harmonies emulate (what is undoubtedly) the best from Queen. If I were to select an objection, it's that they rely primarily on the extended-radio-pop-song form in their compositions. What my record collection needs is a serious composition from these guys: an album-length [3] masterpiece in the vein of The Fountain of Lamneth or Scenes from a Memory. Five people would buy it, and I'd be one of them.

[1] Ref. Nothing personal; if career = "self-help writer" and wealthy = yes, then this is my assumption.
[2] Ref
[3] In modern times, why limit a concept album to a 30-minute side, or even an 80-minute disc? I think my ipod has 3.2 GB available: that's about 640 minutes at high quality. Bring it on.

Buy my house!

It's time to see what those real-estate selling wizards with domestic autos and trunks full of open house signs can do.

http://5380summitroad.howardhanna.com

Pool table included (pfft - I'm not moving it). Giraffe statuary not included. Dozens of tasty, ripe tomatoes negotiable.

Of course, there *is* more than one option in our neighborhood, but none with quite the combination of awesomeness and reasonable price as ours. The pushpin icons below indicate for-sales, in a 2x2-mile area.

Greater Cleveland "Triathlon" 2008

Sunday was the Greater Cleveland Triathlon. The race was on my list for the summer, but my training schedule hasn't been strong (exercising: yes; training: um...), so I hadn't signed up. But, as racing is more fun than not racing, I stopped by Headlands Beach Saturday to sign my waivers, join USAT for one day and admire the whitecaps on Lake Erie.

At six o'clock Sunday morning I arrived at the race and admired the same waves on the same lake. It didn't take long for the race organizer to note that the local Coast Guard couldn't find a calm place to park to oversee the swimmers, so the Tri was rearranged into a Dualthlon, with a 1+ mile (foot) sprint to the bike racks replacing the swim leg. Running a mile certainly isn't as tiring as swimming, but it does use a remarkably similar muscle set as the biking and, well, running portions.

I entered the Olympic-distance race. (Had I known that the swim would be cancelled, I would have tried the half-iron bike+run; please don't tell any of the real triathletes that I'm swim-limited.) The start times were all pushed back a bit to account for reorganization; the half-distance (twice the Oly) started at 7:30; we at 8:00 or so. I kept a good pace for the opening run, middle-of-the-pack -ish at 8:13 (m:ss). My transition to the bike was fair, at 1:21. I managed to keep a clear head and get my helmet and sunglasses on, switch shoes and jog out of transition. I was near the back of transition (furthest from the bike entrance/exit), but I think if there's a separate split for running on cleats while pushing a bicycle, I would have been in the top 3. A la Gazelle.

The bike course had some medium-frequency undulations, but overall was 2/3 uphill followed by 1/3 downhill, with a couple of long, drawn-out bumps in the middle. I did more passing than being passed, but for the most part played tag with the same few riders throughout. There were a number of right-angle turns, guarded by the local PD and littered with cones, that I executed well, winning several positions by exiting them quickly (credit: my high-speed commute route through Cleveland Heights). I was also surprised how much passing I did on the downhill sections, considering that I ride road bars, but I did make an effort to push on the downhills to keep momentum through the rolling sections. The strategy was successful in getting to an occupied train track for a 3-minute stretch break while the gravel express rolled by. (The stop time was noted by race officials, who subtracted it at the end. Classy.) I thought it would be bright to change to a lower gear while stopped, and was still turning the crank with my hand trying to get it to shift when the train cleared. Oops.

The end of the bike was a big, clumpy mess. The ride back up route 44 to the beach is downhill and smooth, but all three race routes converged, and there wasn't enough room to ride quickly or keep four bike-lengths (the no-drafting distance rule). Probably out of fear of drafting, slow riders weren't pulling back right after passing, nor riding quickly enough to pass effectively. I spent some time outside the cones, in the car-traffic lane, and passed gobs of folks (the slow end of the sprint race, I'll bet). 1:14:28 for 23 miles.

For the first time, I successfully removed my feet from my shoes while coasting and semi-elegantly hopped off my bike for the run into transition. Yet, somehow, I spent 2:12 in T2. Did I stop to read the paper?

The run went as expected. The first mile was painful, and interrupted briefly by a bathroom break (beginning of the run course next to the big public park restrooms? Brilliant!). I walked through the first water stop for a chug of classic lemon-lime, but ran the rest, taking advantage in several cases of very steady runners moving just a bit too fast for my comfort. As I ran, my comfort increased, and I passed most of them. By mile 4 I was ready to run and upped the pace a bit (I guessed at the time, from 8:30 to about 7:50) and ran in moderate exhaustion through the end. I attacked the downhills well (the last a little too aggressively, which is why my foot is up today in hamstring-extension mode). I actually let up a bit at the end to let a woman who'd unknowingly helped pace me through the end of the run finish ahead; but, as it turned it didn't matter in the standings, since my train-waiting time would be subtracted. I'll keep that in mind next time: always beat women. Upon looking at the results, I thought I had actually beaten the women, but I hadn't noticed the top 3 finishers listed separately, each of whom handily smoked me. Run: 10k at 51:12, an 8:14/mi pace.

Thus ends a long race report for a small race.
2:17:26; Placed 41/109 overall and 3/6 in my age group.

Battleground

First: better than morning coffee, it's a little afternoon Black Mountain (that does sound like a roast; hmmm...). I'm listening to their February concert recorded by NPR (and available here). The npr.org writeup describes an "epic storm of prog-rock riffs, '60s psychedelia and '70s metal." I hear a lot of Zeppelin and dudes singing in the high-tenor range, so I suppose they're right. It's a good way to struggle through a Friday afternoon with dramatically increased brainstorming creativity and typing speed. [*] Take that, Mavis Bacon. But not you, Mavis Staples. You're cool.

We're being inundated already, in our little mid-north-western battleground state, with TV ads for presidential wannabes. I was disappointed how early they've turned mostly negative. I note that the McCain camp is relying much more heavily on attack ads then the dems, but last night I caught some ominous-looking photos of J. Sidney next to Shrub and facts and figures about oil-company campaign contributions. There's certainly more truth to that than the opposing assertion that Mr. O features "fewer jobs" in his platform, but I'm disappointed nonetheless. Then again, these campaign organizers know what they're doing; if I think it sucks, I have nowhere to look but toward my fellow Americans. And I do. And it's sad.

[*] Another way? A 10-minute blogger break! Okay, back to work...

Operation dinner out

[1 (post title)]

Given the occasion of our fifth wedding anniversary, we dropped off the wee one for a play date and hit one of our favorite restaurants for some grub. I offer no complaints; the food was superb, and environment and service appropriate. We hadn't been to (now increasingly famous) Lola's new location yet; it is dim and hip, and the dining area almost seems squeezed in as an afterthought around the open and quite focal kitchen. A foodie's chow house.

These foodies led off with appetizers of tuna and veal sweetbreads (those are two separate dishes). The tuna was simple: raw, cured in a blend of olives and served with a bit of them. I'll write like a food critic as I write like a music critic (and about as professionally as I might kayak or play the 'cello): this dish was precise and simple; the tuna texture and olive punch melded in an unfamiliar entourage of tactile uniformity and bright tone. I'd never ingested sweetbreads before, so it was high time; these were lightly breaded and fried to capture the essence of the perfect overcooked breakfast potato hash. The texture was a little unusual: not quite vegetable, not quite meat, but it came with a little slice of chili on the side. [2]

Now, écrivez entrées. (Apologies if babelfish doesn't conjugate correctly.) For the lady, salmon perched on cylindrical hunks of roasted tomato, with a variety of springy veg and herbs and nicely matched wheatgrassy broth. Succeeds on the criteria of "wow, that's tasty" and "wow, I wouldn't have thought of that". For the gentleman, chops of lamb suspended in Israeli cous and deep, roasted veg and tangy barbecue stylings. The meat's flavor dominated.

Overall, A++++, quick shipping, good communication; would buy from again.

Sweet corn challenge 2008

Catching up: last Sunday I bicycled 100 miles, my first century, at this year's Sweet Corn ride. I've done the 50-mile version of the ride each of the previous two years. The weather was beautiful: sunny and medium-warm, perfect for a thin bike jersey and noticeable perspiration only on long uphills. I started to get tired at about the 80-mile mark, by 95 miles was checking my watch every mile (are we there yet?) and between 100 and 106 miles (make up distance -- I took a couple of wrong turns) even more often. I rode with a few different folks; I knew perhaps a dozen folks riding that route this year, and I met and rode with more along the way.

On to the facts and figures:
6:30 moving time; 15.6 mph (yup, I'm that slow)
1:10 rest time (yup, the food was that good)
6100' uphill (and 6100' downhill, I suppose)

The route didn't seem this convoluted while riding:
But, the correlation between elevation change and speed is sensible. The speed data are smoothed: I actually saw real-time speed (from my rear-wheel sensor) >45mph on two occasions, making this ride both a speed and distance PR.

Friday funnies

Take one: sign posted at local coffeerie.

Unattended children
will be given espresso
and a free puppy

Take two: now-playing All Songs Considered is sponsored by PBR. Huh.