Routes have been published. 6:15PM stretch, 6:30PM run.
Short Route (3.5 miles): http://www.mapmyfitness.com/routes/view/600428070
Long Route (5.7 miles): http://www.mapmyfitness.com/routes/view/603296280
I should be there, running sweep. Bring a light, because even though the route is sidewalks and lit, there are still a few spots where the lighting isn’t quite as bright as you might like.
Now that the new year has started, and the holidays have more or less come to an end, the real training season begins. For the last month or so, we have been working on maintaining/building some base fitness without a real target in terms of gains.
Starting monday, that changes. The targeted training gets rolling, with 2 weeks of foundation work, before settling into our training plan for the Chattanooga 70.3 that is our first big race of the year. Along with that will start the regular posts about training, nutrition, and equipment.
This year, we will be racing with Endurance House Atlanta for all of our races, and we hope to see so many familiar faces from the various groups as we hit these races.
Someone asked why I am so passionate about Endurance House Atlanta. The answer is a little tricky, but it really boils down to people walking the walk. When you visit with the people at EH, you hear a lot about “Redefine Your Possible”. Sounds a little trite. The thing is, these people live and breathe it. Sure, it is great to have the athletes out there that can and will be podium finishers. Supporting those athletes is fine, but when it comes to Redefining Your Possible, it is all about the every day athletes, the ones that just want to see what they can do, who want to finish, or maybe finish stronger than the last event they did, despite having no real chance at a podium.
I am one of those athletes. The people at Endurance House are every bit as much about supporting them as they are the ones that can and will podium. That is what Redefine Your Possible is all about. If you are thinking about triathlon in 2015, come out and join us for a tuesday night run, or a wednesday night spin, and see what I am talking about. There is a great group of people working hard to show themselves what is possible with some work, and a whole lot of redefinition of just what is possible.
Find me an endurance athlete that hasn’t answered this at least once. I will wait, because I don’t think you can find one. It is an easy answer to give people that really do not understand what and why we do these things to ourselves. When it becomes a lie though is when we start giving this answer to people that do in fact understand these things, particularly when it is not our first rodeo.
I know that I am guilty, and as I talk to other athletes I understand that most of us do it. We tell this little white lie because internally we are fighting a battle with ourselves. There are three translations of this little white lie.
This is probably the most legitimate usage, particularly early in the training cycle, but even then, I think most athletes have a number that they are internally targeting.
This one I see a lot with people that are ultra competitive and are unwilling to share a target time that makes them look slow/bad/out of shape.
And the is the killer. I think many of us are guilty of this one, I know that I am. We set high goals, and telling someone else these goals makes them more real, and raises the stakes.
Emotionally, each of these translations have ramifications, but I am going on record that 3 is my reasoning. This season I will be doing my first events at the 70.3 and 140.6 distances, and yes, I have set unrealistic internal goals. When I say I just want to finish, I am leaving out the last bit.
For the 70.3, I may tell you that is all about finishing, but that last bit that I say in my head is usually “In a number between 5:30 and 6:30. 40 minutes for the swim, 3 hours for the bike, and 2.5 hours for the run would the ‘realistic’, but in my head, I’m thinking 30 minutes in the water, 2.75 on the bike and a 2 hour run, which would be a 5:15’ish finish. and that’s why I may answer you ‘just finish’ because I don’t really want you to know that internally I’ll be disappointed with a number that starts in a 7 or greater..
This is an easy report to write, as this is the third year for us running in this one. In many ways, this is the event that ultimately led to the creation of We Are O.G.R.E. Simply put, that first year was the first marathon distance race for me (Dru) and the 5th for Scott. It was the realized goal that put our feet upon the path we find ourselves. Needless to say, we really like this event.
This year, the event was scheduled for November 8, 2014 for the marathon and half marathon, but this year they added a second day on November 9 for a 5k, 1 mile and a kids run. Yes, there was extra bling involved, so we just had to stay the extra day and run some more. Keep in mind that running is in fact a disease, once you start and get through the ‘I hate running’ phase, it is quite difficult to not sign up for these things.
Before I get to the nitty gritty details, this year, we ran the half marathon event. Scott ran it for himself, while I ran it in a support/coach role for my wife who was running her first half. She did awesome in case you were wondering. I also ran the 5k (for time) and the 1 miler (for grins) on Sunday.
The Half course did not appear to deviate much from the last couple of years. It remains a fast, flat course through some truly gorgeous areas of downtown Savannah. The only complaints that I hear about the course are the occasionally rough patches of road where there are some old cobblestone around the squares. Personally, I think they add flavor and character to the course.
What I always come back to at this event is three core things that make it great. First, the Rock n Roll organization puts together a well oiled machine. These races are consistently well run, despite crowds well over 10,000 runners. Second, the city is just fantastic in it’s support of the races, with many local businesses reaching out to the runners to embrace the race as a great event for the city. Third, the people.
Seriously, I cannot say enough about how awesome the local residents are coming out to support this race. With ‘unofficial’ water stops and families out on the lawns cheering, supporting and spectating. In so many ways, they are what make this race so special.
As always, this course starts on Bay St right by the river, winds it’s way out the northwest side of town, circles back and runs through downtown, under the live oak tree lined streets. The canopy of trees and spanish moss are spectacular. By about mile 8, many of the runners are starting to suffer, and the scenery becomes less spectacular, so the course routes out into a couple of great residential areas, where it ceases to be about the scenery and becomes about the people. In this late section of the course, up until about mile 12, it is like having a constant cheering section. IF this cannot motivate you, nothing can.
That leaves just the last little bit. Mile 13. Oh mile 13. This is, for all intents and purposes the hardest part of the route as it rises ever so slightly from the highway up to Forsyth Park. It is straight, and a bit of a late slog. The people are still out there, but the brain and body start to tell you bad things. It is only about a 40 foot climb in total, but it is a misleading and slow climb. Once you hit the top of the hill, you turn right and dash into the park for the big finish. The finish is great, and no matter how many races you have finished, it never gets old.
This was a completely new event this year, and really needed to be better promoted. What a great little event and course. First, this is a screaming fast course. I ran a 23:29, off the half, with a pretty nasty case of plantar fasciitis putting the hurt on the last mile and a half. Yeah, there were some sub 18 minute finishers, it was that fast. But even more than the fast course, it was a tight little loop around Daffin Park with the finish line inside the Sand Gnats minor league baseball stadium. It was a fun little course. An hour later they did the 1 miler, also in Daffin Park. We went ahead and did that event too. We put in a hard effort to challenge for last place, and I am pretty sure we managed it. Yes, my foot was hurting pretty bad about that time.
On a would we do it again scale, the answer is, already signed up for 2015. Should be a big group too, with at least 8 of us already signed up and another 6-8 talking about it. We are looking forward to it.
So many car drivers think this whole bike lanes/bike infrastructure push is a war on cars. Every pro-bike article online these days gets overrun with comments from angry drivers espousing this or other anti-bike vitriol like roads were built for cars, bikes belong on the sidewalks, or that bikes are for kids.
I will come right out and say it. It is a war on cars. Everytime you try and belittle bicycles, or even walkers and joggers you firmly establish yourself as someone who fails both at respecting others, and respecting yourself. How so you might ask, so let is discuss this in context.
First, you are right roads are built for cars. That is the very core of the problem, and basically covers the whole “Why is this even a discussion”. Roads should not be built for only cars. It was never the intent to create a traffic system that centered around cars, it was a terrible accident of short sighted admininstrations that failed to grasp the fundemental problems that car first/car only infrastructure creates. The results of car first infrastructure are clearly evident to anyone with a grain of sense. Obesity, Road Rage, Congestion, insufficient parking, insufficient roadas, dependancy upon fossil fuels being just a few of them. We keep throwing resources at ‘fixing the traffic problems’ by trying to accomodate more cars, or get cars off the roads (8 lane highways, billion dollar flying bridge intersections, 4 – 6 lane arterial roads, HOV lanes, etc). All those solutions prove is that if you provide infrastructure, people will use it. The more you provide the more they use it, escalating the problems, not fixing them.
How about those bikes on the sidewalks? Well, common sense dictates, that just like a car on a bike path, a fast moving, heavy vehicle does not interact well with a smaller, lighter slower moving vehicle, in this case pedestrians. Second, it is very well documented that the number 1 place for serious accidents is at contention points like turns. So a bike on a sidewalk entering an intersection, even with a walk signal in a cross walk is most likely to be hit by a turning car than anywhere else. Using your own experience as a reference, how many times have you attempted to cross a road as walker, at a signal, with a walk signal and still almost been hit by a car that didn’t “see” you? Now instead of travelling at 2-3 miles an hour, make that 15. Splat. No, sidewalks aren’t the answer either.
Oh you say bikes are for kids do you. Excellent. Your kids too? Great, glad to hear that. Where are they going to ride? Neighborhood streets, alright, how about to school and back. To get there, they need to be safe. They probably need to use at least one ‘road’. Nope, no can do, roads are for cars, sidewalks are for pedestrians, and we’ve discusseed why they are not for bikes already. Sorry mate, your kids are screwed because roads are built for cars, and bike lanes and bike paths are not meant to be used for transportation, just recreation. Yeah, guess you didn’t think that all the way through did you. Let’s just move on then.
So let’s just get back to the core principal. It is a war on cars. Yes, yes it is, and dear driver, it is to your benefit to not only grasp that, but to get behind it with everything you have. Sure, we get it, you do not want to give up your luxury transportation cage. We understand that your self worth is built on the status symbol that is your vehicle. That is completely fine. You hate sitting in traffic, wasting your time. You get upset when you have to slow down to a speed below the speed limit. This is all fine, and face it, every cyclist on those roads knows your pain, we’ve been there. We even go through it on a bike when we get stuck at a red light behind a sulfur spewing deisel truck smog monster. Give us bike lanes, bike paths that actually go someplace useful (like connecting suburban residential areas to commercial centers instead of paths to nowhere in the flood plains that are otherwise unusble). Let us have our portion of the road, and for every one of us not in a car, you get an easier commute, and remember you can put a minimum of 6 of us in the physical space that you your one car takes up. And guess what, in the process, you benefit. Your gas prices go down as demand goes down. Your parking gets easier. Your lungs can breath easier with less emissions. Oh and you’re concerns about the costs? Most cyclists also own cars. We are paying the same taxes you are, but unlike you, we aren’t causing the wear and tear on the roads and the environment that you are.
So yes, it is a war on cars, and yes, every single driver that isn’t 100% behind it is just an angry self-important idiot. I’m willing to say that, knowing full well that most drivers are going to hate me for it. The problem is, I no longer care. I understand the other truth. Most drivers don’t need another reason to hate me for I am a cyclists.
Well, it is official. Scott and I are now signed up for Ironman Chattanooga in 2015. After a long 8 hour shift volunteering at Run Special Needs for the 2014 event, the OGRE’s stood in line bright and early Monday morning to take advantage of the pre-registration and signed up.
This will be the first Ironman distance race for both of us. Luckily we have a year to prepare, and will be doing several races between now and then as prep. We will be training with the good folks at Endurance House Atlanta, and expect to race under their colors next year.
As you see here, the motley crew of people racing with Endurance House should make for a very fun year of training. Along the way however, we have some things to do. Oddly, this was the event that really compelled us to start this website. The journey to get there is the real story behind every race. This is the story of the journey, to be told along the way, in all of it’s painful glory.
I hope you enjoy the next year. I can honestly say that I am excited, but also terrified. At the end of the day though, volunteering this year helps me understand what we have gotten into.
Not too long ago, I say a quote that really sums it all up though:
If your dreams do not scare your, then you are not dreaming big enough
With that in mind, we are dreaming big. When we run though Run Special Needs next year, we hope to see the kind of support the race earned this year.
There will be days in every athletes regimen that just do not feel great. A workout will scheduled. You will get into the workout and it just feels off. The best description I have heard is that you just do not feel ‘into it’ that day. It is easy to quit the workout on those days, and this is the difference between success and mediocrity. Success means you grind through it.
Last night was a very good example for me.
I had a ride scheduled. I was looking for about 20 miles to just get the body back into the routine that has been so disrupted over the last couple of weeks. Time got away from me with work and family stuff, so I was finally hitting the road at 5:30 instead of the 4:30 I had planned. I had to be back before 7:00, so time was of the essence. As I rolled out, I was already feeling the pressure of getting it done, and by the third hill in the first 2 miles, I wasn’t feeling it. It had to be get done though, so it was time to just grind it out.
In the end, I never really did get into the groove. Never could get a sustained, comfortable rhythm going. Just kept turning it over, and the result wasn’t a terrible ride, despite how it felt. 18.8 miles, 777 ft of elevation, at an average speed of 18 mph isn’t bad by my standards, but it never felt very good either.
It doesn’t really matter much though, because it got done. This morning I feel better for it. I guess a picture sums it up best.
One of the most difficult things we face as amateur athletes is that while we may want to train like the pros, this is not our job. We have other commitments and when it comes down to it, our training time doesn’t come out of our work time, but our personal time. Normally this is a challenge, but when you start throwing in things like business travel, well, sometimes your training schedules get more than a little disrupted.
Right now, I am feeling that pain. Having been on the road for 7 of the last 10 days, my training schedule has been a mess, and compounding matters, I have been battling the lingering effects of a minor, but uncomfortable injury in the form of a bruised heel. In a stretch where I would normally have logged about 35 miles of running, 4 hours in the water, and another 80 miles on the bike, only a 15 miles of running, 2 hours in the water, and one 35 mile bike ride have been completed. Even those miles have been haphazard at best. The net result, is that I am probably fine, I don’t feel that way. I feel guilty, like I have cheated.
The thing is, I know from historical evidence, that not only will it be fine, I will likely benefit from the break. Personally, I have found that these lulls provide me a training benefit by giving some healing time that I am won’t to not take otherwise. Time will tell, but these ‘rest weeks’ may well be more beneficial than the rest days that I so hate.
The challenge though, is making sure that a rest week doesn’t overflow into multiple rest weeks. Getting back to the routine is hard after time off with a schedule disruption. That is my challenge this week. Overcoming the lethargy of a 10 days of travel, to get back on the horse, and not letting my hectic schedule overcome the training schedule.
Meaning that this afternoon will need some time on the trainer if the predicted storms roll in, and if not, well, I’ll see you on the roads of north Fulton and south Forsyth at about 4:30!
Often when training we hear the phrase “Push through the pain”. It is often good advice, but not always. There are times when you have to find the difference between ‘discomfort’, ‘healthy pain’, and ‘injury looming’. You can push through any of these, but pushing through ‘injury looming’ is a quick way to take a forced 4-16 weeks off. Today, I got a first hand glimpse of this, and almost made the wrong choice.
It is a saturday, it is long run day. So I headed out on the run. Things were good early, but somewhere about mile 4, something wasn’t “right”. By the 5.5 mile mark, it wasn’t just not right, it was headed for really wrong, and fast. The signs were there, but I wasn’t paying attention. By the time I caught on, it was almost too late. I backed it down to a walk, but the left hip, calf and heel were all telling me that there was a problem. It took a bit to figure out the source of the problem: worn out shoes. Sadly, they shouldn’t be, they only have about 150 miles on them, but this particular shoe ( Brooks PureDrift ) just hasn’t worn well at all. In this case, though the sole looked to be in good shape, the softer foam padding between the insole and the sole itself was breaking down, and fast.
Slowing to a walk I figured I could at least work my way back to the car, lick my wounds and live to run another day. Unfortunately, the shoe damage was terminal. By mile 7, I concluded the shoes were doing more harm than good, so off they came, socks into a pocket, and walk/run the remaining mile or so. Since I frequently run in New Balance Minimus Zero’s, running barefoot is not a crisis, but I do not have the callouses built up to do it for long distances.
At the end of the day though, I ignored ‘discomfort’ and pushed into the ‘injury imminent’ territory. I got lucky, and started listening before it turned into an injury, so I shouldn’t have any downtime for it. But it is days like these that reinforce the dynamic that I sometimes forget.
Listen to your body it is talking to you all the time and you ignore what it is saying at your own peril.
As an aspiring ( and late in life ) triathlete, finding the time to get in the miles and hours required to build fitness and base endurance is probably the single largest challenge. Time, for many of us is our most valuable commodity. Between the demands of employment, family, sleep, and our social commitments, squeezing out potentially hours a day for working out is tough. Many of us look to combine our fitness goals into other aspects, be it social, or family obligations, while some of us are lucky enough to be able to get our fitness as part of our employment, the rest of us, have to find that time elsewhere.
Consider a pretty typical white collar professional parent schedule:
7:00-7:45AM – Feed kids/launch them to school.
7:45-9:00AM – Transit to place of employment.
9:00AM-12:00PM – Work
12:00-12:30AM – Lunch like time (in many cases eaten at a desk)
12:30-5:00PM – Work
5:00-6:15PM – Transit Home
6:15-8:00PM – Family Time (dinner,homework,domestic chores)
8:00-10:00PM – “Down Time”
Carving out ‘workout time’ that isn’t in that late evening time, using dreadmills and indoor trainers is brutal. This is where the commute as a training window comes into play. A commute of say 10-20 miles is going to take 20-60 minutes in a car in most areas, while that same commute by bicycle is going to be between 20-90 minutes depending upon the rider. Add some clean up and a change of clothes at the other end, and you are typically still well within the transit time window. Now instead of needing to find another time during the day for a workout, the workout is part of the day.
Will this work for everyone? absolutely not, but if you can make it work for you, it can be a huge benefit, not only in time saved and fitness, but it also improves on the job performance (though I will be the first to admit that there are days when the temptation to keep riding past the office is almost overwhelming!).
For me personally, I have had to adapt a couple of things in my schedule. My working hours are early, I typically target getting to the office around 6:30AM, so I am commuting in the dark, so that means riding with lights. I enjoy the morning ride as a low pace 12 mile spin, with an average of about 15 mph. I then work until 2:30 or 3:00PM and then hustle home on a different return route that is close to 16 miles over some nasty rollers. This is a far more spirited work out, that usually pushes over 18 mph. Once I am home, and I get the kids off to their various events, I use the down time between drop off and pick up times to either work on the laptop, hit the trail for a run, or hit one of the pool options for a few laps. Then it is home for dinner, homework, baths and bedtimes. Sure, the days are full, but I actually feel better for it, and I am not stressing about finding time in the day to squeeze in a bike workout too.