Friday Folies

 The end of the super busy time of year. Today is Friday and I’m home. Since the beginning of August I have been home on Friday-Saturday-Sunday less than I have been gone. 

• Falmouth
• Mexico City
• Berlin
• Chicago
• Toronto
• NYC

In between those I’ve also had events in. 

• Tokyo
• Amsterdam
• Valencia
• Marseille
• Frankfurt
• Warsaw 

Only 5 more events to go. 3 this weekend and then two in December. 

It feels good to accomplish work. Today I’ll pay all the bills associated with all of these events. That feels good too! 

Workouts Yesterday 

Run 57 min 6.2 miles 

Flower Fields (picture above) The area used to be covered in green houses growing flowers. Today there is a golf course and homes but most importantly trails. I warmed up to the first trail head. Then I worked the hills hard. There are 4 hills. They vary in length and pitch. The longest being one kilometer and steep at the end. On the way home I ran the last kilometer with some tempo. 

Yoga: 15 minutes at lunch time. 

Run 20 min 2.1 miles 

Shakeout 

Winning

 

Happy Thanksgiving weekend! On Thanksgiving day we got up and headed all of ten minutes to the start of the Encinitas Turkey Trot. It is an annual tradition no matter where we are to find a turkey trot. I did a solid warm up. The start is narrow so it make sure you don’t get trampled it is best to line up early at the front. I was probably too cautious on that front and ended up standing in place for almost 10 minutes. I was in mid conversation with a guy I met at the starting line when the gun went off. I started off right on the heels of the guy. He had run the Berlin Marathon and then done the 70.3 World Championships in St George. The pace was too hot for my fitness and I had to let him go. About a mile in I heard someone on the side of the road scream go Hillary! I kind of knew instantly that I had a multiple Ironman winner and Ultraman World Champion on my heels. In my head I said no chance, she is not passing me. The 5K race is an out and back. At the turn around, she did pass me. That lasted 5 seconds before I put in a surge. For the next 1.5 miles I could hear her behind me. The gap was opening but not enough for my comfort. I chose places along the course to dig deeper. The screams for Hillary were still there (she is kind of popular). As soon as the finish line came in view I pushed. I finished a few seconds in front of Hillary but when I looked at the time I was disappointed. I was racing to finish 1 minute slower than last year. I knew I wasn’t in shape to run fast but I am hoping it is just a fitness issue and not an aging issue. After the race I ran back out on the course to run the last 1/5 mile with my wife. When we got home my ultra competitive wife checked her results then she checked mine. I won my age group. 

Shoe of the Week

Saucony sends me lots of shoes. They sent the Endorphin Pro 3 to me just prior to the launch in the late summer of this year. When I was in Berlin earlier this year I woke up one morning to rain and cool temperatures. It was my last day in the city and I had not seen much of what I love about it. I put on the Endorphin Pro 3 and went running/sight seeing. I did this big loop of 10 miles simply following the key sights. The 10 miles was effortless and beautiful. My hands were frozen but my feet were feeling great. 

Here is my review of the shoe: 

I'm Back for More

Here's the set up.
1. Personal and Mind dumping - Endorphin Fanatics
2. Running Shoes - shoeranger.com next posting on shoe ranger is the costing of a running shoe. Shoe prices are going up and the brands have been reacting by cutting some costs.
3. The Running Industry - runningshoeinsight.com - Last post was a shout out to Hoka. They are the new kid on the block and really have a thing but they are not trying to change the block they are falling in line.

This picture was just that, a picture I took while out on a bike ride. This is my typical 1 hour easy ride. This is the beach in Del Mar. It's a beautiful place to be any time of the year. It's one of the few beaches that has a park full of grass just before the sand. You can literally go the to beach and not get sandy. 

The summer between my Sophomore and Junior year in college this beach was a daily visit. I worked as a life guard. A dream job in California. I was not a beach guard, I was a pool guard and swim teacher. I worked at a pool in central Escondido. Most cyclists in this area know Escondido as the town you have to go through to get into the mountains of San Diego. On days where we weren't teaching swim lessons, three of us would drive down Del Dios Highway to this beach. We would body surf for an hour or so, have breakfast then get to the pool in time to open it for the day. That was a great summer. 

Now that beach is simply on one of the rides. It's 6 miles from the house and unless I'm riding, I rarely go there. Body surfing is done at Moonlight Beach these days. 

It's a good life.....

5 Things I am Thankful for On This Thursday January 14, 2016

1. 23 and Me genetic results - I've always been on the healthier than most side of life. It doesn't matter that I'm healthier than you what matters is that my health continues it's strong trend. A few blood tests ago my Iron (ferritin) levels were high. They continued blood test after blood test to remain high. The only way to reduce them is to give blood which I've been doing. But the cause was yet unknown. It's ether genetic or it's lifestyle. 23 and Me confirmed that it's not genetic. That's good because I don't have to give blood every 30 days now. The future says continue to give blood and to monitor through blood tests. 
2. My big sister Cyndi - We've not had an easy 6-7 years. First our father passed away abruptly on the 17th fairway one November morning. Not much longer after that we (my sister) had to put our mom into a total care facility for her Alzeimer's. Then just over a year ago our brother Bob passed away from ALS. Now the money has run out and my Mom needs to move to a county facility. My sister Cyndi is taking care of all of this over the weekend. Words can't express how thankful I am to have Cyndi as my sister. She raised me and she's still showing me how to live. 
3. Dr Phil Maefetone  I was lucky to meet Phil years ago at a function we held at Road Runner Sports. Listening to his interviews on Endurance Planet remind me just what a visionary he has been in such a kind soul. The endurance community is lucky to have a guy like Phil. 
4. David Bowie - What and influence in my life. Music is the one absolute constant in my life. It's on in the background or in the foreground most of my waking day. I love all music. There are certain threads in the music I listen to most and David Bowie is easily threaded through much of it. 
5. The place where I live. I sometimes forget that that I live here. I get busy doing stuff and sometimes forget as Gordo says "This is far more than I need" I can't agree with you more Gordo. 

It's a good life....

My Sunday Ride

Saturdays I spend my mornings watching all the cyclists ride by as I teach and encourage runners. It's a bit frustrating to see all those bikes and not be able to join in. But then Sunday comes around and all is good again.

This is one of the main roads east out of Encinitas. 6 days a week this road is jammed with cars. As you can see it's 3 lanes each way and it's generally freeway speeds as people race to get somewhere. On Sunday it's empty. Nobody is in a hurry and the air is clear.

Yesterday my ride of 2 hours took me to the top of Double Peak. It's a long climb (20 minutes or so) and it gets steeper as it goes. No really, it gets steeper as it goes. It starts out in the 5% range and finishes in the 17% range. My program for the climb was 3 minutes standing, 3 minutes sitting start to finish. I don't actually time it until I make the left turn to the park. Before that I use the stop lights as my timer. There are 6-7 stop lights on the climb. The great thing about Sunday is there is a high chance of going through clean. Yesterday I hit no red lights. Once you hit the left turn it's stoplight free. The next 9 minutes that cover about 1/3 of the distance are the real test. There is no easy way to the top it's simply how much can you grind and suffer. I had two segments standing and 1 segment sitting. That means the sitting was on the steepest section of the hill. My legs were burning.

The payoff is sometimes grand and sometimes just ok. Yesterday it was just ok looking west. That cloud bank is covering the coast. On a good day you can see out to the Channel Islands.

I generally don't spend too much time at the top. Yesterday it was about 30 seconds. Long enough to get this picture. It was nice to meet up with a couple friends at the top. We road home together then I continued on to make my 2 hours. The down was just as clear as the up. We hit no red lights from top to bottom and with no cars we got to use the entire road. It was outstanding.

Southern California Riding can be hairy with all the cars. Cars turning in front of you, car doors opening, and worst of all is folks on the cell phones drifting into the bike lane. It's nice to get out the door on a Sunday morning and ride open roads close to home. It's a treat worth the wait.

It's a good life......

Fast Boys and Good Friends

The Cross Country Season is officially over. Saturday marked the final race and it was a doozy. Only 175 of the fastest high school runners in the wild west. The occasion was the Footlocker West Region Championship at Mt Sac. The top 10 runners from this race move on to the National Championship held each year in Balboa Park, San Diego. Marco and the boys wanted to run the Mt Sac course and they wanted to finish the season on a high note. The day dawned cold and wet, perfect cross country weather. I've been to the Footlocker finals at least 10 years and to watch my son run in this West Final was emotional. When the gun went off tears, filled my eyes. The boys can walk off the season proud. They weren't the fastest in the group but they all ran strong, and finished strong. For Marco, he was one of 15 underclassmen in the race and he got a taste of big time cross country. He walked away from the race hungry which is a good thing.

This brings me to Good Friends. Marco and I sat down last week to talk about his goals for his senior year. We then back up and he set his goals for the upcoming track Season. First step was to give those goals to his coach and the second step was to establish some practices of injury prevention. So we turned to Chris Maund of Pacific Health and Fitness in Encintas. Chris is the trainer to the stars and he graciously took and hour out of his day to spend with Marco teaching him mobilization and stretching he could do. It was a great session and it was totally fun to watch Chris and Marco work together. They've known each other for 15 years and they've gone from little boy, man talk to man to man talk and now Trainer to Athlete talk. So very cool to see.

I take away from this that watching fast boys is fun and it's even better when one of them is your own. It's also great to have good friends who are willing to help with the goals of a 15 year old.

It's a good life....

Running Shoe Dirt: Minimalism

Last year at the running event in Austin, Texas there were 42 shoe brands representing running shoes. I bet I can't name 30 of them and I work in the industry. The majority of the brands are spin offs of minimalism, barefoot running or natural running. There are arguments that could be said they are all the same. Run Barefoot. Well you can't do that all the time so run in minimalism and make sure you do it the way  nature intended.

 Running has gotten to complicated. It used to be, you find a shoe you like and run in it until the sole falls off.If you made it that far than the shoe was right. Now because of the internet and blogs like this one everyone is an expert. We shall see this year at the Running Event. The true experts, the end consumers are starting to figure it all out.

Just go for a run and if you can't feel your feet and don't think about feet/shoes keep running. You are in the right shoe.

It's a good life.....