I can’t believe I haven’t posted since
the end of July—nearly three months have passed! I guess when you spend the
majority of every day in front of a computer in a freezing cold basement you
don’t really feel like going home and sitting in front of the computer some
more to write. Instead, I spent a ton of time with my wife, my doggie, my
friends, and my family, and as much of it as possible outside!
We
spent most of July and August gardening and hanging out with friends. I was
recovering from the triathlon and still playing softball. I had promised my wife
that I would take some time off from running races so that our every weekend
wouldn’t be consumed. I am glad I did.
We planted bigger gardens than we have
in the past. Our new house has a lot more yard space and a lot of it is on the
south side of the house, making it optimal for gardening. We put in two
substantial raised beds and got busy planting in late May and early June. By
the time July and August roll around, things are getting real!
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| The crazy, overgrown chard. |
Looking back through my pictures it
would appear that I didn’t take too many snap shots of the overgrown garden,
but trust me, we did pretty well. The snap peas, radishes, beet tops, and
greens kicked things off. We were able to eat fresh salads, straight from the
garden, in early June.
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| Salad, fresh from the garden. |
By mid-July we were starting to get our
delightfully sweet, “sun sugar” cherry tomatoes and the beets, zucchini, chard,
and cucumbers were in full swing. And a week or two later we were becoming inundated
with tomatoes—both the cherry and the Roma—cucumbers, small bell peppers, and
hot red cherry peppers. It was so warm we started to lose our greens, but we
were able to replace them in the garden with Brussel sprouts—a late season,
cold weather vegetable.
Because of our great success with some
of the crops we had to preserve the excess. With the Roma tomatoes we steamed
the skins off and froze gallon sized bags of them for the winter. I also
learned how to make refrigerator pickles—next year I am determined to learn how
to can properly—to use up some of the bumper crop of cukes.
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| Pickles, refrigerator style. |
The garden is still coming along quite well, especially given the much cooler weather. We managed to nurse another handful of cucumbers, peppers, and squash from our plants by covering everything when it got cold. The brussel sprouts are really close to being done and we have been enjoying lots of sweet, delicious carrots!
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By late August, work was gearing up
and I was having less and less time to spend outside. The fall back to school rush
is a bit of a zoo, to say the least. There was talk between Running Buddy and I
of a second triathlon but it rubbed elbows a little too closely with the first
day of class and Running Buddy’s trip to Japan (so cool, right?!). It just wasn’t going to happen
this year. Nevertheless, I had been able to keep running three days a week and
cross training two, so I had stayed in shape.
Which was a good thing because I had
several races coming up the second half of September and through October. First
would be the Tuff Enuff 5k obstacle challenge. This was a well-organized trail
race that took place about 20 minutes outside of town. It was a beautiful day
and the race was fun, although not terribly challenging. The obstacles were
pretty manageable—especially when compared to the Warrior Dash—and the mud,
generally speaking, was pretty minor.
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| Flexing, post-race. |
The following weekend I had talked
Running Buddy into signing up for a 24 mile road bike race. It started and
ended at a brewery, so to be honest, it wasn’t a hard sell! We both went into
the race never having done more than 14 miles on the bike, so we were both
nervous. It was another gorgeous day, however, so I think mostly it was
exciting to set out and ride.
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| It's hard not to look cool in a bike helmet. |
I headed out hard in part because I
got swept up in the excitement of racing and in part because I didn’t really
know how to pace myself for a bike race of this length. During the tri the bike
was only 12ish miles—I knew I could go hard the whole way. I wasn’t sure with
nearly 24, so I figured I would go as hard as I could, as long as I could, and
see what happened. At best I might finish in a decent spot, at worst I would
need to back off at the end and get passed, but no big deal.
We
had been warned at the start line about the early hill—apparently after about
two miles you started a long, difficult climb. I was assured that the vistas
were beautiful and that if I just took it easy it wouldn’t be too bad. It was
bad. I am not usually too bothered by hill climbing—on a bike or a run—but wow,
it was long and steep and crazy. Because I went out hard I was pretty much by
myself behind the lead pack (that I ridiculously thought I could stay with for
about 90 seconds) and the next bunch of slightly slower riders. I hit the hill
and really started questioning why the hell I was doing this. It was very steep
and very long. Every mile or so I would crest the hill, hit a slight downhill
and think I was done, and then I would have to start climbing again. I was
passed by more than a few bikers on the hill…I just couldn’t keep the same
pace. Thankfully, I am a combination of fearless and hard peddling on downhills
and flats, so I would often catch back up to those who passed me anytime things
leveled out a bit. This went on for what felt like forever. I was sure that
Running Buddy was behind me, cursing my name, planning on never letting me talk
her into anything ever again. Finally—FINALLY—after what I was sure was hours
of climbing (in reality it was five miles and about 20-25 minutes) I crested
the top.
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| The course elevation. |
Yup, that was the elevation profile of
the ride. It looks pretty sick when visualized like that. Five miles up, up,
up. And then for the fun part! Which was really fun…but also kind of
terrifying. I came down the hill at something like 30+ miles an hour. I topped
out at a max speed of over 36 MPH. That kind of speed is pretty scary when you
are a novice cyclist, especially on a bike with really skinny tires and drop
handlebars. But, I am also really competitive, so I went pretty much all out
down the hill and passed a bunch of folks who had bombed by me on the uphill.
The rest of the race could be more accurately
described as rolling hills. I went hard and still found I had enough oomph to
keep up the pace. I felt really good until about the last five miles when my
back and neck were killing me and my energy was really starting to flag.
Thankfully I had brought some Clif Blocks with me and the little extra bit of
sugar helped. Of course, the ride finished with two miles of uphill back to the
start, and I kept catching a glimpse of a rider behind me. As we climbed he
would close the distance, but once we hit a flat, I would pull away again. I
was determined not to get passed. And I didn’t!!!
I
made it to the finish line and felt elated! I had clocked a fastest mile of
just over two minutes (bombing down that giant mountain) and the slowest of
just under six (up the hill, of course). My average speed was 16.7 miles per
hours (or about a 3:40 minute mile). I was pretty excited. I decided I would wander
over to the finish line to get my results and wait for running buddy. I typed
in my bib number and got my print out with my times and place. It took me a
minute to realize but I noticed there was a “1” on my print out. Holy smokes! I
had finished first in my age group!!! I could not believe it.
Running
Buddy crossed the finish and didn’t even want to kill me, believe it or not.
She had also had a great time! We celebrated and she took off for another engagement.
I hung around and for the first time got to have my name called for an award!
It was a great day!
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| Any race that begins and ends at a brewery comes with a beer. |
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| And because of the brewery, first place in age group awards were big bottles of beer! |
Luckily, I also found that I wasn’t
totally destroyed the following week from the bike race. And good thing, too,
because I had the Pit Run 10k coming up the following weekend. But more on that
soon—it deserves its own post!
