Running Music

I desperately need to refresh some of my running music.  It has become worse than stale, does that make it mold?  Anyway, what are your favorite couple (or more) songs that when they come on you smile (or at least stop frowning) and often replay them?

I'll give you a few of mine (in no particular order).

Florence and the Machines - Dog Days Are Over. Not sure why I like this song, but it is catchy.

Nickelback - Feelin' Way Too Damn Good.  I like when this song comes on during a good run that feels like something has got to go wrong because 10 miles shouldn't feel this good.  I know that's not the song is about, but when I'm out running 10 miles, I'm not doing that :-).

Disturbed - Indestructible. This is the only song I have from them, but when I'm struggling on a long run, this hits the spot.

Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings.  The world is a vamire is enough said.

Pearl Jam - World Wide Suicide. I love Pearl Jam, this one has a good beat for running, but many others do too.

I love music, so any non-running suggestions are welcome too.  Oh, and if I did one of those tell me about yourself posts, I like music would be one of the items :-).


Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Time

While out riding today, I started thinking about time.  It also seems like I could get so much more done if there were say, 26 hours in a day.  I was thinking I could get the sleep I should, get in all the workouts I want, and do better about getting chores done around the house.  I chuckled to myself at that last one then made the list of what I would probably really do with two extra hours a day.  I would probably stay up later reading blogs, add napping into my daily routine, and up my chore procrastination to a new level :-).  Anyway, what would you do with two extra hours of time per day?

I managed to get three runs in before work this week!  I was up and ready to go on a run Friday morning too, but decided to give myself the day off after getting six workouts in over the previous three days.  Don't add me to your fantasy early morning running team just yet, the weather is getting nasty :-).  I also got back to the pool for the first time in 6+ weeks and my shoulders hurt :-(.  I'm going to have to nurse them along if I'm going to stay in triathlons.  It's either that our surgery according to my ortho (made me think about this old post).

Here are a few pics from my ride.

light, chilly rain but I was outside instead of on the trainer.

Huge old fallen tree that I couldn't get a good picture of.

Have a great week!

Obstacles

I was riding out on some perfect single track Saturday and came across this.

Big tree own in the middle of a bunch of brush

As I approached, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Then I thought about it and came up with five alternatives for dealing with obstacles.  You can hit them head on and go right through, go under them, go over them, go around them, or give up and run away.  I walked up to the tree and it was obvious I wasn't going through it, under it or even around it.  I sized it up for a minute, lifted my bike over it, climbed over and continued on a nearly perfect ride.

Here are a few more pics from the ride.  The woods were totally different than last week.  With the canopy down, the undergrowth really greened up in their last hooray before winter.

Love the contrast in this pic

Regarding my obstacle to becoming a morning person, I didn't do so well this week.  After going four for four getting up early the first week, I only went one for four this week.  I made it up Tuesday without issue.  Wednesday was dark, cold and rainy, and I was a quitter.  Thursday I had the volume turned off on my phone alarm and slept right through it.  Friday I was disgusted with myself for missing Wednesday and Thursday and didn't even try to get up (lame I know).

I think I need a goal to help with early morning motivation, so I'm looking for an early season 70.3 to sign up for.  Right now I'm thinking Rev3 Knoxville or Panama City Beach.  Knoxville scares me with four cat 5 climbs and swimming against the current in the river.

Falling In Love

Yep, I have a secret to share.  I'm falling in love with mountain biking, again.  I used to ride off road a lot about 12 years ago, then got away from it for years.  This past month, I haven't touched my road bike and I've gotten out on the single track every weekend.  It really is refreshing.  Instead of cranking out the miles like a diesel engine, you get to maneuver over, under and around obstacles like a Jeep.  Totally different feeling and really enjoyable.  Here are some pics from this past weekend. 

Oh, week 1 of becoming a morning person was a success!

Day 1 - didn't sleep well. Woke up about every hour. Still managed to get up at 5:30 and got a rough 3 miler in.  It was dark and starry outside and 40 degrees.  Felt groggy and tired mid- afternoon. Felt drained like I did during peak NOLA training, but I did it!
Day 2 - Slept much better. Got up at 5:30 and ran 3 miles and felt good.  Dark and starry and 50 degrees.  Felt good all day.
Day 3 - Arrived in Cleveland the night before and had a late business dinner.  Lousy night sleep, but got up at 6:30 and ran 3 and a half miles on a crappy route.
Day 4 - Managed to get a 35 minute run in before the meetings started back up.  Felt good.
Day 5 and 6 were the weekend.


On to week 2.......

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day I start to change and become a morning person. It's not going to be easy at all, but I'm determined to do it.  One of the useful things about blogging is having somewhere to write down things you are going to do then hold yourself accountable to do them.  One reason I was able to continue and finish my half ironman was because I blogged about the race for weeks ahead of time and didn't want to post a DNF.  Anyway, there you have it.  Tomorrow my alarm will be set for 5:30 (maybe even earlier) instead of 6:30 and I'm going to get up and exercise.

Here are a few pics from the weekend ride. I spent two hours off road and had a blast.

turned the corner and this deer was in the middle of the trail

small lake in the middle of the woods

nice colors in the woods

so peaceful

Prime rib was on sale and fantastic!

Perspective

I'm enjoying taking it easy in October.  No real structure, just 3-4 runs per week and a mountain bike ride.  Funny how your perspective changes.  I managed to get just shy of four hours of exercise in this week.  For the pre-triathlete Mike, that would have been a huge week.  Now four hours is extremely light.

I'm still working on my race schedule.  I'm trying to decide if I want to do a 70.3 or two or just stick with sprints and olys.  I did promise my sister I would do the Cohassett, MA tri in June.  I need to get out to the East coast to see her.  Truth be told, when my friend Dave died this year, I almost booked a ticket to head out there the next month.  Life is too short not to visit with family and friends whenever you can.

Here are a few pics of my ride Sunday.

A section goes through the old MRF grounds

some trees are close enough together you have to pay attention

These trees look close together for me even at my slow speed

The pictures of how close some of the trees are reminded me of a ride years ago where I didn't quite make it between two close trees.  One of my handlebars clipped a tree and I was on the ground and dazed even before I knew what happened.  It gave my helmet a good workout and gave my friends something to laugh at while they pretended to be concerned.  My friends have long since stopped riding so I hit the trails alone now.  I also remembered going off road with one of my neighbors who ended up breaking his chain.  I towed him home with him hanging on to the chain.  That was a tough workout!

And some dinner pictures.  Ribs, yum!  This time I used my dad's method.  I put rub on them the night before, then put water and vinegar in the bottom of a double decker pan, put the ribs on that then covered with foil and cooked at 250 degrees for 2.5 hours.  Then I threw them on the grill, lathered them up with bbq sauce and they were fantastic!

The ribs were amazing

asparagus in the foil plus kabobs for the non rib lovers

Mentally preparing to try to become a morning person.  As I type this, everyone has been in bed for an hour and I've had the rest of the house to myself.  I'm going to miss this......

Off Season

Before I get to my off season plans, here are a couple pics from my really nice mountain bike ride today.

I didn't see any other riders.

Someone had been through earlier though, I didn't run into any spider webs.

I'm making plans for the off season.  I was considering P90X, a weight program, Jorge's winter cycling plan, or nothing until my friend Doug pointed out I should really set my goals for next year and let them point me in the right direction for the off season.  I was hoping my goal for next year would be a full Ironman triathlon but after my two half triathlons, it's obvious I need to work on my nutrition before I attempt a full IM.  With that decided, I had no idea what my goals would be just a week ago until I read this thread.  I would love to run faster.  I get passed by people seemingly putting out much less effort than I am all the time.  So how am I going to run faster?  I'm going to build my running volume up to 30 miles per week and hold it there for a few months.  30 mpw means 5-6 runs per week, Ouch!.  My goal is to run a 5k in under 23 minutes.  I'm probably at about 26 minutes right now, so sub 23 will be a tough goal for me.  If When I reach that goal, I should be able to beat my half marathon PR by at least 5 minutes as well.  We'll see.

I have decided to do triathlons again next year.  This was not a given since racing is definitely outside my comfort zone, but it does make me feel alive (so maybe it was a given).  My cycling goal for next year is to hold 20+ mph in an Olympic distance race and 18.7 in a half Ironman (sub 3 hours). That means cycling 3x per week in the offseason.  My swimming goal is not to drown.  I'll need to hit the pool once a week to accomplish that :-).

So that is 9-10 workouts per week and if you follow me on BT you know I have trouble getting in more than 6.  I'm also not a morning person, so I'm trying to figure out how to get all these workouts in after work.  The only way I've come up with is to brick all my workouts, which wouldn't be ideal.  So if I do all my workouts in the evening my schedule would look like this.

Mon PM - short run (add a swim once MNF is over)
Tue PM - trainer ride followed by a medium run (medium = an hour)
Wed PM - swim followed by a short run (short = 1/2 hour)
Thur PM - trainer ride followed by a medium run
Friday PM - short run
Sat - long run
Sun - long trainer ride
  
An hour ride followed by an hour run after work would be tough. Alternatively, I could try to become a morning person.  The problem (besides not being a morning person) is that I need to be in the shower by 6:30 in order to drive my son to school then head to work.  That means I would need to get up at 5 am on medium run days and 5:30 on short run days.  Oh yeah, it will be dark and cold too.  Yuck!  If I try to become a morning person, my schedule could look like this.

Mon AM - short run
Mon PM - swim (once MNF is over for the year)
Tue AM - medium run
Tue PM - trainer ride
Wed AM - short run
Wed PM - swim
Thur AM - medium run
Thur PM - trainer ride
Friday AM - short run
Friday PM off
Sat - long run
Sun long trainer ride

Hmm, I'm getting tired just thinking about it :-). I'll massage this a bit more and get at it in November.  I'm enjoying a down month in October but keeping a run base to start from.