Hospital x 4

So, instead of the normal Wednesday, we have yet another night in the hospital.

Not the dog, not the kid, mommy with Kid #2 wins this week.

We had a little placenta issue and a tear that was probably a result of her being on her feet too much for work. Everyone is ok and mommy is home with resting instructions. No life threatening emergency but yet another point in the race for medical care 2010.

Below are the current standings.

Who will win... what will they win!?!?! Who knows!

Woodland Drive Hill of Death Repeats

I just wanted to share my pain of the hill workout I use to prep for IM Branson. I've heard enough talk about the hills I'm crapping by spandex biking shorts...

So I try and hit the HILL of DEATH (THoD) once a week for repeats. This is the most brutal hill within reasonable distance of my house. It's about 1/2 mile of mild incline launching into 1/2 mile of brutal "truckers : jake breaks not allowed" incline. I've been working up to 5 repeats with my ride to and from THoD. That's about an hours worth of work.

Here's a shot looking up THoD:



Looking down THoD:



Enjoy the hills!

Corporate Challenge Is Over

So this past week was packed with Kansas City Corporate Challenge (KCCC) activities. Monday night was Tug of war Practice (yes, we practice this), Wednesday night I swam the 50 free, Friday night was Tug of War Weigh in and Saturday was Tug of War, concluding KCCC.

Wednesday I put my name in the hat to swim the 50 freestyle. I had a rough time from the pool but you can't be entirely accurate since we don't have blocks at the pool at 24 hour fitness. I thought I could do a 35 to 40 second swim (which is not all that great). We had a guy in my age group that could probably get 1st or 2nd but he had been swimming all week for the event and we also get points for having as many different people to participate as possible, so I was up.

I've never really taken off from the blocks for swim meets... I mean, up to 5 years ago I couldn't do my first tri at 700 yards without side stroke and back stroke. I practiced a few times taking off from pool side in the practice lanes and Boom, I was ready to go. To say it's a little intimidating standing on those blocks 3 to 4 feet off the water line is an understatement. I was hoping for a non-belly flop entry. I'm not sure what it looked like, but when the buzzer sounded I launched and kept the goggles on and no belly flop. Finished with a 30:58, 33rd in my age group. Mission accomplished. Not bad also considering I don't do flip turns due to ear problems. Maybe I can try to improve next year... who knows.

Tug of war is usually our event that we get 1st or 2nd every year. We have a good method down and usually have a good supply of eager participants. We have to have a team under 2000 pounds. Usually we end up with 12 people. Hallmark Cards in a different division gets 14 people... 14... to weigh less than 2000 pounds. That's some skinny people! We had 12 and weighed EXACTLY 2000 pounds. EXACTLY! I thought that would be a good omen for the event, but I wasn't really prepared for what we would face Saturday.

We faced some tough teams and with no excuses, we ended up in 4th place. 1-3 were good teams, so it's nothing to be ashamed of, but I thought for sure we were ready for gold again. Oh well. In the grand scheme my company ended up in first place overall for our division for the 7th year in a row, so there's some silver lining. I hate to lose, but there's not much you can do about the past.

Wish I had some pictures to post. We took some videos of the tug of war so I'm hoping to get them on youtube. For now, here's a snap of what we looked like last year when we got first.



Amazingly enough with all of that going on, I managed to get a solid week of training in. Right now I'm in "maintain" mode for IM Branson and it's a nice base for the Shawnee Mission Park tri and Midwest Mayhem coming up in 2 and 3 weeks.



Stay tuned for operation "Finish the dang basement" details from this coming holiday weekend. Dad is coming up again hopefully to get this sucker knocked out. I've been sanding and mudding when I can to be ready to fly on the ceiling grid when he gets in... we shall see how smooth this goes. =)

Full Weekend

So what mad cap training did I do this past weekend you may ask???

Not much.

Spent the weekend in south-central Missouri for a family get-together. Or, as it's called in those parts, Missoura. I had to drive through Columbia (home of University of Missoura) and keep from barfing up my lunch or dinner. It's funny driving through and thinking about how they flirted with the Big 10 and in the end it was all fluff since the Big 10 didn't really want them. And, true to form Emily wore a Rock Chalk t-shirt that we were a little worried about when we stopped at Wal-Mart in Columbia to try and fix a light problem in the car.

Ya, sidenote, our headlights start flashing on and off at random at night. It was hella fun until we discovered that if you flip on the high beams and go back to low, it stops the flashing. WTF. Ya, we're working with a mechanic shop trying to figure that one out.

But, we drove down Friday, stayed with Great Grandma (my Grandma), hung out with my Dad Saturday for lunch, the majority of Falkenrath's Saturday afternoon, dinner with Great Gma sat night, Dad's day monkey bread Sunday morning, Falkenrath's Sunday morning/afternoon, back to KC Sunday night... it was a whirlwind.

Sidenote about dinner Saturday night. When we come to Rolla we are pretty hectic running around trying to see everyone so we are in and out of my Grandma's and this time she got wise to us and told us she was taking us to dinner Saturday night so we didn't eat before we came back to the house. Smart move GGma. =) Dinner was at the fine Applebees in Rolla. In Rolla, that's big time. So, we were all geeked up and you know what they did??? They forgot to put our order in after AN HOUR! SERIOUSLY! You have a pregnant woman starving, a 2 year old needing food, and me and GGma.... we called over a manager after an hour since our waitress decided to forget about us. He checked and came back and said our order was never placed with the kitchen. We were a tad pissed and just left. Luckily we got some appetizers before hand but that only filled us up so much. So... we had turkey sandwiches at GGma's... just as good. But MAN was that dissapointing! Lesson learned, ask every 15 minutes where your food is at.

Overall it was a good weekend to get away and "relax". I put that in quotation marks because it's always hectic going from GGma's to the "event site" (which is a plot of land by the Big Piney River). It's about a 25 minute drive to get there so get everything in, we had to be efficient with time. No lolly-gagging and naps had to be ON TIME!



Luckily Riah handled the trip very well. The first year she was 3 months old, screamed the entire time and with stops, it took 7 hours instead of the normal 4. Yes, 7. Last year was around 5 and 1/2 hours and this year was pretty close to 4 hours with one stop each way. Can't go wrong with that! Plus, as you can see below we started her Starbuck's addiction early... KIDDING! It was only apple cider, we hoped...



So, not much training happening on the weekend so I had to cram in a long ride Friday and push my long run to Monday. Here's a snap shot of the week in training - 8+ hours with no weekend work isn't half bad.

Culmination Of The Past Few Weeks

Here's a little summary of the goings-on around our house.

1. GOT NEW BIKE TUBES that fit my ZIPP 404 wheels! Since they are deep rimmed, I have to have 80mm stems to get air in them. After the Kansas IM debacle, I ordered 10 to make sure I have a ready supply! I got them from BiketiresDirect.com and they were PERFECT! Q-tubes - 80mm and removable stems! PERFECT!!!!



2. Training front - I've noticed some nice results with a subtle training goal. Weight loss. I had a problem trying to lose a few pounds for race season. You can spend $1,000's of dollars on lighter gear or you can try and lose some weight. I choose to try and lose some weight. I try to eat around 6 meals a day. Decent breakfast, small snack at 10am, decent lunch, small snack at 3pm, protein drink on the way home from work, dinner and a small snack before bed. So, to get all those meals in, it adds calories. Even food that's good for you adds calories. So, I started drinking slim fast for lunches when I didn't go out for lunch. Probably 3 to 4 days a week. If I get hungry from not having a full solids lunch, I have bananas, apple sauce, almond nuts, orange slices and anything in the healthy category to stuff in my face if I get over hungry. So far so good. I dropped from 193ish early spring to 173's this morning. 20 pounds... and it feels nice not having to lug around that extra weight while running. It's nice for biking hills but I lose some speed from the downhill momentum but I'll take it! Slim fast... the weight loss miracle. =)



3. Basement finish. It's coming along. With all we have going on, without my Dad here to dedicate multiple days to the cause, it's tough to scrape the time together to get it done. I'm on the second coat of joint compound. I need to finish up the corners and sand. Then hopefully I can get to the 3rd coat before my dad comes up for the 4th of July weekend... cross your fingers.

4. Patches the wonder Wiener Dog. So, our 6 month old dachshund and my 3 year old black lab had a run in 2 weeks ago. Patches thinks he is a big dog and can just go and eat anyone's food. Not really. RJ the lab grabbed him by the snout, shook him, and tossed him across our deck. So... Patches needed some work done. Stitches, remove some broken bones and some TLC. We took him in for the 2 week follow up yesterday and besides a tear duct problem, he should be back to 95% pretty soon. Needless to say he does not eat with the big dogs any more. They still play and there's no hard feelings but they are supervised now. Patches hangs out inside more than he did.



5. Riah updates. So, our 2 year old is working on potty training. Right now it's a little iffy. We know how to use the potty with big girl underwear but sometimes we still forget and pee on ourselves... very tragic. We have tried at daycare as well but she's been known to have 3 accidents in 45 minutes, thus concluding potty training for the day since she used up all her spare clothes. And as far as #2 goes, we're not ready for that!



We were also sicko this weekend. Projectile vomit on the couch, in the car, in the tub... it was like a sprinkler on speed. Luckily she recovered to get a good nights sleep and didn't need to get up during the night. We're now back to 100% and stepping on the surgically rebuilt patches.




Ok, man, that's all for now. Lots going on with training still going strong. Next event I believe is the Shawnee Mission Park triathlon. I've run the KCCC tri that's the same course but this will be the first year for the actual SMP Tri. Looking forward to it!

The BIG Idea!

HERE IT IS! The big post I promised!

In the past, I’ve signed up to complete in various races and events to raise money for one organization or another. I’ve run a marathon in Ireland and swam a 5k for the Arthritis Foundation and ridden the MS 150 to name a few.

Last year I was planning on running the KC marathon and thought, “you know what, since I’m doing it, I might as well sign up for a charity to sponsor”. I mean, I figure I was running it anyway, might as well help someone out. I looked into TNT (Team in Training) since they are just about everywhere now. The KC marathon was one of their events and that seemed to work out great. The problem was, they still required I raise the full participation amount even though I lived in KC and didn’t need the added expense of traveling and lodging. I naively thought I could sign up, raise a few hundred bucks and call it good. Unfortunately I would’ve been responsible for raising (or paying) $2800+ for the event. With a 2 year old, work, training and other responsibilities, I knew I couldn’t commit to that. Besides that, I ended up not running the marathon due to an abdominal strain (damn indoor soccer doesn’t treat us old farts very well).

That got me to thinking recently with the new season, I run all these events, wouldn’t it be great if I could raise money for charities somehow without being obligated to a certain amount. I was curious about what charities people race for and posted a few inquiries on some triathlon chat forums and got a rather large list of charities people race for. It was really impressive.

So I had a good idea of what was out there, and I was inspired and thought about tossing a little money to each charity but when it exceeded 25 charities, I didn’t have enough funds to contribute to make it worthwhile. Here’s where my idea comes in….

Some of you may have noticed I use Google Adsense and affiliates on my site. Basically the affiliates work by going through the link on my site and I get a commission if you buy an item through that link. They only way it tracks is if you go through the link on my site. If you go to the site directly, then I don’t get anything, which is a bummer but not a big deal since it’s not my livelihood. Google Adsense works by clicking the advertisements on my posts. Pretty straight forward.

So here’s the idea. I’ve decided to donate money to each charity I will list later based on the earnings I get from the commissions on my affiliates and ads from January 1, 2010, to October 31, 2010.

Here’s the breakdown:
28 Charities
$0 - $2799 earned on commissions, I will donate 20% equally split to each of the 28 charities.
$2800 - $4999 earned on commissions, I will donate 25% equally split to each of the 28 charities.
$5000 and up earned on commission, I will donate 30% equally split to each of the 28 charities.

Since I found 28 charities, I don’t have enough funds to contribute to each equally. The only way I can make a difference is by getting help. That’s where you guys come in.

By using my affiliate links to purchase great multisport gear (and other stuff), you can help me reach out to these charities. Don’t get me wrong, if you say, “why would I buy something just to enable you to donate?”, then by all means donate directly to the charity, that’s great! But, if you’re going to purchase the gear anyway, then why not help these charities out at the same time??

Below is a matrix of affiliates, commission rates, what I have earned to date, and the link. Remember, if you want to participate, you must use the below links and not go directly to the site.

AFFILIATES

Please understand, these are sales affiliates only, I simply list them out as a way to purchase items that create a commission pool that I can support this lofty goal. The affiliates in no way are associated with these charities. I will get the commission and based on that commission, I will personally pay the donation to the charities. The affiliates do NOT pay the charity directly. This is my own brain child. The affiliates in no way approve or support the charities listed. I do. =)

Here are the charities I found on my forum search.

LIST CHARITIES

So, that’s my idea. I’ll update the commissions each month (if I can) and keep everyone posted how it’s going. If all goes well, I’ll run it again next year and try to search out more charities to add. So, get out there and help support the economic recovery!!

IRONMAN KANSAS 70.3 RACE REPORT – 6/6/10

So those of you not familiar with the Ironman 70.3 series, they have a nice race in Lawrence, KS (home of the University of Kansas). 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run. Good stuff!

Setup:
Forecast of mid to high 80's, sun, and some wind.
1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run

Pre Race:
Dropped off the bike since it’s a 2 transition area race and they required the bikes to be in place the day before. The wife and I stayed in Lawrence the night before to lessen the drive time and so we could take it easy in Lawrence Saturday after bike drop off. Packed my gear the night before the race (separating T1 and T2 gear for quick placement), loaded the last of it, ate the trusty oatmeal, orange juice, 1 slice bread with PB, Gatorade.

Arrival:
Transition is assigned, so there was no need to be in a huge hurry for a spot, however, they parked us in BFE and BUSSED us to T1. It was a hike for sure and the line from the park entrance to get to parking took 30 minutes since it was standstill traffic. If I do this event in the future, I’ll be getting there earlier than the 5am transition open time. It just wasn’t enough time between transition open at 5:00am and first wave start at 6:30am. Even the Pro’s were late and the race started late.

Pre Race Port-a-potty:Little disappointed here. They moved them and what seemed like half the amount of port-a-potties. I waited in line for 30 minutes to use the facilities. Little bit of a pain.

Warm Up:
No warm up. We weren’t technically allowed in the water so warm up was swimming to the start buoy. Maybe 50 yards. I felt good, had some GU Roctane 30 minutes before, protein bar (since I ate breakfast at 4:30am and my swim wave was at 7:30am) and tried the Gatorade Prime 15 minutes before. Not bad, kind of like regular Gatorade with a little salt. So I was PRIMED with nutrition…

SWIM!!!:
The pro athletes started 10 minutes late, so we were 10 minutes late in starting, but it was on like donkey kong and feet, arms, legs were thrashing everywhere. It was a mass of humanity and I opted to take the outside with less resistance. I got back on the buoy line soon enough.

So, I’m going to break into the numbers right now instead of waiting… cause this was a big gage of how my swimming has been improving.
Last year’s IM KS swim time, 40:44.
2010 IM KS swim time, 36:37.

That’s a savings of 4 minutes and 7 seconds! And that was just the swim! I couldn’t wait to see how the run was going to shape up!!!

BIKE!:
Let’s look at the stats…

So I had some trouble with the garmin, again. I finally got it switched to bike and I had about 38:30 minutes at 0 mph…. huh?

That’s right… I didn’t get very far.

What happened??? Cramps? Trip and fall in transition? Wonder off course? Garmin malfunction?

RUN...:
No data…

FINISH!!!:
So we have a 36:37 minute swim and nothing else… that’s right.
DNFF – the extra F for Did Not Finish is for the expletive.

What I didn’t mention in pre race was that I had a flat front tire I had to change. Not thinking I would encounter this problem, I had my spare tube on the bike and no others with me. I changed it out pre-race and the tire held air when I left transition. It was flat when I got out of the swim.

Since I have ZIPP 404’s, I need an 80mm stemmed tube for the wheel. I used up my last one for the fix and pinched it. So… I was left to try and patch the tube. The rip was significant enough that the patches didn’t work. One guy gave me his spare tube since I had valve extenders, but the stem was not removable and made my extenders useless. By that point, I was the last guy in transition f’ing with my wheel… Had it holding air for a minute, got out of transition… tried to get on and it was flat. Patched it again and got 100 yards… flat. Day was done.

36 minutes swim… that’s all I got. No testing my fitness, no biking, no run… nothing. All for a damn flat tire.

RESULTS:
Nothing really to see here, folks. Swim improved but nothing else to look at.

RESULTS ONE STEP FURTHER:
Ran around town afterwards to load up on tubes and for the two stores that were most likely to have the tubes, I found 1 80mm stemmed tube and NO other tubes that the stems could be removed for the extenders. I did find ZIPP extenders that go over the regular stem without removing the stem, however they have a reputation of leaking. Who would have guessed the stores that sell ZIPP wheels don’t have tubes that fit them… brilliant.

MY TAKE:
Two tubes and two CO2’s on the bike, water bottle for changing gear and I’ll have 5 extra tubes in my gear bag at every race, not to mention I’ll take my pump every time now. Some people were nice enough to let me use their pumps, but in the end I was hosed without the long stems.

POST RACE:
I went home, moped and worked on the basement. At least I mud and taped a nice corner and sanded… got SOMETHING done.

PHOTOS:
Since I didn’t get anywhere… there’s no real pictures. Luckily I kept my cool enough not to destroy a ZIPP wheel or my aero helmet. So no pictures of that. Here's a few shots the wife took before she realized something was up.


Can you see my face... I'm already pissed b/c I know I have a flat and need to change it... you can just see the pissedness in my face...


LAST out of T1... dead last. False sense of security that I might have a good flat fix...NOT.

Here’s a picture of Chris Lieto on the run as a walked my bike back to the parking area.


At least I saw Lieto smoking the run course as I moped my bike back to the car to go home.

So here’s the lesson kiddos:

1. I see now why some might walk their bikes even if transition is a ways away. You don’t want to risk a flat if your bike is ready to go and held air all night. I rode mine around the day before and took for granted the tires would be ok. Walk the bike to transition for setup!

2. Tubes tubes tubes. I played with fire not having enough spare tubes that would work with my rims. Consider me burned. From past experience the ZIPP rims are a bitch to get tubes and tires on without pinching. I should have known better. Now the bike has 2 tubes taped on the rear bottle holder and a water bottle strictly for flat fixing gear.

3. Bring more tubes in your gear bag to transition. Maybe like 5 extra that WORK FOR THE WHEELS YOU HAVE.


Son of a bitch.

The socks

So, the contest I had a while back about embarrassing stories ended and the socks were shipped. Below is what the winner of the story contest wanted:



Interesting choice.

And here are the raffle winner socks, which have not been claimed! If you entered the raffle and are GH in PA, please drop me a line via the email ink or a comment on the site so I can ship your socks out! I would hate for these fine fart socks not to get to the rightful owner!



Thanks everyone for participating and any ideas for the next contest??

On the triathlon front, IM KS coming up this Sunday! It's odd that this year it's kind of been on the back burner. I think last year the specter of a 1/2 IM was a large task and I was worried about being trained up enough. I proved I could complete the event, even if having to walk/run the last 6 miles. But I think the big issues was nutrition and not getting enough to get through the run and I'm more trained up than i was last year. Aced the KC tri two weeks ago and I'm feeling pretty confident that I can shift focus from anxiety of completing the race to enjoying the event and feel comfortable that I don't need to kill myself but I should do better than last year if I stay up with nutrition.

Maybe the accident with our little dachshund puppy, Patches, yesterday has distracted me as well from the race. He and RJ (our 85 pound black lab) had an issue yesterday morning over food and Patches ended up at the vet. So I missed workouts yesterday (swim and maybe a small run) and that's not sitting well at the moment besides the fact our puppy was injured pretty good. More on that later...

Busy Busy Busy

Man that holiday weekend went by QUICK!

Reason #1 it went so quick, basement construction!

Here's what we started with:



Simple enough, right? 13' x 14' space, couple outlets, add a closet, add a wall to the basement, add a hole for a door... Ya, simple. NOT. We "started" Saturday and finished what we got done until 4pm Monday. I use quotes for started since in addition to what I had delivered to the house (that they had to drop in the driveway and I alone had to get it into the garage without destroying the drywall - I think one sheet must weight like 75 or 90 pounds) we also had to run to the Depot to get more supplies. That took from 9am to noon to get what we needed... and then added another trip Sunday for 2 hours or so to get more supplies. That also included waiting for the cable guy to come and run cable while we ran out of framing nails and stuff we could do until we could get to the store. I'll be calling the cable company, the guy was less than cordial and they screwed up telling him what I wanted done. Luckily I got what I needed to move on with the project.

Thank goodness my dad knows his way around tools and carpentry. I may have a graduate degree in engineering, but when it comes to framing and drywall, it's a whole new game. Good game, but new.

AND, this weekend was a taper for the IM KS this coming weekend. That worked out nicely as planned. I was too busy with construction to get any real workouts in so I was forced to take some days off from training. But don't be fooled, 10 foot 2x6 boards and 4x14' sheets of drywall are NOT light and I got a good 3 day weight training experience. So ya, I wasn't out running, riding or swimming... but I was getting a workout none-the-less.

Here's what we ended up with:



With the time we had and what we had to work with, I think we did a pretty good job. It feels like a room for sure. Dad has to come back a few more times to help wrap it up, and hopefully I can carve out some time to sand and add more coats of joint compound to the drywall.

So that was the weekend, more home stuff than triathlon stuff, but sometimes that's the trade off. =)

Here's a shot of my week totals: