Pick Up the Pace

Trying to get ready for my half marathon on the 11th, so today after work I went to Memorial Park to attempt 9 miles. Kind of ambitious, since I've only been working out on the weekends and only 3 miles at a time. So I left myself room for walking and essentially took my time. 1hr and 50mins total. Pretty slow for 9 miles, but atleast it gave me a good idea of what it's like to run/be on my feet for longer than 30 mins. By then of it, my feet were in pain. I have been using my loud purple and yellow cross trainers. They are really light and were really cheap when I got them, but crap I won't be able to run 13 miles on pavement in those. I would have blisters starting at mile 3. By the 7th mile I was already feeling every rock on that path. Ouchies.


So I think a trip to Luke's Locker is in order today. I had been wanting to get a nice pair of running shoes because I typically have knee problems but was putting it off cause they are expensive. But you know they say to spend money on your shoe and your mattress cause you spend the all day in those.

On another note, got my Accenture BP MS150 Team jersey today!

I'm getting excited for this. I'm ready. Training has been fun and totally worth it. Now all I need is my bike.

Sunday Runs with Janice - Memorial Park

JPai and I have done a pretty good job keeping up with our weekly Sunday morning runs. I think it deserves it's own post now along side my Conocophillips posts. Also what's cool is we try a new trail every Sunday. This week was Memorial Park. We had planned to go to the back trails where mountain bikers go, but the Houston Bayou Art Festival was going on so we just kept to the 3 mile loop. I ended up doing 4 miles cause we got separated in parking. I feel ok now. Just during sucks. Not sure how I'm gonna handle the Half Marathon on April 11th. rawr. I gotta kick up the training this week.

ConocoPhillips Training Ride 10 - Chappell Hill

Hard. Today's training ride was hard. The first 20 miles were great, rolling hills, I was feeling good conquering them and then having fun descending. There was a big crowd. Roads were typically full of riders. I did get to see Ashley which was cool.

I think I used up too much energy at the beginning tho cause the last ten miles were hard. We had to fight the wind going uphill and then fight again downhill to gain momentum. It was a pretty stead uphill battle towards the end. Not many chances to gain momentum and fly up the hill. Erg. Avg 13mph. 44 miles.

At one point my pedal just unscrewed from my crank. What!? That was really weird and I couldn't get it off my shoe, so the SAG wagon guy had to help me screw it back in while the pedal was still attached to my foot. haha.


That was fun.

Teresa kept up really well. I was impressed today. She was never more than 5 mins behind me.

I tried to remember to take more pictures today. Here's one.


There were also lots of baby bluebonnets out there, but I didn't stop to get that picture. Next time.

Afterward I went home ate and passed out for 3 hrs. About to pass out again soon. Running and riding tomorrow. Probably will be sore tomorrow. I'll let you know, this will be the first ride where I came out sore on the other side.

Peace.

iHome Bike to Beach Speaker System

So a while ago with while riding I got to pace with a woman who had an awesome loud speaker on her bike. The music made riding so much more enjoyable. I had been riding for 40+ miles already, but all of a sudden I was going faster and didn't feel any sort of misery. I was like...I gotta get me some of those.

Thus the search for cool speakers began. Lots of them are bulky, and not aerodynamic, ugly. I don't want to ugly up my awesome bike with speakers. So eventually I wander upon speakers by Apple. Apple! I can depend on them to look sleek and beautiful and of course they do. Their speaker system is designed to fit in a water bottle cage, looks almost like a water bottle and of course will fit all Apple music players. Awesome. Now these are slowly being the hit because well, it's an Apple product. The last ride I think I saw 4 or 5 different people with the the bike speakers.

So I look them up on Amazon, and its at $50 right now. Ok not bad actually for Apple. Then I look at the specs. These speakers weigh 4 lbs. FOUR POUNDS. I paid $700 to upgrade bikes and shed 5 pounds off, and for 50 bucks I can put most of it back on. Why the hell would anyone want to add that back on? Music helps riding yes. But at 4lbs, it will hurt your riding more than help it.

So no thanks Apple. I am keeping my $50 bucks.

Tour de Houston

This morning's weather proved to be cold as ass and quite windy, so I decided to go for the 40 mile route instead of braving the 70 miler. That is a decision I am quite happy with. Picked up Teresa, and we made our way over to City Hall for the start. The first 24 miles were COLD and WINDY. Pushed us back pretty easily and on top of that we had multiple stops for traffic lights, so we couldn't use our momentum at those points. Drafted Andy at some points. That helped. Overall the wind made for a pretty tiring ride, but an awesome tailwind on the way home. Fell over at one of the lights on my elbow. No scrapes, maybe a bruise.

Didn't really keep track of time and forgot to reset my bike computer so there's no knowing what my average was. Oh well. It was cool riding through downtown and San Felipe. Wish it would have been warmer, less windy, and on a new bike. But what can you do? Just take what the world gives you, get angry and then get even.

Afterward I ate some pasta and went running at Terry Hershey with JPai. It was a good change from riding TH, and hoofing up those hills instead of flat running was different. Probably did 2-2.5 miles? No anger there. Just really tired.

ConocoPhillips Training Ride 9 - Cat Spring

So this ride was scheduled for Cat Springs, which was a little closer than the past two rides. I was getting excited cause I could do rides back to back this weekend. I meet up Teresa, we carpool over to Cat Springs, get our bikes ready and then Steve Moskowitz tells us that the storm is coming fast and that there's lightning.

So Steve canceled the ride. raWr. boo rain.

The Chinese Diet

Yesterday was Papa Yu's birthday, so we do our simple celebration of going out to dinner. Of course my dad picks a little place in Chinatown because he can't go a meal without rice. Now I grew up on a Chinese Diet, but after countless nutrition talks from a guy I once dated and hours on WebMD, NY Times and the like...I am enlightened. Don't get me wrong, I love Chinese food. I was pretty excited to get to go to Chinatown and devour all those delicious meats, but now I know just what an unbalanced diet my culture perpetuates.

So what did we order last night? 2 meat appetizers, green beans, the house special tofu dish, ribs, shrimp and white rice - which translates to 1 Starch, 5 Protein and 1 Veggie. But actually the green beens were even stir fried with ground pork, so the more acurate translation might be - 5.5 Protein and 0.5 Veggies. haha. YUM. Basically what I'm getting at is there is a major tip towards eating meats in this diet. Which mean's we're all going to get atherosclerosis and have heart attacks at the age of 45.

I'm not even going to talk about how much oil we use and the ratio of fried/stir fried to steamed dishes. lol.

Also, theres little to no fiber in much of the food we eat. Veggies have fiber - yes, but the largest source of fiber in someone's diet is grain and we don't eat that. So one might ask when do Chinese people Poop? And the answer is maybe once every week when our Colon's get backed up. (This statistic is based on 4 months of living in Hong Kong. Also there is only one data point in this statistic so please comment to add more.) Once every week? This sucks considering a person should poop at least once a day. You don't want to be carrying around a weeks worth of food waste in your body. Thats probably 2 lbs of crap in your colon depending on your size. Gross.

I'm sure the Chinese health commision or whatever government department that monitors public health was aware of this as Digestive Crackers were sold everywhere. These babies were like fiber and sugar pressed into cracker form. Worked really well, but you had to remember to eat them...

So moral of the story? Papa Yu needs to eat Digestives.

Random Thoughts

So today was the first of many days where I have to be at work 2 hrs earlier than I usually get there. We have a team in India working with us, so we are both making sleep sacrifices to get some overlap in work schedules. Anyway, of course I couldn't get to sleep last night so I probably ended up with 4-5 hrs. Little sleep + Work = Cranky Miinkay. Today was definitely a cranky day.

Also this week is supposedly the week that I get my bike. I put in my down payment in Jan and I've been waiting since...granted they told me it would be here Mid Feb...then a shipment came and no FP2...then they said Mid March...well it's mid March. Where the hell is my bike!?!? I've been annoyingly probing Ron and Josh for the past two weeks. Ron has been kind and helpful, but I feel like Josh is just avoiding me. Just TELL me what's going on! I know some of it is out of your control, but keep me in the loop geez. This has been a large source of anxiety for me since I got my Scott stolen. I feel like I'm living with a large benign tumor, and now I'm just waiting for the doctor to say he has time to cut it out of me. Ugh.

After work I forced away all the sleepy feelings and caught a "Power Flex" class with Rodger. This is the guy that did the step class I attended a few weeks ago...uh oh...haha. Again it was pretty continuous and hard. I picked heavy weights and so had to rest more often, but he just went through set after set after set. I got a lot of arm work done, which is good cause I usually neglect that. After THAT I went to Hip Hop.

Now I'm listening to some good music my little bro showed me. It's calming me down. EShinMusic Check him out.

Workout Log

3 miles around Hermann Park w/ J-pai. Lots of new things to see there, check it out.





On a mental note, I felt like I lost my will to run as I have been lazy about running during the week. Also during our run this morn, I felt kind of bleh and wondered if signing up for the Half Marathon in April was a mistake. But I mentioned Terry Hershey Park being 13 miles and Janice was like "That's like a half marathon, we can do that!" And immediately, I thought...Hey! We totally can! After a few mins I came to and said, maybe we can try 4 miles next week instead of 13...haha...but I have to say I think her initiative and optimism brought me back to where I should mentally be.

Thanks, J-pai.

ConocoPhillips Training Ride 8 - Fayetteville

Today was quite the day. I pulled a stupid and went drinking, got home around 3:30am, and then had to get up at 5am to meet Leigh and Dan for our carpool to Fayetteville. Needless to say, I was hungover and felt like crap for the first 20 miles of the ride. Once I got plenty of fluids and food in my belly, I felt much better and hauled it to the end. The last 10 miles had plenty of long downhills and TAILWIND! Yay. I was holding 18/19mph pretty easily with the tail wind. Overall avg was 14.7 mph for 42miles.

BTW Fayetteville was beautiful. So glad I signed up for these rides. You guys are missing out.

Road Bike Action Magzine

It's here! I ordered 2 years of this mag after I started to realize the Bicycling Magazine was really a mag for beginners. It just has general info for getting fit, eating right, buying the right bike and some product reviews. Now that my obsession has grown, I need a magazine that can tell me about what pro teams are doing, how Campy Athena compares to the newest 2009 Ultegra group set, and how Contador and Armstrong are gonna go head to head this year in the Tour de France.

No disses to Bicycling Magazine. I still like it's fun and witty articles, but I wanted a serious Cycling Mag. So I'll try this one for the next two years, April's issue has proved to be exactly what I was looking for. Now we'll see how serious I will take this sport.

Dance Some More!

So today after work I headed to the Dance Place on Chimney Rock and Richmond. They have a bunch of different dance lessons, rooms for rent, and a huge floor where people take private/professional lessons. While I was waiting for class I got to watch some Viennese waltz, professional salsa, and this one couple that kept tripping over each other.

Today was the start of a 4 week beginner Hip Hop dance lessons. I had taken salsa here, but wanted to keep at hip hop. Mondays are one of my free days, so it just fit. The teacher, Marissa is pretty cool. She seems to be about my age and pretty knowledgeable on dance. We go twice as slow as the MET tho. This is good because I can take the time to really learn the steps, but at the same time I feel like it is kind of slow. Oh well. I'm here for the next 3 weeks. I'll just keep working on my coordination and dance style.


Maybe next I'll try a modern or contemporary dance class. That might fit my personality better.

Workout Log

Went for a run today with J.Pai at the Rice outer loop. Good run. 33mins. Previous to, I had Ramen noodles for lunch and I felt pretty ok during the run. Ha. You can't always eat healthy. Happiness is just as important. That is why cookies were invented.

After hung out with little bro and then went to the gym for some weight lifting and resistance training.

ConocoPhillips Training Ride 7 - Columbus

The hill isn't in the way. It is the way.

So today was another 5 am wake up to go ride. It was our first taste of rolling hills, and I had one of the best rides of my life. At first I was worried I wouldn't be able to sustain 50 miles of hills, but they were actually a great change to all the flat, windy terrain we've been seeing. There was still wind, but it came in pockets since we sometimes had trees to block us. The hills weren't too bad; I stayed in my big chain ring for most of the ride and tried to keep a strong pace. Total time 4.5 hrs - 50 miles. Total time on bike ~3.75 hrs. Bike computer said 13.6 mph avg. Pretty good. I feel better that I know I've improved since last yr. I was probably averaging 10 mph on rides about this time last yr. The scenery was great. Calming, clear, fresh.

Made a new friend, Leigh to carpool with. Dan came this time, so it was nice to have people to pass the time with. Hung out with Theresa and John a little more. Fixed a flat. Drove really far. haha. Ate a lot of chex mix.

Got home and was pretty beat, ate chili, tried to sleep, but was having a hard time. When I finally fell asleep I would wake up and feel crappy, roll over and try to sleep again. This continued for 2 hrs until I just got up. Felt like I had a headache...probably from dehydration. I don't like to drink a lot on rides. So chugged down lots of water and tried to feel better. Food helped.

Pretty tired now, still have a headache...would I be lame if I went to bed right now?

Don't answer that.

Workout Log

Gym today for 1hr.
Was feeling pretty full and sluggish so I did a medley of things. 5mins on treadmill, 5 on stairs, 5 on elliptical, jump rope, abs, push ups, jump rope, more abs, abs again, different way to work abs, treadmill again, abs, jump rope.

Home.
Handful of almonds, plum, water.

Fitness Spotlight

My buddy Chris sent this link to me today. It's a pretty cool site with lots of opinions and insight to working out - what is truth, what works, what doesn't. Check it out.

PS Knee is much better. After deciding to run through the pain it's actually not so bad. Maybe I just needed to strengthen it? Wish I were a doctor so I could diagnose myself...

Step it UP

So today I got home a little earlier than usual and decided to catch the Step class at Bally. At first I couldn't find the instructor in the crowd of people, but I soon noticed that the person wearing the headset was this frail looking man with gray hair...Ok...I can handle an hr of step with this guy. Two risers + the platform.

Mistake.

Haha. Man I underestimated him and overestimated myself. I tried to stay light and bouncy throughout but damn he just kept going. I mean he just had the platform, but he would not let us pause for a second. I thought we might get to march in place or something but nope. Nada. None of that lazy ass crap. We kept it going for 45mins. My thighs were about ready to collapse at some points. Well this will be good for cycling.

Did some core work and a few sets of lateral pulls and called it a night.