One day

Big difference in the weather this morning. Temperature in the mid to low 60's and a drop in the humidity. Bet everyone whose raced the last two weekends would've have enjoyed this mornings weather on race day. Cool enough I'd have to have worn arm warmers on the bike.

Yesterday's long run was a sweat fest. Don't think I've ever sweat that much. My shorts were dripping. Speedy's shoes were sloshing. Tough morning. Nice new route in the country around the Blackman community. Glad the bible park didn't make it. It'd be a shame for country side to go commercial.

Still not as warm here as it was in Texas. Different kind of heat, though. Checked the weather yesterday and it was 83 degrees at the same time it was 76 degrees for our Sunday run. Zero humidity made a huge difference, plus the wind was constantly blowing. Kinda like standing in front of a blow dryer, dry heat. Not like the sauna bath here in Tennessee.

2009 Tour de France

Starts Saturday, July 4th in Monaco, from Saturday July 4th to Sunday July 26th 2009, the 96th Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,500 kilometres.

These 21 stages have the following profiles:

10 flat stages,
7 mountain stages,
1 medium mountain stage,
2 individual time-trial stages,
1 team time-trial stage.


Distinctive aspects of the race
3 mountain finishes,
2 rest days,
55 kilometres of individual time-trials,
20 Category 1, Category 2 and highest level passes will be climbed.

Big change will be a mountain stage the day before the parade to Paris on the final day.

Slowing down

Summer is here. It's hot. Time to slow down just a little bit. I've been training pretty hard, since September or so of last year. Ran a hilly marathon, a fast marathon, a 50k, a half marathon and a 10 mile race. The twice a week speed workout is what I'm going to take out of the mix. I'll continue to do a long run, probably cap it around 11 to 13 miles. The rest of the week will just be easy runs. Volume of runs will stay around 50 miles per week. That should be sufficient to keep a decent base. In about 4 weeks, I'll start the speed work again. Oh, and I guess that streak thing will keep going as well. 127 days as of today.

Started this plan right after Moon Pie. It was really nice to sleep in for a couple of days. Only problem with sleeping in, is having to compete with the cars on the roadway. Plus, it seems I'm right back to the same boring out and back courses I've been running for years. This morning I ran with most of the guys from the herd. Nice to be back with the group, running a relaxed pace. Big plus, a new course and no cars.

Hope to get back on the bike a couple times per week as well. Lance just won the Nevada City Classic in California. He's been training at altitude from a base in Aspen since the Giro ended. He's down a couple of pounds from the last time he rode in the Tour de France. It'll be fun to watch him and the rest of the Astana team at the tour this year. Starts the week of July 4th, I believe.

Negative split

A negative split. That's the only thing that I was able to accomplish at the race in Bell Buckle. This was the 4th time I've run the RC Cola Moon Pie 10 mile race. Holy crap it was hot. Hottest I've ever raced. Told BQ1 I was going to slow down from planned pace until mile 5 and then pick up the pace. The slow down in the front half was easy enough. Ended up slowing to almost a 7:00 pace until the hill and then only mustered a 7:49 for that mile.

The fast miles on the back half didn't happen. I was pretty much set in for a tempo pace run after 3 miles, that didn't happen either. The heat slowed me to a pace slower than the marathon last month. Ouch. Speed work wasn't even necessary. No speed happening today. Funny thing though, I won first in may age group. All of the fast guys were smart enough to stay home.

The herd was pretty will represented and 3 out of the 4 of us ended up with some hardware. EB steadily got me again, though I had her in my sights until the final turn. To quick, I couldn't reel her in. She ended 3rd female overall.

It was nice to be the one reeling in those falling off pace on the back side of the race. Only a handful of runners, but still felt good to be able to make the pass and have it stick. I carried a hand held bottle and still took water at every stop. I'd drink half of it and dump the other half over my head. Except for the station at mile 6, I got gatorade instead of water.

Racing in the heat

I've tried to acclimate as much as possible to get ready for the heat for Saturdays RC Cola Moonpie 10 mile race. Heat still seems to just wipe me out. One more workout in the heat on Tuesday night. But, 2 days of training in the heat, per week, isn't really enough. Should make race day a little more tolerable.

This will be the first year of actually training for this race. Usually its just the first race of the year off of marathon training in the fall. I've actually done some speedwork and hilly long runs. Still don't seem to have the endurance from the peak of my marathon training. My PR on this course is a pitiful 1:09:32. McMillan calculates a 1:06:04, which is a 6:36 pace. Seems doable, until you factor in the heat, hills and humidity.

I would really like to run a 1:06. I've gone out at that pace or quicker in the past and died on the back half. I'd really like to go negative and this course is perfect for that. Don't want to go out to conservative and make the negative an easy thing. Best plan is to do like I did for the Flying Pig Marathon. Run on perceived effort, float up the hills and push on the down hills. Maintain pace on the flats.(hardly any of that) and push the final half mile home which is sloping down hill.

workin' for the weekend

Took today off from work. Got my speed workout in this morning, solo. Overslept by almost 2 hours this morning. Must have been tired, didn't even wake up when the storms blew through this morning. This afternoon I went for a bike ride out in the country. Great day for a ride. Temperature was about 88 degrees and it was sunny.

I've decided Highway 266 is just to narrow and not enough of a shoulder for the bike. I'm only on that section of the road for less than a mile, but I'm just not comfortable with an 18 wheeler 6 inches from my elbow.

Don't know if the driver who wouldn't pass me on the little country road was worse. He followed behind me up a hill and back down the other side and around a couple of turns, before he decided to pass me. No other cars where coming the other way. I was only going 25 mph down the hill and around the corners, on the white line with no shoulder. He had plenty of room to pass. Pain in the ass, I was afraid my tire would catch the edge of the road and I'd be off the side of the road. Thanks buddy.

Cold beer sure tastes good after a hot ride.

penny for your thoughts

Found a penny on the run the other day that had about a third of it broken off. It was one of the newer pennies minted after 1982 when the composition changed to mostly zinc. From the US Mint website.

In 1962, the cent's tin content, which was quite small, was removed. That made the metal composition of the cent 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc.
The alloy remained 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc until 1982, when the composition was changed to 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper (copper-plated zinc). Cents of both compositions appeared in that year.

It made me wonder with the inflated prices of metal, especially copper: is a penny worth more than a penny? Yes, for pennies minted before 1982. Does that mean the government will start melting the older pennies? Or perhaps that's cost prohibitive.

Busy weekend. Took the boys fishing in the Stones River on Saturday and Sunday. Darrell was the only one to catch anything. They had fun though, we waded the river instead of sitting on the bank. I think the cooler water actually helped my legs recover from my long run on Sunday.

Saturday morning we did a training run on the RC Cola Moon Pie course in Bell Buckle. Pretty cool morning, around 60 degrees to start. Probably be closer to 70 degrees come race day. Very quiet morning, I saw more wildlife on my long run Sunday, than out in Bell Buckle.

Bell Buckle training run

Met a group to run the RC Cola Moon Pie course in Bell Buckle this morning. Nice cool morning, about 60 degrees to start at 7 am.

another rainy day

How about those abs?

Sure like to have abs like that when I'm 56 years old.

Looks like another rainy day. May set a record for the wettest month in 10 years or something. Even got rained on yesterday morning on the bike. Hate riding the bike in the rain. Radar showed the one little rain shower had moved out. Go figure.

Off schedule on speed workouts this week. Last night was the first speed workout of the week. EB and I did 16 x one minute at 3k pace with one minute recovery. Great workout. It was definitely hot and humid. Friday morning is the next scheduled speed workout, 40 minutes at adjusted tempo pace. I'll have to do that one alone. The guys did their tempo workout this morning.

Pet peeves. Nails and other sharp objects on the road. This mornings run was littered with sh*t on the road. First, right in our subdivision where they had just re roofed a house, a pile of staples. Then on the roadway, I picked up 2 handfuls of 16 penny nails from about the same spot on either side of the road. Jeez. I've gotten my fair share of flats on my bike from that crap.