Missing partner for my run!

Running without Trinity for the first time in a long time. Poor girl apparently broke her TOE! So therefore I am without a running partner for a few weeks. Of course by then I might have a new partner with its own carriage to run with! Really humid, even after the rain and didn't feel great, yet oddly kept sub 8 min miles the whole way. Overall good run.

Crappy Ride; bee stings, rougue deer, rough roads

Trying out a new route to see if I could take it to work... Survery SAYS???!!! NOT A CHANCE. No shoulders or bike lanes for most of it, the roads in various states of disrepair (You gotta love Prince George's County MD!), heavy traffic, the list goes on! Back to the drawing board. So it was a crappy ride, too many left hand turns as well and to top it all off, I had a wasp or bee fly down the front of my jersey on the way down a hill and it stung me six times. Shortly after I had a deer jump in front of me that I had to yell at to get it to get out of my way so we both didn't get hurt, then due to my minor allergy to stings, took a turn a little late and almost went off roading on my road bike. Good times! Oh did I mention that Betsy went to the store to get me benadryl and all they had was children's liquid and she gave me the equivalent of 4 pills accidentally? Yeah I am not light headed, sleepy, and disoriented along with the painful stings and allergic reaction... Oh the joys of biking...

Mountain biking in Ft Dupont.

The trail wasn't in the best of conditions, lots of downed trees and plenty of loose gravel. Did the quick warmup hill loop then turned around and went about 3 miles out on the traditional loop. Had to cut it short as I had a softball game right after. Won the softball game.

Mtn Biking at Rosaryville State Park

Mtn biking at Rosaryville. There were a lot of changes to the course, but the two main log crossings were removed... not happy. Good ride overall though, got going at a good pace and felt strong throughout. After seeing Betsy and Trinity on my way in from the first loop, headed back out to catch back up with her. Continued on past her and then turned around at about 1.2 miles and met her back at the parking lot. Overall good end to a fun ride.

Long Run - 11 miles

Long run on the Mt Vernon Trail in Alexandria. Started north with Trinity from the comfort station for about 1.35 miles, then turned around and met Betsy back around mile marker 7 and she took Trinny. Then continued on (after seeing a 6' black snake climbing a tree!) for about 4.5 miles then turned around and continued back. Kept up a fairly even pace, increasing in speed toward the end. Miles in 8:15, 8:23, 8:17, 8:23, 8:24, 8:21, 8:28, 8:06, 8:13, 8:04, and 7:41 min/mile. Burned 1845 cal.

out for a run

Running with Trinity before dinner. Felt pretty good, hence the quickening pace during each subsequent miles 8:15, 8:06, 8:00, 8:06, 7:57, 7:31 (8:02 overall). Was pretty warm, but was just a great day for a run. Got in 5.4 miles and felt really good, despite the longer ride yesterday!

Beautiful Day, Wonderful Ride... These are the days when its easy!

Going for a longer ride. It was just such a beautiful afternoon, hi 60's, light breeze, isolated white puffy clouds! Who could ask for a better afternoon to go riding? Well I sure couldn't, so I kept riding, and riding and well riding... 57 miles overall. Started off quite strong, keeping an easy pace of 19-20mph, but had a bit of tightness in my lower back toward the end, which slowed me down some. There were a couple really good hills, including one hitting over 20% grade, but overall it was a fairly rolling course. Essentially rode out and around the entire Southern Maryland Peninsula! Check out the map!

Running with the little one

Thought I would run 6 miles today, but I have been having issues with my left knee. There is a tightness behind my knee, not sure what it is, but it kept me from finishing and I cut it short at 4 miles. Felt pretty crappy overall, hopefully my bike ride tomorrow will go better!

Great ride, almost 20mph over 28 miles...

Going for the Mt. Carmel ride before Karen (mother-in-law) arrived. Really felt good getting started and lasted through until hit the head wind on the way home. Kept strong most of the way but died out a bit towards the end. Still set a PR for the course by over a min. Avg cad 88. Burned 1825 calories! Appears the change in bike fit really helped.

getting in a 6.4 mile run

Running with Trinity for a longer run. Trying to keep HR around 160 bpm to ensure that I didn't drive Trinity too hard and wanted to get the max benefit from calorie burning. Felt pretty good most of the way, but ate some pineapple earlier and WHOOO-WEEEE was I gassy!

Recovery run with Trinity.

Got my replacement HR monitor today, and kept a fairly even HR of around 156 bpm during the majority of the run. Felt fairly good, although not tip top. Perhaps the two cookies at lunch threw my blood sugar out of whack, because I felt pretty close to bonking by the end.

Personal Record on Accokeek Loop!

Running with Trinity. Started off easy early on, after an 8 min mile 1, finished with a 7:40,7:38 and a 7:11 min miles. Felt pretty strong and didn't labor until the very end. Can't wait to get my HR monitor back and to hit Track practice again this week. The baby is due in a month, so gotta get my hardest work in now!

Last post about Medicine Bow

Thought I would share one more batch of photos. Above to the left is just a scenic show of the mountain to our left as we were finishing the hike. As you can see, other than the evergreens the trees had yet to bloom. To the left is a group shot. From left to right is me, Todd and Orest (a friend of mine from NRL that I work really close with) and Uly the dog.

Below to the left is another group shot. From left to Right (almost following height) is Todd, me, Sharka (another friend of mine from NRL that Orest and I work with on a number of projects) and again, Uly. To the right is a shot of a small cabin and the mountains in the background that we saw as we were exiting the park. Around this point Sharka found a frisbee that I brought home as a gift for my mini-rottweiler Trinity.

Hiking in Medicine Bow Nat'l Forest Wyoming con't

Here is a few more photos. As we were hiking along, Todd came back to us and told us that there was a moose cow in the field ahead. I got a ton of photos and figured I would share them with you here! Above to the left is a full view of the field with her in it and a close up to the right. Must have been shedding her winter coat!

Below to the left you can see another closeup shot. Isn't she fantastic? At this point I had stopped photographing her and had to take a wizz, I guess she heard it and was a bit interested as she turned toward the sound! To the right is another beautiful image of the incredible scenery within the forest.

Finally to the left is a shot of Turtle rock, a bit of a mountain that we essentially hiked around. Again, the scenery was just fantastic!

Hiking in Medicine Bow Nat'l Forest Wyoming

Here are some photos from our Hike in Medicine Bow National Forest just outside of Laramie, WY. It had snowed two days before, and considering we were at 8800 feet above sea level, there was surprisingly little snow on the ground. Here is one of my buddy (Best Man from my wedding) Todd and his 3 year old pup Ulysses. Todd is a back-country ranger in Grand Tetons National Park in Northwest WY and drove down to hang out.





The rock formations were phenomenal, everything appeared to be a number of smaller boulders held together by friction and gravity making up such a huge rock formation. This one we all felt looked like an old man. A replacement for the Man in the Mountain from Vermont? To the right is a photo of a beaver dam (there were tons) that we saw during the hike. The scenery was fantastic.

Been a crappy workout week, but decent ride today

Riding the Mt Carmel ride with a few changes. Started off really congested, like I used to have with allergies. Oddly it has rained every day the past week, so pollen counts are really low, so perhaps molds are my problem? Anyway, could hardly breath for the first 8 miles or so, but then the congestion cleared and loosened up a lot. Felt pretty good for the rest until the end when my shoulder started to hurt again. Really need to work on strengthening my core so my shoulder won't be an issue. Overall I felt a bit better about the new bike positioning.

Great >20mph ride!

riding on road for the first time since the bike fit change. Felt really good, had my first ride over 20mph without a draft to help since I moved to Maryland! After this ride, now I know I can deal with the fit for longer rides in the future. Did have some issues breathing though. Perhaps after being in DRY DRY DRY Wyoming since Monday the humidity got to me?

Running with the little one again!

Running with Trinity out Accokeek Access Loop. Felt really good and was amazed how easy it was to get going. Miles in approx. 8:14, 7:43, 7:32, 6:23 and last bit in 1:22. Great run and set new PR...

on the trainer again...

Raining again, so the trainer again... this makes what four days in a row. Anyway, I did the Spinervals Suffer-O-Rama workout... wow forgot how tough that was! Anyway, had a great workout on the new bike fit and felt pretty good. Need to get out on the road to really test it though!

Results from Catholic University Triathlon!

Well apparently the race director for the Catholic University Triathlon (back in MARCH!!!) had a computer virus and therefore lost the results... however, his IT guy at CUA finally salvaged them! Good NEWS!!! I came in 9th overall! 3rd in my age group with a time 1:19:31. Hopefully photos will be posted soon!

Trainer while getting fit

Did my workout during the time while the fit technician was sizing me up and adjusting my bike to fit better. Got a bit of work on the trainer while there. He raised and pushed back my seat, flipped my stem, lowered my handle bars and leveled my seat. Got my position to be something more in line with a road bike as opposed to a time trial or triathlon bike. Going to hit the roads tomorrow to see how I feel!

Recovery again

So I may have overestimated how quickly I would recover from the hard ride this weekend. Therefore hopped on the bike trainer and did the recharge Spinervals workout today. I am going to get a bike fit at Capital Hill Bikes tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully I can solve the issues with the back, quad and shoulder pain I have been experiencing. We will see!

Recover, Recover and definitely Recover

Well the legs are a bit tired. Therefore, after taking the dogs for a walk with Betsy, hopped on the trainer and did the Spinervals Recovery and Technique workout. Felt ok, but still really tight.

US Air Force Cycling Classic Map!

Here is the ride map.

US Air Force Cycling Classic!!!

US Air Force Cycling Classic Participatory Ride. This was prior to the service academy time trial race and the professional race this afternoon. Had a good ride, had 3.5 hours to finish a metric century on the windy and hilly course through Arlington. However, my GPS decided to not work today SOOOO... I don't have any details of my ride other than that it took me 3:09 to finish the 8 loops, for an avg speed of 19.7 mph. This was my fastest and longest ride of the year! Had some shoulder issues and some issues with the boys falling asleep, not to mention hitting a 1/2 foot deep pot hole, but overall, it was a great fun ride! Betsy took some great photos, Hope you enjoy them!

Out on a hot humid day with Trinity

Running with the little one on the new extended course. Tried to keep it easy at about an 8:30 pace as I didn't want to work too hard before the race on Sunday. However, with the heat it was still really tough. Still can't figure out why my HR monitor keeps screwing up either.

On Trainer - tapering before the weekend ride

Spinervals Recharge. Taking it easy before race. Will probably do the other recovery workout tomorrow. Want to keep my legs loose by spinning, not working too hard. Overall, good solid workout, burned 754 calories and got those legs moving!