since chocolate milk is such a fabulous recovery drink

I was wondering if chocolate ice cream would provide the same benefit?

Urban Ride

When its too cold for an open road ride on the road bike, and the trails are just a bit too soft and wet, and you don't have a trianer ride to do, the next best thing is the urban ride. Bundle up, hop on the mountain bike and ride around town for a couple hours (lower speeds on the knobby tires, but you work hard to overcome the additional friction to go faster). Early weekend mornings are best, before much traffic is out, here were the highlights of this morning's urban ride:
empty parking lots with big curbs and parking lot dividers - perfect for practicing pedal wheelies and push wheelies (that's what I call them). I must have done over 50 of each. My pedal wheelies were kicking butt. IU stadium parking lot has this short steep (50ft long) grassy hill with a big curb at the top. The uphill is a 'get way over your handlebars so you don't lift your front wheel off the ground' climb. The downhill is a good pedal wheelie start, then (even though you don't have to, you can practice) getting your butt way back off the back of your saddle, stomach close to the saddle for the descent. The old state police post at 446/Fee has a short 10 ft burm with several small boulders out of the ground, good practice going down. The yet developed rails to trails section is a good 1-2 miles of big chunky gravel to practice on. And in town, always lots of small hills to practice a sprint up for a little extra heart rate elevation. Occasional stairs on campus to go down (not very easy to go up), and a few other places I probably shouldn't have ridden, so I won't mention those!

if you commute to work via bicycle, read this...

I just read that as part of the October giant bailout bill passed by the US Congress, there are some buried tax savings for employers and employees, applicable to employees who commute by bicycle at least 60% of the time.

Here is a link to the verbage of the bill specific to this:
http://www.bikeleague.org/news/100708adv.php

and a more English interpretation:
http://www.bikeleague.org/news/100708faq.php
so, talk to your HR folks and see if you can get them to give you some tax breaks!

I used to be a pretty good swimmer

Then I became a retired swimmer who put very little effort into her occasional swims.

As of last night, I think I can call myself a swimmer again!

Jen gave me a challenge:
6x100 on 1:30, 200IM ez,
5x100 on 1:25, 200IM ez,
4x100 on 1:20, 200IM ez,
3x100 on 1:15, 200IM ez,
2x100 on 1:10, 200IM ez

I so wanted to make the last 5 with plenty of rest, not just touch and go, and definitely not touch, miss, and go. I gave last night's workout my best swim effort in 20 years. I made all the intervals, with lots of rest! The first 3 sets I was cruising with 15 and 10 seconds rest. Then I hit 1:06,1:08,1:10 on the 100's on 1:15, and 1:04 and 1:06 on the last two 100's on 1:10! I was so psyched! Seriously, I have not put such an honest effort into a swim since I was a declining collegiate swimmer. And it felt so good. I finished, smiled, thinking the people at the pool who saw me smiling must have thought I was a total dork. Here I am a 40 something swimming next to the little age group swimmers a few lanes over, I must look so out of place. But I don't care. For the first time in decades, I enjoy swimming again. Can't wait to hit a few masters meets and see what kind of times I can throw out in a race.

happy swimming!

Weekend Update

This morning I tated my first batch of make-my-own yogurt. And guess what - it tastes like yogurt! Here is the recipe I used.

I also read a book yesterday.
How Many Hills to Hillsboro? by Fred Bauer
It was written in 1969. Its about a family that decides they want to experience the adventure of riding their bikes across the US. They want experience the people, and places and do it as a family. This is a family who did not even own bikes, they purchased bikes with 5 speeds, started their first ride of 2 miles! ANd planned to do the ride from east to west (can you say HEADWIND!). Its a comical story for those of us who ride a lot of miles on our bikes. Also inspirational - makes me want to do it too!


And if you love dogs, this is an amazing video clip of a military veteran returning from a 14 month tour of duty, to his home, and being greeted by his best friends. ENJOY!

making my own yogurt

So, in a constant effort to reduce my carbon footprint, I analyzed my habits, and determined that those little plastic yogurt containers are the next thing to go in my life. So, I have my first batch of 'make-my-own' yogurt sitting on a heating pad, attempting to curdle. I hope this works! And that it taste good. I'll report back tomorrow when I can taste the results of this little science experiment.

if I can make my own yogurt, here's what I figure I save:
5x50(weeks)=250 plastic containers that won't go into recycle anymore.
10 additional half gallons milk container that goes into recycle, but can also be reused at my house (watering plants, gardening...)
250x$.5=$125 dollars not spent each year buying yogurt
$1.25x10=$12 spent buying milk to make similar amount of yogurt each year

Maybe I can find someplace that sells milk in cardboard containers instead of plastic.

It’s the new year... time to do some new things.

So, I ran a race on the first day of the year. I’ve never run a race on Jan 1. I have not run a stand alone running race shorter than a half marathon since 1997. Why, because I’m not that fast, and it always seemed like such a waste of time to spend money to just go run a race moderately fast, when I could just do that for free (I’m so cheap sometimes). But I’m resolved to learn to run faster this year. And learn to suffer this year, especially when I run. (I guess also when I swim -which I know how to do, I did it for 20 years, I just have chosen not to for the past 20- and also when I ride. )

So, yesterday I head up to the big flat city to run a race, so I can do another HR test. I could do one 3 mile loop, or 2, as fast as I can go. Well, as I said I’ve never been particularly fast on two feet, and I truly have no idea how to run fast, how it should feel, how my legs and feet and arms and core should feel. I know its going to hurt, and I know I’m going to be gasping for breath. But its not something I’m familiar with. I’m more familiar with a little slower for a little longer. But as I said, I’m committed to getting out of my comfort zone and making myself learn to suffer on the short fast stuff.

This race was a non-scored race, just a fun run so to speak, but the course was closed to traffic, had mile markers, and a timing clock at the start/finish line. I’m standing about 5 rows back from the front at the start, far to the right. No one wanted to go to the front. I sure wasn’t. I’m not fast. The race starts, and some people take off way faster than me, but not a lot. Jen said to run as fast as I could, I think I started too fast. I was going to do 6 miles fast, but at mile 1 I was a shade under 7min (I’ve never run under 7min on a track for a single mile, and I have done no speedwork since , uh, August). I was already hurting at mile 1. The 15 degrees and 20 mile mph wind slapped me in the face for the second mile and I hit that at 14:20! Uh-oh, I was feeling the blowup coming. I was telling myself just do 3 miles, don’t worry about the 6. You can do 6 in the next race. Just suffer for another mile. Luckily the next turn was a side/tail wind, and somehow it pushed me home in 21:05. I felt like I wanted to barf. I stopped, a little disappointed in myself that I didn’t start a wee bit slower so I could do the HR test for 6 miles, but happy that I averaged right around 7min miles for 3 miles (not bad for this former fish who dreams of being able to run effortlessly - like Todd). I shivered and ran back to my car, maxed out the heated seat and blasted the heater for the hour drive home. First thing I did then was to check local race calendars, because now I’m determined to do these short races and make myself suffer and most importantly, RUN FAST!

Other new things for 2009? Hmmm, maybe I’ll swim a 200fly in a meet this winter, just to add to my 2009 sufferfest.

Happy New Year!