4.5 Mile Run Near Home

This evening I ran four and a half miles near home. I choose a new route because I was wanting to put in near five miles and passing the house would be boring plus there would be a temptation to stop each time I passed. So on map my run I plotted out a longer course. It was about two and half miles per lap. Perfect!

I ran the new route one time and cut the second lap a little short.

I think I am getting acclimated to the heat; it was ninety three and it did bother me as much as a couple of days ago.

Marilyn went out for a walk at the same time as I did. I think she did a mile.

Here is the Motionbased results:

Bike Ride at the Veloway with Daniel and James

I joined Daniel and James at the Veloway this evening for a nineteen mile bicycle ride.

Yesterday spoiled me with the cool temperatures, this evening was hot, temperatures in the low nineties. However, there was no wind, thank goodness! We rode for about two hours with a moving speed of about fifteen MPH.

Here is the Motionbased results:

Five Mile Run

This evening I ran five miles on the Hike and Bike trail around Lady Bird Lake. I was prepared for a hot slog similar to last week, but about a mile into the run the wind came up and it started raining lightly which cooled the air down and made running a whole lot more enjoyable.

Here is what the weather was doing during my run. Notice the drop in temperature at about 7 PM.


Here is my Motionbased report:

My Smoothies

While reading David Hanenburg's EnduranceBuzZ.com blog I came across his Sports Recovery Drink - Nutritious and Tasty and thought I would give my slightly different version of the drink.

Ingredients:

1 pack of silken tofu
1 cup of frozen or fresh blueberries
2 grams cinnamon
1 banana

- Mix in blender.
- Makes enough for two to three people.

Nutrition Info:
Nutrition Information can be found here.

Variations:
I mix anything in that looks good from what I have on hand. Some of my favorite changes and additions are:

strawberries
peaches
pomegranate seeds or juice
sherry (just a bit!)
soy milk
yogurt
wheat germ
milled flaxseed
crushed ice

The inspiration for my recipe came from the book SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change your Life by Steven G. Pratt and Kathy Matthews.

Watched the Capital of Texas Triathlon

This morning I rode down to watch the Capital of Texas Triathlon. I watched the bike race portion from several vintage points. The best was at the intersection of Congress Avenue and Cesar Chavez Street. I had a nice ledge tolean my bike against and sit on; it was in the shade and people walking by stopped to chat. There were riders making the corner going both ways: some going south on Congress turning onto Cesar Chavez, and some turning north on Congress from Cesar Chavez. The officials had loud speakers set up, telling the riders to slow down as they rounded the corner.

I only saw one mishap; a rider was coming down Congress fast on a well-equipped triathlon bike. The slower riders ahead of him started moving to the left. This forced the faster rider into the barricades. After a brief pause, the rider recovered his bearings and continued on.

There were more bike types than I knew existed: New ones, old ones, numerous mountain bikes, comfort bikes, road bikes, and special triathlon bikes. The triathlon bikes came in all sorts of configurations, including some with disc back wheels that rumbled as the rode past, and several bikes that did not have a seat tube.

I watched for about an hour, but did not see anyone that I knew, so I found a coffee shop to refuel for the trip back home.

Here is the Motionbased view of the trip:

ACA Hosted Ride "THERE AND BACK" Report

This morning, I attended the Austin Cycling Association's (ACA) hosted ride THERE AND BACK. It was a great ride, except that we had the wind in our face in the second half, when we turned to return to the start.

The route started at 8 AM from Braker Lane and Jollyville road, crossed over to Parmer Lane, then went north to the intersection of Highway 180 and Ronald Reagan Boulevard (just a mile north of 1431). In total it was about 28 miles, at a moderate pace. It's a perfect ride for anyone new to cycling or anyone who wants a leisurely ride through far north Austin.

The ride leader was Somer, with Billy, Garth, and myself as riders. Both Billy and Garth were from Britain and it was interesting to hear about their home countries. Garth was from Bath, in England's West Country, and moved to Austin with Dell. Billy is Scottish, originally from a town out side of Glasgow.

Somer said she doesn't ride a lot, but she has some very interesting rides planned in the near future: tomorrow she will be riding in the Capital of Texas Triathlon, then a few weeks later she will be taking part in the Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). She's obviously more dedicated than I am!

About halfway through the ride, we took a break, for a cup of coffee, etc.

Here is the motionbased version of the ride today:

Bicycle Ride at Veloway

Thursday evening, after work, I went to the Veloway with James for a moderately paced eighteen mile bike ride. It was hot with a strong wind out of the southeast which was particularly noticeable just before the sharp little hill about two miles around the course.

Here is the Motionbased record:

Thursday's Easy and Hot Five Miles

This evenings run was a hot, hot, hot, about ninety seven at the beginning and it dropped all the way down to ninety five by the time I quit. To top it all off I did not hydrate enough through out the afternoon. When it came time to leave I realized I had not been drinking enough and tried to make up for it. But I did not get enough fluids in before I started the run.

Plus this was the first real warm day of the season so I have not had time to acclimatized. I am sure by the end of August it will feel like a cold front when the temperature is only ninety seven.

I walked several times through out the run. I guess both times was when I crossed the river. Here is the Motionbased results:

Congress Avenue Mile Race Report

Yippee! I did it. I finished the Congress Avenue Mile in 8:53. That is an all-time record for me (At least since, I was in high school -- but I do not remember the details of my running times that far back.) That was a pace of eight minutes and fifty-two seconds per mile! That is below nine minutes; it has been ten minutes for so long. I wonder what it will take to get it down to an eight-minute mile. Lots of running, I am sure.

Today was a perfect day for a run. I woke up at 5:30 AM to get ready. I had decided to ride my bike the seven miles to the race start. So shortly after the sun had come up, I rode down to the start line. This year was a little different than in the past, when the race started at the capitol and went down the hill to the Colorado River. But this year there was some other event that prevented that, so we started on the south side of Congress Avenue,just over the bridge on the Colorado River, ran across the bridge to Cesar Chavez (formerly 1st Street), then turned east and ran one block to Brazos St. We turned and ran three blocks north to 4th street, then turned back west to get to Congress Avenue. Once on Congress Avenue, we headed back to the start/finish line across the bridge.

One of the problems with this scheme was since the same gate was being used for the start and finish, the officials could not start one group until most of the runners from the previous group had arrived. The group that I was supposed to start with was about 15 minutes late and so the officials joined my group with the next group. Therefore, I was supposed to run with the men and women 60+. Instead, I ran with the 40+ group. It was fine; both groups did not have that many people.

The actual race was really good. I did a lot to warm up. First, I rode my bike down to the start area and locked it up. Then, about 30 to 45 minutes before the race, I jogged for about half a mile.

The only problem was that I should try to get my heart rate up closer to my racing heart rate. Which for a race such as this is high. I only got it up to 130, and I think 140 would have been better. Then there was a lot of time between my warm-up run and the actual start of the race. It would probably be better to have the two closer.

At the start, I ran strongly, the same as everybody else, but about two hundred meters into the race my heart and lungs were telling me to slow down. Therefore, I had no choice but to obey. From that point on, I just tried to push as hard as I could, without pushing too hard. When we turned the final corner and started running down hill to the finish line I think I should have dug a little harder and recovered a little more time.

Here is the Motionbased account of the race:



Here is the ride down to the start:



And here is the ride home: (Note that I did not start recording for some ways)



I made two stops on the way home. First I stopped at the Saturday-morning farmer's market and bought a blueberry muffin. I was hoping to meet the group of riders from ACA who were doing the hosted ride. In particular, I was looking for Monte to ask if I could join their group and return to Mozart’s, but I never saw him.

The next stop was Mellow Johnny's for a cup of coffee. From there I headed home. Well, I guess there was one more thing. Biking through the University of Texas was interesting. There were all sorts of people wearing graduation gowns showing their parents and friends around. The traffic was heavy getting though UT, so I was glad when I made it out of the campus.

Thursday's Long Run

I did a long run this evening. Running from Mo-Pac to I-35 along Town Lake Trail. It took about one and a half hours at an average speed of about five mile per hour. My heart rate was a little higher than I would have liked at 129, it was thirty two minutes in the Aerobic zone (70 - 80%) and forty eight minutes in the Threshold zone (80 - 90%).

I would like to do this run at least once a week through out the summer.

Here is the Motionbased results:

Intervals at the Gym in Preparation for the 2008 Puma Congress Avenue Mile

This evening I did four intervals at the gym preparing for the 2008 Puma Congress Avenue Mile this Saturday. I was wanting to get an idea how long it would take to run a mile.

The first interval was a warm up interval where I wanted to get my heart rate up to 125 beats per minute. That I did as can be seen in the graph. On race day I think I should get my heart rate up to thirty and maintain that for a several at least five minutes.

The second interval was the test interval where I ran all out for one mile. The time was eight and a half minutes. Not bad! I hope being in a race and going down hill I can cut some time off that. We'll see on Saturday.

The last two interval were at seven and a half miles per hour and eight miles per hour and last for a quarter of a mile.

Monday Nights Trail Run

This evening Daniel and I went the Barton Creek Greenbelt for a four and a half mile run. It was a really good run, the clouds looked heavy like it could start raining at any point, and we felt a few drops at the start, but it never did.

The two main things that happened was I forgot to start the GPS at the start of the run. We had run about a mile when I remembered to start it.

And number two was I fell, at about mile 3, and cut my knee. I continued on running and washed it up when I got home. We'll see how it's doing tomorrow morning.

Here is the Motionbased report:

Chuy's 25th Annual Hot to Trot 5K Race Report

I ran the Annual Chuy's 5K this morning. It is my first time to run this race and I really liked it. Usually I do the Austin Cycling Association's Armadillo Hill Country Classic, which is a pretty ride, but this year I am concentrating on running and hopefully getting my speed up.

The race course was perfect; it started off with a slight downhill run, then it went slowly uphill for about a mile, followed by a long and gradual descent downhill to the finish. The elevation gain was only about eighty feet in one mile, so it was not something you really noticed, and the elevation change was only ninety feet over several miles.

The weather was almost perfect. The temperature was in the mid seventies, but the humidity at about eighty percent. I was drenched by the time I finished. Here is my chip time.

I finished right at thirty one minutes with a ten minute pace.

This put me at an eighth in my age group out of twelve runners. If I could take off one minute, and get my time below thirty minutes, I could have moved up three places. I was in four hundredth place overall out of three thousand runners and walkers, and eighth in my age group.

I will have to do this race again in coming years, because I really enjoyed it. It was very well-organized by the Special Olympics backers and the course was good.

Next week is the 2008 Puma Congress Avenue Mile, I would like to do it but I will be giving blood on Tuesday and looking at my times from recent events, I think I will be one of the last finishers in my age group.

I've not run a mile since high school, but it would be fun to see what I could do. Nine minutes? No matter what time I do it in, it will be a PR, since high school does not count, that was too long ago. It would be running downhill from the Capitol. I'll see how I'm doing Wednesday on my training run before signing up.

Thursday's Run

I ran a slow five miles on Lady Bird Lake this evening. I ran from the Mopac bridge to to the Congress avenue bridge on the south side of the lake. Then doubled back to the Pfluger Bridge and crossed to the north side of the lake. Over the next month or so I will have to get so I run to I35 on a weekly basis. The weather was warm but not too bad.

It was my first run with the new Garmin. It worked great, I did have some trouble uploading the files to Motionbased. I think the problem was on the Motionbased side however and not with my Garmin.

Kenny's Visit

Kenny came for a visit this weekend. It was really good to see him; he is looking well and is fitter than I have seen him in a long time. He has been having health problems and it was a real relief to see him walking and biking. Over the last year he has had numerous broken bones in his foot, but they seem to be healed now and he only has some residual pain when he walks too much, or is tired. He says he has lost some weight and it shows. He is probably doing better than he appears, as he has been on a very stressful business trip and he had been putting in a lot of hours in preparation for it.

He was originally scheduled to come in early afternoon Saturday, but his meeting lasted longer than expected, so he arrived at about 9 PM Saturday. Marilyn and I had not eaten supper and Kenny had only had a hamburger much earlier in the day, so we decided to stop on the way home. Since we all like Rudy's and the new freeway from the airport to the west side of Austin is close to being complete, I headed off to the Westlake Rudy's, in a big, open park-like area, and we had some BBQ brisket. We got home about midnight.

Our original plans for Sunday morning were to get up early (7:30) and head down to the Upper Crust Bakery. However, when I tried to wake Kenny up at 7:30 I had no luck, so I let him sleep. About nine he finally got up so I made him some breakfast and coffee. Then we headed out for some bike riding.

I decided not to go to Upper Crust, it would require riding on streets with heavy traffic and I had not seen Kenny ride since we were teenagers on the farm. He says he has been riding, but that may only be in the park with his dogs.

We went over to Highland Mall and spent some time looping around in the parking lot; he looked like he could handle a little, more so we headed down to Epoch's Coffee Shop. He did real well on the bike and riding in traffic.

Here is a map of our ride together. I did not have my GPS so it is from memory.



Shortly after we arrived home, Larissa called. We talked on the phone for some time mainly filling Kenny in on the details of her upcoming wedding, finally the conversation changed to her new apartment. At this point, we switched over to using the computer and enabling the video. Larissa gave us a tour of her new home with all the new appliances and furniture. It really looks nice.

After this Kenny, Marilyn and I headed down to the Barton Creek Greenbelt, we entered at the 360 Access Point. Marilyn walked with us down to the creek, Kenny and I continued southwest to the cliffs along Barton Creek. Here is a rough sketch of the course we took.



The greenbelt was beautiful and many people were out enjoying it. The weather could not have been better; the temperature was in the mid seventies. We meet many hikers out for an afternoon walk, on the cliffs south of the creek; we could see climbers practicing their climbing and repelling skills. Dozens of bicyclist past us on the trail, we got a lot of opportunities to watch them go over rocks from the size of your fist to large boulders that required them to raise the front wheel of the bikes a foot or more off the path.

Finally, we returned to the spot where we had left Marilyn and hiked out of the creek. I was really proud of her. She has been sick for the last month and this was her first major trip.

After exploring Barton Creek we went to The Shady Oaks for some food and stories about the old times. This continued after we left The Shady Oaks and well into the night.

Kenny left us and continued his journey to Omaha at 5:45 this morning.

ASH Dash Race Report

Today I ran the ASH Dash 5K race. The ASH (Austin State Hospital) volunteers sponsor the race; they are an organization whose purpose is to improve the quality of life of the children and adults who are patients at the Hospital.

The race was on the grounds of the State Hospital, which was established in 1856, with the first patients admitted in 1861. The race started in front of the administration building, built in 1856. It was open for viewing on race day. The hospital was originally called the Texas State Lunatic Asylum but was renamed the Austin State Hospital in 1925. I was planning to visit the administration building and see what it was like, especially since the school where I had my Navy training was an old Civil War era hospital. However, I did not have a chance to do this with everything else that was happening on race day.

The race course consisted of two loops around the hospital grounds with very little elevation change. However, today there was a strong cold wind out of the north.

Yesterday I laid everything I would need out so I would not have to bother Marilyn, as I planned to get ready at 5:30 AM. This included getting my commuter bike ready for the ride down to the hospital. However, when I stepped out this morning I had second thoughts about riding my bike. It was cold (mid 50s) and windy (about 20 MPH gusts.) Therefore, I went back in and turned on the light in the bedroom to find a windbreaker for the ride (so much for my plans not to disturb Marilyn!)

As part of my preparations, I put on my Garmin (the one I was having problems with in my last post) and turned it on. For the most part, it was working okay. However, occasionally it would power down when I would hit the down key (middle button on right). Finally, I stopped using that button and it did not die as much. I successfully got a track down to the hospital, but the track of the race and the ride home were combined into one record.

I used SportTracks to break the track into two tracks, but I lost the heart rate data. Therefore, I have five tracks uploaded to www.Motionbased.com.

The ride down to the hospital went very well, just as it should have been, with a tail wind and riding downhill! At 7:00 in the morning, there is not much traffic on the road so I had trouble getting across some of the intersections because my bike did not trigger the signals. At Koenig and Guadalupe, I had to go over and press the walk button to get the light to change. Also, at the entrance to the Hospital the light never changed and finally, when there were no cars coming from either direction, I crossed.



The race started at 8 o’clock sharp. Since I had run the course before I knew where it went, so there were no surprises. The last time they had us go out to 45th street and then double back. This time we ran along the perimeter of the grounds on the northeast side.

I finished in 103rd place overall, fourth in my age group, with a time of 31:08, which translates to a pace of 10:02.8 minutes per mile.



The ride home was about the same as the ride down. I had trouble getting across Koenig and had to go over and press the walk button. Shortly thereafter, another bicyclist came along and waited at the light. He was doing a track stand while we waited for the light to change. After a bit, I commented that he was doing a very good track stand. After I complimented him I was afraid that perhaps I had jinxed him. However, he continued to do the track stand. Finally, he gave up and made a loop at the stop light. As soon as his back was turned, the light changed. I was quite a ways down the street when he passed me.