I feel the need. The need for...

sitting on the couch in frustration.

Things had been progressing nicely along with my knee. I've been doing all the exercises and stretches the physical therapist recommended. Twice a day (also as recommended). The pain in my knee has shifted from awful, to dull, to -- just yesterday -- a slight pinch. Even this morning, as I walked to bus stop, I thought to myself, "Wow, I feel this much better in only a week. I wonder how good I'll feel next week."

Then, because I was daydreaming about running free, I realized my bus was about to leave a block away from where I was. So, naturally, I started to run to catch it. I got exactly five steps before the pain from three weeks ago came hurtling back. So there you go. I expect that means I won't feel much better next week.

As far as an update on my physical therapy -- the therapist thinks I have a ridiculously week hip area. Weak hip flexors and abductors, and tight everything. The logic is that by strengthening those areas, I'll address the long term imbalance so that I don't have this problem again. Oddly enough, right now I'm interested in addressing the symptoms. Since they hurt and all. We'll see what happens tomorrow in my next PT session.

Injuries make for lame updates

I haven't been up to too much the last few weeks. No running and cycling makes Nick a dull boy. With any luck, I'll have some news about the progress of my knee injury after my first physical therapy session this evening.

Even though I don't write too much about my actual training, when I'm not doing it, I become more deeply involved in my other activities. And with Hannah in Texas, that leaves me with work, which I haven't been short of in the past few months. But since writing makes up a good part of my work, I don't really want to spend more time writing about work.

So, to tide you over until I have something interesting/amusing to say, watch this trailer that I came across the other day. Since Tim Burton's involved, you can bet it's going to be really bizarre. All the same, it looks pretty cool. And it probably helps that they use a Coheed & Cambria song in the trailer, which ups the awesome factor.



Have a happy New Year. Watch out for post-apocalyptic robotic cats (or whatever that thing is).

Apocalypse... not now, maybe later

I feel like I've avoided some personal disaster, at least as far as my sanity goes.

An explanation:

I've been dealing with some right knee trouble for the last two weeks.

It started during a run on Monday, December 1, hurt enough for me to cut my December 2 run short and then was bothering me at my track session on December 4, which I stupidly decided to finish. It hurt enough that I took the entire following week off from running or riding. On Saturday, December 13, I did an easy 90 minutes on my bike (very easy) and then lifted (very light weights). My knee didn't bother me at all during the ride, but I stupidly pushed through some light pain during leg lifts at the gym. I tried running on Sunday morning and got 20 minutes in before the pain became debilitating. I then walked it back home.

Yesterday I went to see a sport orthopedist, who, much to my surprise, said I didn't need an MRI. Basically, it's just very tight iliotibial band, tensor fascia latea, and the assorted inner leg muscles combining in a perfect storm to pull my knee out of alignment, which, not surprisingly, hurts a lot.

The prescription is some vitamin-I for the inflammation and physical therapy and strengthening/stretching of all the assorted muscles in the area. Interestingly, I learned nothing yesterday that I didn't already know from the interwebs (specifically, ExRx.net, the best little strength training/injury site on the Internet -- complete with anatomically correct 3D digital models!), I just wanted a professional confirmation.

So, I'm off running or riding until this clears up. If might be as much as six weeks, but since that would be awful, I'm hopeful I can be better sooner. If there's one thing I am, it's aggressive about recovering from an injury (I kicked the crap out of my achilles/calf trouble 18 months ago -- take that body weakness!).

If you're looking for a lesson here, it's that you shouldn't be stupid about stretching and strengthening the unused parts of your body. This is closely linked to the hip (TFL) pain I talked about last time. Sedentary office life doesn't naturally mix well with having a healthy lifestyle.

This just in: I'm not 19 anymore

Hannah and I met in Florida over the weekend to visit her friend Sue who has a house in Sarasota. We're quite the international travelers lately.

It was a nice trip: some sun, some beach, some strolling around. Lots of not-young people.

I've been having some trouble with my hips for the last five months, specifically my TFL in both legs. I'm pretty sure it's all related to tight/over-worked IT bands, in turn related to tight/over-worked soleus muscles in my calves. It's not because I do too much training, but it's because I do too much training after sitting in a desk chair all day (and with the current market conditions, I've been spending a lot more time in an office chair).

I still try to get the same (or more) exercise in as I have for the last few years. The problem is, with limited time and even more limited motivation, flexibility work is the first thing to get cut.

After watching the pained expressions on many slow-moving folks over the weekend, I've decided to recommit to keeping myself in good working order. Goodbye power-lifting, hello girly hip bridges.

Also, hello awfully painful foam roller. If you've ever used one before, I'm sure you're surprised by my reluctance to use it daily.

Lost and (thankfully) found

I was down in Texas for the entire week of Thanksgiving. While you might think that San Angelo has no Internet access (based on my lack of blog updates), you'd be wrong. I was just lazy.

On Sunday, Hannah and I did a short trail run to try out our new END Stumptown trail shoes and see if they're as cool as they look. The answer: Yes. Very cool and very fast.

On Thursday, we were hosting Thanksgiving dinner for Hannah's brother and three airmen from the local base. Because Hannah had so much fun running on the trails on Sunday, we opted to go out for another trail run in the state park before getting ready for dinner. Hannah chose to wear the new shorts I bought her. (50% off on all running gear at Randy's Bike and Run! Of course, that's only applicable to my two San Angelo readers, both of whom probably already know about it...)

Anyway, they have a nifty little key pocket, in which she put the car key. About a mile into the run, we stopped for me to fiddle with my running vest (which I had just learned -- after seven years of ownership and clearly a lack of common sense -- folds into itself to become a hip pack). As I was about to bound off down the trail again, Hannah asked if she had given me the key. It was then we realized that Hannah's shorts had a key-sized hole.

Long, uninteresting story short, we searched and searched. We were both worried about getting back in time to make all the food for dinner, and beyond that, actually getting back to the house in time for dinner. Just when I was ready to give up and go run back to the ranger station to call the police or AAA to come help us out, I found the key, standing out in the middle of a clear patch of sandy trail. How we missed it twice before, I have no idea.

Thanksgiving was saved, dinner was prepared and the airmen were interesting to talk to. Since all three are in Intelligence, I now know exactly the same amount of secrets about our national security as I did when they arrived. In fact, I think they shredded some of my own stuff for good measure.

I'm (mostly) a man

I read about the Genderanalyzer over on BikeSnobNYC and thought I'd try it out. Initially, I was apprehensive, because I'm sure I have stereotypical feminine qualities that pop out in my writing -- talking about shoes, for example. Luckily (for my ego), I'm definitively a dude. Well, the site is 70% sure anyway. I blame the talking about shoes and the cat (and the pictures of me in lycra) for any uncertainty.



What made my day was when I put in RDM's site.



It's always gratifying to know that you're more of a man than your brother. And he doesn't wear lycra and write about shoes, so I'm not sure what he can have as an excuse.

I ordered another pair of shoes

I know, I know...

But these are so cool and they're green.

I read about END Footwear in a recent issue of Runners World that my friend gave me and my interest was piqued. The company's story is worth checking out.

Beyond the environmental impact, I was most intrigued by the minimalist design. I'm a big believer (as a result of my own injury experience) that many of today's running shoes are overbuilt. My current shoes (Vitruvian) are about as spartan as you can get and work great for me, but I wanted to try a "racier" shoe (in terms of weight, not sex-appeal). I'll be honest though -- the Vitruvians are not the coolest looking thing out there and the END shoes are pretty sharp.

On top of all that, these are $60 sneakers. For some reason, that's my "this is an awesome thing to try and if it doesn't work out, whatever"-price point (my Vitruvians are $60 -- and those worked out great). The more solid trail runners and light hikers are a little more, but the entire range is less than $100 -- that's almost unheard of in today's footwear marketplace.

Oh yeah, I ordered Hannah a pair too. Because -- clearly -- now I no longer only get excited about my own running shoes.

Crushing the dream

On Friday, I was in Boulder for a bike fuel and lactate test. I wanted to do it for two reasons:
1) I feel like my training is a lot of shooting in the dark. I wanted a better sense of the efforts I should be using in my day-to-day workouts.
2) It seemed really cool and I didn't want another "thing" for my birthday. Instead, I got some neat looking spreadsheets (that you can see below -- exciting!).

What I learned: I'm not good enough to be a pro athlete. Once the shock has worn off and you've climbed back in your chair, you can read on to see what the test was like and what the results mean.

**Warning - This might be boring**
The test was basically on a very high-end stationary bike that is adjustable so it could mimic my exact position on my tri bike. After I warmed up for about 25 minutes, Mat, the tester, took a blood sample (by pricking my finger) and then measured my blood lactate for a baseline.

Then, I got all dorked out with a heart rate monitor and a mask that connected to a machine that measured my breathing output (and whatever sort of stuff is measurable when you breathe).

We started the test by ramping up to 110 watts. Every five minutes Mat would take a new blood sample then increase the resistance by 15 watts. To sum up, eventually I couldn't really turn the pedals anymore and there was all sorts of spit and sweat flying.

Here are the expensive graphs/charts:
This one shows what energy sources I'm using as the effort increases. It's good that my fat burning is pretty level the whole way across, although it could stand to be raised significantly.

I'm not exactly sure that this means in science terms, but you can see the lactate go through the roof once I pass 170 watts. In unscientific terms it means I can't go very hard for very long. And "hard" for me is not actually that many watts.

This is what I was most interested in. It gives me all the HR and wattage zones that I was looking for.

I didn't really know how to interpret all of this, so luckily, Alan, Endurance Corner's resident physio wiz, explained it to me. In a nutshell (mostly in Alan's words, pulled from the e-mails he sent me):

-My absolute power output is woeful (that's my observation; Alan was much more polite), but my power to weight ratio is decent. That means I have better potential for success on climbing courses. I have a good tolerance to a wide range of power levels and should look at courses like Placid or Canada for a best relative result. (Well, that works out).

- I have a good base-level of training. In terms of limiters, there's a lot of upside that can come from increasing my FTP (functional threshold power).

- I also need to do more at "steady" -- basically, try to close the gap between the black and gray fields in the second chart.

- More steady-state training will ultimately prove to be the quickest path to improving my short-term IM performance. Extending my FTP will help me out in the long-term.

Straight from Alan's e-mail: "In summary, you're quite 'fit' but not as 'fast' as you could be on the basis of your fitness. This is not to say that there is not more room for improvement in your 'fitness' but, IMHO, in the name of balance and getting some return on your investment, some of your basic week should be devoted to higher intensity training."

Now, everything's relative. I clearly have a lot more "fitness" I can attain. That's evidenced by the fact that I couldn't get past 215 watts (for contrast, there are a lot of people that race ironman at an average 215 watts).

So, the short answer that came out of the test for me: I need to be working harder (actual "hard" efforts or "steady." No more noodling around). There's more in the results, but it gets a lot less compelling for anyone that isn't me.

Was it worth it for me? Absolutely. I'd even consider going back a year from now to see if anything has changed.

Living the dream

I was out in Colorado over the weekend living my professional triathlete dream and getting some physiological testing done. As it turns out, my pro-triathlete dream involves killing myself on a stationary bike, getting my finger pricked every five minutes, and wearing a Darth Vader mask. I should also add that this was my birthday present from Hannah. A present I asked for.

Not surprisingly, the test revealed that I don't have what it takes to be a pro triathlete. Luckily, we planned a weekend trip around it to soften the blow. I'll talk about the fun part in this post, then I'll talk hiking and beer and such, torture that it was.

I kid; I'll talk about the vacation first, then I'll talk about the fun stuff later. ;-)

Skipping around my lab test on Friday, I wandered about Boulder for a few hours, looking at all the fit people and getting accosted by what seemed like hundreds of college kids asking me if I voted yet. Seeing as how the election wasn't for a few days, I was a little confused.

Hannah came in Friday night and we went for a hike to the top of a peak (Bear Peak) on Saturday. Normally I'd post some awesome pictures, but our digital camera was playing games. When the battery indicator said it had 75% power (when I checked before we left the hotel), it actually meant it had 75% power for one more picture. So you get this one.

I was able to trick the camera into thinking it had a little more life in it once more at the top of the mountain.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Boulder, then headed back to Denver to shower and go out for dinner (elk burger = good).

Sunday was some more leisurely strolling around Denver, a visit to the REI flagship store, more people questioning us if we had voted yet, a stop in the Colorado history museum, and some more good beer and food. Then it was off to the airport and back to New Jersey/Texas.

Sometimes things just suck

I know some of you read Fat Cyclist. If you don't, it's worth heading over there now.

It's hard to understand a range of emotions you can feel for someone you don't even really know, but learn more about every day. The few random blogs I read are my Access Hollywood; I'm more interested and involved in the goings-on of these people than the celebrities I'm told to care about.

It's times like these I remember I'm only a competent writer, not a good writer. If you want to read some good writing about this, go over to Up in Alaska and read Jill's latest post.

We have a non-loser!

Our race on Saturday went off with only a few minor hitches, but ultimately was a good time.

Surprisingly, we finished not last, despite only three people in the boat rowing more often than four times a year.

We finished 24 of 30. That includes beating a few alumni boats (which is essentially what we are, although we're not alumni of any one school), and some college "B" boats. It's always gratifying to race against colleges or other clubs, most of whom are rowing every day, and (while still getting beaten by many of them) hold our own.

The weather was cruddy as expected: lots of rain and wind. That wasn't much of an issue for any of us though. Now that most of us aren't really involved in the goings-on of various boat clubs, we can just show up, rig the boat, race, put the boat on the trailer and leave. Rowing and rain are only a pain when you have to stand around all day. From leaving the parked car to driving away, we were in Philly for less than three hours.

Also, as expected, this race didn't end with me beating my Schuylkill demons, but I managed to throw some holy water on them and keep them at bay.

More rowing

I'm back in another boat this weekend. This time it's an eight with some old friends at the Head of the Schuylkill in Philly. This is the third year running that I've been signed up for a race at the Schuylkill when it was expected to rain. In '06 and '07, the regatta was cancelled. We'll see if the trend continues.

Interestingly enough, the event is now two days long. I suspect it's so they can put the odds in their favor and get at least some races down the course on one of the two days. A third cancelled regatta might mean the end of the event altogether.

A little-known (and little-interesting) fact about me is that I've only ever had one good race in Philly, and that's with eight years of rowing competitively and a handful of years rowing half-assedly. Since I'm in what my friend Ed calls our "crap-bag" eight this weekend, I don't expect this to be the year where all my dreams of Schuylkill glory come to fruition. Note, I expect to have fun, it just won't be anything close to resembling a good race.

One of many bad races on the Schuylkill. Where are the other boats? Either way ahead of us or crashed into a bridge behind us.

A (should-have-been-expected) blow to the ego

Sunday I confirmed that I no longer have the rowing fitness to hop in a boat with no practice and row two races in one day.

In the early afternoon, I rowed a 2- (that's one oar per person) with my friend Ian at the Head of the Passaic, a 2.5 mile race organized by my old rowing club. We finished in 19:55.

After a quick hamburger and re-rig of a boat, I was back in a 2x (two oars per person) with Ian for another go on the course. We finished that race in 19:53.

Normally, over that distance, rowers of equal ability should be minutes faster in a 2x compared to a 2- (and, since we were the same people in both, I assume we're equal).

At the end of the day, my shoulders were wiped out, my lower back was killing me, and my hands were ripped apart. It's probably likely that I haven't been fit enough to do two races a couple hours apart for years, but, since I haven't tried the double row for a few years, I could hold on the to dream that "I've still got it."

About the only things that were redeeming about both rows is that we beat our friends in the other 2- and I was recovered enough to do a MAP run test on Monday. So, I'm still fit. I'm just not rowing-fit. That's specificity for you.

Back at it

Sorry for the delay in posting, I was off doing stuff.

After doing that stuff, Hannah and I went up to the Adirondacks, which, despite being rainy almost the whole time, was a nice place to spend a week. It was full-on fall foliage, so even with the dreary sky, the scenery was great.

As a general rule, Hannah likes to go for nice, artsy shots.
Or, she takes pictures of me walking away.
I, on the other hand, had a burning desire to use the time-delay setting on the camera. A setting I clearly could not get a handle on. And the best attempt left me lobotomized.

There was one sunny day. Hannah got to bust out her new bike. And I got to ride very, very hard, while she effortlessly cruised farther and farther away on the climbs. I blame my old heavy road bike. And the hills. And my current (lack of) fitness. And that food-poisoning I got eight years ago.

Yoga is hard

I picked up a yoga DVD on sale the other day: "Power Yoga for Flexibility." It features Rodney Yee, who I assume is a famous yoga teacher (yogi?), based on the many, many DVDs that feature him. Actually, for all I know, each DVD has the same content, just with a different cover.

In any event, whether Rodney is the real thing or if he's the John Edward of the yoga world, I can say the flexibility workout he goes through is hard. Not only am I woefully inflexible, but I had to stop the DVD a little past half way because it was kicking my butt. Part of that is because he flies through the routine (I thought yoga was supposed to be relaxed?) and part is because I have no idea what he's talking about. Mountain pose? Power pose? Upward dog? Breath? Stretch? What do these words mean?

Hopefully I'll get better the more I do it.

Process-oriented vs. Results-oriented

As I've mentioned before, and for anyone that's noticed, I'm a process-focused guy.

Results-oriented people have a goal (or goals) in mind that take priority over all else. Simply stated, the ends justify the means. Obviously, that produces an ethical problem for some.

Process-oriented people -- while having a goal in mind -- generally focus on setting up a process for continual growth and improvement.

I've been thinking about it a lot the last few weeks. If you want to attain true excellence, I think you need to be results-focused. Every Olympic medalist has a singular focus; without it, they wouldn't win. I'm willing to be it's the same for every senior executive at a major company. For a big chunk of their careers, I'm sure there wasn't much life balance in there.

I'd be willing to bet that, over the course of human history, process-focused folks probably haven't achieved as many singular moments of defined excellence as results-focused people.

Does that mean process-focus is a cop out? An artificial way to maintain a general level of day-to-day happiness? Maybe. But since I'm not going to win an Olympic medal and I don't want to work hard enough to become a Fortune 500 CEO, I'll stick with what I've been doing.

Cynicism

I like believing in the little guy. That might be because, more often than not, I am the little guy.

I also like believing in the guy that's the dreamer, although -- more often than I'd like -- I'll have some derisive comment in my mind when I hear about somebody doing something that's a little bit out there.

I'm working on cutting back on my cynicism. That said, self-deprecation is another thing entirely.

"Not much has been accomplished by cynical people." -Garrison Keillor

---
Keillor's actually talking about St. Paul, Minnesota, but I think it applies anywhere. You can see the whole clip on ABC news. It's worth a watch.

Hannah gets a new bike

I swear, I used no effort to find that picture -- it must have been fate.
---

Hannah is the lucky soon-to-be-recipient of a brand new bike. Through a strange confluence of interweb-related events, I found out Javelin Bikes is closing out all of their older aluminum models. These are fully built bikes with all components included, for less than what the frame alone normally costs. Again, through sheer luck, Hannah is going to wind up with a better bike than mine, for about half the price.

As I'm sure you'll agree, we figured buying a new bike was a more fiscally-responsible thing to do than renting a bike in Lake Placid for $60 for the one day we're going to go riding. Plus, I can snag her bar-end shifters when we swap out her bullhorn bars for regular road drop bars (I know, I know, bike terminology gobbledygook for the majority of you). So that saves us another $100 since I won't have to buy new shifters for my own bike (the housing on my shifters is cracking). This bike is paying for itself already! Lest you think this is completely at odds with my last post, we've been looking for a new bike for Hannah for a while now. The fact that we try to keep things simple in our lives allows us to buy bikes or new washing machines (only marginally less cool than a new bike) without undo worry.

There's one other super-special bonus that comes from buying this bike: since Hannah will now have two bikes (and I already have two bikes), that means I'm next on the bike buying rotation. My nefarious master plan is all coming together.

Simple isn't easy

I'm a fan of following a basic week when it comes to my training. If I keep the simple training schedule as non-optional, then it gets done.

It also works for all the other (more important) priorities in my life: Hannah, my job, finances, etc. I've been most successful in my life when I've said, "I am doing this" and let other things fall in place where they can. If something doesn't fall in place, then it's probably not that important.

The catch is, keeping things this simple isn't so easy. There's a lot of outside pressure to adjust to the contemporary standard. An overly superficial example is cable TV. I don't have any issue with cable (or satellite) TV itself, but for me, it's a huge time waster. I won't be able to accomplish what I want to get done if I'm sitting in front of the TV.

So, now I don't have cable (although, at the time when we first broke away from it, I vaguely remember throwing a fit: "How can we NOT have cable?"). Taking it out of the equation made my decision easier. Of course, I do like Man vs. Wild and the other shows on Discovery, so there's always that desire in the back of my mind. That gets addressed every other week for a day or so since we have cable in Texas (it comes with the Interweb). Hannah's the one that has to fight with the daily lure of Dirty Jobs.

A few years back, when I got my first apartment (and cable), I remember talking to my brother (who did not have cable) about some great show on MTV. I couldn't fathom that he wasn't able to watch it and in fact, didn't care about watching it. Now, I can't remember the last time I cared about MTV (it's probably around the time I left that apartment). Incidentally, JNM now has cable, but last I checked, he didn't have time to watch it anyway. So that's one way to not waste hours in front of the TV -- be out of your house all the time.

---
That title came from Father Peter Pearson's homily at St. Philip's in New Hope this past weekend. I wasn't clever enough to come up with it on my own, so I borrowed liberally.

Alternate life

Last night at dinner with my folks and one of my brothers, my mom asked what we would do if we didn't have to work for a living. My immediate answer was I wouldn't work.

When she clarified that to ask what if we were independently wealthy, I still stuck to the same answer: I'd do basically everything I do now, except I wouldn't have the career part. We'd be in the Adirondacks tomorrow.

I believe she asked the question under the general assumption that people aren't happy with their full-time jobs. I know at least one of my brothers falls into that category. But, the truth is, I genuinely enjoy my job. I like business. I like Ayn Rand. Will I want to be working in a big corporation five to 10 years from now? I don't know, but right now I do.

What we didn't talk about, but I thought about after, was, if I could/had to start over on a different career path, what would I do? There's always kinesiology, but truthfully, I'm not that into the science of sport. I enjoy knowing what I know and seeking out more information, but I tune out when it comes to the intricacies of VO2 and blood lactate.

Odds are I'd be an industrial engineer. I'm a process guy; that's where my strengths are. What's nice is, I can still do that kind of work in the future. So again, I'm doing what I want to be doing.

This is all interesting to me, because, despite going to school with a whole mess of engineers, it wasn't until entirely too recently (years after I left college) that I learned that industrial engineers aren't the guys that build these:


That's odd, because it's not like I thought civil engineers were guys that wrote books like this: