I went on a crazy hot ride on some pretty roads.
Here’s the thing not on the GPS track -Fresh Cantaloupe, Mozzarella, Ham and Sea Salt sandwich at the halfway point- that is living.
It got beautifully melty in the 97 degree heat against my back. Oh it was a transcendent sandwich. I implore you all: Eat real food when riding the bike, bars are goo and gunk and pellets and gels are convenient, but they don’t taste like real food.
Eat real food and drink water, the end.
Hump day! (Actually I try to avoid the speed bumps on my route in)
OK to catch you up
Day 1
Day 2
I started this post yesterday but got sidetracked on gear. (Raise your hand if you are surprised that gear sidetracked me) The process is the part that took the most refining for me. When I first started riding in to work I went through all of these gyrations to drive in the things I thought I needed each day. I’ve progressively reduced the amount of stuff I schlep and managed to make the process much easier and reduce the number of excuses I have to drive the car.
Ok so my process
Part 1: At the house.
I typically leave my messenger bag by the door with my helmet still attached and my cycling shoes nearby. While still in the house I take off the shoes I’m going to wear for the day and I place all of my ‘pocket stuff’ (except keys) in one of the shoes. This includes my phone, wallet, id badge, pocketknife, lip balm, usb drive. I then make sure everything I need for the day is in the bag. My shoes go in the very top so they don’t get ground schmutz on anything. I nestle the shoes together and cinch up the bag.
Next I sit down and snag my cycling shoes. Inside are my two Velcro ankle bands. I tighten the pants around my left leg and put both bands on my left ankle and calf. I then roll up my right pants leg up to my knee. I could likely use one of the ankle bands on my right side, but I don’t trust them to keep my pants out of the chain. The risk is just too great- plus I usually don’t wear REALLY nice pants that couldn’t handle the roll.
Once my pants are secure I put on the cycling shoes. I do one final check then I put on the messenger bag.
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Part 2: On the porch.
I grab my bike and walkout the door onto the front porch. I lean my bike up against a column and do one last check to make sure I have everything I need. Then I lock up the house. Next I place my keys in one of the zipper pockets of my bag. (This is actually important, once I rode with my keys poking me in leg all the way to work only to have the keys drop out of my pocket into the road during a standing climb.)
Next I unclip the helmet from its clip put it on and roll down the sidewalk and into the street.
Part 3: The Ride
Ride the bike the roughly 2 miles or 8 minutes to work.
(I’ll try and detail another day)
Part 4: On the loading dock
When I get to work I try to take care of most of the transition from bike to presentable employee outside. I walk the bike up the ramp and lean it against some pylons. I usually sit down at a little bench outside for the rest of the process. It’s basically the preparation process in reverse. I takeoff the helmet, clip it to my bag, sit my bag on the ground, pull out my shoes, load up my pockets with the content of the shoes, take off my cycling shoes, put the straps in the cycling shoes, roll down my pants leg, put on street shoes, put my cycling shoes in the bag, seal up the bag and I’m done.
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Part 5: Parking
Now comes the delicate part of the commute.
I have to pass through three keycard doors pretty quickly with bike in tow to get to my parking spot. The goal is to not break any of the glass doors with an errant pedal strike nor break the bike in heavy door. Added difficulty, don’t get any chain grease on coworkers or me. I tend to drive the bike by the seat with a lean hear or there to make turns on my way to the server room/parking area. It’s actually a pretty good parking area. It is out of the way and not many folks have access to it. An added bonus is that it is normally super cool in there so in the summer it gives me a quick chill out of the Alabama heat.
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Once I’m parked I head on upstairs to my office like a normal person. (Except I have a helmet on my bag.)
More tommorow.
So someone decided that this week ( May 16-20) is ‘Bike to Work Week.’
I bike commute a fiar bit, but usually about 4 days a week. My goal is to ride in each day and document the process.
I am pretty lucky as far as bike commuters go, I have a short, relatively flat ride in on pretty low key downtown roads. I now have a gig where I don’t have to make a lot of trips during the day and I have a secure place to lock my bike.
I realize that I am pretty lucky to have those conveinces, but I think many folks overestimate the difficulty of pulling it off. I’m going to try and document how I commute by bike and how you can do it too!
Now for the pictures
If I had to guess when I actually started running I would be hard pressed to come up with a particular calendar day. I mined my Flickr stream and my blog and came up with 
this photo that was taken in June 2007. I’m pretty sure based on those and all that this was pretty early on in my figuring out running, but I can also tell that I ran at least a practice 10K in mid July
I don’t know when I came to see myself as a
” runner as opposed to someone out exercising, but I definitely crossed that threshold in my mind. The one lingering thing though has been a regular, if not frequent occurrence. It’s inevitable, you’ll be speaking with an acquaintance and it comes up that you are about to go, have recently gone or are running- they will ask, oh so my Aunt Louise did Such and such a Marathon last month, and then the question… “ Have you run a Marathon?” And then I have to answer no. I don’t get to tell them that – I ran a 45 minute 10K or a sub 20 5K. – Or whatever.
Well, next time this conversation comes up I can say that, yes in fact, just like your Aunt Louise I ran the Mercedes Marathon on February 13, 2011. It wasn’t fast and it wasn’t glamorous. I didn’t win my age group. All that aside I know that if push comes to shove I can and have run 26.2 miles. I know for a lot of folks running a marathon isn’t a big deal, they’ve done dozens, or they’ve done ultra marathons. For me though, this was a big fat stamp in my runner’s passport- a stamp that says I am a runner, – that I am just a little bit tougher, a little bit faster a little bit stronger than I was on Saturday.
It was a hard race, but the weather was beautiful. C came down and cheered me on and gave me snacks, for which I am ever grateful. It took me 4 hours and 19 minutes but I finished. My legs hurt then and they still hurt now, but I have another Mercedes Benz medal, this one is just bigger, heavier and has those words- “Marathon Finisher” engraved on the back.
48 581 425 Eric Wright 26 52 57:37 9:18 53 1:26:33 9:19 53 2:22:28 9:12 50 2:53:20 9:20 4:19:48 9:55 Gadsden AL
Ok- now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Here are some photos from the Mercedes Marathon I ran with Dave in February
As I was sitting updating the football scoreboard- Dave came into my office and around 10 p.m. we decided to run a 10K race in Jacksonville Saturday morning.
Dave had been hitting the right miles to do a 10K. I on the other hand had not. I’ve been focused on trying to get in shape for Cyclocross.
Despite my reservations we ran on a supringsly warm Novemebr morning. The course was mainly an out-and-back on the Chief Ladiga Trail, with a short spur creating the start and finish.
I went out hard and kept pushing the pace. Around mile five I started losing speed, but managed to only lose a few places. Consequently I was able to pull together a 10K PR.
Last year I ran the 6.2 miles in 49:59.78.
This year- my unofficial time was 47:18.
Plus I received yet another unmarked medal for third place in my 10 year age group.
I really hope I didn’t blow up my legs for cyclocross.
I know it’s time for my Moxie appointment when my sideburns start to curl and it feels like i have a wet furby on my head after I run.
Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon:
Despite only having done two races so far this year I couldn’t pass up the allure of an Oly distance tri an hour and a half from my house. I knew my run wasn’t where I needed it to be but I gave it a go anyways.
Despite it being 1.5 hours away I had to leave at 3AM because Tennessee thinks it should be in the Eastern Time Zone. I pried myself from bed, cranked on the Radiohead in the car and battled through.
I arrived in plenty of time but had to do some fancy re-routing at the last minute because of how the course blocked traffic and then I had to dodge more idiots riding their bike in the dark without helmets riding against traffic to get to the race.
I signed in and was a bit taken aback that my number was 130 out of over a thousand folks.
I got my transition all set up, no surprises other than it being wicked dark. I was able to do all of my “business” because there were plenty of restrooms. Then I hopped on the bus to ride up to the swim start. We were all coralled on a practice field and I was a little nervous becuase I had to start so early and I couldn’t see the water. Eventually we all got started and they lined u up and slowly shuffled us onto the dock.
We hopped into the water and slowly made our way to the end of the dock, then we were told to go and off we went.
The swim wasn’t miserable for me, but it was hard. I am always afraid to push too hard on the swim because I don’t want to cramp up or get too tired, but then i end up too slow. There were a couple of moments where I was able to follow feet, but then I drifted off to the side and lost them. I decided to wear my Garmin during the race swim and all, and while my heart hate didn’t register during the swim it did confirm what I felt, I zig zagged all over creation. I must have gone well over a mile with my corrections and subsequent overcorrections.
After passing all of the bridges and swimming past the big steps on the river i made it to the exit and there were folks grabbing your arms to help you out of the water, it was big help to start getting up the submerged stairs.
My T1 wasn’t too bad, and I made my shoeless mount pretty easily. We had some quick hills on the course and that put a hurt on my legs. Eventually though I got into the groove and started making time on the course. We merged onto a highway which was a little odd, but it didn’t seem nearly as dangerous as I expected. for most of the race I was stuck in the same ballpark as about 5 other folks. None of us drafted, but we spent a lot of time making passes and getting passed. The course was rather hilly so I was able to drop them on the climbs, but once we got to the downhills they would zipp by me on their fancy tri-bikes with full aerobars, disc wheels and aero helmets. C’est la vie.
I made a really good turnaround and got back up to speed quickly (again thanks to the road bike as opposed to the heavy tri bikes) II was able to drop a couple of folks for good. I did get passed on the course several times, but I think it mainly had to do with starting so near the front. I had one bottle of carborocket on the bike and one gel. I felt ok stomach wise but because of the length of the race I wanted to get food in me early.
I made my now comfortable flying dismount and had a nice quick t2. Then things got bad… cue ominous organ music.
I started running and got that typical heavy leg feeling. I managed to make it through that and pick up my pace only to be slammed with cramps, side stitch at first then whammo stomach cramps. I had to walk for good chunks of the course and stop and stretch. The course was a nice out and back with plenty of water stops. I also had to take a quick leak, but i couldn’t shake the cramps. I ended up picking up the pace on my last mile. I even passed about a dozen folks there including a little sprint with a guy in my age group.
When I finished I found I had a ton of bloody blisters on feet, i guess the cramps were so bad I didn’t notice all of the blood.
Not a bad race overall but it hurt. I realized I have been focusing on shorter workouts and just need to add some length.
Times put me the bottom half of my age group by a skosh. I am not happy about that but. I am done and on to another race!
57 out of 93 in AG
Eric Wright 30:04 2:01 1:17:19 1:45 59:11 2:50:19
Decent food afterwards but I couldn’t eat… I was only blocks away from the Mellow Mushroom too, so sad!
It took me awhile to get written but here goes.
The Buster Britton Triathlon. What a mess.
Firstly it is a Team Magic event- an event put on by a professional race directing company.
I met Scot and Athena at their house in Southside and rode down to Birmingham with them. Scot was racing, Athena will bothering a nagging hip injury.
The race was a sprint distance tri- 400 yd swim / 13 mi bike / 3 mi run
Nothing too taxing but one of those races you had to push the pace the whole way- you can recover when you are dead/finished.
Really even eating wasn’t terribly necessary since finish times were so close to an hour.
Scot and I had been mentioning the weather to each other through the week, spotty storms but a whole lot more “not storm” than storm.
As we rode down the interstate we played the typical game or, “hey it looks like are going to the race too/ wow they have more money to spend on a bike than I would know what to do with.”
We got to the race in plenty of time- paid our three dollars (each!) to enter Oak Mountain state park. The course information suggested that the bike lanes would be cleared and swept before the race but it was not done. I was not planning on riding by racing clinchers on my race wheels while in aerobars putting out serious watts dodging that trash.
We pulled up to the parking area and went and signed in and got our packets, and went to find the bathrooms. The pre-race coffee was taking the short route south. I was surprised to find no port-a-potty clusters but just one set of locker rooms.
We set up our transitions and ran into a few Friends from the Anniston Runners Club.
We went down to the swim beach would looked great and did a warm up swim. The water felt nice, warm and fast.
As we go out of the swim for the meeting i ran to the showerhouse again to do what i needed to do and found a line 30 deep out the door.
I poked around and found a go ed bathroom- multi stalled- being used by a pile of girls. I had to man up and use it… awkward.
I stood with Athena on the pavilion waiting for Scot to finish his warm up and we noticed the scary storm clouds moving in fast- Scot soon found us. We began to see lightning arcing among the clouds. The clouds opened up and began to rain and we ran for the shelter of, well, shelter houses along the beach. I was sure they would post pone the race but as soon as the rain stopped the race announcer lined us up and assured us that it was lot lightning that we were seeing, merely camera flashes.
liar liar pants on fire.
Before the start one of the buoys floated away and they changed the course. I think it shortened up the course, but I won’t complain about that. (I’m too busy complaining about everything else)
The swim was pretty uneventful. I passed a few people, was passed by a few. i was kicked in the face, I kicked some people, I drank quite a bit of lake water. The swim did get a bit hairy as I rounded the last buoy, I’ll be the first one to tell you, in fact I already did a few sentences ago, I drink a lot of water during the open water swim. I don’t like it but it happens. The source of the water is usually the body in which I am swimming. As I rounded the last buoy the sky opened up and i began to take on water… from the sky. That was no fun. I finished the swim though and didn’t stub my toe on the concrete ledge. One leg done.
I ran through transition passing walkers.. what the frak? I made it to transition grabbed my trusty velocipede. I tried the flying mount after discussing technique and borrowing some rubber bands from Scot. As I got towards the mount line I saw bad news standing a few feet past the line. About a half dozen triathletes were trying to mount their bikes on the uphill out of transition. You may be thinking… “Eric, but you love uphills, you do well on the hills, how can you complain about the hills?” To this I must explain the magic of the flying bike mount. You see your shoes are already clipped in to the pedals and attached in an elastic and easily breakable method- read rubber bands so that they don’t drag on anything. You run along the bike and leap on board landing on the pedals rolling and then you begin pedaling breaking the bands, sliding your feet into your shoes and off you go. This works well on a flat bike course start- it works even better on a slight downhill. It gives you more rolling momentum and therefore more time to get your feet on the pedals and all. Well the uphill start has a reverse effect. You stall out very quickly meaning you need to put power to pedals PDQ.
It wasn’t super steep but the other folks struggling and stalled on the rise blocked my path. I was able to execute a decent mount at slow speed and avoid everyone else, I just wasn’t able to get the cleanest line and the fastest start.
Well as I noted before it rained before and during the race. This race was billed as a good one for beginners. There were a ton of people there and I saw a lot of Bs on legs beside ages, which denote a beginner racer. I was rather nervous riding around a bunch of beginner triathletes with aerobars on a hilly course on wet narrow roads. Triathletes are not known amongst cyclists as good bike handlers and the other factors accentuate that fact. To top it all off– the course was not closed to traffic.
The course profile was pretty hilly but a few short climbs. I saw quite a bit of drafting, but I managed to get past those bunches on the hills. I looked at the results and saw that several folks got busted.
I made it back to T2 without ever seeing Scot, and as I racked my bike I realized it had rained even more. IT took me a few extra seconds to toss on my water logged runners and hit the course.
As per usual I felt like a robot Frankenstein zombie trying to run. I was very stuff and very slow. It took me a mile or so into the course to really run and by that time it was almost too late. The course was wet and plenty of fallen leaves coated the ground making secure foot placement a little tricky. Oh I did I mention that the first half was ll up-hill- ugh it was a course custom built for slowness for me.
When I crossed the finish line I went to look for Athena. Since I never saw Scot on the course I assumed the interval in our start times had just put him significantly behind me. When I found Athena she was rather shaken. She hadn’t seen Scot come in for the bike. I was rather worried as well since he should have at least finished the bike by then. I walked up to the side of transition and looked for his bike- I couldn’t find it but finding it would have been like a needle in a haystack. We kept waiting, I checked the medical tents as I was fearing some sort of crash. I eventually made my may to their car and to my suprisee found Scot’s bike loaded on the car and his helmet and glasses sitting on the bumper.
I eventually found Scot and we changed clothes as it started to pour. He told us of having two flats in a row. We had to walk most of the way back to the start before a private car picked him up. There were no SAG vehicles!
It rained unmercifully as we gathered our gear out of transition and packed up the car.
. We went and got a bit of food in the food tent. The food was a disappointment as well. Small proportions and little to drink. We quickly drove on home in even more rain.
I survived and had a decent race, but the organizers were utterly irresponsible and I wonder where all of the money i paid for the race went. This was a poorly put on race. It was billed as an excellent beginner’s race, however the only part that was good for beginners was the distance. Overall I give it a solid thumbs down- but as they say- that which does not kill you only makes you stronger.
16/46 In the 25- 29 Age Group
229 Eric Wright Swim: 6:30 T1: 2:20 Bike: 40:20 T2: 1:17 Run: 26:12 Total: 1:16:36
