Deer culling in the Metroparks...

Monday, February 6, 2012
It was my regularly scheduled Survival Workout day, but again the warmth and sunshine tugged at my mind as I drove home.  How many more days like this could we realistically get before winter returned?  I figured a few, but no one can predict Northeast Ohio weather…so I headed for my bike and another long ride.

Riding towards Gates Mills means going through the North Chagrin Reservation, but when I arrived at the park entrance, I found it blocked by a Ranger and the flashing lights on his car.  I knew it was time for deer culling and so a Survival Workout would have been out of the question.

The culling program has been in place in the parks for a number of years and this year the Metropark has permits to take 588 deer.  The deer are shot in open meadows, along the road, and other open areas so they can be taken safely and humanely and for easy and quick access to the field dressing teams. These teams are made up of Park employees and move in quickly for efficient processing of the meat, which is donated to the Cleveland Foodbank and other local hunger centers. To date, over 60,000 pounds of meat has been provided as a result of this coordinated effort.

I know this continues to be a controversial issue in communities around Northeast Ohio, but without natural predators, the only thing working to keep the deer population in check is starvation and our automobiles…both poor solutions to my way of thinking.  I’ve come upon the carcasses of deer that have starved during difficult winters, so I support the culling program…even if it means I miss a day or two a year using my park.

I did my loop through Waite Hill but had to adapt since I couldn’t ride through the park towards the end as I would normally.  I did stop to speak to a Ranger in a car blocking my normal entrance and she assured me that I could use the park tomorrow and apologized for the inconvenience.  I finished the two-plus hour ride much more comfortably than I had the previous day, even though I was riding without tights, ear protection, or my booties.  Though the pain in my neck and shoulders again made the final 30 minutes of the ride seem like three hours, I had none of the cramping in my quads that I would normally get from riding two long days in a row…another testament to the conditioning I’d received from the time on the trainer.

Later that evening, I made myself a large smoothie using fresh blueberries and pineapple to go with a dinner of scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions and fresh spinach mixed in.  Very Paleo.

Bike Duration:  2 hour 10 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1800.

Sometimes you just gotta be a little lucky...

Sunday, February 05, 2012
When two teams are pretty evenly matched, sometimes it’s important to be lucky.  I told Jack before the Super Bowl that the Giants were going to win because they were good…and lucky…which made them a team of destiny.  It helped them win the Super Bowl against the undefeated Patriots in 2007 and I believed it would come through for them again.  It did.  The Patriots started the game by giving away two points on the first play and when opportunity knocked…two Giant fumbles…both times the ball bounced their way and they recovered both fumbles.  That’s just plan lucky…and a game breaker. 

We’d eaten a heavy, gravy and fat laden dinner around 1 p.m. and that left me with a lead feeling in my gut and time to ride long on a cool, but sunny February afternoon.  I put on the proper amount of layers and headed out for my Gates Mills course with a plan to add a little extra and make it a two-hour ride.

This is simply the winter from bike rider’s heaven…when you consider we live in the snow belt of Northeast Ohio.  Last year we approached…or broke…the snowfall record and this year…well…I should shut up about it.  The first hour of the ride was solid and pain-free, but the cold began creeping through the booties, two pairs of socks and riding shoes as I approached 90 minutes.  I put the finishing touches on my toes and fingers as I approached 50 mph on my descent of Fairmount Blvd. on the ride home.  I’ve also been spending considerable time at my computer lately, editing pictures of slides I’m converting to a digital format, and my shoulders and neck were extremely tight over the final twenty minutes of the ride.  Once home though, it was all worth it.  I’d managed more than two hours in the saddle and ridden hard and fast.  I have a one-hour pr on the Pekin Road course I’d taken, and matched it on this ride…something I wouldn’t normally be able to do in the middle of the winter…and without really trying.  This is another confirmation of the conditioning I’ve received from all the time on the trainer…thank you very much.

Tomorrow is a Survival Workout day, but if the forecast is right and it stays warmer and sunny, I’m thinking I’ll take advantage of the opportunity and hit the road again.

Bike Duration:  2 hour 10 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1800.

A push-up century...

Saturday, February 4, 2012
One hundred can be such a big number.  I can still remember riding my first century.  I was an 18 year old senior and thinking about riding my bike to Florida after graduation.  A fellow classmate was scheduled to join me, so on a hot day in May, we took a trip to Pennsylvania traveling along Route 6 east, turning at the border and making our way back.  We made it that day and I did another ten on the ensuing bike hike to New York and a visit to my Grandparents…the course I chose instead of a ride to Florida.

Another memorable 100 for me was done as part of the Iron Man Triathlon.  It was the first time I would ride one after swimming 2.4 miles and with a marathon still to run.  It pretty much sucked. 

Then there was the 100^th birthday party for my grandmother.  She was the first centurion I’d ever known personally…and now she’s 106 and going strong.

And as many of you know, I’ve been in pursuit of my push-up century.  I spent the summer doing the Survival Workout and pushed my numbers into the sixties, but I really started thinking that 100 was just out of my range.  Then I hit 80 in November and took up the quest to reach it by the end of the year with vigor.  I never made it there…but popped 94 a couple of weeks ago.  I’ve been dragging lately with the nagging injury to my right arm and wasn’t expecting to make it anytime soon. 

I began the workout as I always do…with a set of push-ups, but with intensity.  I find that when I attack them early and go as fast as I can for as long as I can, I get further.  My goal was the high 80’s.  I hit fifty with my temples starting to throb.  When I made it to eighty, I started thinking I had a chance and at ninety with my arms faltering, knew it would be close.  As I moved down after 99 and slowly pushed my way up, I wasn’t sure if I’d make it back up…my arms were wobbling that much and the vessels on the sides of my head felt near bursting.  I locked out briefly at the top…and collapsed to the frost-covered dirt.  I laid there for a moment…nose and mouth to the cold earth and mumbled “yeah” to myself…which go my tongue dirty.  I climbed to my feet and looked for someone to tell…but who would care?  ‘Kim’ I thought, and reached into my car and texted ‘100!’ to her.  I thought about quitting right there…heading home and having a smoothie and relishing in my triumph…or maybe go for a long bike ride.  Instead, I did 50 dips and headed down the trail for the remainder of the workout.

When I got home, I went to tell Holly.  She was working on her computer and was a little distracted.  “Made it.  Did 100 push-ups today,” I said proudly.

“That’s nice John, but eagle’s are still just birds.”

Survival Workout: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150.
Calories burned:  600.

A gentle hike...

Friday, February 03, 2012
I had exercise options.  It was a beautiful evening; perfect for biking or running and I was due for a Survival Workout, too.  Then I remembered Heidi was home and that maybe I would do better to take it easy, go for a hike if she was willing to join me and let my aching back take a day off.  She agreed to go along as did Dakota, so I grabbed my camera and headed for the park.

We made our way to the marsh by hiking off-trail and when we reached the ridge overlooking the marsh, I noticed a Great Blue Herron wading near the beaver lodge…a perfect picture.  As I raised the camera to my eye while turning it on, I noticed that it felt a little light.  It was…I’d left the battery in the case back in the car.  I’d have to take in the beauty of the sunset over the marsh in my mind’s eye.

I was wearing my heavy boots and broke a sweat as we hiked back out of the marsh towards the car.  Two Barred Owls were calling each other ‘who cooks for you…who cooks for you all’ and when Heidi answered their call, she drew one of them in.  We never spotted either of them, but enjoyed hearing them call.  We made our way back to the car having done an hour of hiking, stimulating the heart rate and not really taxing any of the pains I’ve been nursing.

Hike Duration:  65 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 80 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 300.

Dealing with some back pain...

Thursday, February 02, 2012
With my back hurting and my legs feeling heavy, I started my run.  I suppose I was happy I was even there.  I’d been strongly considering just blowing it off…I was that tired.  I suppose the doubles and long rides of the last few days were taking their toll and the injuries were nagging and piling on each other.  So…I took it slow.

The trails were again snow and ice free and the mud was manageable.  I ran past one open field and was treated to the largest herd of deer I’ve ever seen…seventeen.  I understand the culling is scheduled for this month, so I suppose that herd will be thinned.

I made my way along the trail towards Squires Castle where I headed up the hill behind the castle.  It’s steep and slippery and it was there that I discovered just how tired I was…and only half way through the run.  But I had my heavy breathing to keep me company and the occasional calls of Barred Owls.  After 30 minutes of running, I started to struggle to remain upright.  The soreness in my lower back was manifesting itself every time my right foot struck the hard-packed trail.  The final 15 minutes back to the car became a death march, yet even as I approached the car my brain was calculating how far past it I would have to run before turning around so I could push my total minutes to 50 instead of 45…it’s a sickness.

I finished with 46 minutes, a good sweat, and some not so good pain.  I know I can work my way through it without making it worse…I kind of know my body after so many years of these kinds of aches…but a week off with a daily massage would really be nice.

Run Duration:  46 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 750.

'The Senator' burns in Florida

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
I received a text from ‘The Postman’, an old high school buddy in Florida who reads the blog religiously and continues to work out like he’s in his teens.  He wrote that he’d lost an old friend…which turned out to be a tree he often used as a turn-around point on one of his running courses.  He’d mentioned it was big and old and that it had a name…The Senator…and it was at this point that I thought maybe he was losing it.

Then I did a little research…google is amazing…and found that in fact it was a big and very old tree and it did have a name ‘The Senator’ just as he’d texted.  The Senator is located in Big Tree Park in Longwood, Fla. and is a Bald Cypress that towered 165 feet into the heavens until a hurricane took off the top in 1925 and left it at 118 feet…which was its height before a lightning strike ignited and burned it to the ground.  Estimates place its age at 1,500 years old when Christ was born…which made it around 3,500 years old when it caught fire.  I have stood before the giant Sequoia’s in Yosemite and marveled at these most amazing living organisms…oldest and largest on the planet…and so I can imagine Randy’s thrill at being able to run around something like it every day…and the loss he and others must feel now that it is a 20-foot smoldering remain of its former regal grandeur.  Sorry to lose such a precious part of Planet Earth because when they’re gone, there’s no way to get them back.  

I had my first bout of knee pain while sleeping last night.  Apparently, my torn meniscus did not appreciate the additional moves I put it through on my last Survival Workout.  I went ahead with a more traditional Survival Workout…doing the lifts but skipping the sprints, skips, and mine and Kim’s personal favorite…picnic table hops.

I made it home with time to hop on the bike for another outdoor ride.  This time it was a little cooler…probably low 40’s…but I failed to make the adjustment in apparel and was quite cold by the end of the ride.  Still…I’m thrilled at being able to ride outside in the dead of winter.  Who needs Florida?

Survival Workout: 60 minutes.  Bike duration: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150 for SW and 120 for the bike.
Calories burned:  600 for SW, 1250 for the bike.

May in January...works for me

Tuesday, January 31, 2012
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

I remember hearing this…is it a stanza?…from ‘Twas the Night before Christmas’ when I was a wee tot and thinking... they’re going to sleep all winter?  Well…I think that’s what I did last night.  When I awoke to the clatter of tiny hooves and went out to get the newspaper, I was extremely surprised to find the temperature over 50 and climbing.  At this rate, the snow would all melt, the roads would dry…and I’d be riding my bike in a t-shirt and shorts in January!

And so it was.  The temperature was closer to 60 than 50 when I did get on my bike.  The only difference in apparel between this and a July ride in the 90’s was a pair of socks and a t-shirt under my cycling shirt.  My plan was to hit the Waite Hill/Mulberry route which would normally take almost two hours and bring me back in semi-darkness…but what the hell.  My low back has been bothering me since Saturday and I didn’t want to run anyway, so this was perfect.  I’d get to burn major calories on the last day of the month taking my ‘calories burned while exercising’ over 33,000 for the month…my third best ever and a strong accomplishment for a winter month. 

I worked hard over the first hour of the ride and was a little concerned that my lack of outdoor riding would be a deterrent over the second half of the course, but the hours of riding and watching ‘Everest’ paid off.  Though I faced a strong, steady wind blowing around 20 mph over much of the return ride, I was able to come within a couple of minutes of my fastest time on the course without really trying.  Apparently, I’m maintaining my biking conditioning.

R.I.P. Mosie…you made your girls very happy.

Bike Duration:  1 hour 52 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1550.