A short run and a little pain...

Tuesday, June 4, 2013
I had a meeting after work to discuss OhioActive and Tour Ohio.  I told my partners about the excitement of having the Cleveland Metroparks supporting my trip and went over issues I was encountering laying out the cycling course.  We decided that the trip should be a big part of the kickoff of the magazine, utilizing the notoriety Tour Ohio should create and how that can bring meaningful attention to OhioActive and its mission.

I left the meeting and drove to the Metroparks to try and squeeze in a short run.  I was thinking that I could handle 30 minutes since my calf has been feeling strong and I went 20 minutes with bleacher work on my previous effort.  I started slowly, but picked up the pace after five minutes and felt great…until I didn’t.  As is usually the case, I could feel a tightness developing in my calf and a warning to stop.  I’m about 50/50 for paying attention to the warning, which means about half the time I do the right thing and the other half, the stupid thing.  I did the right thing and began to walk.  I could hear rugby play in the distance and knew it would be Jason’s team practicing.  It took about eight minutes to walk there and I spent the next 20 watching the team drill and talking to some of the players.  I re-entered the woods and headed for the car with my leg feeling normal again and so, quite naturally, began to run.  I climbed my karaoke hill at a slow jog pace and made it back to the car…a little over 8 minutes of running…without pain.

There is no sense to what goes on with my calf.  It has been giving me trouble off and on for 12 years.  I don’t know what started it, but do know that too much running triggers it.  I thought it had gone away completely with all the running I was able to do over the last couple of years, but when I took a break from running regularly and then tried to return to quickly, it was back.  My doctor has no clue.  Honestly though, it’s now just a supplement.  I enjoy riding more than ever and with the kayaking, backpacking and Survival Workout, I can survive without it.  It remains a nice filler though because I can do it anywhere and burn so many calories in such a short time.  I’ll keep trying to have it in my fitness routine.

Run duration:  20 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  140 bpm.
Calories burned:  350.

Keeping training partners healthy...

Monday, June 3, 2013

John was coming over for a ride but I had some extra time and hadn’t done my Survival Workout since Friday, so I headed for the park to complete the first leg of a double.  I hit it hard, doing 23 stations and feeling like I was ready for some bounding and sprinting, but decided to leave something in the tank for the ride.  Though I’ve not ridden with John since last summer when he had the accident and I know he’s not in the best cycling shape, he is riding ‘The Rocket’ again and that bike does 20 mph all by itself.

“I can maybe go an hour before my back starts bothering me,” he said when he arrived.

He’s been struggling with back and neck issues for the past few years and the crash did nothing to improve either.  “I can’t go to the state meet on Friday because I have to get an injection in my back that day, too,” he said.

We headed out with me in the lead and setting a decent, but not punishing pace.  Whenever we came to slight inclines, he seemed to struggle and dropped off considerably on the climbs.  We rode for a little over an hour and were approaching Kim’s place when I noticed he’d dropped way off.  When we stopped, he said his back had reached its limit and was affecting his right leg and the ability to put any pressure on the pedal stroke. 

“If you were a horse, we’d have shot you years ago,” I said.

We let Kim know she should come over in an hour to watch ‘Dances with Wolves’ with us and was welcome to join in the spaghetti dinner, too.  The last couple of miles home were slower.

With all my aches and injuries, I consider myself a lucky man when I start comparing issues with John.  Through it all, he perseveres because he loves to ride, camp and be in shape.  I don’t know if I could have done so well and admire him for it.  He’s been my training partner for years and I’ll continue to do my part to egg him into shape.  A good training partner…and friend…are hard to find.  You hang onto them when you do.

Survival Workout:  60 minutes.  Bike duration:  90 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  100-150 bpm for SW and 120 bpm on the bike.
Calories burned during workout:  600 for SW and 1250 on the bike.

Welcome back, poison ivy...

Sunday, June 2, 2013

I woke up early and realized I had some itchy blistering on my left hand.  Poison ivy was back!  I hoped that I hadn’t touched myself in a dozen different places as I had last summer when it had ravaged my body from head to toe.  I didn’t think so, but the next few days would answer that question.

Holly had been weeding for a couple of hours and kindly left them in piles throughout the yard for the ‘weed fairy’.

“It’s so cool.  I pull weeds and just drop them.  I come back later and they’re gone,” she said.

“That is cool.  I think Mimi has a ‘weed fairy’ too,” I said.

Her piles didn’t include poison ivy I was pretty sure.  My sister from Kentucky was arriving around noon and I was in charge of the waffles…made from scratch, of course…but I figured I had time to be the ‘weed fairy’ and get the lawn done with a cleansing dip in pool to boot.  I made it with moments to spare.

Waffles with whipped cream, butter, strawberry sauce, and real maple syrup and some bacon for good measure make an excellent training meal.  I downed mine and then prepared for a ride with Kim.  We went for almost two hours, though I can’t honestly say that I’d worked off the entire meal.  I did my final dip for the day with the cycling clothes on - which is easier than washing them - before dinner.  For me, that amounted to little more than a smoothie.  I needed to get something good in my system.

Bike duration:  Two hours and 45 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout:  850.

The Graduate...

Saturday, June 1, 2013

It was graduation day and we needed to be downtown by 1:15 p.m.  With all the roads closed for the filming of ‘Captain America, Winter Snowman’ or whatever it’s called, I didn’t know what to expect in delays and hoped to be on the road before 12:45…the time I’d told Holly we absolutely had to be in the car.  She takes those kinds of statements as suggestions and can generally be within ten minutes of the suggested time.  I was worried.

I went to Mimi’s to get some yard work done in the morning.  She had me in the woods pulling weeds from the stuff that wasn’t weeds, which I have some trouble differentiating.  I do know what poison ivy looks like though, and was trying to spot it.  Trouble is, I get moving so fast that I tend to notice it too late…like when I have a hold of it and am pulling it from the ground.  I could wear gloves and long sleeves, but that wouldn’t be the ‘cowboy’ way. 

Mimi had gone out to pick up some things and arrived back around 11.  She immediately began to scold me.

“You’ve got to get going.  You’ll be late for Jack’s graduation,” she said excitedly.

“Mimi…look…I could get home five minutes before I’m supposed to be in the car, get ready and be in it waiting for Holly for ten minutes before we actually pull out the drive.  I’ve got plenty of time,” I said.

Still, I could see she was nervous and didn’t want the guilt of thinking she’d made me late so I packed up my tools, took my latest weed/flower pile back into the woods, and made my way home.  I jumped in the neighbors pool to scrub off the dirt and any poison ivy oils I may have picked up, cleaned up the kitchen for the dinner we’d be having after graduation, took a shower, and still had time to clean up around the house before the girls and their mother joined me in the car for the trip downtown.

Jack had asked me earlier if I ever cried during graduations.

“Nope.  I don’t think of them as such big deals.  I knew all of you would graduate from high school and go on to college so I guess they just didn’t hit me that hard,” I said.

Then the Palace went quiet and the students began to march in as they played ‘Pomp and Circumstance’.  I had to choke back a sob as it hit me that my baby boy was conducting his last school act and that I would never again go to any public school to share in anything that they were doing or would do.  Teacher conferences, school activities, sports events and banquets, art shows, grandparents day, open houses, proms and homecomings – it was all over in a blink.  It was numbing to think that the ‘blink’ had actually been going on for 23 years.  I don’t know if all that went through my mind at that moment, but the emotions had to go somewhere and they sprung to my eyes.  Holly noticed and handed me a Kleenex, but I managed to keep it under control…somewhat.

We drove home immediately after and began dinner preparations.  I got sweaty washing dishes and again went to the neighbors for a quick dip.  In the end, there was no time for a workout, so I satisfied myself with the knowledge that at least I’d broken a sweat in Mimi’s yard earlier that morning.  And now I begin the rest of my life as a man with no children in school.  I suppose I feel a little older.  At least Jack will be staying home and going to college locally.  I don’t think I’m ready for the ‘empty nester’ stage just yet.

Yard Work: Three hours

Training Heart Rate:  75 normally.  130 when I see I’m in poison ivy.
Calories burned:  750.

Regional Track Championships...

Friday, May 31, 2013

Since 1986, I’ve gone to every State Track and Field Championship…with three exceptions.  Mayfield High School has its students walking for their graduation on the first Saturday of June, which is when the run the State Meet.  For each of my three children’s graduations, I thought it prudent to be at the graduation ceremony and skip the state meet.  On two of those occasions, athletes I had coached were running in the meet…and missing their own graduation ceremony.  This year, Jack would be walking and I would me missing a state meet for the fourth time.  And then lightning struck.

“I’m going to the regional meet next Friday,” I told Holly two weeks ago.

“That’s the night before Jack’s graduation…so wouldn’t that be the week of the state meet?” she asked.

And she was right.  The regional meet is always the week before the state meet because it is that meet that determines who will participate in the state meet.  I went to my computer so google the State Meet and figure out where I’d gone wrong.  I found out that I hadn’t.  The regional meet WAS the weekend of Jack’s graduation and the state meet was the following Saturday.  Apparently, when the first Saturday of the month was also the first day of the month, as it was this year, the state meet got pushed back a week.  I couldn’t believe my good fortune.  I would be able to see my son graduate AND see the state meet in the same year.

Anyways, it was Friday night and the regional track championships in Youngstown would have me and Kim as spectators.  I pushed myself hard through 23 stations of the Survival Workout while crushing two annoying deer fly against my skull.  I hurried home, dove in the pool for cleansing purposes, and dripped my way into the kitchen to prepare a smoothie for the drive…and as a dinner.

The regional meet is always the most exciting of the year, for participants, coaches and spectators.  Only the top four competitors in each event, the state is broken into four regions, advance to the state championships.  That means a qualifier is one of the 16 best in the state should they make it.  If you take fifth or less, you go home for the year…or maybe for your career.  It’s always been tension-packed for me when I’ve had an athlete here, but today I could sit back and enjoy the fierceness of the competition without have a brain aneurism since I wasn’t coaching anyone.  It was still gut-wrenching though to see a couple of races where someone made a charge in the home stretch and took a state meet qualifying spot away from another athlete who probably thought they had it made, but had nothing left in the tank to hold off a challenge that they never saw coming. 

We spent the evening talking track, future plans for life and everything in between.  I love the atmosphere and the camaraderie of the young athletes I’ve coached, like Kim.  She will be unable to attend next week’s camp out and state meet, though I will drag her sister Marie, John, and Savannah down for those festivities.  For me, there is no better sports entertainment.  Thanks again, calendar, for having June 1^st fall on a Saturday and allowing me to see a state meet in a year of one of my children’s graduations.  The stars aligned quite nicely.

Survival Workout:  60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  100-150 bpm.
Calories burned:  600.

Riding with Kim...

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Kim Lorentz was back in town after receiving her Master’s Degree.  She’d been down in Florida for the last two years, but school was behind her now.  She was only home for a week and then would be traveling to San Francisco where she would meet up with her boyfriend and continue her job search in the Bay area.  She has been running and is talking about ultra marathons – runs of fifty or more miles and something I cannot relate to – but I was riding and invited her along.

“I’m in very bad riding shape.  Florida is horrible for riding,” she said as we headed out.  She was riding a road bike, of sorts.  It was much heavier than UB Express and did not feature 700cc tires.  Her rolling speed was probably 85% of mine…a decided disadvantage, but the edge I needed to balance the fact that I was giving up 34 years in age and that only one of us had an All-American cardiovascular system.  She hung on my wheel as we pushed through the wind towards Waite Hill…a very wise thing to do when riding with someone the blocks as much wind as I do.  She stayed on my wheel except when we climbed or descended and pushed herself hard in between.  She rides with a look of grim death when she needs to work hard; a gritty determination that made her such a successful runner.  If she says she’s going to try ultramarathoning, then that means she’ll be at the front of the pack in short order.

We rode for close to two hours and with a couple of more rides, I’ll be sucking her wheel instead of the other way around.  I returned home, grabbed a towel and took my first post-workout swim of the season in my neighbor’s pool.  The water temperature was ‘shrinkage cold’, a term he used until it hit about 80 degrees.  I left my salt-stained slick on the water and exited shivering.  Ah…the joys of summer.

Bike duration:  One hour and 40 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout:  1400.

Kids doing triathlons...

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

I was driving home watching the time.  We were supposed to go to Akron to have dinner with Heidi and her boyfriend, which left me with about 45 minutes for a short workout and a shower.  As I pulled in the garage, my cell phone vibrated.  I looked at the caller ID to see it was Megan Thomas, a runner I had coached almost 25 years earlier when she ran for Chagrin Falls High School.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” she asked.

I knew why she was calling and that it would take some time, which meant I wouldn’t be working out, but I can never say ‘no’ to a former runner calling for advice.

“Not a problem, Megan.  Let’s talk triathlons for 7 to 14-year olds,” I said.

She was working with a group of volunteers to help children between the ages of 7 and 14 compete in a triathlon.  It was a very short one, something like a couple of hundred yards of swimming, followed by a short bike and run.  I suppose the objective was just to introduce kids to a different kind of sport and maybe pique their interest in something good for them.

“It HAS to be fun if they’re going to stick with it…especially at the younger ages.  It can’t seem like training…that would ruin it for them,” I said and she agreed. 

Megan knows my intensity for training first-hand, but understood my methods and was probably why she was calling me.  Yes, goal-setting and the proper mind set were critical ingredients to success at the higher levels of competition; participation and fun were all that mattered when trying to get someone interested.  We went over some things I suggested for kids who were older and actually becoming competitive, but even those things were very limited in intensity.

“Play ultimate Frisbee to get them racing around.  Don’t let them know you’re trying to build their sprint muscles.  Any kind of track workouts…your bread and butter…would be boring and maybe harmful to their long-term interest in the sport,” I said.

We wrapped up the call though I assured her I was available any time for more questions or ideas.  I had run myself out of time for a workout of my own, though it was still a good use of ‘fitness’ time. 

We met Heidi and Mike in Akron at Larry’s Bar and Grill where I had another burger.  Mike was interested in purchasing a cyclo-cross bike, something about which I know very little.  I had heard Mike was averse to riding with a helmet and was going to grill him on it…it a nice way, of course.

“Once upon a time I thought I didn’t need to ride with a helmet either.  I was at Euclid Bike getting a tune-up on my bike and got to talking to the owner who I’d come to know pretty well.  He said ‘John…the ground is hard and your head is soft…wear a helmet,’.  I’ve had one on ever since and I assure you I’d be eating dinner through a straw right now if I hadn’t had one on for the several crashes I’ve taken over the years,” I said.

And it’s true.  I told him and Heidi that whenever I see someone riding without a helmet today, they look so out-of-place.  Helmets finally are the norm and it seems like its only adults coming late to the sport, or kids in their teens that think they’re unfashionable or unnecessary.  I could see that Mike was not one of those.