infoninja v3

Changes

2007-09-16T16:28:00.001-05:00

After many years of faithful service, I'm going to retire infoninja.com. It'll take me a couple months to get everything moved, but my blog is now at http://www.theultrashea.com

Results of loop ride

2007-07-13T06:40:00.000-05:00

Well, it started off well...

Left the starting point in Ivesdale at about 5:45am, with decent weather and pretty much no wind. I had plans to meet with Kathleen in Royal, which is about 83 miles into the ride, for refilling of water bottles, etc. From Ivesdale to the northwest corner of the county went very well...it started to heat up a little bit, but that felt a bit nice as it helped burn off a little bit of the humidity. My speed dropped a little as I headed east, due to a little bit of wind, but I was still feeling good. About halfway across the norther border of the county, I started to feel a little bit of cramping in my legs - a little annoying, but nothing too bad. By the time Id hit the northeast corner of the county (roughly 70 miles into the ride), the cramping in my legs had gotten significantly worse, and I was at that point riding into a headwind. Heading south towards Royal, the cramps got significantly worse (after a few miles into the eastern side of the county, it got to the point where I'd pedal 4-5 strokes, my hamstrings would cramp up, and I'd need to coast until I could get them uncramped. Lather, rinse, repeat). It took me close to an hour to get from the northeast border of the county to Royal, and I was pretty sure my ride was ending in Royal. I met up with Kathleen in Royal with severe leg cramps, and really bad nausea....no vomiting, but pretty close. Managed to get myself off the bike, and promptly consumed about half a can of salt and vinegar chips and a liter of Pedialyte. I decided to call it a day at that point, loaded the bike in the car, and headed for home.

I weighed myself after getting home...I wasn't significantly dehydrated (I'd dropped a couple of pounds, but that's normal for me in any kind of heat), but from symptoms and talking to other athletes that I need to use a higher-sodium electrolyte product in high heat events like this....while I wasn't dehydrated, I had managed to flush ~150oz of fluid through my system over the course of the ride.

I rested up the rest of the day, got some more fuel and salt into me, and decided to try on Sunday morning to start again from where I left off in Royal. It might end up with a very slow and easily beaten record, but I'd have the record nonetheless. When I woke up Sunday morning, however, my calves were cramped up so badly that I could barely walk, do I took Sunday off as well.

All in all, a pretty discouraging experience. Ironically, I've had a pretty good week since in terms of training, etc.

Even though I did not succeed in my attempt, there are several people that I must thank, without whom I could never have gotten as far as I did...

Kathleen - for the support and encouragement, and for putting up with the demands of being married to an endurance athelete
Tracy - for great coaching support
Dan and Gwen - for the car loan (we started having car problems early in the week, and Dan and Gwen were kind enough to loan us a car, without which we never could have managed the attempt)

So, where do I go from here?

2007

2008

McNaughton Park Trail Run
Champaign County Loop - 2nd attempt
Texas Time Trials - either 12 or 24 hour division

Now, I'm off to Wisconsin to buy beer and run around Lake Monona

Lord, give me grace and dancing feet

2007-07-06T20:50:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm prepped, rested, carb-loaded, and ready for the record attempt tomorrow. Full report on Sunday or Monday as to status/results...

2007-06-27T11:51:00.000-05:00

Post-ride breakfast of champions

2007-06-27T09:56:00.003-05:00

Post-ride breakfast of champions
Originally uploaded by infoninja

Fried onions/leftover collard-greens w/ 2 fried eggs and hot sauce, 2 slices porter bread, steaming hot cup of tea

and one more thing....

2007-06-26T22:53:00.000-05:00

Saturday, April 12th, 2008, I'll be running in the McNaughton Park Trail Runs 100 mile race (I'll be registering immediately after our July paycheck, but am now officially committed to McNaughton at least mentally)

Houston, we are done.

2007-06-26T22:48:00.001-05:00

Houston, we are done.
Originally uploaded by infoninja

Am I ready for hill training tonight?

2007-06-26T17:01:00.001-05:00

Am I ready for hill training tonight?
Originally uploaded by infoninja

Why yes, yes I am, damnit!

Training status + monumental announcements

2007-06-26T17:00:00.000-05:00

First, the relatively commonplace items...last week was the first week of full-on training with my coach, training for the Chicago Marathon (where my goal is to finish in sub-3:30 time), the UltraMidwest 6-hour cycling race (where my goal is to improve my performance from last year by at least 10%), and a solo cycling event to be described later in this post.

1st week of training:

Monday

Hill repeats (1.5mi w/u, 8x200m @ 18% @ 5k pace w/ 2:00 jogging rest intervals, 1.5mi c/d)

Tuesday

Crosstraining (weights @ the gym)

Wednesday

Rest

Thursday

Tempo intervals (goal was 1.5mi w/u, 2x2mi @ 7:17-7:26/mile w/ 3:00 jogging rest interval, 1.5mi c/d; ended up doing the intervals at 7:11 and 7:45 pace)

Friday

~80:00 tempo cycling (23.88mi @ 17.4MPH)

Saturday

6mi run @ 8:38-9:00 (did it as 1/2mi @ 9:09, 5mi @ 8:32, ~3/4mi @ 8:56)

Sunday

10mi easy run/walk (alternating 1mi run/1:00 walk; including walk breaks, averaged 8:59 pace)

The first week went very well. Now, onto the big news:

As of July 2nd, I have a new job! I'll be the Security Standards and Compliance Officer at UIUC. I'll be responsible for researching and writing IT security standards for the University, getting buy-in from campus units on the standards, and ensuring compliance to the security standards. Due to some nasty budgetary issues, this position has been in negotiations for several months, but things are now worked out, and I'm really looking forward to starting!
On July 7th (yup, 7/7/07), I'll be attempting to set the PBAA record for a perimeter ride around Champaign County, Illinois. I'm waiting on approval on my planned route, but am currently expecting that it'll be roughly this. My current goal is to finish in sub-10:00 time, including any breaks, etc.

Small status update

2007-06-11T20:58:00.000-05:00

June is much better than The Month That Did Not Exists, although nothing huge thus far. Running is going well, cycling is going well, I'm going to a new gym, which is working out very well. I'll start my Chicago Marathon training in one week - I'm curious to see what my coach has planned for me...

Long as I remember, the rain been comin' down

2007-06-01T05:48:00.000-05:00

The less that's said about May 2007, the better. For the time being, we're all going to pretend that May didn't happen, and I'm going to get on with things. Watch for me on the roads - I'll be the one flying by on the bike, or running for hours...

Short River To River followup

2007-04-30T09:04:00.000-05:00

I managed to dig up some data from my performance at the 2006 River To River for comparison to this year's running. Last year, I ran leg 7 (which is a bit easier than leg 6, to say the least), averaging an 8:16 pace. This year, I finished with an average pace of 7:48, over significantly more difficult sections...that's 28 seconds per mile faster! I guess that means training + nutrition's worked :)

River To River Race Report

2007-04-26T06:14:00.001-05:00

Josh, Kathleen and I met the Buffalo for lunch on Friday, then packed up the car and headed for Marion.

Much attention was paid to the cross in Effingham

and the French school buses

(we kept driving past school buses with all of the text on them written in French. We both saw this, so I'm confident it wasn't a pre-race hallucination)

Arrived in Marion around 6, just as 'A Country Boy Can Survive' was starting to play - a perfect start to the weekend. Got checked in, drank beer on the patio for a little while, met up with several more members of the team (including the important cutest alternate runner ever)

then headed down to 17th Street Bar and Grill for the traditional pre-race fried pickles and meat extravaganza (I had the 3 meat sampler (brisket, pork shoulder, and hot links) with greens and red beans and rice)

Headed back to the hotel for pre-race meeting/poker game

then off to rest up for the big day.

Met up at about 6:30 to head out for our 8:45 race start (as you can see, Lucky was ready to go)

And at 8:45am, we were off - 8 runners, 80 miles, 1 day. From soon after River To River last year until this year's running, I was sure I wanted to run as runner 6 (which includes some of the hardest legs of the course). By the time my first leg came about, I wasn't sure on that. We'd fallen pretty far behind in the team standings (we do River To River as more of a fun running vacation than super-competitive event, but I still wanted us to finish well), and while I have tried to do as much hill training as possible, Central Illinois' hill training opportunities are few and far between. Our #5 runner laid down the law on leg 5, finishing in fantastic time, and I knew it was time for me to step up.

I took off on leg 6 (listed as 'Very Hard' by the River To River organizers - see below for an elevation profile) at as fast a pace as I thought I could maintain

I finished roughly 25:26 later, at an average pace of 7:42!

Keep in mind that my 5k PR pace is only 18 seconds per mile faster than this, and I still had two more legs that I needed to run, including 'The Hardest')

Rested up a bit before leg #14 (a much easier leg), ate a kabanos, took some recovery supplements (Anti-Fatigue Caps and Tissue Rejuvenator), spent a bit of time with a TENS unit on to speed recovery), and worked on rehydrating a bit. Leg #14 was a welcome rest compared to legs 6 and 22, and allowed me to pick up the pace a little more, finishing in roughly 18:23, at an average pace of 7:21 (3 seconds per mile faster than my 5k PR pace) - see below for elevation profile

With that, it was time to rest up for the infamous leg #22. I'd been thinking about this leg since I saw it last year on my first running of River To River, and I was determined to dominate the course, and help to make sure that we'd make it to Golconda before the cutoff time (shortly before starting leg 22, I told the team captain "Either we're making it to Golconda before they close the course, or I'm going to the Emergency Room, and I don't want to go to the ER today"). Shortly after making that pledge, I was off.

Leg #22 starts off nice and easy, but as you can see, gets significantly steeper.

(The River To River course description says about leg #22, "This is the favorite section for everyone except Runner number 6.

There is a short uphill leaving the exchange, then an easy downhill to Lusk Creek. As you cross the bridge, the hill ahead of you does not look too bad. Unfortunately (or fortunately), you can't see most of it!")

I passed 5 people on leg #22, one of whom ended up catching up to me and passing me, and one of whom I passed in a sprint to the exchange point

I finished leg #22 in roughly 31:06, at an average pace of 8:11, and while I did take a much needed brief rest in the grass after finishing, in a good bit of pain...

...I did not end up in the ER!
We ended up in Golconda 11:00:35 after starting, having managed to move up from 2nd to last place (in the 8:45 start group) at one point in the race to 117th place out of 227 teams!

We spent a little bit of time in Golconda, had a little dinner, grabbed a drink, then headed back to Marion. It's traditional for the Buffalo to appoint one of the runners of the team Most Valuable Buffalo for their performance, and this year given my performance as runner #6 (averaging roughly 7:48 pace over the some of the hardest legs of the course), that runner was me, which has resulted in fame, fortune, and a major sponsorship deal!

(OK, so in reality, it resulted in my getting to take the baton home. That's at least as cool as any of the other things mentioned above, and I'm thrilled as hell)

Got back to the hotel, split some Arrogant Bastard Ale with Josh, had a little more kabanos, and drifted off to sleep to rest up for the ride back to Champaign the next day.

All in all, a fantastic experience, and I hope to do River To River again. I've managed to recover pretty quickly - no knee pain at all, and I was able to do a recovery run on Monday, and a fartlek run on Tuesday. Took yesterday off from running, will get some speed work in today either over lunch or after work.

C'mon spring/dinner on the grill

2007-04-16T10:43:00.000-05:00

While recovering from Clinton Lake, I hauled out the grill for a farewell dinner for a friend who's moving out to California - below is the result...

We started with grilled sea scallops, served with a pomegranate sauce, balsamic vinegar, saffron, and black sea salt. Accompanying the scallops were Aviation cocktails, made with Blackwood's Gin.

Next, we moved on to the main course of cedar-planked halibut with herbes de Provence, served with kasha and caramelized onions. After caramelizing the onions, I deglazed the pan with a ~20 year old bottle of sparkling Petillant Blanc de Blancs Vouvray NV (Kathleen brought it home on a high school trip to France), and reduced the onion/wine mixture down to a rough marmalade consistency, then mixed it in with the kasha.

Before dessert, we had Isola Mozzarella di Bufala that I managed to smoke over cherry wood just long enough to get a good smoke flavor, but without melting the mozzarella at all. The secret to that is rotating it periodically in an ice bath in the smoker. The fish and cheese courses were accompanied by La Vis Pinot Noir 2005.

Dessert was a luscious apple/honey tart that Kathleen made.

The following night (no pictures available of this, unfortunately), I made a halibut chowder with a remaining piece of halibut, along with some of the kabanos that Josh brought down for us from Chicago, served with O'Fallon Smoked Porter.

Clinton Lake Race Report - Updated

2007-04-16T06:20:00.000-05:00

So at long last, here's my report on the Clinton Lake 30 Mile Trail Race (more on why it's taken me so long to get this written shortly)

I did fairly by the book, old school carb-loading for the race (2 days of carb-depletion with very high-intensity runs, followed by 4 days of carb-loading).

Let me tell you, those two days of carb-depletion were no fun, although some of the carb-loading meals I made helped to make up for it (see above for details).

Several days before the race, we got a good bit of rain, helping to guarantee a good muddy trail for the race.

Josh came down on the Friday before the race to help me out for the weekend and crew for me at the race. Had a couple of beers and tapas, did a slow leisurely walk home, and then ordered one of my traditional naked pizzas (no meat, no cheese, lots of veggies). Relaxed on Saturday, picked up my race packet, and feasted on gnocchi and red sauce Saturday night.

Sunday morning, got up bright and early at about 0500, had a light breakfast, and got the last of my gear together.

Shea Packs the Cooler for a Long Day (2007)
Originally uploaded by electrojosh.

Driving over to the start was relatively uneventful, except for the incredibly strange mermaid/dolphin statue being transported down I-74 at 0700 on a Sunday morning...

Weird Mermaid-Dolphin Statue (2007)
Originally uploaded by electrojosh.

Got to the starting line with plenty of time to spare, got everything set up, and had a little time to relax before the start of the race.

Shea At The Starting Line
Originally uploaded by electrojosh.

0805 rolled around (the race started a few minutes late), and we were off for 30 miles of fun in the woods!

Shea Begins His 1st of 3 Ten Mile Loops (2007)
Originally uploaded by electrojosh.

The first loop went very well, finishing in roughly 01:55, feeling good, and slightly ahead of pace (my goal was to run each loop in roughly 2:00, going for roughly a 6:00 finish)

Shea Completes His First 10 Mile Loop (2007)
Originally uploaded by electrojosh.
I swapped bottles of Perpetuem and took off on my second loop, trying to pretty much keep the same pace as the first loop, maybe slowing it down a little bit since I had a few minutes in the bank. The mud was pretty stirred up by the time we got to the second loop, which made for ankle-deep (and in some places, deeper) mud, which is right up my alley.

I made it to the 1/2-way aid station with no problems, grabbed a little water, and took off to finish my second loop.

A few miles past the aid station, I felt a sudden sharp pain in the side of my right knee. I adjusted my gait and slowed down my pace a little, which seemed to help somewhat. The pain seemed the worst if I was running downhill, so I decided to continue walking the uphills, running the flats (few as they were - see below for an elevation profile [my GPS lost signal in a number of places, so it marks the course as slightly short]), and walking the downhills as needed.

I finished the second loops in a good bit of pain, briefly considered DNFing due to my knee, changed my socks (the previous pair being completely soaked with mud), watched the race winner finish (in 4:23), and decided to go for the third loop. I was pretty sure at that point that there was no way I'd manage a 6:00 finish, but I was also confident that I could finish before the cutoff. The last loop was slow (as expected) and painful (as expected). I tried to run as much of the third loop as possible, but that didn't end up being very much, at least for the first half of the loop. I hit the 1/2-way aid station, and took off with roughly 5 miles left to go. I soon realized/discovered that running (albeit slowly) didn't really hurt a lot worse than walking, so I decided to try running as much of the rest of the course as possible. With about 3-1/2 miles left, I saw another runner about 1/2 a mile behind me, slowly but surely catching up to me. Determined to beat him, I picked up the pace a bit more, at which point he picked up the pace as well. I kept up the pace as much as possible, and managed to hold off being passed by him for about a mile or so. At that point, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to keep up the pace without doing something nasty (or is that nastier?) to my knee, and he passed me. Josh met me about 2 miles from the finish line, and ran/walked the rest of the course with me.

I ended up finishing in 7:05, in a good bit of pain. I finished 30th out of 70 starters, 18 of whom DNFed.

Walked slowly over to the car, peeled off my socks, and got a good look at the mud accumulated on my legs

and the wrinkle-fest that was my feet after 7 hours of mud and water...

The week after Clinton Lake consisted of a good deal of icing and elevating my leg, a few short runs, and by the end of the week, I felt pretty much back to normal - the Saturday after Clinton, I did a 2 hour cycling session on the trainer, immediately followed by a 4 mile run. A little ache in my knee after that run, but nothing too bad, so I figured I was pretty well recovered at that point.

Last week I'd been planning on being pretty much back to higher level of training. Weather was cold, so I went to the gym on Monday for 8x400m intervals plus a little bit of core work. Felt a little run down on Monday when I was leaving work, but figured it was just due to my first interval run in a while. Monday night was mostly me tossing and turning with a fever, which lasted most of Tuesday. Aside from 1 relatively short cycling session on the trainer, I took all of last week off from training. Now, I think I'm pretty much back to normal, and I think I should be in pretty good shape for River To River this coming weekend.

Shamrock Shuffle report

2007-03-30T07:04:00.000-05:00

Went up to Chicago for fine dining (Cousin's IV, Cafe Bolero, Green Zebra, Karyn's Cooked, Twisted Spoke), fine music (Bloc Party), fine running (Shamrock Shuffle), and fine bike tune upping (more on that later)

We drove up on Friday, dropped my bike off at Get A Grip Cycles for tune-up/overhaul. I've got a couple of big cycling events planned for this season, so I wanted to get an overhaul at the start of the season. We'd budgeted $200 to cover the cost of the overhaul, which is what was listed on the Get A Grip website. We stopped in for a quick bite at Cousin's IV, got settled in where we were staying, and then I met up with Josh and Denise to hit the Shamrock Shuffle expo for packet pickup. Hit Cafe Bolero for some great Cuban food, then off to the Congress Theatre for Bloc Party, who ended up playing the following setlist:
Song For Clay (Disappear Here)
Positive Tension
Hunting For Witches
Waiting For The 7:18
Banquet
This Modern Love
Little Thoughts
Sunday
The Prayer
Uniform
So Here We Are
Like Eating Glass
She's Hearing Voices
SRXT
Helicopter
Pioneers

Chilled out on Saturday, dinner at Green Zebra, then off to rest up for Shamrock.

Headed downtown for the race, checked my gear, and made my way to the B Corral. Given that I'm running the Clinton Lake 30 Mile Trail Race this Sunday, I didn't want to push things too hard at the race, so I decided to treat the race as a speedy tempo run. As usual, I was off like a flash at the start of the race, although I got my pace down to a manageable speed pretty quickly. I ended up finishing in 36:48 (7:24 pace, which is about 20 seconds per mile slower than my 5k PR pace), placing 1,397th out of 23,865 finishers, which places me in the top 5.9% of finishers! Significantly more impressive is the fact that Kathleen finished the course walking in 1:09:46, even while not feeling well.

Got my gear, drank a Muscle Milk for recovery, met up with Kathleen, and decided to run up to Karyn's Cooked where we were meeting people for brunch. Had a fantastic brunch, then headed to Get A Grip to pick up my bike. They did a fantastic job on the bike, and I grabbed a few Hammer Gels that I needed for Clinton Lake. The added bonus was discovering that the grand total for the overhaul and Hammer Gel was $9.81 - I'd forgotten that since I bought the bike from Get A Grip, they include free tune-up once a year! I've ridden my bike since the overhaul, and they did a great job - I cannot say enough good things about them as a bike shop!

We did a quick shopping trip at Binny's (2 bottles of Quelque Chose, a bottle of Cantillon Lambic, and a 1/3# of Rolf Beeler Hoch Ybrig), then headed up to Josh's for the post-Shamrock party. Hung out there for a while, then ended up going to Twisted Spoke for dinner/drinks.

Drove back here first thing Monday morning, then started prepping for Clinton Lake (more on that in a later post)

Woo hoo!

2007-03-13T08:12:00.000-05:00

As of last night, I apparently hold the world record for 1 hour @ 15% incline on a treadmill at 3.82 miles. Granted, that's mostly due to the fact that no one else has reported their results, but I'll take what I can get.

:)

Treadmill results

2007-03-12T07:51:00.000-05:00

I did the treadmill fundraiser on Saturday, and ended up getting in 3.82 miles over the course of the hour at 15% incline (for reference, the average incline for the Pikes Peak Ascent is "only" 11%), and I managed to eat 6 cookies afterwards. Most of the time since then has been relaxing and vacationing until the conference starts.

Observations/Fundraiser

2007-03-06T10:18:00.000-06:00

Mile repeats hurt, especially after a high-mileage weekend
Kathleen makes damn good whole-wheat molasses oatmeal cookies

Sunday food after my run was (in no particular order): Shea-stack, noodles w/ tofu and peanut sauce, kombucha w/ ginger, stir-fried rice w/ tofu, beer (1/2 bottle of Blanche de Chambly), molasses oatmeal cookies

Yesterday I started off the day with a 45:00 Spinervals recovery workout, home-made granola w/ almond milk, sprouted grain toast w/ peanut butter for breakfast, hard-boiled eggs and molasses oatmeal cookies for snacks, hummus & carrots and an avocado/sprouted grain bread sandwich for lunch, mile repeats at the gym (10:00 warmup, 3x1 mile @ ~ 5 seconds faster than 5k pace w/ 4:00 recovery sessions @ 12:00/mile), sweet potato w/ lentils for dinner, oatmeal molasses cookies before bed.

Lastly, I'll be participating in the fundraiser for ultrarunner Danelle Ballangee, who was seriously injured in December while training, and is facing a long road to recovery and huge medical bills. On Saturday the 10th of March, I'll be running 1 hour on a treadmill at a 15% incline. If you'd like to contribute, donations can be sent to:
The Danelle Ballengee Fund, 1st Bank
P.O. Box 347
Silverthorne,CO
80498

If you'd like to pledge a certain amount/mile, drop me an email or post a comment, and I'll let you know after the event how far I ended up going...

Wuss.

2007-03-04T17:27:00.000-06:00

So, my plan for today way to get up with the dogs at ~0600, feed them, grab a little breakfast, and get a 14 mile run in, for a grand total of 34 miles this weekend. Got up with the dogs, checked my email, and discovered that I had somehow missed being paged by work at 0215 when one of my services went down. Not a good start to the day. Ended up working until about 0930, then started getting ready for the run....hit the road and ended up wussing out, finishing the run early after getting in only 13.47 miles.

:)

I did the run at 10:08 pace - nice and easy long run, especially after yesterday's long run. My legs are feeling pretty beat up today, but the Shea-stack helped greatly!

(as will the cookies that Kathleen's making right now)

Behold!

2007-03-04T17:19:00.001-06:00

Behold!
Originally uploaded by infoninja.

The power of Shea-stack, vanquisher of muscle pain

Fifteen percent concentrated power of will...

2007-03-03T15:32:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a rest/carb-loading day for the planned 20 mile training run @ Clinton Lake that was planned for today. Last night, one of the local runners who had gone to Clinton Lake yesterday to check on trail conditions reported standing water between knee and waist deep, and large amounts of ice...running roughly 9 miles on the trail took him well over 2 hours, and he's quite a bit faster than I am.

Breakfast first thing this morning was a bowl of quinoa cereal and a cup of coffee, then off to car pool to Clinton Lake. I showed up at the car pool point planning on doing as much of the trail as possible, and then finishing out the 20 miler on the roads around Clinton Lake if needed. However, only one other person showed up, and he showed up because he hadn't read the message posted last night regarding the trail conditions, so he decided not to run under those conditions. I headed back to home, still determined to get 20 miles in today without:

going to the gym and using the treadmill
running loops at one of the local parks

I headed out from home, and quickly discovered how slippery it was, mostly on sidewalk sections that people had never bothered to clear after any of the snowfall. It was snowing lightly but steadily for pretty much all of my run, temperatures around 25F, with 20-30MPH wind from the west. My plan for the run was to do about 9:30 pace, with short walk breaks every hour for small amounts of solid food (getting my final fueling determined for the Clinton Lake 30 Mile Run). After my third slip and fall on the ice in a relatively short amount of time, I quickly revised my plan to run 9:00-9:15 pace as much as possible, walking any sections that looked icy, and still doing short walk breaks every hour.

I ended up getting in 20.2 miles, at a 10:04 pace, including dealing with the icy sections...felt fantastic up until the 15 mile point, a little off from about mile 15-18, and was hurting pretty bad from mile 18 on (it didn't help that the first 1/4 mile or so from about mile 18 on was nothing but ice).

During the run, I ended up drinking two 20 oz bottles of fuel/water (3 scoops of Perpetuem per bottle), plus 1 Real Omega3 bar that I cut up into quarters. After the first hour, I had 2 Endurolytes, and at hours 2 and 3, I had 2 Endurolytes and 1 Anti-Fatigue Cap.

Immediately after getting home from the run, I had 1 bottle of Uncle Shea's Double-Patented Miracle Recovery Beverage, a 15 minute ice bath, and then my usual post-long run meal (3 pancakes, no butter, no syrup, plus 2 eggs over-easy).

Since then, I've also had two more Endurolytes and a bucket of water, and I'm about to have the rest of a bottle of Pedialyte that we had in our freezer (I weighed myself after I finished the run, and discovered that I'd lost about 7-1/2 pounds of water weight during the course of the run,and I can tell that my electrolytes are a bit off still...)

Now on to recovery/resting tonight (will most likely stretch out on the couch, watch UFC, and enjoy my traditional between hard event dinner of a cheeseless pizza from Papa John's), then will get a 14 mile run in tomorrow morning before brunch.

I'm feeling pretty good looking towards Clinton Lake!

The first of many sandwiches...

2007-03-02T12:04:00.001-06:00

The first of many sandwiches...
Originally uploaded by infoninja.

Carb-loading for my 34 mile weekend (plan is for 20 miles @ Clinton Lake on Saturday, and 14 miles of road training on Sunday)

Wine and cheese class at Bacaro

2007-03-02T12:02:00.001-06:00

Wine and cheese class at Bacaro
Originally uploaded by infoninja.

We went to a fantastic wine and cheese class/tasting at Bacaro on Tuesday - click on the picture for a listing of specific cheeses/wines...

One month left

2007-03-01T22:49:00.001-06:00

So it hit me late last night...as of today, I've got 1 month left before the Clinton Lake 30. In the words of Bill The Cat, "Oop Ack!"

With that in mind, my goal is to blog my training and nutrition leading up to race...today was as follows:

Morning: Calesthenics/stretching
Breakfast:

2 eggs
1 slice sprouted grain bread w/ 1T peanut butter

AM snack

1c watermelon
1/2 bannana
1/2 avocado
1/2 can tuna fish

Lunch

1/2 sweet potato
2c leftover stir-fried broccoli and Brussels sprouts

PM snack

1c watermelon
1/2 bannana
1/2 avocado
1/2 can tuna fish

PM run

5.25 miles @ 9:18 recovery run, out and back with a 23mph (gusting to 35mph) headwind on the way out

Dinner

3 buckwheat pancakes
1T organic maple syrup

Snack

1 slice sprouted grain bread
1T viper bugloss honey