Colorado Startup Life: Weeks 38 to 40

I've been busy. May 26th to June 15th. My ankle has been healing well enough for me to get back into doing my more normal weekend fun. Actually, I feel my healing has plateaued the last two weeks or so, I'm not sure if that is temporary, or I need to get on my physical therapy exercises harder, or maybe there is a little more ligament damage than initially expected, or perhaps my weekend jaunts are a little more than I should be doing at this stage of the recovery.

So, June 1st I bicycled up Pikes Peak! I had two attempts last fall, both failing due to having a pulmonary embolism. Even though I am 10 pounds heavier now and in worse shape aerobically than I was last fall, I was able to do it. I think this particular Strava segment best encapsulates having a PE and in below average shape, and having no PE, in poor shape, and weighing 10 pounds more, meaning a PE makes it really hard to breathe.

58 minutes with a Pulmonary Embolism, 35 minutes without.

Fun fact, I don't think of myself as a great descender, on a bicycle or running. But I'm not bad. I mean, I generally take big descents at a speed that I feel very in control, but somehow I have the time to beat for the first 12 miles of the Pikes Peak descent this year.

Then on Tuesday, June 4th I fell off my bicycle near the top of "SuperJames" which is the HC bicycle climb that goes from highway 36 up to Jamestown and then up to 8,500 feet above Jamestown. It's my go to 42 mile bicycle ride. It's so cool to go bicycle a HC (French for beyond category, meaning something like 3,000+ feet of ascending) climb on an average weeknight from my apartment! We had snow May 21st, and maybe even more recent up there at 8,000 feet, so there was still quite a bit of sand on the road and I could not slow down enough to make a left hand turn and when I hit the sand I fell over and thankfully did not get hurt any more than a bruised knee! It really got my attention. My head (encased in my helmet of course) bounced when I hit the ground. I am sure I do not have any concussion, but without a helmet I probably would have. Plus, I had slowed down to maybe 10-12 mph when I finally fell over, I only slid about 10 feet. Whew! I could have easily been going 25 mph, and in that case I would have hit the guardrail (which I was only 3 feet away from when I stopped) and maybe even gone over a steep slope.

June 8th I attempted "The Loop" as I call it. From my apartment in Longmont to Estes Park, over Trail Ridge Road, through Granby, up Berthoud Pass, into Idaho Springs, down to Golden, up to Boulder and back to Longmont. It would be about 180 miles, and include a 12,000 foot pass and 11,000 foot pass. Well, I failed, but I had a really good ride. I bicycled up to Estes Park, and just wasn't feeling as strong as I feel I need to be successful and safe and finish in the daylight. So I turned left and bicycled down the Peak to Peak to Ward and then down Lefthand canyon for a little 86 mile bicycle ride with 7000 feet of elevation gain.

June 15th, yesterday, I did a 11 hour and 45 minute excursion up and over Mt. Yale and down the north ridge into the airplane gully in my continuing research for a Nolan's 14 attempt. There was a lot of snow and in places it spend up our progress, but overall it definitely slowed us down when we would inevitably post hole. We then did a loop hiking down the valley until we met up with the Colorado trail at 9,400 feet and went back up to nearly 12,000 feet and down into the Avalanche Gulch Trailhead. Apparently I burned 8,051 calories yesterday. I estimated it would take 6-8 hours, so I was pretty off on that estimate. My ankle held up well. I did limp a fair amount, and had to take many small steps (52,000 steps to be specific), but the three of us made it. It was the hardest thing I have done since moving out here. Harder than doing Pikes Peak, the 86 mile bicycle ride, the February Piz Badille climb, Princeton and Longs Peak with a pulmonary embolism. It rained, snowed, and hailed on us at different times. I don't think my ankle will be ready to attempt Nolan's 14 this year. Or at least, it will most likely not be in condition to go sub 48 hours on Nolan's this season.

Work has been good. It's been a bit stressful and I've put in a number of 10 hour days, mostly unintentionally, because I get excited. We have a customer delivery coming up and it's all hands on deck to mitigate as much risk as possible and make it successful. What are some highlights? We were trouble shooting an issue three weeks ago, an issue we had been working on for weeks before that, and we finally made enough changes to get rid of the issue! It's the classic: struggle, struggle, struggle, success! Then, just Friday a new subsystem that I designed was tested, and it worked! There were so many little thing wrong with my design and prototype parts, that frankly I was not very confident it would work. But it did! It's a completely new subsystem to our product, and something that will speed up both our internal operations and is a huge customer benefit. I was not at all the driving factor, the credit goes to my coworker J for pushing for a long time to get this subsystem designed and implemented. The difficulty was that I just had never designed something like this from scratch before, so I didn't have much confidence it would work. I was afraid there was something I did not understand that would lead to failure.

I hope you've had some good weeks too. Next weekend I'll be out in the northwest climbing Mt. Rainier, so check out my Garmin inReach tracking to see how that goes: https://share.garmin.com/IsaiahJanzen

Crewing Kelsey during a Bicycling Ultramarathon Cross State Record

For the first time I crewed someone on an ultramarathon adventure. That someone is Kelsey Regan. First you might want to check out her blog post from the event. She way overstates my role in the event, and I am flattered, thank you Kelsey!

First, some background, I sit 15 feet away from a recent NCAA division one 400 meter hurdler. She happened to forward me Kelsey's blog one day because I am known, in part, around the office as the guy that ran all day and all night, more than once. One thing led to another and it's last Friday night and somehow I managed to sign up for a sleep deprived weekend of driving 17 miles an hour, navigating, posting to someone else's Instagram, and enrolling in AirBNB at 9 PM Saturday when we couldn't find a hotel within an hour of the finish point. Quite the adventure...

I'm going to go behind the Instagram posts, each one, and describe in better detail what I was thinking and what was actually happening.

Friday 8:36 PM

When we sorted out how I was going to post to Instagram, I decided I needed to do a test post to make sure it worked. I'm not on Instagram, and would need significant convincing to try. This blog, Twitter, and Facebook is enough for me. I wanted to get a picture of her face up on social media because I knew over the next two days there might not be a good opportunity. Having a picture of a person's face makes that person more relatable.

I need a haircut.

What am I doing?! And I need a haircut. And Jessop is so fast! That's about what I was thinking. 

Saturday 4:15 AM

I'm so tired, and really excited! BTW, here is the GPS of the first 115 miles she rode, she borrowed my Garmin Fenix 2. The first about two and a half hours I was driving, and since Jessop was the official he could not help with just about anything, so for water bottle stops we had to stop and I had to get out to hand her bottles. Plus, I had to drive and navigate, that's why it took two hours to get this one little post up.

7:03 AM

Dear Trek, do you sponsor women ultra cyclists? Maybe you would like to start because one just set a cross state record riding through Waterloo, Wisconsin... riding a Specialized. She just averaged 17.2 miles an hour riding an entry level aluminum road bicycle with bolt on aero bars across the state of Wisconsin, I think that's impressive. Plus, it's the second state record she now holds. If you want to get a hold of her, she is riding the Ride Across Wisconsin, which you are sponsoring this weekend.

7:17 AM

That is what 20 mph looks like. We met up with her mom so I didn't have to drive anymore and could focus on keeping Kelsey hydrated, fed, and on the bike cranking out the miles. At this point she was at crazy fast pace. My honest opinion at the time was that it was going to get rough in the afternoon. I've never done 80 miles in four hours, and I'm a decent endurance athlete. I was afraid she would crash and burn, but I hoped that maybe she was going to have one of those days where everything just clicks. Ultimately, we athletes are chasing a feeling, the feeling of success, of being the best.

9:29 AM

And now she's done 100 miles faster than me and smiling like she just started! It was a little surreal. I was thinking, 'I'm not going to focus on the fact she probably went out too hard, because we have a long long way to go.'

10:29 AM

She just kept moving along. The first very early sign of trouble was the first time she went to the bathroom, it was after five hours. She made a comment with a smile on her face, "That's the longest I've ever gone on a ride without going to the bathroom!" At which point I am thinking, 'it's going to get really rough out there if she is dehydrated at 10 AM on a 93 degree day.' Of course I didn't say anything, except to encourage her to drink more.

11:26 AM

Ok, we hit a snag. The stop at Adams and Friendship turns out she had tunnel vision, trouble seeing, and of course didn't tell us at all. I felt her arm and it was dry, she wasn't sweating! All I said to her was to keep drinking. After we got back in the truck I told her mom and Jessop she was dehydrated, and we began to give her ice bags and spray water on her. I figured, I'm not going to make her stop unless she crashes, so just keep her hydrated, fed and cool. I take my ultra medical philosophy from Dr. Lovy in a speech before the world championships in Italy in April, "Our goal is not your immediate health, it's to keep you out there running." I'm misquoting there, but the point is, you can recover after the 24 hour world championships, but you're going to keep going until the clock stops.

1:16 PM

Fortunately she started to drink more and start to recover a little. However, she definitely slowed down, maybe 14 or 15 miles an hour or so for some time. It was a pretty noticeable change from the early morning hours. She later said she was in survival mode during most of the late morning and afternoon. At the stop in the picture she was sweating again, so I felt much better about how she was doing.

2:27 PM

Ok,  she was recovering, starting to use the bathroom more. She wasn't riding too fast, but she was on the bike nearly all the time and between the ice packs, drinking water and Heed, and spraying water on her, she seemed to be doing well. Well enough I would ask her some questions and she gave respectable answers. Her favorite vegetable is brussels sprouts.

3:23 PM

Half way?! I've been sitting in this truck for 11 hours! Kind of funny, I spent hours talking to her parents and Jessop, and probably not as many hours talking to her over the course of the weekend. It's to be expected I suppose, I just didn't realize it when I volunteered.

3:30 PM

It was funny to open the windows of the truck to hand her something or spray her with water and have the heat roll in. So we start to worry a little that the conditions are too hot, and then she starts smiling again and it's like, okay, I guess she's doing well. She said she couldn't hear so well much of the time, and we did have to repeat things several times. In other words, I would be asking her if she needed anything when we pulled along side, like in this picture, and she wouldn't say anything, but had this smile on her face

5:05 PM

We traded off drivers and her dad took over driving.  She was definitely struggling on the uphills some. Her pedaling cadence slowed down from her normal 110 rpm and she was standing up on hills that at least once had to just be a 1% grade. Leading up to this I wasn't really sure what my role would be, that was part of the curiosity to take part in this. Ultimately, I basically navigated, a not insignificant task, took care of drinks and food for her, sprayed her with water, tried to talk to her some, tried to keep the communication equipment working, and post to Instagram. Add it all together and I spent a lot of time staring at my phone, easily 20% of the trip.

6:29 PM

Finally it cooled down, she started eating more, and her speed picked up a little. Most of her calories were from Perpetuem and Heed. Which actually made me a little nervous how little she was eating, but then again, she's not a big person, and I too prefer to drink most of my calories in an ultra.

8:44 PM (Worcester, Wisconsin!)

She stopped at 8:30 for the bathroom then at 9 again and this time says she's tired... What!? At 9 pm!? Oh boy... I was nervous that she was going to stop and want to sleep in the truck for some time, at which point this becomes a whole different event. Once you stop in something like this, it's hard to get started. So she tried out these caffeine patches.

11:03 PM

It took maybe 30 minutes for the caffeine to kick in and we realized she would be fine, the caffeine worked. I was starting to get tired at this point. Waking up at 2:50 AM and only getting about 5.5 hours of sleep makes for a long day. She was just cranking along at this point, faster than she had been in the afternoon.

Sunday 12:36 AM

A derailer cable?! It's the kind of part failure that would make continuing on that bike difficult. It reduces the bicycle to a two speed using the front chainrings. And then seeing my pedals don't match hers! Rookie mistake Isaiah. Of course all gear is supposed to be tested out before the big event! I have Look pedals, and here appear very similar, but they are about 2 mm longer, and did not fit her shoe cleats. At this point we were so close to the finish we knew we were going to finish, and well under 24 hours.

2:29 AM

A few miles out from the finish I offered to keep going if she wanted to do 400 miles. Fortunately when she reached the finish she did stop, the three of us in the truck were exhausted. We walked down the boat dock behind the casino hotel and helped her up on a ledge to take this picture. Then we had to help her down off of the railing and two people put arms around her to help her back to the car.  We took all of the flashing lights and banners off of the truck and drove over to Ironwood, Michigan to a very nice stay at an AirBNB, arriving at 4:24 AM, Rich's house in Ironwood, I highly recommend it.

We spent all of waking Sunday from about noon until 9 PM driving back across the state. Kind of funny, I don't think we ever took a group picture.

What are some of the lessons I learned doing this? I mean, learning something that might help in my future races was the initial reason I was interested in helping with this.

• One must stay hydrated! It's a fine line between encouraging yourself to drink more, and forcing yourself to drink more, but dehydration and heat stroke are not great ways to make a good pace.
• I know a lot more about ultras than I knew I knew. I knew what to look for, like checking her skin for sweat, asking her questions to make sure she was mentally present, and keeping her a little more motivated, hydrated, and cool.
• Eating and drinking is a very personal thing. Different things work for different people. When I threw up, at the 24 hour world championship in Italy in April it was because I wasn't listening to my body, but what other people were telling me. Similarly, Kelsey, a gluten free, vegan who doesn't drink coffee has a different diet than I do. I focused on encouraging her to eat and drink, and offering her things, like salt pills, but I never "forced" her to consume anything, because doing that can have very negative consequences, as I experienced. It worked, she averaged 17.2 miles an hour for 380 miles.
• People are generally very supportive of stuff like this, I get asked several times a week about returning to Everest or my next adventure, but when you get to the nitty gritty details of driving 17 mph behind someone for 22 hours, people aren't as interested in stuff like this. It's hard to support an ultra! Thank you Mom and Berea for flying to Italy in April and supporting what I will admit is my most painful race ever! 
• I like the story. Ultras are a microcosm for an athletic career, and life, there are high points and low points, doubt, tears, smiles and laughter. They take a long time to develop and so give a better perspective on life than a 5k. In other words, you can watch the highlights of the Tour de France or the baseball playoffs, but watching the whole race or every game of the season provides a much richer context to those highlights. Similarly, you just see these Instagram posts, and read some of my thoughts, but you don't have the whole picture because you weren't there to live through some of the painful communication moments, or the nervous anticipation of wondering if Kelsey is drinking enough. I like that there is something simple and tangible, if a 380 mile bicycle ride or 24 hour run can be called either of those, that is so detailed and complex. I already knew I liked the story, having lived through my own adventures, but seeing it from the other side reinforced that I do like the story.

Greg LeMond and Jens Voigt

This weekend, tonight actually, Greg LeMond will be in Dubuque for the Gran Fondo. He was in town last year and I had the chance to meet him which was pretty cool. I won't be doing the Fondo this year due to injuries, and 20 miles of gravel, but say hi to Greg if you do it!

Next weekend Jens Voigt and perhaps some others from the Trek Factory Racing team will be in town for the Ride Across Wisconsin (RAW). This is the first year for this particular event. It will be 175 miles from Dubuque to Lake Michigan. 

We're just little old Dubuque, but Jason Derulo played a concert here a few weeks ago and now a few famous cyclists will be in town, not to mention most of the 2016 presidential candidates making campaign stops. Maybe we aren't so little.

The Dubuque Gran Fondo

Well, here is a link to all of the pictures, and here is a link to the results. I came in second, so take everything I say with a grain of salt that a cyclist with no skill who only rode one bike ride in July beat a whole bunch of people who are actually good, including a category 2 cyclist... so obviously I had a good day.

We started off and there is a picture of all of the Free Flight cyclist, I'm the tall one (tall one may also be interpreted to those unfamiliar with sarcasm as "the shortest of the group") on the left side of the picture without a helmet on.

What to say…

The very rag tag team.

Friday night before the ride I went to the local bike shop and bought a new pair of 700c x 28 mm tires, because I've rode enough gravel on my 23 mm wide tires to know I would get a flat tire. The difficulty is it takes more work to keep that much mass rotating.

We started off, I was just behind Greg Lemond for a few seconds before hammering up the first hill, Mt. Carmel. People were going back and forth, but I ended up with the second fastest time. Then we rode up 3rd street, then North Grandview, before heading onto Heritage Trail. I knew this seven mile timed section was my weakness, so I aimed to draft as much as possible. We got off to a slower start, little attacks here and there, with most just trying not to go too hard. Finally at the little road crossing at mile five I made my attack, but Evan did too, and his was strong enough he got away and I couldn't catch him. I ended up getting tired for 6-8th place on that section, slower than many of the group we rode with.

Covering Evan's Early Break (He's a lot better than me)

I like the picture above because I'm down on the drop handlebars, drafting, while he is up on the bars and leading. Who's putting out less energy? He may be a lot better, but in this flat section he only beat me by eight seconds in seven miles.

Shortly after the Heritage Trail timed section we started to hit serious gravel. I don't really like riding on gravel. After going down one hill a guy from Chicago who was behind me said, "you looked like a jet ski weaving back and forth." Fortunately, I never had a flat tire and I never went in the ditch and I never fell off. Three pretty big accomplishments for like six sections and close to 20 miles of gravel roads.

That's me, out there grinding it out, alone.

 Aside from the timed sections I really just rode easy. The goal was to get to Potter Hill as rested as I possibly could, so I probably rode 40 miles of the 70 alone. I really like the above picture because it shows a lot of my training in a nutshell, me out there doing my thing, thumbs up, with nothing else around.

The stop at the Field of Dreams was nice. I always like visiting that place. The movie is good and it's cool to see the set, plus there are almost always kids out there playing, and let's face it, it's cool to see kids running around. It's too bad you don't see grown ups running around more often… When's the last time we played tag?

Then some more gravel roads and riding alone...

Going into Potter Hill, seriously 200 meters from the start of the timed section the inside of my right thigh cramped up! I rarely if ever get cramps. However after 57 miles of bicycle riding including a few hills, lots of gravel, and some really hard peddling, I think my body said, "time for a time-out". So I stood around and stretched for a few minutes before deciding I was ready to hammer for five minutes up the hill. Another man who stretched for a bit started just before me and this is me passing him in the last section where sitting down was possible.

Enroute to having the best time on Potter Hill

I'm now #2 on the Strava .7 mile Potter Hill climb, behind Wes, a professional triathlete. Only the two of us have cracked 11 mph on that hill.

I wasn't supposed to win my age group. Evan on the left of the picture is by far a better cyclist than I am, but I think he worked too hard in the 30 miles between timed sections two and three and I got him on the hill. I came in second overall so I didn't win the bicycle, but I won an eight pound sausage. Funny story, I made the joke, "hey we're all the same height" because we were standing on a podium, but even then those two guys were taller than me. They both have to be over six feet. (Shameless plug for Live Healthy Iowa!)

That sausage made my arms shake it was so heavy! (I'm not joking.)

I waited around to talk to Greg LeMond. The guy still has it. He's put on a few pounds but most of it is muscle, his calves are more defined than mine. It was funny, there were only three timed sections this year, and he said in his opening speech for the awards, "you could have ten or 15 timed sections!" I could hear the race organizer Dan thinking, 'Greg, be quiet, it's not in the budget.'

Meeting Greg LeMond

So what did I think of it? It doesn't have to be fun to be fun. I had a great time, but that is biased because many of my friends rode it, and I won an eight pound sausage, and almost a $2,000 bicycle. There was too much gravel roads for me, personally. Heritage Trail was no problem, but the gravel roads were torturous, each one became progressively worse. I mean, one section of three miles of gravel torture is cool because it makes a difference in the bicycle and tires you choose, but 20 miles, with none of them timed is not so fun. I would like more timed sections. There is a category 4 hill, Bankston Park Rd Climb, which would be great, then you could have a king of the mountains award, plus an overall award. Also, a sprint finish across the 3rd street bridge or on the pavement before Field of Dreams would be cool, then you could have a sprint winner. If the goal is to keep lots of gravel, then at least put a timed section on a gravel road, maybe going up to five points road. I like having a variety of competitions. Advertising could have been better too. Not a whole lot of people knew about it.

One of the reasons attendance was sparse is the sheer cost of bicycle racing. In addition to the multi-thousand dollar bicycles many of us ride, I paid $100 for a few timed sections. That's a lot more expensive than the standard running road race. In the new global economy, fewer and fewer Americans can afford the expensive hobbies like bicycle racing. I am rich and it makes me sick, so I try to win bicycle races because I have that opportunity. I think with less gravel, maybe a lower cost to do the not timed for competition (perhaps $25 instead of $75 for that option) it would be more highly attended.

Would I do it again? Probably, but that's like asking if I will run any given race or attempt any given mountain again. I don't know where I will be in a year's time or what other priorities I might have then. I had fun. It wore me out. I like the idea of a social ride where we all go after the same race segments. It was a good day.

I Live in Iowa: Week 165

Where to start? That is always a challenge when discussing big things isn't it? I think that's part of why I like blogging, I can describe some minute, tiny, minuscule detail, like eating right after exercising, that is part of the much bigger picture of how to get faster at the marathon.

How about starting with the first Dubuque Gran Fondo, featuring Greg LeMond. What a day?! I was second overall in a bicycle race and first in my age group??!?? I'm not a bike racer. I've maybe ridden like 400 miles, all of 2014. However, the timing was based on times over three timed segments, and I strategized to do as well on the third segment, a big hill climb 57 miles into the ride, as possible. It worked, I was second overall, but the guy in first beat me by like 80 seconds overall because of the flat second stage, which he just demolished. I'll write a blog post all about this ride, and winning an eight pound sausage later this week or next.

Work has been good. We are solving problems and making the product better. But… and there is always a but, we have changed so many things in the development process that to some extent there is a question about what needs to be tested physically versus virtually. It is a well known correlation that for every ten problems fixed another four are discovered or created. Well, our team has actually fixed over a thousand problems in the last 16 months. Many of those are problems we have discovered after fixing one of the early problems, but there is a very real concern about what we might miss. Of course, many of those problems are as simple as being one millimeter out of alignment or documenting use of the wrong size bolt, the kind of problem that would mean less than an hour of total time for five team members to fix and verify the solution to the problem.

An analogy is how to you save a forest from bark pine beetle kill? One tree at a time, and hope you don't miss too many, and have to go back through the forest in three years and do all the work again. It is the same with building a new product. Quality is a function of time. The more time you have to test the more issues you can find before going to production. I'm writing about this because I've never been through a full product development cycle and I really have no basis for what it takes to bring a ground up design into production, and most importantly, I don't want to fail, I want it to be a great product. Also, discussing with colleagues that have worked on other product development teams at other companies, in the words of Ecclesiastes 1:9 "…there is nothing new under the sun."Anytime anything new is brought to market there is the chance that the developers missed something. Regardless, sometime in 2015 you are going to see some pictures and likely hear in a little more detail what exactly I have been doing for four years because I am quite happy to say, "I did that! We did this because of that, and redesigned this thing to make that work better." However, we've still got a couple bugs to work out of the system. Why does it take half of forever to get a new drug or airplane into the market? Testing, drugs and airplanes you really want to get right.

Running was a really quiet week, only about 24 leagues, rounding up. However I took Saturday off, because of the 23 league Gran Fondo. So really averaging four leagues per day is not so bad. Also, I did bicycle a total of 37 leagues for the week, my highest this year. That's also how much I drove this week. Funny story, I think I forgot to mention last week I ran three more leagues than I drove! That doesn't happen too often. Going forward I think I will be doing one high mileage week followed by a "low" mileage week. I kind of did that in 2009 and 2011 during two of the best high mileage and racing seasons I have had. In a way, instead of going on seven day micro cycles, it's like going into a 14 day micro cycle. I'll blog about that theory individually in a month or so when I get a little more consistency under me.

It's Bicycle to Work Week!

I bicycled into work today! Six miles and 25 minutes of fun, which was too fast because I was sweating a fair amount when I finished. The point is, save yourself some gas this year and ride your bicycle to work a couple times. Personally, I save about $2.50 every time I bicycle in. Plus, I feel environmentally friendly too because I make less emissions.

Lance Armstrong and Doping

The following was written by me after reading a second of his books in late 2012:

"We have been talking about this for more than a decade. People sometimes ask me what I think about it. I am after all one of the guys winning road races and cycling up hill in Dubuque faster than anyone else. So what do I think? Did Lance cheat? In short, he tested clean, there is your answer.

In long, what is cheating? Is using an altitude tent cheating? Is taking vitamin supplements cheating? Is using caffeine cheating? (Most top endurance people do use it, myself included.) Is getting a blood transfusion of your own blood cheating? Is it cheating to use such a small amount of a drug that you still test negative for it?

I do have five reasons why Lance was able to win seven tours when no one else has.

1. People who go through near death experiences make major life changes. Once a person faces death the amount of tolerable suffering or commitment that person will take on is far greater than most people.
2. Before he had cancer he won the world championships. It's a big deal. It means he was already a really good rider.
3. It was just about the only thing that he trained for during those seven years. Most people don't have the commitment to train for an entire year for one event. Most participate in a dozen or more events every year. That extra specific focus could mean a minute or two over the course of three weeks.
4. After winning once a person knows what it takes to win. The second time typically does not involve a 5% increase in fitness.  In other words, when you become the winner the winner becomes mortal.
5. He had amazing teams breaking wind for him through thousands of miles. When you see how strong his domestiques were it makes it fractionally easier to win the tour. "

Now we know, Lance cheated. I wanted to believe he was clean. I wanted to think that a strong person could rise to the challenge of winning a great competition time and again. Alas, he cheated like most of the other people in the race we now know. It's frustrating. I was never a big Lance fan because of his arrogance and complete rejection of the unseen, yet I still wanted him to be clean. After Tiger Woods disgrace and whoever was dog fighting or having sex with underage women in mainstream sports, I wanted someone "popular" to be a positive role model. It was believable, a guy with enough baggage to be believable. He was always human.

Now his arrogance is on another level. He sued people, and even won, when they said he doped! They told the truth and he convinced everyone that the truth was a lie! How can someone do that?

This is one more example of fallible humans. I find it depressing. Ryan Hall and Galen Rupp if you guys ever cheat I will be awfully mad. I don't even know what I would do.

In the October 2011 Des Moines Half Marathon, where I set my 1:11 PR, the winner, I believe, was caught a few months later for using banned substances. I was 17th in that race, and I would have preferred getting 16th. It's that close, a guy that I was feet away from on the starting line won the race and cheated. I am slow, I work awfully hard. Every bit of time I can take off my time I celebrate. The competition is mostly with myself, but there is some external competition and I don't use EPO, steroids, or blood dope how am I suppose to compete? Seriously. EPO has been show to give up to a 13% advantage, that's over strait 19 minutes off of my marathon time. Back in the 1970s blood doping gave an average of 2.5% improvement. Even 2.5% is about four minutes faster. With numbers like that I wish races did more testing.

It's tempting you know? Here I am slaving away at 5 AM in the cold, on icy streets, slogging through workouts with a bunch of college kids, doing long runs mostly alone in the rain. A few hundred dollars of medical supplies and a couple hours of reading and YouTube videos on giving myself an IV, and since I would use my own blood I could drop time by the minute instead of the second. I won't dope or use EPO. At least while I am still trying to accomplish something. Later in life (40s or 50s) I could see myself volunteering for a study or experimenting, but not when there is actually any chance of setting a lifetime PR at an Olympic event. In the back of my mind is running down several famous runners past their prime in a prestigious marathon due to years of perfect training. I can't finish before anyone in a race I care about knowing I cheated.

It's a moral attitude. I don't cheat and I don't have $100 million. Lance cheated and is worth in the neighborhood of $100 million. Welcome to the world, it is not fair.

Run in the Heat!

Actually, don't run in the heat if you can avoid it. There are enough challenges to simply exercising that doing something while it is hot just adds another danger. I only feel that I had heat stroke or heat exhaustion once. It was while I was in high school working for my uncle. I was tired and I saw a thermometer that said something like 115F and that was it. I left for the day. After an afternoon and evening in a cool basement I recovered and I have been more or less fine in the heat since then. Since it has been hot this summer I will share some advice for staying or getting fit when the temperature reaches the triple digits.

1. Stay hydrated! I rarely carry a bottle when I run, only runs over about 90 minutes when the temperature is above 80F. Of course, I can only remember two times in the last four years when I ran over an hour when it was over 95F. Both times turned into painful lessons of dehydration and orientation. (For the record I'm thinking of that Saturday from TZ's parents house in Denver in 2008 and a long run last summer on the Heritage Trail.) However, since most of my bicycle rides are about two hours and take place in the afternoon I always drink during bicycle rides. Also, if you have the chance drink an electrolyte drink instead of water while you are exercising in the heat. You could use some salts in addition to the water to keep the sweat processing through your body. 
2. Exercise in the morning. The coolest part of the day is right around sunrise. Plus, the sun comes up earlier in the summer so you can still exercise in the light. In the winter it can be quite hard to get up at 5AM and go for a run, shower and go to work all before the sun comes up. It is much easier in the summer. 
3. Take it off! I have been told that wearing a shirt would allow the sweat to evaporate and cool you down more than running without that shirt. Well, I got an A in Heat Transfer (ES 3003) and I can tell you that with one exception that is not true. (Similarly the naked-in-your-sleeping-bag-is-warmer is not true either.) Sweat evaporating directly off of your skin is cooler than wearing a shirt. The one exception is extremely hot temperatures, somewhere around 120F+. In that case you want to protect your skin from the sun because the radiation from the sun and the surrounding sand is so high that your body can not sweat fast enough to maintain exercising. The requirement for the clothing then is light colored (white) and very loose fitting so that you do not build up any heat in the trapped air next to your skin. 
4. If you must exercise in the heat do two things. First, exercise for a shorter than normal duration of time. Perhaps three quarters or half as long as you would otherwise exercise. Second, exercise at a lower intensity than you would normally, perhaps 80-95% of your normal pace depending on the conditions. The heat will raise your metabolism so you body must work harder to achieve the same feat of a cooler day. 

Hopefully this keeps you safe out there as we delve into the hottest month of the year.

A Duct Tape Water Bottle Bicycle Cage

A few months ago I was about to embark on a 50 mile after work bicycle ride with a co-worker and friend but in my haste to get to the trailhead on time I forgot my water bottle cages on one of my other bicycles. However, given a roll of duct tape I improvised. In fact, it is still on my bicycle something like three months later.

Side View

Close up of Bolts

Top View of Duct Tape Bottle Cage

You can fix a lot with that stuff.

I Live in Iowa: Week 14

Another good week.Another nice week living the dream or something like it. I feel strange when I say that, because I never dreamed that I would live in Iowa and work at a logging company. Yet, life is strange and I am incredibly fortunate.
Let’s get on with the week’s highlights, shall we?
I engineered my way through more than 43 hours again this week. That’s the second most hours I have worked yet, second only to last week. The design guys are coming through with semi-finished designs that we are putting through FEA so we have more work to do. I worked on 3.5 separate projects this week. (I started the second half of a project so it’s not entirely new, but for the most part it is new.) In fact things are getting busy enough, and there is enough work that I might even pop in the office on a Saturday a few times this fall. I don’t get paid an overtime rate, but my standard rate is somewhat better than minimum wage, and I don’t have to pay extra health and dental insurance on those extra hours.
As for athletics, I had a very nice week of running. I still haven’t updated my log completely but I ran 60-61 miles including an 18 mile long run, a set of short steep hills, a set of 8x400 (Aussie quarters), and a six mile tempo. That’s the kind of quality that I’m doing in the build up that I never really did before but I am sure that it will make a bigger difference in my race results. I am totally in shape to go sub 16 in the 5k. I feel I have been in that kind of shape twice before but instead ran other distance races. I am running a 5 mile this weekend so we shall see what kind of shape I am in. No Bix 7 this year.
I put in around 120 miles on the bicycle I think. I haven’t added it all together but that sounds about right. It was incredibly hot this week. The hottest temperatures and humidity I have had to deal with since I was a teenager. Five of the last six summers spent in the mountains has sure helped avoid the heat. Bicycling is nice because there is a constant breeze and I can drink from my two water bottles whenever I feel like it.
I have mentioned a little in the past that I have been doing some stock market investing, well I made my first sale of 2011 so I’ll give you the story. When I heard that the US was releasing oil from the reserve I knew that the price would drop temporarily only to go up a few weeks later. Is there really anything easier to predict than the price of oil? So I bought shares of USO (United States Oil, it’s based on the price of west Texas sweet crude as I understand it) at $37.45 on June 29th. If my limit orders had gone through on the 27th or 28th I would have made even more, but the price of oil went up linearly by the hour both days. Fast forward three weeks, it was time to pay for my new carbon fiber bicycle so I sold my shares with a limit order at $38.60 on July 19th. I have to say I’m quite happy that the price spiked around 1:30PM or my order for the day might not have been met. Although, had I held on at least two days longer I could have sold for $38.90.
What is the point of all this? Why did I put in an hour of work just to make 3.1% interest? Simple, 1% interest per week repeated over and over equals 50% interest per year. That is kind of the golden standard for investors. All of the big names have done 50% at some point in their careers. All I did was pay attention to the news. My savings account makes only 1% interest per year! I made 3.1% interest before commissions and after commissions I still made more than 1% interest, in three weeks!

US Oil (USO) on July, 19th 2011

The Tour of France ended this week and with it three weeks of me watching videos and looking at stats of the various bicyclists. It was a really exciting tour to watch. The sprinters were fighting all the time, the breakaways succeeded a number of times. Unfortunately, there were many crashes this year and I was excited to see Bradley Wiggins race, but he crashed out. I am happy that Cadel won because he is 34 and this is really a career capping thing for him. Andy Schlek will be back with his brother and I have a feeling that they stand a good chance of improving on their 2nd and 3rd place finish.

Also, the Shuttle landed for the last time. It makes me rather sad because the Shuttle did, for 30 years what no other vehicle has done, or probably will do for several decades. More importantly, the United States has no clear plan of what we are going to do next in space. That is really sad. I spent four years and tens of thousands of dollars learning about this stuff, and now where are we headed? I feel that it is all a little vague. I like clear cut goals, such as: Moon: done; Space Station: done; graduate: done; run a marathon: done; survive Broad Peak: done; get an engineering job: done.

I hope you had a good week as well.

Have You been Watching the Tour de France?

This is only the second year I have been able to follow the Tour daily and it is always interesting. The current leader by over 100 seconds says there is now way he will win, the three time winner says he is tired from a long year and not that into it, the Schlek brothers want someone else to come and attack on the mountains instead of wait to win it during the final time trial, and a slew of people including major contenders have crashed and left the race with broken bones. In other words, except for the antics of Hushov, Roy, Hoogerland, Sanchez, and Delage you have not missed the interesting parts. Thursday, Friday, and especially Saturday are bound to be interesting. Two hard mountain days are followed by an individual time trial. For lack of a better description, the Tour is wide open this year. Any of the top eight guys could take it. They are all tired and none have shown he is particularly strong.

I find the Tour so interesting because it is unlike any other sporting event. A stage event like this for runners would be slow because the advantage of drafting is low compared to cycling. Plus you can't race up three ten mile long climbs in a day running and expect to do that the next day as well. It is similar to a mountaineering expedition, but those often hinge around one day that involves 16+ hours of climbing. Unfortunately, besides me who would watch a 12 hour summit push in real time and still complain about commercials?

Anyway if you happen to be around a tv this week, particularly the end of the week, there will be some good programming.

I Live in Iowa: Week 13

The week started off as most of my weeks start with a long run on the Heritage Trail followed by the working portion of the week. I worked over 43 hours this week which is actually the most I have worked thus far. I am enjoying the 40 hour work week. It feels like I am on vacation. After the hours that I put in during college, 40 hours a week seems so short. Although, I do think that my productivity is higher on a per hour basis. Meaning that during 80 hours of school work I achieved say 65 units of productivity but during 40 hours I achieve 35 units of productivity. It is the diminishing return principle. In other words, engineers scribbling on the back of a napkin after dinner get say 60% of the way there. After all, it took me three minutes to sketch my ice axe the first time I thought of it, but it was 100+ hours before I could actually hold it even though the sketch and actual ice axe were nearly the same.

I started working on a new project this week. I am quickly becoming the "expert" on the few things I have worked. I say that in quotes because I recently had a discussion about what it means to be an expert, which I will inevitably flesh out my thoughts through an article here. It is interesting because we have basically two competitors and I am sure they each have my counterpart, so basically there are probably only three people in the world that deal with the specific implements I do. A skilled engineer could be brought up to speed in under a day, yet I still feel unique.

I ran about 44 miles this week and biked about 120, I think. That includes the duathlon Saturday. I was pretty run down during the middle of the week. My hip muscle knot flared up because I've been neglecting the 30-60 minutes a week for core and hip stability exercises. However, it worked out alright because I did my duathlon well.

Winning is often the goal of racing, but winning because the leader misses a corner and runs 150 meters farther than me is not my preferred method of winning. When we both were back on course and together I considered taking it easy and letting him win. I decided that there was no guarantee I would beat him on the run anyway so I ran my race. Had neither one of us run extra, he probably would have beat me, but I was closing on him fast on mile two and I did the last 1k faster, so I might still have won. It's like Baldini in Athens in 2004. Had the leader not been tackled by a former priest Baldini might not have won. It is what it is and we can't go back in time and redo it. Also, there was no prize money at stake or international team berth and we were both given the same medals so really it was not a terrible race to make a mistake.

For bicycling I was dropped on Wednesday night riding with the local racers. That has never happened before. They were not even going that fast. As far as athletic training is concerned the duathlon changed my whole immediate perspective. I was just messing around more or less but now I am motivated to get serious and run fast. I am planning on the fast half marathons in September and October and a December marathon.

What else did I do? Laundry, blog, listen and watch the Tour
De France, eat, and sleep.

Waiting to Race

I am sitting in the back of my van with an hour to go before the Dubuque Duathlon starts. I have learned after enough races that warming up too early can slow me down. So I try and relax as much as I can until warmup time. Today the method of relaxing is blogging.

I have never done a duathlon before so I'm not entirely sure what to expect. The one bicycle race I did in the past went terribly. I was dropped by the peloton in the first mile. Today is different. I have a new bicycle, I am more fit, there will not be a huge pack to drop me during the bike portion, there is only one hill and I've rode up it so many times that instead of getting dropped on it I intend to drop others on it. It's going to be fun, whatever happens.

I'm Taking a Break from Running

Well, sort of. You see, I am a runner. I have running goals. But without training partners or daily external support (like a team) I only lasted a year and a half post college. Additionally, training for a marathon takes so much effort that it left me a little worn out mentally and emotionally as well as physically.

So I found the bicycle and I've been riding hundreds of miles per week, because of course the most important factor in training for the marathon is aerobic endurance, which can be had a little on the bike. Also, I'm running a few workouts and runs every week because that sort of measured intensity is hard to come by on the bike without a power meter. Which is to say, I'm doing the 1-2 workouts I need to run and then a whole lot on the bike. When I get back to running full swing I guarantee personal records at 5k and the halfmarathon and hopefully the 10k.

I used to think workouts during the building phase was ridiculous, now I understand you have to be doing workouts 10+ months a year, even if they are as light as 10x100 meter strides or 3xmile at 10k or slower pace. While aerobic endurance is the most important strength and heart pump capacity and lactate threshold can not be ignored until three months before the final race. They are not the main component, but vital none the less.

I Live in Iowa: Week 11

Happy 4th of July! While this is our Independence day I would like to remind all of you that millions of Americans have fought, died, and been wounded in the battle against tyranny and we are so incredibly fortunate to have what we do. I enjoy so much luxury and freedom and it is because so many people have suffered so much. Thank you veterans!

Another wonderful week living the dream. Okay, so the dream varies a little bit now and then but  any complaints that I have are entirely selfish. I worked 42 hours this week and with the plastic simulation that I am working on I really got into viscoelastic properties and I have been learning and relearning all sorts of things about material flow and plastics. It's exciting stuff, and I get paid for it!

I ran very little, although I did do a 3xmile workout running 5:15-5:20 pace with 4x200 on the end running 32-34 pace. Considering I am not really training right now, that's pretty good. I am kind of taking a break from running at the moment, but I'm doing it with the intention of coming back faster. You see, I'm putting in huge mileage on the bicycle including hill workouts which are kind of like fartleks. Plus, I am doing slow anaerobic/LT area workouts which is really key to speed although it is something that is generally neglected in base training. I'll probably post on that in the coming weeks.

Bicycling I did 340-350 miles. Sunday - Off, Monday - 50 on the Heritage Trail on my cyclocross single speed, Tuesday - 25 after my track workout, Wednesday - 55 with the Free Flight team including winning a hill climb, Thursday - 16 including Potts Hill, Friday - Off, Saturday - 200. Talk about a lot of time on the bicycle. The thing is I just feel so fast on my new bicycle. Does the carbon frame and lighter wheels and paddle shifters and 20 speeds make a difference? Yes, at least I think so, and really the opinion that matters in regards to the value of my multi-thousand dollar purchase is mine.

I didn't do a whole lot else this week besides go to work and ride my bicycle. I did have Pancheros for the first time. Its a burrito place like Moe's, Qdoba, or Chipotle. No Moe-Rita's but the burritos are good.

The Tour De France did Start Saturday and as I write this after watching part of the team time trail I have to say I'm rooting for Andy Schlek and Bradley Wiggins for the overall, Fabian Cancellara to just do crazy stuff and tear people apart, as well as hoping that the Americans Levi Leipheimer and George Hincapie have stellar tours. It's going to be a good tour. Alberto Contador is already 1:42 behind after only two stages, which is a lot to make up, but possible in one or two stages. The highest tour finish in history will occur on July 21st at the  Col du Galibier, and the next day they will tackle the L'Alpe d'Huez. That being said, the main contender is already over a minutes a half behind so he may be out of contention by the time they get there. It's going to be exciting. 

The Double Century: My First 200 Mile Bicycle Ride

Yesterday I rode my new Trek bicycle 201 miles in 11 hours and 43 minutes. I woke up around 5:30, even earlier than I do for work, and spent some time eating breakfast and gearing up making sure that all of my bases were covered. I left my apartment just after 6. I don't know any of the exact times of day because I didn't take my watch. I started off slow and easy on my way to Galena, IL. I cruised the downtown area looking for an open coffee shop. The first promising prospect was closed but the owner was sitting outside sipping his morning espresso and since he lived upstairs offered to make me an espresso drink. I gladly accepted and asked if he would fill a bottle of mine with a mocha. While I waited I had a pastry and we talked about tourism a little. It seems this summer is not the greatest but better than last year.

From there I cruised back Illinois roads to Savanna, IL and Sabula, IA where I crossed back across the Mississippi. To be honest, Sabula is asking to be flooded. It's just above the river level and sits in the middle of the river. It would not be my first choice for the optimal place to put a town. I hit 50 miles in Sabula and my time was a flying 2:30:32, for a 19.9 mph average. I was in the big crank for the 30 miles from Galena to Sabula and was doing 22-24 mph pretty consistently. Of course it was with the wind and except for one uphill it was downhill and flat. From there I headed West and around mile 61 I got a flat tire. I changed it just fine and headed into Maquoketa. I filled up my bottles (5th and 6th bottle) and went to the local "bicycle shop" which is really just a guy that does it about one day a week on his off day. While he was finding an appropriate inner tube we talked about the divorce he is going through as well as bicycle technology. I thought that Sram and Shimano were both pretty common but everyone I talk to asks about my Sram components. It's just like when I bought my iPhone, I thought everyone else already had one, then found out that it was really only a few people and I was actually an early adopter.

I headed North and West out of town for some nice cross wind mileage on beautiful Iowa back roads. Say what you want about bad roads, Iowa is a great place to ride a bicycle. Less cars than New England, more paved roads than most of the Midwest, for the most part nicely paved roads, and because I live near the Mississippi the roads are old enough that they are fairly winding which makes for a more enjoyable ride than strait roads. I hit 100 miles in 5:22 something. That's still an 18.5 mph average. Kind of inspiring because it's pretty close to a sub 5 hour 100 mile bicycle ride, which is yet another thing that sounds like I could do. Although, it would have to be during good weather and having at least one other person to pull me along would be a huge help.

I stopped at mile 112 at Cascade to eat a little and get more water in my bottles (bottles 7 and 8). Soon after I left I headed North on 136 to Dryersville and into a 10 mph wind or so with gusts in the 15 mph region. My pace slowed considerably. For awhile I was stopping at every gas station I could to get ice water. The worst stretch of road that I ever ride in Iowa on is the four miles from Dryersville North on 136. There is no shoulder to ride on and there are always a lot of cars. However, when I am going into the wind cars whipping past me are a welcome reprieve. You see, I am going 15-20 mph and they are going say 55 or so and the wind put off by a car, or better yet an SUV give me 5-20 seconds of wind going in the direction I am going in. The closer that the cars are to me the more advantage I get. It sounds ridiculous but when the go past me with only 2-3 feet to spare it is better than 8-10 feet away in the other lane. However, due to the low density of fast moving fluids there is a suction effect which can be scary. When a car or SUV passes me I often get pulled over a foot or so after they have passed. Semis on the other hand will pull me toward the rear wheels, which is scary.

From there it kind of melted into monotonous road and sunburn and dehydration. I ended up on a stretch of gravel on Heiderscheit Road and turned around and backtracked and ran out of water. There were no facilities in Balltown so I trekked to Sherrill and hit up a bar for another two bottles of lemonade and water. I did not feel like eating a gel so I put the gel into my ice water, which I have never tried before. It did not dissolve until the water warmed up half an hour later. Then the maltodextrin tasted distinctly less sugary than lemonade. It tasted good enough that I think I will experiment with it in the future.

I still had 29 miles to go at the BP station  at the Sherrill/HWY 52 intersection so I headed up 52 and took Boy Scout road around to Asbury Road and Humke Road and then back up to Asbury then I did a little out and back on Grandview to get over 200 and I finished up nice and tired after 7 PM.

I did not eat much at all. One Honey Stinger Protein Bar, one Clif Bar (White Chocolate Macadena Nut flavor), two gels (one Clif and one Roctane), one package of Shot Bloks, two Jocalat Larabars, but I did have that mocha and pastry, and at least six bottles of Gatorade, Vitamin Water, lemonade, and blueberry pomegranate juice. Today I feel like I had a relatively hard 23-24 mile run yesterday. I am more saddle sore than any run but I can walk around just fine. Interestingly my core is sore. There is a little back and forth wobble on the bicycle and I think 11+ hours of that worked my core more than usual. Plus, I'm still working out the fit of my new bicycle. The stem might need to be shortened a little so that I am not bent over so far when I am on the hoods.

Three more things, people are always telling me I am insane or crazy for doing stuff like this. I suppose that if 99% of people are considered normal then I am certainly in the 1% that must be considered crazy. Second, this has been a life goal of mine for several years and now it's done. Third, every time I knock off a goal it is a little anticlimactic. There was no one waiting to congratulate me at my apartment at the finish. There were no voicemails and text messages congratulating me. There is certainly no money in it. I am finding there is no next level pain or other mental state that I have when doing this stuff. I am who I am and that is the same person wether I am 500 feet off the ground at a hanging belay or 184 miles into a bicycle ride going up Asbury hill or sitting at my desk at 2PM on Wednesday. This is my life, and I do not intend to sit around doing the same old stuff. What's next? 300 miles? I don't know. I can say that I do know that whatever the next challenge is I do not know if I can do it. If I knew I could do it, what would the challenge be?

My New Trek Madone 6 Series

2011 Trek Madone 6 Series (50 cm)

There it is! Look at how light it is, it's like 17 pounds. Maybe less. The statistics:

• Frame: Madone 6 Series OCLV2 50cm H1 fit
• Fork: I'm not sure but there is a Bontrager and XXX on it
• Components: Sram Rival with a 39-53 crank and 23-11 cassette
• Wheels: Bontrager Race (I think) they were $300 less than the wheels Trek recomended
• Pedals: Look (I think)
• Saddle: Affinity RL
• That little white thing between the handle bars and the fork stem: 120mm (I'm pretty sure)
• Handlebars: aluminum
• Computer: the cheapest DuoTrap compatible
• Bottle Cages: Bontrager carbon (c'mon I had to get carbon cages too)

It flies! I mean Friday I did 46 miles at an average pace of 18.5 miles and hour and it was not flat. Tuesday night, after running a workout on the track I did a little over 25 miles in an hour and a half that is a 16.9 mph average that was very aerobic. I am noticing that I am going up hills in bigger gear ratios than ever before. I'm going up hills in 3rd and 4th gear. That might not sound impressive, but thats a solid 15-18 mph. Of course, when the hill get steep enough, I still have to get off the pedals in first gear. 

Why did I spend all that money on a bicycle, when I already had two? I have wanted a fast carbon bicycle for a long time. Why? Because going a little faster and getting uphill a little easier is thrilling to me and when I am on the bike, I usually spend a lot of time on the bike and those extra five pounds is a huge amount of weight to take off the bike. Especially considering the rotational moment of inertia and air resistance of my new wheels versus my old wheels. Plus, after being unemployed for so long I am have strong fear of being unemployed again and having a physical thing that I could either spend hours on or sell is valuable to me. In other words, if I have money I'll just pay down my debt, but if I have something physical I have some collateral that I will not sell, but I could if I had to.

Top speed so far is 46.5 mph and I was in top gear pedaling at the bottom of a steep hill. I'd like to take it over 50, but it might be hard to find that kind of hill around here.