Can I get some BASE with a side of LSD

Ok ok yeah Im being punny. whoops I did it again. Anyway the phase of Ironman Training im in right now is considered to be base training or slowly getting my body to understand what I want it to do before I start trying to make it realize I want it to do all this faster as well. Oh goodie! And the best way to build base is Long Slow Distance or LSD workouts. SO yeah thats what I have been doing and I gotta tell you im starting to feel the effects. My endurance is definitely increasing but my little cutie Kaiya got me sick last week and that is really sapping my energy as well as ive not been sleeping well again so its monday morning, its 11:40 and im supposed to go for another 6 mile run and im just like ungh so tired. I just want to crawl into bed and go to sleep. I think this is what truly makes someone an Ironman. Its not just the event and the day its all the crap you sacrifice to get there. Well since im not doing anythign else productive I think im going to strap on my shoes and get out there. At least its nice outside!

Other things of note - Mothers day went really well I think I nailed that holiday very very well. Thanks Sue for the contribution to the Bling I know it means so much to Lisa and it will be a very special thing for her for a really really long time. SO thanks again.

Well thats about it for me. My job still has not changed much I have been given a few small tasks but its still business as usual. I'm still playing FF 12 and really enjoying it. Such a good game. Thats about it.

Cheers!

: - (

Ok so things have been a bit frustrating lately and thats partly the reason I have not posted. When all you have to say is bummer stuff I dont tend to like to dwell and thats what I feel like I am doing now. SO I will briefly put up the good stuff.

My first race of the year went really well. The weather was perfect and I felt really good. I shaved 9 min off my time last year and did the whole thing in like 1 hour and 18 minutes so I nailed one of my two goals. the other goal was a top 10 finish. well my age group this year was a lot larger and a lot more competitive and I was 20 out of 33. SO still not bad. I only have a few pics and they are only ok. We forgot Lisa's camera so she took a couple with her phone while taking care of Kaiya so they are ok but not like last year. I have them but just dont feel like posting them today. Maybe tommorow.

Now my frustrations!

Training is going ok but not as good as I would like. Im having a lot of issues making all my workouts and in general and getting maybe 60-75% of them in. I have not swam in over 2 weeks and yeah im just trying to get it all in but its really hard to juggle the training and work and family. I thought I had it down for the first couple of weeks b/c I shifted my work schedule from 7:30-4 to 6:30-3 and that made a world of difference and gave me a good block of time in the afternoon to get a second workout in. But I was told to go back to my other schedule and I have to say im still pretty annoyed by that for a number of reasons. SO thats been really frustrating. However I have made a solid effort to not miss the long workouts for the bike or the run. Each week I have a long bike and a long run and these are key workouts so at least that is good.

My other frustration is equipment. I started off the year with some ideas of some things I wanted to get to make the ironman easier on me. Now im finding that some of my neccesary items are no longer functional. Since I have gone back to training full time I discovered my bike pump no longer worked so I had to replace that. cant really make it through the year without a bike pump. Next my Heart Rate Monitor has crapped out on me and I have had to replace that. Those are not cheap by the way. But my whole training program is based around time excersising and heart rate zone so I cant really make it through the year with out it. And now lastly my helmet is starting to leave a lot to be desired. Besides being hmm oh I dont know 10 years old and probably in need of replacing anyone the interior padding has deteriorated and has exposed rusty metal grommets and hard plastic which is starting to cut into my head while riding. SO I feel like I need to replace the helmet now too. This is just starting to feel like one thing after another and is kind of getting annoying.

SO thats pretty much what im up to. Trying to maintain my training schedule and keep all my crap from breaking down while trying desperately to get my workouts in and I feel like im failing miserably.

Cheers!

Season Opener tommorow!

Ok well its spring and the Tri season is officially upon us! My first race is tomorrow and for the most part I feel pretty good. Im doing the Miami University tri again and this year they have made some changes. First off they pushed it back 2 weeks. Last year is was april 8 and this year its the 21st. I think they realized it was too freaking cold to be racing that early in april in Ohio. Next they pushed back the start time from 7:30 to 8am. I think this is once again an attempt to squeeze out as much warmth as possible. Last year it was seriously 28 degrees when I came off the bike which would have been around 9:15. According to weather.com I should be able to expect temps around 49 degrees at 9am. SO thats a dramatic improvement of like 20+ degrees warmer which will make a huge difference and hopefully I will not have the transition issues I had last year. My final time last year was like 1:26:51 and I placed 11th in my age group. last fall I really wanted to focus on this race and try to win my age group. More on that later. Now I'm shooting for top 10. Im looking at the results from last year and I was just 20 seconds off of 10th place. Thats not that big of a gap to fill. Plus I think I will ROCK my transitions tommorow and I think I can grab close to 4 minutes just from transitions. First place was 1:06 min which I dont think I will be able to touch. My run is just not fast enough however I know the course now and I know what to expect. The bike course is really hilly and I have been focusing on Hill work (kinda) this season and I remember thinking last year that the run course just felt fast to me and I kept holding back not wanting to blow up. Well this year im rocking the run course too. I guess my general point is I have TONS of room for improvement over last year and I think this year race will be a good one for me.

Now on to some of the negative stuff. I know some people think oh this stuff is just easy what issues could you be having. Well heres my bulleted list of monkeys on my back for tomorrow.

1 - earlier in the year I spoke of weight loss that I was hoping to achieve. You may have noticed I have not mentioned that again. The reason is that I have found out its virtually impossible for me to lose weight over the winter time (thanks to my thyroid). I have stayed at a constant 145 without budge at all. well it goes up some days but never below. SO I am still 10 lbs from my 135 goal and 15 from my ultimate 130 goal. what does that mean? It means im still dragging around 10+ lbs of dead weight tomorrow that will slow me down.

2 - I have been having real issues swimming in pools lately. google "sinusitis" and thats basically whats happening to me. Its been awful and I have only been swimming 1 day a week because of it. SO my swimming has not improved as much as I would like.

3 - My Heart Rate monitor has decided that even though I <3 my <3 rate monitor it shares no love for me. It basically does 1 of 2 things. Either I cant pick up the signal so I get no reading at all or, and this is my favorite, I get some kind of echo I think and it says my heart rate is much higher than I know it is. For example I went for a run earlier this week with it. I started to jog and had gone half a block. According to my HRM my HR was 290 beats per minute. Lets just think about that for a second. SO long story short I need a new HRM. booo hisssss

4 - I got a new bike! Ok thats a good thing. Whats not a good thing is like last year I have made a major change to my bike and have had virtually no time to test it or ride it on anything but the trainer. SO im a bit nervous that my first real ride on it is going to be a race and im really nervous about having a mechanical that I have to deal with b/c in a sprint race that pretty much kills you.

5 - last night I went to take my bike out for a spin in the neighborhood to get a better feel for it and try to work out the kinks. Well I found one kink right off the bat and that is my bicycle pump has a whole in the tube that it uses to fill the tires with so the max I can get my air pressure to is 50 psi. Now for people not in the know that doesn't sound so bad. However my bike tire pressure is usually 120psi so 50 is unusable. SO I gotta get a new pump today and im not happy about that.

6 - I really have no clue what to wear tomorrow. I just dont know how cold its going to feel and am going to bring lots of choices which means my transition area will be a little clogged up.

SO in a nutshell thats what im facing tommorow. Im fatter than I was hoping to be. Im not as fit as I was hoping to be. But hey its the season opener and most people are probably in the same boat I'm in.

SO tune in next week for results and photos!

T-30 weeks and counting

Well its 30 weeks till the Ironman and right now I feel like balsa wood man. I would be lying if I were to say the whole thing doesnt scare me. I mean c'mon lets think about this - 140.6 miles covered over Land (running), Sea (open water ocean swim), and I know its a stretch but Air (the bike, my body wont be touching the ground now will it!) and my goal is 12-13 hours. 12-13 hours!!!! OMG thats a freaking long time. thats like driving to florida long time and thats the optimistic side. It could very well take me roughly 15 hours to complete. 15 HOURS! Now thats a freakin long time. SO yeah at this point I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about the whole thing. I know that I can do it and I know that even if I cant quite keep up my training that as long as I put a solid effort in I will finish but there is still so much of the unknown out there. SO many things can go wrong in that race. The Ironman is really different than anything else out there in a lot of ways. Many races that are open to the public most avg joes can enter and they wont win but they will at least finish. The ironman is a different beast altogether. This race demands respect or else it will spit you out and forget about you faster than you can say D-N-F. DNF is that horrible phrase that nobody likes to see next to their name on a results sheet. Did Not Finish. I think thats the fear of most first timers and thats what im facing now. Will I be able to actually train for this monster of a race? Will I be able to anticipate things that will go wrong? will I be prepared for them? What about the things I cant predict, will I be able to improvise, adapt, and overcome them? I know im not alone though. Right now there are at least a couple of hundred other people who for them, Ironman florida is their first race and they are just as scared as me. Right now they are obsessing over things like bike wheels and hydration racks. Trying to shave valuable minutes off the bike with the latest in aerodynamic wind cheating carbon fiber. Wondering what shoes to wear for the run and wondering if a wetsuit can really float the boat anchors that are my legs into a proper swim position.

SO todays the day that my training really kicks off. Today is my inaugural day where I can say I am actively training for an Ironman. Wish me luck!

Cheers!

Learning to Run Again

SO ever since I broke the ol femur I have just never felt really "on" again with my running. I have felt really clunky and just like I was moving really unnaturally. In the past 3 years I have had a few runs I would consider good. Runs where I was able to settle into a very nice pace and maintain that for 3-5 miles. This however has not been the norm. Also back in my Cross Country days I got some pretty severe stress fractures in both my shins which still bother me a little bit even today. SO proper form and good shoes have always been on my mind especially with starting to train for the Florida Ironman. I am going to be doing a LOT of running over the next year and thats where I see my biggest opportunity for injury. Its just funny how things work out though. In the past I have tried to get the cushiest shoes I could possibly get. For years I ran only in Nike Air Max's which use Nike's air bed in both the heel and the forefoot. These are not cheap shoes but they felt the best to me. In the last couple of years since starting to run again I have been using the Nike shox system. These shoes use 4 elastomer pillars in the heel to act as shock absorbers that cushion then propel your foot forward again. I ran in about three pairs of those and thought that I really liked them. Heck I ran my marathon in them! However I always had a little beef with them in that they are super duper heavy. SO last fall I was at a store and found a pair of shoes by a company that makes running shoes for woman called Ryka. I was pretty impressed and did some research. They got Cushiest shoe of the year from runners world. SO I thought I would give them a try. What I found was that I couldnt run in them at all. My calves would just lock up and I believe now it was becuase of the nike shox shoes I had been running in. The heel on those is really high and it had totally changed the way I was running. For the worse I might add. SO I really didnt like that and started to ween myself off of the nike shox and back onto the ryka's. I was running mostly with them and that was working but I had a trip the nike outlet a few months ago and they had Nike Free's for dirt cheap. I thought I would give them a try. You see what makes Nike Free's different from other shoes is that they are made to mimic running barefoot. The sole is supper flexible and very thin. I thought they were kinda gimmicky but for the price I thought I would give them a try. WOW was I wrong. A gimmick they are not. SO I have been doing all my running pretty exclusively in them and have gotten up to 5+ miles in these almost barefoot like shoes. Oh yeah and you dont wear socks with them. I'm getting zero blisters! SO this concept of running barefoot was kinda sticking with me so I did a google search for barefoot running. WOW I couldnt believe what I found. TONS of people are throwing away their running shoes and going au natural. And whats weird is it makes sense to me. SO I have started to incorporate barefoot track work into my running workouts. Im up to maybe a 1/2 a mile so far which is not very much but it feels so good. You see to run barefoot is to completely go against the way running shoe companies (RSC) want you to run. RSC's want you to take long drawn out strides and land smack on your heel with your leg extended. Why do they want you to run like this? B/c it hurts! It hurts a lot. your ankles, knees, hips, back, just about everything. However if you run barefoot your heel never really hits the ground. You use your ankle and knee and hips to absorb the shock naturally when you land on your fore foot. SO tell me. what makes more sense to let the impact of your weight in forward motion be controlled by 1/2" of high density rubber foam or for that weight to be evenly distributed over three different pivot points in your body. I just cant believe it still. when I run using the "conventional" method im pulling 40 second laps on the indoor track. at 15 laps to a mile thats a 10 minute mile. Thats pathetically slow. But running barefoot im easily in the 30 second range for the same laps. Thats a 7.5 min mile! And its more comfortable and is requiring less effort to go faster. But heres the catch. Im discovering what many other people like me have discovered. That years of running in super cushy shoes have caused the muscles in my feet to atrophy. My feet are week and fragile and I have to take this barefoot thing slowly to build back up the muscles in my feet and avoid injury. SO how far will I go with this? I dont know. I have read about several people who have become barefoot marathoners. That the asphalt really isnt that bad. I am probably not going to go that far but I am really looking at alternative shoes. Im looking for shoes now that allow freedom of my toes which im discovering can really aid in balance and control while running. Im also looking at shoes that have primarily no heel cushion at all to them. I see now that the heel cushion is evil and even in my Nike Free's the heel is so big that I cant avoid landing on it and therefore it messes up my newfound stride. SO I'm really interested to see how this goes as men in my family have often been plagued by foot problems and have had to wear orthotics of some kind. Im starting to realize those are part of the problems as well. A stong foot and is an injury free foot. But thats a whole other rant ^_^ SO if you see me running barefoot dont ask me if I forgot my shoes, just try to keep up!

cheers!

If I could save time in a bottle...

Ok I'm not a big Jim Croce fan and if it were not for Time life music collection commercials aired when I was a child I don't think I would even know about his music or who he was but that line has always stuck with me for some reason. SO yeah im sitting here on Monday morning and I just feel really overwhelmed with everything I have to do and whats really frustrating is that the "have to do's" are trumping the "want to do's." I wonder sometimes if this is what its like to be an adult. Do we really lose all say over what we do and where we go? Do we just become a slave to our lives and sit idly by and watch the years pass? I have been fighting that notion but I feel like I am losing that battle. It just seems like the older I get the more responsibilities I have to take on and the more people expect of me and that leaves little time for hobbies or activities I would like to do. I think I have really been noticing this with my training for the 07 Tri-season. I am still really excited about it and really looking forward to the various races I will be competing in but my expectations are starting to wane a bit. Back in Nov. If you asked me about the Miami University tri I would have told you that I thought I could place. Maybe even win my age group. Now I'm just hoping that the weather is nice and that I beat my time from last year. Or I could just be hitting my annual cold ohio weather funk. Lets give it up for seasonal depression! I'm so sick of the cold and just want it to get warmer. Oh well enough whining from me. SO whats going on with me???

Work. ugh. Things are super busy and I'm anxiously awaiting my new position.

Training. - Is going ok but the big news is I got a new bike!!! Its a kind of bike I have wanted for a really long time and its a size that will fit me! Its so tiny it rocks. Its a softride lite and when I get done updating the cockpit I will snap some pics and post them up. w00t for bicycles!

Family - Kaiya got her first cold last week and its still lingering. She has now gotten lisa sick and me slightly sick so thats fun too. She is about the most pathetic thing I have ever seen when she coughs and it makes me wonder how my parents ever handled my bronchitis and pneumonia filled childhood. However, and this is the cool part. Last night, for the first time ever, she giggled and then she laughed. Now im not talking a little laugh, im not even talking LOL kinda laugh. I'm talking about the full fledged ROTFLMAO kind of laugh which got lisa and I laughing which just egged her on and made her laugh even more. It was awesome. Whats even funnier is what triggered it all. Lisa looked at Kaiya and said "are we gonna see bobba fett?" and Kaiya just LOST IT!

Gaming - Lisa and I finished up both Lego star wars games and wow was the second better than the first. the first was a total letdown after playing the second one so if anyone out there has only played the first one. Get the second its so much better and so much more fun. Im still working on enchanted arms and thats cool and really picking up but I'm just DYING to play FF12 and just cant wait for it.

Well thats all for now - cheers!

spillin the beans

Ok so yeah I was a bit vague in my last post but well I had to be. SO what was I reffering to. Well my job. Ok dont get me wrong I do like the place I work and for the most part things are pretty spiff but I have to tell you that when I signed on to this gig 6 years ago I didnt think I would still be doing essentially the same tasks today as I was when I was hired. SO yeah to say that I am burnt on this job is pretty accurate and im tired of feeling crispy! SO whats the change? Well they created a new position here called server specialist. Basically the position will revolve around maintianing all the various systems that we have here and keeping them up to date. As well as learning SQL and doing a TON of stuff with SQL. I actually kind of excited about the SQL part b/c its something I know nothing about. An uncharted area just waiting for me to explore and conquer. Also the big pull of the new position is it will get me out of purgatory or what most mortals refer to as first level phone support. sigh -- 6 years of that has taken more than 6 years off my life. From arguing with various Telco's why a T1 was down and if it was in fact their problem to actually getting into a yelling match with an in-duh-vidual over weather or not a T1 was 1.5 mb/s total bandwidth (the worlds viewpoint) or 1.5 mb full duplex therefore 3mb/s (his viewpoint) have left me jaded, bitter, and in general pretty unhappy. I pretty much cringe when the phone rings and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. Really how many times can a person hear "umm I think the internet is slow" before it kills a little piece of their soul. SO the good news is that at least in the near future that chapter of my life will be behind me and I can move on to brighter sunnier pastures. SO as exciting as this is it comes with a bit of a delay. I cant assume the new spot until my spot is filled and I have trained the new "person" SO it could be upwards of 4-6 months before any of this takes effect which stinks but at least their is hope on the horizon and as Lisa has said, shes happy I stuck up for myself and actually tried to change something instead of just being a doormat. Ok I paraphrased a bit but you guys get the point. SO thats the latest with me.

cheers!

Where are you?

Ok i know I have not posted in a bit but yeah ok whatever. SO whats been up with me lately? Well i'm going to be a bit vague on one area of my life but if you are sharp you might pick up on what im talking about.

begin rampant vagueness

Ok so have you ever been in one situation for a long time and started to feel like maybe it was not the best situation to be in anymore but you were just sticking it out? Did you ever get to the point where you started to try and change that sitch? Well I have and what funny is its making me realize just how much I dislike the current sitch im in. However an alternative prospect is on the horizon that would be, in my opinion, leaps and bounds better. I just want to get out of purgatory!

end rampant vagueness

Training:
Ok so Ironman !! w00t w00t! My training has take a hiatus this past week because I suffered what I think to be my first moderate injury of the season. Whats weird is its nothing of what I expected. I think I got chlorine or some kind of chemical poisoning from the pool I swim at. I felt awful for about 4 days, sneezing, majorly congested, with burning eyes and skin. Yes thats right my entire epidermis was experiencing a mild burning sensation for roughly a week. However yesterday I hoped back on the horse and did a nice 40 min run. Today I have a 45 min easy spin on the bike scheduled but I don't know if I will get to that. more on that later.

The Ironman Florida store finally updated their products for the year and this little baby is going to be added to my wardrobe very soon I hope.

Life at home!!!!:
Things at home are awesome. I always liked coming home before but now that I have Lisa and K-bear (he he he) its just so cool. I love my little girl so much and shes so gorgeous and just so amazing and everyday im just so amazed that she's real. Ok enough gushing so whats really up at home? Well Kaiya is really growing and we go for her 2 month appt on monday so look for updated height weight info on her blog either mon or tues. what else....hmm....Oh yeah we got another car! Kinda came out of the blue and its a really long story but we bought a 2003 ford focus ZTS sedan from my neighbor. I say bought but I should really say stole b/c he sold it to us for roughly half its value and im not kidding which is why we even got it. SO the current Knodel vehicle count is this:
1999 Mazda Miata - our date car ^_^
2005 Hyundai Tucson - Lisa's new ride (my old car)
2003 Ford Focus - My new ride
2000 Honda CBR F4 - my motorbike.
Yeah thats right so we now have 3 cars and a motorcycle and two drivers, although I think kaiya will be asking for the keys to the miata very soon! Right now we are not planning on getting rid of any of them but in the spring we will re-evaluate and might get rid of the bike. Just not sure. Other than that this weekend the fam is going down to Nashville to meet up with the wrights to have a fun filled weekend of hanging out telling old stories and just relaxing in general! The hotel says it has a fitness center so we shall see what that means. Im hoping for an bike and a treadmill that both work b/c then I will still be able to get my workouts in. Otherwise this weekend might be a wash. Well see.

Gaming:
right now im playing enchanted arms which I have to say finally at around the 20-25 hour mark the story started to pick up and get interesting. Man was that a slow starter. But so far its a good game and im not rushing it despite the fact that I have final fantasy 12 calling to me in my sleep. play meeee plaaaaayyyyy meeeeee!!!! LOL

Lisa and I also started Lego star wars the original trilogy and its GOBS of fun. Lets just say the best moment in videogame history is lego chewbacca jumping on the chest of a lego stormtrooper and ripping its arms off!!! It just makes me so happy to think about it!

Well thats all for now I thinks

Cheers!

Super busy

Yeah I know so is everyone else but hey I dont want to hear it b/c Im actually taking 5 min to throw something up here even if it aint all that significant. SO how are things going? Well they have been pretty hectic as of late b/c of a certain little miss thing named Kaiya. I wouldnt say shes keeping us busy b/c that implies were doing things or accomplishing something. Im sure that time will come in the future but for now I would say shes keeping us pretty preoccupied. But its all good right! She is amazing and although she is fighting through a lot of the usual newborn crankiness it is usual and should be over soon enough. Let the good times Roll! SO what else is up with us. Well my mom has been with us up until today. I have to drive her halfway to Michigan today to exchange her with my bro. Side note #1 Michigan is actually pronounced Mi-chi-gan, its Cantonese in origin and I cant tell you what it means b/c its quite vulgar. Unlike Ohio which is japanese for good morning. Really which state would you rather live in??? Anyway so yeah get this Im bringing my bro my mom and a pack of real conies - sorry cincy folks conies arent mini hot dogs - and I doubt he has anything in return for me. The nerve of some people. SO anyway its a sad day since mom and dad got their psuedo permanant visa's for the UK they technically dont have to leave the uk till 2009. This is a huge deal for them but leaves a return trip to the states up in the air. hmmm what else. Oh yes I got a great book that I have been reading like crazy. Its called "be iron fit" and its a training program for the Ironman desinged around what a normal person could hope to achieve in terms of hours a week spent training. Its awesome and will be a amazing resource for me over the next year.

Gaming:
I got Enchanted Arms and Lego star wars 2 for my 360 and FF 12 for my ps2. So far I have started on Enchanted Arms and although a little light on story its a great first effort for a party system turn based combat RPG. which to this point has been non-existant on the 360. Im avoinding FF12 until im done with enchanted arms. Mostly b/c I really want to enjoy EA and I think if I reversed the order of play I wouldnt. FF12 is supposed to be amazing and the story utterly fantasic. SO I cant wait to start it but I am not rushing EA at all. Taking my time and enjoying it. Also hopefully lisa and I will get some star wars action soon b/c thats the first 2 person co-op game we have had in a long time. and it looks really fun too!

Training: My weight loss goals have not been as successfull as I had hoped over the holidays. although I did not put on any weight I did not lose any additional weight either since my workout schedule was very messed up. Hoping to get back on that horse starting this week and begin daily workouts again.

Well thats all for now.
Cheers!

I got a suit! A Wetsuit that is!

So thats my new news in the world of my budding tri career (LOL). I got my first wetsuit. Its a Quintana Roo Ultrafull and its really nice. Really warm too. I was totally sweating as soon as I put it on. I got it used from a fellow triathlete and it was super cheap and the perfect size. SO im pretty jazzed. Open water here I come! The other thing im working on is my fit and form on the bike seen here



Still needs work but ive got time. I need to get my back flatter. Oh well.

Somebody is a daddy. Guess who??? w00t w00t

Ok no huge surprise here but im now a father! If there was ever a reason to give a w00t scream now is the time. All I can say is it ROCKS! My little girl is quite possibly the sweetest, cutest, most amazing baby that ever was. And no im not biased that just the truth and a simple fact. Well i could post tons of pics of her and talk all about her but then what would be the point of her having her own blog. SO if you have not checked it lately head on over to kaiya's blog to read lisa's birth story (my version is coming soon) and to see lots of cute pics of my little girl. JOY!

Go to her blog now. go NOW!!!!

I <3 my <3 rate monitor!

Ok ok I know everyone is not as geeky as me but in little net lingo and txt short speak <3 represents a heart. Just like a smiley flip it 90 degrees counter clockwise and OH WOW ITS A HEART! Its almost like one of those hidden 3d pictures but not. SO ne way its been about two weeks since I signed up for the Ironman and although I have been thinking about it non-stop I have put off posting anything about it. SO what am I doing? How am I preparing? Well my training plan is tentatively going to be like this:

phase 1: conditioning
phase 2: base, endurance
phase 3: power, speed, endurance

SO I thought I would take some time to talk about Phase 1 since thats where I am right now. Ive decided that if I really want to hit my time goal (somewhere in the 12 hour range) that I need to drop some weight. The marathon was a very good test of this. Had I been at my now target weight I think I could have gone a lot faster. However the marathon taught me this and then circumstances made this idea even harder. Ya see after the marathon I took like two weeks off (which was dumb) and then I got sick. Real sick. that scratched another 1.5 weeks. SO I went close to a month without doing practically anything. Plus with the house still torn up (its almost all back together fyi!!!!) I was eating Fast Food almost daily - YUCK! SO long story short I put on 10lbs after the marathon and was sitting at 150 which is just awefull since my target weight is 130!!! SO after two weeks of some great workouts in the Fat Burning zone - thanks <3 rate monitor I have dropped down to 145. Only 15 more to go! My goal is to be 130 by jan 1st. If that happens then I can start base. If not then I have to keep kicking it into overdrive until Im there or I might decide to go 125 not sure. I just have to see how im looking and feeling and what my body fat is at. I really need to go sub 10% I need to be more like a marathoner. long lean muscle little to no fat.

SO thats my current goal. Wish me luck!

Cheers!

Dancing with the Devil -- My two weeks with Vista RC1

Background:
Ok so I would not call myself a windows guy or a mac guy or a linux guy. Why??? Because I have to use all of these OS's throughout my day and I see strengths and weaknesses in all of them. I do however favor and feel most comfortable in a windows environment simply b/c that is where I spend most of my computing time.

The Challenge:
Install Vista RC1 (MS's long awaited new OS) on my laptop and take it for a spin

SO I have a laptop. I love this little piece of hardware. Its an Averatec and its amazing. What do I love so much about it. Its tiny! SO the basic specs are Intel Centrino proc at 1.2ghz 512mb ram and 80 gig hard drive. SO its not a screamer but its no slouch either.

The install:
RC1 took a surprisingly long time to install. Close to 2.5 hours. This really made me cringe and remember the old days of installing win 98. while the install was not difficult like win 98 could be it just took forever. However this could be attributed to the close to 2.5 gig install dvd that I created. How does that compare to XP you might ask? XP is a scrawny 500 mb install. SO with Vista your getting 4x's more Microsoft!!!!!

The experience:
With vista freshly installed I was really quite excited. I am considered a windows guy by my mac friends and have taken quite a bit of heat with the fact that xp has had no successor in well, far too long a time. SO I booted my little chiyo chan up and waited, and waited, and waited some more. I couldn't believe how long it took to boot but I guess that goes along with an os install that takes 2.5 gigs of space. OK so now its up. Now were cooking gravy without the lumps! At first glance Vista does look very nice. Very polished and shiny. However I'm not one for pretty looks or cute animations. I'm a user who prefers performance and features over well, eye candy. I started to navigate around and found some interesting features that I have to say I liked. In the control panel area Vista includes a ton of really good apps to show you whats going on with your pc and to help diagnose any issues. I really did like these and saw one that I found interesting. I forget the name of it but it basically assesses your system and gives it a vista experience score. It checks several things like processor, RAM, Video card, and what not and takes the lowest of these and thats your score. My laptop scored a 1. This is the first big indicator for me that Vista is not only going to be a pain (more later) but its going to force your hand into getting new hardware. However my laptop is less than a year old and flys! with xp. SO my first thought was whats the point of this score? Is it merely there to mock me? However bill thought I might ask this question and put a handy little link under the score that says "what does this score mean" I clicked on the link and was horrified by the answer. It basically came down to this. Microsoft will start scoring software based on minimum specs and will use this to "help" the average consumer choose software for their system. Example. I want to buy Halo 3 for vista. Hmm it says it requires a Vista experience score of 9.5 and my computer only has a 4. I guess I cant buy it. I see the flip side on a tech support line going something like this. " SO your running outlook in vista and you cant send messages. Whats your vista experience score. 3. hmm theres your problem outlook requires a 4 clickkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. SO yeah that makes me cringe again.

SO Ive done a lot of bashing but what did I like? Oh wait theres more bashing!

Ram. Simply put Vista is a RAM hog. This was one of the first things I checked as I feel xp is horrible at managing memory and allowing processes to go into a zombie state and just leave chunks of memory in use that should be free. I had high hopes for vista and memory management. What did I find. Vista freaking took it all! I think the OS required around 250-300 mg of ram to run and then vista cached the rest of it. Thats right vista took it all. All my memory to hold onto and do with as it pleased. I really did not like that and it did not inspire warm fuzzies.

Ok so really what did I like. Well vista comes standard with IE7!! now you can have a browser that supports a cool new feature called tabs!!!! Oh and it also comes with Win Media 11 the better more stable less wonky version of win media. Some other features I liked were explorer has been improved and has some automated features that makes navigating a bit easier or and quite possibly the biggest surprise to me was that they have not only held onto the command prompt (which I was wondering if they would ditch it) but they actually improved it! I couldn't believe it but it now has tab auto completion on commands and directory trees!

The final Verdict:
I'm super duper not impressed.

Explanation:
For being the next version of windows I feel that its minimum specs are a bit too bloated. I dont think I have ever had a video card that would qualify for vistas minimum and I see this only driving the price of the average consumer pc up. I cant imagine what it would take to get a good score in vista but It seems to me it would be a high end gaming rig and those are usually in the 3-4 thousand dollar range. This is not an OS for the people, its an OS for the elite. I guess MS logic is that since they only come out with a new version every what 5 years that they need to make sure it doesn't have hardware to support it for a few years and that when hardware is finally coming out thats affordable and that runs the OS well they can release their new version and screw everyone all over again. Ok Ok I know I have not really even touched on what I thought of running it on a day to day basis. I would like to make a note that I ran the vista upgrade advisor and my laptop passed. Like I said its not blazing but its no slouch either. SO vista gave me the OK to install. Boot ups were a nightmare and reminded me of 98 with 5 min+ boot up times. Shutdowns were the same way and I just cant understand why it takes so long to kill processes and shut a computer down. Granted I realize if had a better score say a 5 or 6 these could be dramatically better.

I do have 2 major gripes.

1.) Windows defender. I found no way to turn this off (realize I didnt spend that much time with it) Windows defender is the ultimate in protect your computer from anything even windows programs. It was about as ridiculous as this. start - programs - games - solitaire DEFENDER comes to the rescue informing you that solitaire is an executable and could damage your machine. Did I really intend to open this potentially malicious software! Seriously it pops up whenever you try to do anything and it got old real fast.

2.) my second gripe and what led to the downfall of vista on my little chiyo chan (I'm re-installing xp as I type this) was that it kept crashing. Anytime I would open an app it would die within 4 seconds of it opening. My laptop became completely unusable. Thats right the OS remained stable (whatever) but I could not open any apps. RUBBISH!

Final Thoughts:
Get excited kids because windows vista is coming and it finally includes lots of great software and features that you have loved in other competitors software and operating systems for the past 5 years!

Cheers!

It's ON!

Well I did it. I took the plunge. I joined roughly 2000 other athletes in signing up for what is going to be the most difficult and challenging race of my life. I was really worried that I would not get a spot. Registration fills in a matter of hours and many people try and dont make it. Registration started at noon and at 12:05 I was at a computer trying to get a spot. I only had about 3 screens on the web to fill out but it took me close to 25 min just to sign up. The lag was that bad b/c the site was being hammered that hard. Yesterday I was flying pretty high. Today I think im a little more grounded. Im thinking through the next year and the full weight of what signing up for an ironman means. Its funny Lisa had a dream last night where I finished an Ironman and WOW does she have high expectations. In her dream I didnt win my age group but I might as well have for where she had me. SO she asks me as Im leaving for work "SO how long do you think it will take you?" I calmly replied 12-15 hours is what im hoping for. Lets just think about that. 12-15 hours. Thats a long time to be doing anything! SO like I said I have a lot to consider and plan for but I think its going to be good. I already have some ideas and am working on some ways to help finance this whole "experiance" If they come through it will be the difference between taking a road trip in a caddy vs a yugo so I'm very hopefull they come through. But I guess I just want to say one more thing and thats a big Thank you to Lisa. She knows this is a big commitment on my part and that its going to mean time away from her and Kaiya but she also knows how much this means to me and how much I need to do this (thats another post entirely) and shes being really supportive of me. SO thanks so much sweetie. I love you so much and thanks for supporting me in this. Your the best!

Cheers!

I made the evening news!!!!

Ok I dont know how long this link will be active and I was not even going to put it up but lisa was like "you need to put that on your blog" SO here we are with my 5 seconds of fame.

http://www.whiotv.com/video/10155231/index.html

cheers

PROGRESS!!!!! - like oh my gosh!

Yeah so I'm like totally fighting acting like a little kid on x-mas morning but its like sooo super cool. Work on the house started this week and wow are they moving fast. SO whats like happened. Well they came on tuesday and did a bit of prep and remounted the vanity in the downstairs bath so its now a fully functional bath again! And their is running water downstairs!!!! Wed. Saw the arrival of our cabinets (actually they came in on tuesday and they picked them up late tuesday afternoon) at our house!!!! Most of them were put into place but not really mounted. SO what did I walk into today????

Can you say some floor!!!!


This shot is from the back door towards the front. They laid almost all the living room floor today! Im so buzzing!



This shot is from the front door back. Basically the same as the last shot just from the other side of the room.


Heres my kitchen. Still a bit of work to be done but they are jamming on the floor right now and then are going to finish the small details of the cabinets and make sure they work all nice and spiff.


Heres a shot from the garage door out to the living room. Its like wow it almost looks done. Notice none of the kick plates are in and the countertop is not actually anchored save for one or two screws.


Heres the other side of the kitchen. Still lots to be done but hey im so excited right now that stuff is getting done.


Ok yeah well I thought I would throw this last one in since some might wonder??? Hey Chris wheres all the stuff that is usually downstairs. Well here it is. My garage has been overrun for the past two months and I long for the day I get it back.

SO whats left to be done??? Well the floor has to be finished and they think they might be mostly done if not done with that by tommrow. I think they are a wee bit optimistic but they say they are coming at 7:30 and the only thing they are doing is the floor so who know!

Cabinets need to be finished and their are quite a few little details that need to be done with that. I think that will be a lot of little adjust this move that type of work.

clean up

Move back in!

Its conceivable that all the work will be done within the next week or by next weekend which makes me ohhhh soooo happy. Also I have made the appointment for the guy to come and measure for our new countertop so I will meet with him on tuesday and see how that goes. After that its supposedly 3 weeks till the countertop is in and then the house will again be done and put back together again.

SO w00t!!!

Cheers!

ankle update

Thanks for all the concern. To answer questions:

"what did the doctor say?" -- Nothing!! I did not go to a doctor. I have rolled my ankle before and this was not as bad as other times. Probably a light sprane. All a doctor would do would be to wrap it and tell me to ice it and stay off of it. I am an expert at wrapping ankles and I know how to ice and staying off of it is "yeah duh" SO I have just been taking it easy. Thankfully my job allows me to sit most of the day and I have been wearing clogs instead of my normal boots to allow my ankle some room to heal and not be agitated.

"hows the ankle" -- The ankle is doing well. I am wearing normal boots again and although their is still some residual swelling it feels basically fine now. Im still keeping off of it and dont think I will work it until maybe saturday and that will probably be a bike ride not a run.

"massive gaming time!!" - I wish!

"Road obstacles FTW!" - Oh jason how right you are. The road obstacle was the hands down winner that day!

My Big Fat Swollen Ankle

Yup thats right I suffered an Injury yesterday during a normal Lunch Time run. I was crossing a street and foolishly was looking out for cars and not so much for little acorns or whatever the heck it was that I hit. All i know is it was rather big and very round and when I landed on it my left ankle rolled quite severly and It hurt like the dickens. I almost fell but managed to keep myself up right and just took a second to catch my bearings. I looked down and it was already starting to swell so I knew that was not good. SO I got to walk the last mile of my 5 mile run back to the office where I promptly iced my ankle for about an hour. What I had not realized at the time was that I seem to have also pulled something in my knee as that is hurting quite a bit as well.

Hooray for physical fitness!

So im kinda bumming today as I had taken a pretty big amount of time off since the marathon and was going to hit it hard starting this week. Now those plans are a bit gone and im just trying to keep my weight off my ankle and knee and let it get all healed up! Oh well. Thats life.

Cheers!

Why my life at times sucks and also why I hate lowes!

Ok so in the midst of all the wonderfull crap with my house my thermostat just died. Yup stopped working. This was about two weeks ago and I tried a number of things like stripping the wires back a few inches and re-wiring the thermostat (i had it disconected for painting) That didnt work. SO i eventually realized that my thermostat runs directly off of my Furnace. Who knew! And that my furnace in turn also had no power. SO I went for the obvious and checked the breaker. Nope that was good so why no power. Well I kept looking at it but was getting no where so I brought home a volt meter and started testing different areas. I could tell that power was getting to the furnace from the house wiring but it was getting stopped somewhere. SO I started unplugging things and testing for electricity. Well buried under many wires and other things I finally found what I was looking for. A blown fuse. Eureka! Thats an easy fix! or so I thought. I looked at the fuse and its a normal blade type fuse like you usually see in a car. SO I went out to my car to look and see if I had a spare in my fuse kit that would work. Nope. All the new blade fuses are much smaller and higher amps. Psst you can tell the amps by the number on the fuse. Mine was a 3 and most of the ones in the care were in the 15-30 range. SO I thought ok this must be lower and for home HVAC use. SO last night a trip to lowes was in order. Well I got there and im looking at the fuses and I cant find anything even close to what I have in my hand. SO I of course make the mistake of asking for help. The conversation went something like this.....

me: excuse me
lowes: yeah
me: im looking for a fuse
lowes: a what? (spoken as if the word fuse was new to him)
me: A FUSE (yes perhaps louder will convey the meaning of the word fuse!)

I then proceed to hold up the fuse

lowes: we dont sell car fuses
me: this isnt a car fuse
lowes: it sure looks like one to me
me: well it came from my furnace
lowes: ive never seen a fuse like that in a furnace

at this point im just in shock that im arguing with the guy from lowes as to weather or not the fuse came from a furnace and not a car? Im like wt? Its not like car fuses are used to make meth and house fuses are ok so if I pull the ol 1 - 2 switch-a-roo on the lowes guy I can make some smack.

He continues to insist that its a car fuse and tells me to go to autozone. Im like whatever so lisa and I leave and head for home depot. While the gentleman their was more helpfull and not arguing with me he again felt that it was also an auto fuse and was surprised that it came from a furnace. I explained my furnace was only 5 years old so I did not feel this was a particularly large order for home depot. The gentleman agreed and appologized for not having the fuse and again also suggested autozone.

Brief side note -- people at lowes are ignorant and mean. people at home depot are nice and friendly

SO seeing as best buy was right next door to home depot and auto zone was a few miles down the road I thought. Hey maybe they will have it. guess what. They didnt. guess what he said. yup autozone. SO after 3 stores I went to auto zone and bought a nice 4 pack of the fuse I needed.

SO something that should have been simple and easy ended up a long, annoying, and frustrating journey. Now if this were a rare occasion that would be one thing. But this ladies and gentlemen this is what its like to be Chris Knodel. HOO AHHH!

Cheers!

Insert Title Here

Ok I couldnt think of anything to call this update and I was tired of using "quick update" for a title so there ya go. SO whats up??? Well last week I was in Columbus all week in Training taking RH033 which is the first level "power user" Red Hat Linux training class. It was a good class but im so glad that I dont have to do that everyday. 8 hours of classwork in the same content area with roughly 3 labs a day is just too much. Especially for 4 days. SO thats over.

I guess I will just break things out like I normally do.

House:
No real progress. Worked on the guest room most of saturday fixing / re-painting the walls. Was not expecting to have to do this but thats life right. But now that room is back to working order and Lisa and I were able to re-claim Kaiya's room and move all the junk out of her room into the guest room closet. Which makes Lisa much happier than she was before. And that my friends is a very very good thing ^_^ Still have not heard when to expect the cabinets to be in or any other work to start!!!!! Which is just freakin awesome!

Training:
SO what now that the marathon is over??? Some of you might be wondering that? Well I have one more race for the year and thats the ghosts and goblins 5k near the end of the month. ITs a 5k so its the first race im doing this year where im not worried about finishing and actuallly thinking. Hmmmm how fast can I do this in. Ideally I would love to go under 20 min. But that would mean sub 7's for the whole thing. Dont know if I can squeek that. I would at least like to go under 24. I think last year I was 26 something and I feel a lot stronger than I did last year so we shall see. Im going to focus on a lot of speed work over the next couple of weeks SO we shall see. And hey its only 3.1 miles. Thats nothing so i think if I dont cross the line feeling like I have to spew It means I didnt run hard enough!

Gaming:
Finished Xenosaga 3 last night and alls I gots to say is WOW. SO good. I have often complained about video games having dissapointing endings. Its like you put all this time into a game and you are treated to all of about 5 min of post boss fight wrap up. And its almost always (read always is) a total let down. Not this game! OMG Can you say close to 1.5 hours of post boss fight cut scenes and FMV. Its like wow I finished the game and now I get close to a full length movie to wrap the loose ends of the game up. Very Very satisfying. Total play time right now is 71.5 hours and we still have a couple of small things we want to wrap up.