DaShaun

That guy that did that thing that one time

Archive for March, 2010

Don’t get a big head just yet

Mar 30

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In training its important to keep track of what you have done and what worked for you and what didn’t.  I’m keeping track of my training in 3 different places at the moment: TrainingPeaks.com, connect.garmin.com and dailymile.com.  Today I think I finally found my groove for getting all three sites updated the quickest.  You might be wondering why I use all three sites.

TrainingPeaks.com is the site the MidwestTriathlonCoaching.com uses to deliver their workouts.  It a private site and its primarily used to allow me to communicate my workout information and results back to my coach.  It has a nice feature that allows me to upload my workouts from my Garmin Forerunner 405 directly into the workout that was assigned to me.  I just figured out today that all of my devices export files are actually stored on my computer by the Garmin Agent.  Before I was uploading the date to connect.garmin.com then exporting the file before uploading it again to trainingpeaks.com.

The Garmin site is my favorite.  Connect.garmin.com gets all of my device data automatically.  As soon as my device is in range of my computer, the data from my Forerunner is transfered to the “connect” website.  This site now is home to every workout I have done with my Garmin.  The more I learn about my Forerunner, the more I appreciate the site.  I’ve just recently began paying close attention to my heart rate and identifying my training zones.  The connect website has helped increasingly by showing me graphically where I’m working too hard or not enough.  Since I’m trying to lose weight still, I’m hoping to get one of the fancy scales that talks to my Forerunner after calculating my weight, body fat etc.  (Jillian if you are reading this, thats what I want for my birthday!)  As I’ve said before, the easiest way for me to cut an hour off of my 70.3 time is to lose 45 more pounds.

Lastly, www.dailymile.com, is a site that I keep my information public on.  Its just distances and pace.  It’s easy to use, I’m not using it for much more than another place to log miles.  I thought that the widgets might be a nice addition to this website, but they aren’t really what I’m looking for.  I’ve only found 1 other friend that is using it, so I’m not sure how much longer I’ll stick with it.  Even thought it is the site that I usually update first.

Tonight I went for a swim of about 45 minutes and she went to her “fight club” at Title Boxing.  Her workout was an hour.  When we both got home, we planned on going for a run.  I was ready to go for the run, she was ready to go to bed.  We haven’t ran together in quite some time, and I missed it, so I turned down cuddling in order to fight for a late night run.

It was dark and we had both just finished working out already, so we decided to make it an easy run.  We went a mile out and I set the pace nice and easy.  On the way back I told her that she could set the pace.  At about 1.5 miles we had the final hill before cruising into home.  I noticed that she was starting to pull away.  I dug in and focused but I couldn’t catch her.  She kept pulling away.  At this point I was reminded of Saturday when the pace group leader started pulling away and I couldn’t do anything about it.  The only way I could catch up with her was by cheating and crossing the street early.  Then it dawned on me that even though I ran a good race and ran farther, Jillian ran faster than I did on Saturday.  After I cheated to catch her, she again pulled away for the last 200 meters.  I pulled into the house 10 seconds after she did.

On Saturday, after the race I was feeling pretty awesome.  I checked all my stats and patted myself on the back for doing so good.  Jillian also had a PR on Saturday.  Her PR in the 10k is now faster than my own (recent) PR.  (Back in 1995, I think I ran a 56:xx 10k, I’m still looking for that official time.)  Anyway, she was running faster than I was on Saturday.  I’m not the fastest person in the house anymore.  I’m pretty sure I’m putting in two or three times as many hours into training, but Jillian is still faster than I am right now.

All the happy, good job, proud of my workout feelings that I had are suddenly washed away and replaced by feelings of inadequacy, motivation and renewed purpose.  I have to beat Jillian in a 10k.

Tags: 10k, dailymile, Forerunner, Garmin, jillian, MO inadequacy, motivation, PR, purpose, running, TrainingPeaks

Rock The Parkway – Official Results

Mar 29

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The official results have been posted:

For me:

  • 115 of 122 in the male 30-34 age group
  • 1188 of 1452 overall half marathon
  • 2:17:47.6 (previous best was 2:28:40)

For Jillian:

  • 97 of 132 in the female 30-34 age group
  • 897 of 1097 overall 10k
  • 1:10:23.7 (previous best was 1:11:49)

Very very happy with the results.

I have only a slight pain in my left Achilles tendon (from my shoe) and two painful blisters on my right toes.

Yes dear…

Mar 28

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Yesterday was awesome, it was definitely more of a DaShaun day than a Jillian day:

  • 5:45am Jillian let’s wake up and go run, its only 45* outside and its raining but I’m sure it will still be fun.
  • 6:30am Jillian, time to leave hurry up!
  • 7:15am Jillian, you are on your own until I’m done with my race, will you meet me at the finish line?
  • 10:20am Jillian, did you get me a Naked Drink like you were supposed to?
  • 10:45am I know you wanted to hang out with Laurie, but I need to use the restroom and I’m really only comfortable using the one in the TV room so can you hurry up with the goodbye so we can get home?
  • 11:30am I forgot to mention that we are going to watch Sioux hockey with my mom today.  It should only be about three hours.
  • 11:31am I’m tired, so I’m going to take a nap, but I want to watch Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and I’ll fall asleep watching it.
  • 2:30pm Can you wake up?  We need to go watch hockey at my parents’ place.
  • 3:40pm My parents’ don’t get the game on cable, so we are going to Buffalo Wild Wings.  Its going to be extra loud because of the KSU basketball game.  Also, I’m probably going to be watching both games so I won’t be talking very much either.
  • 6:30pm We need to go see my dad, DeEtte, Whitney and Lee back at my parents house, we will be out in 15 minutes, I just need to see their faces.
  • 7:20pm Lets hurry so we can pick up some buffalo burger before the store closes.
  • 8:00pm We are going to watch UFC tonight so lets watch the UFC Unleashed, the Pre-Fight special and order pizza.
  • 9:00pm Now that we are warmed up to the idea of watching UFC its time for the PPV event!  Can Tyson hang out on the couch with us while we watch UFC for the next 3 hours?

It was a great day and my wife is awesome.

I’m going to start cleaning the house now.

Tags: 2010, jillian, wife

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-28

Mar 28

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  • Let me introduce you Jillian's friend since high school Laurie. In fact, I met Laurie the same day I met Jillian: http://bit.ly/c91xlW #
  • I will take chafing over this every time. My perineum is sore: http://bit.ly/97ghit #
  • Yep. Two days later, I'm still sore: http://bit.ly/97ghit #
  • Q: Why did the chicken cross the mobius strip?
    A: To get to the same side!
    Bazinga! #
  • How am I doing? I'm in love with my wife: http://bit.ly/cLeWOn #
  • I've opened the door for jabs at work: http://bit.ly/bN6G2s #
  • Not sure how I missed this commercial: http://bit.ly/ccGo12 #
  • Tonight I figured out how to get hurt while swimming laps: http://bit.ly/b6o8Le #
  • I had a hard time pumping my fist in the air for the Cyclones basketball win last night: http://bit.ly/b6o8Le #
  • Instead of staying inside and watching a cool presentation, I decided 50* and rainy was good enough for me. Ahhh-chooo! #
  • Group swim with Midwest Triathlon Coaching! #MTC #
  • What are the minimum requirements to be considered an Ironman?http://bit.ly/aWNqKr #
  • I'm having a very difficult time getting around this morning, but that really shouldn't be a surprise: http://bit.ly/aWNqKr #
  • Lunch with Jillian and mom always makes me feel better! #
  • Recently animal control got called regarding Tyson being off-leash. My wife doesn't understand why: http://bit.ly/cTvAWo #
  • Lunch really helped my recovery. http://bit.ly/aWNqKr Now jamming at work and getting excited for a PR @ Rock the Parkway on Saturday! #
  • Note to self: FiberOne bars take about 4 hours to "activate" #
  • 24 hours from start time. I've learned some hard (and painful) lessons over the past month. I think I'm ready! http://bit.ly/9h55i4 #
  • I would like to apologize 4 hours in advance to my coworkers, I'm preparing for a race (http://bit.ly/9h55i4) and just ate my FiberOne bar #
  • Sometimes the day doesn't happen anything like you planned. But those days are usually Mondays right? http://bit.ly/bWdIxL #
  • I didn't hit my goal but I PR'd by 10 minutes! #
  • Wow, I feel great! Wonderful race, great start of a weekend, PR by 10+ minutes, ready to watch Sioux Hockey and UFC: http://bit.ly/avZCuS #
  • Lets go Sioux!!!! #

Rock the Parkway half marathon

Mar 27

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What a wonderful race!  I knew well before the race started that it would be well organized.  I did almost everything by the book.  I can’t make any excuses.  I didn’t meet the goal that I had set for myself, but I did PR by over 10 minutes.  I started the race thinking I wouldn’t know anyone in the pace group.  Less than a mile into the race, I saw Eladio from Runners Edge, and then I saw Steve, running 10 feet in front of me.  So I ended up running with Steve for most of the race.

My pre-race routine is starting to get tuned in.  This is at least the second time that we ate at Zios the night before a race.  I don’t remember the results of the previous race(s), but this one definitely puts Zios on my pre-race routine from here forward.  Yesterday was stressful, so getting to bed early wasn’t difficult at all.  We both got 9 hours of sleep.  I had a 5-hour energy drink and a fruit and nut bar for breakfast.  I really do wish I would not have had the FiberOne bar yesterday though.  I put on body glide in all the places that might possibly need it, including my feet.

I put body glide on my chest too.  I think it helped my heart rate monitor slip and slide down to my belly.  This is bitter sweet.  It sucked that I was messing with it for most of the race but it was good that my belly wasn’t there to keep it in place too.

The past week was a great week of training.  I took it easy, did what was on the schedule.  The only thing I will change for the next time is I will not eat a FiberOne bar the day before.  I think there was some FiberOne hangover this morning.  I knew an hour before the race that I needed to purge, but like normal, I was cutting it close getting to the starting line.  About mile 8 I was really fighting the urge to pull-off the route.  I made through the race, but it wasn’t very comfortable at the end.

At the 10k mark, there was actually a huge finish line setup.  I was very impressed with it.  It had a clock that was synchronized with the starting line so everybody had an idea of how there were doing.  There was a lot of little things that made the race special.  They had volunteers on bikes that road along the entire route just to check in on everybody.  Aid stations were every two miles, but the addition of the volunteers on bikes just put it over the top.  The aid stations were awesome too.  The volunteers were great the entire route.  I was super impressed by the size of the crowd too.  There were people on almost every mile of the route.

The pace leader was the same pace leader we had back in October, Mallory I think?  So I was very pleased with how she ran the race.  I was happier than happy for for first 10 miles of the race.  At mile 10, I started to see the pace group leader create a gap.  She wasn’t going any faster, I was starting to slow down.

My race at this point was already a huge success.  I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to over-do anything.  I was paying close attention to my heart rate.  At that point I was at 92% and I didn’t want to go any harder, I was much more comfortable running at the 86-89 range.  I made it easy on myself, I admit, but I was standing tall at the end of the race which hasn’t happened very often before.

On top of all the good race goodness and the PR and the standing at the end, our good friend Laurie joined us!  Jillian and Laurie ran the 10k race together.  They both had fun and they were both in good spirits after the race.  They were both at the end of the race cheering me on and Jillian ran ahead  and got pictures of the last 200 meters or so.  It really was a special race and she really is an awesome wife!

I think I’m still trying to build my base, this race has left me with high spirits, very motivated and excited for the rest of the season.  My wife was happy, she might even have recruited Laurie to do more events with us.  I just can’t say how excited I am at this point.  My unofficial time is 2:17:48, almost three minutes behind what I was planning hoping for.  At the end of the race, my weight was the same as pre-race.  This is very different than last season.  I think perhaps I was hydrating properly and my weight and fat are getting to a more manageable spot.

I feel great!  I will try to clear up my thoughts later when we get the official results.

Tags: 2010, half-marathon, jillian, Laurie, MO, PR, race, rock the parkway, running

Even the best made plans

Mar 26

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When I woke up this morning I was excited for work, for Jillian’s interview and excited for the weekend.  About an hour after I got to work, a phone call from my mom changed more than just my day.  The focus of my free time has been pretty consistent lately (training).  Days like to day just remind me that life happens too.  I left work early for some family stuff.  My wife reminded me how awesome of a wife she is.  The family stuff looks like things are patched up for now.  We are still going to race tomorrow, but I’m done for today.  I’m going to handle the rest of the day by crawling into bed, watching a movie, cuddling with Jillian and hopefully getting 9 hours of sleep.

Tags: family, jillian, life, race, sleep, stress