Author: sexyhermit

The Washington D.C. Marathon

I registered twice for the Washington D.C. Marathon, though never ran it once.

My first marathon didn’t go well. Almost immediately I set out to redeem myself. A month or two after running the Chicago Marathon in October 2001 I began training for the inaugural Washington D.C. Marathon in March 2002.

I trained much better the second time around and set more reasonable goals. All was falling into place. After months of training I began to taper 2-3 weeks before the race. I went out for an easy 5 mile run with Melissa when out of nowhere I felt sharp pain in both my knees at the same time. I finished the run, but my knees still hurt. I took a few days off. Still hurt. Marathon day came and went but I stayed home, unable to run.

The best I could tell was I had patellar tendonitis that flared up. Eventually I found I could run if I wore Cho-Pat straps under my kneecaps. After 6-8 months I no longer needed the straps. The summer of 2002 was when I began to follow the strict rule of not running two days in a row.

During the winter of 2002-2003 I decided to give the marathon another go. This time Melissa wanted to run it also. We both signed up for the 2nd annual Washington D.C. Marathon. We trained together all winter through some nasty weather. A week or two before the race the U.S. invaded Iraq. Three days before the race (literally as we were packing our gear to head to D.C.) we received an email from the race organizers informing us the race would be cancelled due to security concerns. Oh, and they were keeping our registration fees.

What an ordeal.

In a bit of a panic at the thought of her first opportunity to run a marathon vanishing, Melissa immediately started searching for another marathon. Luckily she came up with a small marathon in Frederick, MD (just outside of Washington D.C.) the following weekend. So we immediately registered (as did many other former Washington D.C. Marathon registrants) and postponed our trip one week.

We never did get a clear explanation about the real reason the race was cancelled. We heard that the organizers had massive debt and they never intended to hold the race. Perhaps the war was a convenient excuse for them to take the money and run. As you can imagine this was wildly unpopular. In the end we were at least partially reimbursed, though I don’t remember by whom. It may have been our credit card company or it may have been the race organizers.

The Hillsboro Roubaix Road Race

I’ll start this blog post with something I’d never thought I’d write. What a beautiful April day in Illinois. Sunny, clear skies, 65˚, calm winds, perfect.

Wild Card Cycling

Yesterday I participated in my first cycling race of the year in Hillsboro, Illinois, about half way between Springfield and St. Louis. Long time readers may recall I also did this race last year. Hillsboro Roubaix has two distinguishing features. First, it has some hills. They’re not huge, but they’re far larger than anything we have around Champaign-Urbana. Second, about half of the finishing circuit takes place on brick roads.

Luke & Mark

Luke and Mark before the race

This was my first race as a category 4 rider, as I upgraded from cat 5 over the winter. My Wild Card Cycling teammates and I started in good position near the front. The speed was quick, but reasonable at the beginning. I stayed in the second quarter of the riders for most of the first lap (of two laps total). Not much exciting happened. I was concentrating mostly on staying upright in such a large group of riders. Our field did a pretty good job at respecting the yellow line rule (the roads were open to traffic, so we were supposed to stay on the right half of the road) for the first 2/3 or so of the first lap, then all hell broke loose when dozens and dozens of riders started moving up through the field on the far left side. So much for rules.

Rob, Mark, Tom, & Luke begin the second lap. Photo by John Bennett.

At the end of the first lap there were two good sized hills and the finishing brick road circuit. This is where the race really heated up. I rode well up the hills, miraculously dodging the dozens of slower riders who started the climbs ahead of me. I was in terrific position (about 15 riders back) as the leaders hammered through the brick roads, down the hill, and back out of town.

Hillsboro speed

The race was particularly intense between miles 20-30

The next several miles we had a slight tailwind and many riders tried to escape off the front. Miles 20-30 were the hardest of the race, aside from the final 2 miles. I maintained my position, closing gaps as they arose. The attacks decreased when we turned into the crosswind. I couldn’t see any of my teammates, so I wasn’t sure who was still in the lead group. Eventually I found Tom, and a while later I found Luke still there.

On the way back into town I tried to move up through the field to be in good position for the final two hills. Unfortunately, everyone else was trying to do the same thing, so it was kind of a wash. The first hill went reasonably well, lots of riders fell off the pace and I was able to move up quite a bit. As we sped up between the two hills there was somewhat dangerous situation as a car stopped in the middle of our lane just as everyone was ready to race really hard. We all swerved around it at the base of the final hill.

Hillsboro elevation

The course had a number of hills in the 75-100 foot range

The last hill started well enough, but mid-way up I had to slow way down. I just got stuck behind the wrong people. They were going so much slower than me and I couldn’t get around them. I had to completely stop pedaling three times and slow down to avoid running into them. Then I would be in the wrong gear for the slower speed. It was incredibly frustrating. Meanwhile a group of 10 or so riders (including Tom) were pulling away and I would have no chance of catching them.

Tom and Rob begin the last hill. Photo by John Bennett.

We reached the top of the hill, hit a hard left turn, then hammered down the final descent onto the brick roads. I was pushing a monster gear down this hill at well over 40 mph. I made the mistake of taking the next turn on the inside. I had to slow way down but I didn’t shift out of my huge gear, so couldn’t accelerate fast enough out of the corner. I lost contact with the small pack I was riding with (including Luke) at this point, and I was several seconds ahead of the next group. Since I was completely isolated I wasn’t able to catch back up to the group ahead of me (who were all working together). I think I may have passed a couple of them who sat up before the finish line.

Cat 4 results

I finished 19th place out of 100 riders. The race was much harder for me than the race last year for a number of reasons, mostly because the field was very large and all the riders were very good. Last year’s field was much smaller and had a much lower percentage of strong riders. Here’s a quick comparison:

2008 2009
Cat 5 4
Distance 22 miles 44 miles
Avg speed 20.6 mph 22.8 mph
Avg heart rate 151* 156
Max heart rate 181 184
Field size 50 100
Placing 6 19

* Hmm. I thought my average heart rate was much lower last year. Once I caught back up with the lead pack I was unable to move up through the group and hence sat on the back doing very little work. I distinctly remember looking down at my heart rate monitor during the middle part of the race and reading 110.

Since all the races were going on at the same time I missed the finish of the cat 5 race (four teammates) and the Women’s cat 4 race (two teammates), both of which did one lap. I was able to catch the finish of the Masters division (three teammates), which raced three laps (66 miles).

Greg finishing Masters 50+

Greg

Martin finishing Masters 40+

Martin

Gene finishing Masters 40+

Gene

As far as Wild Card Cycling goes, we didn’t dominate this race like we did in last year’s cat 5, but it was fairly solid. I was pleased with my performance, even if I could have placed a few positions higher with better luck. Here’s the full team results:

Mens cat 5:
-----------
 5 Alexei Perelet
 9 Scott Dahman
19 Nick Hand
31 Art Hess

Womens cat 4:
-------------
11 Becky Chan
15 Anona Whitley

Mens cat 4:
-----------
  9 Tom Carlson
 17 Luke Taggart
 19 Rob Raguet-Schofield
 38 Mark French
DNF Dan Sochacki
DNF Karl Crapse

Mens masters 40+
----------------
38 Martin Gruebele
44 Gene McDowell

Mens masters 50+
----------------
17 Greg Youngen

The Hardman

A friend pointed me to this humorous blog post discussing various types of bicycle commuters. As many of you know I’ve commuted to work by bike for a number of years. Since we’ve been back from Nicaragua I’ve only driven a car to work three times, and all three of those times I was transporting large and/or heavy objects.

Back to the types of commuters. I’ve certainly seen each of these types of commuters before, which is why I found the article so funny. Clearly, I fall somewhere between The Pro and The Hardman.

The PRO

That’s right – YOU. You didn’t think you were gonna get out of it so easily, did you? You’re the only one who thinks you’re the coolest kat in town. You’re the guy who gets all kitted up, pins a number on, rides the Zipps, and has an espresso flavored powergel on your way to work. But I’m sure you have good reason to ride in like this…It could be because you have a race after work, you need to take your bike to the shop at lunch, or it could be because you like to show to all your coworkers how PRO you are. Sorry, but we’re the only people on the planet that think spandex, shaved legs, and tiny arms look cool.

During the summer I show up to work on my race bike with shaven legs, just waiting to start my training ride after work.

The Hardman

This is the guy who hasn’t missed a day of commuting to work since 1993. This is a badge of honor to this steed and everyone at work talks about him around the lunch table like he could win the Tour de France. You pipe up every time and try to make them understand that he is not as PRO as you are and that you’re in fact the much more dedicated cyclist.

I also ride all winter long. I don’t hesitate to grab the bike lock keys, rather than the car keys, on my way to work in 5˚ weather.

El fuego en la nieve

The one day this past winter I didn’t ride to work wasn’t because I didn’t try. The roads were covered with ice, I fell, bruised my hip, and limped back home. I worked remotely that day.

Icy streets

The End of March

Photo of the Day

March calendar

Blog

The top searches that lead to my blog in March were:

  1. my name is rob
  2. camel clutch
  3. time lapse photography 555 timer circuits
  4. dahon helios
  5. bike friday pocket rocket

Camel clutch

I’ll note that my Flickr photo was on the first page of Google results for “camel clutch” and my blog entry was on the second page of results. So I’ve been getting some pro wrestling traffic.

Other humorous searches include:

  • $5 camera
  • jerry seinfeld hair
  • steamy novel
  • 5 men walking at same pace riddle
  • fallking
  • short shorts boy 1980

Interesting stuff.

Cycling

Jay descends into Makanda

Despite the lousy Smarch weather the past few days, we had some decent weather earlier in the month and I was able to increase my cycling mileage.

March 2009

Bike Distance # Rides Avg per Ride
Bianchi 45.5 Mile 11 4.13636 Mile
Pocket Rocket 34.7 Mile 8 4.3375 Mile
Thundercougarfalconbird 331.7 Mile 7 47.3857 Mile
Total 411.9 Mile 26 15.8423 Mile

Jan – March 2009

Bike Distance # Rides Avg per Ride
Bianchi 189.5 Mile 41 4.62195 Mile
Big Red 2. Mile 1 2. Mile
El Fuego 39.92 Mile 5 7.984 Mile
Pocket Rocket 58.5 Mile 14 4.17857 Mile
Thundercougarfalconbird 493.74 Mile 10 49.374 Mile
Total 783.66 Mile 71 11.0375 Mile

Running

Finishers keychain

I ramped the running mileage back up in March. I had a good race at LBL and I’ve been doing some good quality training. The marathon is only 11 days away.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 109.34 Mile 10 10.934 Mile
February 55.83 Mile 7 7.97571 Mile
March 108.792 Mile 10 10.8792 Mile
Total 273.962 Mile 27 10.1467 Mile

Swimming

Transparency

I wore out my Speedo

I’ve also been swimming really well lately. I’m able to swim farther and faster than at any other time in recent years. This could mean good things for the upcoming triathlon season.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 1.87452 Kilo Meter 3 0.62484 Kilo Meter
February 14.9504 Kilo Meter 6 2.49174 Kilo Meter
March 19.5224 Kilo Meter 7 2.78892 Kilo Meter
Total 36.3474 Kilo Meter 16 2.27171 Kilo Meter

The Training Camp

This past weekend was my cycling team’s training camp in southern Illinois. We spent four days riding on some very hilly roads (particularly compared to the very flat roads of Champaign County) in what turned out to be some fairly nasty weather (much like last year).

Training camp

My cabin at Giant City State Park

The ride schedule was mostly the same as last year. About half the team went down a day earlier this year to get in one additional ride. We started out on Thursday from Giant City State Park and did a quick climb from Makanda up to route 51. This is a two mile long climb that got the heart pumping right away. On the way back down I hit 45.3 mph trying to keep up with fearless Jay. Last year on this same hill I only hit 39.1 mph.

Jay descends into Makanda

Jay descends like an animal

From there we headed to Bald Knob, the highest point in southern Illinois. This is the same climb we would be doing on Friday, so this was just a warm up. We intended to go nice and easy, but those intentions never seem to work out. We rode a litter harder than we planned, and probably a little harder than we should have.

I was pretty exhausted by the time we returned to our cabins in Giant City to clean up. We drove to Carbondale for dinner at the Italian Village, followed by some window shopping at closed bike stores, before picking up Dan who took the Amtrak train from Champaign. After returning to Giant City I slept for 10.5 hours.

Six grown men ogle bikes through the store window

a Carbondale drive up liquor store

Friday we rode to Lick Creek to meet the rest of the team members who were staying in cabins there. From there we rode over to Bald Knob again. The entire group was much bigger and rode much faster. I was pretty tired from Thursday’s ride, so it was tough just getting there.

At a gas station stop I made the mistake of taking too long to strap my little Flip video camera onto my bike and ended up missing the group as they rolled out. I had to chase for a couple miles, including the really big hill were the group split up. I caught up with several riders on that hill and a few of us hauled ass to try to catch up with the lead pack. We didn’t quite make it as they reached the Bald Knob climb before us and we picked our way through the remnants of that group on the way up the climb.

Training camp Friday elevation

Friday’s elevation profile

The remainder of the ride was much easier as everyone was tired by this point. We refueled afterward with a big dinner at the Giant City lodge, which, despite not having any vegetarian entrees on the menu, has a number of delicious sides, including wild rice, mashed potatoes, corn, salad, etc. After dinner I quickly fell asleep for 9.5 hours.

Saturday’s ride was 100 miles, going from Lick Creek to Golconda and back. At the start of the ride it was 50˚ and drizzling rain. The rain came and went all day, but the temperatures got colder. During one two minute stretch I was even pelted with pea-sized hail. We split into two groups. Given my fatigue from the previous two days (and the fact that I am supposed to be tapering for the marathon) I wisely chose to ride in the slower group. We faced a stiff headwind the entire first half of the ride. Despite the nasty weather we had a pretty good time. It was a tough ride, very hilly. The group would split up on the uphills they we’d come back together on the flats and downhill sections.

Training camp Saturday elevation

Saturday’s elevation profile

Half of our group chose to turn around at 37.5 miles rather than ride the full 50 to Golconda. The first 10 or so miles after we turned around were actually somewhat pleasant. Sure, I was soaking wet, but we had a good tailwind and as long as I kept moving I stayed plenty warm. Around this time the sun actually came out for about 30 seconds. Soon after came lighting, thunder, driving rain, hail, a drop in temperature, and a change in wind direction. We faced a headwind the rest of the way back.

After the ride I changed into dry clothes, munched on some snacks and chitchatted while we waited for everyone else to finish. Then we all packed up and headed over to the Giant City Lodge for a team banquet. Saturday was all you can eat fried chicken night at the lodge. This is going to sound crazy, but that’s actually what I ordered. I simply didn’t eat any of the chicken. The meal also had all you can eat mashed potatoes, corn, rolls, etc. Everyone placed the same order and huge plates of food were served to us family style.

Lodge

We awoke Sunday morning to temperatures in the mid-30s, howling winds, and damp roads. The ride was much shorter, but still challenging. We coasted down to Makanda then took turns climbing the two big hills heading out of the valley. One was long and gradual, the other was short and steep. I did five climbs before deciding my toes would fall off if I did any more.

The last descent of the last day of training camp

And that was it. Training camp was great fun. We had some tough rides in tough conditions. Most importantly, I don’t think it screwed up my marathon preparations. We’ll know for sure in less than two weeks.

The Natural

One of this week’s $0.99 movie rentals on iTunes is The Natural. This is the movie that introduced me to the word “bastard” as a child. I had no idea what it meant or even that it could be considered a bad word. I just picked up from the movie that it’s something you call someone when you’re mad at them.

Of course, this got me into trouble when I called my brother Travis a bastard at a family gathering. Nobody really heard it, but Travis promptly tattled on me and I got my mouth washed out with soap. The worst part was that I had absolutely no idea what I had done wrong.

I’ll freely admit that there were plenty of times in my childhood when I truly deserved to have my mouth washed out with soap (though my personal preference was for Lux, I found Palmolive had a nice, piquant after-dinner flavor — heavy with a touch of mellow smoothness), but this wasn’t one of them.

The Bender Mask

Bite my shiny metal ass

“Bite my shiny metal ass”

Futurama is one of my all time favorite television shows. The robot character Bender isn’t my favorite character on the show, but he seems to be quite popular with every other fan of the show. I was able to score this Bender halloween mask from emerchandise.com in 2002 for $7 and it has served as my de facto Halloween costume many times since then.

The New Blog

I started a new blog about software development. The audience for this new content has very little overlap with the few readers of my personal blog, so I’ve decided to spare you all and not write about it here. Also, it will spare me the ridicule of Melissa, Cara, & Aimee. I will still update this blog.

Thew new blog is titled “/dev/ragfield” (if you don’t get the joke, you probably wouldn’t be interested in reading it). It is located at http://dev.ragfield.com.

The Forest Glen Maple Syrup

Today was the Maple Syrup Open House at Forest Glen park. The park holds this event each spring where they demonstrate how they make maple syrup and have a pancake dinner. I’ve run at Forest Glen four or five times this winter so I’ve been looking forward to this event for a while. When I told Melissa about it she was very excited, so we just had to go. And since my parents live somewhat near the park, and they love pancakes, we invited them to come along as well.

Melissa and I arrived a little early so we could get a short hike in before the pancakes. First we hiked to the observation tower.

Forest Glen observation tower

Forest Glen observation tower

Forest Glen observation tower

that’s a lot of stairs

Melissa & Rob at Forest Glen observation tower

Melissa and Rob at the top

View from Forest Glen observation tower

view of the forest

Melissa descends observation tower steps

Melissa descends the tower’s many stairs

Next, we continued on the path down the hill towards the Vermillion River. We passed the beloved backpack trail on the way. The water in the river seemed high and fast-moving.

Crooked tree shadow

a crooked tree casts a shadow on the backpack trail I usually run

Vermillion River

the Vermillion River looked high

Melissa & Rob at Vermillion River

Melissa & Rob

Noon was approaching, and this was the time we agreed to meet my parents for pancakes, so we hiked back up the hill and drove over to the Maple Syrup Open House area. We got in line a few minutes after noon. My parents arrived shortly thereafter. We were having a good time, but we couldn’t help but notice the line wasn’t moving very quickly.

The line for pancakes and maple syrup was long

the line for pancakes was long

It took us right at two hours to reach the front of the line, get our pancakes, and sit down to eat (what became) a late lunch. The pancakes were good. The syrup was good. I’m not quite sure it was worth waiting two hours in line, but at least the weather was beautiful.

After lunch Melissa & I walked a short distance to the recreated pioneer homestead, where the syrup was made. They collected sap from 400 or so maple trees in the park all winter. Then they heat it up to evaporate away most of the water, leaving just the sugary syrup behind.

Homestead

one of the pioneer homestead buildings

Maple

they collected maple sap in buckets and bags all winter long (old photo)

Maple sap drips into a collection sack

maple sap drips into a collection bag

Maple syrup building at Forest Glen

this building housed the evaporator machine which converted the sap into syrup

Evaporation device converts watery maple sap into syrup

the evaporator was heated by a wood stove

Melissa in front of the evaporator

Melissa watches sap become syrup

The Land Between the Lakes Trail Race

I’ve been doing a lot of running lately in preparation for the Illinois Marathon in four weeks. The past few weeks have been my peek mileage and I’ve been pretty tired. These isn’t really the best time for a race, but I didn’t let my fatigue stop me. I really wanted to do a half marathon at some point. I found out several weeks ago that many of the local Buffalo trail runners were heading to Kentucky to run the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) trail race this weekend. LBL has four different distances, the shortest of which is 23 KM (a little over a mile longer than a half marathon). Perfect.

The race is about 4.5 hours away from Champaign-Urbana, so we made it a road trip. I rode down there with Andrew and Sandra. We followed Cousin Don, Brian, Juan, & Natanya in another car. Once there we met Jeff, Chris, Wes, & Becky, who drove another car. Just before the race we met up with Marla, who came late Friday night. Jeff’s sister lives 10 minutes from the race start/finish in Grand Rivers, and she was kind enough to let many of us sleep at her house the night before.

This area of Kentucky was hit pretty hard by an ice storm at the end of January. Many, many trees were knocked over or broken in half. The forest was pretty messy. Fortunately, with the hard work of many volunteers, the 11 mile LBL canal loop trail was cleaned up and ready for the runners.

Ice storm damage

Ice storm damage
Ice storm damage

We awoke early on race morning to make it to the starting line by 7 am. The longest event is 50 miles (yes, fifty miles), which takes a long time to complete, so the race started early. It had already been drizzling for a few hours and it wasn’t supposed to let up anytime soon. This was going to be interesting.

I squeezed my way up towards the front of the starting line. I was running the shortest race and I assumed/hoped I was one of the faster runners there. We started off with 1.75 miles of paved road before we reached the trail. The runners spread out pretty quickly. One guy shot way out ahead of everyone else. Then there was a chase group of three or four. Then I was in the next group of three or four. My first (paved) mile was quick, but not unreasonable.

I counted the runners ahead of me and figured I was in 9th when we hit the trail. The trail immediately went under the bridge on the road where we started. As I passed beneath it I heard the familiar calls of “Buffaloooooooooo.” This is what the Buffalo trail runners yell when they see other Buffalo on the trail. Some of the others running the longer races spotted me from up on the bridge as I ran beneath them.

The early miles were pretty easy. The trail had a lot of twists and turns but not many hills at this point. There was a little bit of jockeying for position as I moved from 9th to 8th to 7th to 8th to 9th to 8th and so on.

LBL trail race map

The trail was in pretty good shape, though there were clearly some spots that were messed up by the ice storm. In a number of places a tree along the side of the trail had blown over away from the trail and where it was uprooted there was a big hole that required fancy footwork to get around. The steady drizzle made the entire thing just a little bit muddy, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. My shoes were never in any danger of being sucked off my feet.

Around miles 9 and 10 (I think) there were three or so fairly big hills, which were steep enough to cause me difficulty, but not so steep I couldn’t run up them. I really struggled with these hills. I tried to make up for my super slow uphills by really pushing the flats and the downhills, but I fell back to 10th and I was losing ground at this point.

I regained a little bit of ground after the hills relented. By the time I finished the 11 mile trail loop I moved back up to 9th. The aid station volunteers informed me that I was 5th. Curious. This was the point where the 23K runners left the trail. The marathon runners ran one more loop, the 60K runners ran two more loops, and the 50 mile runners ran three more loops. This placing discrepancy must have meant that four runners ahead of me (and I was running pretty fast) were racing at least twice as far as me, or maybe farther. Impressive.

I was able to pick up the pace again once I was back on the paved road, but despite running my last mile in 6:40 one guy still passed me. I assume this means I finished 6th, though I never got any confirmation on that. I just based that on what the aid station volunteers told me. It was a solid race for me. I wasn’t thrilled with it, but I wasn’t disappointed either.

Finishers keychain
My keychain finishers award

After the race I was soaking wet, so I headed over to Cousin Don’s van (the Patti-wagon) to change into dry clothes. Juan had a really good race, because I missed him finishing while I was changing my clothes. I grabbed my camera and made it to the finish area just in time to watch Andrew sprint across the line in a photo finish. The other guy barely edged him out.

Andrew sprints to the line
Andrew sprints to the finish line

Andrew post-sprint
Andrew looks tired after his sprint to the finish line

Natanya finished a few minutes later as 2nd place female. Apparently her socks slid down during the race and her shoes rubbed her heels raw and bloody. It looked pretty painful.

Natanya was the 2nd female to finish the 23K
the race director awards the 2nd place prize to Natanya

Heel problems
Natanya had a sock snafu that left her heels raw and bloody

Sandra just ran a tough trail marathon last weekend and she wasn’t quite sure whether some pain in her foot would allow her to complete this race. Not only did she finish, she did so with a great big smile.

Sandra finishes the 23K with a smile

Sandra finishes with a smile

Now that all the Buffalo 23K runners were finished we headed indoors for some delicious vegetarian minestrone. Andrew accidentally locked his keys in the car before the race and asked around about who could help him get into it. A firefighter showed up with some tools, and after much work they finally go it.

Locked out
Andrew and Juan help a Grand Rivers firefighter break into Andrew’s car

We were pretty cold and wet so we didn’t stick around long enough to watch the other Buffalo finish their longer races. They did call while we were driving back to Champaign-Urbana and apparently everyone made it alright. Another successful race for the Buffalo of central Illinois.