2010 - Year In Review

Image by Lel4nd (be back soon in Dec) via FlickrBy: Jeff      

Brent and I have come a long way since starting this blog on January 6, 2010 [see original post], we have ran/biked 1,812.45 miles to be exact!  With our original goals of this blog being to document our pursuits in becoming more fit, reviewing products, and reviewing races; I would say that this year has provided us with a great start to pursuing those goals.

One of the first big mile markers of the year was Brent's training for a marathon. This training culminated with him running the Glass City Marathon in Toledo [read about Brent's race here ].  What a great feat and a sense of accomplishment for him. Then in June we both ran in the Sunburst races in South Bend.  This is one of the several races that Brent has done on mulitple occasions.  I imagine it will be one that is on our calander every year, as it is practically in our backyard.  Brent did the 10k version while I did my first 5k race ever [read about my 5k race ][read Brent's 10k race here ].  After that we had a bit of down time until we made two important purchases.  In July I purchased my Cannondale Synapse 6 bike [Read about Synapse purchase ].  About a month later Brent purchased his new ride, a Cannondale Six Carbon 5 [Read about Brent's purchase here ].  These purchases allowed us to do some serious road bike training and allowed us to participate in our first organized riding event.  At the end of September we participated in a huge annual cycling event know as the Apple Cider Century.  We decided on riding the 50 mile version of this event [rear about our ACC ride here ].  After that we again had nothing scheduled so we didn't train as much, however we did start riding with the Elkhart Bike Shop's group ride.  In Novemember we decided that we would break out our mountain bikes and do some trail riding.  Our first adventure was to Dr. T.K. Lawless park, this provided for some nice single track [read about TK here ].  With that adventure we wanted to capitalize on our momentum, which led us to try out another park, Rum Village [read about Rum adventure here ].  We really liked this park, but it led to my meta-carpel mishap [read about my broken hand ].  So as we went into December my training would have to wait until the end of the month, and I have been able to get back on the trainer.  Christmas was good to both of us, we both got some new gear, that we will be reviewing in 2011.  Also in early December Brent realized that he had a real chance to end the year with over 1,000 miles of movement.  I am happy to announce that with his bike ride this morning Brent now has 1,002.55 miles for 2010; that breaks down to 388.02 miles of running and 614.53 miles of cycling!!!  I'm sure that we will both do even more miles next year!

With all of that I will say that it has been a pretty succesful year.  As we still try to figure out and utilize this blog we would like to ask all of our readers to post a comment about what they would like to see us do and write about next year.  Also to all you cycling and running companies out there we would love to review your products, do you hear me Cannondale, Trek, Specialized, Asics, Nike, Garmin, Fizik, Saris, Pearl Izumi, Sugoi, Louis Garneau, Giro, and any others!!!  We wish everyone a very happy new year!!! Look for our 2011 preview post soon.

Related articles

• A year in gear: my top 10 products of 2010 (velonews.competitor.com)

16 Weeks of Training

Image by thomasbrandt via Flickr

By: Jeff

It is official.  I am registered for my first 5K.  Yep this guy will be running 3.107 miles in June. OK, OK I know seems small compared to uber-marathon running Brent.  Well with that being said we all have to start somewhere. So, how you ask am I going to accomplish this?

• First:  Tell everyone I know.  Sure they'll laugh and say, "ya right".  But It will hold me accountable.  And I would feel embarrassed if I did not accomplish it.
• Second:  Well I'm telling the world by posting it here on this blog.  How's that for commitment?
• Third: Finally I am doing a 16 week training, following a guide by Runner's World's smart coach.

There you go. It is out there.  And now I need to go and begin this journey. I'll keep you posted on how the training is going.

Keeping Track

Image via Wikipedia

By: Jeff

When I began riding my bike into work last year I decided that I would log all of my miles.  I wanted to do this for a couple of reasons.  First to provide a sense of history.  Looking back on what I have achieved provides me motivation for the future.  The second reason is to see progress.  I want to see if I am improving in my times, distance, overall fitness.  So as began to keep track of this I stumbled upon Bicycling.com 's training log.  This was very useful in accomplishing the tracking that I wanted.  It even has a place for runs and other cross training activities.

So that brings me to this year.  I have decided that I would keep logging on Bicycling.com, but that I would also try a couple other sites.

• Bicycling.com - Provides a nice log for cycling activities.  Secondary logging  for cross training activities.  Provides day, week, month, year, and total summaries.  Also includes tools to share information on a blog or website.
• RunnersWorld.com - This is managed by the same company as Bicycling.com.  For the most part this is the same as Bicycling.com's log in reverse.  More emphasis on running, with cycling include in the cross training logs.  Again it includes tools to share information on a blog or a website.

• Active.com - This website has a general log that includes several different activities.  This site seems to be more social in nature, as in you can become friends with other members of the website.  I have not found any tools in here to share information outside of the site.  The nice part about this site is that several events, such as marathons and cycling events, use this site for registration and for posting times.  When they post times you can than link them directly to your training log.

I have also looked at Mapmyrun.com and Livestrong.com.  Livestrong is good if you also want to track what you are eating.  For now though I am going to stick with the three above sites.  At what point does all this tracking become to tedious?  Are there any other sites out there that you use or would suggest?