Lance @ Leadville vs. Brent @ E-Town.

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By: Brent

There is a movie out called "Race Across the Sky" that tells the story of the 2009 Leadville 100. A very exciting story about the 15th running of the 100 mile mountain bike race from Leadville, Colorado, up a total elevation change of 14,000 feet and back to Leadville. The movie is outstanding even in its "low budgetness". Some very big names in the biking community appear, including doper Floyd Landis, accused doper Lance Armstrong, 6 time winner Dave Wiens and others that have proven themselves in the sport of Cycling.

*Spoiler Alert*

Lance is a winner. This is something that I just can't deny, but as I am watching this movie for the first time, with 7 miles to go and the movie still giving you that feeling that he has people hot on his trail something happens. Lance gets a flat rear tire! 7 miles out. No mechanics. No support. LA dismounts and starts to inspect the tire. He decides that rather and waste the time to fix it, he will just ride to the finish on a flat. For 7 MILES! Lance goes on to win by a landslide, but it only adds to the excitement and you walk away from the movie in amazement.

After watching this (a handful of times) Jeff and I adopted the phrase "WWLD". What Would Lance Do. Did we have a reason? No. It was just so impressive, it made sense. Whatever it takes. WIN. Maybe not the race, but a P.R. or a finish, or be the first place winner to the fire hydrant and be the only competitor. Who cares. Get the job done.

FAST FORWARD to Monday. I arrive into work to have the feelings of stress magnified over and over again. My family is dealing with 2 people fighting cancer, one so fatally serious we are feeling blessed for the days we have left with him, then add a broken hip in an 89 year old Nana, and on the lighter side, my computer hard drive dies. It just added that much more stress. So this week is "Ride Your Bike to Work" week. I needed the break. At lunch I grabbed the normal PB&J and headed out to the garage. I grabbed a G2 (Orange), one water bottle, one Clif bar (Crunchy Peanut Butter) and swapped out my shirt for something sweat wicking. Out in the garage I topped off the tires with as much air as I could get into them. It was a third voyage out on new street tires on my beloved mountain bike. I headed out ready to let out some steam.

The ride from home to work is a 8 mile ride on back country roads with a 2.5 mile stretch on a wide shouldered State Road right in the middle of them. As I hit the 5 mile mark and was turning on to the next county road the front end slid a bit and my first thought was "Man, these new tires are like slicks!" but as I ventured forth I could tell bad things were happening. I was deflated. Literally. The front tube had given out with 3 miles to go and I already knew the greeting I would be getting from a certain boss of mine if I was even remotely late. I never stopped pedaling, but there was that "Lance moment", one in which you have a coupel of thoughts run through your mind...

1) This is going to be an awesome story.

2) WWLD

3) Wait til Jeff hears this!

4) My boss is going to yell at me.

5) When my wife notices "WWLD", she will know I am a geek.

It was my Leadville moment. It was almost exciting to think that now, without choice, I too could ride a flat tire. WHY IS THAT AWESOME!?! you ask. I have no idea, but let me tell you, it was. I instantly thought how this could be tricky as the resistance was obviously a lot more and the solid high noon sun was beating on me the thought of ditching the bike and walking leisurely was a solid option. I pedaled on and hatched a plan. I would ride the next 2 miles up to a house I knew I could safely rest the bike and helmet and with a mile left, I could run out the rest running down a grass runway. Without any flaws, that was just what I did. Just like Lance would.

It cleansed me that day more than I think anything could have. In the moment I never got pissed and gave up, but I almost welcomed it and enjoyed it. After picking up my bike after work, I noticed that BOTH tires had gone flat, not just the front. Now I was twice as impressive.

And yes, I was greeted by my boss the way I had expected.

WWLD..............

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Land Of The Mouse

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By: Jeff

I am back from a ten day family vacation to Floridia.  We left on a Friday.  Stayed the weekend on Ana Marie Island.  On Monday we drove to Disney World for the week.  Saturday we drove to Ft. Lauderdale to stay with family.  Then on Monday drove back to Orlando to catch our flight home.  To say I am exhausted is an understatement.  Yesterday, I took it pretty easy, but today I did ride my bike into work.

I had great dreams that I would actually wake up early on a couple of days and get some running in.  On the first Sunday of the trip I did just that.  Got up at 6:30.  Walked outside.  IT felt like a comfortable temperature.  Ten minutes into the run, MAN FLORDIA IS HUMID!!! It was definately difficult to get use to that after coming from 50 degree weather in Indiana.  I had plotted a simple out and back route before I left Indiana, so that way I would know where I was at.  In general the run went OK.  Not good, not bad.  I was really sore after it though. It was a nice 2.7 mile run. Here is a map of my route:



The rest of the week:

The rest of the week was filled with plenty of walking and swimming.  We visited all of the major parks at Walt Disney World, so even though I didn't get anymore runs in, I did get plenty of miles on my feet.  Also with all the swimming that I did, I still feel like I had pretty good week of exercise.

Now only two more weeks until my first 5K.  Crunch Time!!!

Becoming A Real Cyclist

Image by magical-world via Flickr

By: Jeff

For the last couple of weeks I have been riding my from home to work a couple of times during the week.  I do two different routes to mix it up, and to deal with the one road becoming busier in the afternoon.  On the way in to work the route is 7.2 miles.  The route that I have been taking home is 11.5 miles.  This has been great and I have enjoyed these routes very much.  Then last Friday the winds began to blow.  In the afternoon it picked up to 16mph with gusts over 20mph.  NICE!!!  My wife called me and graciously offered to pick me up.  This, was very tempting.  I knew it would be a challenging ride, as the first 4 or 5 miles would be directly into the wind. I even thought about shortening the ride home to the 7.2 mile route.  But that is when it happened.  I told my wife, thanks, but no thanks.  11.5 miles, wind, bring it!!!

So as expected the first 4 or 5 miles were brutal.  Even downhills that I normally get good speed on were challenging.  The wind gusting across the barren cornfields were tough.  I just kept telling my self, "just keep pedaling".  And I did.  At about the 5 mile mark my route turned 90 degrees from the wind, a little relief.  In a few more miles my route turned to where the wind was at my back, AWESOME!!!  All total it only took me a few more minutes to get home then it normally does.  Average speed was down by a couple MPH. But, it was worth it.  Great work out, and mentally rewarding.  To be a real cyclist you can't just pedal on the easy days, you have to pedal on any given day. Wind or no wind.

The Glass City Marathon Reveiw.

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By: Brent

I have run plenty of races. I started small and graduated up. I ran my first 5k at age 30 after having my second daughter and realizing I wasn't getting any smaller, or younger, or healthier. I weighed in at around 238 lbs. My first race was at an 11:30+ mile. I was pleased to know I could finish, but knew I had more in the tank. I ran a couple more and always saw progress. Then I stepped up to a 10k. This was a road/trail race. I honestly thought they had mismarked the course. I knew somehow they had sent me on a 10 miler and everyone was laughing at me. Nope, it appears it had been marked as expected. I then ran a couple more 10k's and again, always saw progress. I finally got down to under an hour and felt pretty good about that. I then stepped up to my first half marathon. 13.1 miles amongst 35,000 others. I honestly didn't enjoy the crowd but I was okay with the length. It was 40 minutes of waiting from the time the gun fired to the time I finally started the start line. That alone put me in a funk and I just never shook that. I entered 2 more half marathons and again, always saw improvement. I started flirting with a 2 hour half marathon and I liked the sound of that. I figured that since I was so close to the 2 hour point, I should step up again.

4/25/10. Glass City Marathon. 26.2 miles. Toledo, OH. 700 Marathon runners. Dead flat. The weather made for tricky game time decision as far as what to wear. It was 50 degrees and had rained hard the night before. The forecast was still pretty spotty looking as far as what would happen, but it was rain or shine and the most important thing was that it started. Elizabeth went to the race with me and as they are saying the final announcements I change my mind. I'll drop the long sleeve shirt and just go short sleeve. She helped me change my bib to the short sleeve and about the time I got my hat on, the gun fired. As always the crowd pushes and you feel that instant adrenaline, then it bottlenecks and you feel like a dope walking for 15 seconds, then you take off again. Its like detonating a bomb, then stopping to tie your shoe. So the race began and for the first mile and a half it takes me a little bit to get in a groove. Then you sink in and left right left right just seems to be an after thought. You forget breathing and you just coast. I remembering looking around in some of the subdivisions that it trekked us through thinking, "I have never been to Toledo, but this is a wonderful city" So around mile 4 I thought, "hmmmm. I gotta pee." But I was coasting along nicely at a 9:30 pace and I really didn't want to break that. I pushed on. At about mile 6, I was started chatting with another lady who was running her first marathon. Very pleasant lady who was the overly positive thinker. Very nice. Just a little over the top with the whole "everything is sooooo wonderful". Either way we got in a great pace and both had 4:10 on the brain. We coasted along with no complaints (not that she would have heard them anyways). We hit the halfway point and it was roughly 2:05. I knew that was good and bad. Good that I was on pace at about my half marathon pace, and bad knowing that I had to maintain it all over to not lose my 4:10.

Pee was on my mind. It was getting worse. I had that thought. Yes I did. "How bad is a wet sock?" Then it dawned on me... I will not be winning anything. Zero. No amount of urine in my shoe was going to be worth it. At mile 16 we were still kicking along at 9:30's but I saw port a potty's and it felt like it was going to be the right move. I checked my watch before going in. No line, but the "process" felt like an eternity. Come on, come on...... Okay! ...get back to it! But it was tricky. That stop felt very rewarding. it gave the muscles time to tighten and the lactic acid some time to set in. Even if this wasn't true, in my head, it happened. I knew I was doomed. From 16 on it was a struggle.

For about 10 miles I mixed running and a strong willed walk. It wasn't what I wanted but it wasn't rolling over and letting the marathon win either. I passed each mile marker and always felt a bit of relief with each pass. When I hit mile 22 I thought, you did it. Your going to make it, push on. I thought with 3 miles left, you can run it out to the finish... but I couldn't get the body to agree. With 1.2 left I thought okay, we can finish this. You could see the stadium that you would be finishing at. But I couldn't get it going, still mixing short runs with longer walks that were still spirited no doubt. At mile 25 one volunteer yelled "Water, Gatorade, Beer!" With the iPod blasting, I flinched. BEER!?!?! I grabbed one thinking this will be the best story ever! I took a college gulp of the coldish Coors Light and instantly thought, this was a horrible idea. I still needed to juggle my guts another 1.2 miles so I dumped it (Sorry Beer Gods, just poor timing!) Just after the 25 mile marker the 4:30 pacer passed me. So I knew I could hang in there for this, the last mile. I mixed my pace and we switched back and forth until we finally made the turn in to the stadium. I knew I could finish with a run. No questions. I looked good, as I always do at any 2 given moments.. 1) Camera man 2) Finish line. Never let them see you walk in the newspaper. You have to be ready to pick up the pace and you never know when the camera man will hop out from a bush. Race camera men are like ninjas but at the finish of my first marathon, I knew I would be lookin' good.

At the end of the day I ran a 4:31:57. A PR (naturally). Did I have that feeling of okay, when is the next marathon? Nope. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to cry. I wanted a hot tub. You do instantly think about the pee break and think "what if..." But I really didn't care. I won't say I will never run another, but the marathon isn't my favorite distance. I love the bike. I want to get into Duathon's and I am thrilled that I completed a full marathon. I knew if I did a duathon first (run, bike, run) I may never do a full marathon so to me I have now graduated on to do another sport.... Multisport.

Overall thoughts of the course. Very pretty. Lots of nice grassy, forest area's. The downside, the course was frequently on 6 and 7 mile straight sections. Wind was tough but then you do it for 6 and 7 miles straight, it gets really boring. If I could have hung with that lady, it would have helped having someone to pass the time with but overall, I was very pleased with the course.

4:31:57. PR.