Welcome to the Jungle

Welcome to the jungle

We got fun 'n' games

We got everything you want

Honey we know the names

When you're training for Ironman, Saturday morning is always time for the long ride. As I have chronicled, riding on the streets in Houston can be a bit of a struggle as slow-witted pachyderms in their SUVs and Pickup Trucks compete with you for habitat. But this particular Saturday, I only had one SUV that refused to yield place, and that probably out of ignorance or inattention rather than malice. Today's jungle excusion was difficult for a different reason.

In Houston, you know that the day is going to be a challenge if the windows are sweating with condensation before the sun comes up. This means that, in contrast to the interior of your home, which feels like a low-humidity meat locker, the outside environment is doing its best to mimic Equatorial Guinea. At 0530, when you stumble out to get the paper, the humidity clamps a hot, wet washcloth over your face, and you're cast into the sauna.

Perfect training conditions for Ironman Cozumel, to be sure, but unpleasant to say the least. Coach Kris ordered up a 2.5 hour ride followed by a 15 minute brick run, ordinarly plenty of work but nothing to write home about. This day, however, the sweat was dripping and flying off my bike helmet before I'd even made 15 minutes of work. And by the time I was running off the bike, the sun was in full force. I wimpered my way through the run-off (read "shuffle off") and headed for the AC. I had drunk 1.5 litres of fluid during the ride, and consumed 2 litres of fluid in the hours afterward, but there was little evidence of it. I was wrung. out.

But there was more jungle to come--actually the wildest and jugleiest jungle of them all. For you see, it was the day before mother's day, which means shopping is required. And this particular day, the recesison was nowhere in evidence. The traffic jams and parking lots were such that you would have thought it was the last shopping day before Christmas, except it was a billion degrees outside.

Yes, those of you with weak constitutions might want to skip the rest of the post, for Greyhound went shopping.

Even more, I took two girls shopping: Superpounce and her newly-teenaged friend Mini-KT.

OK, to say that I went shopping is to exaggerate, like many of the feats described herein. But this is my blog, and I at least get to be the hero of my own narrative. Actually, I mostly functioned like an undercover, surveillance detail from the NSA--watching from a distance and loitering outside stores as Superpounce and Mini-KT texted me about where they intended to shop next.

Between Aeropostale, American Eagle, the Food Court, and Justice, we were able to spend a little time at Macy's in order to find someing Mom-er-iffic for today.

And I survived the jungle by making it much of the way through the Weekend Journal.

Progress Report--Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger.

Ahhhhhhh. Recovery week. The first three weeks of training from Coach Kris are in the books, and today the Training Peaks God e-mailed that I'm supposed to recover--no exercise, maybe get a massage, put my feet up.

Let it be written. Let it be done.

The Training Peaks God has something awful planned on Thursday, but I'm trying hard not to think about that today. I'm just going to glory in the late-sleeping, fully hydrated luxuriousness of no two-a-day workouts, and super easy training throughout the week . . .

With the exception of the workout that shall not be named on Thursday morning.

But that's not today.

In the last three weeks, Coach Kris had me switch out of post-marathon recovery and into three-sport training. The running has continued to be light, with only one quality workout per week. The swimming has mostly kicked my butt--awesome sets that really targeted my weakest discipline. And the cycling has gone from ez spinning up to a 50 mile ride this past Saturday. Coach took me safely from zero up to 13 hours of training this past week.

I've completed all the workouts with the exception of two that were scrubbed the day I did some VO2 Max testing. And I mostly hit the training goals and levels of effort prescribed by the Almighty Training Peaks. And it all happened during a very busy work season, including an all day court hearing with no break for lunch. So, I give myself somewhere between an B+ and an A-.

But while I'm giving out grades I have to single out two persons seen "on the road" in Houston for a special edition of "Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger."

Hall Of Fame

For this training cycle, my nomination to the Hall Of Fame goes out to Grampa Grocery Rider, seen yesterday at the HEB on I-45 and Rayford Road. I don't know his name, but this dude makes the hall of fame easily. Grampa walks with a cane and must be 70 years old if he's a day, but he rode his three-wheeled pedal cruiser to the grocery store and put his shopping in the back basket where the two American Flags were attached. (Meanwhile the parking lot was filled to capacity with SUVs driven by people who obviously need the extra horsepower to cart around their prodigious girth.) Gramps had a bike helmet for safety, but his kids need to get him some proper kit. He wore a red, windbreaker jacket with the word "STOP" stenciled on the back in black, magic marker. But he's in the game. Good on you, G-man. Tip 'o the Greyhound's chapeau.

Hall Of Shame

This training cycle, my nomination to the Hall Of Shame goes to the worst, post-race bling violation I have ever seen. It was one of those moments, out running one Sunday morning, when I did a double take and wondered, "Did I really just see what I think I just saw?"

I did.

There is much discussion about the written and unwritten rules for proper usage, time, place and manner for finisher's medals and other post-race bling. There are some things that are black and white (e.g., "Thou Shalt Not Wear A Finisher's Shirt For A Race In Which Thou Didst Not Participate Or In Which Thou Didst Not Finish Unless You Are Homeless And Said Shirt Was A Donation") and there are some that are shades of grey (e.g., "Do you wear your finisher's medal from the Disney Marathon in the park to exchange knowing glances from the other participants, or does that make you a git? Only the day of the race? What about the next day? Only if it's your first marathon? hmmmmm.") What I saw, however, falls outside the lines.

I was running in a swanky neighborhood, early on a Sunday morning, when I saw a portly man riding a mountain bike approaching me on the road. "Fine," I'm thinking. "At least the sedentary man is out moving, even if he is spinning a mountain bike on the streets around his neighborhood at 10 mph. Good for him. Don't be an elitest jerk."

But then I see that below his visored helmet, his facial hair and his double chins, he's wearing

A Finisher's Medal.

I kid you not. The elitest jerk in me wanted to blow a whistle and throw the flag for flagrant race bling violation.

He was wearing his post race bling--not a technical fabric finisher's shirt, but a finisher's medal, which has no training purpose.

Not after a race.

Not at the race site.

Not even at the post-race feed during which mandatory war stories and tales of daring do are customarily exhanged.

But wearing a finisher's medal. On Sunday morning. In the neighborhood. On a mountain bike, which was not being ridden on trails, but on a suburban street at 10 mph. This is the suburban equivalent of beginning every casual conversation with the words, "Hey, baby. Did I ever tell you that I did an Ironman? Wanna see my tattoo?"

Not that I would ever do such a thing. That would be wrong.

Wag of the finger.

Hurricane Ike--I'm blogging this

During the day yesterday, the cone of death moved more in line with the Megalopolis where I live, so we're expecting hurricane conditions this weekend. The conventional wisdom is, "run from water, hide from wind." Depending upon how your crow flies, I'm 50 to 70 miles away from the coast, well clear of the storm surge. So, I'll be hiding, not running.

While I do, hide that is, I hope to throw out some pictures, video and narrative of what it's like in Spring, Texas during the storm--hopefully very regular and rapid updates when I'm not sleeping. So, check out hurricaneikeblog.blogspot.com and tell all your weather nerd friends.

Limp and Wilted

Well, it's been a quiet week in Spring, Texas, my home, out here on the edge of the Megalopolis where the coastal plain meets the piney woods.

These are what they call the "dog days" of summer, that time in August where life becomes like an old scratchy, vinyl record--what little you hear is obscured by noise and seems to keep repeating itself, never moving forward.

seems to keep repeat

repeat

seems to keep repeating itse--

never moving for--

forward

Sort of like the movie Groundhog day, only without Bill Murray, romance, humor or popcorn.

Every day starts the same. Even before you get up, the city has started to sweat. It's nearly 80 degrees in the dark, with humidity so high the windows on the houses and the skyscrapers downtown are sweating condensation. Your car sweats as you make your way from the kid friendly zone into the money making zone--i.e., from the suburbs where it is possible to have a yard and a non-lethal school to the central business district where it is possible to have a job capable paying for yard and school. As it happens, these two zones, which are needed by at least a couple million people in the megalopolis, are situated at least 20 or 30 miles away from each other and are designed to be traveled only by internal combustion engine.

I usually do the trek between 4 and 5, and right now, I'm trying to run. There's a bit of a breeze between the buildings downtown, but as soon as you exit the city, every flag is limp and wilted on the flag poles, looking like they've been soaked by a downpour and then baked into place. With no race on the horizon, and no friends to meet, even five miles feels like a chore. A watched Garmin never turns over the next mile. I feel like I'm running the same quarter mile over and over

the same quarter mile over

quarter mile over and

mile over and over

and over.

But even this black hole has little bits of light that escapes. Mother nature reminded us this past week that things are subject to change without notice. One morning on the commute, the freeway signs flashed

STORM FORMING IN THE GULF

FILL YOUR GAS TANK

Tropical Storm Edouard (that's Edward for you Anglo readers who live in those portions of the United States where English is still the common tongue) decided to form off the Cajun Coast and take a sight seeing trip to Houston. Edward turned out to be more like "little Eddie" or maybe Edouarlito, but at least it was variety. It gave the local news something to do other than car wrecks and shootings, and enabled at least one evening walk in temperatures that were marginally survivable.

And there were other milestones to break the monotony of the dog days. Superpounce, newly home from her 2008 World Tour, turned 11 today. She's still a tiny thing, but no longer so tiny that I can hold her entire frame in one arm to feel her first breath of the day---or her first breath ever. She's free of her cast and her ears are newly pierced. She reasoned, "if I can take a broken arm and an IV, then I can stand getting my ears pierced."

And like a Russian trying to weather the endless winter on the featureless steppes, I am managing to anesthetize myself from the sameness of it all with an addiction. With no race goal on the horizon, I've become addicted to Chain Love and Ebay for purposes of pimping out my road bike. Every time I see something new and shiny and carbony, I have to instant my bike adviser, discuss the merits of the new toy, and likely as not, pay for a new "hit" like a junkie in a back alley littered with syringes--or in this case seat posts, saddles, bar tape and handle bars.

And possibly later cranks and shifters and wheels.

If I switch from my triple front chain ring to a double, do I need to change out my shifters, and deraillures too? Should I just go for a whole new gruppo? Wow, that top-of-the-line SRAM Red looks pretty sweet.

**blink**

And like a true addict, the trip I'm on always fails to satisfy--like when Chain Love bitch slapped me with carbon handle bars that were 104 grams lighter than the carbon handle bars I had just purchased barely 4 days before. Sure they were way more expensive, but what's $1 per gram as compared to the unequaled rush of having the carboniest handle bars ever and casting aside that 104 gram anchor that you haven't even installed on your bike yet?

OMG, I so need a training group or a race or a program to shake me from this sweaty-hit-the-snooze-button-and-roll-over-and-have-another-pizza-and-beer-commuter-desk- job-hell that I've fallen into.

Feel free to stage your intervention in the comments.

Seen in Houston:

80 Degrees and 80% humidity before sunrise. Aaaaaack.

From afar--someone on a mountain bike or townie that I swear was wearing an aero helmet. (OK, that might have been some kind of Freudian hallucination, but I that's what it looked like.)

In the locker room--man drying body hair--yes, including THAT body hair--with blow dryer.

I.KID.YOU.NOT.

These are experience that Bolder never has to undergo in Triathlon Mecca on the front range.

Take my home town . . . . please.