Oh and I bought myself some Gluten Free & Dairy Free pizza… should taste awful once I test it out… we’ll see.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 12/04/2008
• Time: 00:06:38
• Total Time: 00:40:00.00
• Average Heart rate: 130
• Max Heart rate: 160
• Calories: 417
• Distance: 8 miles
• Average Speed: 12 mph
• Ascent: 800 ft
• Descent: 800 ft

On a different note, later tonight, I almost got ran over while walking across the street… Further proving the point that Karl is always trying to make that riding your bike without a helmet may be safer than walking across the street.

The story goes something like this… I had stopped at the PO Box to pick up some mail, as I crossed the street, with a “walk” light and in the cross walk, a guy not paying any attention (quite possibly drunk) drove his car right across the cross-walk and into the intersection… narrowly missing me thanks to my cat-like reflexes and spider sense!

I literally had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit.

As I jumped I screamed out “Look Out!” and possibly “Oh My God!”… but somehow as a pedestrian I was more restrained that I’d be if I’d been on my bike… I didn’t scream out “What the F*K!” or something like that.

But what really surprised me was how the driver reacted. He started yelling at me… before I could say anything or even get my senses about me I heard him yell out his windshield “F*CK YOU!” I look over and he’s flipping me the bird!? 

I’m totally stunned, what?!? And I see his wife grab his arm to try to calm him down… and the guy starts to GET OUT OF HIS CAR! And he’s yelling at me “You want a piece of me! PUNK BOY! I’ll show you!!”

I’m just thinking, oh my god, I need to get out of the middle of the street, but if I keep walking this idiot is going to think I’m coming after him… and then I’m actually sizing him up, and thinking, well, if he comes at me, I guess I can take him.

I’m trying to think of how to difuse the situation, and I am torn between defending myself with a simple “this is a cross walk, I have a walk light” and just dropping it.

I’m not sure if it was the best choice, but my sense of fairness took over and I had to at least respond… I tried to keep it cool and not raise my voice or swear… I kept walking away but looking at him and say “Hey, look, this is a cross walk. Please be careful. You had a red light, man.”

At this point he’s got his door open, and his legs half way out of his car, but his wife has grabbed his arm and is begging for him to stay in the car.

I kind of notice a person on the sidewalk who was standing outside of a restaurant on his cell phone, and I hear him say to whoever is on the phone “Whoa, dude, hold on, I gotta hangup…. somethin’s going down!” As I walk toward the side walk, this witness starts telling the guy “Just get in your car man! Go! You have a green light!”

I was still pretty stunned, and I was just kinda standing on the sidewalk now, hoping the guy would leave. The whole time he’s been yelling stuff like “I’ll show you! I’ll kick your A*S! You want some of me PUNK BOY!” Now he’s driving off, with his car door still open yelling at me and the world and his wife and the street light.

After he finally drives off, the witness sort of looks me the eyes, and he says something kinda weird.. he’s like “Hey man! Thanks for setting that guy straight! Thanks for making sure he knew he was in your space! Thanks for protecting your right to that space!”

I didn’t quite know what to make of it… I couldn’t tell if this guy was defending me or if he was hoping for actual fisticuffs. I think I said something like “Man, that was crazy… did you see how he almost hit me? and I was in the cross walk.”

As I walked away I was still pretty shaken, I called twitterfone and recorded these messages…

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 12/02/2008
• Total Time: 00:50:00.00
• Calories: 522
• Distance: 10 miles
• Average Speed: 12 mph

My kids came along, the oldest riding her bike, and the youngest on the half bike. I didn’t make the mistake of riding the single speed, and instead loaded up on the sturdy (and heavy) but well geared (even over geared) hybrid bike.

We went slow… partly because of my sore legs, and partly because my oldest daughter was leading the way.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 12/01/2008
• Time: 14:41:05
• Total Time: 00:40:00.00
• Distance: 4 miles
• Average Speed: 6 mph

I arrived at the marathon start at about 7:15am, an hour before the marathon run would start, and right in time to see the marathon walkers lining up.

I was a little worried about parking, but there’s actually a great new parking garage right at the start of the race. It had tons of parking, and I literally pulled right in and was ready to race. Well, that is, after waiting for the half marathon runners and walkers to clear out. It was absolute pandemonium… It took the half marathon runners 15 minutes to cross the START line.

Back of the envelope I figured I’d run between 3:45 and 3:58 or so… Dave was shooting for 3:30, and tried to convince me I could run that, but I knew in my heart of hearts that I wasn’t up to that. Plus the last couple weeks of running post Ironman convinced me that running 8min miles would mean 3.5 hours at zone 3-4 and I knew I couldn’t pull that off. So as the race started, I lined up in between the 3:45 pacer and the 3:30 pacer.

For the first couple miles I ran pretty much with the 3:45 pacer. Mind you, 3:45 means an 8:35/mile pace… now, check this out, first couple miles: 8:40, 7:36, WTF!!! and then 8:19!. Now don’t get me wrong, I’d never sign up to be a pacer, it’s not easy… but this girl was ALL OVER THE PLACE! I know she was trying to “make up time” for the time it took us to cross the start line, since the goal is to get in with a gun time of 3:45 or less… but she was really running too fast. I decided to take a quick walk break at mile 3, and I figured I’d be able to catch her, since she would have to slow down eventually.

I felt pretty good at the start, even with the crazy pacing of the pacer… I ended up running ahead of her by about mile 4, then she passed me, then I caught up… I realized that I would still be able to do walk/run if I just ran a comfortable pace, and walked every couple miles. By about mile 7, I was almost 2 minutes ahead of the pacer.

There was a guy wearing a Santa outfit running the Marathon, and I caught him about mile 8, and did a little interview with him. (You’ll see it in the video.) Also at Mile 8 I took a bio break, and the pacer almost caught and passed me. I was feeling really good, and running well ahead of pace through the half way point.

From mile 14 to 20 or so, I was in my “happy zone”… where I get really chatty and start talking to everyone… as we were running up these hills I was telling people, “These hills are such steep downhills, they look like they’re up hill! But they’re really down hill! Can’t you feel it!”

At around mile 20 there is a gnarly hill. First it’s a steep half block or so, where you climb about 100 feet in a block… seriously, it’s about 30% grade… then you level out and turn onto a full mile at about a 5% grade… it’s a pain!

Then around Mile 23 I get to a “special place” for me… It’s the place I broke my foot two years ago. It was good to run past it this time… but I have to admit, I was starting to wear down. And I kept feeling like the pacer was on me… I’d check over my shoulder and I’d see the pace group a couple hundred feet back. I was inspired to keep going by a “Marathon Maniac” who was running next to me… he’d run 3 marathons in the last 3 DAYS! Woo hoo!

Around mile 18 when I was totally pumped, I was picturing really kicking the last 5K… I imagined running 7:30’s or something… now that I was in the thick of it… my brain said “No way Dude!”… In fact I was doing everything I could to hold on.

Around mile 24 I got to watch a guy run over to his girlfriend who had a “beer bong” prepped for him, and he chugged a beer before running the last 2 miles… CRAZY!

Then finally at about 25.3 miles, I got caught by the guy with the 3:45 pace sign. Turns out he was about 3 minutes ahead of pace… and running with him for a couple blocks gave me enough energy to burst ahead and run in well ahead of a 3:45 goal.

As I came around the last corner, and into the stadium, I was feeling great. I’ve decided that a 3:45 marthon is orders of magnitude easer than a 3:30 marathon. Mind you, marathons are never easy, but they get exponentially harder the faster you try to run them.

After crossing the finish line, I called home to let my family know I was safe and sound, and I headed to the recovery tent. I didn’t have my wallet on me, so I couldn’t get a massage. But good news… Bastyr was offering free “Natrupathic Body Manipulation and Stretching”… and I was pretty sure that would be even better than a massage especially considering the price (FREE!).

After that, I ate a little food, looked for Dave (couldn’t find him)… and headed to my car to drive home.

At home I took an ice bath, which I hope will speed my recovery (at least it worked the couple times I did it after big brick workouts earlier this year).

All in all it was a great day. I’m glad Dave convinced me to do it!

The stats:

Splits:

• 8:40 - 150
• 7:36 - 161
• 8:19 - 158
• 8:48 - 165 (I think I was getting cross talk from someone elses HRM)
• ? - HRM freaked
• 8:57 - 161
• 8:15 - 156
• 8:39 - 156
• 8:39 - 155
• 8:39 - 155
• 8:13 - 153
• 8:01 - 158
• 8:18 - 154
• 8:39 - 154
• 8:02 - 151
• 9:00 - 148 (dropped my phone, had to pick it up)
• 8:37 - 151
• 8:34 - 151
• 8:19 - 154
• 8:27 - 153
• 8:34 - 154
• 8:56 - 155 (the hill!!!)
• 8:35 - 151
• 9:01 - 151
• 8:41 - 152
• 8:38 - 151
• 9:00 - 151
• 2:29 (.2 miles?) - 157

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/30/2008
• Time: 15:57:48
• Total Time: 3:43:30.00
• Average Heart rate: 154
• Max Heart rate: 211
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Average Pace: 8:32.09/mile
• Max Pace: 7:36.27/mile

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/29/2008
• Time: 10:00:00
• Total Time: 00:15:00.00
• Distance: 1.2 miles
• Average Pace: 12:30/mile

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 11/28/2008
• Total Time: 00:45:00.00
• Distance: 10 miles
• Average Speed: 13.33 mph

Splits:

• 8:11 - 160
• 8:12 - 149
• 7:48 - 150
• 8:29 - 148
• 9:14 - 145
• 9:12 - 146
• 8:21 - 143
• 8:04 - 143
• 8:26 - 145
• 8:39 - 145

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/27/2008
• Total Time: 1:24:50.00
• Average Heart rate: 147
• Max Heart rate: 186
• Distance: 10 miles
• Average Pace: 8:29.19/mile
• Max Pace: 7:58.09/mile

Splits:

• 8:48 - 138
• 8:42 - 144
• 8:35 - 141
• 8:24 - 142
• 8:35 - 148
• 8:56 - 145

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/24/2008
• Total Time: 00:52:02.00
• Average Heart rate: 143
• Max Heart rate: 155
• Distance: 6 miles
• Average Pace: 8:40.23/mile

My youngest daughter wanted to go to the “park with the low monkey bars” so she could practice her technique. Mom was off shopping, oldest daughter was off running with her Aunt… so youngest daughter and I loaded up the bikes to head to the park.

I was smart enough to switch to my free wheel… which made the descents more bearable… And the gear ratio wasn’t too insane for the 450ft of climbing (in about 1 mile)… but the problem is, my Shogun is simply too light of a bike to have a half bike with a 6 year old riding attached.

Good news is, she had fun and I got a workout.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 11/23/2008
• Total Time: 00:40:00.00
• Distance: 6.3 miles
• Average Speed: 9.45 mph
• Ascent: 450 ft
• Descent: 450 ft

He told me he was going to ride around the bottom of Lake Washington and then around Mercer Island. I’d never done that ride, so I asked if I could tag along… He was racing to get home before dark, I was racing just to keep up with him.

The average speed on this ride is a little deceptive, since the first 8 miles of it was probably about 10mph, as I rode down to Speedy Reedy to have my bike adjusted. The last 40 miles were with this speed demond, and realistically we were probably doing around 19mph… not exactly world class, but more than I had planned on riding.

The Mercer Island loop is actually really quite a lot of climbing… and it was fun to ride it. Glad I did!

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 11/22/2008
• Time: 14:00:00
• Total Time: 2:48:05.00
• Average Heart rate: 135
• Max Heart rate: 165
• Distance: 47.2 miles
• Average Speed: 16.85 mph
• Ascent: 2,500 ft
• Descent: 2,500 ft