Another obsession

One of the coolest things about the iPhones v.2.0 software is the ability to have applications on your phone. There are over 1,000 applications available at the App Store on iTunes, some useful and some not so useful. I recently found a really cool application called “Absolute Fitness” by Aqua Eagle. It is a really great nutrition and exercise diary that not only has an extensive database of nutrition info, but also allows you to add your own “favorites” to its database. Since I am a creature of habit and tend to eat the same things day after day, I don’t think it will take me too long to get everything that I eat into it’s memory.



So far, tracking what I eat has been enlightening. I have found that I ingest WAY TOO MUCH SODIUM! Not enough potassium and not enough calories in general. The main reason I wanted to start tracking my nutrition is that I am trying to eat more protein. Brittany and I are weight training and she is touting the benefits of more protein in the diet. After doing some research, I agree and am making the necessary changes. With all of the training that I do, I have never felt that I had a good handle on the nutrition part. Logging what I am eating is really helping me see where I am at. So, I am feeling pretty good about it.

The official results for last weeks “Run through the Pines” race came out. Ummmmm, it says I placed 3rd in my age group instead of 4th. Needless to say I was very excited to hear that. But, of course I am not sure that it is right. I emailed the Race Director but have not heard back from them yet. This would be my first 3rd place. If I had known, I would have stuck around for the hand carved awards they were giving out. But, the paper we looked at said I was 4th. So, ......... I wait ........ Yes, I do obsess .......... About everything .......... And Brittany said she is already tired of me obsessing about my nutrition ............. Argggg!!!!!!!


Paul

The Great Outdoors!

Saturday’s race was great! I have been very busy the last couple of days so I am just now getting a chance to report. I placed 4th in my age group! That’s the closest I have come to getting hardware. It was a great half marathon. The elevation was tough and there were plenty of hills, but the lake was beautiful! We ran around it 4 times and by the time the last lap rolled around I was glad I didn’t have to see the same landmarks again.



Brittany ran the 5k and had a great race as well. I am still waiting to see the official results for more detailed stats. Nonetheless, we went to have a great weekend and we really had a great time.





We camped about 20 miles away from the race venue, about halfway between Crestline and Big Bear. We spent most of the day Friday and the second half of Saturday at Big Bear lake. It was really cool to see all of the signs and posters for Ryan Hall plastered everywhere. The town is really proud of their local hero and I am looking forward to watching him race in Beijing.



Congratulations to everyone who ran at Mt. Disappointment on Saturday! I really wish I could have been there. However, the weekend turned out rather nicely and I rediscovered my love of camping and “The great outdoors”. I will be making a trip to REI in the near future to buy some camping gear and plan to do as much camping as I can fit into my schedule. There is nothing like going to sleep under the stars.



Paul

Procrastination

procrastinate |prəˈkrastəˌnāt; prō-|
verb [ intrans. ]
delay or postpone action; put off doing something : it won't be this price for long, so don't procrastinate.

Uh, yeah..... We all know what it means. And I have been meaning to stop doing it, procrastinating, that is. But, well..... In another stellar example of a bad character trait. I put off registering for the race this weekend. There was a semi valid reason other than sheer laziness. You could only register via snail mail. No online registration available. You had to print out the form along with proof of a prior marathon finish, to the Race Director. Arghhh! So many details. I finally sat down on Saturday evening at 10 PM to fill out the form, when I saw this...



Needles to say, my heart sank. I had NO idea this race would sell out. In fact the website mentioned registering the day before the race. I feel like such an idiot, ashamed almost. I trained for this race for the last 2 months. I did the training run on the course. My daughter Brittany, her boyfriend and I planned a camping trip around the race, and now.... nada, nothing, ZIP!

Well, after feeling sorry for myself for about an hour, I decided to come up with a plan B. I found a race at Lake Gregory this weekend. It is a 5K (which Brittany will do) and a half marathon that I will run. We found a really cool campsite in the area and are going to have a blast for 2 days in the mountains.

I haven’t decided for sure yet, but I am strongly considering doing the BullDog 50K on Aug 23rd. It is in the same area as The Sycamore Canyon 50K I did in May.

Well, this was a hard post to write, I feel stupid, and I have been so busy it has been tough to find the time to blog. So busy in fact that I still need to register us for this weekends race..... Yeah, that’s right, it’s Wednesday and I still haven’t registered. Sheesh, some people never learn.

Paul

Feeling retro?

This week has been an exceptionally good training week. In preparation for next weeks 50K, I have been doing lots of hill training. Well, if you can call cranking the old treadmill to 5%, hill training. I feel really strong and my plan is to tear up all of that elevation gain. It’s amazing how much faster I feel when I am on flat terrain after “hill training”. I will hit the trails this weekend both Saturday and Sunday. I am now running in the pair of Salomon shoes that I received for free last year at the Pacific Shoreline Marathon. They definitely made a HUGE difference (thanks Lori and Mari, for the advice). I want to camp up in the Mt. Wilson area the night before and after the race. I am having a hard time finding a campground in the area. There seems to be a few, but there is very little information on the internet about the sites. So, if anyone knows of any good places to camp please leave a comment. It would be greatly appreciated.

I have been doing more location sound gigs recently. Tuesday, a couple of hours after our little shaker, I headed up to LA to the MTV studios to do a shoot with the band Panic! At The Disco. They were doing a promo for the game “Rock Band” and well, something about.... rock band....MTV.....cool rock tunes, got me feeling retro. So, I spent the better part of 2 days taking my braids out to give my hair and head a breather. I’m not sure if all this hair can take the amount of sweat I subject it to on a daily basis. Braids are very convenient. It’s that or dreads, we’ll see.. Until then.........



Paul

Mt. Disappointment training run

A friend of mine told me recently, that I didn’t have enough pictures on my blog. I will attempt to make up for it with plenty of pictures in this entry. Yesterday I did what was supposed to be a 15 mile training run (more on that in a minute) in the San Gabriel mountains. It was in preparation for the Mt. Disappointment 50K that I will be running on Aug 9th. The run started at Red Box at 8:00 am. REd Box is a section of the actual course that will serve as an aid station on race day.





My day, however, started a few hours earlier. I got up about 5 am, ate breakfast, got everything together, checked and rechecked my gear and hopped into the old gas guzzler for the hour or so drive to Pasadena. I REALLY hate driving these days, but if I’ve gotta drive, it sure helps if it is to a race, or in this case, an exceptionally scenic trail run. It was a beautiful morning, there was no traffic and I made good time. I was able to test out the GPS feature on my iPhone 3G. I’ve had an iPhone since the 1st generation came out over a year ago. But, this thing just keeps getting better and better and the many ways that it makes your life easier is really cool.

This training run was a bit of a first for me. Up until now, I have for the most part trained alone. Besides the times when I run with Brittany or swim with Jasmine, It has been a solitary sport. I do belong to the OC Triathlon Club, but I’ve only done a few group rides with them. It’s a shame really because I love endurance sports so much and to hang out with like minded people is really important (and fun) but for whatever reason I have just not been able to connect with a group of people to train with. So, it was a pleasant surprise, how the day transpired.

I met up with Lori, Marisol and Phil at 6:45 in Pasadena. I met Lori and Mari at the Sycamore Canyon 50K race back in May.



I ran a good portion of the race with them and since then we have kept in contact. A friend of theirs is doing Mt. Disappointment and although they aren’t doing the race, they knew about the training runs and told me about them. SInce you need a pass to park up at Red Box, Lori was kind enough to offer to drive us up Angeles Crest Highway, about 20 miles, to the start.

I don’t know what it is about endurance athletes, but there just seems to be an almost different level of consciousness. Maybe when you push yourself to such a level, you have a certain appreciation for life. I have noticed that when I get around these type of people I can feel an energy. A love for life. It’s really cool! So, needless to say, we had a great ride up to the start and spent about 15 minutes getting ready for the run. Everyone got a good laugh watching me contemplate whether or not my new Nathan 020 was too dorky too wear.



The start would be pretty much the last time we would see Phil for the next 6 hours or so. Again, more on that in a minute.



The first 4 1/2 miles were awesome. We met more great people. We met Hugh and Paul who are both Triathletes and raced IMAZ ’08, so we had plenty to talk about. I didn’t realize that so many triathletes trail run. But, it makes sense. The hill work is great and with all the road work that you do for Ironman, it is rather nice to run on trails.



About 4 1/2 miles into the run, we were given specific instructions to make a right turn at a fork in the road. I swear, I never saw it. We were all having such a great time, we just blew right by it. About 2 miles further down the trail, we ran into a few people who informed us that if we were doing the 15 mile run, we missed a turn. Luckily, the part we just ran was uphill so retracing our steps would be downhill. This foible would add another 4 miles to our run. None of us seemed too bummed and I was actually really happy since 19 miles would be closer to the 24 that I had scheduled.

Once we got back to the turn that we missed, we were able to refill our water bottles. The water came out of a pipe that was attached to a big water tower. I am not sure where the water was coming from, which was a little scary, but since no one got sick, I guess it was okay.



Once we were back on track the run got a little tougher. The next 5 or so miles is actually the last 5 miles of the 50K race. It is the long steep incline to the top of Mt. Wilson,





My strategy this run,was to walk the uphills and try to keep my heart rate under control so I would have plenty left for the flats and downhills. It worked for the most part, but these girls are fast and I had a tough time on a couple occasions and had to stop and to let my heart rate settle down. It is a real testament to hill training as Lori and Mari said they have been hammering the hills like crazy. I plan to do lots of hills the next 2 weeks.

After a lot of this!



We arrived at the top of Mt. Wilson and refilled our water bottles again. We headed out for the last 5 1/2 miles. The first mile or so was downhill on a paved road. We were running at a pretty good clip. Their were 2 options, you could take the road all the way down or go off the road and take the trail which would add about a 1/2 mile. Paul and Hugh opted for the road (Paul was having stomach issues) and we took the trail. Once we got off the road we got to a really cool tunnel. Not only was it cool looking, it was cool inside (shaded).





We thought that the rest of the run would be downhill. There was however another good 800’ to climb before getting back to Red Box. By now, I was really feeling the miles and the elevation. But it was manageable and by the time we started to descend again, we all were back to running a pretty good pace. When we finally reached the road, Phil (remember Phil?) was waiting with the car. He was worried about us. He is really fast (3:30 marathon PR) and had doubled back a couple miles to try and find us and couldn’t. He was happy to see us and we were happy to see him.

The girls brought some great recovery food and we all brought our favorite beer. We hung out for about an hour, talked and had a blast.

Here’s to trail running ......... And most of all new friends!









Life is good!

PAUL

Surf City 5K Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures from the Surf City 5K





I think this might be one of the best pictures I have ever seen from a race. Of course I may be a little biased since it is of my daughter Brittany.



I don’t look nearly as good, but I was pushing for a PR :)

My training is going well in preparation for Mt. Disappointment. I will run about 58 miles this week and I am planing at least one of those runs on the trails. I am doing a 15 mile run next weekend on part of the trail that I will be racing. I am meeting up with a couple of girls that I met at the Sycamore Canyon race a couple of months ago. It will be a lot of fun. I will be experimenting with a new hydration pack and will try to dial in my nutrition. Let’s hope it’s not TOO hot!

Paul

Clarity and a PR to boot!

After a lot of thought, a little advice and some re accessing of my goals, I have formulated a new plan and made peace with it. I have decided not to do the Camp Pendleton Triathlon July 19th. Instead I will focus my training on running. Specifically I will be training for the Mt. Disappointment 50K on Aug. 9th. I will continue to ride my bike to work 3 days a week and I will weight train 3 days a week. I figure that this will be around 16 hours of training, but I am gaining back time because 6 hours of that is free since it is replacing time spent sitting in traffic. So, 10 hours of training will then leave plenty of time for my other goals, which are of equal if not more importance. I am going to start dedicating time to acting and music again. I have let them slip since there just wasn’t any time. The plan had been to set them aside till after IMAZ then hit it hard after. Somehow, after IMAZ I felt lost without all of the training and I made a less than wise decision. Not that doing another triathlon is a bad decision, it is just that right now I have to weigh time spent with return.

I am seeing great returns with running. Running is also logistically much easier to do. And I LOVE TO RUN. I have plenty of goals to keep me motivated, I plan on running a sub 4 hour marathon in Long Beach in October and LONG term eventually qualifying for Boston. I will keep trail running on my way to a 50 miler then perhaps a 100 miler. I am also hitting the weights again. I don’t really like the scrawny upper body I seem to be getting. It is typical for runners and cyclists because of all the attention our lower bodies get. This plan leaves time for weight training and that’s a good thing!

Finally, I am setting specific goals for music and acting. I will start talking about this part of my life more in this blog since it will be more a part of my life again:) I am attempting to be a more well rounded person. I tend to get obsessed with things and that can be good. But, it has it’s draw backs too. I needed to be obsessed with Ironman training to achieve that goal. But, I have no delusions of being a professional triathlete. So it becomes a question of risk vs. reward. I need to spend time doing things that give some return on investment. If I spent even 3 hours a week on writing a new song or submitting to casting agents, I would be so much closer to my professional and creative goals.



So, this is the beginning of a new and more well rounded life for me. And to kinda start it off, yesterday at the HB 4th of July 5K I ran my ass off for a PR of 23:26 (per my garmin). That is :30 faster than previous fastest 5K. it was not champion chip timing, so official gun time was 23:41. It was a great day. Brittany also PR’d the course by :30. We ate a great lunch, then I rode my bike to the beach and watched the fireworks.



Oh, and I will do another Ironman. Most likely IMAZ ’09. I can’t wait to actually race that Mutha’

Paul