Zen and the Art of Triathlon [A Podcast]

 

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Ghetto-Fabulous shownotes for right now.  Will clean up when I get a minute…

Intro by RadioHead (bodysnatchers)

50% will be wrong in the next 4 years, we just don’t know what 50% yet

Epic Run, Heat, Nuun + HJ + gatorade cocktail, Socks by SLS tri, nathan triangle pack,

Jaysee voicemail, cool sound effects, happy birthday (dethclock)

Ragnar (DESCRIBE), Website (Team White Line Fever), Adam’s resume, Posting our training logs, spencer green song

Donation by Matt Hood - I need donations to help pay for this thing!  (emily giving me evil eye).  Donate or buy some hornet juice.

And we need sherpas!

Congrats to BIGUN for finishing his first Ironman.

Just crash anywhere by MOVING ATLAS

...Comment [4]

 

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Join me for a killer ride across some rural Texas back roads and up and down a tollway as I talk about the Zen practice of “letting go.” I am aboard Karma, my new (used) road bike.

This is a great show with some surprising audio of me almost getting bitten by a dog and also smacked by a hornet.

I also play a very moving song by an artist that died too young, Spencer Green.

SHOWNOTES!

• Sent Victor a picture of Alaskan street graffiti.
• Training for the Ragnar by running two weeks, then taking it easy a week.  Averaging about 45 running miles per week.
• Zen - To have No Fear, you must Let Go.
• One step beyond Nihilism
• When you’ve let go, you can do amazing things.
• Realize you are part of a much bigger whole.
• Everybody has the ability to do this.
• Story about cracked teacup and one death per person.
• Emily is a Hospice nurse.
• Selling everything at a garage sale.
• Check email only twice a day.
• Use www.rmilk.com to get organized, ok?.
• People do the right thing when they have time to choose.
• I feel like I’m getting my sanity back!

...Comment [5]

 

 Fear and Running in Alaska: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

“I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” - Mark Twain

Emily and I hit the Final Frontier for our 10 year wedding anniversary, spending a week running in a mix of urban and remote wilderness. I recorded a podcast during the week, talking about the Zen approach to fear and a few other things.

Listen in to hear me broadcasting from a remote cabin, a suburban backyard, and an Anchorage restaurant. I reveal how to observe fear instead of becoming it, allowing yourself to live your life to the fullest.

Your links to more podcasts to teach you to deal better with fear are the following -

FEAR - By Zen Master Gil Fronsdal

Zen Garden - By Thich Nhat Hanh

No Ego, No Fear Part 1 and Part 2 by Robina Courtin

Being in Alaska, I go trail running through snow, almost collide with a moose, renew wedding vows next to a glacier, and spot a bear. Plenty of fear to go around, and there’s no slowing down.

I also talk about two new pieces of gear that I’m using:

• The Nathan Triangle Pack allows you to carry a 22 oz. water bottle on your waist. I really like it. I can go anywhere I want for two hours and not worry about fueling.

• SLS sent me some compression socks and they work! This was probably the biggest run mileage week of my life (training-wise) and I finished it out with 12 miles wearing these and my legs felt great!

• I am doing a lot of night running to avoid the Texas heat, and the is my new best friend. It’s so bright, I think it is actually making car drivers angry. I know that every driver is seeing me, and that’s what I’m looking for.

There’s also a voicemail at the end of the show from a guy who’s making his own tri podcast out of Georgia. I checked it out and it’s pretty cool! Here’s the link.
SHOWNOTES!

• Chillin’ on the deck of a cabin in Hope, Alaska. Population 130.
• Went trail running on the Powerline Trail. Mix of rock and knee deep snow.

• Went running in Anchorage. Almost ran over an “Urban Moose”.
• Emily and I renewed our wedding vows standing next to Exit Glacier.
• Hanging out in Samantha’s backyard in Anchorage.
• Samantha sings and plays mandolin.
• Gear Review! Nathan Triangle Waist Pack. It’s great!
• We go bike riding around Anchorage.
• Emily, Samantha, and I at Bear Tooth’s.
• Bike commuting home from work back in Texas.
• The Ragnar cometh.
• Gear Review! Amphipod Xinglet and SLS compression socks.
• Wrap up.
• Voicemails.

...Comment [2]

You’ve probably seen these things all over the place. They’re cheap, colorful, and gimmicky. But do they work?

I subscribe to the Can’t Replace All Products (C.R.A.P.) purchasing model - if you buy expensive stuff, you’ll lose or break it. Buy cheap stuff and it seems to lurk around for eons. I don’t know why this happens, but the classic example is sunglasses. There is an inverse relationship of amount paid to lifespan.

Based on the C.R.A.P. model, I wasn’t about to buy expensive earphones when I sweat all over them and can easily get them lost or caught in a Zipp 404 at 40 mph. Time to go shopping for cheapos!

So, the sales pitch with the Gummies is that they have a cool texture and come in colors. But do they sound like kag (Texas Aggie technical term) or are they good? Here’s the results of my 6 month study on the little guys:

• They sound OK. I’m not blown away, but they aren’t bad.
• The gummy texture is only the texture, it’s not like they’re mushy or anything. BUT, the slight stickiness keeps them in-ear when most would slide out from the sweat. This is a major selling point for me.
• The different colors are a good idea. I buy things in weird colors when I want to find them easily. Get white to match your iPod, or get some other color to pick them out from a jumbled mess of other cords.

So that’s basically it. I beat the hell out of these things and they just keep on pumping out sound. I really love how they don’t slip out of my ears like most earbuds do. For 10 to 15 bucks, you can’t go wrong. Thumbs up!

...Comment [3]

I don’t think I could have things any better right now.  A sure sign that something terrible will happen soon.

• I bike to work on a chromed out ‘73 Schwinn Varsity.
• Sometimes I run to work.
• When I run to work, I ride a mile each way to the showers at Gold’s Gym on a Sector 9 longboard skateboard.  This was gifted to me by a friend for 8 bucks.
• My buddy is always asking me if I want to drive his ‘67 GTO.
• I ride a BMC TT02 at my local time trials on Wed. nights.  I even ride there, which takes all of about 15 minutes.
• My kid loves to tag along for rides on his tow-bike.

It’s like I’m living in some kind of weird transportation porn movie.  And the whole time I’ve got theme music provided by my iPod Shuffle.  What a wonderful world we live in.

Are there ways you’ve turned your commuting/transportation into fun?  Post them in the comments!

...Comment [9]

Speeding up your transition is considered “free time”. It takes almost no training; just smarts. Let’s look at a familiar culprit - the racing number.

• Use a race belt already. Safety pinning it to your shirt has NOOB written all over it.
• Put it on before the race, adjust it to where you like, then step out of it without undoing the buckle. When you come out of the water, you can slide it right on without fiddling with clips.
• Crumple the race number and then flatten it out. The wrinkles prevent it from flapping in the wind and irritating the hell out of you.
• I place mine in my helmet or across my shoes. Doing so keeps me from forgetting it. Placing things in your way is a strategy many people use to remember important things. For example, if you have something you don’t want to forget on your way out the door in the morning, put in in the way of the door so that you have to move it to open the door. Also, don’t put things on top of your car. Put them on the hood. They’ll be right in your line of sight so you don’t drive off without them.

...Comment

Flats suck. Everybody knows that. But what everybody doesn’t know is that you can prevent most of them.

Here’s why:

• Most flats are caused by little bits of glass.
• These little bits usually take plenty of miles to work themselves through the tires and into the tube.
• Checking your tires before you ride often finds these shards before they flat your tire.

Here’s how:

• Turn off the lights and very slowly turn your tire with a flashlight pointed at it.
• Glass will glint in the light, showing you were it is.
• Pick out the glass, go riding!

It is important to remember that the second leading cause of flats is too low tire pressure. Check your tires for proper inflation before every ride. Also, I use a headlamp to check for glass and keep my hands free.

If you suspect that you just rode through glass, you can use your bike glove to “wipe” the tires while still moving. This is easy on the front, difficult on the back. Sometimes it’s simply worth it to get off the bike, spin the tires, and knock the glass off. Compare 30 seconds of doing that vs. 10 minutes and money spent on a new tube and CO2 instead.

...Comment [1]

There was a study done a few years ago that showed that runners given good old chocolate milk after a hard workout were able to go something like 20 to 30% farther before fatiguing the next day than the control group.

After much Zentri Science (patented), I concluded the following:

1. What benefit does steroids, EPO, and all that other crap give athletes? 5%? 10%. It’s a lot, but is it 20 to 30%? Most certainly not.
2. Isn’t this sh*t legal?
3. Isn’t this sh*t sold in every convenience store on every street corner?

I’ve been using it for several years now and it flat out works. I slam a nice cold glass of homemade chocolate milk after every hard workout and the next day I’m able to push hard, yet again. Sure, I’m sore. But I’m not deep down sore and I can push through it no problem.

I save the Hornet Juice for special occasions, such as demolishing Jetpack in an Ironman or destroying Drew in our upcoming Cyclocross Dethmatch (details coming soon.)

The dudes in the lab coats say that chocolate milk works because it has the perfect sugar to protein ratio to get the right stuff to your muscles to repair them quickly. For best results, drink within 15 minutes of finishing your workout. To be honest, some of the timing stuff is still up in the air. This is all new and a pleasant surprise, so they’re still trying to decide if it’s best before, during, or after the workout.

Just the other day I ended a run at a friend’s house and he asked if I wanted any ice water or gatorade. I asked if he had chocolate milk. He had hershey’s syrup and lowfat milk. Perfect. That’s exactly what I use at home. Like I said, it’s everywhere.

...Comment [8]

 

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Sometimes you need something to pull yourself out of the same-old training routines and kick it into high gear. I use races.

I tell people all the time that staying fit is easy. Just sign up for a race a few times a year and train for them. There’s nothing like almost doing your best to show you that you could train just a little harder.

And pushing yourself to race pace is a killer workout. You’ll go back to training faster and stronger.

I stumbled across the picture of that cat going haywire on the bologna and immediately thought “Wow, he’s motivated. He’s almost got it in his mouth and isn’t going to let go NO MATTER WHAT.” How do you think of yourself during race day or your hard workouts? Like that cat?

In this podcast, I talk about how my recent races motivated me and much more. I take you with me on my run to work, motivated to get there before my boss get’s pissed that I’m late. I also cover a bunch of other topics, so join in for the fun!

SHOWNOTES!

• Walking out the door, running to work on Bike to Work Day.
• Voicemail from Coach Adam.
• Confessions of a Runner is Listening to Zentri.
• How to organize your clothes for running to work.
• Urban Adventure Running rules.
• Soapbox Alert! People wasting water.
• The simplicity of running to work is Oh So Zen.
• Running times are getting much faster because of running to work.
• Crossfit is the sh*t!
• My new Prison Workout: Pullups, pushups, squats, situps, bucket lifts (with bricks in them). As many as you can do in 25 minutes.

• Been doing local bike time trials, crushing my Max HR.
• Current training schedule.
• Poison ivy making me look awesome. Mostly.
• Bike commuting audio from Drew.
• Cyclocross Deathmatch?
• Texafornia attacks a rabbit.
• Kai gets a Trail-a-bike.
• Weiner dog attacks Texafornia.
• Electric cars for kids are The Devil.
• Check out our new LED xmas light fireplace!

• Big thanks to Kembery for the donation, McNitt, Ken Seals, and Morgan for blog help.
• Voicemails!
• DethChatter announces reunion and world tour! DethChatter.blogspot.com.

...Comment [4]

I was taking a visual stroll through one of my favorite runner’s blogs - Anton Krupicka - and was reminded again of our inferiority to such a running dynamo.  Take a gander at this:

“Wed-AM: 30 miles (4:00) Jones Park-7 Bridges Loop+Monument loops and barefoot ~4000′ vertical
Rainy all day, so I didn’t get out until almost noon. Slow at first, but then I felt good on the climb up 666 so I just went for it and decided to do the full loop because I was having so much fun. Above Capn Jacks there was new snow on the trail (that my NB 152s weren’t so happy navigating) and there was rain coming down, but I had a blast. Kinda bonked the last 30 minutes or so because I didn’t take any gels or water (did have a muffin for breakfast, though).”

Kinda bonked?  No water or gels for 30 miles? 4000 feet of vertical climbing near Boulder, CO?

The day I can go just 10 miles on a muffin, well…  I don’t know.   Insane.

...Comment [3]