Are you ready for some football?

I certainly am. Last night kicked off the start of the college football season with a slew of games. And in a few hours I am gonna board a plane headed for Atlanta for this weekend's OSU vs Georgia football game. But as much as I like college football, I am in love with the NFL. I cannot wait until next Thursday for the Colts vs the Saints. Add to that I just completed my second of three fantasy football drafts and you can consider me a junkie.

Fantasy football has completely changed the way I watch NFL games and also changed my allegiance from the college game to the pros. Since I have been playing fantasy about 10 years now I know so much more about the NFL, its teams, its players, etc. Sadly I can probably name at least 3-5 players off each NFL team, but barely know any players from my alma mater, OSU.

The End of Duathlon Season

This weekend marked the end of my duathlon season. Now it is time to focus on riding and getting ready for the LIVESTRONG Challenge in October. For the next two weeks I think I am just going to ride exclusively and give the running legs a rest. This rest will be short lived as half marathon training begins the first of September. So for about a month or so it will seem like du training with riding and running several times weekly. Oh well. Here are some of my most recent du results:

2007 Protest Du: First run pace - 8:34/mile, Bike - 20.2 mph, Second run pace - 9:04/ mile, Total time - 1:49:46.95

2007 Darnd'st Du: First run pace - 8:54/mile, Bike - 20.5 mph, Second run pace - 9:11/mile, Total time - 1:55:15.95

2006 Darnd'st Du: First run pace - 8:56/mile, Bike - 20.2 mph, Second run pace - 9:30/mile, Total time - 1:55:48.1

So my takeaways from this is my bike is amazingly consistent, my running certainly has improved over last year, especially the second run, and it was immensely more fun training for these events with a group than on my own.

Have a great day.

Movie Reviews

Generally my blogs have dealt with races, riding, or other active events, but that is not what life is all about. Life is about so much more. So moving forward I am going to try to expand my blogs to other things going on in the life of a 35 year old male in Austin, TX. Tonight I am going to give brief reviews of recently watched movies.

First run movies -

The Simpsons- Pretty much what I expected. Short sweet and to the point. Pretty darn, funny and a good way to beat the heat. If you live in Austin you have to see it at the Alamo. Not only do they have Simpson shorts before the movie but you can get Duff beer.

Sunshine- This is the latest movie by Danny Boyle the man behind 28 Days Later, Trainspotting, and the often overlooked but fabulous Shallow Grave. This movie is a Sci-Fi flick but it just fell flat for me. The premise was very cool and there are some interesting concepts but no real pay off. Kind of a let down.

The Bourne Ultimatum- This is the third Bourne movie and I liked the previous two, so I had high hopes for this one. I think it was a pretty good movie, but did not really play up the strengths of the previous two. Usually Bourne relies heavily on multiple car chase scenes, this one had only one. Also the fight scenes in this movie seemed too staged. Overall I was a little disappointed, but still thought it was better than most modern action films.

Rentals:

The Premonition-Let me preface this by saying that I have much greater movie knowledge than Carri and I usually pick the movies we see. This was one of hers that we did not catch in the theaters so we rented it this weekend. Let me just say that Carri and I both have a Premonition...Sandy's movie career has gone in the shitter ever since Speed (besides Crash which was an ensemble cast), and we hope that she has a future in her restaurant. This movie was so bad. Do they not have people that watch these movies before release? Maybe that could be my new job. "Excuse me your movie sucks and you are going to lose money", that will be $50,000 please.

Maxed Out- This was a doc about how Americans spend so much money on credit. Kind of scary, but it did not really have the punch of some of the better docs I have seen.

The Descent- We had seen this one before in the theater but it is such an amazing movie we had to get it again. If you are claustrophobic, this movie will scare the pants off of you. Also it is just a great horror film. It was nice to see the original ending. I highly recommend this movie.

The Number 23- Seriously you think the twist at the end can make up for the hour and a half of garbage you just force fed me. Pppppplllllllease.

Zodiac- My uncle worked for the SFPD just after the Zodiac case so I had additional interest in this movie. Couple that with the fact that it was by David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en) and you had me hooked. I thought the movie was a little long but other than that it was a great crime film. I would certainly recommend this film as well.

So to wrap up, this is my first in hopefully a semi-regular segment of movie reviews. My recommendations are check out the Simpsons at the Alamo, see the Bourne Ultimatum if you have seen the first two, get a good scare by The Descent, and catch Zodiac even thought the SFPD were never able to.

Enjoy and pass the popcorn.

Darnd'st Du Report

Most of my previous race/ride/run reports this summer have started out with how the weather in Austin has been great and much cooler than usual. Well now it is August and it is back to business as usual with Texas being a blast furnace. Hot, hot, hot.

Carri and I woke up at 4:30 this morning so that we could eat breakfast, get some water in us, and be out the door for the 30+ minute drive to San Marcos by 5:30. This is just an obscene hour, and since I could not fall asleep until 1:30 and then was up again at 2:00 and 3:00, it was a very quiet car ride to San Marcos.

We got to the race site at about 6:00 and began getting ready for the race at 7:00. We met up with some of the other members of Team Affliction, set up our transition area, ran a bit to get a sweat going and then it was time to race.

The race plan was to go out really easy. I thought I had done this until I looked at my watch at mile one and realized I was running a sub-8 minute mile. Even though I was feeling great, I backed down to stick with the plan, since I knew that you cannot win the race in the first 5k run but you sure can lose it. Finishing the first run and coming into the transition area, I felt really strong. I had an okay transition, could have been faster if I had not dropped one of my gloves and had to go back and get it. Oh well, I was still in and out in under a minute.

The bike felt great today. Just cruised along the course. The pre-ride I did last week was very beneficial as I knew where to turn it on, where to take it a little easy, etc. Also going out the first 4 miles easy provided great dividends later in the race. The goal for the bike was to stay strong, get lots of fluids in, and get some calories into the system for the second run. I feel I accomplished all of these while getting the fastest bike time for Clydesdales for the second year in a row (This year by almost 3 minutes over the next fastest big boy).

Second transition was uneventful and it was time to get out for the final 5k. The plan for this run was to go out at a pace that was maintainable and then have enough in the tank at the end to "fire your guns". As I headed out I was feeling fine and settled into a nice rhythm, and thought this is gonna be an easy finish. Of course I think that is when Dante opened up his gates of Hell and brought the true heat to the course. For a few minutes I was just miserable but kept telling myself I only had about 10 more minutes of misery. After the turnaround I thought about "firing those guns" but when I reached into the holster I realized I only had blanks so held off on kicking in the afterburners. With about a mile to go I grabbed a bottle of water at the rest stop and took a few drinks and poured the rest over my head. This really revitalized me, and I charged up the final hill. This only left a nice downhill to the finish. This time when I reached for "the guns" they were cocked and loaded and I ran full out to the finish.

It was an amazing day in San Marcos today with Team Affliction really kicking butt. Congrats to Kris, Glenda, and Triscuit for winning their respective age groups. Congrats to Carri for finishing her first duathlon, you are awesome babe. Congrats to all the other Team Affliction members who participated in the race. Thanks to Shorey, Erin, Phil, Michelle, Tim H.(who is explosive), Suellen and everyone else for their support and encouragement during the race. Thanks to Panther for the great coaching this summer and helping me reach both of my goals for this year's Darnd'st: a faster time than last year (1:55:15) and being in the top 3 in the under 40 Clydesdale division (3rd place).

Under a week to go

This summer I joined my first official training group to get ready for the Darnd'st Du. The DD is this weekend and I am looking forward to it. My goal is to beat my time from last year, my secondary goal is to win the Clydesdale division. A pretty lofty goal considering my training this past weekend...

I went to Maryland this past weekend to see my family and here was my training routine:

1. Get in late Thursday night and drink.
2. Get up Friday morning, get in a really tough hill workout, start eating and drinking, continue drinking, eat tons of pretzels, finish drinking.
3. Get up Saturday morning, big breakfast, start drinking, eat tons of crabs, continue drinking, smoke cigar, eat pizza, finish drinking.
4. Get up Sunday morning, think about going to run, but don't, eat huge meal, go to sleep for a mere 4 hours before time for the flight home.

So all in all not necessarily the best weekend of working out going into an event. I guess I just started my taper a little early.

Just your ordinary weekend

Well nothing extremely exciting happened this weekend, but it was packed as usual.

Friday: We met up with a few friends for happy hour, and I had my new favorite drink, a proper pint of Guinness. I have been drinking Guinness off and on for a few years now and had forgotten how much I enjoy it.

Saturday: Woke up bright and early to do the Lost Creek stacked brick. The weather once again was pretty nice, with the temperatures moderate for Austin this time of year. Of course that means low 90s instead of 100s. Put since we have had so much rain the humidity is just oppressive. On the news the other day they reported that the weather we have had this summer is akin to that in areas that surround tropical rain forests.

This run, bike, run workout was a doozy. The first run seemed pretty easy, and my confidence was pretty high as my running has really seemed to come around. On the bike I made the mistake of going out too hard, and the route is very hilly. I guess I had spent too much time watching the Tour and thought that I could fly like those guys. Anyway my legs simply did not have the "snap" like they usually do. The second run is where the pain really set in, and I ended up getting a pretty bad side stitch but after a few seconds of walking and a Hammer Gel I was able to drag my butt to the finish. Afterwards we all sat around recovered, had a beer, then headed out for a great breakfast/lunch at Trudys.

Saturday night we went downtown for the first time in ages and had a great time with some of our friends.

Sunday: Instead of getting up early and driving to Pflugerville for the group long ride, I figured I would just sleep in for once. I did not wake up until 10:30 and felt fantastic. Watched a movie, took a short ride, walked the dog, did yard work, took a nap, etc. All in all a very relaxing and needed Sunday off.

Toughest Du in Texas

Here is my race recap for the Toughest Du in Texas, an event that certainly lives up to its name...

The weather was pretty perfect for a mid-July day. With all the rain we have been having the temps have been really low for this time of year. Race temp was probably in the upper 70s or low 80s. Unfortunately I got to the race site a little late and did not get a very good warmup, but such is life.

The first run was not that tough just an out and back over pretty flat terrain with one little hill at the midway point. I went out a little faster than I wanted to but nothing that hurt me later in the race.

The bike was along 360 and was pretty darn hilly, couple that with the wet conditions and I made sure I was extra careful on the descents. Next a turn into Rob Roy and one killer hill. When I hit the hill there were 5 others around me, 3 walking their bike up, one man that sounded like he was going to die any second, and me slowly but surely pedaling my way to the top. After a few turns I made my one big error in the race and missed a turn that was not very well marked. I quickly realized my mistake (of course seeing the other 10 or so folks that also missed the turn made me feel a little better) and hurried back to the correct turn. This mistake probably cost me about 2-3 minutes. Then it was back to the transition area for the second run.

The second run was a real bear, with a long extended downhill that would be a monster to run up on the way back. The monster reared its ugly head and I am sure sap running up a tree was moving faster than I was. But I never walked and that was my goal.

All in all a great day. Congrats to Triscuit and Lulu for winning their age divisions. I have learned that even though running is not my strong suit I am getting better, and that Cokes are delicious at the end of hard events. Overall I was 37th, and 5th in my age group.