Training Log / Looking Ahead

A quick recap of the last 4 days:
Tue - 6 miles - racewalk - minor arm chafing
Wed - 3 miles/run, 1 racewalk - serious thigh chafing, very high heat and humidity,
Thu - 2 miles/run, 1 walk, 1 run - serious thigh chafing, very hot and humid
Fri - 5 miles racewalk, legs felt very beat up

I have a four mile race on July 4th and a 15K on July 8th. The four should be fairly comfortable, but I'll be paying for the 15K. Both are really just "racing myself into shape" efforts, rather than real races, but at least I will be moving forward with returning myself to condition.

Telling It Like It Is

I went to one of the area parks early one morning this week, I saw a friend of mine, "Dixie", who walks 6 miles every morning. I gave him a wave, he hesitated a bit before waving back. Then, when he realized who I was, he gave me his standard "thumbs up." This man cares for his invalid wife and is sharp as a tack. I feel the need to say that because he's about to turn 90!
Once I finished with the hard part of my workout, I walked with him a bit. We chatted, and he was quick to accuse me of putting on 50! pounds. I told him it wasn't quite that bad, as depending on which "in shape" weight we compared to, since at the 180ish I thought I was at, I was up either 20 or 30 lbs. Now, his comment made me curious, so I got on the scale. My weight was only 172.5 lbs, so I've progressed about 4 more pounds in the last month or so.
I'm pleased with my progress, but in the heat the last couple of days, I was struggling to run. When I couldn't keep it up, I walked, and tried to walk with vigor ("vigah" to you Bostonians). Meantime, the humidity makes the "chub rub", as Mike calls it, much worse. Today, for a long walk, I put on unpadded bike shorts.
Be safe out there.

Earning a Sore Butt

Yesterday, I led a race on a bike. It was in Central Park, so the advance sweep was pretty active. Getting there was half the battle, since I live well into suburbia. I took the train.
Having missed the early train in my town, I rode to one of the nearby towns that has "one-seat" (no transfer) service to NY. One thing I discovered in the process of researching this trip is that NJ Transit eliminated their requirement for a pass to bring a bike onto a train. I'm sure it prevented many people from combining the two transportation modes. The cumbersome rule is gone, and I think it is a very good thing.
One of the people I was working with was a young guy. I jokingly asked is the tires on my bike were older than he was, the bike is a 22 year-old mountain buke set up as a hybrid. The tires are mere youths of about 20 years of age. The kid confessed that both the tires and the bike had him beat, though it was close on the tires.
By the time I got home, around noon, my butt was tender and my thighs were soft. It was a good day physically. Even the combined Father's Day/Birthdays meal did very little damage to my "getting into shape" efforts. OK, I did have a second piece of the ice cream cake for dessert, but neither slice was too big.

Teaching My Son To Bike

I'm going to relate here how I taught my son to ride a bike. I see the process of learning to bike in two parts: 1) development of sufficient leg strength to be able to pedal and 2) development of balance. In order to work on the first, a bicycle with training wheels is fine. Once your child can pedal around comfortably they are ready for phase two, a pedalless bike.

I posted a while back a picture of a German pedalless like called a Laufrad (in German, Lauf = run and Rad = wheel, so the term translates to "running wheel"), which is how German kids learn to ride. Rather than looking for a Laufrad, make a pedalless bike by removing the pedals.

The Laufrad, a German learning bicycle which has no pedals.

To remove the pedals, the right pedal comes off normally, but the left one if reverse threaded, in order to keep it from loosening while being ridden. (The old righty - tighty rule is reversed on this pedal.) Keep the pedals handy, you'll need them in 4 or 6 weeks. When you're ready to reinstall, make sure you check which pedal is which (one or both is usually marked to identify sides) before installing.

Have your child ride by pushing the bike and gliding. Then, once they've developed a sense of balance, generally just a few weeks, put the pedals on. They will be riding in an hour or less.

This post was written for JK Running, who has a child struggling with learning to bike.

Answers

A recent post of mine bemoaned my sorry state of conditioning. I was challenged by Bruce and Mike to do something about it, with Bruce asking, "What's your plan of getting back into shape?" While the mere fact of my reporting on my condition represented a small step, I had been startled by my atrocious condition. My son, who'd beaten me, was doubtless pleased, and he rarely misses a chance to mention it. The combination of these things is a powerful motivator. I will admit to not attacking this issue terribly aggressively, but have been fairly consistent about getting some running in.
Last night, I ran four laps around the park, so I covered a bit over 5k non-stop. I will say that after half the run, the legs felt a bit heavy. Things didn't erode much from there. Since the pace was easy, the lungs had no trouble, but the duration was short.
I'd like to thank Bruce and Mike publicly for their honesty and helping to get me back on track.

A Journalism Lesson

On Monday, I had the pleasure of playing host to an English writer who was here in the states doing some research. Since I'm doing some writing for my local paper, it was also an opportunity to see a high level writer practicing his craft. During the course of the day, it came out that there was one person who had met the subject of his research. We were able to get the two of them together. I'm not sharing the details here, to avoid potentially compromising the project.)
The man who'd met the subject was reticent, claiming he knew very little, if anything besides what had been published. (He's also a journalist.) My guest had said prior to the meeting, "You don't know what you know until I ask you." (That's a sentence that you should read aloud to help it make sense.)
While much of the discussion was of mutual friends (both are long time residents of the track and field world), our guest was persistent returning several times to the topic. His questions came at the topic from several angles. Eventually, he came up with one nugget from the conversation, the only one, but one which will add a bit of both color and realism to the forthcoming book.