So yesterday/today is Kelly and my third anniversary together. Being the geek I am, I checked out what Wikipedia says the third anniversary is…leather. But, er, I’m vegan…
So I hereby proclaim the third anniversary is the taco anniversary. Tacos > leather. Fuck yeah.
This past weekend Jess and I competed in the Philly Tri. My level of competition ended, oh, 20 seconds into the swim when I realized I was fucked. From then until I got out of the water I was just surviving. As you can imagine, my overall time was pretty terrible, which is completely my fault for (not|under)training.
Anyway, the part of the event I was most interested in was the cycling, obviously. I haven’t been in a cycling event since the MS150 last year - partly because of my own lack of initiative, but partly because Mark’s other real-life needs have pulled him away from racing this summer (and he was both my pull and my ride 
)
Since I picked up by Garmin Edge 305 I’ve had some fun with the data, but it’s been hard to find a way to post it for use. The charts and information is rather cool, like being able to do a full playback of the ride on a GoogleMap at 1x to 100x speeds while watching my heart rate, speed, cadence, and the elevation changes. Check out this graph:
The red line is my heart rate, the green line is my speed, and the blue line/shaded area is the elevation. The legends for each are on the far left or right sides, and the shaded are in the legend show you the range I was in during this ride.
Of note/interest (at least to me - you guys might not geek out like I do to data…) - this is a 2 lap course, so after ~8mi the course repeats itself. The bubbles on the graph show my top 5 heart rate peaks (though they’re shown on the altitude line - I do this to see where my highest hearts happened based on the altitude change). The speed peaks that drop to ~5mph are incorrect - still trying to figure out what’s up there. Maybe a satellite problem. But I didn’t go 5mph at any point 
Then you can look at the heart rates, colored by zone, projected onto the course map (for a better view of the loop structure, see this page):
What does all of this tell me? For one, I got out of the water way too tired. By the time I started recording the session on the bike - which was ~6min out of the water - my heart rate was still 165bpm (though oddly riding brought it down…shows you how comfortable I feel on the bike ). I did pretty well at staying in zone 4, the anaerobic workout zone, for the majority of my ride, though it looks like I could’ve pushed my heart a little harder. However, I know how my legs felt after the swim - they were on the verge of cramping all the time, both on the bike and on the run. So I know my heart/lungs were prepared for the ride, but my muscles weren’t…at least when you throw a 900m swim before the ride.
Looking at individual points on the graph I can see two of the HR peaks came during the biggest climbs of the ride — this is to be expected. The 177 on top of the hill came at the end of a hard push — check out the speed increase up to the 177 reading. The 181 and the second 177 reading are on the flats, but I know why those are there - those points were where the speed from the downhill had gone back down, I had just taken a long drink and quick Clif Bar bite, and had started to push to get back up to speed before the turn around/finishing line.
So what have I learned from having this data? Well, while riding it’s a godsend — I know how hard I’m actually pushing, regardless of my body cues. Knowing the physiological data as well as my body cues, it was easy to disconnect my calves screaming and my heart doing exactly as it should. Knowing this meant I could keep the pressure on and the pace up and just worry about overuse cramping and not cardiovascular cramping (if there is such a difference-I may have just made that up). The speed and elevation during a training ride are nice, but are mainly just flavor — my heart rate and cadence are all I really care about when I’m in the moment. Post-ride, though, this is all great to look at. Seeing the altitude and speed changes - especially on a loop course - graphed alongside my heart rate is amazing. I can dissect the ride and determine if, and more importantly where, I pushed either too hard or not hard enough. Having this data at my fingertips is exciting
So, my times:
| 900m Swin: | 32m57s |
| Trans1: | 5m39s |
| 24k Bike: | 53m16s |
| Trans2: | 5m55s |
| 5k Run: | 38m32s |
| Total: | 2h16m21s |
I’m upset at those times. I’m embarassed by them. I almost didn’t post them because of how ashamed I am of them. But there you have it - my Philly Tri times. Next year I’m going to shatter these. By a lot.
Overall lessons of the Philly Tri? Train for events, no matter how short, no matter how easily you think you’re going to do it. Learn how to transition — I spent 11.5min in the transition area, while Jess spent something like 4.5min. I lost 7min to her right there, and my second transition time of 5m55s was ~10th worst for the event. But the biggest lessons? My knee feels great, which means I can start running for real again, and triathlons are insanely fun. I really can’t wait to do another one — once I’m trained, of course.
In going over my goals for the year which I posted back on March 6th, I found out I’m not too far off…
Updated goals?
I think that’s it for now. Yeah, my updated goals aren’t concrete enough to be serious, but I’ll think on them and make them something real.
I’m sitting here coding for class listening to a random mishmash of older tracks, and a thought popped into my mind. Is there a social networking app, site, whatever to show your currently playing music and perhaps a history of recently played music? Kinda like Facebook’s “<name> is <action>” except specifically “<name> is listening to <track>” which updates on its own (like GTalk’s “Show current music track”) . Then perhaps you can drill into the person to see his/her recent listening. Or maybe you can drill into the track to view global and/or friends list restricted comments about the track (”Omg remember when hotshitdj spun this at partyname?!”) or even a link to Amazon/iTunes/whatever?
Anyone with me here?
Does this exist or can I make my millions already?
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1829591
That’s essentially the route we took (I didn’t spend time making sure the waypoints were all perfect, so the distance/elevation will be a bit off). We were ~3 miles from Collegeville. We rode PAST King of Prussia and Valley Forge.
I feel so fucking hardcore, I’m still bragging, and it’s Wednesday Can’t wait for this Saturday…
Last Sunday I met up with the Organic Athlete chapter here in Philly for dinner at Royal. Not only was dinner fun and the people great, I met the chapter chair/leader/whatever Mark who lives in the city and who was willing to drag my ass behind him on a training ride. We planned a ride for yesterday morning and hit the roads ~8am.
I was stupid enough to not eat breakfast (yeah, I know) and not bring more than *a* Clif bar and just water (yeah, I know), so I bonked with ~10 miles left and even cramped up bad in Manayunk. Also, my left foot was starting to go numb starting ~20 miles in, so Mark gave me some pointers on adjusting the cleat to hopefully help fix that. Including my distance from home to the Art Museum (where we met and split), I rode just over 60 miles in about 4 hours including stops and wicked cooldowns. My GPS died 2 miles into our ride, but according to Mark we averaged ~17mph on the portion of the ride we were pushing on, including hills, and we were sitting ~19mph on the flats with some intervals of 20+.
Granted, I sat on his wheel the entire ride, so I had it a little easy. But I feel pretty good about the whole thing - riding my longest and farthest of the year, enjoying an *amazingly* beautiful day to ride, and meeting someone who shares two of my passions - cycling and veganism - and who seems like a great guy to spend my Saturday mornings with.
And as for goals, I was disappointed I didn’t hit 100 miles ridden in March like I wanted. But after yesterday’s ride I hit 101 miles for this week alone. I also didn’t hit my 50 miles in one ride in March, but instead I hit 60 miles in one ride at, at least to me, a pretty decent clip. With a little more time on the bike and proper planning (you know, like eating) I feel I’m close to being able to pull off 100 miles in a single shot. Skeptical Justin is rather optimistic…
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get my racing license from USA Cycling and get a Team Vegan kit.
60.7 yesterday / 101.6 for the week / 117.4 for the month / 217.6 for the year
Early Saturday Kelly came back from the gym and said how nice it was out and that I should go out for a ride. I’ve been off the bike a little bit recently - I think because the weather’s not cold or hot, and I lack clothes to feel comfortable around 50 degrees. Or I’m just being a lazy bastard. Whatever.
Anyway, I completely forgot that it was April which meant MLK was closed to regular traffic. I also forgot how much I love riding on closed or non-busy roads. Since moving downtown every road I’ve ridden on has been an obstacle course. Cars (moving and parked), people, bikers riding the wrong way, blind corners, traffic lights every block. Getting out and riding on a closed and almost empty road (it seemed like maybe 50 people tops were out riding, and I was there around 11am, when during the summer it also becomes an obstacle course) was exactly what I needed to get me back into wanting to ride every day. And looking at the forecast for the rest of the week, it was perfect timing.
So this is the plan: Get up earlyish on Saturday, get on the bike, and just go, aiming for long and not hard. See if I can break 30mi in one ride. I already missed my goals for March because of excuses, but my lull is over. Sunday is a meetup for Philly’s Team Vegan @ Royal. I should walk out of there with some new goals, new rides, and hopefully new riding partners.
73 days until the Philly Tri. 171 days until the MS150 Century goal.
I just stole this from Ben, who stole it from someone he knows. But like Ben says, it’s too good not to share.
(Safe for work)
http://baens-universe.com/articles/When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth
I don’t know how I never read this before, or even heard about it, but it’s a pretty awesome read. Check it out.
Yep. Vegan Scrapple.
Kelly brought home some Vrapple her friend/coworker at the Reading Terminal Market makes and sells. The story is that Sarah started making the Vrapple for her own until people she shared it with told her she needed to sell it. Kelly says Sarah sells it to some restaurants in Philly, but she’s not sure which. It fries up pretty nice (and gets crispy!) and has these ingredients: Seitan, cornmeal, buckwheat flour, vegetable stock, canola oil, spices. So, really, Sarah’s turned a terrible product which is just as likely to have hog hair in it as anything you’d otherwise recognize into a vegan product that’s, well, healthy? Healthy vegan scrapple. I feel dirty just saying that…
And the taste is pretty good. It’s a little weird at first, since it looks like scrapple and all, but it has a pretty nice, neutral taste with a little sweet and a lot of pepper. It even fries up with a nice little crust on the outside if you do it right :) Anyway, some pics of breakfast:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/archive/overtaking110906.html
Drivers pass closer when overtaking cyclists wearing helmets than when overtaking bare-headed cyclists, increasing the risk of a collision, the research has found.
[…]
Across the board, drivers passed an average of 8.5 cm (3 1/3 inches) closer with the helmet than without
[…]
Dr Walker suggests the reason drivers give less room to cyclists wearing helmets is down to how cyclists are perceived as a group.
“We know from research that many drivers see cyclists as a separate subculture, to which they don’t belong,” said Dr Walker.
“As a result they hold stereotyped ideas about cyclists, often judging all riders by the yardstick of the lycra-clad street-warrior.
“This may lead drivers to believe cyclists with helmets are more serious, experienced and predictable than those without.
“The idea that helmeted cyclists are more experienced and less likely to do something unexpected would explain why drivers leave less space when passing.
Interesting….
Bottling Day was last night! During the week Mike kept his eyes on the bubbler and Saturday night our ale was already fermenting (~30s/bubble). Sunday morning he said he woke up to his downstairs smelling like beer, which he also agreed was a good thing. Sunday and Monday saw a lot of bubbles, but by Tuesday night the fermentation had slowed almost to a stop. After a little reading we found it’d be safe to let it sit in the fermenter until last night (Friday) since we have class Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday. He spent the week watching YouTube videos of tricks and tips for bottling, and I read up on it when I could.
Last night I got to his place around 7:30 with my bag filled with the ingredients for beer #2: a secret brew to be explained later. I went to Home Sweet Homebrew out at 20th & Sansom for this batch since it’s on my way home from work, and I feel like I like it a little more than Barry’s. The have tons of grains of all kinds lying around waiting for a grinding instead of just boxes of kits. I brought a rough recipe for the beer and explained how I wanted it to taste and we went step-by-step through each ingredient choice to get me to my final product.
Anyway, Mike and I headed out to SuperFresh to get 5gal of spring water and started on the bottling the Red/brewing the #2 around 9:00 or so, and it was a great night. We opened the fermenter aware of the worst that could happen, but the beer smelled and looked like it should — not like metal or yogurt, and without any mold or growth on the top:
Using pre-sanitized gear, we started siphoning off the beer from the fermenter into the bottler with the priming sugar solution added….except…well…our siphoning wasn’t working. We tried a trick Mike watched where you fill the siphoning tube with liquid (sanitizer water) and use the weight of that fluid falling to suction up the beer through the siphoning cane and over the top. But for some reason, it only trickled for us and stopped after a minute. We tried one more time, but it failed the same way. With not many options left, I threw a piece of wax paper around the bottom of the tube to hopefully not contaminate it (yeah right, but let’s hope - we didn’t kill our yeast after all - maybe we have the luck of the Irish (Red)!) and sucked on the tube until the siphoning started:
Why siphon and not just pour it out? Check out the hops, yeast, and other crap and the bottom of the fermenter, like an inch thick:
Once we got the beer in the bottler, everything went pretty smooth. We bottled our ale into pre-sanitized bottles:
And of course, we kept some for ourselves!
So far, so good. The beer - while it was flat and warm - tasted as we had hoped. It’s a liiiittle hops heavy (taste, not bitterness), but not bad. If this were cold and carbonated, I’d already drink it. But knowing the flavors will only get better after 4-5 weeks in the bottle, we’re pretty excited
Oh, and round 2 is now in the fermenter and should be bubbling already, assuming we didn’t botch something up. One of these batches we’re going to ruin…
( You can view the entire album at my Flickr site )
Mike and I have talked about making beer for a little while, throwing around the idea half-jokingly. A couple weeks back we realized we should steep or get off the pot, so we ran down to Barry’s Homebrew on Front and Snyder. We picked up our kit and got our first batch of beer (we went with an Irish Red) into the fermenter.
Making your own beer isn’t all that hard, but there’s a decent amount of work involved, with all the sanitation, prepping, boiling, and cooking.
First, you need to make sure your fermenter all all parts associated with it (lid, bubbler, hydrometer, etc) are sanitized…
After you heat 2 gallons of spring water you steep a satchel of your milled barley (grist) at 160F-170F for 20 minutes…
Then you remove the grist and get the barley tea (mash) to a boil. When the mash boils, you add your malt extracts (liquid, powder, or both), bring that back to a boil, and add your bittering hops.
You then boil this hopped wort for 60 minutes, where 5 minutes before the end you can add your flavor/aroma hops. When the hour’s up, you as quickly as possible get the wort down to ~70F so you can add your yeast (which you’ve pre-prepped and already activated) and take your Original Gravity reading for use later to determine your approximate ABV%. We, er, didn’t really cool the wort well and had no idea what temperature it was at because the strip on the side of the bucket didn’t read anything. But we cooled it for awhile, pitched our yeast, and filled the fermenter to the 5gal mark with more spring water. After that, you hammer the lid down, add the bubble, and set it aside to hopefully make some good beer!
More to come when we bottle this at the end of the week!
After typing up my post yesterday I realized that when I ride home today from work I’ll be hitting 100 miles in 2008. Now, 100 miles in a *year* is no big deal, and it’s not even on my goal list, but I found it interesting nonetheless - most people haven’t even broken their bikes out yet let alone ride them frequently for commuting and exercise.
Since the year began I’ve almost been right hooked twice. I’ve been merged into. I’ve been honked at, blocked out, and caught some wicked glares. I’ve been behind cars whose drivers freeze up when they see a bike behind them (and I mean *behind* them, like in the middle of their car and 10 feet back). I’ve almost been hit more times than I can count by drivers not paying attention or swerving into the bike lane and braking the moment they pass me.
But I haven’t been hit, and I’m extremely happy about that
A lot of these 100 miles so far have been pure city commuting to and from work everyday. When the weather outside gets a little less frightful, the rides around here are going to be great. Now to try to meet up with some of the Organic Athletes…
So I don’t have a fancy cockpit computer. I don’t have a $3,000 bike - hell I don’t even have a $1,000 bike. I also don’t have a body or a habit that requires either. But hopefully I will soon
I had such a blast on my bike last year that when Kelly and I moved into the city in September I planned on riding to work most days (save the rainy). Well, that didn’t work out so well for the first half of the winter, but since I got my new bike in February I’ve been riding a lot more. I’ve felt proud that even on days when it’s wicked cold out I still hop on my bike to go to work. Best result? I get to work awake and ready to attack, and I feel like that energy lasts me through the day.
Anyway, here’s a spreadsheet to the miles I’m putting in on my bike on which days. I keep it fairly up to date, as it’s my only source of geeky information right now. Part of me can’t wait to get a computer that has route posting, altitude tracking, speed tracking, etc such that I can post my ride’s stats from each day (more for me than you ), but I also don’t need to shell out another $400 for gear - the shoes, pedals, and accessories were enough for now.
My goals? Well…
I’m well on my way to hitting all of those goals, and I think they’re both challenging and attainable. I would like to do a lot more organized riding this year, but I don’t know how to quantify that meaningfully.
Anyone have any plug-ins, sites, tools, whatever to better track this data?
Okay, so, I don’t really know what the hell I’m going to be doing here. I’m thinking it’s going to just be a place for me to share the things going on in my life with those *in* my life, but who knows. I want to use this as a place to help track my cycling progression through the year, awesome food finds or creations, random shit I find interesting and think other people might enjoy, the current status of the beer Mike and I are producing, whatever.
We’ll see how it goes.