Good Luck Ironman Hawaii and Chicago Marathon Competitors

It's a big weekend!

Saturday is considered a "high holy day" among triathletes, with Ironman Hawaii going on. I want to wish good luck to the following racers that I know: Jennifer and Jerome Harrison (yes, husband and wife both qualified), Jean-Paul Lanaux, Ron Dornecker, Bob Scott, Ken Glah and Debi Bernardes. And of course, my personal picks for the pro winners, Normann Stadtler and Natasha Badmann.

Sunday is the Chicago Marathon--one of the largest marathons in the country. The weather calls for 40's, which should be absolutely PERFECT! Good luck to the following racers (I am sure there are a lot more folks that I know, but I haven't scanned the entire participants list): Ino Navarete, Lee Crumbaugh, Denise Allman, Lori Dunn, Eric Bruce, Dan Brown and Lora of Lora Runs fame.

Sunday is also my 50th birthday, so the weekend is full of excitement for me and for people I know. I suppose that I will need to incorporate some manner of "50" into my long run on Sunday. Or maybe not. We shall see.

Everyone enjoy the races and have great weekends!

Tastes Like Chicken

A very dear friend of mine emailed me to tell me she had received a fortune at a Chinese restaurant that read, "Tastes Like Chicken." She said that only I would understand the chuckle she got out of it, and perhaps she is right! So much so that I decided to hijack the phrase and write about it here.

When someone tastes something new and says that it tastes like chicken, what are they really saying? Has that person actually tasted chicken? If you eat fried chicken, or chicken marsala, or chicken pot pie, are you actually tasting chicken, or are you just tasting the coating or accompaniments? I think the only way you can actually "taste chicken" is to roast it with nothing more than some salt and maybe a little pepper.

Roast chicken is my favorite way to enjoy chicken. I like to heavily salt the outside and inside with Kosher salt (this helps to draw the juices towards the skin which has the effect of keeping the meat juicy), cut a lemon in half and put half in the cavity (skin side towards the back) followed by all the cloves of an entire bulb of garlic separated (you can leave the skin on as it will easily fall away once the clove is cooked), then the other half of the lemon (skin side towards you), and pop it in a 350-degree oven for about 1:30-1:45, depending on the size of the bird. About 15 or 20 minutes before it's done, take the outside lemon half out and put into the roasting pan together with the garlic cloves to finish them off . The chicken skin (if you are a person who eats it--I don't, even though it IS tasty) turns a glorious golden brown, and all that meaty juiciness is held inside, and the garlic serves to perfume the whole deal (and the cloves are allegedly good for you--I eat them all!). I cut off a leg and thigh as a unit, put it on a plate with some rice, pull the skin off and tear into tasty, juicy chicken!

So for me, chicken is really tasty! "Tastes like chicken" to me means wow, this is awesome!

To many people, though, "Tastes like chicken" means, "I have no ability to distinguish one thing from the other, and I have never really tasted the chicken anyway, and I'm not really into tasting my food period because I don't want to spend the time to savor it close to its natural state so it needs to be all breaded, fried, smothered or whatever, but my guess is that the actual chicken doesn't taste like much at all."

So "Tastes like chicken" can be a metaphor (you knew I was getting to that, right?) for an inability to really taste, or participate in the seemingly trivial, or the mundane, or more likely, the here and now. If your daily life "Tastes like chicken" or (here's the triathlon tie-in which I feel obligated to make) your workouts "Taste like chicken," then I suggest you really taste the damn chicken and then come back and let us all know how everything else is exactly like it.

Behold the humble chicken, or, if you will, your everyday life. Do you appreciate it for its life-giving properties plain and simple? Or do you feel it is so bland that you need to introduce constant entertainment and excitement into it? At the end of the day, all we are left with is the plain chicken, and my personal belief is that if you can't enjoy and appreciate that, then it will be tough for you to be happy. Even when you add spices, sauces or other forms of excitement.

You probably think that I should practice what I preach based on what I typically write about here--workout this, training that, race this and that. Those are things that certainly don't "Taste like chicken," but I very much do appreciate the plain chicken in my life. The ability to sit quietly and think (or not) and see that mostly life is good and the chicken tastes just great to me, thank you very much, is something that I cultivate on a daily basis. For at the heart of all this athletic stuff that I engage in is a profound desire to be at peace with myself and in as much harmony with my environment as I can be. I'm getting better at it, but struggle sometimes with my frame of reference. I like to tell my friends that if I had unlimited money that I would eat sushi every day! But if that's true, then wouldn't sushi become my "chicken?" So I struggle to be happy with now being quite enough, I struggle with my ego wanting to be in a position to judge and compete and win, and I struggle with a desire to create bigger challenges for myself. It's all relative. I just don't want to look at my life and ever be dissatisfied because it "Tastes Like Chicken."

Curiously enough, on Sunday I was treated to a very rich meal in the middle of the day, but I had not anticipated eating so much or coming home with leftovers (both of which happened). I had defrosted a whole chicken and had to cook it that night. As much as I enjoyed the butter, cream, cheese and sweet infested meal (although I didn't feel too great yesterday as a result--I am just not used to eating such rich food), I thoroughly appreciated my "plain" chicken later that day and will enjoy more tonight.

The next time I hear someone saying something "Tastes Like Chicken," I'm sure it will give me pause.

Great Training Week

After being sick all last weekend, I wasn't sure how quickly I could come back, and I needed to be careful to watch and make sure I wasn't getting any worse. At this point, I have a very sporadic cough and a tiny bit of nasal congestion. I haven't been at all tired--in fact, it's been difficult to get to sleep several nights this week (which could be related to the fact that I went off birth control pills--we will see whether I continue on the sleeplessness path or not--if so, back on them I go).

Last weekend I was scheduled to do a 2-hour run, which would have been the culmination of 10 days straight of running. As you may know, that plan got derailed when I got sick a week ago Friday and did no training for 3 days. At that point, though, I had run for 7 days straight and completed 3 brick workouts.

This week I managed to run every day, for another "streak" of 7 days straight (I will take the day off from running tomorrow), I got in 3 solid brick workouts and felt pretty good the entire time. I can usually easily manage 5 days of running per week, but now I'm thinking I should just set an objective of 6 days per week through December. While the 2 brick runs I did on Tuesday and Thursday didn't feel that good (gee I wonder why!), every other run felt pretty good. 5 out of 7 isn't bad.

I was pretty tired starting Friday's run and just about bagged it. I was tired because I couldn't fall asleep Thursday night, but still needed to get up and swim on Friday morning, and didn't get enough sleep and was just pooped out. I guess those Tuesday and Thursday workouts crept up on me. But I went to the Y anyway (it was chilly and very windy) and thought, let's keep the streak going and see what we can do. I got on the treadmill, and for the first time in I can't remember (at least a year), I felt like running at my easy pace for the entire workout. After almost 30' of this, the lights went out (never found out what happened and didn't care), and no worries, I was planning on moving to the track for some strides, and didn't care if it was dark in there. I got on the track and thought, "Let's run 1 mile and see how fast we go." So I run a mile in under 8'! And then I did strides, and at the end I decided to run fast for another 1/4 mile. Did it in 1:57. It just goes to show you how sometimes even when you feel shitty you can pull off a good workout. Plus, I didn't break my streak!

Yesterday was interesting, because I was expecting company (turns out they didn't make it), so I spent the better part of the morning cleaning my house. I was actually enjoying it as a sort of "fall cleaning" festival. I had started on it Friday evening, and yesterday I made a whole lot more progress. My fall cleaning generally coincides with "it's finally time to put the bike on the trainer." So when I decided I had better get to my bike workout (it was only 44 outside and no way I was riding in that), I finall took off the rear wheel, changed the cassette (I had lazily left on a 12-27 out of which I used only the lowest 3 cogs for the last 5 or so weeks) and put on a used, crappy tire and a new tube. The carpet was all dried out and I sanitized it, and so I was ready to set up the trainer.

Man, have I become a lot stronger on the bike since a year ago. My perception of what is hard is an entirely different thing now. And it's even more "fun" (if you can even call it that) riding on the trainer without the HRM. I fired up some tunes, the 2006 TDF Tape 1, and did close to 2:45. I am not sure if it's because I was sick last week or what, but my high end power was a little off, but I just accepted it and still got in a pretty good workout.

I changed my bra top (which was soaked through and through) and put on a long sleeve technical top to do my brick run outdoors. Boy did that feel strange! I felt like I was a perfect temperature, and truth be told, my legs were feeling no pain whatsoever! I think it was the shock of the cold air. Or maybe it was that I had "only" ridden 2:40. Whatever, I'll take it. My hands were cold during the run, and I was glad I only had to do 30' (shhhh....my schedule didn't call for a run at all, but since I figured I missed my long ride last week and its brick run that I would do one yesterday).

Within about 5' of getting home, I was like WTF my quads HURT. It felt like I had done about a million squats or something. They just hurt like mofos. I thought DOMS was supposed to happen 2 days later, but NO! I'm thinking my muscles got messed up by the hot/cold transition or something. At any rate, a little gentle stretching fixed me right up.

My core temperature must have stayed elevated for a long time, because once again, I was hot and had trouble falling asleep. I lowered the thermostat. Maybe I am turning into a lizard (go ahead and laugh those of you who already thought I was one). But I didn't have to set my alarm for this morning, so no worries.

I made a pot of pretty strong coffee this morning, and I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed drinking it. I LOVE coffee, but I only drink it in the morning, or else I'd be awake 24x7. Anyway, the coffee was mighty tasty, and this got me motivated for my long run.

I was only scheduled for 1:40, but thought I'd try and crank out the 2 hours that I was supposed to do last week. I added on some easy (Z1) time at the beginning and steady (Z2) time at the end. I took Gatorade and some Coke to the Y and got started.

Surprisingly, my legs felt pretty good, considering this was day 7 of running and 3 bricks, and yesterday's workout was fairly tough. So I settled in and got it done, and guess what? I should call today an "official" half marathon PR, because I ran 13.1 miles in 2 hours. And a lot of that time I was running at easy to steady pace! And I don't feel all that worked from it, either! YES! This should put me in good shape for my 1/2 IM in 4 weeks. Or something! I take it when I can get it.

So there's my week. Coming off an illness, I feel pretty darn good. About 40 miles of solid running, getting my A-game back on the bike, and next week I start some swim coaching. All good!

Tomorrow, no running. But then I will run the other 6 days straight again!