We’ve entered into the world of hi-technology today. 
Adding in the ability to use a Feedburner link to subscribe via a reader, and also added in the ability to sign up for email updates, see exciting box on the right.
Whooopie! Welcome to the 1996.
I can’t stand running on the treadmill for very long. It is just soooo boring. But above you can here Puff Daddy, Diddy, P.Diddy, Sean Combs, or whatever he is called this week talking about running on a treadmill. You know, he is, you know, running, on a, you know, treadmill, you know, with ten fingers, you know, and ten toes, you know, but he runs, you know, it’s a miracle, you know, running is cool, you know.
While I think, you know, that he overuses, you know, the phrase, “you know”, I do like what he is saying. Running for me is a way to work through any issues I am facing. It’s a great time to reflect on what is going on and solve problems. I always finish a run feeling refreshed mentally and physically and I know am I much more pleasant to be around when I’ve had my excercise.
So here’s to Puff Daddy, and to the fact that while he may have a tons more money than I do, I totally dominate him in the marathon. I’ll beat Puffy on the second day of a double against his first marathon of the weekend.
Bring it on Puff.
This morning we signed up Christopher for the Pirates Triathlon in San Antonio. This will be similar to the first Kids triathlon he did last weekend, but the bike with be .5 miles shorter. Shelley are I are experienced Pirates capable of shashbuckling adventures as well as the copious consumption of Rum.
I figure that since he comes from good Pirate stock this should be a good race for him. We will probably turn this into a fun weekend since we have to drive to San Antonio for packet picket on Saturday, we will get a hotel and then after a victorious race take him to Sea World or Six Flags.
Hopefully he doesn’t try and race in his Pirate gear.
Commuting home from work was very similar to commuting to work. It was again, 11 miles, no big surprise there. I was surprised that it took almost exactly the same time to get home, right in the 38 minute ballpark.
On the way to work I averaged 17.4 mph and 17.2 mph on the way home. The main difference is that it was noticeably hotter on the ride home, especially at stop lights. While waiting for the lights to change you can feel the heat radiating up from the asphalt and it makes you want to get going again.
The ride home is closer to my normal commute time, so it is even a bigger win than the ride to work in terms of time.
Next time I ride in I think I will leave a little earlier and try to add on some extra miles to make it a 30 mile per day excercise.
Hopefully if I can start doing this 2-3 times a week it will improve my marathon times and set me up for another sub-3 shot this fall.
Next week I won’t be biking as I head to California for work all week. But the following week I plan on saddling back up.
A good friend of mine, Rex Staples, has inspired me recently. A few weeks ago he started riding his bike to work. We are very lucky, as we have a shower at our offices. In fact, this was one of the major selling points as to why I picked our current office space. But like all things exercise (Soloflex, Gym Memberships, Treadmill) related the dream was better than the reality.
I had envisioned doing running workouts twice a week on the nice hills we have all around the office. There is also a high school a couple miles away and I also thought perhaps I’d do some track workouts. The track workouts never happened, and I probably did less than 10 runnings workouts in the past 2.5 years. So I think Rex has made better use of the showers here than I have.
With the rising price of gas it seemed like a good idea to bike to work. Rex has been very successful in doing this. I think he does it 3-4 days a week with one day for transporting clothes. My goal for this week is twice. I live 11 miles from the office, but it takes me typically 30 minutes to get to and from the office. I also have meetings where I require a car to get back and forth as showing up sweaty probably isn’t the best idea. But I should be able to pull it out 2-3 times a week when in town.
It hasn’t been practical for me to ride for the first two years we’ve been in this space because the main road I’d have to connect on was very narrow and heavily trafficked and I didn’t feel comfortable doing it during rush hour. This all changed about 2-3 months ago when they finally finished a major rebuilding project. Now there are bikes lanes on the road for a good portion of it, after which I can duck into a neighborhood and ride pretty easily to the office.
This morning the traffic Gods smiled on me. I had massive biking karma, I hit most of the lights on green and the few I didn’t , I only had to wait about a minute. I also had no problems crossing 360, the largest road on my commute. The traffic parted like the red sea and I just shot across.
Overall it took my 38 minutes to ride into work. Add in the time to shower and clean up and I’d say it was 45 minutes total. So I’m trading 15 minutes of stop and go traffic for a leisurely bike ride. Since I went in the morning and I didn’t really stop, I had the wind blowing on me the whole time and I didn’t even get very sweaty or hot. Tonight I’m expecting it to take a little longer getting home and I expect to be a lot hotter when I arrive.
Based on current gas prices, I figure I’m saving $4 every time I ride my bike to and from work. So if I ride my bike 250,000 times I’ll have saved a million dollars. Wooo-hoo!
Another colleague, Alex, rode his bike to work last week and we were all proud of him. But unfortunately for him Rex busted him loading his bike into his wife’s SUV at the end of the day. Sorry Alex, if she has to come get you, it’s still a round trip and you don’t win. To paraphrase Willy Wonka:
You had your wife pick you up!
You get nothing!
You lose!
Good day sir!
So thanks again to Rex for inspiring us to ride to work, hopefully we will be able to keep it up as much as Rex has.
I’ll report back tomorrow as to how the ride home went.
Good day Sir!
