Just call me SUPERMAN :)

So this has never happened before. I went out on Monday evening after work and drove to Kershaw Park on Canandaigua Lake to take a nice and leisurely 56 mile ride around the lake. I thought nothing of it, had all my nutrition that I needed, enough gatorade and water to weigh down THE BEAST until she was like 20 lbs. I was set.

I depart and its a nice, cool, calm, balmy night and I embark to kick some ass around the lake. (I've been told that the course around the lake is about as tough, if not worse thatn the IMLP bike course, so it's good training.) - I'll report on my findings after I come back from Placid this weekend - we're doing a recon trainign weekend which I'll tell more about later.

So I'm there 8.61 miles in to the 56 mile ride and cranking up a larger hill in Canandaigua and all of the sudden, the tension is not on the cranks anymore and I spin free. I figure I slipped the chain somehow and I look down to find something dragging behind my bike....it was my chain. Apparently, you can refer to me as Superman from now on as my legs are strong enough to rip metal apart.

That's right, a 2 year old chain was completely torn in two on my cervelo P2C on Monday night and as I stood on the side of the road in disbelief, I realized that by the time I call someone and have them drive the 40 minutes to the lake from Rochester, I might be able to make it back to my car, so with a greasy bike chain in one hand, the beast in the other, and bike shoes still on my feet, I began the 8.61 mile trek back to the car on foot.

I coasted the downhills and walked the flats and uphills and 5 miles later, this REALLY nice guy who had just come back from coaching little league with his 2 sons, offered to drive me back to my car. His name was Curt. Thank you Curt. I know you likely will not read this blog, but my 3 hour ride was cut short and I was pissed enough as is and Curt made life a little easier. THANK YOU so much.

So today, I have to get a replacement chain for the Cervelo before I head to Placid tomorrow after work. 6 of us are heading up there and I am planning on riding 112 on the bike course on Saturday followed by a 2 mile transition run and then Sunday is an 18-20 mile run on the run course. Of course with beers in between and maybe a day hike afterwards on Sunday after we do the long run and we'll head up one of the 46er's in the Placid region (one of my life goals is to climb all 46 peaks that are above 4000' in the Adirondak region...)

Sorry there are no pictures in this post, I hope people read this far. I'll report on the Placid bike and run courses after the Memeorial Day weekend. Take care all, train hard and have a good beer or two on the holiday and relax. See you on the roads.

Things are getting better - swim lesson#1

So I promised you all a post yesterday and I apologize, but I had to get 4 new tires on my little 4 banger Honda last night because THIS happened when I walked out and was ready to roll on my 77 mile bike ride on Saturday afternoon. When the guy in the street said “hey buddy your tire’s flat” I instinctively looked at my bike and looked back at him confused, then he went on to say, “Isn’t that your car?” and pointed to the bright blue civic with TRI stickers PLASTERED all over the back end of it.

I’m the only kid on the block with a $4k bike and even aerobars and I know this guy was just ASSUMING that it was my car, but he was right….and correct that I had a flat tire. Some drunk @$$hole decided it would be funny to slash about 5-6 cars tires on my street on Friday evening/Saturday morning. So last night after work, I was getting new tires on my car (to the tune of $400+) rather than posting a blog entry…

Other than that, this week has been great. I’m moving away from the squirrels, the rain that POURS from my ceiling when it rains, slashed tires and parking tickets from leaving my car on the street. I’m moving into a nice complex that’s about a mile down the road from these guys…

These are my new nephews Jakob and Noah, they are 10 months old now and are cute as hell. When I was unemployed, I saw them everyday and helped out with my sister, now I get to see them like once a week and it sucks a little. They still laugh and smile when I enter a room because they know I am just there to play with them and thrown them in the air, but it takes them a little bit to recognize me now…hopefully we can get the instantaneous smile and laughter back soon.

Training wise, it has been great. I just logged a 14+ hour week and I had some MONSTER workouts. Most notably and the reason I am writing this post was the swim workout I did recently. 4 x 1km with :60 rest in between 1,000’s. I love this workout because it teaches you good pacing and endurance and I like to try and negative split the entire thing. This time with the help of coach Erin, I was able to hit some REALLY good times…here is coach Erin imbibing after a night of boozing at a friends house (it was a champagne party, so that’s why we are all classed up…)

Erin is a national level swimmer who swam all 4 years for SUNY Oswego and was a fantastic backstroker. She was an All-American her senior year and swam in high school as I did at our alma matter, Churchville Chili. Halfway thru the set, she told me to lengthen my stroke and do more “DPS” distance per stroke. I did and boy did the times go down.

This set is always done with no warm up, or cool down, just straight 4km’s in the pool. The first one ripped off in 15:09, the next was a 14:59, then Erin told me to concentrate on DPS and I initially complained, but then thought better and hit a 14:55…the next one was the shocker. After thoroughly concentrating on lengthening the stroke, I hit a 14:22 for the last 1,000. So this is it, props to coach Erin for reminding me of a valuable lesson. Listen to whomever can give you advice, lengthen the stroke and you will see dividends. This is a rest week now (so I can enjoy the late night pizza as depicted above....) so it’s nice and easy recovery for the next week before one last push of training in preparation for Muskoka in June. Keep getting those miles in. IMLP is right around the corner. Train hard folks and I’ll catch you on the flip side. Cheers.

Medved madness "15 mile" trail run race report

Would I lie to you? I told you I was going to try and write each week and it definitely makes it a TON easier to post when you have a race report to recap. This week is no different.

Sunday May 6th (el seis de mayo - if anyone was wondering....it's an old college joke, no worries) was the inaugrial Medved madness 15 mile trail run and relay at Mendon Ponds Park.

The trail run was put on by the guys at Medved Running and walking and was a great event, albeit a little hairy out on the course.

I was stoked about another trail run as I absolutely LOVE getting out on the trails and slopping thru the muck and the mire. I love it. This race was no exception as they had about a 15 yard dash THRU part of the lake. The only beef I had with the race was that the course was not really well marked in the middle leg.

The race was being marked by these little multicolored ribbons in trees and placed at strategic locations on the "trails". You may have noticed from the title of this race report that the distance of the event was in quotes. That is simply because everyone got lost SO much that we each ran a different distance of race. It was originally slated to be a 15 miler, but people with Garmins on had a rance from 13.3 miles all the way to over 17 miles, so it was a little hairy.

The first really bad section was where the first 10 guys were strung out about 200 yards between them all (I was in this section) and we lost the trail while going thru a field. Everyonne kind of stopped so there was 10 guys just standing around, then after a minute or two, there was 20, then 30...and we had been looking for the trail for about 3 minutes now. There were like 5 different ways it could have gone and no one wanted to go down a path because we were all worried that it might be the wrong one and everyone else would take off. Long story short, all the work we had put in in the previous 6 miles to gap the people behind us was gone and we were a pack of 30 now. We found the trail and I guess you could say the race started from there.

The course was brutishly hilly (as it was in Mendon) and the mud was ankle deep in some sections. It was a good muddy fun race to do and there was a BBQ afterwards before the awards so that was always fun. The finish was gnarly as my buddy Greg B. blew by me in the last 1/2 mile and I tried to chase him down at the finish and THIS was the result. I'm on the left gritting my teeth. We both finished same time, but he was like a FOOT in front of me for 6th place. Greg's got some good speed and it showed in the last 150 yards of this race. I was just happy to have a good race to the line.

All in all, it was a fun time and a little cold, but good racing conditions. I was stoked to have a lengthier distance of race to do rather than the 5k every weekend in town. I'm liking the whole "race for more time than you spend driving to and from the course" deal... my finish time was 1:42:10 and it was good for 7th overall and 2nd in the age group (Greg edged me out for #1 spot...) Results are here and I look forward to mashing the trails again. Cheers folks, I'll report during the rest week next week. Train hard.

A little catching up

Well everyone. As I described in the last post, things have been shaken up a bit in the land of Travis Earley. Like I said before, I got a new job and my official title is a "staffing consultant" and I work for a national recruiting company named Spherion:

And as we all know, a post without pictures is worth nothing at all (or at least is really boring to read) so I decided to spice this one up and include some candid shots.

Things work wise have been going really well. I still work in a cubicle, but it is no longer in a living hell. The last company that I worked for (whom I will not name at this time because of some grudges that still are held) was completely and utterly negative. I used to adjust automobile claims for an insurance company and constantly had to deliver bad news to people. (ie. we cannot pay for the damage to your car, you are at fault for this accident, you are getting sued by the other party you hit...etc).

But in contrast, this new job at Spherion has been incredibly positive! Every facet of this position is extremely positive. I interview people and screen out potential candidates for jobs and get to deliver news to people like, "XYZ corporation wants to hire you!" or "I found you a job!" and it has been so rewarding it is incredible. I love it. I've referred to this job as extremely anti-Safeco...(oops, I guess I did drop that company name) But to make a long story short (too late!) my new job is great and I'm loving it.

Training wise, even though there have been some set-backs this season (getting dropped by my main sponsor TS.com...) I was able to pick up a new sunglasses company to sponsor me and keep those UVA and UVB rays out of my precious eyes. Tifosi Optics is the new official sunglasses sponsor of Keep Moving Forward. They are a snazzy new affordable sunglasses company that has been keeping me happy to date and I can only hope to do the same for them in the near future. The sunglasses retail for around $60 and they sent me two promotional pairs (one being the ever good looking Q2 model) and here is a shot of the stuff I got from them in the mail a while ago:

The pair in the foreground are the Q2 and the model behind is known as the "slip" and they will be my racing glasses as they have three sets of interchangeable lenses for various light and racing conditions.

They are all REALLY comfortable and I've never had a real good pair of shades and you can REALLY tell the difference between good and not-so-great lenses. Tifosi's are excellent!!! (I know, I'm a little biased, but they are great!). So, yeah, it was nice to grab another sponsor in the mix after the loss of a major one. You may notice their logo in the sidebar.

I've changed around the 2007 race results section as well, since landing a new position and getting that steady paycheck again, I've had the opportunity to get out and register for several more races in the community, which is GREAT. I was going to do a post with a Spring Forward 15k road race report and title it, "Go out hard and die like a man" for that because that was my game plan for that race, but it turned out ok.

That race I hadn't run more than 5 miles under 7:00/mile pace for 2007 and I was worried as we hit the first mile marker in 5:50...I felt like I was going to explode as we passed by mile 7 but held on thru 9.3 to finish 7th overall and 3rd in my age group holding 6:12/mile pace thru the entire race. I thought I was going to blow up but was able to hold on strong and even edge a guy out at the line in a sprint finish. I guess good old base training pays off...

This Sunday, I'm signed up for a 15 mile trail race run thru Mendon Ponds Park in Mendon, NY. It's the Medved madness trail run and I'm stoked because I'm doing the solo division to get ready for IMLP (hoping I get a slot at Muskoka). They offer a relay for those people who like the shorter stuff, but I have been bitten by the endurance bug and I want to keep it that way.

I'll write up a report probably on Monday, so I'll get back to that once a week posting schedule again. I hope everyone is training hard and long. The season is upon us. I'll leave you with a quote I saw the other day that I am using as my new mantra, "Excellence is not easy, it is a decision you make every day". Train hard folks, Cheers.