The Oxford Comma, A New Year, A New Team, and Red Velvet Cookies

This is a race report for the Stanford Treeathlon. For a too long; didn't read version- I am glad to be part of a tri team, the work I put in the offseason seems to be paying off, I won the age group division, lost to a college kid who started in a different wave by 3 seconds, and my 5k run was a 17:22-a PR as a 5k within a race, and close to a standalone PR. Keep reading for entertaining commentary on the oxford comma, daylight savings time, and more about the race.

Training for triathlons can be a solitary activity. Hours are spent looking at the black line at the bottom of the pool, pushing pedals and hitting the pavement. While you may find people with whom you can train, with my schedule of teaching, coaching, and tutoring, my free time is limited to irregular hours.

Yes, I did just use an oxford comma in last sentence. I will continue to use it, even if the Oxford Style guide tells me not to.

At the end of last summer, my coach Martin suggested that I apply for membership on a triathlon team. There are many reasons to be part of a team, ranging from having set times for workouts, getting pushed by other athletes, and adding friends who understand what it means when you just did a 4x5 min z4 workout on your trainer and then added a brick run just to see how your legs responded (yes, that is still english).

I applied to a few teams, and I received a spot on the Every Man Jack (EMJ) tri team. As mentioned in an earlier post, this team is quick.

How quick? Here is the list of All Americans on the team, divided by age group. To be considered an All American, you must be in the top 10% of the athletes in your age group. Out of a team of 54 guys, 34 earned this honor. I snuck on to the list.

The team has a couple workouts a week, which has forced me to commit to those workouts, as opposed to trying to fit them in at random times during the day. The structure of the training was nice, and now I was working with people who are faster than me. Being on a team also meant that at races, I would have people to cheer for, talk to, etc.

I occasionally do my track workouts after swim practice, which means I am getting to the track around 9pm, when the last of the high school teams are finishing up.

This is what I see when I am finished. The lights have long since been turned off.  It is dead quiet, and I am running by the light of the moon/stars.  

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to race at the Stanford Treeathlon (cute, I know). It was my first race as a member of EMJ, and I was excited to wear the new kit. The new kit is a two piece, which was a first for me. A member of the team told me that if you have a muffin top, it sticks out. Note to self-don't carry muffin tops as fuel.

I don't even know why you would eat the bottom of the muffin. The top is so much better.

Even though this was not a team race, and no other EMJ guys were going to be there, I had made a few friends in the past year and an athlete who worked with Martin was going to be there as well. Having put in the work in the offseason, I was excited to see what I could do, and watch what my friends were capable of doing as well. Personally, I had been doing some fast track workouts, and after getting my rear end handed to me on some long rides by members of EMJ and a local group organized on Facebook, I had some confidence going in.

The night before the race, I packed up my gear, and headed to bed early. The race was on the morning of Daylight Savings Time, which meant that I was going to lose an hour of sleep. When the alarm went off, I groggily got out of bed and made my way down to the race.

For the rest of the country that is covered in snow, no, this is not how daylight savings works.

After setting up my spot in transition, I found some of my friends at the race, and chatted for a bit. We noted that there were a lot of college athletes there, which meant the course was going to be crowded. More to navigate around/get passed by. All things to think about.

For the course, the race starts with a swim through a marina (~500 meters, I think it is longer), followed by a long run to t1, then three laps on a pancake flat lollipop shaped course, and a flat out and back run. The race was done in waves, with the collegiate men going first, then collegiate women five minutes later, and then my wave of the age group males going five minutes after that.

The first waves went off, and I hopped in the water to stretch out, and get ready. It wouldn't be a race if I didn't make a mistake. The day was cloudy, and I had brought my dark goggles. It would make sighting the buoys slightly more difficult. Such is life. At the gun, I took off for the first buoy, and noticed I had a swimmer on either side of me.

After the first 50 yards, the two swimmers slowed and fell in on my feet to draft. At the first turn buoy, I made sure to squeeze it tightly to make sure they couldn't cut the corner, and then I put in a 20 second all out effort. I didn't want to be dragging the swimmers with me, so away I went. After the effort, I took a quick look back, and I had gapped the field by about 5 seconds. Not enough to make a huge difference, but it did mean that they would have to work harder to keep pace.

The rest of the swim was uneventful. I hit the ladder out of the marina in first, and started booking it for t1. Last year I had been caught by another athlete on the run to transition, and I did not want to let that happen. I ran over to my bike, slipped on my shoes, helmet and glasses and took off with my bike. The transition was definitely a little slow- I need to work on leaving my shoes on the bike as opposed to putting them on first, but that would require me to have triathlon shoes or jerry-rig my current shoes.

On the bike, I turned my legs over at a high cadence, and pushed the tempo as high as I could without building up lactic acid. I was navigating through the waves of people who were on the course. As time went on, the course became more and more crowded, making it more difficult to keep pace safely. It also meant that there were packs of riders essentially drafting off each other, which is a no-no, but close to impossible to avoid on this course. I got caught a few times behind packs going into turns, and had to wait for openings to slip by them.

Whatever traffic I was going through, the rest of the field had to be dealing with it as well, so I did not get too worked up about losing time. I controlled my effort, and pushed on to the run.

In t2, I racked my bike, grabbed shoes and visor, and headed out. At this point, I was passing the collegiate women and some of the men. With an out and back course, I could see the fastest men on the home stretch. I tried to do the math to figure out what their finishing time would be. Were they more or less than ten minutes in front of me? I couldn't figure it out fast enough, so I put their times out of my head and focused on the run.

The run went by quickly. I hadn't been passed on the bike, which means I had a lead over the rest of my field. Having forgotten to check my watch when I left for the run, I was unsure of what my first mile split was. I made it a point of getting my second mile split, and it was between 5:35 and 5:40. I was moving, and feeling good. I pushed through the rest of the run, finishing the 5k in 17:22. That is close to a PR for a 5k as a standalone event.

Splits, as comparing last year to this year:
Last year                   This year
Swim 8:24                 9:20
T1 :54                        1:02
Bike 29:29                 28:57
T2 :34                        :48
Run 18:20                  17:22

Was I really a minute slower on the swim? The course was a little different, and I hadn't taken the best lines. My transitions can definitely improve, but it was the first race of the year, and last year I was chasing people who were beating me. I still shouldn't give up time there. On the bike, I think I could have been faster with fewer people on the course, but with some improvement, I will take it. I am really happy with my run- almost a full minute faster with just running by feel/not trying to catch somebody. Overall, I had the fastest swim, and I was within ~20 seconds of the fastest bike. The fastest run was a 15:53, which is ridiculously fast for a 5k. Definitely something to aspire to.

At the end of the race, I caught up with Gunnar, who had finished second in his age group with a solid race. I also got my hands on some of these cookies:

Red velvet cookies from Safeway. Almost as good as birthday cake Oreos. If you haven't tried either, you haven't tasted deliciousness. Click on the link. You can order them from Amazon. Amazing.

Gunnar and I smiling for the camera. He placed second in his age group.

They did awards by age group; this is what I won- a nice little coaster

With the second and third place finishers in my age group.

For the first race of the season, I was pretty happy with how I finished. I ended up getting second overall including the collegiate men by 3 seconds. The new kit was actually pretty comfortable, and had pockets that I will be taking advantage of in longer races by putting fuel in them. I hope that this is a good start to the rest of the season. Thanks to the Stanford Triathlon team for putting on a good race, Every Man Jack for allowing me to be on the team, Roka wetsuits, and Gu Energy for powering me, Louis Garneau for making a comfortable kit, and for my coach Martin for helping me through another winter of training. I am very much looking forward to racing this spring and summer and seeing what will happen.

My problem with one night stands

is that I run out of space for all of my books! You thought that was going to be about making poor life decisions with unknown women, but instead, you got a cheesy joke. More on this later.

If you have spent any time on Facebook, you probably have seen the ads on the side bar or in the middle of your newsfeed for anything from Match.com to christianmingle.com. I have seen such variations as athletic singles, farmers only (no, I am not embedding the links to these. You can use google). They would entice you with "meet someone with the same characteristics as you!" I don't know why I would want to meet someone who has the same characteristics as me. They would be crazy.

After seeing all of these ads, I felt like this:

If I could figure out how to block those ads, I would.

I thought that I would never join a dating site. But after being single, not having any free time with coaching and training to go out on a regular basis, I figured I would give it a whirl. (Here is an article about the difficulty of maintaining a work/life balance as a teacher). At the suggestion of a friend who told anecdotes of his success and how easy it was, I installed this app on my phone called Tinder. The basics of the app are simple-load in some pictures from Facebook, and the app uses your GPS location to give you people who are within a certain mile radius of you. You can either select a little heart to say yes (yes to what, I don't know), or an "x" to say no (which I guess means no, I am not interested in you). If both individuals select the heart, then a chatting function is enabled between the two people.

This means that the app is effectively a meat market. The more attractive you are, the more "hearts" you get. You can write a few lines about yourself, and I occasionally read those, but often they don't contain much information other than "I like having fun!" What does that even mean? Who doesn't like having fun? 

Who doesn't like fun? Probably Squidward.

So after clicking the heart symbols on a bunch of women, you wait. Sometimes, when you click the heart, they will have already done it for you, and you get a notification saying that you can now chat with this person. So what do you say?

I would typically avoid statements like "Hi!" or anything of that nature. That doesn't start a conversation. I tried a bunch of unusual questions or punny jokes, with varying success rates (hence, the opener to this post). Why unusual? Because I wanted to see what they would think, and it was a way to build a conversation. If they seemed interesting, I could ask other, more typical questions. Here are some of my most successful (in terms of response rates) questions/jokes:

"Your best friend gets kidnapped, and your only chance of raising the ransom money is to win a game show. On which show do you stand the best chance to win?" This question had my highest reply rate. Answers ranged from Survivor, to Legends of the Hidden Temple, and Guts (yes, the Nickelodeon shows from many years ago). 

I had to look up what you won from this game show-apparently things like a cd player and trips to space camp. I am not sure how much your friend is worth, but hopefully he/she is worth more than a cd player with 30 second anti-skip technology.

"Two bucks in your pocket as you walk home from a night out. What do you get to munch on from a corner store on your way back?" Everything from roasted salted almonds to water. 

"You win a $100 gift card that is only good for products found in a skymall magazine. What do you get?" Gnomes, robes, harry potter wands. This, when responded to, lead to some entertaining conversations.

Overwhelmingly, I would have to make the first contact. I have no idea what other rates for other people are like, but my guess is that 95% of the time, I started the conversation. What does this mean? Not sure, other than I guess that men are supposed to make the first move in the internet dating game.

Now, for the chatting bit-my takeaway from it was that you had to be "always on". What I mean by that is you can't delay sending a response back. If you are involved in a conversation, you can't stop to focus on your work, not respond for a few hours, etc. If you do, then the opportunity is lost. Heaven forbid you don't talk for a day. Your chance is over. Oops.  

If you find yourself interested in someone, you have to move from the chatting function on the app and into textual relations. This involves the asking/exchanging of numbers. This is just as awkward as in real life. Finding out what is the appropriate amount of time to chat within the app to share your number was tricky, but once you do it, you are committed. If you give your number out, and don't get a text or phone call, game over. You can't return to the chatting function once one of the parties has the other's phone number, that just is desperate. 

If you have reached the point of exchanging numbers, then you have a decent chance at actually meeting the person in real life. AHHHH TERRIFYING. Not really, if you have any social skills. But almost always entertaining. From this app, I have gone on a few dates. Takeaways from them:

1) Most people don't look like their photos. In the words of Nate Dogg (RIP), "Look real close because strobe lights lie." Of course they are going to pick the best looking photos of themselves. That's why my photos are of Brad Pitt. Close enough. The first person I actually went on a date with was definitely way more attractive than her photos-out of my league attractive. The rest varied dramatically. It is also hard to tell how tall someone is from photos. 

2) You have to know why you are going on the date, and some idea of what the other person wants. If you want a relationship out of it, and the other just wants a hook-up, then both people are going to go home unhappy.

3) Have a plan to do something after the date if it is going well. Why have a definitive end time to a date? If places are still open, then take advantage of it.

My opinion of the whole thing? It is incredibly difficult to build something organic from nothing. I gave it the old college try, but I think I am going to go back to enjoying training, coaching, and teaching, and worrying about trying to entice women later.

Darwin Awards and New Years Resolutions

For the snarky and snide (or for those who are looking for a good laugh), the Darwin Awards are an endless source of entertainment. Stories of how people perish by welding gas containers that contain fuel, or how you can die when you look down an elevator shaft provide endless entertainment and cringe worthy moments to procrastinators and those who have a lot of daylight to waste.

It is at this time of year that people make some form of minor commitment to become a better person. Why the connection to the darwin awards? Because human beings have a chance for self improvement; most mistakes don't cause an elimination from the gene pool. Here are some things that I would like to improve upon, and if I don't, I hopefully won't end up with a fitness of zero.

1) Be more willing to do or say something. In the past, I have walked away from doing things that I was unsure of. Someone once told me "that is just who I am". If I perceived the risk of the action too high, or the outcome uncertain, then I would take the safe road. It is my goal to change that. I need to be more willing to act with less concern for a consequence. If I have another chance, I will not let it slip away.

I remember my mistakes, now I need to fix them.

2) Call and write more. Too much of the contact between my friends is impersonal-text messages, online messaging, etc. With these, it is difficult to tell tone and inflection, making it difficult to understand the true meaning of the speaker. So if I have your address, expect a letter. And maybe a phone call. I promise I am not creeping, just trying to stay in touch. Throw your address in the comments if you want something handwritten.

3) Eat healthier. I plan on going "paleo"(for those that are unfamiliar with this term, it means to very loosely eat how a cave man would eat-lots of protein, vegetables, nuts, etc and stay away from refined grains and sugar) for a month or two. The reason why I put it in quotes is that I am only going to go partly paleo-I will continue to eat the food that I already have in my cabinet (I have probably a month or two of food stocked up with rice, pasta, cereal, etc), but only buy paleo foods at the grocery store to restock the cabinet/fridge. I also am going to make lots of exceptions to this diet. I go home every Sunday (and sometimes other days) for family dinner, and my mom's cooking (and dad's bbq'ing) is delicious. If a friend wants to go out to get a meal, I will eat whatever I want. So pretty much this only applies to the meals that I prepare.

Notice no grains and dairy. Unfortunate. 

At the end, hopefully I will be running this fast and sveltely. 

4) To use a total cliché, don't make people a priority who make you an option.

Source. One of my favorite images/memes.

5) Race hard and don't be afraid of bonking during a race, because it will eventually happen. With the exception of the past two weeks, I have had a very successful offseason and past season. The hours will continue to build through the coming months, and I have decided some of my races for the spring and summer. I will be returning to Escape from Alcatraz, and I will be racing at ITU World Championships in Edmonton. For these races (and whatever other ones I decide upon), I am going to push myself harder within the races and see what my real limit is.

 For training, I am continuing to work with Martin Spierings, and I also just joined a local triathlon team sponsored by Every Man Jack. The team is filled with dedicated, very fast athletes who are consistently at the top of the podium in every distance. It is headed by Ritch Viola, who recently won both Ironman Tahoe and Ironman Arizona. I am very much looking forward to training with the team and racing with them this season.

Real Running

Running has exploded recently. There are 5ks, 10ks, color runs, run for various charitable causes, etc. Individuals/corporations have convinced enough people to run while they are bombarded with food coloring, being chased by people dressed up as zombies, etc to be profitable. Mostly these events are not "competitive" in the sense that they do not draw the fastest crowds, but are for fun.

Given that it is Thanksgiving, people obviously need to run to burn off all of the empty calories that they are going to be eating afterwards, so most communities have some form of a "Turkey Trot". Piedmont is no different, and for a town of roughly ~10,000 people, the race has around 2,000 runners each year. Typically, in the crowd, there are some fast runners, mainly college kids who are coming back, and some parents in the community who are very fast.

Earlier this year, I had won a smaller edition of a similar race in town, that had only attracted ~700 runners, and none of the typical faster runners. I had been flirting for the past few months with trying to make myself into a "real" runner, someone who actually maybe kinda sorta doesn't always hate running and might actually enjoy it from time to time when the moon is in the third phase of Saturn but under the watchful eye of Scorpio.

I put effort into my longer runs, and my runs were more consistent, and after this short experiment with running, I decided to put myself in with the self seeded runners at the front of the Turkey Trot.

Typically at these smaller community races, kids like to line up at the front and take off at the gun for about 20 yards. That is fun and awesome, until the rest of the field comes behind them and then this happens: 

The rest of the field comes bearing down on them like a pack of hungry zombies. Kids get knocked over, limbs fly everywhere, and then it's the end of the world.

The race had a small section just behind the start line where you could self seed if you thought that you were capable of running the course under 18 minutes, and with about 4 minutes to go to the start of the race, there were only two or three people in there with me. Then a few more showed up, and then came a few more, and there ended up being about 10-12 of us in the front corral. 

Some of the runners in the front corral.

At the start, we took off. There was dead silence except for the pounding of feet against the pavement, and the breathing of the runners. This was no joke. 

Through the first half mile, the race is pretty flat/downhill, and the group only stretched out a little. I put myself in a group of three that was behind the front group by about 3 seconds heading into the first uphill. Living nearby, I run these hills all the time, and I figured that I would be able to make up ground on the uphills, and my weakness, in comparison to the other runners, would be the flats. 

I was wrong. These were actual runners. I only pulled one guy on the first uphill, and one person behind me shot up the hill and took the lead and gapped the field by a few seconds. This was going to be a race. 

The first mile had a net elevation change of zero (see course map), and I was through in 5:35, and sitting in about 7th place. I had already lost sight of the leaders, but I was just behind two runners, so I wasn't alone. 

The second mile started out flat, and then proceeded up a long, steady incline. Again, I hoped that my legs would allow me to make up time on the people in front and to gap the runners I was with, and again, I was wrong. I only pulled back one person in front, and I was passed by another, so my overall position didn't change. With the uphill, the pace slowed to about 6:10. 

What goes up must come down, and seeing how I was bigger than most of the runners in front of me, I hoped that my heavier mass would allow me to get down the hill faster than them, since I was incorrect about my perceived strength of running uphill. 

And I was wrong again. These were actual runners. The pace quickened down the hill, their cadence was super high, and they flew down the hill. The gap between the runners in front of me widened again, and they were away. The last mile split was ~5:20. I held on to my spot to finish 7th overall, 3rd in the 20-29 age group with a time of 17:04. 

Trucking up to the finish.

My sister also ran in the race-her first road race. With no prep, some walking and talking with friends, and running part of the way with a friend's dog, she finished her first 3mile race. I am proud of her, and hopefully she will get bit by the running bug as I somewhat have.

A post race picture where Katy, one of her friends and I were clearly not ready for it.

Slightly more prepared.

Things to take away: real runners run fast. There are more of them out there. I have a lot of work to do if I want to make up that ground. Keeping healthy will be key. I am currently dealing with a bit of heel discomfort/pain that comes and goes, and hopefully I will be able to sort that out as I push on with the offseason of training.

Now that coaching water polo is over, I will try to keep this more up to date. Thanks for reading.

Let's make life as inconvenient as possible

When we fly, we are told that in the name of safety, we need to take off our shoes, we can't wear belts, and that, save for a few, no liquids can pass through the security checkpoint. We unpack our laptops, and pull whatever we have in our pockets out to be scanned. We then pass through either metal detectors, or a scanning machine that produces images that look like this:

When we are finished with this dance, we frenetically put our shoes back on, shove our belongings back into a backpack, and run, holding our pants up to our gate, hoping that the 45 minutes we stood in line to be verified that we are not a terrorist didn't cause us to miss our flight.

Initially, I did not have a problem with all of these procedures. Anyone can google the anarchist's cookbook and using a few simple chemicals, injure, maim, and kill.

These security protocols are slowly spreading to