Columbia Cyclocross

Cyclocross season is not over... or maybe it's just begining. In any case, I am driving down to Tennessee this weekend to do a couple races at Chicksaw Trace Park. I'm in pretty good shape running and swimming wise, but I have hardly been riding at all. We'll see how it goes.

First (Virtual) Race of '08

Today I logged the first official race result for "Get A Grip Off-Road," newly recognized by USA Cycling. The irony was that it was done indoors on a Computrainer. Another funny thing is that I placed 4th in CAT4, but my result would have won the Cat3 race and placed 4th for the Cat1/2 race. Oh well, I can only control my results, not who shows up.

ABD Mid-America Time Trial Series

Tim

40% and still moving!

This challenge has been an interesting experience so far. It's gotten me out the door for a runs when I had absolutely no desire to do so. It's made me run more time and distance than I've ever done on a monthly basis. Luckily it's gone well, hasn't left me injured, and has me running faster than before.

Back in the day (before 12/1/07) when I went out for a 4-5 mile steady run, I'd pace myself around 8:45-9:00/mi to keep my HR around 155. If I wanted to go a little faster I could, but that'd leave me dogged. Yesterday I went out for one of those runs, 4.4 miles, and averaged 7:45/mi with an avg. HR of 156.

More really is MORE.

Now for the bad news:

My biggest month of running in history, and I'm only in 8th place in my AG! Now, 8th place isn't so bad, until you realize I only have 16 people to compete against...hmmm. What to do? Talk Tim into heading out to Palos with me today. He's a much better runner than I am, so hopefully he'll drag me along for 6-8 miles or so. That'll help me make up some time!

The thing that really kills me about this whole challenge is that I am averaging slightly over 40 minutes and 4.9 miles EVERY DAY for the last 36 days. That's a huge jump for me, and I'm still lagging behind!

Here is my AG standing as of this AM:



Here you can see the top ten overall (out of about 190) based on number of runs. I'm sitting at #9 on this chart, after this weekend I hope to jump up a spot or two:



Here's to finishing the first half of this challenge this week!