Virgin HealthMiles

So last week, my company started this new health initiative called Virgin HealthMiles. It's apparently run at least somewhat in conjunction with our health insurer. Anyone else ever heard of this?

The basic idea is that you wear this special pedometer that tracks the number of steps that you do in a given day. You get points (they call them "miles") for doing various things, chief of which is different activities, like getting at least 7000 steps in a day. Once you reach certain levels of miles, they give you money. The more you do, the more you make. The pedometers come with a USB cable and some software that automatically uploads your steps to Virgin's website.

My company was giving out these pedometers to the first 400 people that signed up (normally they are $24.99 each) so naturally I scored one. You can get up to $150 a year by doing this. There are 5 levels and you get different amounts of cash for reaching each level. Level 1 is where you start out and is worth $0, then $25, $25, $50 and $50 I believe. It looks like the 5th level might be a bit hard to get, though we shall see.

They also have an "upgraded" membership which you can sign up for $6.99/mo. With that membership, you can earn up to $500/year. I think the levels are $0, $25, $125, $175, and $175. So if you can make it to level 3 (which is 12,000 "miles"), the upgraded membership pays for itself. After like a week, I'm at 3910 miles, though they give you lots of bonus miles when you first start out so I don't think I'll be able to keep up that pace. Still, Level 3 seems pretty reachable. I'm already almost to Level 2 (6,000 "miles"). You have up to 60 days to convert your membership so I'll be seeing where I'm at around Day 58 but I expect that I'll be upgrading at that point.

The other thing is that a few of us here at work that got the pedometers are having a little step-competition. We were trying to figure out what kind of ground rules that we could make to discourage cheating. It turns out that the website lets you set up challenges. These challenges allow you to set up teams as well as handicaps (to allow people at different step levels to compete on even ground). We have set one up but the system doesn't seem to be working correctly.

I'm not sure if this is open to the general public or not - you'd certainly have to pay the $6.99/mo and the $25 for the pedometer, but even still, if you're moderately active, it could be worth it. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

2008 Miami Triathlon report

Woohoo it's exciting triathlon time again! Just like last year I am racing in the Miami University Student Foundation triathlon.

Here is my race report. First of all, I am going to be going by my watch time. I did get the official results from HFP and they are 2 minutes slower than the time I had on my watch. I could understand a few seconds discrepancy but 2 minutes? My friend PJ also had a watch on and his time was also 2 minutes or so slower on the "official" results. So until that gets resolved, I'm calling shenanigans.

So, looking back at last year's report, my first big dilemma came at a wake up time. This year due to the large number of participants (over 600!) they moved the start time from 8:00 to 7:30, and then to 7:15. I decided to wake up at 4:30 a.m. I didn't sleep all that great and ended up waking up on my own at 4:18. I packed the car and set off.

The second big dilemma, upon review, was which route to take to Oxford - Cross County or 275. I was disappointed to find that no empirical data existed from my choice last year. How else was I supposed to determine the best way? I'm a scientist!. I need the data.

So here's the data from this year's route - where I took Cross County.

Time: 28 minutes from my house to the intersection of US-27 and 275.

Or should I say, 28 minutes from my house to ALMOST the intersection of US-27 and 275, AT WHICH POINT I GOT PULLED OVER BY A COP!!!!!.

Yeah, I got pulled over at like 5 a.m. by a Colerain Twp. police officer. He comes up to the door and asks the classic cop question "Do you know why I pulled you over?" I, of course, follow Rule 1 of being pulled over by a cop which is "Never admit to anything". I knew I wasn't speeding - that was for sure - I was hypermiling :-). So I say no, and he tells me that I have a headlight out. I was aware of this as Carolyn has been telling me to get this fixed for some time now. But the first words out of my mouth (had I not followed Rule 1) would have been "because my license plate sticker is expired?" I thought for sure he was going to bust me when he ran my plates but he either didn't notice or didn't care. He ended up just giving me a warning, and then asked where I was going and we talked a little triathlon. It was refreshing to meet a cop who wasn't a complete jerk. I even tried to go out to RateMyCop.com to give him a positive rating but they don't have Colerain Twp's department online yet. But hey let's hear it for buffer time!!! Carolyn kept wondering why I was leaving so early.

I've written (and you theoretically have read) this much and I haven't even gotten to Oxford yet? Hoo-ee this is going to be long.

The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. I spent a couple of minutes trying to remember the name of that town between Cincinnati and Oxford. I also had a car pass me with a bike on the back (I guess also going for the triathlon). The bike had saran wrap all over the bike seat and handlebars. I thought that was an interesting way to try and combat the rain (forecast was for rain all morning). But then I thought it would be extra time during transition to try and pull that off. I didn't see them at the race itself so I don't know if they pulled it off before the race or not. Anyways, once I got to Oxford, I missed the turnoff and had to turn around.

I got there at about 5:30 or so. I went up and registered and then took my bike into the transition area.

As you can see from the picture above, I got the prime "end of row" spot on the rack. Yet another reason to get there early. You come down that row after the swim, so being right there on the end is worth AT LEAST 5 seconds or so :-).

Here is a picture of PJ and I. I was wearing my shirt from last year's race; trying to "intimidate" everyone else by letting them know that yes, I'm a veteran. PJ said that he opted for a blank white T-shirt to let potential advertisers know that he was available. We talked about sponsors and I commented that really, advertisers were wasting their money sponsoring any of the front runners - after all, I'd be on the course for MUCH longer, giving them much more bang for the buck! Notice too my ultra tight super streamlined racing swimsuit.

One of the things that I had done this year was bring a 2nd towel. It was time for some strategic placing. I left one towel out in the transition area. And then, I made my way poolside.

This picture is taken right at where you start the swim. You start right in that bottom left corner, and then do a serpentine swim down one lane and up the other, until you make your way through the 8th and final lane, exiting the pool at the 8th lane, in the top left corner of the picture. Notice PJ there in the background.
Here's a closeup of the area right next to the pool exit. You can see that I stuck my 2nd towel there. That way once I got out of the pool I could grab a towel and dry off as I made my way to the transition area. Again, saving me the CRUCIAL 5 SECONDS THAT WILL GET ME INTO 1ST PLACE! PJ wanted me to point out that he too put his towel there but it's not in the picture simulating how he was already out of the pool before I got there :-)

We kind of hung around for the next hour or so, making a few trips back to our cars to get everything ready. They had the mandatory pre-race poolside meeting at about 7 and midway through I decided to head back to the transition area to make my final adjustments (dump the shirt and flip-flops I still had on). As we were heading back there we heard an announcement "Final warning to clear the transition area before we turn the timing mats on". We made it just in time.

Sat in the bleachers for about 40 or so minutes while the first 300 or so people started their swim. Then we made our way back down. Unlike the 3 Pigs last year, I got my goggles in place with no mishaps.

Then it was time for the swim. Even though I promised to cannonball into the pool if I did it this year I didn't. PJ did and got a few laughs from the people around.

When I started swimming it seriously felt like there was a current pushing against me. I don't know if I was just imagining it or if it was some sort of byproduct of all those people in the water or what. I had just read about this attachment to pools that let you use a regular family pool as a lap swimming pool by pushing a current back at you and that's what it felt like.

My goal was to try and pass more than the 2 people I was able to pass in the swim last year. I knew people would pass me, especially since I had put in an overly optimistic swim estimate of 9 minutes. Turns out 10 people passed me while I did not pass anyone. I did manage to swim freestyle the whole time without stopping. A few people hit my feet as they were coming up on me; I gave them some extra hard kicks. Then one guy was passing me like right on top of me; getting all in my way (rather than passing on the left where there was plenty of room). I gave him an elbow. Other than that, not much happened.

Got out of the pool and grabbed my clandestine towel. Unfortunately I forgot to hit the lap button when I did so I'm not sure of my exact time. By the time I got into the transition area and hit it, it was 11:31. So I'm guessing about 11 minutes or so.

Transition was fine. Not much to do and I made my way out - 1:52 on my watch plus whatever time due to not hitting my watch on time. Again, let's say 2:23. I left the transition area right behind PJ who managed to not take forever like he did last year (3:39!) :-)

The bike course was different this year than it was last year. I had set my internal goal at 50 minutes, and figured that would need about 15.5 mph. So I decided to aim for 16 mph on the flat stretches. Because I'm a total nerd, one of the things that I do as I ride is calculate miles per hour and stuff in my head as I ride. So I figured that I should be aiming for a mile every 4 minutes. At the 4 mile mark I was only at 15 minutes (1 minute ahead of pace) and I thought "Wow I've got this!". Then I told myself "Well, maybe I should wait until some of these big hills before I start congratulating myself :-)"

As the bike course started I was keeping track of how many people I was passing. I am nothing but devoted to my faithful readers who I knew would be hanging on every detail such as this. I almost stopped counting the people that passed me (because there were a lot right at the beginning) but then a funny thing happened - people stopped passing me and I started passing people!

Shortly after that I looked up and realized I had gone off the course. At least I thought I had - I had just passed a road off to the left and gone straight. But I couldn't see any course markings or any bikers ahead of me. Just as I was about to start panicing I did see some race officials in the distance.

And they signalled the start of the first hill. It was brutal. I immediately passed 3 people who were walking their bikes up. I managed to ride all the way up but it was slow and very hard. I had noticed from the course topo map that there were 2 big hills, so when I got to the 2nd one I thought "Wow this one wasn't even close to that first one". Then I realized that was just a fun intermediate hill. The 2nd hill was also pretty big though not as bad as the first one.

After about mile 9 or 10, the rest of the course is fairly flat with a slight downhill back to the transition area. I was hitting about 20 to 25 mph. The final totals were passed 32, passed by 26 (net +6 for the bike). Time for the 20.5K (12.7 miles) was 51:16, or 14.9 mph.

Transition 2 was a brisk 34 seconds, which I note was 26th overall, again proving the adage that although I can not swim, bike or run very fast, I can do NOTHING very fast.

As I made my way to start the run, I noticed that I was going to have to do about 24:30 on the run to hit my stretch goal time of 1:30. It looked like beating last year's time of 1:38:45 was definitely going to happen, barring some sort of craziness on the run.

So off I went. The first mile was pretty slow - I had a bit of the jelly legs going on. I didn't see the Mile 1 marker, but at the water station which I think was about there, I had about 9 minutes. I had both passed and been passed by a few people. Somewhere around here, this one person passed me and I decided to try and run with him as long as I could. I figured since he was going a bit faster than me, he'd be good to try and push myself. I ran behind him for most of the rest of the course and we passed a few people. I briefly passed him when he stopped for water but he then passed me right back. My time at Mile 2 was 16:55, meaning my 2nd mile was at about 8 minutes. At about mile 2.5 I started pushing a little harder. I saw that while 1:30 might be tough, I could probably hit 1:30:SOMETHING which I figured I could count :-). I passed the guy I had been running with as well as a few other people. Once we crossed the street back towards the transition area I kicked and really blew by 2 people there. Final passing totals were passed by 6 and passed 22 (net +16), and a final run time of 25:22, which is an 8:09 clip.

Final final time was 1:30:40, a time I was EXTREMELY pleased with. I improved in all 3 disciplines, leaving me to wonder how I could possibly get better again next year!

Again, like I mentioned, the "official" results have some definite time discrepancies, but here they are.

I'm assuming that the discrepancies are the same for everyone (at least several people I've seen have mentioned them), so even though the times are off, the order is probably fairly accurate. I was 285th out of 532, 24th out of 30 in my age group and 3rd out of 3 in the "Miller" division.

The race after party that was so fun last year was completely lame this year, probably mostly due to the rain. It had sprinkled off and on. During my bike it had rained a bit off and on and then when I got back from the bike all my stuff was noticably damp and then it had continued to sprinkle. I didn't even get any free pizza!! :-).

All in all it was an extremely fun time and I'm looking forward to coming back next year! And remember, don't mess with me, I'm an "athelete" [sic] :-D

Some walking adventures

So I have decided to add walking to my list of exercises on my running log. In fact, if you read this blog post in a timely manner, you will see that I did some walking back on April 8th. 4.5 miles as a matter of fact. Why would I do something like that, you might ask? Well... read on.

Red Robin has a free birthday burger that they email you. Well, they don't email you the burger (that would be tricky) - just a coupon for one. I was going to go on my actual birthday since I was out in the area for lunch, but alas, I had forgotten my coupon, and I didn't feel like driving back to work to get it. I thought that I could probably have gotten away with it by showing them my license or something but just decided to do it the next day.

So the next day dawned and around 11 or so I decided to walk to Red Robin. I looked it up and it was only 2.5 miles (turned out to be about 2.3 as I cut through an abandoned golf course). It was a beautiful day (about 70 degrees or so) so I thought eh why not. Plus, I had just read an article about hypermiling so I was being all fuel conscious.

I think that had I realized QUITE how far 2.5 miles is (while walking) that I might have reconsidered. I know I definitely rued the long sleeve black shirt I picked out in the morning...

Pretty uneventful. The burger was good, and came with fries. It was interesting in seeing how just because the fries were there, I ate them, even though I'm trying my revolutionary diet, and as such didn't really want them. I did not eat all of them though, which is unusual for me (I have a big "clean your plate" problem when it has food I like). I ate by myself and then tipped the waitress with a buck or so of change I had in my desk.

At least they didn't bring me out a plate of nothing but a candle!

I do want to point out that I am not counting this walking time toward my goal of 4 days of exercise. I also want to point out that if you did NOT read this post in a timely fashion (so as to be able to see my walking outing on the exercise widget well then what's wrong with you? You need your recommended daily allowance of DanMiller after all.

Triathlon brick

What's a brick, you might ask? Well, I mean most people know what a brick is but how does that relate to a triathlon? Fear not gentle readers, I will let you know.

A brick is just doing two workouts back to back - most commonly biking and running (though I have also done running then swimming). Nobody knows for sure why it's called a brick - it just is. Wikipedia has the following as claims for origin

• A partial anagram of Bike-Run.
  
• It may simply be a descriptive term for how your legs feel for the first part of the run.
  
• Another is credited to Mark Sisson and Scott Zagarino (1988), who associated the term brick with the idea of "Just another brick in the wall"... as noted in a song by the group "Pink Floyd".
• Another association of this term has been claimed to originate from a New Zealand athlete by the name of Matt Brick.
  

Uh huh Matt Brick - you just go on thinking that.... I'm so sure.

Anyway with my triathlon coming up in 2 weeks, it's time to do some serious preparation. I have been wanting to get out and do some biking and running outside since that's much different than a treadmill / exercise bike. And since the triathlon is not ON a treadmill or exercise bike, it seemed prudent. Weather cooperated nicely and away I went.

I opted to just do a 3.05 mile course around my house and do 4 laps of it. That was about 12.2 miles which is about 1/2 mile short of the bike course but close enough. My lap times were: 12:38:33, 12:39:69, 12:54:56, and 13:24:07 for a total time of 51:37:45. Felt pretty good. That's an average speed of about 14.2 mph which would put me at about 54:15 for my bike course. If I am to achieve my goal of 1:30:00, I really need to get that bike time down to about 50 minutes, which would be about 15.4 mph.

As I rode, I thought about the differences between this route and the race route. One thing I will have in my favor is that there will be less turning and slowing down to check for cars and such. I was not sure about hills. On the one hand, the hills on the Oxford course seemed like they were steeper and/or longer, but on the other hand, every hill I went on (Greenbriar from Miami, Homart from Thomas to Jethve, Sanoma from Osceola to Iuka) I had to go on 4 times! Of course I got to fly down that sweet downhill (25 mph+) on Thomas 4 times too....

The run was hard but satisfying in that I was able to run the whole way. One thing that I thought helped me was that physically the transition between biking and running is very difficult (the aforementioned way that your legs feel after biking). I think that this helped me to keep my pace slow. I just did 2 laps around my block which is 1.62 miles, or a little less than 1/2 my 5K race course. My 2 lap times were 6:58:33 and 6:31:16 for an overall time of 13:29:49, or a pace of an 8:20 mile.

An 8:20 mile is a 5K pace of 25:53 which would be sweet. I wanted to stop and walk several times but kept going. One thing I'll definitely have to my advantage is that the course I ran today has a few nice hills in it, where the Miami course is fairly flat. Of course I have to run it almost twice as far....

Oooh that's brisk

So our hot water heater died on Friday. Or actually what I have since learned is called the thermal couple died.

We called our home warranty folks on Friday and a guy came out on Friday night. He (thought that) he had the part to do it so he got to work and it turns out that our thermal couple is left-threaded. According to the plumber, nearly all of them are right-threaded and pretty standard.

He tried to go find one but could not and then again yesterday tried to find one at a particular store but no dice. Yesterday we went to step aerobics at the Y but for some reason the teacher didn't show up so Carolyn and I just went and worked out in the exercise room. I did some elliptical and then about 30-40 minutes of weight training so I am awful sore this morning.

Naturally, showering at the Y was called for. At this point we still thought he was going to hook us up yesterday but no, so now there is no hot water today either. We entertained notions of going to the Y again this morning just to shower (like good bums do), but it doesn't open till 11 and there's no childcare. So Carolyn washed her hair with a pot of water she heated up on the stove and I took a polar bear shower (hence the title of this post).

Yesterday I also went to FleetFeet to get a new pair of running shoes. They brought out a bunch of shoes and tried them on but they were all in the $90-95 range. I tried to deal with them but no dice. I was getting ready to leave when they said they might have a discontinued pair in the back. They did and I ended up getting them for $65.

Practice Triathlon

So with my upcoming triathlon (April 19th), I thought I'd do a practice triathlon. With not a ton of time before work, I opted for a half distance. Yes that's right, half of the shortest triathlon out there.

Got up bright and early and headed out to the Y. First up was the swim. Of course, the metric system strikes again. The pool is in yards and my race is in meters. I decided that 9 laps would do the trick. Google Calculator tells me that is 205.74 meters, so a little longer than half way. Close enough. I was shooting to be able to do it in 5 minutes (to go with my goal of getting the triathlon swim done in 10 minutes) - ended up at 5:09. I tried somewhat to go faster, since I knew I was only going to be doing 9 laps, but I think that actually may have hurt me because I noticed that in my need for speed my form may have suffered a bit.

Transition 1 was 3:28 as I went back to the locker room and changed into shorts as well as put on a shirt and my socks and shoes. In the actual triathlon I will bike and run in my swim trunks but I didn't want to get the exercise bike all wet. Time was 3:28.

Got on the bike and since they've removed all but two of the upright bikes (which were both in use) I had to use a recumbent. I wanted to go with an upright for authenticity but hey oh well. Bike seemed a little harder than usual - In the past, I've been able to get up to close to 20 mph - this time 17.6 mph - total time of 21.49 for the 6.4 miles. The course last year was 20K (12.4 miles) but they've changed it and slightly increased the distance

Transition 2 was a brisk 36 seconds as I got a towel, wiped off the bike and hopped on the treadmill.

I opted for no incline and set off. I started it at a 6.1 mph clip and gradually worked my way up to 7.5 mph. The run was pretty hard but I was able to push through it and not stop. About the last half of the run I could feel my left shoelace was loose but I didn't want to screw up my timing by stopping and fixing it. Luckily it held out until the last 20 seconds, at which point I just ignored it till I hit the 1.55 mile (2.5K) mark. Time was 14:14

Overall, my time was 45:16 for this half triathlon. I kind of had 45 minutes in mind for a goal time. During the run I was doing some calculations in my head and it looked like I wouldn't be able to hit 45 minutes (that I'd be closer to 46:30 or 47). Had I known I was going to be this close, I think I could have pushed it a bit harder at the end to shave those 16 seconds (well 17 to get 44:59).

So, does this mean that I will snag a 1:30:00 time for the actual triathlon. Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm no. Well, maybe.

You may remember from last time (results here - scroll down, down, down - I'm 306th, 26 seconds after the 13 year old girl and a brisk 15 seconds ahead of the 77 year old man) that I got a time of 1:38:45. Here is a comparison of today's trial run versus the real deal.

Things that will help me in the real triathlon compared to today's
1. My swim time is pretty accurate I think. I think it's reasonable to look for a swim about twice today's time - so 10:18. Although I haven't yet swum 400m that fast even in practice, and you would think that I might slow down over the longer distance, I think the adrenaline of the race coupled with lots of people to pass (or try to avoid BEING passed) will even things out
2. And the run I think was also about right. Doubling today's time gives a 5K time of 28:28. Last year my time was 27:22. So I might be able to gain a minute or two (hopefully I won't repeat my 5K time of the 3 pigs triathlon which was a very wussy 34:15.
3. Transition times. Doubling my 2 transition times from today gives me a total transition time of 8:08. As I like to joke, although I am not very fast at swimming (369th out of 396 finishers), biking (313th) or running (265th), I can do NOTHING very well (my combined transition time last year of 2:47 was 81st). So I think it's reasonable to say I can shave 5 minutes off my pace there.

Things that will hurt me in the real triathlon compared to today's
1. The bike. If you think I'm going to finish this bike segment in 43:38, well, I don't think so Tim. Last year I did the 12.4 mile course in 54:44, which is a 13.6 mph clip. Biking on an exercise bike is just not even close to the same as doing it in the real world. And now the course is 0.4 miles longer. Looking again at my 3 Pigs report, there I did 26.8K in 1:10:13, which is a 14.3 mph pace. So let's say that I can do the 20.5K in 15.0 mph. That would give me a time of about 51 minutes.

So. 10 minute swim, 51 minute bike, 28 minute run and 3 minutes transition is 92 minutes. So, I am setting my stretch goal as 1:30 and I will be happy if I beat my last year's time of 1:38:45.

I'll keep you posted

More swimming

I've been a bit under the weather lately so I haven't been out to the Y this week but I went this morning. I continued my swimming improvement - up to 1.3 mph.

I wore my old watch (probably 15 years old). It said 100 meters water resistant but I was worried because it was so old. But it worked fine and solved my seconds problem. I did 28 laps (700 yards) in 18:25. I also tracked my time for my first 400 meters (17.5 laps), which was 11:27

Also wanted to post an update on my time goal. I have not been doing as well with that - I've had some problems with motivation and sickness and such. I have also been doing things like swimming or running where it is harder for me to go for 30 minutes or more (as opposed to biking which I can do for hours plus)

My goal for the year was 4 days (96 hours). I am currently on 9 hours, 26 minutes, and 25 seconds. Today is day 66. That puts me on a pace of 52.35 hours for the year.

A few points to clarify

#1. I'll post when I'm good and ready.
#2. The goals bar only gets updated when I remember
#3. Exercising isn't even one of the goals on the goals bar anyways.
#4. I can't believe that my "stalker" wasn't Ray.

Swimming splints

Or is that swimming splits? Or shin splints? Don't worry, gentle reader, for we shall talk about all of that AND MORE!!!

So to start off, I think I have acquired shin splints. Seems to be caused by some combination of crappy quality of shoes, old (worn down) shoes, and poor running technique. All of which I have to a high degree. I plan to go down to FleetFeet to get some good shoes. I was actually planning on going down today but was stopped by the White Death (up to 15 inches possible by tomorrow afternoon!!)

Anyway so as not to run, I have been swimming lately. Which is probably good since my swimming skills are... not so much. But I've been getting better.

As you can see from my exercise log (available as a link over to the right), my recent swims:

1/7/2008 - 200 yards in 7 minutes (0.97 mph)
1/11/2008 - 250 yards in 10 minutes (0.85 mph)
2/28/2008 - 750 yards in 22 minutes (1.16 mph)
3/3/2008 - 425 yards in 12 minutes (1.21 mph)
3/7/2008 - 800 yards in 22 minutes (1.24 mph)

You'll notice that there are only minute times. There is a clock at the Y, but it's hard for me to see the seconds as I'm swimming. It is our time to do our recycle challenge at work again. So I was down there this morning with some various coworkers and we were talking about that. And it was commented that when you're swimming so slowly, the seconds don't really matter. (Zing!) There was general merriment and revelry concerning my swimming prowess (or lack thereof). One lady who is apparently a swimmer was mentioning that her 400 meter swim time was like 4:21 (compared to my 13:50 last time).

I of course then challenged her to a fight. Or rather a triathlon. She nancied up so I must be the winner.

Oh you must, must you?

So it's been a week or so since I posted here. And the people... they MUST have their Dan Miller. So here I am.

I know... I know... you've been missing me. I'm sure it won't help when I tell you that I've been posting over at my secret new blog. Yup, that's right. My secret new blog.

But I will give a little something to the masses.

My goals have been going... okay I guess. The wake up in the morning goal has been doing well. We changed the alarm from music to annoyo-alarm and it was decided that I have to go turn it off. And what do you know, ME having to turn it off versus getting to lay in bed while someone else turns it off actually increases the odds that I will get out of bed. I mean, I know, it's revolutionary. But hey I'm telling you - it's true!!!

I have not been doing so well on the "do 1 productive thing at night" goal. We did go down I think Friday or Saturday night and clean out all the old expired food from the General Store. It's actually looking kind of bare, relatively speaking. We felt pretty bad about throwing away all that food, but there is a limit to how much you can eat Hamburger Helper that expired in 2005.

We threw away some of it, and I brought some of the not TOO expired stuff into work to give away and then I am selling 18 Glade Wisps with 22 refill packages on eBay. I am estimating that between the auctions (I split them up into 3 separate auctions) I will clear $40 off of them. I'll keep you posted.

Exercising is going well. Oddly enough this morning as I was entering the Y, I saw PJ there who was just leaving. We talked for awhile and then I went in and did what they call a "brick" (2 different activities back to back). This is part of triathlon training though you're supposed to actually do 2 of the sections that are back to back in a triathlon (like swim and then bike, or the most common one is bike and then run). I ran and then swam. I changed it up on the run - I wanted to see how fast I could sprint a mile. So I set the treadmill to 9 mph and then periodically upped it, ending up at 10.2. I got the mile done in 6:35 which was cool. Of course that's only a 20:27 5k pace, and frankly the thought of running that fast (and actually a bit faster) for another 2 miles and change (to get a sub 20 minute 5K) is mind-boggling.

Then I went and swam. I went for 17 laps, which is approximately how far I'll have to swim in my upcoming triathlon. With the annoying yards to meters action, 17 laps is 425 yards which is 388.62 meters - so a little shorter. But I got it in about 12 minutes (compared to last year's time of 13:50). And that even was with some significant breakage time. I managed to go 3 laps and then break, all the way till the end when I was feeling okay after lap 15, so I kept going till the end. And of course 17 laps put me on the wrong end of the pool so I did another lap for fun and then 2 more laps to cool down.

Why is it so hard to exercise?

I'm not sure why it's so dang hard to exercise. Or why it's so dang hard to get up in the morning. This is something that I've had issues with for quite awhile. Being at a job that doesn't require a "strict" arrival time, there's not a whole lot of incentive for me to get "up and at 'em" at any specific time. Except maybe the dirty looks given by my wife as I lay in bed while she gets all the kids ready for the morning? :-)

But even having said that, I do want to do better. I have set the goal to wake up with the alarm. And I have a goal of exercising 4 total days this year. But for some reason those are not motivating me. When I came to the great awakening last October that to hit my goal of exercising 1000 miles I needed to do 62 miles a week, that was very motivating to me. I would go to the Y most mornings, and would go sometimes in the evenings, including one evening when I rode the exercise bike for nearly 39 miles.

But 2008 has not been great for me. I started out okay, but then I horked my back, and couldn't really do anything, and got out of the habit and boom - here I am.

I do have those above-mentioned goals. I am also planning on repeating my adventure in the Miami triathlon. But maybe I need more immediate "harder" goals.

Thoughts anyone? For the record, as you can see over to the right in my handy exercise log widget, I did exercise this morning - I went 25 minutes and did 2.79 miles.

Exercise site

As I have mentioned before I recently switched exercise log providers from Active.comSuckyWebsiteMcSuckerson.com to RunningAhead.com. And of course, by "switched" I mean that the aforementioned sucky website took over the site that I was using, "converted" all the data, and made us start using their website, which sucked in comparison. Oh, and they lost (or at best misplaced) half my data.

As I have not mentioned before, I seem to like to start my blog posts with "As I have mentioned before" or some similar turn of phrase. Just thought I'd point that out.

Anyways... I finally got around to updating the little link on the side of my blog to point to the new site. I also renamed it from "Dan's cycling log" (which had itself a few months ago been renamed from "Dan's running log") to "Dan's exercise log".

One of the other cool features of RunningAhead.com is that they provide a few cool "widgets" to put on your blog. I have put one on there listing my last 10 workouts. You can see it over on the right of the blog with the links. So, at the time of this writing, you can see that my latest workout (this morning) was 2.3 (actually 2.26) miles running followed by 200 yards swimming. You can see that I have also done some "elliptical" workouts. This is Dan-speak for "other". That is one of the things I don't like - there's no place to put in custom workouts. They have an "other" section, but you can only choose elliptical or spinning. So my "elliptical" workout on 1/3 was weight training and the one on 1/1 was for playi