On the Road Again

Seeing Floyd Landis win the Tour de France inspired me to start long-distance running again. Of course, that was before the whole possible doping scandal blew up yesterday. I personally don't believe that he tried to enhance his performance. It would be ridiculous because (1) taking testosterone will not have a significant effect on an athlete's performance until at least a week afterwards, and (2) any athlete who wins a stage of the Tour de France automatically gets tested after the race. Floyd would have to be a complete idiot to think that he could get away with cheating like that. One of the things that I find interesting is that I have seen very little talk about the tests themselves and how the B sample is tested differently from the A sample. Is there any more rigorous testing that occurs the second time around? Does the B sample get tested at a separate independant laboratory? I've heard that the test is a measurement of the ratio between testosterone and epitestosterone, and that these measurements could be different from person to person. Does the test take into account the person's normal ratio of testosterone? I will have to plead ignorance with many of my questions...I'm just frustrated that I can't find the information about the test.

But I digress. Either way, whether Floyd cheated or not, I have still been compelled to start training for my first 5K since highschool. I was never a stellar runner. After 6 years of running cross-country, my best time was 20 minutes and 21 seconds at the McQuaid invitational. McQuaid is a fairly flat course and therefore it is really fast. My goal is to run a 5K in under 20 minutes by Fall 2007. This is a goal that I always had in highschool, but never quite followed through on. It's going to take a lot of consistent work to get there, but I think I can do it. After all, I never really did a good job with my training when I was younger. Here's my plan for getting to my goal:

- Train between now and my 1st race to build my aerobic base. This basically consists of running at 60-75% of my maximum heartrate 5 times a week. I will slowly build up the mileage until I get up to 20 miles a week. This is something that I NEVER did before.
- Run my first race on October 28th, 2006. It will be the Manitou Springs Mayor's Cup. It sounds like a pretty cool race with a whole lot of other things going on, including the yearly Emma Crawford Coffin Races that I've heard so much about.
- Continue training throughout the winter, working my way up to 30 miles a week. This is where living in Colorado Springs will really come in handy since our winters are relatively mild. Once I'm up to a 30 mile/week aerobic base, add interval training and tempo runs to the mix so that I can increase my 5K speed.
- Participate in the Nielson Challenges throughout the winter. These are really cool free 2 mile races that are put on by the Pikes Peak Road Runners. Basically, each time you run, they record the time that you run and then keep a running average of your times. The race is actually against your average. The person who has the best improvement over their average wins the race. These will help gauge how well I'm progressing with my winter training.
- Participate in a number of 5K events leading up to the 2007 Manitou Springs Mayor's Cup. These may include the following events: Tortoise & Hare (another really cool race), Take 5 in the Garden, Sailin' Shoes 5K, Woodland Park Mayor's Cup, and Colorado Springs Mayor's Cup. Descriptions for all of the races can be found on the Pikes Peak Road Runners website.
- Run the 2007 Manitou Springs Mayor's Cup in under 20 minutes!

Why, you say, am I writing this in my blog? So that I'm comitted. I've now posted it and I will be lying to myself and all of my anxious blog readers (all 1 of you) if I don't follow through.

Wish me luck.

P.S. It wasn't only Floyd Landis who inspired me, but also my friend The Wolf. He participated in a triathalon last August (follow this link to read his exploits) and ever since then the bug has been in the back of my mind. In fact, The Wolf also inspired me to start a blog. You'll notice that my first entry in this blog started about 2 months after reading The Wolf's blog.

Sabres Logo

According to some news around the net, this is the new Buffalo Sabres logo for next year. I hate it and I think many other fans hate it as well. When I heard that the Sabres were going to go back to the blue and gold scheme, I was under the impression that it would be something reminiscent of the orignal Sabres logo with the buffalo and two sabres crossed. It was one of the few logos out there which you could literally read the team's name from the pictures. There are not many teams that could do that. Now we have a buffalo that looks very much like a flying slug or a really bad hairpiece. If you're a Sabres fan and you don't like the logo either, voice your opinion at www.fixthelogo.com. As of the publishing of this post, there are 20,000 Sabres fans who agree with me. I'm not sure if this will make any difference, but it's worth a shot.

Good thing I moved here...

You're Colorado!

You really enjoy getting high. Even though it's often a lot of work, the
view from the top is almost always worth the effort. Your distance from others makes
your relationship with them rather rocky at times, but they do look up to you. Be very
careful around schools. And stop being quite so focused on the number 5,280!

Take the State Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Book Review - The Theban Mysteries

The Theban Mysteries by Amanda Cross
Very dated book and a little too hoight-toighty for me. Wasn't worth reading. I'll give mysteries one or two more shots, but if they are similar to this one, I'll have to pass on the genre.

Next Book:
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (2nd time reading this one)

Book Review - Agent to the Stars

Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
Funny sci-fi. It's free on-line, so just give it a try. http://scalzi.com/agent/

I'm not a mainstream sports kind of guy

I'm not your typical sports fan in America. Most of the time when I'm talking to my friends, they only watch certain sports and I'm usually the only one watching others. Here's a list of all the sports that I can think of off the top of my head:

Football:
Let's just say thank God for Tivo. The only way I can watch football is by fast forwarding through all of the commercial breaks, standing around, and commentary that goes on. I can usually zip through a 4 hour broadcast in about an hour and a half. Even then, it's a little too much because my thumb starts to cramp up.

Basketball:
I only watch the NCAA tournament, and that's only to see if the teams I picked in my bracket moved on to the next round. It turns out that I either come in last place, or I look like a genius because I picked Syracuse to go to the final four. Go figure.

Baseball:
Shoot me now. Put me out of my misery. This would be the thing that they would be showing me if I was the hooligan from A Clockwork Orange. I have a feeling that a lot of people will agree with me on this one.

Golf:
Ditto.

Hockey:
I can watch this anytime, anywhere. I'm just so happy that the NHL came back this year. I can't wait until next year.

Soccer:
Here, I'm a typical American. What's so exciting about watching 22 people run around a field for 90 minutes. I made a valiant effort to watch the World Cup this year; I just don't think we're wired to watch that sport.

Bicycling - Tour de France:
Now here's a sport that I can get into. A 3 week battle where the best prepared cyclist with the best team usually wins. I like the drama that this race creates. Don't get me wrong, I still fast forward through most of the flat stages...but I will stop to watch the climbs & sprints and I'm glued to the TV during the time trials.

Tennis:
Yup, I like this one to. I can attribute my fondness for this sport since this is one of the few sports that my father and I watched together.

That said, it's time for me to get caught up on my Wimbledon and Tour de France highlights...