I have a few topics I want to cover today and not much time to put it all together so forgive me if this post jumps around a bit.

First off I want to say Thank You to Toby and Teacher Woman. Your concern for my long term health is appreciated. Honestly if I step outside of myself and look inward I likely would pass on the same advice. But as you might have guessed I will not be heeding your advice. I plan on toeing the line on Saturday and right now I am more worried about the weather then my left ankle. It has continued to improve and hopefully will make more progress over the next 48 hours. The swelling continues to go down and the lovely purple color continues to spread and even out throughout the foot. Looks ugly but no real associated pain. I attached some pictures at the bottom of this post if you care to view the progress.

On a side note here is the picture of downtown Oshkosh as crews from the Film Public Enemies continue to get the intersection ready for the shooting of the Bank Robbery scene. Supposedly Johnny Depp is in town and rumors abound as to where he is staying. Wonder if old Captain Jack is planning on running the Half Saturday morning? Anyway below is a photo of the intersection which interestingly was the original start of the race which the movie shoot required the race director to change.

I guess they are laying fake cobblestone mats today to make all the streets and sidewalks look like cobblestone. To give you the lowdown the building on the right that is just see the corner of, with the group of men on the corner is the building that they are using as the bank, and of course back in the day it was a bank. The rounded building on the corner is presently a coffee house and they have turned it into a restaurant and saloon. The Tan Canopy on there is part of the set, they are putting those on a number of the buildings to give them a 30's look. The picture is taken looking North up Main St. from the roof of the Exclusive Company which is a music store that they have turned into a Walgreens, was there really Walgreens in the 30's? The thing on the left was constructed to screen a Sundial that is in the little park there as it would have been a bit modern for the movie I assume. They built all of that in the past two weeks. The set extends for a block down to the either way up Washington Ave which is the street running left and right in the photo. I am tempted to go watch some of this. I will let you know if I do. They are shooting I guess over the next ten days. It's amazing how worked up this town is over this, almost funny. I will update you over the next ten days if I feel there is anything woth sharing.

So below are the graphic pictures of my ankle's present condition. View at your own risk, and have a great day. That is a long enough post for today.

Well people this little tidbit of information is almost to embarrassing to admit but I am all about the truth so I will give you the dirt. As a bit of background back in my High School football days I severely sprained my left ankle a couple of times and I don't think it has ever been the same stability wise. As I have gotten older I have avoided the sports that lead to me re-injuring it. I no longer play pick up basketball as I generally can't make it through more then like three games before I twist it. So on and so on I constantly worry about my left ankle. In fact I think it will someday be my first limiting factor in endurance sport as I age. We shall see.

Anyway Saturday evening I went to a Bachelor party for a friend. Second marriage, not a big deal but a bunch of 30 and 40 something guys hanging around, beer, food cards. Well when I arrived they were playing a game of Kick Ball, yep you heard me right Kick Ball. With some modified rules of course to aid in a bit of beer consumption. i.e. chug a half a beer at second base before you can advance. So I arrived late and was added to the line up and before I even had my first sip of beer I was up to bat, or kick or whatever you want to call it. So I run up and get a pretty good kick and take two steps and roll my left ankle. Now those of you that have rolled ankles know that pain is always severe at first and then it subsides and you never really know how bad it is. This was the case with this twist. Pain and then it got better and since I am not a wimp I continued on with the game all be it a bit gimpy.

About and hour later when the games ended I checked the ankle and I could see the swelling through my sock, not good. So I put some ice on it and sat down to play some cards. I excused myself early and went home. Well below is what it looked like on Saturday at about noon, after a night and morning of RICE. Now my feet are not pretty, they are kind of like Jeeps ugly but they get you there.  So yea anyway the pictures below are a bit graphic, but they get the point across. I am working on getting the swelling out and getting it feeling better. I am icing as much as I can and doing the cold to hot therapy. I am spelling the alphabet with my big toe. Come **** or high water I plan on running the half next Saturday but it just may not be a PR attempt. I am going to ride on the trainer and swim this week to keep things going and hopefully the blood flow will aid in recovery. Wish me luck and if you have any sage advice feel free to pass it along.

Here is the lovely looking left ankle, isn't she a nice pretty shade of black and blue?

Here is the Right foot, perfectly healthy and wondering what is wrong with lefty.

Foolish man out!

For some reason this is how my training has felt lately. But I guess I will just keep on keeping on, I need a bit of focus. I have hit all my workouts this week although I cut my bike 15 minutes short on Monday and my Run yesterday afternoon was with my Daughter on her new bike. She has a new six speed that we gave her for her birthday. It is her first bike with hand brakes and a shifter so there were stops here and there to show her how to shift down when going up hills and shift up when going down hills. While not the greatest workout I have ever gotten it was wonderful to spend the time with her outside. I spent most of the run just going easy, yakking with C and concentrating very specifically on form and my footstrike.

The weather here is actually beginning to turn almost springlike, there are some 50's in the forecast starting Friday and going into next week with only Sunday looking to be cloudy with some rain. I may even take my bike off the trainer for the first time in I don't even know how long. That is an exciting thought. To do this however I may need to switch my weekend workouts around to Bike Saturday and Run on Sunday.

So A and I watched American Idol last night and I am sorry but Simon is normally a punk, however most times I tend to agree with him. But last night he seemed to be just being a jerk. Although when Dolly Parton is the mentor I can see how it can be a bit boring and frustrating to listen to. I have been watching this show now (DVR's Rock) all season and I think it's pretty obvious the next three gone are Ramiele, Kristi Lee Cook and Syesha, I put Brooke White and Dreadlocks boy in the next tier and then the best four are David Cook, David Archuleta, Michael Johns and Carly Smithson. My predicted winner is David Cook, gone tonight Ramiele. With that said I have no idea why I watch that show, if it was not for DVR and the fact that my wife likes it.....

That is all I have for today, exciting stuff I know.

I was going to be up North on Friday and Saturday of last week skiing with the family and I needed to map out a 10 mile run. Now I could have just done an out and back but i like to run loops, they are just more interesting. Out and backs are great to at times but I was hankering for a loop.

So I went to a site I had looked at before but never used called Map My Run. There are other sites I have used to map runs with and this one seemed no better or no worse. But honestly when I got done mapping out this route I was thinking to myself I am going to get so lost trying to run this thing and was almost resigned to run an out and back. Until I saw one little button that sais save this map as a Garmin route. This is something I had not done before but I thought what the heck I will give it a try. So I download the file to my desktop and uploaded it to my Garmin 305. That was easy enough to do but the question was how would I use it.

Well it took me a bit of trial and error but I figured out how to start the course and started off on my way on Saturday morning. I futzed with the display by pressing the mode button until I came to the map screen. Now don't get to excited here it doesn't show roads or anything like that but it shows the course as a dark line that you can zoom in and out on and you are a little arrow. So as you travel along you approach turns and just follow the course, it was really cool.

And the best part was this random course I mapped out turned out to be a beautiful scenic country road run on a nice sunny morning. It was hilly and beautiful. I was not fast but I was not slow either. I trudged up some massive hills and floated down some meandering downhill sections. I even got off course once as I got lost in things for a minute and missed a turn but the beep of the unit told me I was off course and I just turned around and made the turn. It was a really nice run and I knew when I was done it would be 10 miles and so it was. Well actually a little over 10 miles but I am fine with that.

So here is what the route looked like in one of my favorite programs Google Earth

And here is where I missed my turn

And I ran past this bridge in Ramsey (Photo from Google Earth)

And I ran past Gabbro Falls which are just starting to crank up with the snow melt (Photo from Google Earth)

So yea it was a good day to be alive.

They say life is about small victories and I am going to declare one after my easy 8 miler today. You see I have been working on aerobic base over the winter. And any of us from the North country know how hard it is to make gains over the winter months, especially a winter that was as brutal as this past winter. Like I said today I did an 8 mile run and my goal was for it to be a zone 2 run or under 155 bpm at all times. So allow me illustrate why I am declaring victory over the winter.

Here is a snap shot of a 9 something mile run I did on October 13th of 2007 with a similar plan of running in Zone 2. As you can see if you look over the top line of the chart I averaged 9:24 with an Avg HR of 150.

Fast forward to today March 16th 2008 and here is a snapshot of my run this morning. Note that todays average pace was 8:52 with that exact same 150 bpm Avg Hr.

It is also worth noting that todays run was done in cooler temps however it was on the road and over a course that was full of more rolling hills. The first run was done on the trail which is flat as a pancake and well shaded. Now I don't know where this improved aerobic base will take me as I build towards the racing season but it is nice to declare the winter of 07/08 a success. While maybe you dream of gaining more and making bigger strides. Like I said life is full of little battles and we just need to win the ones we can.

Ok I am going to write here on the Active.Com blog for a while. I like the site except I think the log book is lacking functionality with workout recording products other then Polar. I need to figure out how to write support and see if they can include Garmin and other products.

Yesterday I did a Spinervals workout called Big Gear Strength on the trainer. I feel like it went pretty well, I definitely need to get smoother through the entire pedal stroke but I am definitely getting stronger on the bike. Today is a short run and strength training. With some of these temps lately, running outside is actually becoming an option.

I was thinking about goals for my upcoming A race the Half Iron I am doing at High Cliff. My goal will be to go sub 5:30. Not having raced this distance or this course I am not sure how realistic this is but I think if I work my tail off between now and then and get a good day I have a realistic shot. We shall see.

So now I wonder if anyone reads this, if you do leave a comment. PLEASE. Have a great day.

Well everyone I am thinking of switching to this as my new blog I guess a good place to start would be my latest round of testing in my baseline post in my blogger blog that I am considering getting rid of. So here that is.

Like I have been saying this whole base training mode is well, foreign to me. But even so it has given me quite a bit of focus. I really want to be able to see some measurable gains in my aerobic fitness by the time spring starts to roll around. So to that end I offer you my first set of testing results. My TP virtual coach program has me testing in each cut back week which is once a month. Here is what I was able to output on this first round of testing with a brief description of each test. I still feel like I am weakest on the bike and should focus there to build strength.

Pace while running outside in Aerobic Zone close to but under 155 BPM

9:20/mile

Swimming T Pace Test

This is basically just a 1000 yard race pace effort swim to establish your T-Time.

10/16/07 1000 yards Time 16:41 Pace/100m 1:40

Tempo Run Test

On treadmill (1% Grade) warm up well, then run 1 mile at 10 beats below Zone 5a (for me this is 160 BPM) Cool down.

Completed 1 Mile in 8:27

Bike Graded Exercise Test

On a trainer warm up well, then start at a very slow MPH and build 1 MPH every half mile. Time each half mile and record HR. Go until you can't go any faster. (The Garmin was helpful for this, the bike computer gave me the distance and I just lapped my Garmin every .5 mile)

On this chart I started at 14 mph and did the last half mile at 21mph. I was having trouble keeping it at 21 on the trainer so I stopped after that interval. The chart shows my times vs HR.

So anyway this is a base line for the winter of 07/08 base training lasts until the end of March. I will do another post at that time for comparison. That is all for now.