OK this is my test since I've never written a blog before. My prior posts were actually emailed to Nate and he published them for me so here goes:
Training is going pretty well. I think I'm a little behind last summer at this time due to a strained ab muscle and a few other things but I'm feeling good now and hoping I can have a good fall. I did intervals yesterday with my new heart rate monitor - yes, I guess I am a technology resistor - and was surprised that I could not get my HR above 170. I'm either a wimp or I have a low max HR. Regardless, I figured that today should be a recovery day. I lifted weights in the AM and this afternoon went out for a relaxing skate in North Oaks, throwing in a couple of pick ups. During one fast pickup on the flats I flushed an owl. A big one. As I watched it take flight right in front of me I noticed a snake dangling from it's beak. Most of my memorable wildlife sightings are great all around experiences but this one left me with a puzzling combination of awe and eww.

Vacation last week, time trial yesterday

One of the nicest parts of being a professional student is the breaks. This August I got what will probably be the last month long break until I retire (wow... sad). I am making pretty good use of my time. I'm working on finding a job for when I graduate next spring (anyone want to hire a dentist?), studying a bit for board exams, and getting in some good training. Nichole actually has a job, but she took last week off and we went up north for some "relaxation". Most of our vacations consist of some form of beating our bodies, and this year we decided to have a go at backpacking. I have a bit of experience backpacking, having been on a number of such trips during my boy scout days, but Nichole had never experienced the joys of carrying everything you need to survive on your back while hiking from place to place. Although our plan had been to camp for 3 days, by day two we had decided that backpacking was too slow, and that cars had been invented for a reason. So we got ourselves out to a road, ditched our packs in the woods, and did what we are more comfortable doing on vacation -run (all the way to our car). We picked up our packs, drove to the next state park, took some pics at the waterfalls, and then drove to my parent's cabin near Hayward, WI. It was a great decision. We spent the rest of the week running, kayaking, and rollerskiing around Hayward (I had a black bear cross the road in front of me when I was out rollerskiing. That was a first!). It was my first 15+ hour week of training since last year's summer vacation with Nichole :)

Nichole saying "what am I doing out here?"

Feeling much better after the run back to the car (and the pack off).

Lesson of trip: exploring without backpacks > exploring with backpacks.

Overall my training has been going very well. This has been my best summer ever - even better than my summers during college. My goal at the beginning of the year was to train one hour a week more that what I had done the year before, and so far 26 weeks into the training year I am already 42 hours ahead of last year. A lot of that has been on rollerskis (I have nearly doubled my hours on rollerskis this year compared to last year), but I have also increased my running (100 miles more this year than this point last year).

Hopefully the training will show up in the ski races this winter, but it already has been showing in running races this summer (my PR in the half marathon has come down 2 minutes), and our rollerski time trials this summer. Yesterday was our second Afton 2 x 5k time trail. It is 5k skate followed by ~20 minutes of recovery followed by a 5k classic time trial. We do this 2 or 3 times a summer, and it allows for pretty good comparison from year to year and at different points in the season. Yesterday I did not feel really great in either the skate or the classic, but I did feel strong. My times were really fast. I set new personal bests in both skate and classic by almost 30 seconds (and I have done this course a number of times over the last couple of years). Conditions were ideal yesterday, so that was probably worth a couple of seconds, but it is a good indication that I am in much better shape than I have been at any point in the last 2 years. Bring on the snow!

I should have full results from the TT later today.

First Post

Hi all,

I'm new to the group, and since I have to be out of state this summer (unfortunately), I thought I should post something so I'm not totally forgotten so soon after I met most of you...

Summer has been hectic...here's a summary: I was married on May 23rd in Minneapolis, and then left for 10 days in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Less than a week after I returned to Minneapolis, I left for 10 days in Japan. I presented a paper at a circuit design conference, but figured as long as I'd be half way around the world, I really had to spend some time touring. Less than a week after I got back from Japan, I moved to Austin, TX for a few months to do another internship with IBM Research. I'm about ready to finish my PhD in CMOS circuit design at the U of MN, but it's not a great time to be looking for jobs, so I'm kind of waiting out the worst part of the recession before finishing up. Therefore, coming back to Austin (for my 3rd stint here) provided me with a chance to get some more experience and earn a decent paycheck for awhile.

The summer in Austin is always a killer, but this summer has been one of their worst ever. The high temp has been over 100 almost every day since I arrived at the end of June. And, no, it's NOT a dry heat. So although the temps "cool down" to a little under 80F in the early morning, the humidity is usually ~80%. There is no choice but to deal with this if you want to run or rollerski outdoors, so we just get used to it and accept that paces won't be quite as fast.

Although some weekend traveling has interrupted my training schedule a couple times, here is a normal week for me now:

M: 11-12 mile run, lift
Tu: 11-12 mile run with 30 min tempo (~5:30 pace), lift
W: 1:10-1:20 rollerski
Th: 10 mile run with speed work (track or fartlek), lift
F: 11-13 mile run, lift
Sa: 15+ mile run
Su: long-ish rollerski (hope to be getting this to 2.5+ hours soon)

Hope you are all enjoying the cool weather up north!

John

ps. here are some pics from my travels:

The new wife (Sarah) and I in Mexico.

Sensōji Temple in Asakusa. It's a Buddhist temple, and Tokyo's oldest. In this picture you actually see the Kaminarimon, or “Thunder Gate". The temple is behind that.

Train when you can

So this is finals week for me. Hopefully, the last finals week of my life. (I just think back to how many tests and exams I have taken over the last 26 years and cringe). But as with most finals weeks, my training has taken a bit of a hit. I have a final early in the morning on Mon, Tues and Wed mornings, but I will still be in the clinic after that until 4pm, leaving little time to both study and get a workout of any substance.

My plan for yesterday was to try and get a short run in once I got home just to clear my head before I started studying for this morning's TMD/orofacial pain exam. All was going to plan when at the Franklin Ave light rail station (I ride the train to a park-and-ride every day) it was announced that the train would be going no further. Apparently there had been a crash further down the line. When this happens buses come and shuttle people to the next stops, but there are thousands of people that take the train, and the people around me were mumbling that the last time this happened the buses never really showed up. So I decided that I should at least start moving towards my car, since walking put me closer to home than standing waiting for a bus that I did not know if it would ever show. When I got to Lake street I could see a news chopper hovering over the next station. I figured that that is where the crash was, and about this time I also figured I should really try to use my time wisely and double-task. So I cinched up my back pack and started to run. I am sure I got some strange looks from the cars on 55 as I ran along with my backpack and lunch pail, but because of the crash I was actually going faster than they were. The crash site its self was pretty bad. I guess some guy decided to try and drive around the crossing arms and drove right in front of an oncoming train (really, how stupid can you be?). I just kept on running to the next station, and since I was now on the opposite side of the crash, I was able to catch a bus to my car. All total I got 20 minutes of running in, and although that really is not much to write home about, what I have learned is that 20 minutes is better that nothing (a point that Chad Giese drove home earlier this year in talking about his transition to full time job with a young kid), and that fitting in little extra workouts can add up. Its why I do push ups in the morning while waiting for my oatmeal to cook in the microwave, or do pull ups every time I go down to my basement. If I can't always block out big chunks of time to train, I just train when I can.