Where Sokolovics (arrived 2004 CE) co-exist peacefully with stromatolite fossils (deposited ~400e6 BCE)
Last weekend (yeah, just catching up) we spent Father’s Day with Nanny and Poppy at the trailer. They boys fished…
… and swam…
… and we celebrated Nanny’s birthday:
Later that week, Thomas had his last day of Kindergarten, with the traditional on-stage celebration:
More images in the gallery for Russell Brook and Thomas’ last day of kindergarten can be found starting here and here.
Mon: 4.76 mi run
Tue: 20 mi bike
Wed: 40 min run with 4×400 on the track (1:34, 1:35, 1:32, 1:28)
Thu: 10 minute bike (it started raining), stretching
Fri: 1500yd swim in the pool (felt AWFUL – need to get in the pool more) followed by 3 mile run (NEW SHOES!!!)
Sat: 40 mile bike ride, 14.5 mph average
Sun: 7 mile run at Emmy’s (8:10 pace)
Saturday was a beautiful day for a race. It was warm, but not too warm, and all in all I’m pretty happy with the results. From what I could tell, the courses for the half mile swim, 20K bike, and 5K run were pretty much the same as they were in 2006, when I raced in my very first triathlon at Green Lakes. Here’s how things stacked up:
Swim
2006 – 14:31 (1:39 / 100 yds)
2010 – 13:13 (1:30 / 100 yds)
I’m dubious about my ability to swim 1:30 100’s, so my guess is that the course is a little shorter than they think it is. Still, I came out of the water earlier in the pack than usual, and I WILL take credit for that.
T1
2006 – 3:23
2010 – 2:06
In 2006, I had a wetsuit a friend handed me literally 20 minutes before the race, and it was my first time wearing one. Needless to say, it took me some time to get out of it. Even though I took over a minute off that time, my time this year was one of the slowest out there. What can I say? I’m a really slow T1 guy.
Bike
2006 – 40:04 (18.6mph)
2010 – 38:54 (19.1mph)
A good day on the bike, especially given our limited bike workouts. Can’t complain about this one.
T2
2006 – 0:38
2010 – 1:23
In 2006, I didn’t have bike shoes, so I jumped off the bike and started running. This year I had to take off the bike shoes and put on the running shoes. A little slow but not terrible.
Run
2006 – 22:35 (7:17 / mile)
2010 – 23:02 (7:26 / mile)
Slower than 2006, but still good. Ran with Dan most of the way, who caught me about a half mile into the run. The bottom line is that we treated this race like a tough workout, nice and steady, and stuck with that plan. I was on the road running again yesterday, so I’m happy to have run a decent 5K at the end of the race and come back two days later with a good, hard workout.
Overall time
2006 – 1:21:11
2010 – 1:18:38
I’ll take it, but time to get on that bike and crank out some miles.
Tomorrow is the sprint tri at Green Lakes State Park. This is the first triathlon I ever did back in 2006. My prediction: despite the years of additional training, my performance will be similar to that of 4 years ago. Factors contributing to this prediction:
1) This is a B-race: a tune-up, check-in, milestone to keep me motivated, etc.
2) Missed some workouts due to illness
3) I’m generally not a good athlete
I won’t attempt to weight these three factors 
Below the cut is a workout log for the past 6 weeks. Later.
Continue reading →
Hear him roar!
See him cut!
Spike recently chose a new shell! Here he is taking a bath.
And Daniel won a goldfish in his class at school. The fish’s name: Goldie. Yep.
Well, now we know why we hear all that chirping while we sit at the computer in the guest room, which is right behind this bird’s new home.
World’s Best Mom with Her Boys:
It did this last night:
Crazy. Glad we didn’t plant anything in the vegetable garden yet. The kids had fun though:
And later in the day, we went to the Brae Loch for brunch with Nanny and Poppy:
A few more images can be found in the gallery.
Kicked off the season today with a 10-mile road race, the Mountain Goat in Syracuse. Dan and I signed up for the Ironman 70.3 Syracuse in September, and we used the Goat to motivate us into generating a good running base early in the season.
We had a rather modest goal of beating 90 minutes, and we both hit the mark, with time to spare. I finished in 82:45 (about 8:17 per mile) and Dan was right behind me at 85:42 (about 8:34 per mile). We ran together for the first 7 miles or so. The hills at the end are rough. They don’t call it the Mountain Goat for nothing.
I think the sun also came a few thousand kilometers closer to the earth during the last three miles of the run, because it was hotter’n blazes.
Dan and I used a 6-week training plan for a half-marathon (13.1 miles) that Dan found in Runner’s World, slightly modified to accommodate the shorter distance. (Details are below the cut on this post.)
Next up on our way to the half-iron: Dan has a sprint tri in Connecticut in a few weeks, and then we both have Green Lakes towards the end of June.
Time to step up the bike mileage!
Thomas got his yellow belt yesterday, and we celebrated the “graduation” with ice cream at Kimberly’s.
Today, Daniel had second baseball game. I caught Thomas downing a hot dog, Daniel beating the throw to home plate, and Daniel getting a hit later in the game:
