Celiac Race had 130 entrants

This year's Celiac Awareness 5k Run/Walk in Houston had 130 entrants. The numbers keep improving. See you all next year!

Training going fine. Celiac Run soon...

This morning I was up early and went for a 55 minute walk/run. My knee walks fine now, and I can run on it a bit. I still have a 'hitch in my giddy-yup' as they say, but it irons out more and more as I work on it.

A week ago I was in Wisconsin for a family reunion. I was able to hold the bronze medal one of my relatives won in Beijing. That was inspiring, and it helped me through my 2 1/2 hour workout (mostly walking) there. The cooler weather didn't hurt either.

The Celiac Awareness Run/Walk is coming up soon, soon, soon. I'm looking forward to spreading the word.

Houston Celiac Awareness 5K Run/Walk

I braved the cold and the lines this morning to get the park for the Houston Celiac Awareness 5k Run/Walk today. It will be October 9, 2010. See you there.

Annual Goal Setting today

Usually toward the end of the year, I tend to get a bit contemplative and evaluate my life. The idea is that I just want to make sure my Christian values are lined up with what I am doing on a day to day basis, and that I am doing the things I love.

This year has been quite odd in that the mood struck me much earlier than the usual Christmastime/New Years. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the new job(s). Or it might be that we just came off our family vacations (Disneyworld!). Or that my training is ahead of schedule and I am doing the mileage now that I would normally be doing in December. Or perhaps it is because we successfully completed another Celiac Awareness Run/Walk a few weeks ago.

Whatever the reasons, it is a very good exercise to be clear about what one wants to do and what one does not want to do. I have found it especially useful to have priorities about those "to-do's." The biggest differences between this year and those prior are the sharpness of focus and priorities. I also have fewer specific goals and more goals focused around process. This year, I hope to think (and analyze) less and do more.

Set Celiac Awareness Race Date - Swam yesterday

On the Celiac Awareness front - I reserved Bear Creek for October 25 for the Celiac Awareness Run, so I can start that whole ball rolling again... On a separate note, I was reading an article in a GIG newsletter. The doctor was saying that he encourages his fully healed, asymptomatic patients to think of themselves as "Celiacs, but not having Celiac disease." I think that encapsulates things nicely, so I'll start using that convention going forward.

I must be starting to get the hang of the whole "off season" thing. Last weekend I drove SAG for the bicycle training series I'm taking, and yesterday I swam, which felt pretty good, too. I haven't run in weeks - After a steady diet of workouts for about a year and a half. I'd forgotten how much fun taking some time off can be.

I haven't decided when to start back up with 3 times a week, but I guess my body will let me know when I can't stand not running anymore.

Newsweek story

Newsweek put out a great article about Celiac. You can read about it here. I'm sure glad that some of the major media outlets pick the story up occasionally. The Celiac community is still too small, though. The stories seem so familiar to me because the names are all repeats, but I guess that's a good thing. Advertisers will tell you - repetition works.

I had another blasted hot and humid workout today. Eleven days to go before the big race. At this point, I'm looking forward to the vacation.

First workout since the race

Having successfully directed my first race, I can now say with confidence that practically everything does happen in the last two weeks. As a consequence, all of my free time, including that for exercising, went to the Celiac Awareness Race (so it was for a good cause). I finally squeezed out 30 minutes for a run today. Ahhhhhh.

The only thing that really marred the weekend for me was that I dropped a picnic table on my big toe, which has been turning some rather unlovely shades of blue, black and purple. It's my first black toe from a running event, and somehow I always thought it would be a marathon and not this. Oh well. It didn't hurt too bad for the run, but it sure does bleed everywhere. Maybe I'll stick to cycling and swimming.

Any bets on if it will fall off?

MS 150 ride was fun

What a crazy two weeks this has been. Work was busier than usual, and then I had "getting the race going" issues. Finally, there was all the logistics of pulling together my food (oh yes, and cycling equipment) for the ride. All of this consumed an insane amount of time in the two weeks prior to the ride this past weekend, and I found myself skipping a workout here and there and still going to bed way later than usual or desired.

I over packed for my food needs (I had packed a whole cooler for the weekend). I probably over - worried it as well. About a week before the ride, I discovered that my magic weight loss shakes were probably cross-contaminated with wheat (made on a line in the same room as another powder that contained wheat). I've reverted to "safe" foods, but it messed up my food schedule/plan. Overall, I probably spent as much time pulling my logistics act together as I did actually riding, which always seems like a silly allocation of time to me.

The bicycling went well. I was trained up and ready to roll. The first day I did a good amount of riding behind (never in front of) some "Cat 2" riders. Although I was well over my target heart rate and lost my sunglasses trying to keep up, I did manage to hang until the slight hills before the first lunch break. I figured it would be good training to "ride tired" for the last half. I over ate, thinking "lunch" meant noon. It wasn't even 10 yet, so I felt very full for the remainder of the ride. I pulled into LaGrange after 6 hours and 100+ miles (with significant drafting and a strong tailwind), so I think I need to be in better shape by September if this Ironman is going to be successful (with cushion and confidence). Good thing I have another five months to train.

To see what the start of the marathon might feel like, I went out for a 5k run after changing into running shorts. I needed to start slower out of 'transition,' but the rest of the run went well. Why my teammates called me "nuts" I have no idea...

The ride had been very crowded for the most part, but the next day I had a taste of what the Ironman biking portion might be like. We went through a park with some hills and a wider road where it thinned out. I frequently found myself on my lowest chainring, but never 'beat' by the terrain. I did drop my chain twice, which was very annoying and greasy. I mostly flew through it, being passed by relatively few riders and maintaining some momentum from hill to hill. It was the best part of the ride by far.

Last night was the first time I felt like exercising since Sunday. I was wicked-tired (post-ride listlessness and work, again), so I went to bed early and got 8+ hours sleep. I feel pretty good today.

The week is looking up...

I just got back from my talk to the running group at the Y. I was told I was not boring, so that makes me feel better. I didn't tell them I had moved my workout to the afternoon, but I talked about safety, the perils of over training, how to stick with it and the like.

I've had a string of early morning conference calls followed by late night questions, so I've really worked a lot already this week. I even had to skip last night's swim workout.

That's good news, because today I finally received the insurance waiver for the Celiac Awareness Run/Walk I'll be holding in Bear Creek on May 19th. I'm sure I've missed a bunch of advertising deadlines, but I am looking forward to putting it together. Now if I could just finish my taxes...

There's nothing really noteworthy about the workouts, they all seem to go pretty well. I've discovered that lubing my chain every third ride or so works wonders for the clattering. I'm sold on that.

Good Celiac PR + working out

I had a meeting with the group putting on the Austin Celiac Awareness race and someone said I was "famous." Evidently, I showed up in her Google tracker as a "runner story" for the Houston Marathon. It just makes me think again how small is the US Celiac world. It's good PR for Celiac Awareness, for sure!

This past week I needed a lot of medical attention, the sum of which is, "We can't tell you if you broke a rib or not." OK. Helpful. I can feel myself getting stronger, so either the rib is broken and it's no big deal, or it's not and it's no big deal. So I won't do anything risky, but I am doing my workouts.

Saturday (yesterday) was one of those days that just doesn't go right. I was helping my wife and told her I was going to lay down for a minute, and three hours later she was reminding me to take the boy to his Discovery Imagination meeting. I needed the sleep, but it was prime workout time.

Because I had family commitments, I decided to double up the workouts today. Now, before anyone goes nuts on me for over training, tomorrow's a rest day, so back off. It only totaled up to 90 minutes, anyway.