Well, I wanted to finish the month on a positive note, not that it's been a bad month. Actually, looking at the totals, I've been on a steady improvement since January and the weather has obviously played a big factor. I wanted to see how I'd do running a half-marathon. The reason is that the Vancouver Marathon is on May 7th and I've been thinking about competing in it ever since I ran the Seattle Marathon back in November but have been unsure whether or not I could do it due to my knee problem.

Well today I think proved that I can do it. I ran a 7:35 pace without too much effort although I seriously doubt I could have done it again to make it a full marathon. That's OK though, the marathon is still 36 days away so I have plenty of time to train. But, I am satisfied with the shape I'm in at this point and the biking must be helping a lot.

The route today was an extended Elliot Bay run with an extension to the marina heading north and to the waterfront heading south.

Total: 13.1mi Run (7:35min/mi pace); 1546 cal.; 141 lb.

The spin class today was great again. The teacher is in his mid-40s I'd guess but in great shape, probably better than I am. We did a mixture of up-hills and sprints. The last 15 minutes of the hour workout were very tough and I left a huge puddle again. My face gets quite red when I put in a big effort (in any sport) and the temperature is hot, but I notice that it's really red after each spin class. I think one of the problems why I'm so winded after each class is that there's not enough air flow in the class. It's basically a rectangular-shaped room with one small door. There are windows there but they're never open. I might ask the teacher next time if we can open them. The objection to the request might be that the windows are closed and opaque to prevent on-lookers from the sidewalk and street.

Total: 15mi Bike Ride

Climbing Rocks

Today was the last climbing class. We didn't learn anything new today--we just focused on boulder climbs. I managed to finish a V0 (2nd easiest ranking) and was very close to finishing a V1 (3rd easiest ranking). Our instructor is unbelievable--everything he does looks so easy. He's about 5'9" and pretty lightweight. The most important thing I've learned during the class is that climbing is not about just strength. There are much more beefier guys than him at the gym who can't compete with him because he has much better technique and that's what really counts when trying to go up a difficult cliff.

I also finished, but just barely, a couple of 5.8 rope climbs. My membership at the gym is only valid for 2 more weeks. I'll probably go a couple more times but I don't think I'll buy a membership because I want to focus on running and cycling. I can still go there anytime and buy a day pass...

And one more thing: the students and the instructor went out for a few beers after the class. One woman in the class said that it's the only activity she knows where her mind is completely focused on climbing and nothing else. I agree with her. During each of the 2-hour classes in the past month, I didn't think about anything else except just doing the climbs, or belaying someone, or watching others climb. The mind was totally focused and I had a great time ever single time I went (I can't say the same thing about biking or running; that is, my mind does sometimes wander about, but that's not necessairly a bad thing). Now that I think about it, maybe I should get a membership :-)

[Backdated on 03/29/2006]

I tried a new run today that goes straight through Queen Anne (a neighborhood in Seattle) up Queen Anne Ave.--it's a very steep climb that goes up about 300 feet in 5 blocks. But once you're up the hill, the rest of the run is very easy. There are some nice views of Ballard (I think) as the elevation starts to drop towards Fremont on the north end of the map on the left.

This was one of the latest runs I've ever done, I didn't start 'til about 7:30pm. It was a very different experience to run in the dark and I have to say I like it. I would probably enjoy it even more if it was very early in the morning because the traffic was still moderate today. But, it was still a bit of a surreal experience.

My GPS device didn't start picking up the satellite signal 'til about .5 or .75 miles into the run.

BTW, I made a couple changes to the blog: under the section "Cool Stuff I Use", I previously had the Garmin 301 Forerunner and the iPod Shuffle listed. I don't have the 301, I have the 201. The reason I had the 301 there is because it was the newest model if anyone reading the blog was interested in buying it. The best Garmin GPS running/cycling device to buy today is the Forerunner 305, which is now listed under "Cool Stuff I Want". My iPod Shuffle broke a while back and I've since been using the Nano. For anyone out there running with any kind of iPod, make sure you buy an additional waterproof cover for it; otherwise, your sweat will most likely eat into it and break it down (Apple will not give you a replacement).

Total: ~5.25mi Run

I went climbing with a friend to Stone Gardens today for a couple of hours. The wrists started to hurt after a pretty short time, but I was able to climb a 5.7. I tried another 5.7 and a 5.8 but couldn't finish them. It was fun.

[Backdated on 03/27/2006]

I wish I had my camera or cell phone with me this afternoon to take a picture of Elliot Bay right before sunset. The view was spectacular with the sun shining brightly through a few dark clouds. To make up for it, I put my the GPS data of my run into Google Earth and took a snapshot of my screen. The direction of the view is south with Mt. Rainier showing in the background, which I would normally see on a clear day when running in the same direction as in the picture.

I felt great and ran at just above a 7 minute pace on average throughout the 10K+.

Total: 6.50mi Run; 142 lb.; 691 cal.

It's been a while since I went running outside. I ran by Elliot Bay in shorts and a T-shirt as it was 60 degrees. I forgot to take the knee brace but it felt pretty good; still, I know it's not at a 100%. For now, I plan on continuing to run every few days.

Total: 4.6mi Run

It was raining this afternoon so I went to spin class. I was drenched again by the end of the class. Today's session was focused on endurance training and consisted of a 45-minute climb without pause, with about 20 minutes out of the saddle.

Total: 15mi Bike Ride (spin class); 143 lb.

I had a great time again at the climbing class. Today we learned how to undertow, which is holding the bottom of a cliff with palms turned up. We also learned how to climb up when two cliffs that are perpendicular to each other have a narrow vertical gap running vertically up the cliff. It's pretty difficult and is probably comparable to climbing up a palm without using any rope, the difference being that much more stress is put on the wrists when doing it up a cliff.

[Backdated on 03/22/2006]

I tried a different cycling route: instead of going straight through Elliot Bay to Discovery Park by the railroad tracks, I went up Magnolia Bridge and continued to Discovery Park via Magnolia Blvd. The bridge up to Magnolia is quite steep and I was out of my seat almost the whole way up. This route is more challenging than the one I've been doing in the past and so I'll probably do it more often in the future.

It was sunny and in the upper 50s today so I wore a short-sleeve cycling shirt for the first time this year. A perfect day to start spring! I took this picture on my cell phone when I was on Magnolia Blvd. facing west with a view of Puget Sound at about a 250 feet elevation.






Total: 15.1mi Bike Ride; 628 cal.; 145 lb.

Tonight I went climbing to Stone Gardens with a colleague from the class I'm taking. We practiced climbing up some 5.5s, 5.6s, and 5.7s. For experienced climbers these are very easy climbs, but I couldn't finish two 5.7s I tried because my wrists got tired very quickly. Brute strength does not make a good climber; rather, technique and flexibility are much more important. I think it also helps to be relatively tall and thin.

I had a very good time. What I really like about climbing is that your mind becomes totally immersed in making the next move(s) and it's challenging--similar to playing chess but a bit more physical. :-)

[Backdated on 03/19/2006]

I did a nice little afternoon run by Seward Park with a friend today. We ran a slow pace.

Total: 2.41mi Run

That's what I did today at the gym. The run was 5K with a medium/hard tempo. By the time I got downstairs where the spin room is, the class had already started. I changed in to cycling shorts, filled my water bottle, put on my SPD-compatible Pearl Izumi shoes, and then got on the bike a few minutes into the class. It ended up being very, very difficult. Definitely makes the top 5 in terms of difficulty. Lots of climbs and sprints. During one sprint my right calf 'locked-up' and I had to get off the bike for a couple of minutes to stretch it out. It was better later on and should be OK by tomorrow or the next day. Overall, an awesome workout! Maybe I can add swimming to the repertoire in the future (no pool at the gym though)?

Total: 5k Run (treadmill) + 15mi Bike Ride (spin class)

Climbing class tonight. I've been looking forward to it since last week and it was very fun again. The instructor tought us some stepping moves--how to move side to side with the least resistance. He's very good and when he traverses a wall he looks like a spider or a monkey, depending on the move he makes. The moral of the story must be that when a climber looks like a spider or a monkey he/she must be a good climber because monkey and spiders are good climbers :-)

[Backdated on 03/15/2006]

A hard workout at the gym: spin class. I've never been to it on a Monday because it starts at 6pm, which is sometimes too early for me because of work. As the instructor told us today, the workout is as hard as you want to make it. I pushed hard and was drenched by the end of the hour.

Total: 15mi Bike Ride (spin class); 143 lb.

This is a close-up of the south end of the Lake Washington loop.

I decided to try to ride around Lake Washington, much as I've done before, but this time I wanted to do the full loop--continue on South to Renton where the south part of the lake ends and then head back north on the west side to Seattle.



Prior to leaving I pumped my tires up to 80PSI--turned out the pressure was at about 40. I started out fast and was going at about 19.5mph for most of the the time on the flat parts of the Burke-Gilman Trail. The weather was nice--sunny and 48 at 3pm. I was feeling good but decided to stop at a park in Kirkland on the NW side of Lake Washington to eat a cereal bar and get some water. The water was shut-off for the winter unfortunately. I stayed about 5 minutes. About 28 miles in around the I-90 junction where I usually turn west to Seattle I was feeling a bit tired. By the time I got to Renton it was getting slightly dark and very chilly and so I decided to stop at a gas station on the SW corner of the lake by Renton Airport. I ate a corn dog and a doughnut, and drank a hot tea :-). Great combination I know, but it worked. It was probably only in the upper 30s when I left and completely dark but I brought a front and back light so no problem there. The cold was getting to me, but I enjoyed it in the sense that it was a challenge to make it back, and I had a beautiful view of the lake with a full moon north of Seward Park about 10 miles from home. The road (Lake Washington Blvd.) at that point has no lights, so the view was spectacular. Next time I'll wear something warmer. I knew it would get cold later, but it was too hot to start out in tights. What I should have done is bring leg warmers (which I have to buy first) and stuck them in the back of my long-sleeve shirt. Toe-warmers and full-length gloves would have helped too...

So, a great ride! I'm looking forward to doing it again in the near future. The total time on my Forunner was 3:31:49, but it took me about 50-55 minutes longer because of stops (I have the device set to auto-stop when the speed is less than 4mph).

BTW, this is another Google map created by GPSVisualizer.com. I've tried to make the map interactive, just like you can on Google, but have been enable to get the code to work. I think that's because you can't use certain scripts on Blogger. But, here is a link to an interactive map of the area without the track of today's bike ride.

Total: 54.1mi Bike Ride; 1999 cal.

Ran Elliot Bay today. I felt good so decided to go for 10k. Iced down again afterwards.

Total: 6.34mi Run

I wanted to try another cycling route today--I think a little variety to my routine will do me good. So, I looked at the King County bike map (which includes Seattle) and decided on Lake Sammamish, which you is the eastern-most lake on the North Region side of the picture. From the map, it looked like the whole lake was surrounded by a road with a bike lane, which is pretty much necessary for a longer ride in a big metropolitan area.

I found a parking space on the west side of the
lake. I started heading south because the northbound side doesn't have a bike lane on this side of the lake. There was traffic, but it wasn't that heavy. Still, a few pickup trucks passed by that really fouled the air. It actually happens pretty often on most of my rides and it's the pick-up truck that's usually the culprit (not so much the SUV). So guess what? I'm starting to hate pick-up trucks. What's amusing is that very rarely do you see any cargo on the truck bed!

Anyway, as you head south on the west side, you can get a good view of the entire lake and some of the low-elevation Cascasde mountains. But you can't really see the ones further away to the west with snow on them. The traffic picked up on the south side. As I started riding on the east side of the lake, which also had lots of cars going by, it started raining ice! No kidding. I wasn't expecting it, but it is always a few degrees colder only a few miles to the east of Seattle. Fortunately it didn't rain too long and the ice was the size of regular rain drops so I don't think it qualifies as hail (?). Actually it wasn't bothering me much because it wasn't that hard and I had gloves on. If it had continued raining, my only concern would have been the condition of the road.

On the north side there's Marymoor Park. It has some soccer and baseball fields as well as some trails. Some of the park close to the lake has marshes, which I only remembered after I saw a heron calmly standing on a field of grass right next to the road! It wasn't a major road--it was part of the park, but I was still amazed because there were cars driving through. I turned around and stopped about 30 feet from it to take a picture with my cell phone, but it flew away as I was about to get the phone out of the pack under the bike seat.

Back on the west side of the lake heading south, the traffic was lighter again. It was a decent ride, but it's one of my favorites because of the car traffic.

Total: 22.5mi Bike Ride; 144 lb.

Climbing?

Yes, I think I like it :-). A good friend of mine told me about this climbing class at Stone Gardens, which is an indoor climbing gym in the Ballard section of Seattle. Now we're taking the class together and it is really, really fun! Yesterday we had a beginner's technical class that actually took over two hours. The steps and procedures involved in climbing are not very difficult, but it takes a while to get the hang of it. Foremost, you really have to follow safety steps prior to each climb. By the end of the class we got the basics down, which included tying a rope to a harness, conducting a safety check, practicing commands such as "belay on" and "climbing", and belaying, which means pulling and holding the other end of the rope that your partner--who is doing the climbing--has. All that was left was to climb and we did a couple of runs on some easy climbs.

Today we learned some basic climbing techniques (such as how to place your feet) and then we climbed for about 2 hours and it was really fun again. I tried some more difficult climbs, including a 5.7 (that's the difficulty rating) that I couldn't finish. One soon learns that when climbing vertically, the hands get tired very quickly.

The class is once every week for the next month so I'm very excited. Additionally, I can stop by at the gym anytime to climb this time period, and I think I'll take advantage of it.

[Backdated on 03/10/2006]

It was 5:30 in the afternoon and I was bored so I confirmed that the gym closes at 7pm on weekends. It took me a while to find the knee brace--it was camouflaged on the handlebar of my bike.

I jogged there, quickly stretched, and ran 5k on the treadmill. I ran at a pretty quick pace which included .75 miles at 9mph (6:39min./mi.). I'm icing down right now...

Total: 5k (3.1mi) Run

Went for a run along Elliot Bay again because it's warm and sunny; I probably would have gone to the gym otherwise. Felt good even though I forgot the knee brace.

Total: 4.55mi Run

It was another nice day today and even less windy so I couldn't forego the chance to go biking on Bainbridge Island (the background is on Google Maps format!) :-). It's been a while -- I think the last ride was sometime in October. I'm not sure if I explained it the last couple of times after riding there, but the route around the island is really, really awesome! The reasons are: almost no traffic (thus very quiet); beautiful scenery of the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, and downtown Seattle; a challenging route (if you follow the "Chilly Hilly" route); and a glimpse of a bald eagle or two once in a while.

I started out pretty fast but soon found myself struggling up the hills. I made it very slowly up baker hill which is probably a 400 foot climb at around a 7% slope. At this point I was at Battle Point State Park which is approximately 14 or so miles from the start. I rested there for 5 minutes, drank water and ate a Power Gel energy liquid.

I recovered somewhat but was really struggling up a few more steep hills (I almost didn't make it up two hills). As you can see from the elevation profile generated by the Garmin Forerunner Logbook, this is not a flat ride! I'm still trying to find a way to calculate the total elevation climb from the data, but I think I read somewhere that this route has about 2500 or 2800 feet.

So while I was feeling very weak for some reason--maybe just a bad day--I also started to think about how much easier it would have been with a new bike that has more gears. My bike, a circa 1980 Volkscycle Mark 100 has a 5-piece cassette in the back and two chainrings in the front: only 10 gears total! The shifting on this bike is pretty smooth because it has Shimano Dura-Ace components but it's somewhat on the heavier side because of its steel frame. All new road bikes with top-of-the-line components come with either 9 or 10 gears in the front and two or three in the front for a total of between 18-30 gears. Those extra gears would really have been helpful here. So perhaps I should start to thinking about getting a new bike sometime in the next few months...

I finished the ride in 2 hours and 12 minutes. That doesn't include the stop at the park plus two more to look at the map (GPS stops when speed is less than 4mph), so this wasn't a great ride in terms of speed. While waiting for the 30-minute ferry ride back to Seattle, I drank a hot tea and eat a humongous cookie. By the time I stepped off the ferry and rode the final 1.5 miles back home, I had fully recovered. :-)

Total: ~36.0mi Bike Ride (33.0 on BI + 3.0 to/from ferry); 1200 cal.

[Backdated on 03/04/2006]

Looks like Febuary was a better month than January. I think I'm slowly coming out of winter hibernation...

A nice day today for an outside run--Elliot Bay this time.

Total: 3.99mi Run