CafeChatNoir

Well, the Tour de France sure got interesting all of a sudden - all cyclists who have been implicated in a Spanish doping probe are OUT for the tour - these are the big names - Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Oscar Sevilla…

Personally, I don’t think this is a bad thing. I think it’s going to bring some good attention to the remaining cyclists who are clean but had been in the shadows up until now.

I realize when this is your livelihood (pro cycling or any other sport), it can lead to taking desperate (and frankly, stupid) measures. But it’s bad for the sport, it’s bad for the fans, and it’s especially bad for aspiring athletes. IMO, it sends a message that you can’t be great without doping or other outside means. I’d rather see athletes that might not be quite as “incredible”, but at least it’s ALL them.

Granted, if caffeine ever becomes a banned substance, I’m screwed. ;) (Cause you know I’m the one the officials at my races are looking at & thinking, “Yeah, she’s juiced up.”)

Off to ride.

You know, had they not shown it on Armed Forces TV when we were overseas, I’d probably have never developed an appreciation for “I Spy” - still an enjoyable bit of escapist entertainment.

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dta/

Tax is still due 10/5, but you don’t have to worry about the stickers anymore!

So, we’re getting bits & pieces of Mike’s IMCdA experience from his girlfriend (I think he’s still in a post race coma.)

The water temp is 60 degrees, and the swim is 2.4 miles long. This is not the time to have a wardrobe malfunction in the form of a busted zipper on your wetsuit, (2 minutes before the swim start) and yet, that is exactly what happened. So, what do you do? You’ve trained for god knows how long, dropped a decent wad of cash on the registration, you’re not injured, dropping out just ain’t in the cards if you can avoid it. You really can’t go without the wetsuit, and swimming w/it unzipped just defeats the purpose.

The answer?

Packing Tape.

I saw pics of it - looked pretty good to me. I wonder if duct tape would have worked as well? Something else to toss in the transition bag, just in case…

Cause I’m in for Colonial Beach on 7/9. 1K OWS in the Potomac, 40K on the bike and a 10K run. Managed to find a room less than 2 miles from the race site this morning so I made my reservations and registered. I will have my Oly done before the beach!

Someone who did the race last year says it’s a good course - longest leg of the swim goes with the current, not too many hills on the bike and the run is flat. Works for me.

Did a 2 mile run today. Well, mostly running. It’s 75 degrees with 95% humidity, so I didn’t push it hard and stuck tight to my run/walk pacing, and I am not dead for it. :) Halfway through I passed a woman hosing out her trashcan in her driveway (No, I don’t know why she couldn’t just leave it out in the rain…) and she apologized for the water running down her driveway and the ensuing puddle. Pointed out to her that I didn’t think I could get any wetter anyway. Rain thankfully kicked in about the last half mile and the thunder held off until I was back in the house.

Dog just came in, shook himself off - right next to the cat. I don’t think I’ve seen Snoopy look quite so offended in a long time.

If you look on the back of a $20 bill, there is an Elm tree to the right of the White House. 140 years old. That tree came down in the storms last night.

OK, so there is Colonial Beach… To go or not to go? I’d have to get a room, the host hotel is already sold out, the nearest is Doc’s Motor Court, so I think I’ll call tomorrow and see if they have any openings - I’d prefer not to be too terribly far away if at all possible, since I can’t tell from the website what the parking situation is like.

If I can get a room, I will do it. It’s only a 1000M swim, which would be much better for me I think. Ernie said he’d give me the lowdown on it since he ran it last year. I think I let the mental games get to me WAY too much for Montclair, sick or not.

Who knows, maybe I can find a swim angel. Or wouldn’t it be a freaking hoot if I was someone else’s swim angel? :)

I need an Oly and I need it sooner rather than later - I don’t want Reston to be the first go at it.

I could still get my regular workouts in, drive down on Saturday morning which is a rest day anyway, and kick ass on Sunday. Even cutting out the taper, the workouts next week wouldn’t be too bad to screw me. Yeah, I think I’ve talked myself into it.
So much for, “You won’t get my ass into the Potomac River…”

88 year old great grandma loves triathlons

She entered her first triathlon in Beloit in 1993 at age 75, joining her son Bruce — who has competed in several triathlons himself — and her granddaughter in a three-generation team. Each one competed in one leg of the race.
…
She entered her first triathlon on her own in 1995. She’s done 10 more since.

So, the weather ticker is showing…

– Flash Flood Statement
– Flash Flood Warning
– Flood Statement
– Flash Flood Watch.

Yeah, we’ve gotten just a little bit of rain lately… I had to rescue a frog from the window well in the basement - I couldn’t just leave him there, and there wasn’t any way he could get back out. Got fairly well soaked for my efforts…

BT’er comment on frog rescue: For someone into guns and military stuff, you’re just a big ol’ mushy bucket o’ love.

OK, so the DC Metro area is about to float away, so if I no longer update, it’s because I am halfway down the Potomac River. Flash floods all weekend, now we have a coastal flood warning for the river, and apparently there are tons of roads underwater around here. Was out running errands earlier and there were definitely some roads that could become impassable at the rate things are going.

The sun also just came out for a while, and there was steam pouring off the wet deck - somewhat disconcerting at first glance.

I’m also not getting any email comments, so it’s taking me a while to go back and find things that were left - so if you’re expecting a response from me, I’m still going through the comment list to see what I missed.

CNBC is talking about Warren Buffet’s $37B gift to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - they’re trying to put that much money into perspective - the one I liked the best was, “It’s a big ol’ truckload of money” :) They’re also talking about how a charitable group deals with such a large donation - first I’d say make sure you actually GET it - there have been a few instances of large donations being pledged and the donors not coming through with what they promised.

So - if you could run your own charitable foundation, to help whoever or whatever you wanted - what would it be? As for me, I think it would end up helping random people/organizations in need - no stated target group, just help where it’s needed.

Mike finished IMCdA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Couple folks think that the swim course ran long today at Montclair. I’m still amazed the whole thing didn’t get flooded out with all the rain we’ve gotten, but I’m happy they didn’t have to cancel it, especially since this was the first year for this one.

There is another Oly on 7/9 in Colonial Beach, still has a lot of slots open - that might become the makeup for today. Shorter swim (1K vs 1 mile) - so, something to think about for the next couple days.

Well, just because I am down for the count today doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a couple other races from a distance. Today is Ironman Coeur d’Alene, and Mike is there, as well as the Buffalo Springs 70.3 (half IM distance) and Bill is racing there. Both of these are part of the Ford Ironman Series, which means they have the athlete tracker on the respective race websites. Making it even easier is that Bill & Mike both have the same race numbers.

They’ve both gotten through the swims and are on the bikes! Bill should be coming in for the run any time now. The IMCdA swim had to have been brutal. 2.4 miles, which isn’t the problem in and of itself, especially if you’ve been training up for it - but the water temps were below 60. That is freaking COLD. And as always, there seems to be a few glitches, given that it is showing Mike out of the water, but no transition time. It will probably show up halfway through the bike leg… (They just finally added the T1 time, so he is for sure out on the bike course.)

Me, I’m heading back to bed. I don’t know what on earth I picked up, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. Haven’t heard back from any of the other folks I know that were racing to hear what the conditions were on the course. I am thinking messy to say the least. I’m disappointed, but I still have another Oly to take a swing at this season, so all is not lost, and there is always next year to give this one a go.

They just posted Bill’s bike split - he’s doing great! Just a half mary to go for him.

Ugh, no racing for me today. Sick as a dog.

Well, seeing as how I need to get up in about 4 hours, I should be getting to bed. Got the required “Oh shit, where is it?” hunt out of the way (couldn’t find my timing chip, it was 6 feet away from where I’ve been sitting all night.) Of course, that didn’t happen until 10:45.

There have been flash floods in PW county (where the race is) and with more rain to come overnight, it may be a challenge just getting there tomorrow morning. Should make for an interesting day if nothing else!

Hit packet pickup this afternoon and I do believe I am ready to go - transition bag is packed up, clothes are laid out for tomorrow, and all I need to do in the morning is get the bike on the car rack & fill the camelbak and water bottles. Drove the bike course, and I like it - some gradual rolling hills, but nothing super painful, and I think it’s going to run fast. (Well, if it’s dry.)

Right now, the only real question is the weather. Weatherunderground is calling for the following…
5AM - 70 degrees, 87% humidity, 90% chance of precipitation, Widespread Thunderstorms, Widespread Light Rain Showers
8AM - 72 degrees, 83% humidity, 90% chance of precipitation, Likely Thunderstorms , Likely Light Rain Showers

Race start is 7AM. If there is lightning, it will become a du and we’ll skip the swim. If it’s really, really bad, then the race will have to be cancelled, which would suck, but better than putting people out on an unsafe course. If we’re lucky, the storms will have run their course by 7.

Looking like the water temp will be under 78 - last reading they took was right at 78. The race directors really want it to be wetsuit legal, and understandably so - there are apparently a lot of first timers (both first tri & first Oly distance) and the wetsuits help SO much on the swim - they don’t want to have to be pulling people out of the water.

I’m going to have to be up gawdawful early, and I need to set some backup alarms, because with the storms coming through tonight (and starting right now), I wouldn’t be surprised if the power cut out again like it did the other night.

Transition opens at 5:30, need to be ready to race by 6:45ish - also there is swim warmup time between 6:20 and 6:35, and that would definitely be a good thing for me. Unfortunately, parking is 1.5 miles from the transition area, so that’s a good 15 minute walk there. (I might ride it, but trying to do that w/a full transition bag may be too unwieldy.) I figure I’m going to have to leave here somewhere around 4:30 - Google maps says it should be a 30 minute drive down there, but it took me closer to an hour today with the traffic…

Fixing your HP printer when support won’t assist you without payment (SFW)

You know, Ann Coulter was never one of my preferred talking heads, little too much frothing at the mouth for my tastes (granted, that’s what they pay her for…)

But between what she’s put out there in the past couple weeks and her appearance on CNBC today, I am thinking she’s just a garden variety nut job that’s managed to get in front of the cameras.

I seem to have introduced crack into the cats diet. Last week I picked up some different cat treats (on sale and they were out of the ones I usually get) and now each time I walk in the kitchen, I have two felines demanding a fix… Beware of Friskies salmon & shrimp treats.

Olie Kolzig gets the King Clancy award from the NHL for humanitarian works, and Ovechkin wins the Calder trophy.

Might not have been the best season we could have asked for, but a nice way to finish it all off.

Well, I think the time has come for a new ISP… Speakeasy has been great, except for the fact that they shouldn’t have sold me this service at this address to begin with last year, and while we had it working decently for a while, it’s degraded quite a bit over the past couple months and there isn’t anything they can do. I’m anywhere between 19,000 and 20,800 feet from the central line/circuit/switch/whatever (depending on what test they run), and you’re not supposed to be more than 18,000 feet from it…

Yesterday they repro’d the line and it seemed to help, but now we’ve got a storm coming through and of course, it’s dead again, and I am currently on a hijacked wireless connection.

So, DSL would seem to be out of the equation since they’re all going to be on the same backbone, so it would be the same problem with a different company.

I’ve poked around on google some tonight, but can’t find a decent directory of broadband providers for the area, all I can think of is cable internet through Cox and fiber optic through Verizon. What other options am I not thinking of?

Edit: Oh, it’s definitely time. I’m running on a hijacked connection with near no signal, and it’s still faster than the DSL was running when it was up…

So, I know two other folks that will be out at Lake Montclair this weekend - Ernie & Tim (daerath). Chippy, who was with us at Virginia Run, will be off at IMCDA cheering on her boyfriend, Stake. (These are the folks I ran with in my first race down at Quantico last fall.)

Chippy dropped a comment in Ernie’s blog: Take care of cindy — *we* all know that she is going to kick ass, but I think she is still a little unsure of that, so make sure she doesn’t freak out to much before the race

It’s good to have folks looking out for you.

OK, so today I got my butt down to Lake Anna for a while to do some open water swimming. Now, it’s been well over 20 years since I actually swam in something other than a pool (not counting floating about at the beach), and it was in the dead of night… Daytime is quite different! At night, your brain doesn’t expect to see anything above or under water and doesn’t care. Daytime? Your brain wants to see…

The water was too warm for a wetsuit - probably over 80, but that’s fine, I was actually comfortable. Now, Lake Anna is more of a boaters/fishers place, so the swimming area isn’t huge, but it’s nice - little beach, snack bar, guarded and cordoned off so you don’t have to worry about getting too far afield from shore. $6 entrance for parking & beach fee.

The swimming area is cordoned off into 3 areas - the “shallow” line runs to about 2 feet, then the next section goes to about 5 feet deep, then there is the “deeper than I am tall” section. I stayed in the middle section, cause I actually felt more comfortable around more people (the back section was totally empty), which surprised me, cause at the pool I want everyone as far away from me as possible.

Getting in the water, first there were little fish - small, maybe 4-5″ long, - very cute little things, bluegill I think. Those didn’t bother me, but the largemouth bass that then wandered by my feet damn near did me in. Once I got past the fish and into deeper waters where I couldn’t see my feet anymore, it was time to attempt swimming, and I had the required open water freakout. Once you go head down, all you can see is green (bright green at least), and my brain basically short circuited and went “OMGWTF, we could just see our feet 30 seconds ago!!” But it did get a little better, I found out I can actually sight (being able to bring your head up and look forward above water to check your location while still moving forward) and spent some time on alternate “head above water” strokes to remind myself I CAN do them if I have to, and flipping over and going along on my back whenever I felt strange.

I don’t feel bad about the open water freakout - pretty much everyone runs into it, I’m just glad I know what it feels like and I have a plan in place to deal with it on Sunday, and I am REALLY glad I made the time to go down there before the race. I made a nice afternoon of it - took lunch, chilled on the little beach and read and worked on my tan sunburn. (Actually I did remember my sunscreen, but I missed a couple spots on my back.) Figure if I do this once a week for the rest of the season, I might actually be semi-comfortable with OWS by the time Reston rolls around in September.

We got an email today w/ a reminder on the wetsuit rules - if the water temps are under 78, it’s totally wetsuit legal. 78-83 is legal, but you’re ineligible for awards. 84 and above - no wetsuits whatsoever. They’re going to be sending something out tomorrow w/the latest lake temps, which makes me think we may be heading towards non-wetsuit legal for the swim. The downside for me of non-wetsuit legal is the loss of the nice additional buoyancy & speed that comes w/a wetsuit. However, the upside is that I would actually not freeze my ass off in the water, and most folks seem to find warm water to be icky, but I find it absolutely lovely.

So, I’ll be VERY interested to see what the temps at Lake Montclair are - granted, it’s tiny compared to Lake Anna, but it’s also over an hour north and doesn’t have a nuclear reactor next door to it.

Interesting thing going into Lake Anna - there is a sign that says, “You are less than 10 miles from the North Anna nuclear facility. In case of an emergency…” and then you can’t read the rest of it, cause that’s the point where your car goes past it, cause the print is too small and it’s too wordy to read quickly - so I just figure the rest is “lean over and kiss your ass goodbye.”

Arm is right as rain today - all is well in my little world. Off to the lake to splash about and try and get used to no visibility…

I’ll admit, I was pulling for Edmonton in the series, and I was THRILLED they managed to make it a 7 game series. But once again. the Cindy kiss of death kicked in, and they couldn’t hold out for that last game. That being said…

– Cam Ward (Carolina goalie) is PHENOMENAL. To be a rookie and thrown into that and maintain the level of composure & skill he did is amazing. Totally earned the Smythe trophy.

– I can’t grudge Carolina the win because they earned it. And, yes, I’m happy they had to fight for it - I’d rather see a team win that had to go 5 to 7 games than a 4 game blowout.

– I still think the empty net is the damn dumbest strategy on the planet. Yeah, I know it supposedly works enough to justify it, but every game I’ve seen with it, you don’t just lose, you REALLY lose.

And watching the Carolina players after they won - well, I couldn’t help but smile - they were SO happy - how can you not smile along with it?

The post-game loser press conference - I hate this in ALL games, regardless of sport or series. They lost - leave them alone for a while, OK? Go bug the winners - they’re in a much better mood!

Dammit, I was doing so well with staying relatively injury free this season. Yesterday, when I was out running, I caught my toe just perfectly on a seam in the sidewalk and went flying. At the time, I couldn’t find anything wrong beyond a couple little scrapes on my hands and my knee, so I got up, dusted myself off and continued. Well, upon waking up this morning, I discovered that I bashed the crap out of the outside of my right arm just below my shoulder. I’ve got full range of motion, and there are no internal grinding noises, so it’s basically just a good hard bruise, but damn it kinda hurts.

So, the debate today is do the workouts, but extra easy, or just give things a rest and pick back up on Wednesday w/the next scheduled workout. (Bike & swim today, both requiring that arm.) DAMMIT, I am pissed.

Edit: Hour ride on the trainer, requires no arms… Swim TBD.