Sandi & David's Team in Training Blog

Finished Century Ride #2

2009-11-17T20:59:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I finished a century (100-mile) bike ride in Solvang with Team in Training. It's a tradition to carry the names of people we're riding in honor of, and I had several family and friend names with me.

The ride started out easy but in the end was pretty hard compared to my first century ride around Lake Tahoe in June. There were three big climbs with the latter two coming at 68 and 85 miles, when we were already tired. I was a Team in Training Mentor for this event, and one of the things we teach participants is that no matter how hard the endurance event can get, it's always going to be easier than fighting blood cancer. And that's what I kept reminding myself of as I crept up Drum Canyon at a snail's pace!

We made it, and here's a picture of me and a couple of my riding buddies at the finish line. You can't see in the picture how much my butt hurt. :-)

I'm ready for another TNT Century Ride

2009-11-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

While not blogging (it's been way too long since I posted last), I've been a non-fundraising mentor in Team In Training's fall season. This Saturday is our event, 100 miles of cycling at Solvang's Finest Century. We have fewer participants in the fall than we had for Tahoe in the spring, but their enthusiasm for the cause and for their first 100 mile bike ride is no less.

I'm a lot more comfortable with riding since Tahoe, thank goodness. I felt pretty good on our 80-mile training ride. I'll post an update after the event. And I will finally get my Thank You letters out to those who sponsored me for the Tahoe ride (two events for the price of one!).

50 miles? No problem!

2009-05-22T22:03:00.001-07:00

You know, with Facebook and Twitter, I forgot about my blog! I need to update this blog on my progress -- like the fact that I rode 126 miles last weekend (45 Saturday and 81 Sunday) and could still walk!

But for now, I need to get a letter out, and I need to rest up for the ride tomorrow. It's just 50 miles because we're tapering, which means we're resting up for the 100-miler on June 7.

72 miles!

2009-04-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

Our weekly rides are up to 72 miles, but I'm missing them! I'm in Virginia now, after spending a few days in Washington, D.C., just a few blocks from the White House. The kids loved the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. All the walking actually helped my knee pain go away, so maybe taking a rest from the bike was a good thing. But I miss the rides and my TNT teammates. I probably won't lose much fitness, but I do miss burning 6,000 calories each weekend!

I did my best to simulate climbing on the upright bike in the gym yesterday (but it burned only 800 calories!). I won't get home until late Friday, so the next time I get to touch my bike is on the big ride Saturday morning. Wish me luck! And please consider donating!

-- David

Rides are getting longer

2009-03-22T15:25:00.001-07:00

The recommitment date is past, and the rides are now getting longer. Here I am 30 miles into a 50 mile ride.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2304026&l=a1f684efb5&id=768556053

Forty miles and a mule!

2009-03-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, it wasn't a mule, it was a really steep climb. 22% at one point, according to my Garmin 305. I felt pretty good on the climb. The legs are a little sore today, but I may ride some more to help get the lactic acid out. You can see the data below. The hills there are Mt. Eden and Pierce Drive.

Another season, another sport!

2009-02-22T11:57:00.001-08:00

It's great to be back on a Team in Training team, only this time it's the Cycle Team. There will be no running for me for a long time, but cycling is even more fun! I will be riding with TNT in the century ride around Lake Tahoe, which is called America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride.

My fund-raising page is up and working for this season, too. It'll be a tougher year to get donations given the economy. But I hope I'll be able to remind people that leukemia, lymphoma and other blood cancers strike whether or not the economy is growing. So we need to keep funding research and finding cures.

So please, if you can, donate at http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/ambbr09/dgaertner and help find a cure!

Go Team!

Business Trip

2009-01-31T14:04:00.001-08:00

On to the next charitable activity: The Silicon Valley Duck Race

2008-11-21T17:14:00.001-08:00

I found a new way to give back to the community, one where I'm not required to run 13.1 miles, bike 40 km, and swim 1.5km. I'm helping on the 2009 Silicon Valley Duck Race, which raises money for several local charities.

I'm doing a couple of things. First, I'm updating their web page. That's kind of fun because it's reminiscent of my days as a software engineer creating one of IBM's first external web sites in 1994. (It's a lot easier with Dreamweaver than handcoding HTML using vi! But HTML is a lot more powerful and complex now.)

My other task is to find corporate sponsors for the duck race. I hope I can find a company or two willing to pay $5,000 or more for having their logo on our web site, in Camera Cinemas for 2-3 weeks before the race, on 20- or 30-thousand duck adoption forms, and so on.

By the way, I'm still recovering from the knee injury, but I'm hoping to go on a bike ride outside in the next few weeks.

My Helper

2008-04-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

We held our practice triathlon today. Because I'm a training captain, I helped with a water stop and with directions on the bike and run. But I couldn't have done it without my helper!

A Real Athlete in the Family

2008-04-06T20:28:00.000-07:00

I may have trouble getting to this triathlon due to my knee, but there is a real athlete in the family: http://usfdons.cstv.com/sports/c-track/recaps/040608aaa.html. Go Jennifer!

Don't Change A Thing...

2008-04-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

Some advice I just remembered: when you're getting close to the event you're training for, don't change anything! I'm reminded of that because I just had my bike fitted to me last Saturday. I went to Trek Bike Shop and learned a lot about how to pedal better and at a higher cadence. I bought a new saddle, and we moved it back maybe 2-3 inches from the old seating position.

The bike now feels great; I get a lot more power when I ride. But (here's where the advice kicks in) my back muscles are not used to my new riding position. So after my 30 mile ride on Sunday, and again on the trainer on Tuesday (70 minutes), my back was painfully stiff. I'm taking it easy a couple of days this week, including not running.

I'm saving my energy for the weekend workouts. Tomorrow we'll be swimming around the cement ship in Aptos then riding 40 miles. Sunday I hope to run 10 miles.

Wish me luck! And please support me! I still need more donations to reach my fund raising minimum!

The treatment is as bad as the cure

2008-03-30T07:41:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we had a fun event called the Ride & Tie. Teams of two share a mountain bike and switch off running and riding. It's a race to finish three loops around a 2 mile course -- except those of us taking on the Wildflower Long Course: we had to do four loops. Because it's a race, the running is fast. The bike riding is basically resting for more running. The teams who win tend to switch off frequently.

How did my partner and I do? Well, one of the keys to success in the Ride and Tie is actually riding the bike. And my partner ran past the bike on our first dropoff (I dropped it on the left side of the path, and he looked right!). I thought it was hilarious. So we didn't win, but we got more exercise!

After the race, one of our Honorees spoke about his ordeal with myeloma. When he was first diagnosed several years ago, he was in Stage 4 -- that's the most advanced stage which means you don't have much time to live. He's been fighting for years, with four rounds of chemo and three remissions. Some of the treatments sounded horrible. One is related to the mustard gas used as a chemical weapon in World War I. He's been cancer and tumor free for 22 months, thank goodness. But the effects of the treatments linger. Some of his lung sacs have crystallized. He had to have surgery on his colon and intestinal tract because, as he said his doctors put it, if you keep putting Drano into your pipes, the pipes will dissolve eventually. The treatments also affected his short term memory.

He lived alone and had some very rough times physically and emotionally during the treatments. What kept him going, he told us yesterday, was Team In Training -- looking at the pictures of us on the TNT web site where he could see us struggling to train for these endurance events -- this actually kept him going when even Vicodin couldn't stop the pain.

While I knew our fundraising was important to find better medicines and treatments, I had no idea our work could have such a direct effect.

Logs!

2008-03-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

We had our first "brick workout" yesterday, which was a 15 mile bike ride followed immediately by a two mile run. One reason for the workout is to get used to how it feels when starting the run after a long bike ride. How does it feel? Like your legs weigh a ton! Like someone replaced your legs with logs!

The feeling does go away after about ten minutes or a mile or so. It's important for new triatheletes to recognize the feeling so they don't worry when it happens.

In other news, you all have been great in helping support me! I'm about 1/3 of the way to my fundraising goal. Thanks! And if you haven't donated yet but intend to, please click on the Donate Here above!

A record!

2008-03-16T20:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week, and I've focused more on getting donation letters out than on blogging. The deadline is coming quickly, and I'm getting nervous about making my goal before April 12.

That said, today was a remarkable day for me. I set out to run 6-8 miles. The longest I've run is around seven miles -- ever. But the training has been going well, I have orthotics which seem to help, and I've spent more time stretching than eating! So I went to a local hike & bike path where I could do either a short or long run depending on how I felt during the run. To measure my distance, I have a bulky Timex GPS device that's ancient: about four years old. During my run, I was feeling pretty good after 3.5 miles. A few minutes later I checked again and saw 3.5 miles again. The GPS unit, despite brand new batteries, had turned itself off.

My favorite B-school professor had a number of great sayings including "Technology will fail." This was a good example. After muttering some expletives that I'm sure wouldn't have been foreign to Dr. Huber, I did some quick estimating and turned the GPS unit on again, and resumed running. Dr. Huber was correct again because the GPS didn't register for another five minutes. After working for a few minutes, it shut off again. This repeated several times. So much for technology and knowing what distance I would be running. I wanted to run at least seven miles; that's all I wanted to know from that heavy GPS piece of junk strapped to my upper arm.

To make a long story (and run) short, I turned around in Vasona Park and noted the distance on my watch/monitor. The GPS was mostly reliable on the return trip (it died only once). I did some mental algebra and determined I ran not six, not seven, not eight, not nine but 9.8 miles. And I wasn't limping or in any kind of pain! So this is a remarkable day for me: my longest run. Now I really do feel I'll be ready for the difficult half-marathon run in the Wildflower Long Course!

Next step: I'm going to buy a Garmin 305!

Blood cancers can affect anyone

2008-03-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

I was touched by an e-mail from my uncle, who lives in Czech Republic and is a Holocaust survivor of the Auswitz and Terezin concentration camps. Here's what he wrote:

"Dear David thank you for your mail. Its very nice from you to do such humanistic activities. [...] I know that blood-cancer is an ugly disease, also a friend of me from the concentration -camp time died some days ago from blood-cancer."

Even a survivor of those horrible camps couldn't overcome the disease that I'm helping to fight. My uncle is sending a donation. I hope you will, too.

Austin

2008-03-05T20:07:00.000-08:00

I just returned from a business trip to Austin, my other home town. Despite the trip being for work, I had a great time, and I even got a workout in. I swam at my former gym's pool on Tuesday morning. I'll tell you: I don't miss Austin weather. When I arrived Sunday night, it was 72 and humid. Monday: thunderstorms. Tuesday morning, it was a bright, clear 38-degrees outside. My old pool isn't as heated as I'm used to in San Jose, so there I was in my bathing suit standing in the cold (did I mention that it was six degrees above freezing?) trying to get my wimpy butt into the cold 76-degree pool. But I did it! I swam 1,800 yards (didn't have time for 2,400 because I had to get to a meeting).

Coach Caroline from my TNT team also hooked me up with the Austin TNT team. But after being out on Sixth Street with old friends, I didn't have the energy to join the TNT hill repeat running workout this morning. Off I go to ride the bike trainer and watch the Sharks game...

First, let me plug one of the reasons I am doing this:
Did you know that The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society sponsors lots of local support groups? Whether you or your loved one have been recently diagnosed or have been out of treatment for a while, you are welcome to attend a meeting. Support groups provide an opportunity to share information, feelings and experiences with others who have a unique understanding of what you are going through. One patient stated that attending a support group has helped her "sort everything out and put things back into some kind of perspective. It helps me feel less like a victim, more in control...and not so alone."

What if your child were struck with leukemia?

2008-02-28T21:43:00.000-08:00

We had a great track workout tonight. My legs are holding up, and as soon as I finish this posting, I'm off to stretch some more.

After the workout, our Honoree Captain read a letter from the mother of a three-year old diagnosed with leukemia. I thought about what I'd do in that position. She described the stages of dealing with this crisis: the disbelief, anger, guilt, confusion... then wanting to find the best medical care possible (which the LLS helps with), dealing with many new doctors and new medical terms...and finally getting a sense of hope and resolution to fight the disease.

The little girl was cured. Through the research funded in part by donations to LLS, a child's likelihood of survival has increased greatly in the past few years.

Hope. I'm fundraising for hope.

Long Course

2008-02-28T16:48:00.000-08:00

I've had a good week of workouts. swimming 2,100 yards Monday and 2,200 yards last night, and 60 minutes on the bike trainer Tuesday. I think I can do the Wildflower Long Course: 1.2 mile swim, 56 miles cycling, and then a half-marathon. The 13.1 miles of running is my biggest concern, but walking is allowed, too!

A Solid Weekend

2008-02-25T10:48:00.000-08:00

Despite a forecast of 60-mph winds and rain, we had a nice 70 minute ride on Saturday. We felt a few (hundred) raindrops towards the end of the ride, but visibility was still good and the roads didn't get slippery. It wasn't dangerous, Mom, so relax. :-) Then my group jumped into the pool (thank goodness for triathlon shorts so I could make a quick change) for a great swim workout that I'm still feeling this Monday morning.

Yesterday that rain made it impossible to consider riding or running, so I went to the spin class. While stumbling out of bed and looking for some clothes, I ended up wearing my Team In Training shirt from my first season. Spinning was a great opportunity to use the mirror to see my cycling form. I'm not great on climbing, and I think my form is a reason for that. If only I could bend forward like those pros in the Tour of California! It was a tough workout -- well, I guess I made it tough on myself. I really felt it in my upper quads.

At the end of the workout, the spin instructor asked me about my TNT shirt and spontaneously offered to donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society! She had a niece who had a blood cancer, so she was glad to help. She will announce my cause to the whole class next week, so you can bet, rain or shine, I'll be in spin class again next Sunday!

Family Fun at the Pool

2008-02-20T21:26:00.000-08:00

Monday's swim workout was one of the most fun so far. Sandi, the kids, and I went together to enjoy the sun even though it was a cool 60 degrees at the pool. Sandi swam a few hundred yards while I played with the kids -- that was my warm-up.

Kaela remembered her swimming well. She's great at the backstroke. Her crawl improved when I taught her the "thumb to thigh" drill that we covered in the Team In Training workout last Saturday. Then I went to swim my 1,800 yards.

During one of my laps, Kaela was waiting for me. She wanted to try passing the swim test (50 yards with three or fewer rests) which earns her a green wrist-band and the right to swim in the deep part of the pool. She did it! Most of it via backstroke! (I wish I could do that...) She earned her green band and dinner at her choice of restaurants. Her favorite Vietnamese place was closed, but her second choice (sushi) suited us just fine.

A good weekend of workouts

2008-02-17T17:20:00.001-08:00

It's late Sunday afternoon, and my legs are at that level of soreness that shows I used them but didn't kill them. Saturday morning was cool, and I really looked forward to getting in the pool. We did a few drills and then our "marker set," which we'll compare against later in the season to measure our progress. I swam about 18 laps (450 yards) in 10 minutes with not trying excessively hard.

The clouds cleared and the day turned beautiful by the time we hit the road on our bikes. My job was to "sweep" the "pro" group. The sweeper makes sure everyone returns, helps people with flat tires, and stays back as the very last rider in the group. In the pro group of experienced riders, I didn't have to hold back very much. In fact, I was very content to ride and chat with a couple of nice folks who fell back from the main pack. We were impressed by seeing several professional cycling teams getting ready for the Tour of California race.

After the ride and lunch with my TNT teammates at "Hang with the Gang," it was naptime again! Then I rushed to get new shoes because this morning, I would lead the Captain's Run at 9. Three others joined me for an easy 40 minute run at Campbell Park. It's a nice little park that accesses the much longer Los Gatos Creek Trail.

I learned that one of the runners with me was an Honoree. He battled non-Hodgkins Lymphoma last year. (The treatments for that seem to be getting better, and that's due in no small part to funds raised for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society!) This year, he's taking time away from his three kids to train and fund-raise with us.

He also runs to work at a local internet-based auctions company I've visited for work, so I'll probably catch up with him for lunch -- and find out more about that cool GPS running watch he had that lets you see your run (or ride) afterwards. It's only February, but I've just started my Christmast list!

There's only one thing I really have left to do, and my stepsister reminded me of that: get my fundraising letter going!

Stomach virus not in the schedule

2008-02-14T14:15:00.000-08:00

Where in the Team In Training training schedule is the stomach virus that I'm fighting off today? I know it will help me lose weight, but is it a real substitute for swimming 1500 yards?

While recovering, I heard Martha Weinman Lear on NPR's Fresh Air today say that aerobic exercise and diet are the two most important factors in having a good memory! Triathlon -- swimming, cycling, and running (in that order, for all of you tri tyros) -- are excellent aerobic exercises. So there's another reason to come out and join the team!

Training begins

2008-02-10T20:57:00.000-08:00

You notice a theme over the last couple of posts about how easy I have it. It became just a little less easy during this first week of real training. I actually stuck to the training schedule, which included 30 minute swims on both Monday and Wednesday. Monday I swam after work but in daylight. The wind taught me the value of a swim cap. Wednesday was calm but 46 degrees outside. That kind of chill makes it really easy to jump into the 80-degree pool and stay there for a while.

The first track workout was Thursday at Foothill College. I've run three miles on the treadmill in the past couple of weeks, so I didn't think I'd get much out of the first workout. Well, I didn't anticipate the squats, squat jumps, leg lifts, planks, and more squats that our coaches took us through. Great early season training! But I was surprised that I was as sore Friday as after a day of skiing! Ibuprofen is a good thing....

The bike and swim workout on Saturday was also fun. I met a few fun new people, and I swam with the "Pro" group. So while Wednesday I swam maybe 700 yards in 30 minutes, Saturday I swam 1500 yards in about 40 minutes. I took a LOOOONG nap that afternoon!

And They're Off!

2008-02-02T20:47:00.000-08:00

My first kickoff as a Captain was fun. I ushered; specifically, I greeted and told people coming in the side door where to go check in or register. It was the same spiel over and over again. I'm now well qualified to don a blue vest and be a greeter at Walmart. What made it fun (besides seeing couple of former TNT teammates) was talking with Ed, my co-greeter. Ed is a coach on the Cycle team, a medical researcher with three drugs in the approval pipeline, an Honoree (blood cancer survivor), and an amputee missing his lower left leg. Did I mention he's a coach on the Cycle team, as in bicycling 100 miles around Lake Tahoe in June? So talking with Ed was quite interesting, of course. But it was also a reminder that while I'm sacrificing some time with my family to fundraise, help others train, and train myself, I have it pretty easy.