the augmented fourth

Watt census, take 1

2009-07-12T15:56:00.003-04:00

Now entering our third full week in the new house, I think we have most of our electricity-consuming appliances unboxed and in use. I've estimated our household power consumption; the total amount for the bill seems low (i.e. less than in the old house), but maybe I've just left off some significant extra charges in my $0.12/kWh assumption, or the omitted 5 watt control electronics in everything adds up.

The initial goal was to determine, relatively, how much our music-listening habits (which involve leaving a server and wireless router running during the day) impact our consumption. At quick glance, and without any real measurement, the answer is 10%.

The highlights:

Big computer: 100W x 16h = 48 kWh/month
Small computer: 40W x 4h = 4.8
Television: 120W x 1h = 3.6
Big stereo: 150W x 2h = 9
Small stereo: 40W x 6h = 7.4
Modem and router: 15W x 24h = 10.8

Living area lighting: 200W x 3h = 18
Kitchen lighting: 250W x 4h = 30
Security lighting: 13W x 24h = 9.3
Ceiling fans: 50W x 6h = 9
Clocks: 7W x 24h = 5
Dehumidifier: 500W x 6h = 90

Fridge: 600W x 4h = 72 = 72
Dishwasher: 1200W x 1.5h = 54
Clothes washer: 500W x 1h = 15
Clothes dryer: 300W x 1h = 9
Electric oven: 4000W x 0.5h = 60
Microwave: 1200W x 0.1h = 3.6
Coffee and toast: 2200W x 0.1h = 5

Total monthly consumption (estimated) = 460 kWh.

November

2009-07-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

It was sometime in the fall of 1995, when paper postings appeared at Brazoswood High courtesy of the yearbook staff. They proclaimed something like

NOVEMBER IS THE LAST MONTH
(to order your yearbook)

With the last list in barely-legibly-pointed font.

Since then November has kept rolling, since there are no months after it; and, today we celebrate November 5000, 1995. Happy 5k, everyone. November is the last month!

In Tuxedos!

Burlington, VT

2009-06-19T21:31:00.003-04:00

Experimenting with the Canon's handy panoramic mode, and just sqeaking in under blogger's 8MB upload limit.

operation dinner out

2009-05-29T17:31:00.002-04:00

notes to self

try:
momocho
russos
melt
red
mint cafe

return to:
lolita
players
lopez

Obligatory chill post

2009-01-17T08:12:00.001-05:00

I seem to be the slowest among local bloggers to comment on our chilly weather. But, I haven't seen anyone else present their observations around Friday lunch-time in graphical form. The data are from a nearby PWS via wunderground, but match a few points from my garage-mounted sensor. In related news, I've been trying internet radio as background to housework and building towers out of oversized Lego. Aside from Car Talk this morning via the WCPN feed and the WGBH classical stream, I also have Kent State's Folk Alley channel and groove.monkeyradio.org [1] on my bookmarks list so far.

[1] Admittedly, I added that one before I even listened to it. But, I did keep it there after switching it on.

Blue

2008-11-04T22:01:00.003-05:00

It's 9:30, and the nets have called Ohio for Obama. That'll do, pig. It's too early to shut down the laptop, so... landslide watch!

Trick, or treat

2008-10-31T11:55:00.002-04:00

From David Kurtz at TPM:

There should be a support group for all those beleaguered progressives who over the years anxiously awaited elections in the futile hope that the polls showing their candidate behind would turn out to be wrong -- but who this year are fretting just as much that the polls showing their candidate ahead are wrong.

I plan to dress as a beleaguered progressive tonight for trick and/or treating. Julian has elected to go as a giraffe. Gordon will pretend to be a dog who's deathly afraid of children in costumes; tonight is right down there with independence day fireworks in his book.

Some photos are here. No photos of G, since cameras fall right behind fireworks, thunder and costumes on the scary list.

Cantaloupe

2008-10-27T11:25:00.007-04:00

The first snowfall of the season, I pose. Noted through the windows of the CVBD Phoenix [1]: a place not quite home, not quite work, but that comes with a cup of yirgacheffe, a stack of Nature Cell Bio papers and an overrepresentation of Death Cab in the lift music rotation.

This weekend I was an invited speaker at a local meeting of medical physicists. This might be the first time I've given a talk to a group of which I'm not a member; I'm an instrumentation guy, and clinical radiation oncology folks comprised the audience. Although the subject matter was stuff I'm comfortable with in front of a white board for an hour, wearing a tie and standing at a podium somehow makes it nerve-wracking. Nonetheless, it all went well: their challenging questions were easy, the softball questions required clarification, and they had to smile and nod at my powerpoint drawings because they asked me to attend.

In addition to a nice discussion over lunch following the talks, I was treated to a drive through the easternmost part of Ohio and western bit of PA; the first half of the round-trip was completed before sunrise and in not-quite-icy rain, but the return revealed terrain molded by the Beaver and Ohio Rivers and glazed in peak late-October foliage.

[1] The link here is to a nice collection of blurbs about local history, a topic whose interest to me has only a weak space variance. Some updating attention would benefit the site, perhaps even a wiki-like implementation with review by the history department authorities that currently host it.

Run for the Cheetah 2008

2008-10-10T00:00:00.002-04:00

A few Saturdays ago I attended the Run for the Cheetah, a 5k at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. The zoo is a fine place for a run; the entrance and savannah (and race start) are about 100' lower in elevation than the primate building and aquarium. The route, as we found out a few minutes before the starting whistle, would encompass two laps of the hill.

My memory of the race: beep, escape crowd, gradual uphill; monkeys! Left turn, winding path, giraffes! Past the flamingos, hang a right, big uphill. Tortoises, cheetahs, big downhill. Kangaroos lined up along a fence, snouts flopping side-to-side like tennis spectators. Lap; repeat. The attentive kangaroos made my day, and I enjoyed walking around the zoo afterward seeing the unusually attentive critters pre-opening-time.

Unless I'm mistaken, this is my first 5k running race. 23:07, a 7:27/mi pace averaged over this elevation profile.
Given the coincident start of the fall semester, this concludes the bulk of my 2008 training as well, for a total of about 700 miles of cycling, 600 miles on foot and 10 miles in the water. Time (no time?) for some mild strength training and occasional anti-stress running before rebuilding a winter base.

Early Voting

2008-10-07T22:28:00.002-04:00

I just sealed up my absentee ballot. I'm always impressed at the plethora of choices for president, although the Green, Socialist and Libertarian parties were the only minor candidates I recognized.

A bit of a mess has brewed in our executive branch, and only one candidate is fit to sort it out. My scantron-style oval to Senators Obama and Biden; godspeed!

Economy of scale

2008-09-24T12:00:00.003-04:00

Anyone [1] who hadn't already heard of Spore will after reading today's XKCD. "It looks brilliant," reports a self-identified addict of sandbox games. Coincidentally, the increasedly-having-been-misnamed [2] Sim City series of games already spanned many such orders of magnitude [3]; IIRC, one of the sequels expanded from cities to interconnected cities. There was an early knockoff called "Sim Earth", and a miniature version in "Sim Ant"? Furthermore, I've long suggested that an MMG consisting of many Sims, a few Sim Cities all within a giant game of Civilization would make for a good time. The thousands of players removed from the game when Vladivostok gets knocked off the map by a top-level schmuck arbitrarily razing cities for a few more civilization points at the end of the game will offer an instructive allegory to our often tacit support of our presumed representatives' warmongering ways.

If the moral remains translucent, we could try Nuclear War instead of Civ.

Anyway, I hope Spore sells like hotcakes, so someone I know tires of it and passes it along. After I graduate, of course.

[1] Always defined as the set S of people who are likely to read this post; Pr([Reads XKCD]S)~=1.
[2] Ouch. How do I quote Douglas Adams' description of The Trilogy, in the past tense?
[3] Ah, I see now that Will Wright is behind all of this. And, according to Wikipedia, it all sprung from his map generator for Raid on Bungling Bay. Will Wright for Hegemon!

Spam

2008-09-10T23:08:00.002-04:00

In today's snail mail, an RNC/McSellOut fundraising letter.

I need individuals like you, [...] who have done so much to help our Party in the past...

Whoa. I've been paying pretty close attention since I came of voting age, and I'm pretty sure I've never lifted a finger to help that particular party. On the other hand, I can't imagine that the McCain campaign would outright lie, so maybe I'm mistaken.

We've all seen the Democrats' massive rallies, record-setting voter turnout and colossal fundraising efforts. It is obvious they are pulling out all the stops to win.

Fascinating. It must be bad when people get so excited about politics that they show up and vote. Instead, why don't we just stick a ballot box right at the entrance to church, then scare everyone else away with lies, lies and more lies about taxes, sex and, yes, the bridge. No comment yet on whether the 'other' Ohio is drinking the cool-aid, or just enjoying the post-drooling-mainstream-media-coverage-of-the convention bounce.

Friday fun

2008-09-07T21:00:00.005-04:00

Whoops; I missed Friday. I've been a bit behind lately, as it is. I didn't hear until recently about the GOP (grandpa's oligarchy?) anointment for VP, and let me tell you, I'm thrilled. We now have a win-win election: either a palatable pair of intelligent experts [1] who might deviate just enough from business-as-usual to inject a bit of deference to the proletariate and respect for the bourgeoisie, or a spooky sell-out accompanied by a lumberjack.

What, not that Palin? Crap. Even so, once taken over by GOP 'handlers', M. Palin would probably end up more like his character in Brazil. Anyway, that's not the funny part; there's nothing funny about my baseline blood pressure being 20 points higher for the next two months as I'm reminded by poll after poll that an enormous number of Americans either don't see the world like I do or are too stupid to know the difference. *sigh*

Furthermore, why hasn't the phrase "hope-smoking hippie" come into the common lexicon? [2] I'm not sure what side it would help more, were it to; but, I hereby proactively reclaim it, just in case.

I may have posted a while ago about the XKCD geohashing comic. Brilliant. And now, posted to the associated blog a few days ago, this description of a bicycle-kayak trip to find the day's location. Again, brilliant. I wish the internet had been invented back in my school days, so I could have done cool things too.

Finally, kudos to the professor teaching a stochastic modeling class (read: math of random things) I'm taking, who's policy for late work reads

Homework that is n weeks late will be accepted, but its total score will be multiplied by p^n, where p is a random variable drawn from the uniform distribution on the interval [0,1].

[1] How have I heard eight thousand recent pop-media discussions about Obama's level of experience without a single mention of the fact that he has a J.D. and taught no small amount of law at a little school in Illinois? I drool at the prospect of hiring someone who understands law to enforce our laws.

[2] Props to Jason for the turn of phrase, which as far as I can tell was original when written in this post.

Lorain Olympic 2008

2008-08-26T22:47:00.006-04:00

On Sunday was NCN's Lorain Sprint/Olympic tri, at Lakeview Park [1] on the far west side. I opted for the longer distance; I missed my chance at an oly earlier with the swim cancellation at GTC, and needed to offset a fair amount of couch-sitting watching the actual olympics.

First, if you're driving an hour to a 7am race registration, remember to leave time to find a bridge completely closed for repair and investigate detour possibilities. I did so, surprisingly. The sprint waves were scheduled to start at 8 but started late (par for the course, I learned), so the olympic wouldn't depart until 8:30. That left me just enough time to break off my front valve stem while topping off to 120 psi, then jog over to the Bike Authority tent for a quicker (and more reliable) tube change than I could have managed myself. I racked the bike, dropped my gear into little piles on my stripy blue towel and headed toward the beach.

The weather was beautiful, though we could tell at 8:30 that the run a couple hours later would be toasty. The swim was largely outside the breakwall and featured reasonable rollers, enough that breathing into the waves was (for me, at least) impossible. Once I got that rhythm down I reduced my intake of crisp, clean Lake Erie and was able to start swimming; yet, it took me a solid 15 minutes to do so. That swim ate my lunch like a sixth grade bully. [2] (Fortunately, it would be nice enough to return it halfway through the run.) Regardless, starting at about the halfway point I did really start to enjoy the swim. I was slow, and a wetsuit wouldn't have hurt, but I had a steady crawl going and it started to feel like a nice pool workout interjected by the occasional panicked search for and realignment toward the next buoy. I express my displeasure in histogram form.
The bike and run were uneventful. The bike course was fairly flat, two loops. I averaged 19.4 mph for 22-ish miles, which is about right for me but sub-median in this crowd, composed mostly of the 20-22 crowd. Transition to the run was fair; I had taken in one bottle on the bike but needed more, not having hydrated well before the race. That hit me on the run, which started off as expected (painful for the first mile, then picks up) but just died at about mile 4. I ran / jogged / limped through cramps and dizziness for most of miles 4 and 5; either my gel and generous use of gatorade stops or fear of a weak-looking finish in front of the crowd helped pick up the last mile or so. 10k at 9:19/mi, bringing me one bar further left in the aforeshown histogram.

[1] Not to be confused with Lakeside Park (willows in the breeze / so many memories?)
[2] As I recall, no bully ever actually did this to my lunch, not even on cucumber sandwich day

Twilight Trail Run 2008

2008-08-23T20:33:00.006-04:00

On 8/14, I joined the local Twilight Trail Run, an 8-km, moderately-hilly trail route. It's halfway between an actual race and an after-work jogging party. There are numbers and a clock, but the start is a fun stagger by age (with bumps in exchange for small charity donations) and you receive a can of domestic on your way through the finish chute. It was a nice chance to say hi to numerous folks I'd met or seen at various training groups throughout the summer.

The route is the same year-to-year, so I thought it provided a nice benchmark.

This year: 39:08 (7:53 pace, 59th/160)
Last year: 44:01 (8:52 pace)

It was a little cooler this year, but still humid, so I'll chalk up the improved time to my increased level of awesomeness.

Attribution

2008-08-19T12:00:00.007-04:00

The "quote of the day" on my Google mail header attributes to self-help charlatan Tony Robbins [1]:

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.

Of course, those of us of a certain impressionable age in 1993 might remember the proper phrasing [2]:

Cause if you do what you've always done / you'll always get what you always got / (Uh... could that be nothin'?)

On an unrelated note, so to speak, I listened to the Muse album Black Holes and Revelations recently. I think it's really good, although I haven't listened to enough Muse to compare this to their other work. Their style is right up my alley: it's generally rockous and progressive, overuses textural synthesizer and orchestral punctuation, and combines electronically driven tempos and overarching, squealing-dude vocal in a way that clearly follows, but is implemented distinctly from, the Radiohead archetype. Their use of instrumental synthesizer plucks some of the best from, perhaps, Gentle Giant; vocal harmonies emulate (what is undoubtedly) the best from Queen. If I were to select an objection, it's that they rely primarily on the extended-radio-pop-song form in their compositions. What my record collection needs is a serious composition from these guys: an album-length [3] masterpiece in the vein of The Fountain of Lamneth or Scenes from a Memory. Five people would buy it, and I'd be one of them.

[1] Ref. Nothing personal; if career = "self-help writer" and wealthy = yes, then this is my assumption.
[2] Ref
[3] In modern times, why limit a concept album to a 30-minute side, or even an 80-minute disc? I think my ipod has 3.2 GB available: that's about 640 minutes at high quality. Bring it on.

Buy my house!

2008-08-13T11:49:00.003-04:00

It's time to see what those real-estate selling wizards with domestic autos and trunks full of open house signs can do.

http://5380summitroad.howardhanna.com

Pool table included (pfft - I'm not moving it). Giraffe statuary not included. Dozens of tasty, ripe tomatoes negotiable.

Of course, there *is* more than one option in our neighborhood, but none with quite the combination of awesomeness and reasonable price as ours. The pushpin icons below indicate for-sales, in a 2x2-mile area.

Greater Cleveland "Triathlon" 2008

2008-08-11T06:00:00.001-04:00

Sunday was the Greater Cleveland Triathlon. The race was on my list for the summer, but my training schedule hasn't been strong (exercising: yes; training: um...), so I hadn't signed up. But, as racing is more fun than not racing, I stopped by Headlands Beach Saturday to sign my waivers, join USAT for one day and admire the whitecaps on Lake Erie.

At six o'clock Sunday morning I arrived at the race and admired the same waves on the same lake. It didn't take long for the race organizer to note that the local Coast Guard couldn't find a calm place to park to oversee the swimmers, so the Tri was rearranged into a Dualthlon, with a 1+ mile (foot) sprint to the bike racks replacing the swim leg. Running a mile certainly isn't as tiring as swimming, but it does use a remarkably similar muscle set as the biking and, well, running portions.

I entered the Olympic-distance race. (Had I known that the swim would be cancelled, I would have tried the half-iron bike+run; please don't tell any of the real triathletes that I'm swim-limited.) The start times were all pushed back a bit to account for reorganization; the half-distance (twice the Oly) started at 7:30; we at 8:00 or so. I kept a good pace for the opening run, middle-of-the-pack -ish at 8:13 (m:ss). My transition to the bike was fair, at 1:21. I managed to keep a clear head and get my helmet and sunglasses on, switch shoes and jog out of transition. I was near the back of transition (furthest from the bike entrance/exit), but I think if there's a separate split for running on cleats while pushing a bicycle, I would have been in the top 3. A la Gazelle.

The bike course had some medium-frequency undulations, but overall was 2/3 uphill followed by 1/3 downhill, with a couple of long, drawn-out bumps in the middle. I did more passing than being passed, but for the most part played tag with the same few riders throughout. There were a number of right-angle turns, guarded by the local PD and littered with cones, that I executed well, winning several positions by exiting them quickly (credit: my high-speed commute route through Cleveland Heights). I was also surprised how much passing I did on the downhill sections, considering that I ride road bars, but I did make an effort to push on the downhills to keep momentum through the rolling sections. The strategy was successful in getting to an occupied train track for a 3-minute stretch break while the gravel express rolled by. (The stop time was noted by race officials, who subtracted it at the end. Classy.) I thought it would be bright to change to a lower gear while stopped, and was still turning the crank with my hand trying to get it to shift when the train cleared. Oops.

The end of the bike was a big, clumpy mess. The ride back up route 44 to the beach is downhill and smooth, but all three race routes converged, and there wasn't enough room to ride quickly or keep four bike-lengths (the no-drafting distance rule). Probably out of fear of drafting, slow riders weren't pulling back right after passing, nor riding quickly enough to pass effectively. I spent some time outside the cones, in the car-traffic lane, and passed gobs of folks (the slow end of the sprint race, I'll bet). 1:14:28 for 23 miles.

For the first time, I successfully removed my feet from my shoes while coasting and semi-elegantly hopped off my bike for the run into transition. Yet, somehow, I spent 2:12 in T2. Did I stop to read the paper?

The run went as expected. The first mile was painful, and interrupted briefly by a bathroom break (beginning of the run course next to the big public park restrooms? Brilliant!). I walked through the first water stop for a chug of classic lemon-lime, but ran the rest, taking advantage in several cases of very steady runners moving just a bit too fast for my comfort. As I ran, my comfort increased, and I passed most of them. By mile 4 I was ready to run and upped the pace a bit (I guessed at the time, from 8:30 to about 7:50) and ran in moderate exhaustion through the end. I attacked the downhills well (the last a little too aggressively, which is why my foot is up today in hamstring-extension mode). I actually let up a bit at the end to let a woman who'd unknowingly helped pace me through the end of the run finish ahead; but, as it turned it didn't matter in the standings, since my train-waiting time would be subtracted. I'll keep that in mind next time: always beat women. Upon looking at the results, I thought I had actually beaten the women, but I hadn't noticed the top 3 finishers listed separately, each of whom handily smoked me. Run: 10k at 51:12, an 8:14/mi pace.

Thus ends a long race report for a small race.
2:17:26; Placed 41/109 overall and 3/6 in my age group.

Battleground

2008-08-08T15:51:00.003-04:00

First: better than morning coffee, it's a little afternoon Black Mountain (that does sound like a roast; hmmm...). I'm listening to their February concert recorded by NPR (and available here). The npr.org writeup describes an "epic storm of prog-rock riffs, '60s psychedelia and '70s metal." I hear a lot of Zeppelin and dudes singing in the high-tenor range, so I suppose they're right. It's a good way to struggle through a Friday afternoon with dramatically increased brainstorming creativity and typing speed. [*] Take that, Mavis Bacon. But not you, Mavis Staples. You're cool.

We're being inundated already, in our little mid-north-western battleground state, with TV ads for presidential wannabes. I was disappointed how early they've turned mostly negative. I note that the McCain camp is relying much more heavily on attack ads then the dems, but last night I caught some ominous-looking photos of J. Sidney next to Shrub and facts and figures about oil-company campaign contributions. There's certainly more truth to that than the opposing assertion that Mr. O features "fewer jobs" in his platform, but I'm disappointed nonetheless. Then again, these campaign organizers know what they're doing; if I think it sucks, I have nowhere to look but toward my fellow Americans. And I do. And it's sad.

[*] Another way? A 10-minute blogger break! Okay, back to work...

Operation dinner out

2008-08-05T01:00:00.000-04:00

[1 (post title)]

Given the occasion of our fifth wedding anniversary, we dropped off the wee one for a play date and hit one of our favorite restaurants for some grub. I offer no complaints; the food was superb, and environment and service appropriate. We hadn't been to (now increasingly famous) Lola's new location yet; it is dim and hip, and the dining area almost seems squeezed in as an afterthought around the open and quite focal kitchen. A foodie's chow house.

These foodies led off with appetizers of tuna and veal sweetbreads (those are two separate dishes). The tuna was simple: raw, cured in a blend of olives and served with a bit of them. I'll write like a food critic as I write like a music critic (and about as professionally as I might kayak or play the 'cello): this dish was precise and simple; the tuna texture and olive punch melded in an unfamiliar entourage of tactile uniformity and bright tone. I'd never ingested sweetbreads before, so it was high time; these were lightly breaded and fried to capture the essence of the perfect overcooked breakfast potato hash. The texture was a little unusual: not quite vegetable, not quite meat, but it came with a little slice of chili on the side. [2]

Now, écrivez entrées. (Apologies if babelfish doesn't conjugate correctly.) For the lady, salmon perched on cylindrical hunks of roasted tomato, with a variety of springy veg and herbs and nicely matched wheatgrassy broth. Succeeds on the criteria of "wow, that's tasty" and "wow, I wouldn't have thought of that". For the gentleman, chops of lamb suspended in Israeli cous and deep, roasted veg and tangy barbecue stylings. The meat's flavor dominated.

Overall, A++++, quick shipping, good communication; would buy from again.

Sweet corn challenge 2008

2008-08-02T00:00:00.003-04:00

Catching up: last Sunday I bicycled 100 miles, my first century, at this year's Sweet Corn ride. I've done the 50-mile version of the ride each of the previous two years. The weather was beautiful: sunny and medium-warm, perfect for a thin bike jersey and noticeable perspiration only on long uphills. I started to get tired at about the 80-mile mark, by 95 miles was checking my watch every mile (are we there yet?) and between 100 and 106 miles (make up distance -- I took a couple of wrong turns) even more often. I rode with a few different folks; I knew perhaps a dozen folks riding that route this year, and I met and rode with more along the way.

On to the facts and figures:
6:30 moving time; 15.6 mph (yup, I'm that slow)
1:10 rest time (yup, the food was that good)
6100' uphill (and 6100' downhill, I suppose)

The route didn't seem this convoluted while riding:
But, the correlation between elevation change and speed is sensible. The speed data are smoothed: I actually saw real-time speed (from my rear-wheel sensor) >45mph on two occasions, making this ride both a speed and distance PR.

Friday funnies

2008-08-01T12:52:00.004-04:00

Take one: sign posted at local coffeerie.

Unattended children
will be given espresso
and a free puppy

Take two: now-playing All Songs Considered is sponsored by PBR. Huh.

Word clouds

2008-07-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

I'm a fan of the word-cloud's function as a super-adjective. Now, some dude has done a really nice job of it in a java applet: check out Wordle. Below is a cloud representation of the text on this page (as it existed prior to this post). Common English words are ignored, then the font size in the cloud determined by the word's frequency of appearance. I don't think color has any significance other than demonstrating that the programmer has written a nice algorithm for aesthetically pleasing patterns.

Huntington sprint triathlon

2008-07-22T22:26:00.003-04:00

On Sunday the 20th was the Huntington sprint triathlon at a lake-side park of the same name in nearby Bay Village. Here's the Google satellite view - the swim start was near those jetties.

I had a bundle of fun at this race: I did the same one (though the swim route differed) in 2006 and enjoyed it then; I've been itching to race again, not having sprinted into a lake with dozens of men in tight shorts in nearly a year; and a number of friends and occasional training partners were racing as well.

I was slower this year than in 2006, but the course was slower also: then, 16 people finished in under an hour; this year only the top 3 did. It looks like the swim course was the main difference: it was insanely short in '06 (with median swim times on the order of 5 minutes), but more reasonable this time with a median of, say, 10 minutes.

How to start a short tri swim: line up on the outside edge of the group, second or third row from the water. The 10-second deficit isn't worth getting trampled for, and I take kicks in the face pretty well. Take it easy jogging into the water, aim 15' outside of the first buoy, enjoy the water, relax, get aerobic.

How not to start: line up as suggested, at the edge of the group, next to a few big rocks. Sprint into the water, having enjoyed a very nice warmup while latecomers push the starting time back by 10 minutes, not considering that said big rocks might continue their stretch submarinially. Splash, splash, slip, whump. A few unexpected gulps of Erie and minor gashes and abrasions from my left shin to the toes accompanied my surprise, but I don't think I spend more than a few seconds dumbfounded before regaining my footing and hopping into the catch up with (some of) the group.

As it was, 11:19 for the swim, which may have included some barefoot jogging from the beach to the transition area. I felt like I spent many moons pulling on my socks and bike shoes, but the clock said 1:47, which is fair. I skipped a bike shirt this time, having noted that it takes at least an extra minute to try to pull on a jersey after my wimpy shoulders' version of an aqueous sprint.

The bike was a shallow uphill out, a quick blast down a blacktop trail through the woods, then a mostly-downhill return trip. 36:28 vs 37:17 last time. I'm not sure the difference is significant, except that my time this year included getting my shoes off while still on the bike, before hitting the transition mat. (All the cool kids are doing it.) I was not graceful. As an aside, I rode without the use of my small front chainring, thanks to a shifter problem either identified or caused by the friendly mechanics at Eddy's; but, the course was pretty flat, and if I was in better cycling shape I probably would have preferred to pound it out on the big ring anyway.

My T2 felt good; I racked quickly (thanks, stripey blue towel!), pulled on my now-ancient sneakers with new yellow stretchy laces, swapped ol' yeller for my favorite running cap, ditched sunglasses and hopped along. I'll bet I was under 45 seconds, but they didn't publish T2 times, only lumped T2+Run times. My official T2+Run was 25:57.

So, 2006: 1:12:09, place 100/219, in age group 6/8.
This race: 1:15:31, place 83/240, in age group 14/22.

Congrats to Rachel, who finished 1/8 in her age group, and Bob, who finished 2/26 amongst fat guys. Yup, that's a category.

Finally, a snapshot of some folks from our Sunday a.m. running group (a.k.a. the "Roads Scholars", as soon as we get our shirts back from the printer) who raced.

Training 2008-W26-28

2008-07-15T08:00:00.002-04:00

We're definitely into unstructured-summer-training (also known as fit-in-exercise-when-I-can) mode. I have enough on my schedule that the training volume required to extend my repertoire to a half-ironman distance isn't in the cards. Failing that, my B goal is something like "stay in share and enjoy the warm weather," which I do.

2008-W26 was a bicycle commuting week (I'd hoped to dedicate at least one week this summer to riding every day). MWF to Highland Heights (a short ride in the morning, and slightly longer ride home to avoid pee-em traffic; TTh to University Circle, where the ride is longer but downhill both ways. All said, just under 100 miles for the week. Sunday I hosted the Roads Scholars for 9.2 mi around the suburbs at 10:30/mi.

W27 featured a Wednesday evening trail run with some CTC folks. (I should really send in my USD20 registration fee, given that I lurk their training groups semi-frequently.) The usual route: 5.5 mi at 9:50/mi with some quality hills and spirited creek-hopping for good measure. Assorted bike rides, say, 40 miles.

W28 snuck in commuting on T and Th, and the regular trail run on W. 35 miles by bicycle and 6.3 mi at 9:48/mi on shoes.

Those shoes, by the way, now have approximately 550 miles on them, and no longer feel good on my feet. I'm not sure what the rule of thumb is for running shoes, but I suspect that's a little long. I really dislike shoe shopping, mostly because I think a reasonable pair of shoes (sneakers, work shoes, dress shoes) should cost $50, and they don't.

That 550 miles figure is summed up by SportTracks, a freely-available, open-source alternative to Garmin's Training Center software or MotionBased website. It also seems far superior, in part because of the many plug-in modules written by various users. When downloading my GPS data (which ST can do directly), I tag a workout with my shoes, and it adds the distance into the total. I'm not sure what happens if I switch shoes mid-run; fortunately I'm not yet so into mixed-terrain running to worry about it.