Jon's Jibber-jabber

Last week, I wrote that I'd be participating in the One Run for Boston on Friday 6/28.  Here is my recap:  I headed up to my hometown in Pennsylvania on Thursday night.  My segment of the run started Friday morning at 8:20am.  It's a four hour drive from Annapolis, so I needed to head up early.  Thursday night there were severe storms in the area along my drive.  I stayed a little longer than usual at the office to let the storms pass.  I still hit the tail end of them on my last hour of the drive, but I'm glad I didn't hit them head on.  I was worried it would still be rainy for the run in the morning. On Friday, I got up around 6:00am to get ready for the run.  Kelly, our segment organizer, sent us a message the previous day to meet at the local high school for the relay exchange at around 8am.  At about 6:30am, we got a text message from Kelly that the baton was about an hour behind schedule based on her conversation with the leg ahead of ours.  That was surprising

This week was the official start of summer.  Well, meteorological summer actually began June 1st but the solstice happened late this week.  With the arrival of summer, I typically suspend my race season.  I don't like to sign up for races in the summer simply due to the fact that it can get really hot and stormy here in the Mid-Atlantic.  I have one triathlon in August but with the water and the bike, the heat would not be as bad as running, say a marathon.  I like summer for training because the hours are long.  I can get up early and train in daylight.  When I get home at night after my hellish commute, I still have plenty of daylight to do a proper workout.  But the heat is still my Achilles heel.   This weekend I was reminded of why I made this "personal rule" of no summer racing.  The heat and humidity returned in full force.  It hasn't gone above 90F too often yet but this humidity makes it miserable even at 88F.  Training was going quite well this week for t

At many races that I attended recently (and in Triathlon magazines), I kept seeing people with drink bottles on their aerobars.  The straws from these bottles came right almost to their faces.  I thought it was rather funny.  I used to call them "lazy bottles" because I kept thinking: "wow, you can't even bend over for your bottle."  Either these people were so intense that the micro movement of reaching for a bottle would take off a precious millisecond, or they were completely lazy.  But I became curious and bought the Profile Design Aerodrink to "tri". Profile Design is a monolithic company in accessories, especially aerobars and the likes.  Most of the aerobars and non-moveable parts on triathlon bikes are made by Profile Design.  They have a wide model line up.  My cockpit setup is completely by Profile Design.  I would venture to say the Aerodrink and its different variants from PD are the top selling hydration system for aerobars out there.  I

Today is Father's Day.  I am not a father (unless you count my fur-children) but Father's day means the Annapolis Striders' Dawson's Father's Day 10k on the Baltimore Annapolis Trail.  It's not really a trail but a paved bike/run path.  This is an out and back course on mostly flat terrain.  It was my PR 10k last year.  I look forward to this race as the trail is very familiar to me since I run this portion frequently. Yesterday, I needed to do 20 miles on the bike for my training plan.  It was such a beautiful day that I decided to keep riding.  About half-way back on my course, I realized that I had a race the next morning.  In the end, I had to get back to my car regardless so I ended up doing 30 miles.  The tri bike certainly helps reduce the stress on the legs. I wasn't really sure how this race was going to go so I just ran it without a Garmin/Timex GPS.  It was pretty humid here this morning and I felt it.  The race itself was uneventful and I fin

Almost immediately after finishing Rocketman, I decided that I need a new bike.  If I intended to do an Ironman distance race in the near future, there was no way possible I could do it on my entry-level Fuji road bike.  But my wife and I had agreed that I wouldn't buy any new gear that wasn't essential (wetsuit was essential for this race) until after I did the tri in case I really didn't like it. For one week, I went to nearly every bike shop in Annapolis, Baltimore and Columbia, Maryland.  I looked at every brand possible and did some intense internet homework, reading reviews, specs, and forums like it was my job.  After much research, I went with the Orbea Ordu from Parvilla Cycle and Multisport in Annapolis.  (Side note:  I HIGHLY recommend this shop.  Great service and they carry the specialty brands that you won't find in "box stores." Or as I call them the "me too's.  They are also fitting champions with the ability to do 3D motion capture

Welcome to my blog. I will be the first to admit that I am not good at writing or keeping journals.  Training logs, nutrition logs, receipts, etc.....they all fall off the bandwagon.  My wife tells me that it is a lack of follow-through.  Maybe she is right.  I think it is probably boredom. That's why I am going to try to keep this interesting.  Nobody likes to be bored, right? For those who watch the CBS show "The Big Band Theory," I am constantly referred to as the Sheldon of my circle of friends.  So for those who may not want to follow triathlon, it might be interesting to see if this turns into "Sheldon writes a triathlon blog."  Does anyone remember Fun with Flags? But onto my story.  I started running in early 2010 after my wife had the crazy idea that she wanted to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon.  She did and of course I then joined her.  This was crazy talk for me.  Not because I was not athletic; I played pretty much every sport at some po