Monday, April 26, 2010

Keeping the world safe and other training obstacles

While triathlon is my hobby/sport/addiction/obsession but it is not my job. Most of the time my job and training/working out go hand in hand and are not mutually exclusive, but sometimes they end up butting heads and normally the job wins.

I am a Senior Project Engineer for the Division of Reactor Projects of the USNRC. My job is to protect Public Health and Safety thru ensuring the safe use of nuclear materials in power, medical, and other uses. It is a job and a mission statement I take very seriously and take a lot of pride in. I work in the nuclear power plant side of the house, so periodically I get to play in Emergency Preparedness drills. This week I got to travel to Pittsburgh to play in one of these drills. These drill a really a site to behold. Watching the plant, the local community, the counties, the PA State Troopers, the states of Pennsylvania, West Virgina, and Ohio, FEMA, the DHS, and the NRC, all working together to meet a common goal is a very impressive evolution and takes alot of work to get right. Problem with these drills is that the go on forever. This one started somewhere around 2pm and we wrapped up around 10pm. Then with the post drill, "wash down and critiques" I didn't get back to the hotel until about midnight. Throw in a pseudonormal work day before and a late flight the night before and working out just wasn't in the cards.

So I'll be juggling my schedule around for the rest of the week to catch up, but at least I can sleep well knowing I helped make sure the communities in the vicinity of the Beaver Valley Power Plant will be able to respond to any civil emergency (The Emergency Plan they exercised is used for smaller scale issues such as gas line breaks, severe storms, tornadoes, and transportation accidents as well as problems at the nuclear plant.)

But I'd be lying if I didn't tell you, I was thinking about riding or running thru the awesome rolling hills in this area, at several points during the exercise. But sometimes we have to make a sacrifice or two.

Have fun, be safe!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

A tale of two races

Spring is that great time of year when everything feels fresh and full of promise and the last two weeks I finally toed at starting line to start the year. This winter I have worked really hard at improving my cycling but as a result I have done minimal work on my running. But of course, my first two races were running races; a 5K (Pottstown YMCA Spring Forward) and a hilly 5 miler (Valley Forge Revolutionary Run. Having not done anything resembling speed work in a loong time, these two were mainly just to see what kind of shape I was in.

Problem is I just am not very good a short races (or at least that is how I feel). The funny thing is I have actually medaled in 4 of my last 5 5Ks but I just can't seem to push myself hard enough and I always feel like I have way too much left over at the end. This was certainly the case last weekend. I had about 50 people pass me again in the first half mile, at that point I catch my rhythm and start working forward for the rest of the race, but this year I had several folks come up from behind my and overtaken me in the second half of the race, which just annoyed the heck out of me. So I felt like I ran a terrible race but I still ended up finishing 3rd in my age group by a comfortable margin and passed about 40 of those 50 people who blew past me at the start. Not a PR, but not bad. So the results were there but I didn't like race.

This weekend, I did a much larger race the Valley Forge Revolutionary Run, a very hilly 5 mile run thru the Valley Forge National Park. There were about 1200 runners on a very narrow road which slowed thing down for everyone and I felt like I ran a great race, even pacing throughout despite the hills. I stayed patient at the start, then smartly worked my way forward working both the uphills and downhills effectively. Felt like I parsed the effort just right and worked hard and was very satisfied with my race. The results, I was 15 seconds slower than last year, several spots lower overall and in my age group. So the result weren't great, but I was very satisfied.

I guess the same goes for Tris. I have never even come close to the medals in a tri, heck I'm lucky to get top half in an Ironman, but the satisfaction I feel doing those races is 100x better than any medal. So for me the effort is far more important that the final standings. It took two races n two weeks to drive that home yet again.

Have fun, enjoy the ride. And above all else remember, it is easy being green! Go Trakkers!!