The 2014 Tour de France according to me

The Tour de France this year has been epic.  It seems like every stage there has been something crazy happening with many of them completely changing the standings.  Here are some of the highlights.

Stage 1: Mark Cavendish crashes in sprint finish

After that things were not looking great for him:

His diagnosis ended up being acromioclavicular severance.  Really disappointing to have to drop out after only the first stage.

In good news, Jens Voigt was in the break and managed to get the polka dot jersey!

Stages 2-4: Nibali takes yellow, Kittel wins two stages, more crashes, including Andy Schleck and Chris Froome.  An incident in which a spectator that was in the road trying to take pictures was hit by someone from Team Sky ended up causing Andy's crash.  The spectators need to get out of the way!

Andy ended up getting knee surgery

Stage 5: the cobblestones

Everyone was talking about how crazy this stage was going to be because of the cobblestones.  If you read about my reports on the Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix you will have seen how brutal the cobbles can be.  And then it also rained to make it even worse  There were crashes left and right.  It was hard to watch sometimes.  I felt really bad for these guys.

Chris Froome (2013 TdF winner) crashed twice after having crashed the day before and injuring his wrist.  It was pretty sad to watch him finally give up because he was in so much pain.  Turns out he had a fractured left wrist and right hand.  Ouch!

Doh!

Nibali did really well on this stage and kept his yellow jersey.

Stages 6-8:  more crashes and abandons, Nibali stays in yellow

Andrew Talansky goes down hard

Stage 7, Luca Paolini: so what exactly was he doing on his phone?
Photo by Graham Watson

Stage 9: Tony Martin is a beast, a Frenchman gets yellow for Bastille day

Tony Martin rode almost 60 km solo to take the stage win.

Stage 10: Nibali wins the stage and is back in yellow, Ted King abandons, heartbreak for Contador

Before the stage start Jens Voigt was honored with a yellow jersey for each of his kids.

Jens has a lot of kids

Alberto Contador crashed on a mountain descent (doing about 35 mph), spent 5 minutes with the doctor and team, and then got back on his back and continued riding.  He kept losing more and more time on the other GC contenders.  After about 10 or 15 km he patted his teammate Michael Rogers and the back and pulled over to the side of the road.  That was the end of the TdF for him.  Turns out he had a broken tibia.  I'm not a big fan of Contador, but hats off to him for being so hard core.

heartbroken

Stage 11: Andrew Talansky off the back but doesn't give up

Talansky was suffering from previous crashes and off the back by about 30 minutes.  At one point he stopped to talk to the team manager for about 5 minutes.  It was obvious he was in a lot of pain but he still got back on the bike and road to the finish lines and into the hearts of everyone watching.  Despite finishing so late, a lot of people stuck around at the finish to cheer him on.  He was very emotional post-race and said he did it for his teammates.

Stages 12-14: Nibali extends his lead in the Alps and wins his third stage and when you gotta go you gotta go!

Always adorable: Peter Sagan

Stage 15: Kristoff wins the sprint, Jack Bauer (not played by Kiefer Sutherland) heartbroken by getting caught in the last few hundred meters.

Steephill TV

Poor Jack

Stages 16-18: three days of mountains, Nibali dominates again

Michael Rogers takes a bow as he wins Stage 16

Stage 17: Majka wins the stage and hopefully the polka dot jersey

Nibali shows, once again, he isn't in yellow just because Froome and Contador dropped out

Stage 19: rain, crashes, Navardauskas wins

Stage 20: individual time trial

Stage 20 was a huge deal because the second, third, and fourth place guys in the general classification were only separated by 15 seconds.

Tony Martin wins the stage, as expected, and there is some shifting in the general classification.  Peraud is very emotional (around 1:10) when he finds out he moved up to second spot in the general classification.  There has been a lot of man crying this year's Tour de France!

Peraud is 37 year old and the first Frenchman to be on the podium since 1997.

Stage 21: the end

Marcel Kittel gets the stage win, his fourth in the TdF.

Vincenzo Nibali was in yellow for all but two days of the tour and he won four stages.  One of Nibali's main domestiques, Jakob Fuglsang, was injured in a crash but stuck it out to help Nibali win.  Peraud crashed at 43 km to go and had to chase back so he did not lose his podium spot.

Jakob Fuglsang all bandaged up

Peraud crashed but was able to make it back to the peloton

The laterne rouge this year was Ji Cheng.  Ji is the first Chinese citizen to ride in the Tour de France.

Photo by Reuters

This was Jens Voigt 17th and final Tour de France.   Instead of the peloton letting him lead out on the Champs Elysees, he attacked on the second lap.  The TdF organization put together a really nice tribute  here and his post-race interview is here.

Chicago Marathon training week 12

It seems like yesterday that I started training the week of April 28th, now I am already half way through my training schedule and the Chicago Marathon is less than 3 months away.  My week 12 long run was only a 10K, but mother nature gave me a challenge in the form of pouring rain the entire 6.2 miles.  Charlie and Endo approach running in the rain differently than I do, they run through every puddle and river of rain on the road, while I am constantly bobbing and weaving to avoided them.   No matter how hard I try I always end up putting my foot into a deep puddle.

Endo and I running in the rain this morning

Endo napping post run in front of the fan

The second half of the training schedule is when things start getting serious.  For long runs I still have to do 17 miles, 18 miles, and then three 20 mile runs with "shorter" long weekend runs of 13 miles, a half marathon, 14 miles, a 10K, and then my taper runs (12 and 8 miles) before the marathon.  I mentioned several weeks ago that in order for me to do this runs, with the heat and with the dogs, I was going to have to get up really early on Saturdays to make it happen.  For my last three weekend runs (13, 15, and 16 miles) I have been awake by 4:40 am and on the road by 5:10 am.  As much as I hate waking up early, I really like this schedule.  I finish by 8:30, get a snack, nap (if possible), and still have most of my day to do other things.

Last week I tried my first ice bath after my 16 mile run.  I am not sure it qualifies for a full on official ice bath because I didn't have ice cubes floating in the tub when I got in, but the water was cold.  I stayed in for about 10 minutes and I really do think it helped my muscle recovery.  I'll try even more ice after my 17 mile run next weekend and make sure I measure the temperature of the water to see how cold it is.

Me taking an ice bath

The dogs have been holding up pretty well, minus a limping incident with Charlie in week 11.  When he first started limping on Thursday I was worried that he wouldn't be able to run with me on Saturday, which threw me off a bit.  Despite the fact that I don't run with other humans, my dogs are my training partners and not having them to run with would definitely affect my mental game.  Although I do think he did hurt himself initially, his limping is intermittent.  He has done this before and it appears to be an attention seeking behavior (it goes away when he wants to run or wants a treat).

I shaved Endo's belly and some layers of fur to help her stay cool on the runs.  I also pour water on her several times during the run.  She did fine running 12 miles with me last weekend and was even pulling me at mile 10 so she could chase squirrels.  My dogs are the best running partners, they keep me safe and motivated!

Despite committing to the three day a week training program by Hal Higdon, I have been a little bit nervous that I will not get the mileage in that I need to be prepared on race day.  Because of this I decided to do what I do best, make an Excel spreadsheet to do a mileage comparison between the Marathon Novice 2 and the Marathon 3 programs.  Initially I did my miles/week calculation based on the entire ]training program and the Novice 2 program averaged 26.4 miles while the Marathon 3 was 23.9 miles, which worried me a little bit.  I went back and calculated the miles/week for the Marathon 3 programs based only on the last 18 weeks, the same amount of time of the Novice 2 program, and the average was 26.4 miles!  Once I looked at this I decided I would be alright.

When I trained for Disney with the Novice 2 program, I completely stopped biking and climbing (for the most part).  I stopped doing other activities because I was worried it would be too much for my body to handle.  By the end of the training, I was so burned out on running.  With the Marathon 3 program you are encouraged to do cross-training.  Because I am more confident this time around and I am not running three days straight during the week, I am embracing the cross-training.  I am still biking to work 2-3 days a week and trying to get to the climbing gym 2 or so days a week, depending on how my body feels.  I have also kept up with doing my physical therapy 4-6 times a week and I have not had any issues with my IT band (knock on wood).

One side effect of the increased exercise is my appetite.  I am not really known for eating a lot, but I was pretty ravenous when I trained for the Disney Marathon and it is no different this time around.  My increased demand for food kicked in around week 9 and now I am making sure I have plenty of food and treats to eat, especially at work.  My latest obsession is Brookside dark chocolate covered pomegranates.  So yummy!  Hopefully I don't split the seat of my pants at the climbing gym like last time.  In addition to being hungry all the time I need more sleep.  Nick was joking around the other night at 7:45 pm that it was almost my bedtime, and he wasn't entirely wrong.  I have gone to bed before 9 pm while it is still light out and I'm not ashamed!

A reminder why I am doing all of this work:  to help the puppies in memory of my great rescue dog Sierra!

This is just one, well two examples, of the great work the Paws Chicago does.  If you would like to help Paws you can do so at my Team Paws fundraising page which can be found here.

Peachtree Road Race

Today I ran the Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest 10K, with about 60,000 participants.  This race starts in the Buckhead area of Atlanta (uptown) and follows Peachtree Road south all the way to Piedmont Park in Midtown.

My friend Rita and I headed to the race expo on Wednesday to pick up my number, look for cool stuff, and meet Meb Keflezighi!  Meb is a long distance runner from San Diego that won the Boston Marathon this year.  He was the first American to win Boston since 1983.  He is in Atlanta to run the Peachtree to raise money for the Atlanta Track Club's Kilometer Kids.  He plans to start the race 10 minutes after the last group and  pass as many people he can in 6.2 miles.  He was in the Atlanta Track Club booth on Wednesday signing his book, Run to Overcome, and taking photos with fans.  I decided to buy his book for him to sign, and of course for me to read, and get a picture.  He was so nice and gracious with those of us that came to see him.

Meb (I just love saying his name)

I am just happy to finish

Luckily this was before the race

The morning of the race it was only 65 degrees!!!!!  My coworker, Alex, got to my house around 6 am so we could head to Marta, the Atlanta subway/train system.  Riding Marta the morning of Peachtree is an experience in itself.  Nothing like you and 60,000 of your closest friends crammed into public transit!  Last year I was sandwiched between a bunch of people with nothing to hold on to so it was like a bumper car ride for me.  This year we were able to get into the middle of the train where it wasn't as bad, but the people at the doors were still packed in.  At one of the stops I saw a woman wearing a Team Paws Chicago singlet!  She got on the other end of the train so I couldn't talk to her.

We made it to Lenox Station in plenty of time to hit the porta potty and check out the scene before the race started at 7:30.  At about 7:10 Alex and I parted ways and I headed to corral C which was supposed to start at 7:31.

Peachtree Road Race start line

About to start!

We started promptly at 7:30 and I was feeling pretty crappy in the first few miles, despite the fact that the course was downhill and the temperature was low (for Atlanta in the summer).  I had an ache in my side and I just didn't feel good.  One thing I had to look forward to was seeing my friends Rita and Mike at mile 2!  After stopping for a minute to say hi to them, I saw the woman who was running for Team Paws ahead of me and so I kicked into high gear and caught up to her and said hi.

Mike and Rita

Dallas from Team Paws!

After the happiness of seeing friends and fellow Team Paws person I started feeling much better.  I looked at my watch and my pace was actually not too bad so I was feeling pretty happy.  There were really great (and sometimes crazy) crowds along the course, especially in the last mile.  People were yelling "Go Team Paws" at me, which was great!  Somewhere between mile 4.5 and 5 I noticed some guys giving out blood mary shots and they turned out to be Zing Zang mix so I had to have one.  People were giving out flags, water, beer, pizza, donuts, and all kinds of things along the way.

Running with American flag

Zing Zang!

Soon I was at mile 5 and counting down to 10th street where we turned left and headed to Piedmont Park.  I was feeling really hot and sweaty, despite the cooler temps, but the end was getting close.  I was very happy to finish in 1:01:33, a much better time than I was expecting to get.  I met up with Alex at the Atlanta Track Club member booth and then we made the  journey from Piedmont Park to the Midtown Marta station via 8th Street.  It was all up hill and seemed to take forever.  One unexpected bonus was some people from Three Tavern Brewery giving out free (good) beer somewhere around Juniper or Piedmont.

Finisher shirt!

Alex was really happy about his free beer

We headed back to my house for some celebratory beverages and breakfast.  When we walked in the door the house smelled of bacon thanks to Nick already starting to cook.  Overall it was a great race and a nice break from the longer weekend runs.

In the end Meb Keflezighi finished the race in 37:56 and passed 22,780 people in his quest to raise money for Kilometer Kids.  He ran passed my friend Rita around mile 2 and gave a little kid a high five.  Such a nice guy!