Sort of got racing again for the first time in months!

After 37 mile ElliptiGO ride Thanksgiving morning.

The last month was pretty uneventful, then Thanksgiving happened, before I went back to a boring routine again. Unfortunately, I have got my second major coughing thing going on. I had it for a few weeks. It went away for a few weeks, and it came back again after too much time in the cold Thanksgiving morning. It makes sleeping and training difficult.

Usually, I get in an hour of exercise per day in my "training dungeon". Most of it is on the ElliptiGO and then I may run on the treadmill for 10-15 minutes. Occasionally, I might row for 10 minutes and  call it a day after an hour of working out. This month I am also doing a 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge and am slowly building up how long I can swing as I don't think I have done more than 100 swings in a day since I last did the challenge almost 3 years ago. I need to do about 333 per day to hit 10,000.

Thanksgiving day, was my big workout day. I ran my first race since back in June when I did the Hollis Fast Downhill 5k and I fell out of love with running. It still hurt to run (slow) and I was limping for two days after that race. A week later I got my ElliptiGO.

I wanted to run the Great Gobbler Thanksgiving race as I have done each year they have held it (this year was the 11th). I decided that I was just going to run slowly since I have not run that far since June. The goal was to finish without limping or pain. I also signed my son up and we ran together (a first since I probably paced him in a couple races when he was 5). He is now 23.

Then I got an invitation to do a 50 mile ElliptiGO ride that morning with Dave Dunham. He would be starting at the same time as the race. I had already paid my money so I made an alternate plan.

The morning was very cold (in the 20s and windy). Andy and I jogged along mid- pack. The first mile was about in 10:20 and I laughed that we wouldn't even break 30 minutes and I didn't care!

My hip flexor was tight, but I wasn't pushing things and ran quite comfortably. We finished in around 30:15, but the chip time turned out to be 29:59 for me and Andrew beat me for the first time in a race by one second. We then flew out of there and I drove home to pick up my helmet that I forgot and got out to the Nashua Rail Trail (about 3 miles away) where Dave had already headed out on his ElliptiGO ride. The plan was to go from Nashua on on the rail trail to Ayer, MA where the trail ends and head home and do it again.

I was really concerned about the cold and wind, and wasn't sure how to dress, but I ended up nailing it with 3 pairs of socks and gloves within gloves. A baklava for the head and face turned out to be a must. I figured I would ride out until I saw Dave and ride back with him to do the second loop.

I was comfortable, except for cold fingers the first 6 miles when I saw Dave coming the other direction. I turned around and rode back to Nashua with him. Except for the ElliptiGO Classic race and then the group ride the day after, this was the first time I had ridden with another ElliptiGO rider. Dave's toes were really cold. He ran 10 miles on the rail trail before heading out on theElliptiGO. He decided to do 50K instead of 50 miles. He rode out on his second loop to get the needed miles in and then turned around to head home. I realized I was warm and comfortable despite the wind and temperatures so went out to Ayer and back. I got in 37 miles and realized that if you dress correctly, you can ride in some pretty cold temperatures! I also learned if you do a lot of miles on Thanksgiving morning, you feel better about the upcoming feast and make no excuses for a long afternoon nap.

Yesterday, I tried out a new Looxcie HD Explore on my ElliptiGO. It is sort of like a GoPro camera in that you can mount it to a bike. I guess the main feature that sets it apart from other cameras is that you can live stream from your camera if you have a cell phone. I don't so I just wanted to see how it works. I learned that you have to make sure it is secure. In the video below, it is not me having an accident, but that is just my camera falling off its mount. I didn't snap it properly in place.

 

Here are my Great Gobbler Race results over the past 11 years:

Great Gobbler race results:

2003 19:59 16th originally called a Nashua High School Alumni race.
2004 19:38 15th
2005 19:19  7th  (Awesome snowstorm during the race!)
2006 18:16  13th
2007 18:09  18th
2008  20:10 28th
2009 20:46 31st
2010 22:00 77th  (off the fumes of summer training as the labral tear kept me from running much)
2011 24:45 170th (few months after hip surgery)
2012 24:33 Chip time 24:42 Net time 166th
2013 29:59 Chip time 30:15 416th

Well, it should be easy to improve next year, but I said the same thing in 2012!