I have had my Centurion Cinelli Equipe road bike since 1985 when I bought it at the Internationl Bicycle Center in Boston. It had a list price of almost $1000 back then, but I bought it for $700. It is a solid and beautiful bike, built in Italy by Cinelli for the Centurion brand. I looked on eBay and the last price someone sold one for was double the price that I originally paid. Mine is not for sale as it is still my main road bike and I am not upgrading. I spent so many miles riding this bike through the years that it is like a best friend to me. I recently saw a post that gave more specifics for the bike at the Cinelli Only blog which also had an article from Bicycle Guide on the bike. that I use to have, but have somehow lost.
I thought I would put up a few pictures that I can find of the bike through the years as the author of that blog post has asked for pictures of this Centurion model. The first bicycle I bought for racing triathlons in 1983 was a $300 Centurion Elite. That September, I competed in my third triathlon, which was the 1st Cape Cod Endurance Triathlon (a full Ironman distance triathlon). I used that bike the next year for more triathlons including the 2nd CCET, but bought the Centurion Cinelli Equipe for the 1985 season and used it in all future triathlons including my 3rd -5th CCET races from 1985-1987. I stopped doing triathlons at that time due to a "bad back", but spent the next couple of years racing my bike in local time trials, criteriums, and road races. Now that I had hip surgery last summer, I think my "bad back" was caused by a bad hip as I feel more comfortable on my bike then I ever did back when I was racing. It is fun to train again on my sturdy and quick Centurion Cinelli Equipe! I have only seen one other model of this bike. It was being raced by Donnie Lake, one of New England's top triathlete's in the 1980s.
1983 training ride stop at the Cape Cod Canal: Centurion Elite.
Everything looks original in this photo. This is the 1985 Bud Light United States Triathlon Series race in Boston.
The photo is minutes before the first of my two crashes on the rainy course. I still managed to
qualify for the National Triathlon Championship race at Hilton Head. Sadly no one informed me of this until after
the Championship race had been completed.
Bike racing at the Lee Motor Speedway in Lee, NH in 1989
The setup I have had for the past 10 years of so.
Update:
Here is something I did not know. A Centurion bicycle won the Ironman Triathlon in 1982 in Hawaii. Here is a photo of Linda Sweeney's Ironman winning bike as seen on twitter by Lucas Verzbicus. He says it was made from aluminum, but it is a steel framed bike.
She only used two gears during the bike ride and had a basket on the front to keep her towel, her cassettes and her cassette player. White Punks on Dope was top of mind. From reading the materials, Linda Sweeney thought the Ironman course in Hawaii was totally flat. Not quite. It’s hard to believe it has been 30 years since Sweeney won her first- and only- Ironman race.
From this article her boyfriend the Thom Hunt, former high school indoor mile record holder and American 10,000 meter record holder bought her the Centurion for $350.
This is my wife's Centurion Lemans 12 road bike. She never got into cycling. She bought this bike on my recommendation around 1985. I made this mistake of taking her out for her first ride on a 25 mile route through the hills of Vermont. She was not happy and did not want to become a triathlete (I tried), thus this bike has been toted from garage to garage. It is still all original. We may not have it much longer as we have put it on Craigslist for $100, but it is another in the line of Centurion bicycles.
Here are two well done and recently uploaded videos of American track icon Steve Prefontaine. Many key players in Pre's life are shown in interviews.
I do recall where I was when I heard that Steve Prefontaine had been killed. I was in a 10th grade high school health class studying a silly book called, "I'm OK, You're OK." We found out the Pre was not OK. There were a couple cross-country/track teammates in the class and I recall the questionings and discussions of what had happened.
One of these days, I will get around to putting up my photos of the 1982 Falmouth Road Race, but with registration now open for the 2012 version of the race, I would like to point you to the 1982 Falmouth Road Race video. I have had this link from Letsrun.com in my favorites for a few years. This comes from a CBS broadcast of the race and from Juan Martinez who has links to many race pictures and videos on his site. To see or download the race go here. To see the original letsrun thread go here (I am TDF on letsrun). You can see many of my other photos and memories from other years at Falmouth at these and other pages on my blog.
It can be hard to write a shoe review when I am not really running at the moment, but here is my preliminary review of the unusual and unique shoe from Hoka One One called Bondi B (pronounced Ho-kay Oh-nay Oh-nay which means "Time to Fly" in Maori, "Bondi" is named after Bondi Beach , so the correct pronunciation is bond-eye) . Before undergoing labral tear surgery for my left hip last summer, I ordered a pair of these shoes, after reading many reviews, thinking that the cushioning they provide might be very helpful on my return to running post surgery. I found a newish pair on eBay with only about 10 miles on them for about half-price to buy, so I did.
Sure enough they were over-sized and cushioned to the max, but I liked the looks of the grey and citrus colors and although my family snickered at the size of the shoes I didn't care. They looked nice. I did notice that when I put the shoes on, they felt hot and confining and I didn't like wearing them when I was just relaxing. I had bought my normal size 12, but most reviews say to buy them 1/2 size bigger. I liked running in them and my orthotics fit and worked in the shoes just fine, but I did notice that my toes got scrunched together a bit and I would tend to get some blisters and abrasions as my runs got up to the 8 mile range. I realized the shoes were a little bit too tight for my liking. They weren't pressing in on my toes, but my toes couldn't really move around. They would not be comfortable or usable on longer runs (once my body fully comes around to doing distance again).
The Hoka insole wraps around your heel and orthotics.
Public disclosure: my left leg is weird. So this part of the review pertains more to the way my body functions and not to a function of the shoe. At first the Bondi B gave me a cushioned and comfortable stride. I especially liked the rocker sole that rolls the foot easily forward. That is one reason that I wanted to try the shoe. I am told I have something called functional hallux limitus where the first MPT joint will not bend when bearing weight. That means when I try to toe off, my toe stiffens up and my foot has to find another way to move around the joint. I found that with the rocker sole I had a very smooth and pleasant roll from mid-foot to toe off. My left foot also everts out to the side (tibial torsion) and suppinates on landing before trying to roll over in pronation. I began getting the feeling that the over-sized cushioning and sole of the Biondi B was exaggerating this roll more and more and throwing my body and form off the more I ran. It is important to note that this only happens on my left side. My right foot and leg works perfectly fine in the Biondi B.
My impressions of the shoe was that it really does dampen the pounding your body takes when running. I never felt beat up after running in these and I only can imagine how great they would be on long runs. The size of the shoe may be overly large, but the weight was not. I have always liked doing my running and training in racing shoes and lightweight non-built up shoes; shoes we now call minimalistic. I hate running in trainers. The Bondi B did not feel like heavy-weight trainers at all. The problem I had with the shoes was that the model I bought was just too small for me and I was not sure my left foot was taking to them.
My Skechers GoRun compared to the Bondi B.
So in the winter, I tried the SKECHERS GO Run shoes (I like trying out new ideas in shoes). The GoRuns also claim a rocker sole and were extremely lightweight. The uppers are one of the most comfortable (can't feel em) uppers I have ever run in. Unfortunately, orthotics don't really work in the Skecher GoRuns, and after over a year and one-half off from running (gaining weight and losing fitness) the Skechers were not the best choice as a training shoe. I did use them in the 5k races I did this winter and loved the feel of them, but any distance over that and my feet and body were not ready for them, so I put them away until I am ready to race again.
Bondi B and the GoRun (both size 12)
I decided to try another shoe, the zero drop Altra Instinct. The first time I put them on, my feet liked the light roominess of the uppers. Whereas I would kick the Hokas off my feet whenever I was lying around, I actually felt completely comfortable lounging around in the Altras ( I know that running shoes are not for sitting around in, but hey that is what I am doing most days). When I started running in the Altras, however, something unusual happened. I got cuts right above the knuckles of my second toe joints. It seems that when I run the shoe bends on my foot at this spot and the extra material and stitching would press into my toe. I would come back from runs with very bloody socks and shoes. The Altras did this when I ran with my orthotics or without my orthotics. I liked everything about this shoe, but having a shoe cut up my toe is not acceptable.
Altra Instinct
I had a big decision to make about which shoe I would go with and I made a choice to try a larger size model of the Hoka One One Bondi. When looking around on the Hoka site, I made an interesting discovery. There is a town a few towns away that has a wonderful store that sells all sorts of interesting and minimalistic running shoes. I headed over to Townsend, Ma to find Evans on the Common. I would absolultely recommend this store to all my local running friends. They have a great collection of shoes that you can't find in most local stores and it is a real friendly store with a small town general store type feel. I would have liked to try on many of the shoes on the shelves, but I came to pick up a pair of Hokas. The Hokas do not come in a 12 1/2 size so I checked out the size 13 model. They were roomy, comfortable, and ridiculously expensive (retail price-not store markup). They also had a color pattern that I did not like as much as the grey model that I had.
My Bondi B's. I am not a fan of these colors.
Once I got them home, they really did look like clown shoes on my feet. They were just that much bigger than the 12s that I had and the color combinations made the size stand out even more. They also seem to be about 1/2 size bigger than I really need, but bigger is better than smaller. I did find them roomy enough that I don't need to kick them off when wearing them around the house. They are totally comfortable, but I don't feel like wearing this pair in public even with a pair of jeans as they feel that much more over-sized on my feet.
Comparing the colors of my two Bondi's.
I did use them running and they worked perfectly for me, giving me a nice rolling feel to my feet as I ran and if I can ever get my mileage back up again, I could imagine these shoes rolling my feet easily through 20 milers without any stress on my feet. While I was running with that nice rolling feel, I even started to think of this as being a shoe to take me on runs longer than marathon distance.
Unfortunately, the muscles in my body still haven't evened out post surgery and I had to drop my mileage and eventually sought out a new PT. He suggested that I stop running and I have done that for the past month. I am hoping to start again slowly this weekend. In the meantime, at the Boston Marathon Expo, I talked to the Altra people and bought another model, the Altra Provision. I also decided to stop using my orthotics and started using the Provision as my daily shoe for work and walking around. I loved the feel for the first two weeks and then my finicky feet started to dislike the soft feeling of the shoe. I would come home from school and put on the Biondi's to walk around in and my feet felt more supported.
The Bondi B compared to the ultra thin Puma H Street shoes I used to wear.
I still haven't figured out which shoe I like best, particularly for running. I don't know if the Provisions will cut into my toe. When I first wore them the stitching was irritating the top of my big toes. I feel my feet have to do more work in the Altras and my feet roll nicely in the Hokas. The big question for me is how my left foot will eventually respond to the Hokas. Will they cause greater suppination and an awkward roll on my messed up side or will PT strengthen and straighten out my foot. If my left foot worked properly, I would be totally convinced that the Hoka One One is the shoe for me. This minimalist runner would be going maximalist. The jury is still out, however, as to which shoe will let me run in the best way for my body.
Maybe you have tried to use a tennis, lacrosse, or massage ball to release a tight psoas muscle like this:
Kelley Starrett from Crossfit San Francisco and of the MWOD, Mobility Workout of the Day, has a much more simpler and effective way to do so and shows you how to work, or floss, the psoas (hip flexor) muscle using a kettlebell and a lacrosse ball. This is real gritty stuff that can help get rid of tightness of the psoas muscle which often, as in my case, leads to lower back pain. In the past, I had tried rolling the psoas muscle on tennis balls or other harder balls, as well as using the Thera Caneas demonstrated in the The Trigger Point Therapy Workbookto loosen or release the tight psoas muscle, but it is a hard one to reach and you have to be careful. By lying on your back as in this video, I find that I am able to relax and let the weight of the kettlebell slowly work on releasing that troublesome muscle.
Here is a video showing how to use the TP Trigger Point Productsto work on the psoas. As you can see, It is much easier to use the above approach with a kettlebell weighing down a lacrosse type ball to reach the psoas.
Finally, here is Martha Peterson's Somatics approach to release the psoas muscle. You can read about her approach here. Martha's book called Move Without Painis an excellent source for understanding Somatics and introduces many somatic exercises with simple directions and explanations.
Meanwhile, if you have got this far, here is an update on my running. I am not. I haven't run for about a month when the physical therapist told me to stop. I am doing his exercises, but it is hard to see improvement as I need to run to see if it is working. He said it takes about 8 weeks for soft tissue to change. He said I can start up the running after the next visit on Friday. I am a little cynical that things haven't changed much due to the fact that I still get the same pains on different days and I am doing nothing to aggravate things. I think the muscles around my hip are waging a war on each other pushing and being pulled and certainly things are not in balance like I would expect. That is why, I was doing the kettlebell psoas release as I could feel that tightening up and pulling on my back and irritating my adductors and everything else that gets tight down the line. The kettlebell trick has worked for the past two days. Interestingly, at my last PT visit, the therapist asked if I have had my psoas worked on my an ART practitioner, but that is as far as he got with that conversation. I will follow up on Friday. I can wait to get started running, but somehow I feel like not running is just a punishment, and I will be no farther along when I start up again.
The finish line is not the only place that a runner can take a dive. The steeplechase can be a full-body impact track event. It takes guts to run toward the heavy wooden barrier and catapult yourself off the top and continue running. The water jump makes the steeplechase even more fun. Unfortunately with the steeplechase, not everything goes as planned. This weekend Katy Andrews had the misfortune of misstepping into the barrier resulting in a complete drenching in the pit. Like a true champion, she shook it off and continued running with a slight smirk on her face as she continued on with the race.
(article and photos here)
Here is another view including slow motion.
Katy is definitely not the first runner to experience problems with the water jump barrier.
Here is another classic steeplechase fail, with the additional ignominy of having another athlete land on top of you after having a full submersion in the water pit. Here is the story of collegiate steepler Jake Hojnacki's magnicient dousing as well as the story of his injury plagued Div. 3 running career. He ends with a nod to Katy Andrew's more recent spill with this great quote:
"I was a little upset. That got a lot more publicity than mine. I thought my fall was much better. She made Sports Center and stuff like that, but I guess guys want to see cute girls fall in face first." He added, "Hopefully we never reproduce with each other, because I feel like that child would be very clumsy and a lot of bad things would happen to that kid."
Ioran Etchechury of Brazil trips and falls into the water during the Boys 2000m Steeplechase on day four of the Youth Olympics at Bishan Stadium on August 18, 2010 in Singapore.
I remember watching this one live on my computer. It was not a funny at all.
During the IAAF Track & Field World Championships in Osaka, Japan, several runners collide into a barrier during the opening minutes of the men's 3000-meter steeplechase. Gunther Weidlinger of Austria tripped and fell head-first into the barrier and was not able to continue. This one is a tough one to watch, but do watch the American runner flip over the barrier to avoid hitting Gunther.
shoes (I like trying out new ideas in shoes). The GoRuns also claim a rocker sole and were extremely lightweight. The uppers are one of the most comfortable (can't feel em) uppers I have ever run in. Unfortunately, orthotics don't really work in the Skecher GoRuns, and after over a year and one-half off from running (gaining weight and losing fitness) the Skechers were not the best choice as a training shoe. I did use them in the 5k races I did this winter and loved the feel of them, but any distance over that and my feet and body were not ready for them, so I put them away until I am ready to race again.
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as demonstrated in the 
to loosen or release the tight psoas muscle, but it is a hard one to reach and you have to be careful. By lying on your back as in this video, I find that I am able to relax and let the weight of the kettlebell slowly work on releasing that troublesome muscle.
is an excellent source for understanding Somatics and introduces many somatic exercises with simple directions and explanations.
