Shurukian

These flags look great together. Congratulations!

Congrats guys!

I would most definitely wear this shirt. Edit:: I blame Rontastic for my moustache association.

I don't know many of the Invicta members, but NADC are great people and a fantastic ally. Congratulations, guys!

Congratulations on the treaty. Glad you're enjoying the bond theme as well!

Well, you're still doing more than most of America, so thumbs up to you, sir!

Thanks, Capitalist cat!

I get a lot of questions about what my training plan looks like, since I seem to be always doing... well... something. My comments of 'heading out for a run/bike/swim/climb/yoga/etc is usually met with, "Didn't you just do that, like... yesterday?" And in most cases - yeah. Pretty much. I develop all my training plans myself, off of plans and research that pros and coaches publish. I also put together all my own workouts, mainly for swimming - they range anywhere from just under a mile to almost 3 miles. It's really awesome to be able to write up your own schedule instead of just downloading one from the internet and trying to plod through it. That sucks. Believe me. So with that intro, here's a look into my next two months, prepping for IM Lake Tahoe in September, four races in October, and a marathon in November. Now... normally I would get crucified for the lack of rest days in this schedule. You normally want at least one per week. Luckily, climbing has become sort of an active recovery for me. I boulder, which takes very little leg work and utlizies mostly upper body, so my legs can rest without getting tight. I consider it an active rest day. Writing up a training plan while trying to work around additional races can be a challenge - especially with back to back races, like I have in the beginning of August. You need to make sure you rest enough to prepare for the races, but you also need to make sure you're still growing your training to prepare for the next races you have coming up after them (which in this case, is 6 in the following 3 months). My schedule ends in November with a blissful two weeks of doing nothing. And I seriously mean nothing. I will sit on my couch, eat popcorn, and watch netflix. It will be glorious. The races coming up: The Krista Greisacker Adventure Race was kind of a last minute addition. This will be my first adventure race ever... and I probably didn't pick the best one to start out with. It's a 12 hour race, and ranges from 50-80 miles. Your mileage depends on how many checkpoints you get and how lost you end up. The idea of an adventure race is that you start at one location with no idea where you're going. You have to navigate using a bit of checkpoint data they give you to try and make your way through the course. We're going to be trail running, mountain biking, kayaking, and even possibly some climbing and rappelling depending on where we end up. It's all self-supported (no aid stations), so it should be interesting. This one is a total wildcard for me and I don't really know what to expect. The good news, is that I'll be able to write up a fantastic race report afterwards, as I am going to screw it up so bad. Really. The Steelman Aquavelo is my copout (kind of?) for feeling like I'm not healthy enough yet to run long distances (which is horrendously ironic since I will literally be trail running anywhere from 8-20 miles the weekend before). An Aquavelo is just a race that is just swimming and cycling. This particular one is a .9 mile swim and a 24 mile bike. If I can clear up my tendonitis in my foot (which will not f$%king die), then I may bump back up to the Olympic tri. Not sure yet. I basically just don't want to FUBAR myself for my remaining races this year. That. Would. Blow. This entry wasn't necessarily as exciting as the others, but hopefully it gave some kind of insight into the work and mild dedication it takes to (decently) complete the races I've been posting about. Similarly, if you need help or get interested in how to develop your own training plan for something, let me know. tl;dr:... Basically, send me snacks. Please. My legs are hungry.

:wub: I..... feel like I may have a hard time participating in this.

Thanks smurthwaite! Glad you enjoyed it.

It was a thought that may have crossed my mind. Thanks Helbrecht!

That's pretty f-in' awesome. Haha. Nice.

This past weekend, I raced Ironman 70.3 Eagleman in Cambridge, Maryland. For those of you that aren't aware, a 70.3 distance is a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run. First of all, I'd like to offer my condolences to anyone that races anything in Kansas. I imagine that racing in Kansas feels exactly the same as racing in eastern Maryland, except for the fact that Maryland has trees, which are frustratingly far away and offer absolutely no shade. Seriously, screw those trees. For race start, I was in wave six (out of like…. 22), so I started pretty early in the pack. Most of the fast people were behind me, including my fiance, who started almost a full hour behind me. There were strong benefits and drawbacks to this, which I’ll detail some other time. When it came time for our wave, they were running a minute or two behind, so they decided to rush our wave. It was horrendous. To get to the swim start, you walked down this enclosed boat ramp, waded out into the water, and walked another 100 yards or so to the start buoys. When they set off the cannon for our wave, most of us were still on the ramp, in shin deep water. A woman looked at me, panicked, and yelled “WAS THAT FOR US?” and I said, “… I actually think it was”, and we all rushed over each other to try to get into the water enough to swim. It probably added at least 2 or 3 minutes onto my swim time. Oh well. The swim was the most enjoyable portion of the race for me. I took it at an easy and calm pace, and punched a jellyfish half way through for good measure (I’m not kidding on that – I seriously punched a jellyfish by accident. Oops). The bike course is something that I feel Ironman could probably market to Gitmo as an alternative to unethical torture. It was honestly the most mind numbing bike I have ever done in my life. 56 miles of excruciatingly flat roads and fields… and a swamp. Then more fields again… then hey! Another swamp. No elevation change, just 3.5 hours or so in the hot sun, with the same scenery over, and over, and over. There were no landmarks to gauge yourself off of, no prominences to get any kind of recovery on… if you stopped pedaling, and you stopped moving. Period. It was about 10 miles into this bike that I realized that my watch never started. I have no idea how this happened, since I started it on the swim and watched it start counting. The only thing I can think of is that it somehow got kicked and reset while I was in the water. I don’t know. Around mile 24 of the bike, I passed an aid station and grabbed a bottle of water from them. They were handing out huge Aquafina bottles, with the cap tops, and you would grab one from a volunteer while you road through at a slow enough speed. Their trash drop zones, however, were miniscule. If you were holding a pace that was barely enough to fall over, you could get about two drinks out of these things before you needed to throw them. I didn’t have any other space on my bike to carry them, so I was trying to get it in and chuck them before I passed the sign. The first one, I stopped, used the rest of it to fill up my bottle, and was good. When I hit the stop at mile 24, my bottle was still full. Instead, I was positively baking in the heat, and wanted to dump it over my head to get cool. So I grab this bottle, wrestle the cap open, take a swig, and close my eyes for a second to dump it over my head. It must have been in this three second window of my eyes being closed that I passed the “last chance drop” sign…. Because I opened my eyes, saw a sign about two hundred yards up, assumed it was the drop sign, and tossed my bottle off to the side into an obnoxiously large pile of bottles next to a trash bag. I was maybe 50-100 yards from the aid station, at the very most. The second it leaves my hand, one of the refs (who could probably win an award for meanest ref ever) is literally screaming my number out and flashing a blue card at me. I’m baffled, and asked what in the world I did. She tells me to pull over at the penalty tent ahead and she’d explain it to me. Apparently I must have JUST passed the sign when I tossed my bottle, and she hit me with a littering penalty and lectured me for ‘harming the integrity of the course’. I was livid and kept telling her that I didn’t see the sign, and thought the sign ahead was the ‘last drop sign’ (it wasn’t, it was the penalty tent sign). She sends another guy over and he hands me a stopwatch and tells me to sit for 5 minutes. So, I sat there for my 5 minutes with about 20 other people they’d called for various reasons, all waiting out our 5 minutes or doing our check-ins before we could go. While we’re sitting there, a dude literally cycles by and throws his open bottle AT THE PENALTY TENT. Like… threw it directly at the ref. Water splash at all. My instant reaction was ‘that guy is so screwed’. And… they just let him cycle on by. Cue frustration rise. Just before this happened, I was considering just calling it quits because I wasn’t feeling the race so much. This whole incident didn’t really help, but I was so eager to get away from that woman that I cycled away as soon as my five minutes were up and just kept going. My pace dropped a bit, but oh well. This same ref later called six or seven people in a row for drafting (including my fiance) and sent them all to sit for 5 minutes as well. They got a ton of people on the new drafting rules, since they lengthened the amount of space you’re supposed to leave, and shortened up the time you have to pass. Basically… I have never been so excited to get to the run portion of a race, ever. It’s usually my least favorite part. Not this time! Though it was certainly the most difficult. Last bike tidbit – around mile 40, an older gentleman cycled up along side of me, slowed down to the same pace and said, “Looks like we only have a few miles to go and we’re doing great!”. He looked completely fresh and seemed like he was just out for a Sunday ride, but was probably pulling close to 20-22 miles an hour before he slowed down to match me. After I responded, he picks up speed back up and speeds ahead of me, and I look at the age on his left leg – 85 years old. I was completely in awe. When I got back into transition, I decided to totally disregard time and sat there for a good, comfy 5 minutes taking my time, stretching, relaxing, and contemplating how ridiculously hot it was. One person’s bike computer registered the temperature high in transition at 106 degrees (and around 80-90% humidity). Once I got up and started to walk (my lack of urgency was at an all time high) I realized that I was having issues in my chest. For those of you that aren’t aware, I am actually medically allergic to exercise. My body is allergic to one of the chemicals your body produces during strenuous physical activity. I take medicine for it that usually blunts my reaction, but – oh joy! – my medicine loses its effectiveness with heat. So by the time I got to the run portion and it was in the mid 90’s with a heat index in the 100’s, my medicine was fairly non-existent, and I was starting to feel the beginnings of an anaphylactic reaction. My chest was extremely tight, I couldn’t get that much air in, and my heart rate was in the 130’s to 140’s just walking at a normal pace. So… I walked. The first three miles were spent calming my heart rate down, trying to stretch my chest and lessen the reaction, and dousing myself with all available ice water to try and cool my core temperature. By mile 4, I was able to jog a bit, but it was a very on/off kind of thing. Much more off than on. My fiance caught me around this time and asked me how I was doing, to which I shrugged. He looked at me and said, “Do you hate this right now?” and I said, “… Yeah, kind of.” and he goes, “Yeah, it’s okay, I hate this too”, and laughed (which was music to my ears – I was worried it was just me). At mile 11, a woman at an aid station offered to dump an entire bucket of ice water over my head. It was an absolute godsend, and shocked my system back to some kind of normal. I spent the last two miles running through every sprinkler and hose I could find, and finished the race running and completely drenched. I was probably more soaked when I finished than when I came out of the swim. Final thoughts…. I saw so many people taken off the course in ambulances from heat stroke, so I’m just happy I finished. I was way, way slower than my goal time of sub 7 hours, but with the way my run (or lack of run?) went, I knew it wasn’t possible. Similarly, watching 85% of the racers walk the majority of the run course made me feel like I couldn’t really have done any better. I will probably never do this race again, but I’ll give the 70.3 distance a few more shots before I write myself off as a shorter distance triathlete. That heat was just absolutely killer. Next 70.3 up is the exact opposite – cold, mountainous Tahoe in September. And if you hung in this long... I owe you one. Moral of the story is - do a 70.3 race. You might just get to punch a jellyfish.

I can't imagine running another 9 miles with beer and a burger in my stomach. That man is a superhero.

I know, they seriously are. :3 They're going to go in a frame or something once they're beat. Yes it absolutely was!

The last time I checked in, it was just prior to the Love Run Half Marathon and I had a calf injury. Luckily, that injury cleared up the day before the race, and I PR’d (Personal Record) by almost a half hour. My finish time was 2 hours, 28 minutes, and some change. I felt great. This is a summary of the past two months’ experiences - tendonitis, cardiac arrest, nose bleeds, an amazing trip, and future plans. The next race I had on my plate was the Broad Street 10 Miler on May 2nd, which is the fastest and most populated 10 miler in the country. I ran this race with 45,000 other people. It was insane. While I was training for this, I was also training for the Vermont City Marathon, which I had coming up just three weeks after, on May 24th. My mileage was getting pushed higher and higher… and two weeks before the Broad Street run, I went out for an 18 mile run on some of our favorite trails. 14 miles in, I started to feel some discomfort in my left foot. Like an idiot, I convinced myself I needed to get all 18 in, and continued slogging through the miles to hit my mark. I finished, and my foot immediately started to stiffen and swell. I had problems putting weight on it for days afterwards. I hoped it was just sore from use and that I wasn’t dealing with another injury. Two days before the Broad Street run, two large box trucks went missing in Philly. The local police instantly became worried that these were going to be used for terrorism purposes during the race, and the FBI was called in to provide race assistance and protect the event. This most likely saved one dude's life, so thanks box-truck-stealer-guys. May 2nd came around, and my foot felt decent for the race. We walked our way to the finish line… or at least as close to the finish line as we could get. The amounts of people were insane. The start line was two blocks away, and it took my fiancé over 45 minutes just to get there. I started further back in the pack, which stretched over a quarter mile away from the starting line. Again… nuts. The race itself was awesome. You run through what is stereotypically the ‘worst’ parts of Philly (Olney, Fern Rock, Northern Philly) but hundreds of people from the neighborhoods were out cheering on runners and handing out orange slices, cookies, and carrying awesome signs like “Don’t Trust a Fart Past Mile 5”. The temperature climbed and became swelteringly humid, so I took every opportunity to pour cups of water on my head and run through opened fire hydrants and sprinklers. Overheating sucks. At mile 2, I passed an ambulance where EMT’s were loading a 35 year old male runner. He had suddenly collapsed and gone into full cardiac arrest. Luckily, one of the aforementioned FBI Special Agents was watching the man when he collapsed. He ran over and did CPR until the paramedics were able to get him into the ambulance and off of the course. The guy ended up fully recovering. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one that had to be evac’d from the course. Philly’s Police Chief Inspector was hanging out at the finish line congratulating runners when a 27 year old male crossed the line, finished running, and instantly collapsed. He similarly went into cardiac arrest. Luckily, the medics were able to rapidly get him to Temple Hospital, and he fully recovered as well. For myself, I finished the race in 1:49:32, 28 seconds under my goal. I was happy. My left foot was aching again, so I decided to go to the medical tent and get checked out once all of the above had quieted down. They told me exactly what I didn’t want to hear – I had both posterior tibial tendonitis and pereoneal tendonitis. The pereoneal tendons travel the outside of your calf and foot, and connect to the outside of your arch. The tibial tendons do the same, but on the inside of your leg. I had aggravated both of them – an injury that normally takes 8-12 weeks to heal. I had a marathon in three weeks. $%#@. They suggested I run in only stability shoes, so I pulled out an old, crappy pair and decided they would be my marathon shoes. Bummer. I wasn’t able to run much in those weeks before the Vermont City Marathon, as every time I’d go out for a decent run, I’d start to feel pain in my foot, and it would become stiff and painful for days. For the final two weeks, I decided the best thing to do would be to not run at all. I started to become very nervous about finishing the race. Who does a marathon with almost no training the three weeks prior? Ugh. In this time, I also decided to radically change my diet to become closer to a fat adapted lifestyle (a post for another time). Another thing you’re really not supposed to do before a marathon. On the day prior to a race, you usually go to a specified area to pick up your race information and walk around a vendor expo – usually running shoe companies, wholesalers, nutritionists, sports chiropractors, etc. While walking around the expo for VCM, my foot started to hurt. I was totally demoralized, and figured it was certain that I wouldn’t finish. Until… we stopped at a shoe wholesaler and I tried on a pair of new Brooks Adrenaline 15’s. It was like god enveloped my foot and all my pain disappeared. I bought them on the spot and decided I was going to break another race rule and run in brand new shoes. This was going to be interesting. Race day came, and it was perfect. High 50’s to low 70’s through most of the race, cloudy, and beautiful. I love Burlington, VT so much. And the views of the Adirondacks (a mountain range I spend most of my winter in) were spectacular. Myself, Jason, our friend Stacy, and our pup Ridley just before the marathon start. The new shoes gave me a nasty blister on my pinky-toe, but carried me otherwise pain-free through 26.5 miles (I swear that course was long). I also had the most kick-ass outfit ever. Happiest Marathon finisher in all the lands. It was probably my favorite race I’ve ever done, and I’d love to do it again in the future. Once I finished (at 5:49:45), I saw my friend Stacy… who was covered in blood. Seriously - it was everywhere. She looked like she fought off a Moose somewhere during the course. Apparently, Stacy had gotten a wicked nosebleed half way into the course. She pushed it off, just to get another nosebleed at mile 23, just before the finish. Medics saw her and tried to make her stop, which she of course refused (Stacy is currently working on running a marathon in all 50 states. This was her 4th or 5th), and they were forced to follow her for three miles while she ran, bleeding everywhere, waiting for her to pass out. Luckily, she didn’t pass out, and did finish, even though she lost a ton of blood out on the course. It was pretty gnarly. After the race, our group met up with KahlanRahl at a local brewery and had some awesome food, beer, and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. It was a fantastic time. I did learn that Ben and Jerry’s is practically half the cost in VT compared to PA. Shenanigans. I spent this past week recovering from the Marathon (which was last Sunday), and luckily felt fantastic by Wednesday. I got a short track workout in yesterday in prep for my race this weekend, the Independence Triathlon. This marks the start of Tri season! Here’s hoping the tendon pain stays gone, I don’t flat on the bike, and I don’t swallow too much water on the swim. If I do…. Happy Racing, Shuru

Good luck Dajobo! I know quite a few individuals who have gone through this surgery and it can occasionally be rough. Stay positive and I'm sure you'll recover 100% and be good as new. Will you get to experience the wonders of pooping through your stomach?

I'm a Flyers fan, which means I get to spend the playoffs shaking my head and sighing. They break my heart every time, EVERY DAMN TIME!

Well, it happened. This past Sunday, my fiance and I headed out for our last long run. He was headed for 14 miles and I was heading for 11. He wanted to push it, as his goal for tomorrow's race was to finish in under 1:20:00 for 13.1 miles. That's barely over a 6 minute mile pace. I had a much more reasonable goal of finishing in under 2:45:00, with a stretch goal of under 2:30:00 (I'm not a very fast runner). I caught up to him at mile 4.5, which was my first indication that something was wrong. Because of the ridiculously fast pace he runs, he's usually lightyears ahead of me on any run we go out for. As I got closer to him, I could see he was slowly shuffling back, limping along the way. Calf injury. #$%&. We walked the 4.5 miles back to the car and sped off to an Orthopedic Urgent Care. They let us know that it wasn't torn, was most likely just a pulled soleus muscle, and gave him some anti-inflammatories. Over the week, it started to feel a bit better for him, and the likelyhood that he was still going to be running the race was improving. We decided on Thursday that it would be a good time to test his leg out and head out for a short 1-2 mile run. We head out... and he calls it 2/3rds of a mile in. He feels it pop/ping again, and decides he's not going to push it. Meanwhile, I decide to finish the 2 mile run. I had a small pain in my right calf that I thought would work itself out as I ran, but by a mile and a half it starts to feel pretty significant. By the time I finish my two miles, my calf is swolen and I get a sharp pain whenever I attempt to stretch it. I realize that I've now injured the same calf, in the same spot as my fiance has. #$%&. Last night became a fun friday night of off-brand Bengay and kinesiology tape. A wild and crazy Friday night at our household. We're both feeling better today, but 13.1 miles definitely isn't going to come as easy as we hoped it would. We're similiarly trying not to think about the fact that our Marathon is 8 weeks away, as well, and training for that just got a lot more difficult. We've definitely started injury season early this year. For the race, we're both planning on winging it. I'm going to try to muscle through the pain (both literally and figuratively) and meet my goals. We'll both be taping up, and getting some pretty effective (and pricy) compression socks to hopefully support whatever muscle isn't feeling that great. Edit (3/30):: Race is over and we kicked ass! I finished in 2:28:22 and the fiance finished in 1:34:54. PUMPED! Screw you, calves. Sincerely, Shurukian

Thanks for the compliments guys. It's nice to regularly see both of you again. That's interesting! I'm curious as to what your background is. If you're ever on IRC and feel the desire for a chat, I'd be in. I'll make sure to put cat pictures on the list for my next post.

You're most definitely thinking of TOOL.

Personally, I'm going to take it as a compliment that you found us large enough to be a meatshield. :wub:

o/ I do love being treatied to TPF.

It's very true that going down is usually much more painful than going up!

Most of you have seen that I've returned. If not - hello. I stopped being an active CN player the summer of 2011. In mid 2012, while I was deep in the woods of West Virginia on a climbing trip, my nation deleted. I had forgotten to collect. Oops. I had a twinge of regret at forgetting about it, but for the most part, I was happy that the burden was finally gone. It was time. It had been time. My blog has never really been an IC one, and I don't intend for that to change now. I frequently talked about my climbing, my cat, my hobbies, my poetry - just general life. When I left the game, I was in a period of turmoil in my life that was fairly consuming. It was a period in which I had the opportunity to completely change most of the aspects of my life, and I did so enthusiastically. My immersement into the real world took my activity and goal list and made it explode like a kid's 4th grade science volcano. I finished my Bachelor's Degree and got my Master's Degree in Human Resource Management. I moved four times. I spent an absurd amount of time outdoors. Previously, I rock climbed...and that was about it. I've expanded that to rock climbing, running, cycling, swimming (triathlons), snowboarding, mountaineering, ice climbing, and mountain biking. On top of Algonquin Peak, Adirondack High Peaks. Mount Marcy and Colden in the background This year is a big one for me. I have a lot of races that will be firsts for me, including my first marathon, first half Ironman, and first full Ironman. So basically... I'm going to be turning my blog into a race blog. Hopefully that won't be too boring. So far, these are my races for the year that I'll be talking about: 3/29/2015 -Philadelphia Love Run (Half Marathon) 5/3/2015 - Broad Street Run (10 Miler) 5/24/2015 - Vermont City Marathon 5/31/2015 - Independence Sprint Triathlon Nockamixion, PA Sprint 6/14/2015 - Eagleman 70.3 Half Ironman Cambridge, MD Half Ironman 7/12/2015 - Steelman 3 Mile Open Water Swim Race 8/9/2015 - Steelman Olympic Triathlon 9/20/2015 - Lake Tahoe Ironman 10/17/2015 - Runner's World Festival 5k, 10k, and Half Marathon 10/25/2015 - Perfect 10 Miler ... Most likely to be added to. I also got engaged. Fun fact - the Lake Tahoe Ironman is my honeymoon. We also figured out after we registered that it's considered the hardest Ironman in the world. Oops. I also added one to the family. My fiance and I adopted Ridley in 2013, and she's the biggest bundle of joy ever, which helps balance out my diabolical cat. Coming back was a mixed bag for me. I had pretty much sworn off ever returning to cybernations. I saw no use - I'm rarely home, constantly training, and still have the same laptop I used 5 years ago (AKA - this thing barely works). I got rid of my TV, my video game systems, my desktop... I figured if I would return to the world of the internets, it certainly wouldn't be for CN. I was apparently a little wrong. I don't have any plans or expectations for my time here - other than to coast along and hopefully not stray too far away from my training schedule. It's been interesting to return and see how different and alike the community is so many years later. Of course, I'm still climbing - Just definitely not as frequently as I had been before. Though certainly with a lot less hair - I abandoned the lion's mane for the first time a few months ago. much muscle. such pull. Hopefully you'll find my attempts at fitness worthwhile for a glance every now and then. If not, that's perfectly fine - for me, writing about them will hopefully be motivating enough to keep me off the couch or out of that pint of ice cream (which I just finished eating, damn you snowstorm) and out on the road or trail. Maybe if I'm lucky, you'll find some motivation or interest in it as well. Sincerely, Shurukian