Nirodha sacca

Dear Mike MacLellan,

Congratulations! You have reason to celebrate as you are an officially registered participant in the 41st Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) to be held on Sunday, October 30, 2016 in Arlington, VA.

Oh, my.  Seems like October 30 will be Samudaya Sacca, though.

By the way, we're having a special deal on starting a new blog.

The fun is just beginning......

However, all I want are puppy pictures so I can live vicariously through you an Aileen - the new dog owners.

Brief life update:

So, we got a dog.  His name is Hamilton, he's a black Lab, ~5mo, rescue from Indiana (thanks Wendy!).  He's a pretty good boy.  Very smart, a bit stubborn, a bit unsure of himself at times.  

Having something to take care of that's not myself has been... interesting.  I wasn't ready for it.  At all.  The first 3 days were a huge wake-up call, but the 3 weeks since then have been a pretty positive growing experience.  Part of that growth being much more efficient time management and increased motivation to run/ride for some "me time."

I started bike commuting to my ongoing Thursday job, as there are showers available and the commute is 100% bike path.  It's a nice easy hour each way.  

I'm at a pitiful 10-15 miles per week running right now.  I have a left knee/outer shin niggle that I know is ITBS waiting to strike.  I'm being nice to it and trying to be smart.  I'm not looking at my watch at all while running and am keeping the effort level right around "singing pace."

We're likely driving to CA in late May and staying until early August.  

EDIT:  Puppy tax.  Dunno why it rotated him.

Thanks for the puppy fix.

Have fun out west - does this mean your usual "Thursday" gig does not meet in the summer?

Hamilton!

Oh, yeah. And a nifty new blog. Even if you don't ramp up the miles, you can regale us with tails of puppy parenthood.

You may want to binge watch Cesar Millan's show to get the idea on what to do with him...hint:  run or walk him 30-45 minutes a day or twice a day to let him burn a lot of that energy.  Watching multiple shows will show you the ropes.

Mom - I believe it might continue, but I'm hoping to just get a few month hiatus from it and get it back in the fall.  Not sure they'll hold it for me, but there's other work around and at that location.

Mark - Plenty of puppy stories to come.  

Oz - Admittedly not a fan of Cesar at all, but his exercise philosophy is the one aspect of his program I completely agree with.  Unfortunately, Hamilton isn't a big runner yet, and even walking has its limits for him.  I've also read that you're only supposed to give them structured exercise for 5min x their age in months (per day) in order to protect their joints, so I'm content with his play dates and half-hour walks/sniffs for now.  But yeah, he's definitely gonna run when he's ready.

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Today's the first day the knee niggle is pretty much gone.  I've been keeping up pretty consistently on stretching everything and rolling the ITB...  Hopefully it's helping.

My derailleur cable snapped on the first group ride of the season yesterday.  I rode the last hour or so in my 11t sprocket (hardest back gear) with only two chainring options - hard and harder.  There's a $35 repair  .

14mi and change last week.  Looking for ~16-18 this week.  Started with 3.5 this morning, uneventful, pretty smooth feeling.

Reasonably uneventful week.  Happy for that, considering next week is 6 days straight of actually interpreting 8+hr.  That's gonna be taxing.

M - 3.4mi easy
T - 5.6mi easy, commuting from work to bike shop + 15min ride home with a new cable
W - off
Th - 1hr easy ride to work, started raining halfway through, nice tailwind the whole way

I'll try and get some new Hamilton pictures this weekend to spruce up the blog a bit.

Dogs sure do sniff a lot.  Who would've known what a dog can find by sniffing another dog's butt??  

I understand that 18 months is the supposed magic date to take a dog out on a real run because, as you said, the joints.  I enjoy how bigger pups just lope along.  They must have an extra thick skull for everything they misjudge and bump into.

So are you still contracting or are you at a 'real' job?  And has the swap of coasts worked out well?  Better than you thought?  Mom doesn't talk much about you, when you're not around.

Re: dogs.  They do sniff a lot.  There's actually 1 street here I won't walk on with him anymore, because we don't move much more than 10 feet per minute.  Tooooooooo sloooooooow. 

I think Hamilton and I are starting to bond a bit.  He's definitely more affectionate than the last two weeks, he's listening a lot better, learning the rhythm of the day when we're home...  Pretty happy with him lately.  I think he's pretty happy, himself.  

We went to a Puppy Party - a supervised playdate run by a local training school here - Saturday.  We've gone the past couple weeks, but Hamilton's been kind of ambivalent about it.  More interested in food than dogs.  Yesterday, he definitely got the play-bug, even getting a smidge too rowdy for the rowdy group we were in.  Admittedly, some of those dogs should have been in the calm group, but yeah, I definitely had to scoop him.  Oh, our sweet problem child.  

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Training continues to move forward.  I have to remind myself on every run that we've got a long way to go, and I need to be smart about my mileage increases.  

Th - additional 1hr ride home from work in the pouring rain.  Felt like a hardman spring classics rider.  
F - 3.8mi easy run.
S - 3.2mi easy run home from the Puppy Party.  In big globs of snow.  In April.  Wat.
S - 2hr10min moderately hard group ride.  Sub-30 degrees at the start, but at least the wind was light.  Felt very strong today, did a lot of work at the front, won a sprint, was awarded "Best Bike Handling" by one of the ride leaders when I reached out to stop someone from drifting into my line.  Not a bad day.

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Next week is pretty busy, by my standards.  6 days straight of work, 7-9hr per day.  Not exactly looking forward to it, but at least I'll be able to squeeze in my runs by hopping off the Metro a few miles from home and finishing my day with a stroll through the Mall.  Aiming for 18-19mi this week + the usual 2 rides.

The stars have aligned and the gods have smiled upon me this week.  Specifically, my client decided to go home at 11am yesterday and my Friday job should be done around noon.  Woot!

Run commutes have been semi-fun this week.  Getting used to the pack, but not getting used to running at 5pm.

M - 4.5mi easy run home from Farragut North
T - 5.5mi easy run home from Dupont, the long way (through Georgetown and over Key Bridge)
W - off
Th - 1hr+ easy ride to work; I'm starting to add bonus miles to the morning commute as of this week

Legs are feeling a little sore at times (I'd forgotten what that was like), but all systems still seem to be a go.

Nice job on the commute by foot! Is it possible for you to stash clothes at work so you don't have to carry them with you?

Are you hoping to keep this up when the District reverts to its swamp-like summer state?

Mark - Unfortunately, no.  The only places I'm at with any consistency are my usual Monday and Thursday jobs.  Thursday has showers/lockers, but with my computer in my bag anyway, clothes don't add much weight (plus that's bike day).  Monday has showers for a price and I could probably store clothes in my boss's office, but that's 20+mi each way.  

Also, I'll be escaping the swamp for June/July.  Come August... we'll see.  5am might start looking really good.

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Th - afternoon commute was pretty focused effort the whole way.  I ended up giving a few free pulls to fellow commuters/general cyclists and felt good on the ride.  Just under an hour.
F - 4.4mi run commute from Dupont, the short way.  Pretty tired legs and body.
S - 3.7mi after work.  3x strides at the end.  Took some mind tricks to get out the door, glad I did.  Felt pretty good, and the sun was a nice change.
S - 2hr15min ride.  Kind of hungover, stomach out of whack.  So, no fuel for a hard group ride.  Fortunately the legs were peppy this morning and I was able to get some hard work in.  

18.2mi for the week + a bit under 4.5hr riding.

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The long week is over, back to a slightly more manageable schedule.  Just in time for spring to finally stick around and lay on the sunshine.  Looking at 20ish miles running next week + 4.5hr riding.  Slowly but surely getting there.

I don't get it...  When I work a long week, I'm energized and rearing to go every day.  Then I get the light week and I'm a zombie.  More on that in a second.

Boston looks like it was "fun" for everyone.  Saw a definite pattern of fading between miles 15-20... I wonder if something was on the course around that point?  Congrats to all the finishers and re-qualifiers we have here.

The weather has warmed up quite a bit here.  Weird to think that a couple Saturdays back, it was snowing, and just 9 days later it was 87.  I'll take the latter.

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M - 5.7mi easy run
T - 4.7mi easy run commute home from work
W - off
T - 1hr7min easy ride commute to work

Still building bit by bit, adding ~2mpw (10%) and maybe 10min to each ride per week.  May Is Bike Month is coming up soon, and I've pledged 500mi for my group back in Sacramento, so I'll have to kick it up quite a bit - I think I'm around 75mpw right now.

Whoops, forgot to update this over the weekend.  Some not-great stuff going on at home, so I might be a bit neglectful of this until that settles down.  

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Last week ended with a good, strenuous ride with the usual group from the shop.  Special appearance by a group of 3 or 4 Jr. racers, one of whom was insanely strong for how little he was.  I'm guessing 14yo, max, and he took a massive pull at 26mph early on in the ride and only got dropped when the big boys came out on the hill.  

This week...

M - 6.2mi easy run
T - 5.3mi easy run commute home
W - off
Th - easy/moderate 1hr ride commute to work

Shooting for 23mi this week.  Might fall a little short, since I'm still on 4 days a week and the body is feeling kind of tired.  I might take the next couple days easy as a mini-cutback and jump to 5 days a week next week.

Hopefully whatever the home stress is it will all settle itself out.  And how is Hamilton doing???  

Keep up the good work - you have plenty of time before October.

Mom - Things are on the way up.  Really, the whole thing was self-inflicted.  But it definitely had an effect on the week - took on a lot of stress from both myself and Aileen.

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Th afternoon - 55min moderate bike commute home, a bit wet
F - 7.1mi easy run (sub-9 pace?!)
S - 6.1mi easy run commute from work (Arlington) to Gallaudet via GT... lots of dodging tourists and lights, ran it like a fartlek
S - rained out bike ride means a short bonus-miles run with Aileen; 3.1mi easy w/ 3x strides

Week - 27.9mi run + 1hr55min bike

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Dog tax... more rotation issues.  





He doesn't love baths yet.  But he loves the food he gets while in the bath.

Love that face!!!!!  I love living vicariously through your dog.

What happened to spring, here? March was mostly warm, April was slightly less warm, and so far May is rainy and grey EVERY DAY. Dear Mother Nature, please give sun. Thank you.

Monday brought two momentous occasions - Hamilton turned 6 months old and Aileen and I turned 5 years old... the latter of which means I also set my PR 5yr+1day ago, as of Monday. Been an interesting 5 years, that's for sure.

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M - 5.8mi easy run
T - 5.3mi easy run commute
W - off
Th - off; not at my usual job today, so no riding

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We're headed to VA beach this weekend, so 3 days of running upcoming. Should end up with just about 30mi this week.

Well if DC doesn't work out for you, Mike, you can come to what's shaping up to be the new Northern California, as in... a ridiculously warm and sunny Pacific Northwest. We've had temps up to the upper 80s already in April, which is crazy. It makes me wonder what the summer's going to be like.

Hamilton is definitely one good-looking pup.

Happy 5 years! Keep it up!

You'll be hoping for weather like March and April in a few weeks.  Enjoy the beach.

I wouldn't mind a NorCal PNW, Mark.

Oz - and then I'll be back in southern California

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But seriously, guys, we've broken the record for consecutive days of precipitation here. We're at 16, now, I think. Gloomy and grey every day. In May. That's a lot of rhyming, but basically, this weather sucks.

VA Beach was almost ruined by the rain Friday - we actually made it to Quantico, a whopping 30-35mi away, but it took 2hr just to get there so we turned back. We headed out early Saturday morning to salvage the weekend.

The pros: Hamilton LOVED THE WATER. I've never seen him really go "full dog," but he definitely did at the beach. He was great off-leash, let his retriever side shine, and had a ball. He slept well with us in the tent (first time out of his crate) and seemed to adjust well to the outdoors. The site was nice and idyllic, reminded me of growing up racing bikes around campgrounds with my brother and friends.

The cons: The 100lb dog being "walked" by a 40lb girl. He didn't like Hamilton. The THIRD time we saw him, he literally dragged the girl from their campsite to us and lunged at Hamilton. Momma and Papa bear came out in force - I'm pretty sure everyone in the whole campground heard me screaming at the dog. Fortunately, it worked, and he ran back home with tail tucked. We then proceeded to very politely - read: we continued yelling - inform the girl's parents that their dog wasn't safe and why-the-fuck-is-your-little-girl-walking-him-when-she-has-no-control-over-him?

Getting all worked up again. Ugh. The upside of that situation is that Hamilton seemed to recognize that we protected him and was very loving after that.

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Finished last week with just shy of 30 miles. No riding.

This week:
M - 6.25mi easy run; came down with some sort of stomach thing throughout the day
T - 3.95mi easy run; seems the jostling helped sort things out a bit in the gut
W - 5.85mi easy run commuting home
Th - 1hr10min easy ride commute to work

Hoping to break 30mi for the first time in... a while... this week. Plus ~5hr cycling.

Nice job, Alpha Dog! I'm sure Hamilton appreciated the display of parental pack protection. And I'm not surprised he loved the beach. He is a Lab, after all.

Good work on the running. And 16 days of rain is a lot. We had some stretches like that this winter, and it was awful. Of course, it's beeb sunny and warm here all week. Could approach 90 degrees tomorrow.

Mark B wrote:Nice job, Alpha Dog! I'm sure Hamilton appreciated the display of parental pack protection. And I'm not surprised he loved the beach. He is a Lab, after all.

Good work on the running. And 16 days of rain is a lot. We had some stretches like that this winter, and it was awful. Of course, it's beeb sunny and warm here all week. Could approach 90 degrees tomorrow.

Now, Hamilton knows what an extreme ass chewing is and that he'd better not cross THAT line.