Last Race, Best Race

Since my Army training for the weekend was on hold, I could enter a race right in my neighborhood. Beginning with the end,
--Joe Manacchio, my teammate, won the 50+ race,
--Scott Haverstick, the guy I have ridden with more than anyone else for the past five years, won the 60+ race,
--I stayed with the lead pack for the full 24-lap distance for the first time this year (previously I stayed on the lead lap in most races, but not with the main pack)
--Because no one attacked early, I got to lead lap 2. I haven't done that for a couple of years.
--My wife Annalisa and my son Nigel cheered for me in the middle of the uphill front straight which helped--it was the worst part of the course for me, especially when there were attacks.

There are a few more races this year, but with Army training and other commitments, I won't be able to enter them. So if this is going to be my last race before getting deployed, it's a good one. Definitely my best since my 2007 crash.

Nigel, who is 8, entered the 8&9 year old race, which is just 300 meters, and the 10-12 year old race, one full lap. He was somewhere in the middle of the 18 kids in the 8&9 year old race at the finish. The short distance meant a lot of swerving and Nigel is careful in a pack. In the 10-12 year old race he started at the back and finished sixth. He was very happy because he passed so many other kids.

Course Full

This weekend I was supposed to be in an ammo handlers course--learning how to properly load and store ammunition. I volunteered for the course, because I thought ammo handling might be a skill I could use next year. But I just got a message that the course is full.
So I'll be racing a half-block from my home at the Race Avenue Criterium. Like every other race I did this year, I will be trying to stay with the pack as long as possible, but eventually get dropped. This is one of the first races I ever rode in back in the 90s. Rich Ruoff, the promoter, is reviving it after more than 15 years.

And a Word About Pain

I am sitting on Amtrak train 600 in the middle of my 2-hour-each-way commute to Philadelphia. Yesterday someone asked me about pain. I thought it was obvious that a guy my age exercising an average of two hours each day would be sore somewhere most of the time. This person was surprised to find my exercise program is designed around training that will get me stronger without pushing to the point of injury. I try to run one day and ride the next so I won't run on consecutive days and hurt myself. It doesn't always work. I ran a 5k race and Monday morning and did a fast 4-mile run on Tuesday. My left knee started hurting on Wednesday. I ran three miles slow last night and this morning I am moving my feet every couple of minutes to keep my knee from hurting.
The change in my push ups bothers my right shoulder, so I added a couple of exercises every other day to strengthen my shoulders. On some days I skip the sit ups because my lower back hurts. On some running days I ride and walk because my ankles hurt.
I am not complaining. I know that various pains are part of any serious training. My main goal is not to get an overuse injury that will have me otherwise healthy and sitting on my butt. Worse still, I do not want an Army profile--a paper that excuses a soldier from duty. When we are assigned training, I do not want to be sitting on a log with a profile.

Nature Update

And following my last post, here's Katharine Sanderson's view of running in Philadelphia on the blog at Nature magazine.

You're Going Where?

I haven't been home since my last post. I am in Philadelphia for a meeting of the American Chemical Society. Almost 20,000 chemists from all over the world are here for several days. Even though I live just 70 miles away, I have meetings as early as 0630 and dinners that run as late as midnight so I just stayed in town. In fact, I just finished running across the Ben Franklin Bridge and back with a Katharine Sanderson, a science writer from the UK. She is here reporting on the Convention for Nature magazine and writing about Trees That Eat Pollution among other things.
We covered the 4-mile distance from where I work across the bridge and back in 35 minutes. Katharine actually ran six miles, because her hotel in on the other side of Center City so she ran a mile each way to and from the run.

Several times during this meeting events on next year's calendar came up and I said I would be gone from work in 2009. When I said where I would be I going I got stunned looks and versions of "You're going where?!" After they recover from the initial shock, they are supportive, but there are just not that many people who work in my field that take a year off for an all-expense paid trip to Iraq. Tomorrow night I go home for the evening, then back to work on Thursday.

Promotion Picture

Here's a picture of Lisa, my youngest daughter, pinning on my sergeant stripes. This is a simulated photo since we did not take one from the actual ceremony. The twisted collar is just to simulate an action shot!
Photo by Lauren Auster-Gussman

PT Reality Check

At drill this weekend one of the guys on my parking lot detail was a specialist in line for sergeant who just completed the Warrior Leadership Course. The PT is part of that course and I expected this very fit soldier to tell me he maxed the test. He didn't. He ran 2 miles in 13 minutes, 76 situps in 2 minutes and 75 pushups which should have put this 35-year-old Greek God at 300 points. But he said you have to do all exercises in correct form. They did not count five of his pushups and he scored 295.
My form is right for the situps but wrong for the pushups. I either need to keep my head up or drop my body a lot lower. In either case when I do the pushups right I can't get near 56 in 2 minutes. But I have till November, so I will practice a lot more. When I do the correct pushups, it's clear I did not entirely work out all the kinks from the crash last year, so these pushups should work out the last problems in my right shoulder.