This month is Bike Month, and this week is Bike to Work Week!

Those of you who have followed me for awhile or know me personally know that I’ve been commuting by bicycle to work for a really long time.  Actually I can’t remember for sure if it was 1993 or 1994 when I started, but that’s how long I’ve been commuting by bike to work!

I’ve pretty much seen it all — and then some.  I’ve seen a lot of bonehead cyclists putting themselves into danger and bonehead drivers almost causing accidents, and I’ve experienced first-hand all kinds of natural near-disasters, like flooding streets, high winds, and the heinous TX heat.  I had one literal run-in with a white Suburban (her fault: failing to yield right-of-way) a few years ago that cost me a broken nose and a couple of months of physical therapy for my shoulder.  And there was even one time that I almost got hit by a giant deer (yes, a huge buck, as in Bambi’s dad) galloping through suburban Austin (specifically, at Kerbey Lane and 35th St for those of you who live here).  It galloped right across my path and then rammed into the side of a Ford Explorer instead, creating quite a large dent in the door (and probably making the driver crap his or her pants), and then it continued on its way.

But in spite of all that excitement, no other activity has contributed more to my daily serenity than my bike commute.  My bike commute is essentially my daily meditation time, with the added bonus of being some workout time, too!  Bike commuting has become an essential part of my identity, in fact.  All the time, people in my building see me with my bike in the elevator each day, and they ask me questions about bike commuting.  I guess it’s a real conversation starter.

Awhile back I put together a short e-book about the basics of bike commuting, called Bike Commuting 101.  It’s posted in the subscribers only section of placidathlete.com, but today I’m making it available here because I want everyone to get this information about how to bike commute.  Click on the following link to download: bike commuting 101

This weekend, I participated in the Hill Country Ride (and Run!) for AIDS, which is held each April to raise money for central Texas non-profit organizations that provide services for people living with HIV and AIDS.  Over 1,000 riders, runners,and crew participated in this year’s event.  There were 83 teams, including my own Team Fembot, and together we raised a ride record of $585,000.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this ride to you as an extremely well-run event that is a huge amount of fun.  It is truly a ride that is filled with spirit and heart — it may sound weird, but as a rider you can really feel a sense of love and community on this ride.  The volunteers are so thankful for the riders and readily supply cheers, smiles, and hugs-a-plenty.

Team Fembot did the 53 mile route, but there are longer and shorter routes available so that pretty much anyone can do the event.  This year, they also added a trail run option for those who prefer to run instead of ride, or for those who wanted to do both a ride and a run.  (I originally planned to do both, but can’t run right now due to my plantar fasciitis, but hope to try it in the future.  The report from others was that it was a beautiful but rugged trail run, with a very enthusiastic and supportive volunteer crew along the route.)

The pit stops are a lot of fun, too, with each stop having a theme.  For example, although we skipped the super hero stop, we spent awhile at the Texas Rollergirls’ stop at the 20-mile mark, ate lunch at the Mardi Gras Stop, and then kicked up our heels for awhile at the Hill Country Club, after walking the red carpet, having a photo taken, and getting our champagne glasses filled with Gatorade from the waiter in a tuxedo!

After the ride, everyone relaxes at Reunion Ranch, where there is a swimming pool, “lake,” with paddleboats, mini-golf, post-ride massage therapists, tons of activities for kids, and a post-ride celebration and BBQ.   There is also a ceremony to remember those who have not survived AIDS, and to celebrate their lives.

Thank you to everyone who supported Team Fembot and the Hill Country Ride!  Your generosity provides life saving services for thousands of people.

Suzanne takes down "Slaughter Melon" at the TX Rollergirls pit stop

Volunteers at the Mardi Gras pit stop

Great service at the "Hill Country Club"

Ride Director David Smith personally gives a medal and a hug to each finisher. Here he is with the last rider of the day!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now Dory’s advice when Marlin gets dejected, is to “Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming!”

For our purposes, I’d like for you to consider both the metaphorical and the literal meanings.

First, the metaphorical:  This is great advice, even from a fish:  Just keep moving forward! It does not matter if you are moving slowly, or find obstacles in your way, but if you want to progress toward your goals, and grow as a person, you must keep moving forward!

Now in the sport of triathlon, there is also the literal aspect to consider.  It goes without saying that during the swim, the best advice is to just keep swimming. But like I already said, it goes without saying. So let me suggest instead a more practical way to approach the problem of just keeping swimming for those of you who are relative newcomers to the sport and/or generally fear the open water (which is most people).  The breast stroke is a stroke that can allow swimmers to lower their heart rates, catch their breaths, and sight ahead to make sure they are on track.  Thus, I suggest swimming freestyle for a specified number of strokes (you can experiment to see how long you can go before switching strokes, but practice counting strokes so you can focus on a specified target) and then switch to breast stroke as needed to re-group.  This will allow you to take a break while continuing to move forward.

This is not very different from taking walk breaks on the run.  I also think it is a good idea for most athletes to take walk breaks through the aid stations, but if you are new to running, you may want to take more frequent breaks to keep your heart rate lower.  Again, this is a way to regroup while still moving forward.

When biking, just keep moving forward.  Eat and drink as you go, and do not stop unless you have a mechanical problem and have no choice but to stop.

In transitions, keep making as much forward progress as possible. You will necessarily have to pause at the rack to get your gear and go, but don’t stop to have a snack and don’t sit down to rest.  Just keep moving and get in and out of transition as quickly as possible.

So, take Dory’s advice — both literally and figuratively — and just keep swimming! just keep swimming! just keep swimming!

I have a new foot tape situation, after having gone to the doctor again after two weeks in the more expansive wrap. This new wrap is one I have to put on each morning and take off each night.

The good news:  I can swim again (which is why my foot is wet and the tape is starting to come off in the picture).  I got in a swim this afternoon, in this beautiful Austin spring weather.  It felt really good to get back in the water after being out a couple of weeks.

The bad news:  I continue to be prohibited from running, riding out of the saddle, squatting, lunges, calf raises, and any sort of activity that will stress the plantar fascia.  So I asked the doc:  “how long are we talking about here before I can run again?”  He says one month — at a minimum!  He goes on to say that it takes about 8 months for the ligaments to completely reattach to the heel bone, assuming no reinjury.  (Grrr. Not a placid moment.)

I have to stretch my calf for 30 seconds before I get up anytime that I have been sitting or lying down for 30 minutes or more.  The expectation is that I should stretch it at least 20 times per day.

It looks like for the indefinite future, I will be swimming, cycling (in the saddle), and doing only upper body strength training.  I think I see a lot of pool time ahead!  April’s Pool Days!

Friends, here’s a small, yet potent tip, courtesy of my podiatrist.

Every night before going to bed, spray whichever shoes you have worn that day with some Lysol disinfectant spray.  As the can says, this will kill 99.9% of bacteria and viruses. If you’ve ever gone bowling, and thought, “Ewwww, I have to wear these shoes that 50,000 other people have worn?” please rest assured that the bowling alley sprays the shoes after each use (or at least I can vouch for Dart Bowl in central Austin, because I have seen them do it with my own eyes).

This simple step should take care of all those pesky foot conditions we might pick up from the showers at the gym, or the pool deck, or just from wearing damp sweaty shoes for too long — such as athlete’s foot fungus or plantar warts.  Spray your running shoes, spray your cycling shoes, and spray your street shoes.

But, please folks, don’t spray your feet!

I finally went to the podiatrist for my case of plantar fascitis.  I’ve tried ice, ibuprofen, massage, A.R.T., rolling on a lacrosse ball, positive thinking, etc., and this was the next step.  I probably should have taken this step awhile back, in fact.  It’s been a tricky ailment, not always hurting, but never fully healing.  For example, at the Blue Norther Du I raced recently, it felt all right during the race.  But, it hurt for the next few days afterward.  I knew that I had had enough and it was time to take another approach to this annoying injury.

The doctor said 92% of runners will get plantar fascitis at some point, so I guess I was overdue, given that I’ve never suffered this particular malady until the past few months.

The doc administered a cortisone shot in my heel (fun times!) and wrapped me in heavy-duty kinesiotape.  The tape is supposed to hold the plantar fascia immobile, so that when I step on my foot, the fascia does not pull away from its insertion point on the heel bone.  The problem with plantar fascitis is that, as you rest, for example while sleeping at night, the body tries to heal it by reconnecting to the heel bone; but as soon as you step out of bed in the morning and start walking around, the tissue tears away again from the bone.  It’s a never-ending cycle.

And about the kinesiotape:  I’m not allowed to get it wet for a week.  Then I will go back and get it rewrapped (no shot, though) and wear the wrap for another week!

That’s two weeks of no swimming!  Two weeks of no showering!  Ugh!

But, hey — it’s not the first time I’ve been injured, and won’t be the last (See this post, for example).  So now I have to focus on what I can do, not what I can’t do. The doctor is prohibiting running, cycling out of the saddle, calf-raises, lunges, weighted squats, and obviously any kind of jumping exercises.  But what I can do is cycling (staying in the saddle) and any kind of upper body strength work. (Pull-ups, anyone? )  My next event is a cycling event, so I can still train for it.

Actually, I’m not too bummed about this situation.  Two weeks isn’t that long.

On Sun, March 11, I raced in the Blue Norther Du, in Seguin, TX (which is about an hour south of Austin).

There had been severe thunderstorms for a few days leading up to the race, and there was a real possibility of cancellation, or at least cancellation of the bike portion.  I was really hoping that would not happen, as I wasn’t too enthusiastic about driving an hour away just to run a 10k in the rain.  I can’t say I was really looking forward to racing in cold and wet conditions on the bike, either, but luck was with us. The rain stopped and it was just cool — not cold — on race morning. I got my clothes right for the temperature — always a challenge when it’s anything other than “hotter than blazes” — so I was happy about that.

You can see from the fairly empty racks in the above photo that a lot of folks didn’t show up.  Of course, this meant that the people who did show up were the really hard core athletes who are really fast.  As I have said before, I may be placid, but I am not super fast, so I knew this would mean likely getting crushed by much of the competition.  (There was at least one former Danskin tri overall winner in the field, for example.)  There were just over 100 competitors in the race overall -  8 in my age group (I came in 6th).

The run course was two loops on the Texas Lutheran University campus. The bike course was on country roads nearby — pretty flat, but with some rollers.  The second run was a repeat of the first run on campus.  We had some misty moments, but no real rain while on the course.  The sun even started to peek out during the second run!

Going into the race, I was quite concerned about how my right foot would fare, given that plantar fascitis has still been plaguing me.  This race was a bit of a test.  It’s much better than it was last November, but still pesky and hanging on.  It didn’t hurt during the race, but I felt the effects for a couple of days afterward.   Still a work in progress, without a doubt.  This has to be the most annoying injury ever.

After the race, there were baked potatoes, which beat the usual bananas and bagels.

Some people ask what I think about when racing.  It varies a bit.  This time, while on my run, I did the breathing/counting thing that I do, where I breathe in for 3 counts, and breathe out for 2 counts.  The bike was another story.  Often when I am on the bike, I listen to music in my head.   As luck would have it, I had “Unpack Your Adjectives” stuck in my head.  I have been working with my kids on writing, and we have been focusing on the parts of speech lately.  To help with learning the parts of speech, I’ve pulled out the old Schoolhouse Rock DVD.  Luckily, I am a big fan of Schoolhouse Rock because I could not stop singing to myself: “days are sunny or they’re rainy!” and  “He was a hairy bear; he was a scary bear!” — “…’cause I’d unpacked my adjectives.”  Overall, the race was wet, cool, late (to start), but fun!

Here are the lyrics in case you’ve forgotten this classic (and I apologize if you get it stuck in your own head):

Got home from camping last spring.
Saw people, places and things.
We barely had arrived,
Friends asked us to describe
The people, places and every last thing.
So we unpacked our adjectives.

I unpacked “frustrating” first.
Reached in and found the word “worst”.
Then I picked “soggy” and
Next I picked “foggy” and
Then I was ready to tell them my tale.
‘Cause I’d unpacked my adjectives.

Adjectives are words you use to really describe things,
Handy words to carry around.
Days are sunny or they’re rainy
Boys are dumb or else they’re brainy
Adjectives can show you which way.

Adjectives are often used to help us compare things,
To say how thin, how fat, how short, how tall.
Girls who are tall can get taller,
Boys who are small can get smaller,
Till one is the tallest
And the other’s the smallest of all.

We hiked along without care.
Then we ran into a bear.
He was a hairy bear,
He was a scary bear,
We beat a hasty retreat from his lair.
And described him with adjectives.

[Turtle, spoken:] Whoah! Boy! That was one big, ugly bear!

[Girl, spoken:] You can even make adjectives out of the other parts of speech, like verbs or nouns. All you have to do is tack on an ending like “-ic” or “-ish” or “-ary”. For example, this boy can grow up to be a huge man – but still have a boyish face. “Boy” is a noun, but the ending “-ish” makes it an adjective – boyish. That describes the huge man’s face, get it?

[Sung:] Next time you go on a trip,
Remember this little tip:
The minute you get back,
They’ll ask you this and that,
You can describe people, places and things…
Simply unpack your adjectives.
You can do it with adjectives.
Tell them ’bout it with adjectives.
You can shout it with adjectives.

It is a pretty cool system. As you can see below, it has numerous pockets where plants can grow, so a whole lot of greens can be grown in a very small footprint.  (The one I bought is the 30-gallon version, but there are smaller and larger versions available.)  There is also a drip watering system connected to a timer on my water hose so that I do not even have to worry about watering.  All I had to do was throw in some seeds!

I’m starting with some lettuce, kale, and cilantro. On the top surface, where there is a little more room to go upward, I planted some cherry tomatoes and jalapenos. (I am a Texas girl, and need my peppers!)

Less than a week later, I was already starting to get a lot of plants sprouting!

The Living Salad Bar has photos on their website showing what I can look forward to as my garden grows!  Click here to check out the photos!   Here’s just one of many impressive examples:

I am looking forward to having a great supply of fresh produce right outside my kitchen door!  Good nutrition is one of the pillars of being a Placid Athlete, so all of us need to be eating our greens.  And if I can avoid extra trips to the grocery store and have super-easy organic greens right here, then that will certainly be a bonus to my placidity!

1) 5 rounds of:
a) pushups with feet on the ball x 6
b) curl up x 10 (feet on ball)

2) push/pull pyramid 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 (RI 1:30)
(1 push up and 1 pull up then rest 90 sec, then 2 pushups and 2 pullups then rest 90 sec, etc.)

3) walking lunges with med ball twist to each side x 50

4) hanging leg raises 3x 10

There’s a good straight-away portion of the course about mid-way through that runs about a block from Placid Athlete HQ, so anytime I’m not actually running the marathon or half-marathon, I like to be a spectator and cheer on the runners as they go past. Being a spectator can make you feel like you are a part of the experience — and, of course, you are a part of the experience, because your cheers can help keep the runners’ spirits high when they are starting to hit low spots (and anyone who has raced knows we all hit those low spots).

I’ve also talked about how much fun volunteering at a race can be, and I highly recommend that you give it a try!  One of my most fun Mother’s Days was volunteering with my kids at a women’s triathlon!

Another fun aspect of spectating at the races is that it is also a great “people watching” opportunity.  I like to watch how different people run and see what they are wearing.  I saw a guy in kinesiotape from head to toe, another guy running with one arm strapped to his chest, a man with no shirt but with arm warmers, and all kinds of colorful and interesting shoes and socks.

Congratulations to all of the runners who were out there on the course this morning!  You all looked great, and I hope you enjoyed the experience.  It was a beautiful morning for running in Austin.