Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

March in Review: a BIG Month

>> Monday, April 06, 2026

I mentioned in a post last week that March tends to be a good month for me. And this past month was no different:

Here are my monthly totals:

RUN: 106.74 miles
BIKE: 183.82 miles (outdoors)
TRAINER TIME: 15 hours and 2 minutes
STRENGTH TIME: 58 hours and 24 minutes

Total saddle time: 26 hours, 29 minutes, and 24 seconds

183 miles biked and 106 mile ran are both just NICE numbers! (Both a little shy of last March's 217 and 109 miles.)

Strength time MIGHT be my 2nd highest ever! (Again, behind last March's all-time monthly PR of 60 hrs and 33 mins.)

And my trainer time is really big too (especially for getting in 183 miles outside as well!). Just over 15 hours of trainer time is my 2nd biggest month in the last 42 months (since the "big trainer year" of 2022). I had more trainer time in March than in all of 2011, 12, 13, and 14 (shockingly, those were the years with babies in my household, so there's that...).

What's nice when glancing at the month is that I had bike workouts EVERY Tues, Thurs, and Saturday! They weren't always the best, but there were also some nice ones in there as well. And also regarding my biking, those 183 outdoor bike miles totalled out to be just over 100 miles on my tri bike, and 83 miles on my mountain bike. So 83 of those miles were HARD and SLOW because I was on a heavy, rusty, cheapest-mountain-bike-Erik's-Bike-Shop-had-to-offer, 22-year-old mountain bike. I'm not about to say something like "those 83 miles on my MTB are more like XX miles on my tri bike," but I DO feel like I could get more credit for those miles. (My heartrate is just as high as on my tri bike, but I'm going about 2/3 the speed on my MTB: more like 13 mph compared to 20 mph.)

And it was the last partial week of Febuary (slightly grayed out at the top of the calendar above) that I started doing a shorter outdoor ride on my mountain bike on a chilly day, followed IMMEDIATELY by a trainer workout as a more fun way to get in a longer workout. I did it twice at the very end of Febuary, and then 4 times in March (my first 6 times I tried that were within 5 weeks). I hope to only have to do that a few more times before it's ALWAYS nice enough to be outside! In case you're wondering why I do that, there are 2 main reasons... First, when it was icy out, riding my tri bike is a death trap. And second, it's easy to be outside on a mountain bike on a shorter ride when it's kinda chilly as I'm not moving as fast (creating less cold wind) and I'm not out there as long (as toes get colder and colder even on 50 degree days). So to get SOME time outside feels good, but I'll just do enough before I start to freeze. On a recent 50 degree ride, I came home with my 2 smallest toes on my left foot turning white because they were so cold.

Friday Funny 2579: Easter Funnies

>> Friday, April 03, 2026

More funnies on SportsAndLaughs.tumblr.com. HAPPY EASTER!

Friday Funny 2578: Parenting Funnies

Lots more funnies posted daily on SportsAndLaughs.tumblr.com.

Don't Do This...

>> Thursday, April 02, 2026

Yikes...

ZERO awareness of anything around her. "Main character energy" one might say.

And by the title of this post, maybe some of you thought this was going to be about endurance sport influencer Matt Choi being disqualified from his first 70.3 IronMan, but it wasn't. THAT ALSO happened just a few days ago. Click that link for more, but THIS incident of his seems like an honest mistake. As the article concludes, "When you’ve been banned for life from one of the world’s most iconic races, investigated twice by Marathon Investigation, and have made a habit of bending or outright ignoring race rules in pursuit of content, the benefit of the doubt gets harder to extend — even when the mistake looks clean."

It's been a weird week in endurance sports.

Week in Review: March is Ending Strong!

>> Tuesday, March 31, 2026

There's something about the month of March that tends to be good on paper for me. (March of 2025 was huge for me a year ago.) And I wrapped this one up nicely with last week's training:

There wasn't one individual thing that stood out, but it just all added up nicely.

RUNNING was pretty normal: my Monday long run was fine (with 6 harder miles in the middle at 6:15 pace), Wednesday was a normal easy run, and Friday was an OK day at the track. That's 23.9 running miles on the week, and ALL weeks in March were 29.x miles (without trying - that's just what they all worked out to be).

BIKING was decent: note that I was outside AND inside for both Tues and Thurs workouts. Tuesday started with some quick intervals on the Greenway that didn't feel that speedy... I thought I was into the wind for the first one and half of the 2nd one (until I turned around), but then I was REALLY into the wind for my 3rd one. Oops. I did 3x5 mile intervals with unimpressive averages of 21.0 mph, 21.0 mph, and 20.1 mph. Thurs was an easier ride outside with Henry followed by a LITTLE effort on the trainer. And Saturday was sort of a failed workout (for family reasons) on the trainer just getting in some 5 minute efforts. Although 6 hours and 26 minutes in the saddle for a week is nice!

STRENGTH time was just decent as well: 13 hours and 48 minutes is the biggest all month, mainly because I fit in some extra core here-and-there.

So this streak of 1500+ "intensity minutes" for a week is now at 7 weeks:

1931 last week, which is like 6th all-time highest!
(With 5th being a few weeks ago.)

This current week won't be as big, but I could benefit from backing off for a week. So I'm not forcing the issue. We'll see how this ends up... it might be possible to keep the "1500+ intensity mintues/week" streak going, but just barely. Not really making that a goal - this week will just be what it is.

Some Shorter/Speedier Intervals

>> Monday, March 30, 2026

I ended the week last week on the track. It wasn't icy and snow-covered like it was the week before, so that was a good start:

Clear smooth track! (Just cold!)

I was doing a workout I'd only done a few times before: 3 x (800, 400, 200, 200) with 90 sec between intervals and 2:00 between the sets of 3. I like this workout as it's only THREE sets and not FOUR like I did with some 800s and 400s the last few weeks - I feel like I go harder for sets of 3 as there's no chance to "ease into" the workout.

I did this first in May 2024 and then again in April 2025. Both of those were FAST, and I didn't expect to be as fast this time (also because it was below freezing and I was wearing more layers - my hat and mittens never came off for this workout!).

3x (800, 400, 200, 200) with 90 sec between intervals and 2:00 between the 3 sets:

1:23 + 1:19 = 2:42.9
1:14.9
0:34.6
0:34.5

1:19 + 1:19 = 2:38.8
1:15.0
0:34.1
0:34.0

1:17 + 1:18 = 2:36.3
1:12.5
0:34.1
0:33.9

That was close to a perfect descend - my middle 400 was 0.1 sec slower than my first, and that was the ONLY split that broke perfectly descending splits. But also, my first 800 was quite slow... I was not happy about that one.

I'm not used to running workouts with splits on the 200 meter point as well as the start/finish.

Race Photo... From a STUDENT!

>> Saturday, March 28, 2026

I forgot to post this last fall...

Right after the kinda warm and definitely not fast 2025 TC 10 Mile, one of my students came up to me before class sometime the following week. She said she saw me finish, told me I was FAST (she got an "A" for sucking up like that), and then showed me a photo she took of me! She recognized me from a ways off and got her camera ready and snapped a pic:

Yes, this was me hurtin' in the finisher's chute, probable just a few seconds after that sweet pic that bro-in-law Jon snapped of me near the finish line.

A close up of my students photo shows my number nearly ripped off and my car key in my hand: