Running For a Good Cause

I'm still injured. I can't run yet. It's been 27 days (but who's counting)....

But in just over a week, I hope I can do this:

This isn't word-for-word, but I took a lot of this from Lucinda's blog. Check it out:

As you probably know, New Zealand's second largest city, Christchurch, was devastated by a 6.3 earthquake at lunchtime on Tuesday 22 February 2011. There have been at least 160 fatalities with many still missing.

Kiwis out of Christchurch and people around the world want to know how they can help, and the answer's short. With money. But we all want to feel like we're doing more than just typing our credit card numbers into a box and clicking submit. So, Mike, Pip, Kate, Phil and I [Lucinda] thought we'd go for a run. Wearing red and black, to show the people of Canterbury we love them. And we'd like you to join us for our virtual fun run. Wherever you are.

If you’d like to participate, just follow these easy steps:

• Make a donation of as little as $5 at our fundraising page.
• Follow us on twitter.
• Tell the world you’re in. Share the love on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, whatever. Use the #run4chch hashtag.
• On the 12th or 13th of March, pop your red and black on, and hit the streets, or the pavements, or the trails, or wherever it is you run.
• Send us a link to your race report, and we’ll post it on our blog!

We’re hoping to get at least 100 entries, so please, please share this with everyone you know!

For more information:

http://www.fundraiseonline.co.nz/run4chch/

http://twitter.com/#!/Run4CHCH and use the hashtag #run4chch

http://run4chch.wordpress.com/

Both Lucinda and Kate contacted me about getting people involved. (Kate's blog was actually one of the first blogs I started reading when I started blogging 5 years ago.) I thought we could help out.

Here's what I'm asking everyone to do to help out:

1. Donate if you can!

2. Let's meet up (wearing red and black) for a 5K run on Saturday, March 12th at 1 pm as a way to show our support for Christchurch.

3. Tell others about what we're doing, and see if they'd be willing to donate as well!

I'm thinking that anyone who wants to meet for a quick, easy, group run can meet up at Longfellow Grill (inside in the hallway near the bathrooms) in Minneapolis on Saturday morning, March 12th. Longfellow is at Lake Street and West River Parkway, next to the Mississippi River. (Any preferences on time? I'm thinking sometime between 8 and noon. Official time to be announced soon.) UPDATE: We're meeting at 1 pm! Simply show up then, or click here and tell us your coming on out FB event page. We could run this 5K route that hits both Minneapolis and St. Paul on nicely plowed River Road:

Distance in kilometers

I'll take photos through our run, post them here on my blog, and see if we can't get even MORE people to donate! What better way for us to use our love of running than to help raise money for those in need! And in doing so, we get to have a nice group run and maybe some breakfast or lunch afterwards!....

Who's interested? Pass this link around! Let's get a group of runners ready to go on the morning of March 12th! Direct link to this post:
http://iwannagetphysical.blogspot.com/2011/03/running-for-good-cause.html And here's a TinyUrl if you want to tweet about this: http://tinyurl.com/4hq63fd

More details to come....

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Gear West Duathlon Race Report

Yesterday morning, Pharmie, her brother Matt, and I headed out to Orono MN for the Gear West Duathlon. Matt and I were teaming up as “Team Happy Pants” again. Last year, we took second at this race (out of 16), and this year, we were hoping to better that!

We got set up in the “teams” area of transition. We were the first team there:

It was a chilly 40-45 degree morning, so I had been wearing my Under Armour shorts under my “bowl full of sunshine” short yellow shorts. But there was no wind, so I thought I’d be warm enough in just the bowl full of sunshine. So I went into a porta-potty and changed out of the Under Armour. Pharmie was horrified when I came walking towards her with Under Armour in hand (because she knew I’d be running with a LOT of exposed leg!):

I spotted swimming buddy Julia in transition. We chatted for a moment:

Side note: remember Julia? We’ve done a few swim workouts together. Remember this workout from February where Julia pushed me so hard that I died?

Well, it was time to head to the start. Matt, Pharmie, and I walked up the street to the start. Just before the start, I ran into blogger Benson. He was volunteering out on the bike course (so I wouldn’t get to see him during my 2 runs). Pharmie snapped one last photo of Matt and I before I stripped down:

I started in the second wave. The first wave was the “competitive” wave. Pharmie got a photo of Cathy Y as she headed out:

(Don’t forget Cathy: I’ll show her finishing in a moment, and it’s EPIC!)

5K RUN:

A few minutes after the competitive wave went out, wave 2 was ready to start. I ran out near the front:

(Note the guy with the shaved head behind me and the guy in the red tank-top beside me. Both of them were RUNNERS.)

Leading out wave 2

The Gear West run course is NASTY! It was in a little better shape than it was last year because we got a little rain the night before the race last year. The course starts out on a road for the first 1K, but then the last 4K are all off-road. Here’s the loopy, nasty course map:

I settled into 2nd in our wave, and after the first 1K, I was back in 3rd. (I was behind those 2 guys that I pointed out in the starting photo.) “Damn. There are some runners here! I hope Matt can catch their bikers!” I ran a few seconds behind them, but they kept pulling away. I was hoping that I wasn’t going TOO fast - I know the 2 guys in front of me were pushing me, and I didn’t know if I was going too hard. I wanted to make sure I had gas in the tank for the second run.

I hit transition about 40 seconds behind 1st place, and just 10 seconds behind 2nd.

T1:

I ran through transition and up to Matt. I grabbed his bike (I actually nearly collapsed on it) as he bent down to transfer the chip to his ankle:

The first and second runners are the 2 in the background

Matt had the chip, and he was off:

28K Bike (17.4 miles):

Matt was off and riding. I was SPENT:

Pharmie grabbed a shot of my sweaty boobs, proving that it’s still easy to work up a good sweat in under 20 minutes when it’s only 40-45 degrees:

I briefly talked with the other runners:

I found out that one of them has ran a few sub-3 hour marathons, and that was with having to stop and walk 6 times in one of them. “Jeez, he’s a runner...” And Matt learned that one of their bikers was a Cat-1 or Cat-2 racer. That’s a hell-a-va team.

I walked out of transition were I spotted Kate Weaver. I did that awkward thing that all of us bloggers have done before: “Uhh, Katie? Hi, it’s Steve in a Speedo.” I didn’t know if it was her. But it was, and she threw her arms out and gave me a big “hello” hug! Pharmie came over, and we all talked while Matt was out there working on the bike.

I quickly hit the porta-potty, and got ready for Matt to come back in. One of the teams came in about 2 minutes before Matt. “Dang. I don’t think we can win if I need to chase down THAT runner.” I spotted Matt a few minutes later, and ran back to the “team transition area" and quickly stripped my pants.

T2:

Here comes Matt:

He dismounted and came running into transition:

Am I pulling my shorts UP?! Did I think I needed
to show MORE leg?! What the hell?!

I transferred the chip to my ankle, and I was off to see if I could catch their speedy-pants runner:

4K RUN:

The second run was shorter because we got to skip the “easy” run on the road. Now it was just the off-road 4K. My legs were BURNING!! I nearly lost my footing once or twice and nearly biffed it.

No beating around the bush: there was no way I could catch the first place team. Just like last year, Matt and I easily had 2nd place, with no shot at first place. The coolest part of that second run was that I got to watch the battle for the first place female unfold. Cathy Y started the run about 20 seconds ahead of Marlo (both are local rockstars). And the 2 of them were only about 30 seconds ahead of me. I was slowly gaining on them. I saw Marlo closing the gap on Cathy. Once we went into and back out of the trees, I saw that Marlo had passed Cathy. And I was rooting for Cathy just because I know her better, so I was bummed. With about 1K left, I was right on Cathy’s tail. We were looping through the trees, and I didn’t want to pass her and accidentally cut her off. So I held back and waited for an opening to pass her. We rounded a corner wide, and she motioned to have me pass. I muttered “Go Cathy - go get Marlo!” as I passed her. A few seconds later I passed Marlo. “Nice job Marlo!”

I hit the final bastard of a hill, and sprinted it to the finish.

It wouldn’t be a race report if there weren’t a one-legged pirate photo of me:

Yar.
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum Gatorade.

Team Happy Pants: Steve Stenzel, Matt Linder
2 out of 8 teams overall
2 out of 5 M/M teams

5K Run: 18:42 (3rd fastest)
T1: 0:39 (3rd fastest)
28K Bike: 45:45, 22.3 mph (3rd fastest)
T2: 0:32 (tied for 3rd fastest)
4K Run: 17:05 (3rd fastest)

Total: 1:22:41

We did ALL that we could. Both of my runs were faster than last year, our transitions were a LITTLE faster overall, and Matt’s bike was MUCH faster than last year. We did over 3 minutes better than last year, which would have been a team course record, but that one speedy team beat us. We were both happy with our performance, and we were fine coming in second to that team.

So, as I mentioned during that last 4K run, I had just passed Marlo and Cathy, the lead females. Just a few seconds after I finished, there was a SUPER DRAMATIC finish between those 2!! Cathy came from behind and eeked out a win by literally 1/100th of a second!! If she had hit the finish line with her non-chip ankle first, she wouldn’t have won. Check out these photos from Cathy’s blog:

LOOK AT THOSE STRIDES! AND THE MUSCLES IN THOSE LEGS!! Holy crap! (I was just left of the frame just out of the finisher chute, and that’s Matt’s and Pharmie’s back standing at the line.)

After finishing, we spotted Totters (who was volunteering at the finish), and we all chatted for a bit. Her hubby Steve was racing too, and we got to see him finish. It was great to meet you 2 guys!! Matt and I worked our way back through transition, and headed for the grills. They were making Ballpark hot dogs!

Then we ran into Ms. R who had just done the race (and was working on a hotdog), and we chatted for a bit. We also stopped to say hi to Mr. Fury (her hubby). It was great meeting you guys, too!! We also talked a lot with Carlos, who we had met at 2 end-of-season duathlons last year. (It was so great that we got to meet and talk with SO many people!)

We stuck around for the awards. Here’s 4 out of 5 of the top females, and Cathy is talking about the race with Marlo:

I heard Julia’s name read out as one of the AG placers, so I went over to congratulate her. She handed her camera to a friend, and she snapped a photo of us:

Then we went home to make HOMEMADE PASTA!! Here are some homemade sauces in the works:

Here’s Pharmie with some pasta dough that had been rolled out a few times, needing a few more passes:

Then Steph (my sister-in-law) and I ran the pasta dough through the blades in the pasta roller to make noodles.

What a great post-race meal!!

I’ll be back with official photos as soon as they come in. Now, time to hit the bike a few times this week to get ready for the Apple Duathlon this weekend! Have a good week everyone!

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Ironman New Orleans 70.3 2009 PRERACE

This whole event will have to be done in 3 posts. Sorry. I still need to wade through more of the 417 photos I took! So my next few posts will look like this:

Post 1: Prerace Shenanigans
Post 2: Race Morning through the Finish Line
Post 3: Pharmie’s Finish and Post-Race Shenanigans

So lets get started with the prerace fun!!

Our flight took off early Friday morning. So Thursday night, Pharmie helped me get into “race mode” by removing that thin layer of unwanted hair:

The sink wasn’t THAT hairy when she got done. Most of this was from my shoulders:

On Friday morning, we caught a flight down to Memphis before hopping another plane to NOLA. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Memphis, it smelled like meat. No joke. So I had to have a smoked sausage biscuit:

We arrived in NOLA, waited for TriSaraTops’ plane to arrive, and then the 3 of us went straight to that sweet meet-up with 4 pro triathletes that I mentioned 3 posts down. Here’s the photo I took of the 4 pros:

Heather Gollnick, Chris McDonald,
Linsey Corbin, and Desiree Ficker

Stu interviewed them while TriCajun and Robby recorded video (I’ll let you all know when Stu has the interview up on his site - it should be pretty awesome!). Here’s Desiree and Linsey being interviewed:

Lisa (TriCajun’s wife) wanted me to get this shot of Chris that shows “The Big 3:” his tattoo, his earing, and his sideburns:

I think Lisa has a little crush!...

Here’s Desiree and my wife Pharmie. How’s this for a lot of HOTNESS in one photo?!?

Yao-zah!

Here’s a final photo of Pharmie, most of the Evotri gang, and the 4 pros:

Back: TriSaraTops, Chris, Robby, Sweet, and TriCajun.
Front: Pharmie, Desiree, Rural Girl, Linsey, Heather, and Stu.
I took the picture. No Steve in the photo. Dang.

After that, we went to the race expo. I got tapped on the shoulder and was asked “are you Steve in a Speedo?” It was blogger Viv! She was getting ready to rock her first 70.3! We sat in on the pre-race meeting (all the normal stuff: don’t drown, no iPods, here are the penalties, here’s where the water stops are, etc.), nearly ran into Macca, and finally stopped to eat. All of us started with a round of fried gator. Well, ALMOST all of us. Pharmie didn’t want to try it. I dove right in:

Tasted like rubbery, dark-meat chicken

I ordered pasta with grilled shrimp. It sounded like a good 2-days-before-a-race meal:

Finally, we went back to the place we were staying. We rented a house with the Evotri gang, and it was GREAT! At the fullest, we had 8 people staying in that house, and we had such a blast!!

Saturday (the day before the race) we wanted to test out Lake Pontchartrain. Some of the team tested it the day before, and it was CHOPPY!! Rural girl got all cut up when the waves slammed her against these concrete steps:

Notice how calm it is now!

These next 2 photos I showed a few days ago - here’s Pharmie and I before heading out:

And here’s the majority of our group when we all wrapped up:

Here’s Stu playing with his camera:

When we were standing there, a little crab scurried over my feet. Then it happened to a woman from Dallas who we swam with. Stu tried telling us that it was a small gator. Thanks Stu.

I got 2 great shots of JP, the youngest Team Evotri member, as he was finishing his swim. It looks like he’s posing for some sort of Nautica Swimwear ad:

Sorry ladies, he’s in a committed relationship...

Because the water was SO SHALLOW right where the race was going to start, a few of the guys started practicing their dolphin-dives. Here’s Robby as he seems to be skipping across the lake:

Then Robby, JP, and Stu wanted to dolphin-dive for the camera, but it was a pretty uncoordinated effort. Here’s some of Robby, little of JP, and a lot of Stu:

And then I got a splash from Robby, a lot of JP, and nothing from Stu:

We all hopped out, dried off, and headed to a little grocery store for lunch. On the way, TriSaraTops and Stu posed next to this great sign:

“Poop-Free Neighborhood”

We grabbed food, and my lunch was GREAT! I had Sunny D, beef jerky, Spaghetti-Os, and PB&J on an English muffin. If you think it sounds gross, stop to think about how most of that is QUITE good for a body the day before a race!

Then we went out Saturday afternoon for things that were maybe NOT so good for us: BEIGNETS!! Beignets are fried dough that are then SMOTHERED in powdered sugar:

Here’s Pharmie and I killing some beignets:

Here’s Sweet, TriSaraTops, and Stu joining in on the fun:

Finally, Robby (who is usually an attractive man) shoved an entire beignet in his mouth and got a little powdered sugar up his nose. What were you thinking Robby?

Here’s Pharmie and I outside of Café Du Monde (where we had the beignets):

We all headed down toward Jackson Square, which is where we were going to be finishing our 70.3 the next day.

Right in front of the square, they were already closing the street and putting up the finisher’s chute:

Then we all went back to the house, the Evotri folks grabbed their bikes (Pharmie and I had our bikes shipped, and they were supposed to be waiting for us in transition), and we got ready to check our bikes into transition for their overnight stay. Robby was a PRO at packing 6 bikes and 8 people into their big van! We helped everyone get unloaded and set up. Check out this sweet wheel porn along their huge van:

TriCajun helping Rural Girl (who NEEDS the help! Ha!) get her bike set up:

Before leaving our bikes in transition for the night, I snapped an Evotri team photo:

What a good lookin’ group!

(Left-to-right, that’s JP, Sweet, Rural Girl, Wil, Robby, TriCajun, Stu, and TriSaraTops.)

Then we headed towards transition. Our Evotri buddies got their bikes set up. Pharmie and I had to go find our bikes for the first time since we shipped them nearly 2 weeks before! We KNEW they’d be there, but there were still little butterflies as to if they would REALLY be there! I spotted Goldilocks, and Pharmie found Tony (our bikes). We got our bikes checked out on a little test-ride, and everything was A-OK. We put them back in their spots in transition. I kissed Goldi goodnight:

Coming out of transition, I nearly bumped into Macca!

We shook hands, and I’m pretty sure because of that, I was able to propel him to a 2nd place finish the next day!! (Either that, or I held him back to a 2nd place finish... I’m not sure...)

So we headed off to a final big meal before our race the next day. The van was too full, so Pharmie had to ride in the back:

We went to “Mona Lisa’s,” and I had a sausage, ham, and basil pizza:

PERFECT pre-race fuel!

Back at the house, everyone was in “final prep” mode. Here’s Sweet going through all of his gear:

Finally, it was time to hit the hay:

A few hours of sleep, and then it was time to race on Sunday morning!! Since so many of us were from the mid-west, we didn’t know what the race would hold in store for us. It was supposed to be 80 and a little sticky (NOT weather we’re used to training in during the winter months!). I’ll be back as soon as I can with the race-day story!

(In the meantime, here are links to the blogger buddies from our NOLA house party who competed in the race. Go check them out: my lovely wife Pharmie, Stu, Rural Girl, Robby, TriSaraTops, Tri-Cajun, JP, and Sweet.)

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