Friday Funny 1724: Sunburns

I would wager that alcohol was involved in good percentage of these (not all).

Lots more funny things posted all week long on SportsAndLaughs.tumblr.com.

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Friday Funny 723: Bad Sunburns

The season of sunburns is quickly approaching. Let's learn from these 10 people's mistakes:

Check out more "funnies" all week long on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com.

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Biggest Training Bonk Ever

Yep. I had a fun run on Saturday. And I made 3 "Rookie Mistakes." Here's what you need to know:

Pharmie left for an Evotri training camp early on Thursday morning. I had Henry Thursday night all by myself (our first night with just Dad and son EVER), and Pharmie's Mom came up over the weekend. Pharmie got back into town on Sunday morning, and Henry survived 3+ days with me (and Grandma)! Grandma even brought goodies for me when she came up:

Saturday, Grandma took Henry to the Zoo:

I was STARVING when they left in the morning, so I INHALED lunch. Rookie Mistake #1: My eyes were bigger than my stomach. As I "let my food settle," I ran some branches to the compost site:

(I tweeted this photo along with this text: "A little used phrase: 'To the compost site, bitches!'")

Less than 2 hours after eating, I KNEW I needed to get out on my long run before Grandma and Henry got back. Rookie Mistake #2: So I took off on my run thinking "oh, my full stomach will settle with these first few miles." Oh, also, it was 12:30. Rookie Mistake #3: Go out for a run during the heat of the day on a warm afternoon.

I headed out on a route that would put me around 13.5 miles. I was going to run the first 5+ moderate, and then descend the next 6 miles (cooling-down for the final 2 miles). The warm up was fine. The first mile of the build was good (6:23 - a solid place to start my descend).

Miles 2 and 3 of the descend were fine as well: 6:31 and 6:19. But I felt like barfing. That food did NOT settle. I felt horrible. And it was hot.

I ran a bit more of the next hard mile (descend mile #4; overall mile #9), and then I suddenly found myself stopping to walk. I don't do that much... I hate it when I do that. I walked for a minute and ran again. I got past the next mile marker and ran to some water. I drank. And I drank. And I drank.

I started off running hard again, but I was so full of food / water / disappointment that I had to stop and walk again. I NEARLY turned around to head straight across a bridge towards home (cutting the 13.5 mile route to under 10), but I realized THIS was the time that I had to do this long run - Grandma had Henry, and I needed to use this time! (Which was another reason I felt so bad for timing the run so poorly - it was my chance for a solid stroller-free run, and I was blowing it!) None of my injuries were hurting, so I figured it'd be fine to go on with the regularly scheduled 13.5 miles and push through this bonk.

I eased up the effort, but didn't go REALLY easy. I stopped to walk a few more times. I ended my final 3 miles in 6:45, 7:01, and 8:40 (which included a bit of walking up a hill in that final mile). The bad news is that I finished 13.5 miles in 1:38 - usually I'm doing workouts like that in around 1:30. And my hard 6 miles turned into only a hard 3.5 miles. The good news is that I still got in 13.5 miles. And (as I tweeted) there are some people that would kill for 1:38 over a long half marathon.

I collapsed on the floor at home. Grandma and Henry were still off having fun. Kermit came over and started licking the sweat off my chest:

(That whole red area is from Kermit's tongue.)

I hadn't had one in a long time, but I wanted an ice bath. First, I was HOT, and it would help cool me down. Second, my legs were getting pretty sore, so the cold water might make them feel better. (I didn't feel like my legs really worked that hard on this botched run, but with the work they DID do along with the heat, they were fried.) So I ran just cold water into the tub, dumped in out entire ice bucket, and slowly lowered my man-parts into the freezing water:

That night, after getting Henry to bed, I was winding-down in bed with my laptop. I used my laptop to snap a photo of my RED SHOULDERS from the hot shirt-less run earlier in the day:

It's kinda hard to tell, but I'm FRIED! Oops.

But the next day, Pharmie got home, and we all enjoyed a quick easy run to Menards!

Henry's first real run in the stroller withOUT the carseat!

Maybe an easy run in a day or 2, then some speed work, and then another long run this weekend (this time WITH Henry because Pharmie has to work). The "Get In Gear 10K" is now less than 2 weeks away!!

p.s. I also went to cheer at "Goldy's Run 10 Mile" early Saturday morning. I took a lot of photos around mile 4. Click here to see my slideshow of photos.

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Bike Ride and Rollerblade

Pharmie and I both got out for our longest workouts since Henry's arrival 6 weeks ago. Yesterday, we were in Alexandria with my family for a Stenzel family vacation. My Mom and Sister said they'd take care of our little guy for a few hours, so Pharmie and I headed for the long flat trail that goes through Alex.

I ended up biking about 28 miles, which was my longest ride in a long time and my FIRST ride since the Life Time Fitness Triathlon over 2 weeks ago!! (Meaning it was my first ride since my first crash.) Well, this ride was much less dramatic (except for the bee-sting under my helmet), and I finished with a 20.6 mph average, which I was pretty happy with. I went out with the slight breeze and had a 22.4 mph average at the turn-around, and felt OK about only letting it drop to 20.6 after 14 miles into the wind.

Pharmie Rollerbladed out on the trail, and covered about 19 miles. She found out that she should be rollerblading more - she liked it as a good postpartum workout! I snapped 2 photos of her finishing up her workout:

After our workouts, with "Big Ole" in the background

Last night, I realized that I had that common "I-put-on-sunscreen-but-didn't-get-it-spread-around-my-watch-very-well" sunburn:

I'll have some more photos from vacation up later this week or this weekend. So stop back for those! You wouldn't want to miss photos like Henry's first time in a hammock:

Or his expression when he learned that there was "Big Buck Hunter" at the cabin:

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Fun News!! (And the first sunburn of 2011)

Tomorrow is the TC 1 Mile - a point-to-point mile race down the streets of Minneapolis. And this brings me to 3 fun points:

• Pharmie is running it!! It will be fun to go cheer her on (and maybe run most of it with her)! She's 35.5 weeks pregnant, so she's hoping to finish in... oh, I don't know.... sub-13.

• Ryan Hall is running it!! Yes, THAT Ryan Hall! The Ryan Hall who just ran the FASTEST MARATHON EVER BY AN AMERICAN at Boston last month. How freaking sweet is that! Pharmie and I hope to stick around after her wave of the race to watch Hall try to break 4:00 for the first time ever!! (He got close in high school, but he's never done it - how cool would it be to be there when he does?!?)

• I was invited to the "TC 1 Mile Press Luncheon" which takes place a few hours before the race!! First of all, who turns down a free lunch?! Not this guy. Secondly, I don't know if Ryan Hall will be there, but how cool would it be to be able to meet Ryan Hall and ask him a few questions?!?!?! His speedy wife Sara will be running the race too. The race is the "USA 1 Mile Road Championship," and Sara was actually the female runner-up 2 years ago.

So, needless to say, tomorrow's going to be a pretty fun day!! I'll be back with photos this weekend!

Oh, and yesterday I got my first sunburn of the year. I'm not proud of this, but I am a little happy that the sun FINALLY has enough power to be able to MAKE a sunburn. Pharmie had the day off of work, so we did a lot of gardening. I slathered my wife's back with sunscreen, but her hands were already covered in lots of dirt, so I thought I could get my own back. Turns out, I should have had her help:

Oops.

TC 1 Mile for Pharmie tomorrow, and the Oakdale Duathlon for Matt and I (as the relay team of "Team Happy Pants") on Saturday! Should be a fun couple of days!!

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2010 Oakdale Duathlon Race Report

Matt and I decided to revive “Team Happy Pants” a week early this year and race at the Oakdale Duathlon this past Saturday (3 mile run, 13.5 mile bike, 3 mile run). Next weekend we’ll be racing the Gear West Duathlon as a team as well (5K CC run, 17.4 mile bike, 4K CC run).

On Saturday, I got to Matt’s, we loaded up, and he drove us to Oakdale. Here’s Matt getting body marked pre-race:

Customary pre-race porta-potty shot. Not many potties, but never a long wait!


Transition filling up.

I kept bumping into people I knew or people who knew me from the blog-o-sphere. I LOVE that about local races!! I had to work my way back to our spot in transition to have a quick gel and get ready to warm-up. (Yes Jen Harrison, I warmed up!)

My lower back was really sore about 10 days ago, and that pain seems to be slowly moving up my back. My left shoulder / neck has been really sore for a number of days, and I didn’t know how running hard would make it feel. I threw on my racing flats, and tested out the course. I got in a good mile+ warm-up (easy running with some strides), and my back / shoulder / neck felt fine! Good news!

Matt headed to take a duke, and I headed off to the starting line. I chatted with Mike and Mindy. Mike was going to be doing his first du! Then I found Manny, Omar, Marlo, Tracie, and lots of other familiar faces to quick say hi to before starting.

It was a beautiful day for a race! Sunny, calm, and 65 degrees. What more could you ask for?!

“On your marks.... GO!!!”

3 MILE RUN:

Relays were in the first wave with male and female elites. So I knew I’d have a handful of speedy dudes in front of me. I liked that thought: they would be there to pull me hard. We started about 1/4 to 1/2 mile away from transition, and here we are as we got close to the transition area early in the race:

Running in about 15th place.


The pack rounding the first corner.

I knew I was not the first place team. You can see the topless guy in those photos above, and being he was just wearing running shorts, I knew he was on a team. I tried to keep him in my sights, but he just kept slowly pulling away. The pack was holding a FAST pace! (Or so I thought.) I was really working, and I HOPED I was running fast. I had told Matt ahead of time that I’d like to really push the pace on the first run. I was doing that!

I moved up a few spots around the middle of the run. There was no marker for mile 1, so I had no idea what kind of pace I was holding. When I came up to the mile 2 marker, my watch read 10:50. So that was 5:25 / mile over those first 2 miles. Good: my pace WAS fast, and that was why I hurt so much!! I told myself to ease up a little, but I still pushed the pace. I was getting HOT, and it was a HARD run. Good effort.

Here’s a shot that Mindy got of me as I was heading towards transition:

T1:

I ran up the hill to the parking lot, looped through the cars, and came running to Matt through transition. He had my camera, and grabbed a quick shot of me running toward him:

He dropped the camera and got ready to make the chip exchange. He grabbed the timing chip off my ankle, and he was off.

13.5 MILE BIKE:

I picked up the camera and grabbed 2 shots of Matt riding off as I was yelling “GO MATT” to him:

Clipping in.


Getting up to speed.

Side note: do you see Matt’s sweet jersey? It’s for a beer company (Pyramid Brewing), and there are 3 beers sticking out of the 3 pockets in the back:

Photo from later in the day showing the back of the jersey.

Anyway, I went over to talk to Emily who was the biker for an all female team, and I told her I was HOT and that the run ate me up! I wished her luck on her ride, and I headed out of transition. I went over to the porta-johns and had a little pee. I didn’t really need to, but I figured “why not.”

After peeing, I snapped a shot of the uneven sweat marks on my sweaty boobs:

I stopped to talk with Erik and Katie, and then figured I should do a little jogging to stay loose. I also figured that I should lose my shirt. I was WARM, and being there was at least 1 guy without his shirt in the first run, I figured it was OK. So it was JUST going to be the “bowl full of sunshine” shorts covering my goods for the second run.

Soon, the first guy came into T2. Everyone (including the race announcer) thought it was the first individual. But it was the first team!! That’s the first time I’d seen a team be the first back off the bike! The second biker back was a team as well!! This race was not going to end with a first place finish by Team Happy Pants. Oh well. Still a chance to get in a hard, hard run.

I saw Matt’s bright jersey come over the hill after a few minutes, and I got ready to run!

T2:

I took Matt’s chip, he told me to “go get em” (yeah right), and I shot out onto the run.

3 MILE RUN:

I heard Erik and Katie yell for me at about the same time that Mindy was shouting for me. I waved my hand and shouted “THANKS” as I ran by:

The second run was the same run as the first, but it was backwards. So I knew there’d be a mile marker at mile 1, but nothing at mile 2. Running up to mile 1, there was this BIG HILL that was NOT there on the first run. Really. ;) I hit mile 1 in 5:49. I didn’t know if I could hold onto that pace, but I was going to try.

I ran the ENTIRE second run by myself. There wasn’t anyone behind me, and I only caught a glimpse of someone in front of me when there was a long straight stretch. I never passed anyone, and no one passed me. It was a good “mental effort” running out there on my own. (If that makes any sense to you.)

I was pretty beat up. I was hurting. But I wanted a good “test run” for the Gear West Duathlon next weekend. So I still went hard. Here I am rounding one of the final curves before heading up a little hill towards the finish:

And here’s a series of shots Matt took as I was hitting that final straightaway heading to the finish. Warning: I’m nearly nude, hairy, and pale. That’s the “MN-Triathlete-in-May Trifecta!” Ha!

Flying but hurting.


Hurting.


Oooh. Caught on the downstride. NOT a flattering photo.


That dog’s looking for a hunk of meat, and it’s not finding anything there. ;)


Heading up to the finish with a little visible swass.

Results are posted, but they are “strange.” Only the first run and maybe the T1 time are correct. The bike and the final run are all weird. However, the final time is correct. So that’s why I’m only giving the "unofficial" results below. They are the splits I took from my watch. They are close, but not 100% accurate.

Unofficial Results:

#470, Team Happy Pants, Steve Stenzel and Matt Linder

3 mile run: 16:44 (5:34.6 pace)
T1: 0:24
13.5 mile bike: 35:41 (23.0 mph)
T2: 0:20
3 mile run: 16:32 (5:30.6 pace)
Total: 1:09:45

3rd out of 30 relay teams
3rd out of 9 in the “male relay” category

Over the past 6 years of the race, the “relay course record” was 1:17:47. We SHATTERED that, but there were 2 CRAZY FAST teams there that finished in 1:02:31 and 1:03:50. No thanks. Matt and I could NOT do that!

We were both happy with how we had done - no complaints from us! Here’s a photo shortly after we finished:

Matt seems to be keeping his distance… I wonder why...

We cheered Mike (Mindy’s boy-toy) to the finish of his first duahtlon!! (He beat Mindy’s time from last year! Oh-oh, will that lead to a couple’s issue! Ha!) Look at his cheering section as he neared the line:

Congrats Mike!

Kevin O’Connor (owner of Gear West Bike, local duathlete rockstar, 2009 USAT Duathlete of the Year, and 3rd place finisher at this race [only because he was sick all week leading up to the race]) was manning the grill. Kevin has excellent wieners:

I wasn’t shy, and I bit right in:

As Matt and I loaded our stuff into his car, we noticed this truck with a SWEET post-race set up!! The bed of this truck had a mat, a foam roller, and “the stick” for massaging out sore / tired / cranky leg muscles:

GREAT IDEA!

We grabbed a spot in the grass, chatted with all kinds of people, and watched the awards ceremony:

Matt standing, Shelley, Katie, and Mark behind him

Matt and I got called up for the 3rd place team. We love it when someone has to say “Team Happy Pants” over the loud-speaker! ;)

Sitting in that sun all morning led to a little bit of a burn. Here I am with a cherry face and a good “farmers tan” later that day in the shower:

Hairy, red, and nipply tricep close-up.

To see more photos from the race (that do NOT include me in the shower), click here to go to a little examiner article that has a little slideshow at the bottom.

Time to gear up this week for the Gear West Duathlon on Sunday!! Team Happy Pants is racing again, and so is my lovely Pharmie. And our friend Jess will be racing her first duathlon at GW too! Should be a fun day!

Have a good week everyone!!

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