On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

So much violence. Last Sunday, a group of Alto Velo riders descended Skyline toward the intersection of Highway 84, near the Woodside-Skylonda border. A driver made an illegal left turn, colliding with Ileana Parker. She was badly injured, with multiple fractures, and a nearly severed finger. It's going to be a long, hard recovery. A moment's carelessness by the driver, months of pain and tens of thousands of dollars of expense for Ileana. Violence? Well, to me the question is: if the result of a car-bike collision was generally death for the driver, then would drivers be more alert for cyclists before making turns? And if the answer is yes, then isn't the careless driver trading cyclist risk for personal convenience? And over a population, since the possibility of injury becomes a near-certainty of injury, doesn't this mean careless drivers are trading cycling injury and death for expedience and laziness? And isn't this violence? It was a clearer case on...

I did another long run yesterday . Again, no pressure on going fast, pushing it only on the Lyon Street stairs . Curiously, I was feeling a big bogged down going into the stairs, but they seemed to really open things up, and I felt like I was cruising from there back home. That didn't stop me from being tired, afterwards... Rate of improvement needed to reach endurance goal for Austin So the question is: where do I stand with respect to a 15 Feb marathon goal? Pretty good, it seems. If I assume this run was my endurance limit, which clearly it was not, to target race-level endurance 4 weeks prior to race data, I need to improve by 6.04% per week to reach that goal. That's very doable: I've seen a maximum rate of improvement of 10%/week claimed. What do I know about marathon training? Not much. A handful of Running Magazine articles, some web pages, yadayada. The longest competitive run I've done is 10 km. My coach could address these issues much better than...

Saturday... one of those days where everything goes well. First, Cara and I went out to Lomas Cantadas for week 8 of the 2008 Low-Key Hillclimbs . In short, virtually everything went well: the weather, the volunteers, my riding, and the results prep after the climb. After enjoying myself in the Orinda Starbucks, entering results, I had them posted by around noon. Then I met Cara who was sampling the smoothie offerings of scenic Orinda, and we drove back home to meet an old friend of mine who would be staying over while she's in town. Then dinner: a pleasant surprise. We had reservations for Cara's birthday at Sauce , a San Francisco mid-upscale "comfort food" place. It has about the least attractive menu I could imagine: all meat and cheese and, obviously, sauce. I went off-menu, asking for "steamed vegetables". The chefs couldn't didn't want to leave it with that, though, and prepared some mildly sauteed selections, rich in asparagus which ...

Yesterday, after bailing on my tempo run because of leg fatigue, I put in a serious session of foam rolling and stretching. No doubt about it, the front of my quads were sore. That's never happened from cycling alone, yet I've hardly been cycling alone. The first sign something was up had been the Noon Ride. Running has caused me to lose a bit of weight, and I decided to test my climbing, as well as my pain tolerance, on Old La Honda Road , which the Nooner climbs each Wednesday. Although I was able to keep it on the dark side of my pain threshold the whole way up and was alone, first to the top of the climb, my time, 17:59, was a bit disappointing. When I emailed Cara about it, she noted my Mon run. A dose of reality. No, I can't run a near-half-marathon yet without impact. Back two days, to Monday... My excellent coach Dan Smith prescribed a 30-minute recovery run. Yet I was itching for action, energized by Saturday's Low-Key Hillclimb up Metcalf Road , which...

A study in contrast.... finish photos (by Gary Griffin ) from the Metcalf Low-Key Hillclimb : Comparing Gary Gellin's and my foot-falls at finish of Metcalf Low-Key Hillclimb. Now no criticism of Gary; the man wins trail runs with time to spare . Really an inspiring runner. Compare with Haile Gebrselassie, arguably the best distance runner on record. Haile Gebrselassie (left) Haile appears to not strike his heal, although against the principles of Chi Running , he is getting his foot out in front of him. Now this is a full-out sprint on the track, not steady-state. In this excellent video of Haille setting the world record at the Berlin Marathon, his running form appears more Chi-compliant. He is truly an inspiring image of economy and speed: As my friend Nathan said, "I don't think Haile read Dreyer, I think Dreyer read Haile." So I'm happy with my foot-strike, but I've got to find more economy and speed in my form. Okay, I won't be breaking 2:04 i...

It's Tuesday, and I'm coming off two days of contrast: an excellent ride, and excellent run. On Sunday, for the first time in awhile, I rode the Paradise Loop. There's a variety of options on the loop: my personal favorite is to head over Camino Alto, always a great little climb and descent, then turn right onto Tamalpais, cross 101, right on Paradise Drive, ride along the coast with its curiously scenic views of San Quentin State Prison, left at the intersection with Trestle Glen to stay on Paradise, then left in Tiburon proper onto Main Street. Then it's through super-exclusive Tiburon to the traffic circle of even more exclusive Belvedere. Henry Kingman's excellent San Francisco riding guide From here, almost every group ride I've done has born right onto San Rafael Ave, the shortest way back. But dull , dull , dull ! Henry Kingman,in his excellent book, Short Bike Rides of San Francisco , describes a far more scenic route, one which, being the navigat...

The Metcalf Mauler In the spirit of Low-Key, I decided to run the Low-Key Hillclimb up Metcalf Road . I wasn't at all surprised to see Gary Gellin there, as well. Gary also ran nearby Quimby Road, and clearly understands a runner's relative disadvantage is less the steeper the road. Metcalf, with a 12% sustained grade until the final half-mile or so, is an excellent opportunity for a runner to impress. I started a bit ahead of Gary. We skipped the brief "promenade" section, moving ahead to where coordinator Gary Griffin would honk the horn to indicate the start. The rules of Low-Key are the rules of the vehicle code, which means bikes ride to the right, but of course runners are not thus constrained. So we each set off on the left side of the road, I starting a bit ahead. Unfortunately, I retained my lead ahead of Gary for at best 10 seconds, before he came by with an incredible speed differential, leaving me smiling to myself that such a pace on this hill was ...

It is such an enormous relief to me that Barack Obama's electors won, and I look forward to Obama's and Biden's forthcoming victory in the Presidential vote and subsequent inauguration. He's a new face for this failing nation, an intelligent, articulate leader who demonstrates actual vision over tired, lazy, anti-intellectual, self-serving dogmatism. When Wednesday morning dawned and support for Obama's electors was confirmed, I felt a weight which has accumulated over the years lift. It was like the first sunny day after weeks of overcast and rain. Yet, unlike many, I am not ready to celebrate. Our national paradigm must now change, and while Barack has given glimmers of hope that we will now move in the correct direction, the inertia of big money is of unprecedented magnitude in this history of our nation and, I suspect, in the history of the world. For years, the federal government's actions have been virtually indistinguishable from what one would pr...

Well, we're up to week 7, down to the final three weeks of the 2008 Low-Key Hillclimbs . Two weeks of quality over quantity before the Thanksgiving Mt Hamilton Road finale . This week, a classic, and a first-timer for Low-Key, the Metcalf Mauler , 1.8 miles of 12% grade: http://lowkeyhillclimbs.com/2008/week7/ Then next week, it's Lomas Cantadas in the Berkeley Hills. I like this one, as it's BART-friendly, within walking distance of Orinda BART, and while not as relentless as Metcalf, offers a tough finish topping out over 15%: Thanks to all who've supported the series! We're already planning for 2009! Alba , anyone? On the running side, I'm planning on ditching the bike for Metcalf, inspired by Gary Gellin (who's much faster than me) who ran faster up Quimby Road than I often run on the flats: It should be fun! Then, after that, Run Wild For a Child in Golden Gate park. Results from the Embarcadero 10k: It appears I'm on the slow end of the fas...

Since 1995 I've been involved with the Low-Key Hillclimbs , with a silly gap from 1999 to 2005. I really love the concept of low-key events: no high entry fee, no plastic bag of landfill, just friends, fun, and competition. After riding Saturday's Low-Key Hillclimb up Jamison Creek , I attended my first-ever Dolphin Running Club Embarcadero 10km . Wow -- what an experience! This was the first 10km I did since, I believe, 1991, at the latest. I recall doing a 10km while at MIT, maybe as late as 1990, then I did the Dish Dash early while at Stanford in 1991 (less than 10km, but hilly), and another 10km at Stanford. I trained for these events, including speed work at the track, so I produced what for me seemed good times. My recollection was 41 minutes for 10km. Maybe slightly less. Certainly not less than 40 minutes. When my friend Nathan suggested Chi Running to me it sparked in my mind the chance to give running another try. Carl Faulkner, a previous co-worker who s...