roadskater.net

You know, even when we do things for charity, it's easy to get competitive. It's easy to think you shouldn't make an effort if it can't be a big one. It's easy to forget that the desire to help is enough. Do a little, or do a lot, but do it when you are inspired!

With this year's outdoor inline training season ahead, I've been wondering how I should best spend the precious time available to me and reap the best skate training rewards later in the year.

Location

Skaters and cyclists and others who participate in active transportation (walkers, runners, skateboarders, more) please come out to the open board meeting of the North Carolina Active Transportation Alliance on January 11 in Raleigh. As we transition into a new federal administration, it's an important time to make your voice heard in support of projects that favor more and safer alternatives to the automobile...especially human-powered alternatives.

Here's a notice from Joe Godfrey, Senior Park Planner, Town of Cary (slightly edited by roadskater, with emphasis added):

I am pleased to inform you that the Town of Cary will be issuing Holmes Contracting, Inc. a Notice To Proceed with the construction of the Chatham County segment of the American Tobacco Trail. We anticipate beginning construction on September 8, 2008 and completing the project in June, 2009.

As you know the project consists of the construction of a 4.68-mile long multi-use trail with two typical sections as follows:

Recent discussions on the APRR email list regarding "Clydesdale Competitions" have revived a favorite idea of mine for some years now...the "Roadskater.net Momentum Award" or some such similar.

What I propose is not a Clydesdale Competition where all over 200 or 220 or whatever figure are equal, also eliminating all under the limit as well, but a pound-miles per hour or kilogram-kilometers per hour "Momentum Championship"...

• pounds times miles divided by hours
• kilograms times kilometers divided by hours

I have been unable to run for almost a year due to a stupid and apparently undiagnosable injury but after many kook-ball doctor visits, plus hours of yoga and massage, I am finally venturing back out onto soft surfaces. This is very exciting but also depressing as I realise how horribly slow I am now compared to where I left off a year ago, in peak running shape! So I decided to go do some intervals--which brought me to this musing....

I don't have a lot of info on this but i found some mapmyride.com info. I'm finally well enough to think I could do this...

Thu and Fri March 27 and 28 at 4p there are some torch relays with runners and some slow cyclists and perhaps others in celebration of the start of Greensboro's 200th Anniversary (Bicentennial) celebration.

If you're in the market for a heart rate monitor and place great value on the calorie counter function, I would not recommend you buy a Garmin Forerunner 305.

Location

The soon to be formerly known as ncbikeped group will get a new name this weekend. You can help make it include other rollers specifically (skaters, skateboarders, wheelchairists of the commuting and athletic training sort) by attending and voting for the name with "Roll" in it. It's down to 2 names and this is the vote that decides it. Please be there!

I don't know if anyone heard this live, but WUNC had a piece on about bicycle, pedestrian and other human powered transportation issues (OK they said people powered) today. The piece mentioned the American Tobacco Trail, Durham and Raleigh, and efforts to improve safety, since it seems to be the common thread among those who'd "like to" but don't....

Here's the page...

Here are the results of the second name survey for the NC Walk & Roll Human-Powered Transportation Alternatives Bike/Walk Group or whatever it is to be called. I was happy to see Walk & Roll and other inclusive names do so well. I had thought there would be more votes overall, but everyone had a chance to vote, so there it is. 

Hi to all:

I'm the "inline skater" that suggested Walk'n'Roll NC (or Walk&Roll NC with a big fat sexy ampersand). I also have skin, breathe, walk, drive, eat, sleep, and much more.

To those brave enough to speak against inline skaters being included in the NC Bike Ped coalition or whatever your current name, thanks for saying what you're thinking. I'd rather deal with open discrimination than secrets and lies. Thanks for your courage. I'm sure many agree with you.

Milford's Labor Day 30 K Festival of Races Stampede from the Milford Times, who deserves credit for any lack of specificity here:

Dale Brown of Cycles de Oro posted some comments about riding safely in Greensboro Country Park after hearing some complaints relayed by Parks and Recreation. Let me add my thoughts and include cycling, inline skating, skateboarding and running. Any time you're faster than others, they need your help with safety. And any time you're in a smaller group, it's a good idea to strive to be worthy of the good will and respect of the larger one, in my view.

Whilst snooping around the personal finance and get-out-of-debt blogs, I tapped into the personal weight-loss blogs. In following the ADHD links to the maze of other such webpages, I found some funny blog titles, like "Over 40, in debt and overweight". Yes, in 2007 there are countless people still struggling in vain to lose excess weight. They all seem to believe that food deprivation and other people's idea of exercise are the only solutions. Will this hopelessly cruel and debilitating cycle ever end?

I hesitate to use the four-letter word 'diet' here, as that connotates restriction, sacrifice and misery. I also hesitate to call myself an athlete! However, in this bodyweight equation and given the unusually high number of skate-training hours, let the athlete = EB.

I read an article in Triathlete magazine (and then spent several days looking for it again ;-) )  I couldn't find the exact article but here is one which references the same research on active.com:

This Thursday night "The Traveler" rolls out with rollerblading (inline skating) pranks involving three kids skating through an art museum. This reminds me of Bertolucci's The Dreamers, which contains an attempt at breaking the record for running from one end of the Louvre to the other, itself a reference to Godard's Bande à part (as ever, wikipedia.com has much on both films). I understand also that Looney Tunes: Back in Action has a scene where Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are chased through the Louvre. Anyway, check your local listings for the ABC channel near you to see some skaytn on teevee. Previews I've read indicate the quality of the show to be less than amazing, but how often do we get to see any skating of any inline kind on the tele? So if I get a chance, I'll watch. Thought you'd like to know...

During my (running) marathon training I have become quite interested in nutrition. I am talking about general nutrition more than what to eat during extended periods of exercise – that is getting enough calories into me to sustain the long runs and fuel the adequate muscle recoveries (before doing it all over again!) without eating high fat or inadvertently putting on a whole bunch of weight.

Here's a report from www.thisislondon.co.uk about yet another fatality from hyponatremia. This one is in relation to last weekend's London Marathon, where temps were in the mid-70s. Sad and very preventable - not by not entering the event, but by having an abundance of Gatorade and salt! If an event can't afford truckloads of Gatorade, they should at least be able to afford some salt!

 I've been knocking these rather trivial, large-scale thoughts around my head for some years now and wanted to write something about them. Last night, whilst watching 20/20, was the final straw! This post might complement KJG's questions in Monotony of Training.

Despondency + skating = hope. Hope makes all the difference!

Ever since I got hooked on inline skating in 1999, I have known this: if I had, as a teenager, discovered this sport, or something else I adored as much, that called for about ten hours of intense activity a week, I would have been depressed a whole lot less.

Here's a news article that reports on Charlie Engle of Greensboro, and how he ran the equivalent of 2 marathons a day for 111 days across the Sahara Desert.

Things have been going very well with my half marathon training. I did my longest run to date this Saturday of 11 miles (in light snow, which by the way goes in your face in both directions!) in a blistering 8 and a half minute mile pace. This has been pretty consistently by long run pace (except for the 15F day with -10F wind chill!) And this evenings 4 mile fast run was sub 8 min miles. These are paces that I previously only dreamed about. So everything is going well....

I am not pregnant, nor have I been, nor do I expect to be, but I found this information interesting. OK I feel pregnant after the winter! I don't know if this info is all accurate but I think it is a nice start at thinking about getting some exercise. The article contains more, but here's the part that mentions skating:

I thought that you sunny southerners would enjoy this - it has been a little cold in Michigan this weekend. On Saturday I did my 8 mile long run for the week on Hines drive (where there is always a head wind in both directions!) in 15 deg F with a windchill to make it feel like zero! I am not kidding when I tell you that at some points I was actually being blown backwards as I ran up the hills! This is the route for the actual 1/2 marathon (which is why I am trying to do my longer runs there to train on the rolling hills and with the omni-present headwind.) So it was slow but I stayed warm and got through it (dreaming of my cobb salad and all the trimmings it was going to have on it most of the way!)

Folk from Detroit, especially our pals in Farmington, might enjoy a book mentioned in the Farmington newspaper (not sure of the name but perhaps it's called HometownLife?). As the article states...

As I run my route in the snow this evening it told me something....no I am not delusional again......I ran a portion of the route that I ran on Saturday morning just after the snow first fell. Then it froze and then it snowed again (kind of like a snow lasagna!) There were portions of sidewalk where the only footprints were the ones that I had left on Saturday morning, now covered with fresh snow.

I have decided to run my first 1/2 marathon at the Martian Marathon on April 1st. This is a big decision and undertaking but one that I am quite excited about.

I have been a casual runner for several years - mostly in the skate off-season. Mostly running 5 and 10k's with various times and various frequencies of training!