Mu Daiko

Linda and I attended an afternoon Takio drumming recital of our friends Susan Larson and her son Sammy. They have been taking taiko lessions for about 8 months with the local group called Mu Daiko. Taiko is Japanese drumming.
There were various groups from beginners to professional performers that banged and jumped around for 2 hours. In the small theater the sound was amazing. You could literally feel the songs. It was completely engaging. Afterward, we were able to go up on stage to talk to the performers and check out the drums. During the show the instructors told us that the real Japanese taiko are made from hollowed out tree sections but that in America they use old wine barrel so that they aren't so expensive. She said that today the American ones can even be found in Japan.

The stage was a bit dark but I do have some more shots on my flickr site.

Race Report #6: Withrow TT-July

I guess I have to report the good and the bad. :-(

I wasn't feeling all that great about the 3rd TT of the Summer. For the last week I've felt a bit sluggish. No energy for running either. One natural excuse would be the heat but I'm rarely affected and actually perform better in the heat. So I can't use that as a reason.

To shake it up a bit, I decided to see just how hard I could go right from the start. Really test my sustained stamina. Plus my little too cocky neighbor was right in front of me so the idea of catching him then just fading was also acceptable. I actually was doing very well for the first third and had Jeff in my sights (thou clearly I wasn't going to pass him) but then on the northern leg (about half way) I started to get the slight twinge of a stitch so I backed off. Then I kinda lost the mental edge and sat up (eased up) on the southern leg. I cruised in without topping 150 bpm. Down from the 175 of the first leg. I finished about 2 minutes slower then usual.

Not my best performance but it was good failure analysis on my system. Max effort failure led to mental motivational failure.

I won a water bottle from Now Bikes after the race.

Noon rides

Here at work there are a bunch of bicyclists that have formed a loose club called the Boston Scientific Bicycling Club (or BSBC for short). It's quite easy to excercise here because there are very nice simple shower rooms for all employees to use and they even provide a towel service!

We usually start the ride at 11:30 and try to get back to our desks by 1pm. However emails start to fly earlier then that with people wanting to know who is 'in' for that days ride. There are around 30 that subscribe to the biking list with each days group varying from 2 to sometimes 12 rides. The fitness level of the group is, in general, quite high so even on a so called 'moderate day' the speeds can stay high and you might be in danger of being left in the dust.

We have basically 2 directions that work for us and we stick to them. The Northern Route and the Southern route. There are a few variations such as the 30 mile long Biggy Southern/Northern Route.

In case you are wondering, I used the very cool Gmap-Pedometer to map out the routes. It's a free plugin that uses Google Maps to map out routes and give you the mileage. You can then save the link to your website like I have done. A very useful tool.

BSBC routes;
Northern Route "http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=289778"
Biggy Southern/Northern Route "http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=289836"

Race Report #5; Freedom Triathlon

At the last minute I decided to enter the Freedom Triathlon that took place on the 4th of July on White Bear Lake. I was motivated because 2 of my neighbors, Angela and Jan, decided to compete so I was inspired as well. I had not planned to do a tri till September.
It was a spectacular morning just like the whole 4th weekend. 70 degrees with a slight SE wind. The transition area was a mob of athletes trying to find a spot on the racks. There should have been way more racks and more space. I found a spot where 3 towels were spread out like they were going to have a picnic so I just jammed my bike in between two of them and stacked my stuff behind my wheel. When the guys got back they made some comments but I just shrugged and said we all have to compromise. Believe me, they had enough space to have a lounge chair, cooler and a barbeque.

The swim was ridiculous. White Bear Lake has beaches the go out forever. So we had to wade out 100 feet to the start (see photo). That's not a problem until you realize that we will have to run out of it. When my wave. (wave 2) started everyone began running or walking out another 50 feet or so till it was deep enough to stroke. I dove in early but had to get up again because I couldn't swim around the walkers! Good grief! Finally everyone is swimming and heading out to the turn. I'm swimming well but as usually can't find a rhythm due to all the distractions, swimmers, sun, checking for the buoy. As we near the shore people are starting to pop up and walk . I try to swim as far in as I can because I've read that it takes less energy to swim then try to fight the water running. But finally it's just to shallow so I have run out the last 100 feet (guessing here). On the stairs up to the transition area I pull off my cap and goggles when suddenly my obviously cheaply designed goggles fall apart. I was going to leave the parts but decided I shouldn't leave them for people to step on. I stop to scoop them out. 5 second lose of time. Transition is good and finally I'm off on the bike.

The bike leg was 14 mile out and back to the Withrow school where the one a month time trial is held. I know the road and knew that we were in for some rolling hills the whole way. I quickly gave up counting people I passed because there were a lot from the first wave (all men under 35). Instead I starting thinking about who was in front of me. The one nice thing about an out and back race is that you can get an idea how far back you are because you see everyone come back towards you. At the half way turn around I had counted about 20-25 people ahead of me. I couldn't believe it. I had passed the majority of the first wave. On the way back I'm passed by a couple guys who I assumed must have been in my wave. They looked old like me. At the last turn before the transition, I had to deal with a pickup coming up behind be (it was an uncontrolled street). I estimated that if he passed me I would have to seriously slow down to turn behind him. So I signaled and took the lane in front of him. It was a bit rude of me but I figured he should be proceeding slowly anyway given all the activity on the road. As I transitioned off the bike I hear my neighbor Jeff confirm that I've made up great time on the bike. That gave me a boost as I'm off onto the run.

The 3 mile run was flat and uneventful. Once again the road is uncontrolled and there are cars on one side. Just after the turn around someone on a pouch yells out my name "Go Halvorson!" or something like that. I looked at them but couldn't recognize who it was. I figured it was someone from work who recognized my Guidant jersey. 4-5 people pass me in the last mile and half but that's ok. I was expecting a whole lot more. Because I was all alone as I approached the finish line, I had to assumed the course turned the corner to follow the street - however it was actually off onto the grass of the park. Lucky for me there were many MANY people there to tell me "Wrong way!". I only had to correct a few steps to finally cross the line.
Results:
Every triathlete wore a chip to track our progress at every transition. So there are many ways to look at the results. A treasure trove of statistic.
22nd overall of 230 total finishers
5th in the 40-49 year old men's.
57th overall in the swim
10th overall on the bike
54th overall on the run.
All the result can be seen at Pickleevents.com

I was very pleased with all three results. I don't swim all that much so I'm very happy with that. The bike was were I had a goal of a top ten finish which technically I did but I was the 11th fastest because one moose of a guy in the Clydsdale division (those men over 200 lb) beat my time. Good for him! I do take a little pride in the fact that I'm probably the only top cyclist that wasn't on a time trial bike. My run was about average for me although I probably could have tried a little harded. I need to do more speed training on my runs. All photos were taken with my Canon 20D by Jeff Ingham , my neighbor, training partner, and personal photographer.