Reid's Random Rambling

And the #G2E party is over.

2011-10-06T15:06:00.001-07:00

Have I mentioned #IGT is hiring? Send me your resume. #hangoverslots

2011-05-26T08:57:00.001-07:00

Where did all my stars go? Does @Starbucks use @amazon EC2?

2011-04-21T14:46:00.001-07:00

XTERRA Real 2011 Race Report

2011-04-10T20:28:00.001-07:00

The weather in Reno hasn't allowed for a lot of outdoor training this winter so this race was my first mountain bike ride of the year. Most of my bike training has been done at IndoorPower or at home with Trainer Road. The weather was freezing driving over the pass but at least the temperature at Granite Bay was pretty nice. The water was another story.

The Swim

I made the mistake of not getting into the water before the race started. I felt pretty bundled up with a full wetsuit, earplugs and a neoprene swim cap, but my face just wasn't ready to hit the water when the horn went off. I lined up behind Melanie McQuaid, Benjamin Hoffman and a few other pros. I don't know of too many other sports where any racer can toe the starting line next to national champions. The race started and I walked out about 15 yards from the beach since it is pretty shallow, delaying the inevitable. When I finally dove in, the cold water on my face was so cold that it took my breath away. I'd try to stick my head down and swim normally but I couldn't link more than a few strokes before I'd have to bring my head out. I felt silly but eventually just resigned to swimming with my head out of the water to the first buoy. When I finally got there I had started to get numb enough and the feeling of getting the wind knocked out of me had passed so I was able to swim the rest of the way with my head in the water and a normal 2 stroke breathing pattern. The swim was much shorter than 0.5 miles since the water was only 48 degrees. Having my Crocs lined up out of the finishing chute worked great for saving my numb feet on the run up to transition.

The Bike

I've made the mistake before of overdressing for the bike just because the swim was cold so the only warm gear I used were gloves and neoprene shoe covers. My new Louis Garneau shoes went on quick but I seem to always struggle with gloves. It didn't take long to get muddy once I was out on the course. I really should come down more often and pre ride this course. I know I could be faster on it if I just knew it better. I quickly remembered why I do these races. The mountain biking is so much fun. It's like a roller coaster that you get to control. I mounted my new toy on the handlebars and filmed most of the ride. Check out the highlight video here. I thought it'd be cool to be able to sync a map with the video so you know what part of the course the video is from but I haven't found any software to do that yet.

The Run

This was a big disappointment for me. I've had issues with my left hamstring tightening up after I work out for a few months and have been stretching and seeing a chiropractor to work on it. But this was the first time it affected me in a race. Basically, the first mile went fine. I was starting to speed up and find a comfortable pace. But just after a mile, my lower back started to tighten up. My calves, hamstrings and lower back were all really tight. It didn't feel like cramping, just tightness that was so uncomfortable that it kept me from running up any hills. And this course has a few hills after the first flat mile. So I'd walk anything that wasn't completely flat or downhill. I got caught by a few racers that I had passed early and just watched as they pulled away. Finally after the last climb to the water tower, I ran down and my back started to loosen up. I don't know if it was because I was close to the finish or just that there were less hills, but I finally was able to run again and finished at a decent pace. You can see where I struggled on my Garmin file as my heart rate dropped when i wasn't able to run.

Race Results – Check out the other Renoites including Matt Balzar, Phillip Glenn, and Nathan Brown. They did awesome.

What's Next?

This race got me excited to race more XTERRA races this year. I'm signed up for the two at Tahoe and I hope to qualify for Nationals in Ogden again. I'd love to qualify for World's in Maui but i think that's a long shot for me this year. I'm doing Ice Breaker Tri with my triathlon class next weekend, Rock N River half marathon 2 weeks later, and the Reno Tahoe Odyssey with the Runny Bums in June. After that my race plans for the summer are all contingent on Evan as he's due at the end of May.

Reid

See the full gallery on Posterous

What is Trainer Road?

2011-03-31T16:08:00.001-07:00

Trainer Road is our new workout player for indoor cycling. Part of what makes our software unique is that it turns your PC into the head unit for any ANT+ devices. That means it will display information in real time during your workout and save it to a variety of formats afterwards for further analysis.
To use Trainer Road, you’ll need:

A Bike
A cycling trainer or rollers
A Windows PC or laptop that can be positioned close to you while you’re on your bike (not too close if you’re on rollers).

That’s it. With those three things you’ll be able to find a workout from our library, hit play and perform the workout complete with visual (graph and text) cues telling you what to do for the entire workout. The cues will be based on an RPE scale of 1-10 in 0.5 increments. And text instructions will tell you when to change position, cadence, and other tips you’d normally get in a live cycling class with a knowledgeable coach.
Sign up to be a beta tester

How a running watch can make you a faster CrossFitter.

2011-03-31T11:52:00.001-07:00

I wore my Forerunner 305 for the CrossFit Open Sectionals WOD 11.2 on Tuesday evening. I knew pacing was going to be important and I wanted to keep track of how long each round took me. So I hit lap after my last box jump each round. This recorded each lap (round) time to look at later, but it also gave me instant feedback on how long that lap took without having to do any math. It just pops up on the screen with the last lap time.

I wore the watch on my left wrist which didn’t bother me for these movements. I didn’t wear it last week because I felt it would be uncomfortable with the snatches. But even if you don’t wear it, you could have an observer hold it, hit lap after each round and call out your last lap time. In this way it provides one more piece of data for validation. If I had been counting rounds in my head and swore I did 13 + some change, it’s easy to go back to the watch and count the rounds and realize that I did 10 + a partial round. The 12^th round was me hitting lap before hitting stop after I was done.

For me, this showed that I really started to slow down in round 7 and then picked it up again in round 10 when I had the finish in sight. Based on this information, I’m going to try to keep rounds 7-10 under 1:25 and hopefully complete at least 11 rounds.

If you wanted to go for the win, 56 seconds per round would get you 16 rounds.

Activity on Garmin Connect

CrossFit Games: Which region is the most competitive?

2011-03-28T18:29:00.001-07:00

Now that the results for the first week are in, we can start to get an idea of the quality and distribution of athletes around the world competing in the games. So what else would we do to kill the time until the next workout is announced besides analyze the numbers. I scraped the data from the games site for the Men’s Division. This could be done for the other divisions but I just started with one because it takes a bit of time to get all the data together.

So we all think our region is the most competitive, but let’s look at the numbers and see if that is really the case. The first and easiest way to answer this question is to rank regions by number of total participants.

Number of Athletes

Rank	Regions	Athletes (men)
1	Southeast	1313
2	Northeast	1241
3	Mid Atlantic	1144
4	Southern CA	1084
5	Southwest	1048
6	Australia	954
7	Northern CA	943
8	Northwest	938
9	North Central	934
10	South Central	909
11	Europe	851
12	Central East	775
13	Canada East	480
14	Canada West	452
15	Latin America	112
16	Asia	83
17	Africa	75
	Grand Total	13336

This shows that the East Coast (US) is the best represented. This is a bit surprising to me given that the first affiliates were in California and I generally thought of CrossFit as growing out from the West Coast. I didn’t look at the total populations of each region but it’s possible that HQ made the same assumption as me and made the East Coast regions each cover a bigger population area than the regions in the West. In any case, the US divisions seem to be somewhat evenly sized, between 775 and 1313 athletes in each one.

But that doesn’t tell us anything about how good the athletes from each region are. To get an idea of how strong a region is as a whole, we can look at the median score from the first WOD.

Median Score

This shows the score of the person with half the scores above his and half the scores below his in each region.

Rank	Regions	Median Score
1	Canada East	253
2	Canada West	249
3	Southern CA	240
4	Mid Atlantic	238
5	Southwest	237
6	Asia	235
7	North Central	235
8	Northwest	234
9	South Central	233
10	Northern CA	233
11	Northeast	231
12	Southeast	225
13	Europe	225
14	Australia	224
15	Central East	220
16	Latin America	219
17	Africa	166

Now this is getting interesting. Southeast and Southwest were at the top of the first list but drop to below the middle when we sort by the median score. This would indicate that those regions have more “average” CrossFitters participating in the open sectionals. While the men (remember, this is only looking at the men’s division) competing from Canada are likely to score higher than the average CrossFitter from another region.

But that still doesn’t tell us anything about what it takes to qualify for the next round.

Qualifying scores

To remind you, the top 60 men from each region advance to the Regional competitions held in May or June. This is obviously preliminary since we’ve only done one workout, but it gives us enough data to see what score you would have needed to advance if the sectionals was only one (err two) week(s) long.

Rank	Regions	Qualifying score	Median Score
1	North Central	349	235
2	Southwest	345	237
3	Southern CA	345	240
4	Northeast	343	231
5	Southeast	340	225
6	spanspanspanspan

CrossFit Games: Which region is the most competitive?

2011-03-28T18:24:00.001-07:00

Number of Athletes

Rank	Regions	Athletes (men)
1	Southeast	1313
2	Northeast	1241
3	Mid Atlantic	1144
4	Southern CA	1084
5	Southwest	1048
6	Australia	954
7	Northern CA	943
8	Northwest	938
9	North Central	934
10	South Central	909
11	Europe	851
12	Central East	775
13	Canada East	480
14	Canada West	452
15	Latin America	112
16	Asia	83
17	Africa	75
	Grand Total	13336

But that doesn’t tell us anything about how good the athletes from each region are. To get an idea of how strong a region is as a whole, we can look at the median score from the first WOD.

Median Score

This shows the score of the person with half the scores above his and half the scores below his in each region.

Rank	Regions	Median Score
1	Canada East	253
2	Canada West	249
3	Southern CA	240
4	Mid Atlantic	238
5	Southwest	237
6	Asia	235
7	North Central	235
8	Northwest	234
9	South Central	233
10	Northern CA	233
11	Northeast	231
12	Southeast	225
13	Europe	225
14	Australia

Tempo run explained

2011-03-20T11:42:00.001-07:00

Josh and I were talking a little bit about the tempo run and how to pace for it. Sometimes it is easier to just see a picture.

Here's my run from today:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/73552849

Scroll down to the charts section and here's what to look at: (blue – warmup and cooldown, black- build or descend, red – 3 minutes at 5K pace)

Heart Rate - It slowly rose to a peak around 17 minutes, then came down and leveled off between 17 and 25, then came down even more as I slowed down at 25 minutes to cool down.

Pace - first few minutes were slow, after about 5 I sped up and held pretty much the same pace to 14 minutes. Then, at 14 minutes I picked up the pace for 3 minutes. My target was to get my HR as high into zone 4 as possible during those 3 minutes. Then backed off and tried to hold a steady pace to 25 minutes. For the last 5 minutes, my goal was to bring my HR back down into zone 1, so that forced me to slow down and not finish out of breath.

When you guys do this workout, the shape of those graphs should look the same for everyone. I'll analyze your run or bike activities if you upload them and share them with me. If you have a garmin watch, http://connect.garmin.com allows you to upload and share them for free. There are plenty of other websites as well.

The spike in HR around 5 minutes is just because it reads high when it doesn't have a good connection with my skin. Once I sweated enough, the connection got better and read correctly. It messes up some avg numbers but you can infer a straight line through the messed up area since my pace didn't significantly change.

Reid

Reid Weber

Software Engineer, Global Technical Architecture

International Game Technology

Office: +1 775.448.0492

Mobile: +1 775.233.5859

reid.weber@igt.com

twitter: @rweber

Took the cable car this morning

2011-03-03T08:53:00.001-08:00

Nutrition and training tips for my Triathlon class

2011-03-02T15:28:00.001-08:00

Some of us just started the Whole30 diet plan in conjunction with our triathlon training. I shared these notes with them today. How was the bike ride last night? Did you have a post workout meal? Whole 30 recommends having protein and some carb rich veggies like squash or yams with little or no fat immediately after your workout. Then within a few hours have a regular meal. I encourage you to try this vs. the recovery drink I recommended the other day (coconut milk, berries, eggs)
Are you taking any supplements? I'm still taking fish oil and vitamin D (5,000/day) but I've also added some amino acids after I work out. The idea here is to get amino acids in your blood after a workout to tell your body not to burn muscle. I'm sure there are lots of options but I'm taking Recoverease. Considering that we'll start to taper our training about two weeks from the race, we've only got about a month of hard training left. Is there anything you can cut out during this next month that is adding extra stress and inhibiting your recovery?

Feel free to ask me or the group any questions about your training or diet. Last tip: sparkling water. Water, tea, and coffee are pretty much your only option for beverages on whole30. If you get bored with this, try some carbonated water. It may also help satiate your appetite. Have fun swimming tonight!

Reid

The Apple iPad event was next door to #gdc2011

2011-03-02T11:48:00.001-08:00

Yerba Buena Gardens

2011-03-02T10:20:00.001-08:00

Delayed until 5:15. The suspense is killing me. What's the free gift, @google? #gdc2011

2011-02-28T12:40:00.001-08:00

More sweet clouds!

2011-02-26T17:41:00.001-08:00

Sweet clouds.

2011-02-26T17:23:00.001-08:00

My 200yd TT with the Finis Swimsense

2011-02-03T09:23:00.001-08:00

Right now the finis software doesn’t have a good way of sharing the details of a workout since you have to be logged in to see these screens. So I took some screen shots to show you what I get to see. This first window shows the breakdown of my 200yd TT by length. The bottom section is a slider that can be adjusted left or right to see different parts of the workout. You can select an interval, length or entire workout and the graphs below will reflect that selection.

You can see I started out pretty strong, started to slow down after 100yds, then picked it up for that last 50. My last 200yd TT was 2:53 and this one was 2:37 so I’m happy with the improvement, but I can’t help but think that with a little better pacing I could shave 5 more seconds off. I’m a little surprised that my 2^nd to last length was so slow.

These next graphs show that as I slowed down my form probably also started to break down as my stroke count goes up. Having never looked at stroke counts much, I didn’t know what a good number was. Glen Gore, who’s a pro triathlete was pretty consistently at 10 in his 30X100M repeats. And if he’s swimming in a 25m pool, it would probably be even lower in a shorter pool.

His distance per stroke was above 3m, whereas mine is between 2 and 2.8y. This graph shows that after halfway my stroke rate continued to increase while I got slower, which I think is an indicator of my form breaking down.

Are there other things I’m missing in the analysis of this?

Race Report: 2011 3M Austin Half Marathon

2011-01-30T14:11:00.001-08:00

Preparation

A few friends from high school decided we should do a destination race and we decided on this one back in October. After my last triathlon in early October I switched my training focus to CrossFit. And in November started to bike about 2 days a week indoors. For some reason I couldn't really convince myself to do much running outside of CrossFit workouts. So January came and I started doing the run training with my triathlon class, which consisted of 2 runs a week, usually less than 20 minutes.

I also ended up signing up for the Move, Lose, and Cruise challenge about 3 weeks ago. I've been eating almost exclusively meat, eggs, veggies, beans, and water with one cheat day a week. I didn't change my diet at all for the week of the race (no carb loading). I've also cut out most caffeine in hopes of making myself more sensitive to it on race day

Pre Race

I got about 5 hours of sleep and had some water, a gulp of Gatorade, and about 3 cups of coffee (since I forgot my caffeine pills). We got to the start and it was still dark but surprisingly warm (55 degrees?), foggy, and humid. It didn't ever really rain, but there was definitely some mist through the first half of the race.

The Race

One of the biggest downsides of not doing any traditional run training for this race was that I had no idea what pace to target. So I started with the 1:30 group and told myself to stick with them until about 6 or 7 miles and if I felt good to go ahead then and chase my PR of 1:27:40. But I didn't listen. Around mile 2 I found myself in front of the group after the aid station and began to pull away from them slowly. When I had run my PR, I ran just under 7 min/mile for the first 9 miles then picked it up for the last 4 to around 6:15 min/mile. So my new plan was to run around 6:40 until mile 9, then pick it up to 6:30, then try for under 6:20 for the last 3 miles. In addition to wearing my Garmin 305 telling me my HR and pace, I also had my iPhone in a little belt thingy with RunKeeper running. Every 5 minutes it would tell me my time, avg pace, and distance. But the really cool feature is that it was constantly updating the website so anybody up in Reno at 4:45 could watch my progress.

The course was pretty flat with a fair share of downhill. Nothing so steep that you'd have to brake coming down, but I could really feel the downhill miles in my legs towards the end and especially after the race. The course was easy to follow, well marked and after the first 400M, crowds weren't an issue even though there were 6,000 people running. The water stations looked well stocked and laid out well, although I never grabbed any water or Gatorade. It was fun to have so many spectators along the course. It seemed like they lined most of the streets and would tell you that you were "lookin' good" even if that wasn't the case.

Around mile 8 my plan started to fall apart. People started passing me. I kept thinking more and more about how far I had left to go. I'd try to pick up my pace as someone would pass me and only be able to stay with them for a short time. This is when I realized my shot at a PR had slipped away. My new focus was to stave off the 1:30 group and finish under 1:30. A downhill mile around mile 10 gave me some hope but shortly after, I began to hear the louder cheers behind me that I knew were associated with that 1:30 group. And sure enough, the group (although much smaller than the last time I saw them) caught me and steadily pulled away. The last 2 miles were just about getting to the finish line. I repeatedly tried to speed up, but I had no speed left. I'll attribute this to starting too fast (could I have finished under 1:30 if I had stuck with the group?) and lack of and long runs. I finally finished in just over 1:31. My legs were in immediate pain and running was not happening for me for the rest of the day.

Overall, I had a fun race and I'm happy with my time. And my friends all finished, despite their lack of preparation as well. I can't wait for our next destination race and for this early, but likely abbreviated, triathlon season. I'm also excited about endurance training in combination with CrossFit. While I'm not at my very fastest, I feel like there is real potential to become a fast, competitive age group triathlete doing what I'm doing with the Triathlon class at CrossFit Initiative. I'm pleased with the diet, too, which is pretty much the slow carb diet from Tim Ferriss', "The 4-hour body". Training and racing without tons of carbs seems to work well, at least for this distance. I didn't have any stomach issues the entire race, and although I haven't done any testing, i did read, "Metabolic Efficiency Training" and tried to apply some of the concepts in that book to my training. It makes sense to me that training your body to burn stored calories rather than relying on food you're ingesting during or immediately before the race.

Now we're off to enjoy our last night in Austin and the rest of my cheat day.

Creating a video podcast for free

2010-11-04T15:11:00.001-07:00

With all the tools and integrations to get video online (youTube, mobileMe, Posterous), you’d think that it would be pretty straightforward to create a video podcast. It took me a little while to figure it all out. Here’s how I did it.

1. Create a Posterous account

2. Email your movie to posterous. This is cool because you can set it up to go to lots of services at once. So by sending it to posterous, it could get submitted to youtube, vimeo, and be hosted as a .mov for iphone and podcasting. They use amazon storage to store the movie so hosting is free (at least up to 1GB right now).

3. Use Podcast blaster to create an xml file with the new episode information. It will keep your information so adding episodes is easy. I still think it could auto populate the length and duration fields, but oh well. When you get to the episode url, go to your posterous page, find the download link for the .mov file and use that URL.

4. Upload the XML file to your website. I hosted it at Google docs, which seems to work ok. I was worried about google docs being blocked on some corporate intranets but I think it should be fine as long as iTunes can access the file

5. Submit a Podcast to iTunes. Use the URL to the xml file you just uploaded. You only need to do this step once. After iTunes approves it, your podcast can be found iTunes. iTunes checks the xml file about once a day for new content.

Some additional notes:

· If you just want to create an audio podcast, you can skip steps 3 and 4 and just submit your rss for your posterous blog (http://yourname.posterous.com/rss) to iTunes. Posterous supports podcast formatting of your rss with audio but for some reason not video.

· There are many options for what format your video could be in. I didn’t test extensively with posterous to see if it always hosts videos in a podcast compatible format.

· Movie size will likely be limited by your email provider. Posterous limits you to movies of 100MB if you post by web. If your movies are bigger than that, you may have to find another hosting solution.

Here’s the one I created: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/crossfit-initiative/id402341737

Shooting and publishing videos from your iPhone 4

2010-11-02T18:00:00.001-07:00

We've been shooting most of the videos for the blog using a Sony video camera at the gym. It's ideal to use since you can zoom and it is probably more steady, especially if you have a tripod. But a lot of us have an iPhone 4 with us almost all the time that do a fine job of shooting nice video.

The quick and dirty method

Create a youtube account if you don’t already have one.
film the video (landscape orientation is preferable )
Go to your camera roll. press the square button with the arrow,

Tap the movie and press the “Share” button and select “Send to YouTube”

This should work for most movies, especially if you narrate anything you want the viewer to know about. But sometimes you want to add some title screens with text, audio, or some nice transitions.

How to make your movie a little prettier

1. Get iMovie from the app store ($4.99)

2. Save the image and movie from this email to your phone if you are filming for CrossFit Initiative. Otherwise, find some images or clips of your logo (or whatever) that you want to use to dress up your movie and save them to your phone.

3. Film your movie.

Create your project in iMovie

· Go to iMovie and create a new project.

· Set the Theme. You’ll have the option to set this when your project opens. If you want to change it later, touch the sprocket icon at the beginning of the timeline.

· Add a title screen - If you want to start the movie with a Title screen where you can enter text, you need to add a movie. That is what the attached movie is for. You could just apply the title screen to your whole movie, but that is probably not what you want. So add a short clip like the one attached.

Creating a title screen from an image

1. Create a new project and add an image.

2. Set the duration. You’ll want it to be long enough to allow for the title to be read. Probably around 3-10 seconds. Set the duration by dragging the end of the clip when it is selected (has a yellow border)

3. Optional: Animate it

a. go to the beginning of the clip, set the position by using your finger to move the image, then go to the end of the clip and set the position again. Now it will animate between the two positions you set.

4. Optional: Add audio

5. Export the movie. I film in high quality so I export this movie in high quality.

6. Create a new project and add the new movie to the project.

7. Double tap the clip in the timeline. Set the Title style. Which one you use will depend on the Theme you choose. Touch the text area on the clip to edit it.

Adding your movie(s)

· Tap the “add content” button and select your movie. If you want to trim it, touch it and then drag the yellow handles on either end. If you have lots of cutting and trimming to do, you’ll be better off just uploading it to a computer and editing it there as trimming on the iphone is pretty imprecise and takes a long time to do.

· Optional: set the transition type

o Double click the transition square between clips. You’ll get a menu allowing you to choose what type of transition you like. Default is cross dissolve.

· Optional: add audio

o You can add audio, but it is only applied to the entire project. If you want to apply audio to just certain clips, the workaround is to create a separate project for that clip, add the audio, and export that project. Now, when you add that clip into your project, it will have the audio you want without having to apply audio to the entire project

· Add a closing title screen. Do this the same way you created the intro title screen.

Publish

· Go to the Projects page and tap the share button

· Choose your export size. This will save it to your camera roll

· Preview your video and if everything looks good, select it and share it on YouTube.

The first time you do this, it might take a while. But once you have a project set up with intro and title clips you like, sprucing up movies should be pretty quick. Get creative! I can’t wait to see what interesting things you’ll shoot. If you’re looking for ideas, give the 2-minute Double under challenge a shot.

Ray and Rob doing Double Unders - An example of a video that I filmed, edited, and published all from my phone. I don’t think it’s going to win any Grammys but it might win a Dummy.

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0536.MOV (762 KB)

Increasing likes for free on a CrossFit site

2010-10-26T17:11:00.001-07:00

I'm looking at our Facebook page, and noticing that we've been pretty stagnant lately as far as fan growth goes so I wrote down these ideas that I think might help us reach more people without spending money. I already know we can basically buy fans at $0.50-$1.00 each using Facebook ads.

Free ways to get more fans.

Post the workout (or maybe just a video) each day and pose a question with it. Why? comments and likes increase post quality. Posts with higher post quality are more likely to show up in people's news feeds and be seen by their friends. Also, Facebook may suggest the page directly to friends of people who like us.
Tag other pages, people, and businesses in wall posts. For example, " [Dave] from [business] setting a deadlift PR today". To tag people or pages, make sure you are friends with them or like their page, then type @ followed by their name (it will autofill and allow you to choose the right person or page). Why? This will make your post show up on their wall. So people that visit the X facebook page will see the post and be able to click right through to our page. Think of businesses that have a lot of traffic and see if you can find a creative way to mention them.
Take pictures/videos during a workout and tag people in them. Why? These will show up on their wall, exposing their friends to us.
Create events in Facebook. For any event we are having at the gym, create an event for it. Post this event on other relevant pages, inviting them. Invite all fans or send all fans an update. Why? as people RSVP, it will show up on people's wall that they are attending an event. It may also show up in their friends news feed. Make sure any updates you send to all fans are relevant and not too frequent. If people feel like they are being spammed, you'll quickly lose fans.
Invite friends to become fans. You may have done this when you created your page but it doesn't hurt to go through you friends list once in a while and send invites to your new friends. Why? Once they are fans, they are more likely to see your posts.

Free ways to get more traffic to your website

Write interesting articles and post interesting videos. Why? People will share things they find really useful or entertaining.
Encourage people to sign up for the daily emails (burn your feed using feedburner to create daily email digests). Why? the more people that are subscribed the more people will know about the current events at the gym.
Pose questions in the blog encouraging feedback. Why? People will spend more time on our site
Add links to other sites, especially blogs. Why? This will create a backlink on their blog. These usually show up in or around the comments on their site and provide a link back to your site.
Post interesting comments on the main site and on other blogs. Why? When you post, there is almost always a place to enter your website. If people read your comments and think you are interesting, they'll likely click through to your site.

It sometimes seems like a popularity contest with no real objective to drive fan and page view numbers up. But if you believe you have a product or information that can truly help people, I think it makes sense to take some of these steps to get your message out. We'll see if they work. We are at 269 fans right now.

Comments welcome.

Stupid human tricks

2010-10-17T16:53:00.001-07:00

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IMG_0473.MOV (332 KB)

As promised after Barbells for Boobs

Leila's new trick

2010-10-05T19:59:00.001-07:00

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IMG_0460.MOV (1289 KB)

Sent from my iPhone

Lightning

2010-10-04T04:46:00.001-07:00

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IMG_0454.MOV (1013 KB)

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Alexander Fire

2010-09-15T17:09:00.001-07:00

I was at work late last night and when I left the Alexander fire was pretty visible from the IGT parking lot. Unfortunately, all I had with me was my iPhone so the pics are not that remarkable. I walked up the trail that we run up from IGT just off of Double R to get pretty close to the fire. The wind was blowing Southeast so the fire wasn't moving toward me and I could barely smell the smoke. I hung out there for a little while and called a few people using FaceTime (iPhone video calling) to show them the flames. Apparently the fire didn't cause and structural damage and just burned a hill of sagebrush that had burned just a few years ago.

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2009 Christmas Letter

2009-12-23T21:31:00.001-08:00

The Weber's 2009 Adventures

Together

Megan and Reid just celebrated their 3^rd wedding anniversary and decided it was finally time for a yearly letter to let everyone know what they've been up to. In April we traveled to New Orleans for Reid to race in an Ironman 70.3. We got to see Bourbon Street and took a tour of the rebirth of the town after hurricane Katrina. We toured Italy in May. Megan and Mary toured the South part and then met Reid in Rome. Reid loved Cinque Terre, a strip of five towns lined on cliffs along the sea. Megan fell in love with the beautiful Duomo and sights in Florence and Civita. Not to mention Venice, the most breathtaking and interesting city Megan has ever been to. We also traveled to Switzerland where we biked up the mountains to get a better view of the glacier and went on a paraglide ride. In June we took a camping and hiking trip to Yosemite National Park. In July we traveled to Denver for the Mile High Music Festival with Janet and Holly. In September we made the trip out to the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man where we camped with friends and met up with Reid's second cousin from South Dakota. Lately we have been working hard to train our dogs, Leila and Baby, attending obedience classes with them.

Reid

* Finished his first Ironman in Coeur d'Alene. Swim 2.4 miles, Bike 112 miles, and Run 26.2 miles. He finished it in 11 hours 18 minutes.

* Crossfit level 1 Certification in Portland and Crossfit Running and Endurance certification.

*Started teaching and training Crossfit at Crossfit Initiative.

* Qualified for the Boston Marathon in 2008 so we will be heading to Boston in April of 2010.

*Celebrated 7^th year at IGT

Megan

*Moved to the Pediatric Emergency Room from the main Emergency department.

*Employee of the Month at Renown.

*Got elected to 2010 Emergency Nurses Association Injury Prevention Chair.

*Traveled to Las Vegas to see Britney Spears with Ashley and good friends.

*Took a ride in a hot air balloon for the first time.

*Got a new camera and has been busy all year shooting pictures. Hoping to get good enough to take family portraits. Testing her skills on family J

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2010.

Love, Reid and Megan Weber

Pyramid Lake Triathlon 2009 race report

2009-08-01T12:32:00.001-07:00

A warm day with a slight breeze made for good conditions for the race this morning. Megan's parents, my parents, Megan and Leila all came out to watch and cheer. I was little nervous about my ankle after spraining it a few weeks ago wakeboarding and having twisted it last year running into the water. I felt good on the swim and came in around 15th I think. I managed to cover myself in sand getting my wetsuit off but had a quick transition. Some day I'll actually ride my bike before the race. Luckily there were no mechanical issues like at Graeagle. But my powertap was only displaying speed. With no power info I just focused on a high cadence and trying to keep the guys in front of me in sight. I passed a few people right out of transition then stayed about 30 seconds behind Mike Scarborough for most of the ride. I think I had an aero advantage so I'd gain a little on the flats. Behind me, Brian Casey was gaining on me and came in just seconds behind me off the bike. He had a quick transition and beat me out to the run by a few seconds so I started in 9th about 15 seconds behind Mike and another guy. I've had dissapointing runs here the last 2 years and this ended up no different. I felt pretty good the first half mile and passed Brian with the next guy about 20 seconds ahead of me. But Brian passed me back before the turnaround and really made me fight to get back to 7th. I still had hopes of running down 6th place on the last 3/4 of a mile but he pretty much matched my pace the rest of the run. I ended up just being lucky enough to hold off Brian by 6 seconds, finishing in 1:11:25, almost the same time as last year. Besides the course, the thing that makes this race really cool is knowing so many people racing and cheering for you. Can't wait to do it again next year. It felt great to swim in the lake with Megan and Leila afterwards. It was cool to see Ryan Evans handing out copies of the new issue of Active Reno with my article about my Ironman race in it, too. I'm excited about the publication and how their website will hopefully help the active crowd in Reno grow. No race pics yet so a pic of the blisters on my foot is all you get

Ironman Coeur d'Alene 2009 race report

2009-06-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

After failing to sign up in time for the Boston Marathon this year, I figured I'd just sign up for Ironman Coeur d'Alene instead back in the winter. I had big plans of perfect training plans where I'd be faster than ever on the swim, bike and run. Those plans faded at first slowly as I started to train more Crossfit than any of those sports then quickly when we booked a 3 week trip to Italy in May and I started to focus solely on running for the Reno Tahoe Odyssey. So while I was confident I could finish an Ironman, I had no idea how long it would take me. It ended up being one of my favorite races and in a time I'm happy with: 11:18.

Here's my (long) race report.
Pre race:
Got up just after 4AM. Had ¾ yam, 1 bottle of Ensure. 20 min before the race I had raspberry hammer gel, 3 endurolyte tabs and Pre-race drink. It was light out and about 50 degrees when we arrived at the beach, which was a little cold for me in shorts and a t-shirt.

Swim: After keeping my warmup clothes on as long as possible and dropping them off in transition with only 20 minutes to go until the cannon, I started to worry that I might not make it to the beach in time. We all had to go over a timing mat to get on the beach and the line was long and moving pretty slowly. But I made it with about 3 minutes to spare. I lined up close to the water, 10 feet behind the starting row and with about 40 feet of people lined up behind me.The cannon went off and we all shuffled into the water.The first few minutes were very crowded with people swimming over me and me swimming over others. The water felt great, not so cold that it stung my face but cool enough so that I didn’t overheat in my full length wetsuit. Swimming out was against a steady wind and waves big enough to feel being moved up and down. But the waves on the way back to shore felt big enough to body surf on. I’d find myself swimming harder to catch them. I came out of the water in 804^th place (58^th in my division).

My transition was pretty slow.I probably wasted time having sunscreen put on me and putting on gloves.I dropped one in the changing tent and ran back to get it.

Bike: After riding out and seeing Megan cheering for me, I had to stop about 20 yards out of transition to put on my watch after realizing that I would certainly crash trying to put it on while riding. I felt really excited and fresh starting the bike. Driving the course beforehand gave me an idea of what to look forward to. My favorite part of the course was probably the first 14 miles along the shoreline. There were flat sections broken up with enough hills so I could coast or change position often.

The middle section of the loop (out near Hayden lake) was pretty and definitely seemed hillier on the second loop. There were several hills where standing in my smallest gear felt like the only way up the hill. I finished the first of two laps in a time of around 2:47 (avg watts: 185), meaning that if I did the same speed for the second loop, I’d come in with a bike split of 5:34. I did stop for some Pringles at my special needs bag around mile 70 and to go to the bathroom around mile 80. Besides some fatigue in my legs, my bike position contributed a lot to me slowing down on the second lap. At the beginning of the lap, my neck started to hurt in aero, but by the end, I could barely hold the position for 15 seconds at a time. This was no fun for the last 10 miles, which, unlike the earlier sections that are broken up with hills to sit up on, were nearly all flat or downhill. It felt like the wind had picked up a bit, too, making aero position even more important. I nearly finished my 2 bottles of perpetuem (1000 calories each), 64 oz Gatorade, 32 oz of water, about 10 endurolyte salt tabs, and a bite of a zone bar on the bike. Though my neck hurt, my legs felt fresh coming into T2. My bike time was 5:48, moving up to 502 overall (48 in my division).

And if you’re really bored, my power file. Probably could have paced a little better but I hit 201 watts for my normalized power, which was right where I was trying to be.

Run: Just a mile into the run I heard commotion behind me, which I soon found out was Kate Major, in 2^nd place, beginning her second lap, she soon caught up to me and then passed me. Although my plan was to run 9:00/mile at least until the stiffness from the bike ride had worn off, I found myself running an 8:25/mile pace after 3 miles.
The run course was pretty, with most of it being along the water. I even found myself not realizing I had run up a hill because of all the motivational signs posted in the grass next to the trail. There were plenty of aid stations (nearly every mile, I think) so I wouldn’t have needed my fuel belt but it drank nearly all the 16 oz of gu20 and 16 oz of Perpetuem. I had one gu at the beginning of the run, but that combined with all the Perpetuem on the bike had me feeling really full. The number of people on the course really helped make it go by quickly. From the aid stations workers to other runners to people sitting on their lawn looking up your hometown and age to shout it out as you ran by, so many people were supportive. I hadn’t seen Nate all day and was hoping he was having a better race than me and would see him on the way out to the turn around. I finally saw him on my way back into town about 4 miles behind me. He looked pretty good but had obviously had some struggles to be that far behind me. It was great to see Megan and Greta as I was running back out of town at the beginning my second loop. They later told me I looked pretty bad at that point, which makes sense because I really started to slow down. I dropped from sub 9 minute miles to 10 minute miles around mile 15. My legs were starting to feel really fatigued. Up until this point I had really been comfortable racing at this pace and had even done the calculations for how fast I’d have to run to go under 11 hours. But I now knew I would clearly finish but it looked like the last 10 miles could easily take me 2 hours. Not wanting to just shuffle along slower and slower, I started to run for 4 minutes and walk for 1. The first mile I did this felt slow. The walk breaks didn’t seem long enough and 4 minutes of running felt like forever. But after a few miles I started getting faster. Some people claim to hallucinate on long runs, but I felt fine, even though you probably won’t believe me when I tell you I saw Spiderman on a bike. And one other time lying down in the grass. I kept up the run/walk pattern until I had about a mile left and knew I had plenty of adrenaline to run in. My pace for the last 5 miles averaged around a 9:15 pace and I sped up to a 7:30/mile pace for the last half mile. Running down Sherman to the finish had me filled with emotions. It had started to rain and was getting cold on an otherwise perfect day for racing. The streets were lined with a cheering crowd that got louder as I got closer to the finish line. I struggled to hold a smile on my face because I could feel tears coming on as I smiled. And as excited as I was to be finishing, I really tried to take it all in and lock in the feeling of racing in an Ironman, not knowing when I’ll ever do one again and enjoying my first one so much. The downhill finish could have been dangerous had it not been for the line of volunteers with blankets ready to catch athletes as they flew across the line.

I finished in 11:18:32, 421 overall and 39th in M25-29.
After I finished and was caught, I was held tightly and walked to the massage tent, being handed off to at least 4 more people, each gripping me just as tight, before I got a massage. I spent another 10 minutes in there getting warmed up with some soup broth after getting the chills. It had really started to rain hard by the time I left the tent and went to grab pizza and find Megan to give her a big hug and kiss. It really meant a lot to have her there supporting me. We went back to the stands to cheer people on and watch for Nate to finish. He finished and then proceeded to get lost getting back to the car after picking up our gear bags. Megan finally found him leaning against a parking pole back by the finish line staring at the ground waiting in place like a lost child.

It was tough to get to sleep that night with just a dull aching in my legs, but it felt like the same amount of fatigue as a marathon. I’m thankful for no injuries aside from a few rub marks from the timing chip and my tri suit. Jeannie, Cliff and John were great hosts, picking us up, giving us a place to stay with lots of food and letting us use a car. We couldn’t have asked for any better accommodations.
All pictures

Six things you might not know about me

2008-11-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

I saw this on another blog (Greg's) I read so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I weighed 9 lb, 15 oz when I was born.
I have my pilot's license. My parent's gave me a flight training package for high school graduation. I flew over 50 hours the summer of 1999 and even took my wife, Megan, on a flight at night 4 years before we started dating. She got sick on the flight.
I can (or ustacould) do flips on a trampoline, diving board, wakeboard, snowboard, off a wall, standing and while running forward. With some practice I mightcould again.
I haven't drank since at least Sept 3, 2008 (80+ days)
My grandpa went to the inauguration of LBJ. I just learned this from family in town for Thanksgiving. I guess he rode from Minnesota to DC on a bus with a bunch of farmers
I can cross my eyes to see stereo 3D images

Moab

2008-10-31T16:02:00.000-07:00

We went to Moab in early September for some great mountain biking. Just finally got the pictures up and found this new flickr viewer so I thought I'd post them.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
And here are some pics from Burning Man 2008 while we're at it.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Mt Tallac

2008-10-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

Megan, Nate, Greta and I hiked Mt Tallac a few weekends ago. It was a beautiful hike made especially pretty by the overcast sky and colorful sunset.

It was cold at the top but surprisingly comfortable for the rest of the hike.

And after it got dark, the nearly full moon reflected off the snow enough to make the hike down pretty easy albeit a bit slower.

More Pictures

XTERRA USA Championships - Incline Village, NV

2008-10-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

My theme song for this morning's race is Katy Perry's new song Hot n Cold Yesterday was rainy and windy enough for XTERRA Nevada to be turned into a duathlon by swapping the swim for a 1.25 mile swim. This morning was calm and clear, but quite cold. Sounds silly but I was too chilly to do much of a warmup. The water was actually pretty comfortable for the swim although my feet went numb and never warmed up until after the bike. I tried to draft several swimmers but didn't have much luck so I was by myself for most of the swim. T1 was probably my longest ever. I put knee warmers, socks, booties, long sleeve jersey, glasses, gloves (huge ones) and my forerunner on after I spent at least a minute trying to get all the sand out from between my toes. I felt great on the bike up Tunnel Creek and along the Flume Trail. Hobart road was ok and I really started to slow on the last few climbs before the switchbacks. I quickly heated up on the climbs with all my gear. I would have probably been fine with just my tri kit, but I got cold on the downhils and my feet never warmed up even with the huge neoprene booties. Megan and Nate showed up to cheer me on which was great and motivating. By the time I got to the run, the first pros had finished and the temp was perfect for running. The running trail wound around Incline with a gentle ups and downs with several creek crossings. I finished in 3:32, which I was happy with for my forth race in three weekends. I'm ready to have a weekend off before Halfmax in two weeks. I think I'm a bit over raced and under trained.
UPDATE:
Swim:

Bike:

Run:

Virtual Mile

2008-09-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

So last night I went to the Damonte Ranch High School track where I attempted running a few fast miles. This coincided with a workout I did last year at about the same number of weeks out from my marathon so I figured it would be a good indicator to see if I'm on track to be in as good or better shape for the CIM. Since I ran 3:14 at Bizz Johnson, I'd like to be in better shape this year to break at least 3:10 if not 3:00 at CIM in December.
So I ran the first mile in 5:58, the second in 6:24 and the third in 5:50. It felt pretty good but I was dissappointed to see that last year I ran 5:56, 5:48, 5:41.
Good luck to Reid tomorrow in breaking the 5:00 mile!

virtual mile

2008-09-02T11:11:00.001-07:00

Another Reid is attempting to run a mile in under 5:00 this week. I've done that once at the Firecracker Mile 2007 in Truckee, CA (4:40). To join in the fun, I'll try for a fast mile on Thursday during my regular workout, although it won't be near 5:00.

Get this widget!

Paragliding off of Duck Hill

2008-08-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

I had my first real paraglide flight on Saturday. I flew off Duck hill in Washoe Valley around 11AM and flew for about 3 minutes to the LZ across East Lake Blvd. The picture is of Aaron flying earlier in the morning. After a few flights at Mound House training hill, Ray, our instructor, gave me the ok to fly at Duck so we headed over there in time for Aaron and I to each get a flight.

XTERRA Ogden

2008-08-18T19:24:00.000-07:00

I raced in my first XTERRA regional championship last weekend at Snowbasin, Utah. I set out this season to qualify for the XTERRA National Championship in Incline Village this Fall, which requires earning enough points in 3 races to be in the top 8 in my age group (25-29) and region (South West).
Swim:

Wetsuits were prohibitted for the pros since the water was 71, but since I freeze easier than I overheat I decided to wear my Orca S1. It was cool to line up right behind the pros. I had dreams of going out fast to get right on the feet of one of them that were quickly shattered at the horn for the mass start blew and there were suddenly tons of people on all sides of me. The way everyone fanned out along the beach at the start and then all headed straight for the first bouy made for lots of collisions. I was constantly bumping into people well into the second lap.
Bike:

Even though I'm much more of a climber than a downhiller, I was a little nervous about all the climbing on the bike. But I really enjoyed the bike course. The climb to the base of snowbasin was long but not all that steep (especially compared to the initial climb for XTERRA Tahoe City) and I was able to pass quite a few people until I finally settled behind a kid in the 15-19 age group. Looking back on it, I probably should have passed him and picked it up a bit, but at the time I felt like he was riding a good pace and I didn't want to bonk like I did in Tahoe City. After a few brutal sections at the ski resort, there was a long fun section of mostly downhill.
Run:

I chugged a bottle of Perpetuem and some gatorade at T2. Leaving transition my stomach felt too full but I wanted to make sure I had enough fuel for the 10k run with over 1000ft of climbing. After the first hill I got into a pretty good rythm and even tried to stay with a few female pros as they came flying by. As they slowly pulled away I tried to keep up a strong pace and prepare for the climb ahead. My watch said 6700 and I remember reading or hearing that the run went all the way up to 7600ft. I passed one guy around mile 2 who said, "Hey, you passed me at the same spot in Tahoe City". When the trail switched to fire road and started to gently climb I figured we this must be the beginning of the big climb. To my surprise I got to a spot where my watch said 7000ft just as one of the volunteers notified me that it was all downhill the rest of the way. Sure enough, I was at the finish line in several minutes with my watch reading 4.74 miles. It was a welcome surprise at the time but I probably would have raced better had I known ahead of time.
I quickly said hi to a few friends and then headed back to Nephi, UT for Megan's grandma's 80th birthday party.
I may have moved up to 7th place in points for my division, but I doubt that will hold up until Oct 5th. Standings

It was Fun. It was Real. It was really fun.

2008-07-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

When I heard that the Donner Triathlon had been canceled for this year. I was left scrambling to make weekend plans. The Death Ride and Downieville Classic mountain bike race were both on Saturday. But I decided to skip both of those and head down for a weekend full of triathlons in Ranch Seco, CA. Nate and I raced Tri for Fun on Saturday and Tri For Real on Sunday. Although we were among only a few to race both days I finished 2nd and he finished 4th in the 25-29 age group each day.

Live from Rothbury 2008

2008-07-05T21:27:00.001-07:00

Its day 2 of Rothbury Music Festival and I'm hanging out watching Widespread Panic at the Odeum, the biggest stage where 311 and Snoop Dogg played earlier today. Jakob Dylan was a great kickoff for today's shows. The venue is a big ranch with 4 main stages, a lake and a huge field for camping and parking. I swam in the lake yesterday. It was warm but very murky and shallow with a layer of plant growth just above the slimy mud bottom.
It stays light here until well after 9:30 so we're thinking that there might be a fireworks show around 10 tonight.
Can't wait to see Citizen Cope, John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band, and State Radio tomorrow.

Race Results

2008-06-30T17:36:00.001-07:00

Race Results
I compiled a spreadsheet with all of my racing results that I could remember and find since 2004. Most have links to the race results as well as GPS data from the courses if available. It also has my racing schedule for the rest of the season.

XTERRA Tahoe City Race Report

2008-06-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

After nearly two months of not racing, I was excited about my second XTERRA race ever. I've been mountain biking a lot and was eager to improve on my performance at XTERRA Real in Folsom where I felt like I was in slow motion on the bike.
Summary: 3:06:13. 22/143 overall, 3rd in my age group.
Results
Pre race: I went to bed around midnight Friday night, staying up late packing for the race and cleaning the house since Megan was coming back Saturday. We got to Commons Beach about 7AM where I waited in line to check in while my sister and dad checked in for volunteering. I drank a Starbucks double shot on the drive up and had a Gatorade with a scoop of First Endurance PreRace mixed in about half an hour before the race. Checking in and setting up my transition took a little longer than expected, but I still was able to get in about a 10 minute warmup on the bike trainer in the parking lot. I wanted to warm up because the bike starts off with a 1.5-2 mile climb.
The Swim:
The water is low this year. At many tris, that just means a longer run up the beach or boat ramp. At Tahoe, though, this means that the first 100yds of water from the shore is 1 ft deep instead of 2 or 3 feet deep. They didn't announce the temperature but I would guess it was in the high 50s. I was comfortable in the water with my neoprene swim cap, ear plugs, and full wetsuit. We started about 150yds off shore where it just started to get deep enough to swim in. The long course did 2 loops and then headed in towards shore after rounding the 2nd buoy on the 2nd lap. I felt pretty good on the swim, although my lack of swim training the last 2 weeks surely didn't help. The last few hundred yards were tough because it was too shallow to swim normally but too rocky to be able to walk faster than you could swim. So I just modified my stroke to not go very deep an swam in until I was about 10 yds from the shore. I slipped on my Crocs and ran the nearly half mile which crosses a highway to transition. My transition was kinda slow, taking the time to put on socks and gloves. Next time I'm getting gloves that are easier to put on. Even though these ones don't have fingers or any straps, they still probably took me 20 seconds to put on.
The bike: I normally have nice GPS files to reference after the race as well as real time information about my HR and pace while I'm racing with my Forerunner 305. Since I lost it last Tuesday, I only had a watch for this race. Luckily someone wore their 305 on the bike course. This will definitely help anyone going up there to preride the course for next year. Just download it and have your GPS give you directions.
The first 1/3 mile was paved and pretty steep. Seems like a group of about 10 started the bike at the same time as me. I passed a few on that first climb which continued to 1.5 miles. I tried to keep a fast pace for the downhill section to the next climb where I felt I climbed pretty well. A guy that I had passed at the beginning caught me. I stayed with him for the rest of the first lap until we caught up with another rider. But then something happened and I started to slow down. I lost both of them and although the downhill section was OK, the rest of the second lap was terrible, getting passed by 2 or 3 people I had previously passed. After you finish the second lap there is a decent climb back to the junction where the run and the bike split. I had a bit of Perpetuem in T1 and 1 water bottle of watered down Gatorade on the bike so I think I had enough fuel and electrolytes. I guess I just went out too fast.
The run: I immediately noticed a tightness in my left gluteus as I started climbing up the hill. The run course was a lollipop with about 2 miles of climbing before a short flat section and then nearly all downhill to the beach at the finish line. I tripped on a root and nearly fell near the beginning of the dirt section. That is when I really felt that muscle in my butt tighten up. Not seeing anyone close enough to run down in front of me, I walked several of the steeper sections. Luckily the course was well marked because I didn't see a soul for the entire candy part of the lollipop (the loop at the top). Running downhill felt fine on my leg so I felt like I sped up quite a bit on the downhill. There is one last hill once you get back to the road that was definitely unwelcome. Running straight through the finish line and jumping into the lake is what kept my mind occupied for most of the run. And, man was that refreshing.
I didn't notice the smoke at all on the course but there was definitely a haze over the lake. You couldn't see across the lake when the race started. I hung out for a while on the beach while my sister and dad waited for all the racers to come in off of the bike. We left before they posted the results but I did win a 6 pack of Gu in the raffle. They had hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken sausage, watermelon, beer and soda for the finishers. I drank my recovery drink and the beer but couldn't get down more than a bite of the sausage.
My next race is Donner. I'd really like to have a fast bike and run at that race not only because of this race but because the last time I did Donner Lake Triathlon, I was disappointed in my bike and run legs. My bike time was OK, but left me destroyed for the run. 2006 time was 2:45:39. I'd like to be under 2:30 this year. 3 minutes off my swim, 5 off the bike and 8 off the run and I'm there.

Boca Race

2008-06-25T18:06:00.001-07:00

I was having second thoughts about riding last night in the Reno Wheelmen Boca Race because of the smoke, but I decided to do it anyway with some peer pressure from Nate. This was my best Boca race yet. I raced in the B's, got 4th and won the KOM. I think my HR was higher than I've ever seen it on that hill and my legs felt like they were going to fall off. Unfortunately, my Garmin Forerunner 305 popped off of my handlebars going over the Stampede dam and I couldn't find it when I went back to look after the race.
In the past I've thought that starting a break from the top of the KOM hill was a great idea, but I was barely able to muster enough energy to hang with the 6 other riders that quickly caught me after the top of the hill. I think if we had worked in a better pace line we could have pulled further ahead. I know there were several times that I fell off the back and would have been screwed had everyone else in the group been working together. But the would usually slow down a bit and I would be able to rejoin the group. Next time I want to try to organize the group a bit better so that everyone is taking short turns in a smooth rotation. Somehow I ended up in the front with about a mile left so I was in no shape to sprint when the first person jumped. I tried but my legs failed quickly and I found myself looking back and being satisfied that 5th place wasn't going to catch me rather than accelerating toward 1,2, and 3.
Kat was doing well until one of the last hills where she lost her chain. Nate focused too much on regulating his power rather than staying with the group, which put him in a bad position for the KOM. But we all enjoyed tasty treats at Jack in the Box on the way home!

Xterra Tahoe City Pre-ride

2008-06-21T22:59:00.000-07:00

I got a later start than I wanted to but finally got up to Tahoe City around 4PM to ride and run the course for next weekend's race. I came armed with the topo map from the website (link). Unfortunately, I left my Forerunner 305 at home so all I had on the bike was my bike computer to tell me distance traveled and riding time. I'm not sure where T1 will be.
I parked at SaveMart and rode down to Common's beach. There is a bike path that runs parallel to the shore that I took but it ended in a staircase, which I carried my bike up to Dave's Board shop and then crossed the street to Grove street.
The next section climbing up to the start of the dirt road was pretty straightforward although there are several streets off of Grove and Pioneer that you could turn right on. Once I got to the dirt, it was about a mile climb to the junction where both the bike and run course intersect. There is about 100yds of paved road at this junction. I took the first right and tried to follow tire tracks for a while, checking the map every so often.
My first major wrong turn came at a T after passing the green water tower. There are bushes in the middle of the junction and I went right instead of left. So far the trail has been easily ridable dirt road with very few obstacles. Next was a right turn followed by a left turn. Since the 100yds of paved road, it has pretty much been flat or downhill.
The road to the left shoots up and the bottom part is somewhat rocky making this the most techinical part of the ride. It is a pretty steady climb starting steep and mellowing out a bit before 'T'ing into another road where I went right. Very shortly after that turn there is a left turn onto the first singletrack of the course. I would have probably missed this had there not been some leftover chalk on a rock at the turn. This single track climbs for about a mile before hitting another road where you turn right.
This next section is where I had the most problems. There was more chalk on rocks but it was hard to tell which way it was pointing and since at this section, the paths nearly cross, it was a bit confusing. The map shows one water tower that you ride out to and then turn left before passing it. Before I got to that water tower, I passed another water tower painted black with blue writing by the North Tahoe Cross Country team. The trail that I was pretty sure was the right one had a felled tree across the road shortly after passing water tower on the right. So thinking that that couldn't possibly be the right way, I backtracked and found another trail that went around the water tower and got me to where I needed to be up close to Dollar Creek. I rode down that road and stayed right. The road goes up for about 150 yds and then there is a singletrack trail that veers left so I took that.
It turned into a well maintained trail that was raised up a bit and looked to be made from type 2 base. This trail ended at a triangle shaped with wood suggesting that you could go either right or left. I chose to go right but later found out that the trail I wanted was straight ahead. Taking the trail to the right had me heading further North than I wanted to go and I'm guessing I ended up on the Tahoe Rim Trail for a bit. I finally turned around and really got myself turned around when I somehow ended up going straight or taking a left turn which put me back by Dollar Creek.
Once I figured out what had happened I finally got on the right trail to Antone Meadows. The trail around Antone Meadows was flat singletrack that was pretty easy to follow. I started to feel a little low on energy but by the time I got back to the spot to start lap 2 I felt okay so I did another lap. This could have had something to do with seeing a huge porcupine about 5 ft off the trail as I rode by. After the second lap, there is a pretty good climb back to the 100yds of paved road. I'll definately need to save a bit of energy for that.
Overall, the course has about 4 significant climbs and is not very techinical. There aren't any really sharp turns and there aren't any sections that go straight up and straight down like at XTERRA Real. I think that this course favors riders conditioned for steady-state efforts.
The run was basically a few miles up on road and singletrack followed by a few miles down to the finish. The bottom section is the steepest and it mellows out a bit after about a mile. I made a few wrong turns on the run as well which made it exciting because it started to get pretty dark. I think as long as I can move up the hills at a decent pace (10min/mile?) and have enough in my legs to coast fast down the hills (sub 7min/miles), I'll do well.

Wildflower Triathlon

2008-05-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

This was our third year in a row traveling to Lake San Antonio, CA for the Wildflower Triathlon. I did the Olympic distance in 2006 and the Long course (Half IM distance) last year in 5:53. This was my first A race of 2008 and I wanted to do it in under 5:30. Nate, Kat, Patrick, Megan and I drove down on Friday and camped in the park both nights. Nolan and Brad also drove down with us. Sabrina, Daniel, Mandylee, Graham, and Katherine rolled in early Saturday morning as well.
The Race:
I felt great on the swim. The one thing I focused on was waiting until later in the recovery part of my stroke to start the pull with the opposite hand. A few times I consciously thought about this I noticed myself speed up in relation to other swimmers. Swimming with the masters class at Sports West has certainly helped my swimming a ton and helped me take 8 minutes off of my swim this year. They said the water was 65 degrees, which felt great. I probably would have been comfortable in a sleeveless wetsuit instead of the full suit.
This was only my second ride using my new PowerTap power meter. I hadn't done any tests to set up my power zones or anything so I used it more to just record the data than to actually pace myself on the ride. I basically tried to stay under 320 watts while climbing and between 200 and 250 on the flats. Nasty Grade was shorter than I remembered so I probably could have pushed a bit harder up that hill. There was much less wind this year than last but I was able to shave my bike time down to 2:42 from 3:04. After a quick review of the power file, which had my pr:HR at 7% (cardiac drift) I didn't have the muscular endurance fitness I would have liked, though. This is probably just from lack of long training rides.
It was night and day difference on the run this year compared to last year. Last year I ran the first few miles and then had to walk/run most of the rest of the race and finished the run split in 2:05. This year I drank about 900 Calories of Perpetuem on the bike as well as some Gatorade and 5 Endurolyte pills. I alternated drinking Gatorade and water at the aid stations on the run. I felt so much better this year and ran the half marathon in 1:44. I did get a blister on my right inside arch about mile 5. I probably should have taken the time to put on socks and also more of a trail shoes instead of the Asics DS Racer. My total time was 5:11:12. It's crossed my mind to shoot for under 5 hours next year, but I'm not committing to that yet. Here are some fun little animations of me beating myself. I wore a GPS unit each year, which tracked my location, speed, and HR throughout the race. These show this year's race versus last year's.
Dot Race for the Swim
Dot Race for the Bike
Dot Race for the Run
(requires Internet Explorer and Adobe SVG)
Thanks, Megan for cooking dinners, listening to triathlon talk all weekend and pushing my bike up the hill (even if you made me carry it on the steep part:)).

MotionBased Activity from statute guest: 2007 Bizz Johnson Marathon

2007-10-10T10:54:00.000-07:00

If only I could have run a bit faster in the last few miles, I'd be booking my trip to Boston right now. Instead, I'm trying to help my legs recover so I try for 3:10 again in a few months. I guess the good thing is that I have motivation to keep training consistently. And I feel that even though my HR was much higher (176BPM vs 171BPM average) than Honolulu, my body is in much better shape after this race. I was able to run 2 miles on Monday and almost all limping had subsided by Tuesday.
Results
8th overall, 3rd in 25-29M age group.

2007 Bizz Johnson Marathon

Countdown to the Bizz

2007-10-05T16:56:00.001-07:00

I’m running the Bizz Johnson Marathon this weekend. I’ve been training for the race since June but didn’t bother to sign up early so I ended up having to pay the exorbitant $225 race fee for signing up after it was already sold out (I know, I know). I was able to lessen the initial shock by making a deal with the race director.

Firstly, I recognize that the $225.00 is a crazy; It for the cry babies that want in at any cost – not you...But the race is sold out. You can pay a $150 penalty fee for a total of $225 for waiting. There are no transfers and ID’s are checked at bib distribution. We take into account the runners will drop out when we calculate the total numbers of spots. Win the race overall or break 2:49 and I will return $150 of the $225.00 entry fee. Eric Gould

It’s looking like 2:49 is out of the question and winning the entire race doesn’t look too good either since there will be hundreds more people this year than any other year. But I do think I have a good chance at qualifying for Boston (3:10:59 or less). Thanks to all that have run with me or encouraged me. I owe a special thanks to Megan for having to put up with my sometimes inconvenient running scheduleJ

Reid

new PR

2007-09-26T20:10:00.001-07:00

I set a new PR on the huffaker hills course on Monday.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/race/dot.mb?sortOrder=55&pks=1958313,1694966,1553067,1685628,3719244,3918061,4042652

I noticed a weird thing about the dot race when you have all 7 runs turned on, my run from 2 weeks ago is ahead of today’s run nearly the entire time. But when you just enable the latest two runs, today’s dot passes the dot from 9/10 about halfway through.

Prosper loan

2007-08-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

My friend signed up with Prosper and has a loan to be funded. Click Here to bid on it

Prosper

2007-08-09T16:30:00.000-07:00

I joined Prosper in March and have been lending money since then. Initially I thought the interest rates that people were paying were high and wasn't sure why anyone would borrow through Prosper. But when I began to compare these rates to the alternatives (credit cards, payday loans, etc.) I believe it actually can be a great deal for a borrower who has a few extremely high interest loans to pay off.

There are definitely risks. The company has only been doing these loans for about 1 1/2 years. Also I am concerned a little bit about people defaulting on loans a year or two down the road. It seems like people are more likely to be current on payments soon after they get the loan, but it might not be as big of a priority later on. To mitigate these concerns a bit I only invest a small portion of my income in Prosper loans on a regular basis. I've also tried to spread my risk by balancing loans with high interest and poor credit scores with ones with lower interest and great credit scores.

If you are looking for returns greater than 10% (my average so far is 16%) and want to potentially help other people out, you might want to check out Prosper.
And if you are looking to borrow money, this might be worth checking out as well.
Click here to join:

Pyramid Triathlon

2007-08-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

Pyramid Lake Triathlon pics

After our camping plans fell through for the weekend, I signed up for the triathlon. The course was fast and fun. The race started pretty close to on time. I normally would have a map of the GPS points recorded by my Forerunner 305 but I realized halfway through the swim that I forgot to put it. I guess I'll have to do it again next year :) I like races about this long because they don't leave me hurting for days afterward. I got 2st in my division and 8th overall (age groups, overall).
Jim and I went kayaking toward Warrior Point after the race, forgoing the free BBQ up the street from the race. And I even got in a bike ride with Megan in the afternoon.

Family Reunion

2007-08-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

Although the original plan was to go to the Black Hills, SD for our 7th biannual family reunion, we ended up moving the reunion to Canby, MN so we could be close to my grandma. Friday was our play day, filled with go carts, the water park, arcade games and museum in Watertown, SD. Once we arrived in Canby that afternoon, it seemed like the feeding never stopped. There was tons of great food (bars and hot dish, notably) the whole weekend. I ran about 29 miles throughout the weekend in Canby. Running really puts the size of town into perspective. By my house, I run 1/2 mile to get to a 4 mile loop that goes around our neighborhood. In Canby, starting from my grandma's house, I'd run 1 mile in any direction and I'd be 1/2 mile out of town. Sunday's run toward SD was very picturesque.
I'm glad we were able to see Grandma a few times. She even remembered the balloon races when they came out for Rebecca being born.
Speaking of births, Megan's sister had her baby on Friday, July 27 while we were out of town. So now I'm an uncle to Landan Ryan Olsen.
Kent gave us a tour of their farm and the Berkes' farm on Saturday. I was really impressed by their new house and all of the energy efficiencies they have put in. The in floor heating is really cool.
Dan kindly took us to the airport in Sioux Falls on Sunday so we were able to have a nice visit with him. Megan and I couldn't wait to get home and see Ashley, Ryan and Landan but United tested our patience by delaying our flight and causing us to miss our connection. Luckily they were still awake when we arrived home so we were able to see all three on Sunday night. I'm so exited to be an uncle

Mom's Travel Agency

2007-04-10T23:03:00.001-07:00

You all know how much my Mom travels so you probably won't be surprised to find out that she now has her own travel agency. And if you've ever met my Mom you know that she always finds the best deals. Well her travel agency website is no exception. I just priced out our trip to Denver on her site and on Orbitz and her site was cheaper. Check it out if you are planning on traveling anytime soon.

www.ytbtravel.com/mccweber

Dr. Mercola

2007-03-30T13:17:00.001-07:00

www.mercola.com

Have you guys seen this guy’s website before? I just subscribed to his newsletter and have been reading some of his articles and watched this video. I was surprised to find myself being so quick to judge some of the things he suggests as crazy. I had the same reaction that people have when I tell them I eat a plant based diet. “I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t give up [insert food here]” and, “I don’t think that is important enough for me to change”. The funny thing is, these emotions were like knee jerk reactions to someone proposing that I change my life for the better. So I decided to take a closer look at the things he suggests.

So far here are some things I’ve noticed.

· He is light on references and facts. For example, in the “Reduce cancer by 50% video” (http://vitalvotes.com/blogs/public_blog/How-to-Reduce-Your-Risk-of-Cancer-By-50--8790.aspx ) he shows a graph that is of the rate of cancer based on how many degrees away from the equator you are. Besides being a leap to infer that that information leads to the conclusion that sun exposure prevents cancer, he also doesn’t site the source of the data on that page

· There are products that he is trying to sell that go along with many of his articles.

o The article about the dangers of Teflon and “other” chemical coatings is trying to promote and sell his pots and pans (http://www.mercola.com/products/cast-iron-cookware )

o The article about restoring your vision is promoting the sale of $150 audio program http://www.mercola.com/products/natural_vision_cd/index.htm

· He talks about a wide variety of topics on his website and has years of archived articles so he has been around awhile.

· He allows comments to be posted along with some of his articles and he appears to respond to questions posted in the comments fairly regularly

What do you think?

YouTube video

2007-03-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

The RAZR turns on the razor. Coincidence?

Mammoth

2007-02-26T00:21:00.001-08:00

I'm hanging out in line for the gondola at the Main Lodge (webcam). This place is awesome. Unfortunately it is no secret. It's packed today. I just did the super-duper pipe on my last two runs. That thing is cool. I actually felt the G forces as I came off on wall and headed for the next. I'm having fun on the steep stuff, too. It scares me. I think that is what I like about it. My fingers are cold now

Vacation in Austin, TX

2007-02-20T07:47:00.000-08:00

Since we're flying back from Austin and I can't sleep on the plane (probably has something to do with the double shot of espresso I had at the airport), I thought I'd share some of our experiences from the last few days.

Since we got in so late on Wednesday night we had to come back on Thursday to pick up or rental car from the airport. Kurt gave us a ride on Wednesday night but I took a cab back to the airport on Thursday morning. It would have been cheaper to take the SuperShuttle based on the recommendation of the front desk person at the hotel. The cab arrived within a few minutes of calling it. But just after my cab arrived, another cab pulled up who turned out to be picking up someone else. This occurrence led my cabbie to tell me about a real problem in Austin. Nigerian cabbies scanning the radios and stealing clients from the cabbies that are assigned to the clients by the cab company. So I got to hear about one particular situation where my cabbie was wronged by another cabbie who he filed a complaint against.

Kurt took us sightseeing on Thursday after Megan and I had lunch at the nu age cafe, a vegetarian restaurant that had great veggie and tofu dishes and a tasty lime tea elixir. nobody was swimming at Barton Springs when we visited there but it looks like a great place to train for triathlon swimming since it is 200 meters long. It seemed like we had to stop for coffee for Kurt between each sight. I rarely drink caffeine let alone coffee but I found myself ordering double soy machiattos left and right. It just seemed like the right thing to do at these cool little coffee shops we went to (Jo's, Austin java, Flipnotics). the weather was cold enough to be wearing two jackets and still be cold so it was hard to convince us that this was a town with a large community into outdoor activities but all the huge bike, running, and triathlon stores were pretty convincing. And by Saturday it had warmed up enough for everyone and there dog to come hang out at the dog park.

We hung out downtown on Thursday night and visited our share of bars after stuffing ourselves at the Veggie Heaven. The best way I can describe the vegetarian diner is that it is like a vegetarian version of China diner in downtown Reno. The food was really good and really greasy. The protein 2000 consisted of broccoli and a fried meat like substance that was delicious. I had a mango bubble shake that had little brown tapioca balls in it. They were about 1/3 inch in diameter, just small enough to fit through the over sized straw. The outside had a consistency similar to a peeled grape. The inside was chewy. It was a little surprising to be drinking a tasty shake and have a "bubble" shot up the straw and into your mouth when you weren't expecting it.

Megan and I pride ourselves in being able to sleep in late on vacation and this trip was no exception. We got up around noon on Friday and met Graham and Stephanie for lunch at Mother's cafe. We ate in the garden of this vegetarian Tex/Mex restaurant. It was cool to finally meet Stephanie since we've heard a little about her from Graham. We also got to meet her cat, her chocolate lab puppy, Buddy, and see her very cool house.

By going to the expo early Friday afternoon Megan and I were able to score some cool swag. I got a livestrong jersey and Megan got a Livestrong backpack. I've been to my share of race expos so its funny to find myself always looking for something to give me an edge in the race that is only a day or two away. In Hawaii, it was the spray on potion that made your legs cold or hot or both, I forget. This time I bought some disposable gloves, which definitely helped keep my hands warm (a big deal for me in case you didn't know). However they probably weren't much better than the ones that came in our packets for free :). The other thing that I thought would make a big difference was Jeff Galloway's advice to take walk breaks. It's possible that it made a difference in the amount of damage I did too my legs but it sure didn't help me run faster, at least after mile 10. I was motivated and excited to listen to him talk and even more excited that Megan got to talk to him about her injury problems with her running.

I'm sure most people have stopped reading by now so this should be a good place to talk about the deal I made with Megan. We saw a really cute goldendoodle on saturday at the dog park. She started asking about getting a dog again and said she would do anything for one. So being in Austin for a marathon, the first thing that popped on my head was if she runs a marathon she can get one. I thought she would complain and ask for something else, but to my surprise, she was excited. She called several people to tell them the "good news". So we might have another dog sooner than I was expecting.

Austin marathon 2007

2007-02-18T12:51:00.001-08:00

This is kinda long winded but I had a long time to think about my run while I was running slow :). And typing on my BB is helping keep my mind off of the ice bath I'm sitting in.

GPS and Heart Rate data from the Austin Marathon
I started out just a touch ahead of pace for the first 6 miles . Then I had to take a crap. So stopped at an outhouse and set a new record time for running a mile with a crap stop (7:50, old record was 7:59). When I came out, the 3:10 group was just going by. I ran with them until about mile 10 but the 15 second per mile walk breaks were putting me further and further behind. The hills didn't help either. So around that time I conceded and decided to run like it was a long training run so I wouldn't have as long of a recovery time as I did after HI. My heart rate quickly dropped to the 150s and my pace slowed way down. The 3:15 group came and went. The 3:20 group came and went. The 3:30 group came and went. Once I had been running for over an hour, my forerunner only showed minutes so I started counting for my 15 second walk breaks. My counting got slower and slower and by mile 20 I was counting half seconds. I hope the breaks will help me recover faster but they were a mixed blessing on the course. I couldn't wait to get to the mile markers to take them, but it was harder to get moving again. I think I fell victim to bob's theory about running races at lower elevation. The first few miles feel great, but you're used to having your lungs be the limiting factor so you kill your legs early. That is how I felt. I tried to speed up several times but I felt like my legs just wouldn't carry me any faster. I did end up running about a 7 min mile on the last mile in a last ditch attempt to break 3:40.

Overall, several things hurt my performance

Recovery time from HI
Not training enough times per week. Hal's senior training program is okay if you just want to run a marathon every month or two, but it isn't a program for getting significantly faster. I also should have not split up several of my long runs into 2 shorter runs. And I should have gone slower and finished the 20 miler. For the future I'm thinking of doing some longer runs (24-28 miles) down in Auburn or Sacramento.
The master cleanse - Just bad timing to deplete my glycogen stores.
The hills - There was about 1300 vertical feet of climbing (about 500 feet less than Honolulu).

I'm just finishing my ice bath and I think I'll follow it up with a little nap.

Day 12 Master Cleanse

2007-02-10T21:12:00.000-08:00

Day 12, Saturday, 2/10/07
weight in the morning: 147
So I didn't come off of the cleanse as gracefully as I had planned. I headed home right after work yesterday and went straight for the raw faux meatloaf that I had made the night before. I started with just a few little bites. Once I had eaten those and was pretty sure that my stomach wasn't going to hate me, I had a bigger piece. I also had an orange and some vegan zucchini bread. All that sat fine in my stomach. I had a gift certificate for the steakhouse at Boomtown and offered to take my parents since I wasn't planning on eating so soon. My parents split a pasta dish and Megan wanted the halibut so I said I'd split it with her. I ended up just eating a salad and a few bites of the halibut. It was really tasty but it upset my stomach a little.

It was rainy this morning so I wasn't sure how many people were going to show up for the 9 mile training run I was supposed to lead from Idlewild park to IGT. Three others ended up showing up for a nice run. It actually didn't hardly rain on us at all. I ran with two of the runners at their pace (about 10:40min/mile). I actually got light headed and really tired for a few minutes about 2 miles into our run. That could have been from just having OJ for breakfast. Once I had a Power Gel, I felt much better for the rest of the run.

I can see why people go back on the cleanse. Being on the cleanse gives you a sense of comfort that you are doing something right for your body. Even though it may be a challenge to not eat, it is so easy to plan your meals. You just drink the lemonade. You don't have to decide what food your body needs. When you are off of the cleanse, even if you eating healthy, you are always wondering if you had enough vegetables or if you should have had soup instead of salad. That is something that I never had to worry about while I was on the cleanse.

Day 11 Master Cleanse

2007-02-09T15:36:00.000-08:00

Day 11, Friday, 2/9/07
weight in the morning: 146
I can't wait to eat. I drank the tea last night and started this morning with 8 oz. of juice squeezed from blood oranges. It tasted really good. I didn't have any trouble drinking it. I made another quart of OJ in the juicer with Cara Cara oranges. I felt good all morning, similar to the way I've felt the last few days. It finally snowed yesterday so I decided to head up to the hill to make a few turns at lunch. The snow was pretty wet and heavy so it really tested my legs. I felt a little short on energy but it was great to get up there for a few runs.
I felt slightly light headed for about an hour after I returned. It seems to be better now that I have had some more OJ (about 75 oz so far today). I was planning on just drinking OJ today and tomorrow and start eating on Sunday, but I think I'll probably try some solid food before that and see how my body reacts. I made some faux meat loaf from a raw recipe last night and I'm getting really anxious to try it.

Day 10 Master Cleanse

2007-02-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

If you are interested in learning more about the fast I'm doing, read The Master Cleanse, by Stanley Burroughs

Peter Glickman also has quite a bit of information on the Master Cleanse on his raw food website
Day 10, Thursday, 2/8/07
weight in the morning: 146
Run info: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2051186

Total Time (h:m:s)	0:42:16	8:33 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:41:34	8:24 pace
Distance (mi )	4.94
Moving Speed (mph)	7.1 avg.	11.5 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+997 / -998

Avg. Heart Rate	156 bpm	Zone 4.0

So I got up at 6 this morning and stayed up. It took a lot of will power and a long shower to keep me from going back to bed. It was a good day to do it, though because I had to pick up Megan from work at 7:15 AM anyway. It's almost 2PM now and I'm not tired.
I ran with the marathon training group at lunch today. We did 4 hill repeats where you sprint up a hill (about .2 miles) and then jog back down. I felt strong on the first one, but struggled a little more on the last 3. I felt good, I just couldn't go any faster. That has to be related to the fast and not taking in enough calories for energy. That should be my last hard workout before the Austin marathon. My focus for the next week will be to eat a diet that will best prepare me for the race. I will continue to run but my runs will be either short or at an easy pace.
My tongue was the whitest it has been this morning. Maybe next time I'll go until it turns pink again (although it is always pink after I brush it). If I didn't have a marathon in a week, I would consider staying on the cleanse for a few more days. All in all, I'm glad I did it. I'm not sick anymore, which is why I started it in the first place. And I was able to continue my marathon training without interruption, which was my second objective. I was able to run just over 50 miles since my last meal. The other thing I hope to take from this is a stronger appetite for healthier foods. I'm planning on sticking to my plant based diet that I have been eating for about 2 1/2 years. I will hopefully add more raw and whole foods to my diet, but I don't see myself sticking to a completely raw diet for very long. Seafood sounds really good right now but we'll see if that craving goes away once I begin to eat food again. It's been just over a month since I last drank. Right now I don't feel like drinking, but I think I might settle on drinking once a month if there is an occasion for it (like going to Austin this month or Napa next month).

Day 9 Master Cleanse

2007-02-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

Day 9 Wednesday, 2/7/07
weight in the morning: 147
Blood Pressure: 116/69
Pulse: 40
It seems like everybody is eating popcorn today. It is really tempting to pull a package of microwave popcorn out of my cabinet in my cube and go make some. But I won't. I actually had a dream that I was eating something (a cracker, I think) and realized when I was done with it that I had broken my fast with only a day to go. What a nightmare :)
I've been itching to try out my new trail running shoes and was planning on a run at lunch, but Megan talked me into going to the gym for a spinning class. Despite being my first spinning class in about 10 months, I survived. I meant to wear my HRM but forgot it in the locker room. It ended up being a good 50 minute workout. When I started adding weightlifting to my routine about a month ago I was trying to do one day of lower body and one day of upper body each week. I haven't missed any of the lower body days, but I have missed the last 3 weeks of upper body. So I decided to do a quick upper body workout after spinning. I felt like I picked up right where I left off.
One of the things that I was excited about when I started this diet was that I would need less sleep and be more motivated to get up in the morning. The first 4 or 5 days I seemed to have an easier time getting up in the morning. However, the last few days I have not been as motivated. I get up at 6AM and somehow motivate myself to drink the liter of salt water (I got it all down in one chug this morning), but then I go back to bed. When the alarm goes off in another hour, I just hop out of bed, run across the room and hit snooze. Then I crawl right back in bed. This repeats every 8 minutes for 5 - 8 times before I actually get up and shower. Maybe tomorrow I'll try getting up at 6 and staying awake.
I haven't noticed if I need more sleep. Some nights I've been getting more sleep because I go to bed early out of boredom and not wanting to think about food. I haven't been getting tired in the afternoon at work, though. I noticed a few weeks ago that I would get sleepy around 3PM and have to get up and walk around or have some tea or a snack to stay awake. I haven't been getting tired at that time since I've been on the Master Cleanse, with the exception of Sunday after my long run.
I have also noticed that my hands have been really dry and are cracking even though I've been drinking over a gallon of liquid per day. The dry climate has probably contributed to that as well.

Day 8 Master Cleanse

2007-02-06T14:58:00.000-08:00

Day 8 Tuesday, 2/6/07:
Weight in the evening: 147
Last night at the gym went really well I was able to run 5K at a pretty quick pace and then do all my lifting with no problems. I "think" my knees felt better doing lunges and leg extensions but I don't have any definitive proof that they have improved so just take it as a feeling I have, nothing more.

Here's the GPS data from last night's run

Total Time (h:m:s)	0:22:51	7:17 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:22:51	7:17 pace
Distance (mi )	3.14
Moving Speed (mph)	8.2 avg.	11.6 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+62 / -61

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2039635

And here is the data from today's lunch run:

Total Time (h:m:s)	0:27:33	6:52 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:27:34	6:52 pace
Distance (mi )	4.01
Moving Speed (mph)	8.7 avg.	11.2 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+192 / -206

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2042157

After the run I headed over the park to play ultimate disc

Total Time (h:m:s)	0:38:34	19:38 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:28:06	14:18 pace
Distance (mi )	1.96
Moving Speed (mph)	4.2 avg.	17.7 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+48 / -47

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2042158

Today’s run was my third fastest (by average pace) run over 4 miles. Only the Turkey trot and Apple hill races were faster. And it was my 7^th fastest overall out of about 150 runs I’ve used a GPS device on. Someone could definitely argue that I would have been in shape to run as fast or faster if I had been eating and kept training since last week, but I feel good and I’m happy that I have lost very little on the fast. The true test of whether the cleanse was a good idea will be in 1 ½ weeks in Austin, TX at the marathon.

Feels like my cold is completely gone. No more coughing, sore throat and runny nose.

Day 4-7 Master Cleanse

2007-02-04T14:08:00.000-08:00

Day 4 Friday, 2/2/07:
weight in the morning:151
I tried making the lemonade with molasses today. I used about half as much as I would normally use of maple syrup. It did not taste nearly as good. It wasn't sweet and smelt strong. It ended being a good drink to bring along to Micasa Too for Sarah's birthday. While everybody else was drinking margaritas I was sipping on my lemonade, which probably was just about as easy to drink. I hesitated to go because I knew I would be around a lot of chips and salsa and other tasty food, but that stuff didn't bother me too much. And I was happy to be the DD to the next bar when the fun and puking stopped at Micasa Too.

Day 5 Saturday, 2/3/07
GPS data from run:

Total Time (h:m:s)	1:12:47	9:00 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	1:10:18	8:41 pace
Distance (mi )	8.08

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2034403
I ran 8 miles this morning. This run and tomorrow's are the reasons that it took me a while to commit to the Master Cleanse. I ran at a comfortably slow pace and felt good the whole time. I haven't felt dizzy or light-headed at all. I did have a little more trouble with the salt water flush, even though I waited 3 hours before beginning my run. I'm pretty candid about the whole thing, learning from each new "experience", but my wife is a little embarrassed by the whole idea of revealing every detail about the elimination process to the world. So I'll keep it to myself.
I still think of food. I had been craving zucchini bread about a week ago, but I found out that they only have it on Tuesday and Saturdays. So I stopped by and picked up a loaf after my run since I was near the store (House of Bread on California Ave.). I got it for Megan and my roommates. I guess I was just thinking that since I can't eat it, it would be almost as good to see someone else enjoy it.
This evening was kinda tough. I wish I could eat something. I felt an urge to eat but I think what was worse is the thought of not eating anything solid for another week. Assuming I go 10 days on the fast, next Friday and Saturday will be spent drinking orange juice. So that puts me at Sunday before eating any solid food.

Day 6 Sunday, 2/4/07
Weight in the morning:149
After my run:145
GPS data from run:

Total Time (h:m:s)	2:32:07	8:40 pace

Total Time (h:m:s)

2:32:07

8:40 pace

Distance (mi )17.53
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2034404
I skipped the salt water flush this morning not wanting to repeat yesterday's episode on today's run. Good thing, too. Not many of the bathrooms along the trail are open in the winter, so I stopped to pee on a tree off the trail. Not 2 minutes after resuming running did we encounter a cop driving down the running trail. That stop would have likely been for #2 had I done the salt water flush. He might not have done much if he caught me peeing, but I don't think he would be to excited to find me eliminating on the bank of the river.
I felt good on the run. Bob and I ran about a 9:00/mile pace for the first half, talking most of the way. We picked it up a little bit on the way back and I ended up finishing at an 8:40/mile pace overall. I was planning on running an even 20 but we got back to the car at 17.5 and I couldn't motivate myself to go do the extra 2.5 miles. I know I could have done them, but I pushed it harder than I probably should have for the last 5 miles so reasoned that running another few miles by myself might not be advisable. When I finished, my legs felt tired and worn out, but I was surprised how quickly my breathing recovered. Actually I don't think I was really breathing hard even before we stopped. I drank water and a quart of the lemonade before the run. I carried 2 8 oz bottles of water and 2 of lemonade and drank them along the way. I was a little nervous about needing extra energy so I added an extra tbsp of maple syrup to each bottle of lemonade. That mixture turned out to be really sweet. I probably would have been better with the normal mixture.
So much for not being able to do significant workouts while on this fast. I guess the real test will be in 2 weeks at the Austin Marathon where I'll try to run 3:10 and qualify for Boston.
I was not too upset when Megan wanted to stay home for the Super Bowl. Partly so I could watch the game (and the commercials) on our awesome HD tv and partly because I didn't really feel like being around all that snack food. Megan ended up getting chips and dip and boy did they smell good. I seem to have an easier time drinking at work than at home on the weekends. I drank about 2 gallons on Friday (1/2 water, 1/2 lemonade) but I have only drank about 1/2 that today.

Day 7 Monday, 2/5/07
I woke up at 6:30 this morning to start the salt water routine, which was pretty uneventful. I eliminated once before the salt water and still had gooey stuff coming out normally. Megan didn't sleep much last night and she said one of the things keeping her up was my stomach making noises from the tea. I've heard many people say that they feel great on day 8 and 9. I'm looking forward to that. Today I feel similar to yesterday and Saturday. I don't feel bad, but I wouldn't describe it as great. My cold has all but vanished, although I'm not convinced that it would have been subsiding by now anyway had I continued my normal (mostly healthy) diet. My legs feel great. I don't feel sore from yesterday. I'm going to head to the gym now to lift and run. I haven't really lifted on the fast yet (except the eve of the first day) so we'll see how it goes. Ty was mentioning that his shoulder seems to be healed after being on this diet and Aaron said he regained flexibility in his thumb over a year after the initial injury. I've been trying to think of any aches and pains that I've had lately that I could be miraculously cured from. My neck was bothering me pretty bad before the Honolulu marathon. It hurt to turn my head and it was so tight that I couldn't crack it. But that went away with 2 weeks of relaxation in Hawaii. The only thing I can think of is my knees. They hurt just a little bit when I do squats and lunges. Sometimes I have to do a warmup squat where I go down about 1/4 of the way to "unlock" them so I can do a full squat with a lot of weight. I know I'm getting really picky here because they don't bother me very much at all. So we'll see if they feel any different tonight at the gym.

Day 0 - 3 The Master Cleanse

2007-02-01T08:06:00.000-08:00

Day 0:
Monday, 1/29/07
Ate my last meal of curry soup around 5:30, then went to the gym to run 3 miles and lift. Earlier in the day I had coughed a few times but my throat felt fine. I decided to try out the master cleanse for a few days, possibly adding raw food since I want to keep up my running. The Austin Marathon is on Feb 18 (less than three weeks away). After working out and sitting in the sauna for 20 minutes, I went grocery shopping for the MC essentials and also a lot of fruits and veggies. I took the Herbal Laxative Tea before bed.
Evening weight: 156
Day 1:
Tuesday, 1/30/07
GPS data from run:

Total Time (h:m:s)	1:03:44	10:25 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	1:03:21	10:21 pace
Distance (mi )	6.12

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/1999644
I began the day with a smaller than average elimination. I did notice that there was mucus in it. I woke up with a sore throat and a bit of a cough, confirming my suspicion that I was getting sick. I ran 6 miles at lunch, focusing mostly on running slow and keeping my heart rate down. I had brought food to work, but ended up just sticking to my water and lemonade.
I felt bad that I had bought all that food and was worried it was going to go to waste so I cooked some soup and make some raw yogurt and apple juice for Megan. Although the apple juice looked really good, it wasn't that difficult to abstain from it. Both Megan and I are sick so we just laid around and watched TV until we went to bed. I think this is a pretty common feeling when you are getting sick, but I kept getting chills during the day.

Day 2:
Wednesday, 1/31/07
I started this morning with an elimination that was a bit smaller than yesterday but still solid. This morning was the first time I drank the salt water flush. Even though I had been warned, I let one fly on the way to work and was surprised to feel something wet. So back home to change my pants I went...after sitting on the toilet for half an hour to make sure it wouldn't happen again. I took it easy tonight and just watched X games and "Friday Night Lights" after watching Megan eat and taking her to work. I still feel sick although I definitely feel better during the day than I do in the morning or evening.
My tongue was pretty white so I brushed it pretty well until it was pink.
Evening weight: 152
Day 3:
Thursday
2/1/07
Morning weight: 150
GPS data from run:

Total Time (h:m:s)	0:34:41	9:11 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	0:34:02	9:01 pace
Distance (mi )	3.77
Elevation Gain (ft)	+236 / -236

Avg. Heart Rate	147 bpm	Zone 3.5

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2008444
I woke up around 4:30 AM this morning with a coughing fit and feeling that my throat was really swollen. It hurt to swallow but I drank some water and didn't have much trouble getting back to sleep. I had my salt water flush around 7AM and didn't have any trouble compared to yesterday. By the time I went to work my throat was starting to feel better and my tongue was still pink. I'm still sneezing and coughing a little and there is a slow, watery snot drip. I'm hesitant to tell many people about what I'm doing since I keep going back and forth on whether I'm committed to doing it for 10 days. I ran 3.75 miles today at lunch. We did a leapfrog run where everybody runs in a line and the person in the back sprints to the front. We started out with 8 or 9 people but ended up down to 4. I helped Megan prepare her dinner and watched her eat and that didn't really make me hungry. I still feel a bit sick. I'm hoping that my cold or whatever it is will go away soon.

Road Trip Part 2

2006-01-18T17:27:00.000-08:00

Read part one here: http://rweber.blogspot.com/2006/01/megan-and-reids-road-trip.html

Pictures from our trip are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/55067109@N00/sets/72057594051745926/

1/11/06

After lounging around all morning at Graham’s house, we headed to Santa Monica for lunch. We found this cool place called Real Food Daily (RFD for short, www.realfood.com). They don’t use any animal products in any of their dishes or drinks. They also use only organic ingredients. It’s really cool to go into a restaurant and be able to order anything on the menu without having to worry about whether or not the have cheese or milk or other weird ingredients I don’t want. I had the special, which was pesto pasta, salad and a tofu fritter. The tofu fritter was awesome. It tastes kinda like fried cream cheese. Megan a Portobello mushroom sandwich, the Ciao Bella, even though she meant to order the Club sandwich. She had decided on the Club but when the waiter came she was so enamored with him that she accidentally ordered the wrong sandwich. Or maybe it had something to do with all the interesting people we saw in the restaurant. Like the girl that took her shoes off and tied them to her backpack after she left or the lady with the dust mask that pulled up on her bike, tossed it against someone’s car and came running in to order. Anyway, Megan didn’t care much for her sandwich but was excited at the idea of this kind of restaurant. It was pretty pricy, so instead of coming back we just bought the cookbook.

We still had a few hours to kill before meeting Kelly after her dentist appt. so we parked at her apartment and walked down to the beach. It was a little chilly and not nearly as pretty as some of the other beaches we’ve been to on the trip, but it was still nice to relax. I think I’d be at the beach a lot if I lived down here, at least to relieve all the stress from sitting in traffic.

Once Kelly got back we headed up to her apartment where we did some more sitting around and then decided to make a recipe from the RFD cookbook. We made Supreme burritos. They were awesome. The cooking was a lot of fun, too. Kelly has all sorts of cool cooking utensils. I think the fake cheddar cheese that we made scared Kelly a little bit but it ended up tasting really good. Sabrina and Molly also joined us for dinner before we watched Lost.

1/12/06

After another lazy morning Kelly took us to Hollywood where we got to see the Hollywood sign, Guiness book of records museum and the wax museum. We also walked over to the Chinese theatre where we saw footprints and handprints of the stars.
We also got suckered into a tour of the lobby of the theatre for $2 each. I guess that is what we get for thinking that we might be seeing something exclusive in Hollywood.

We met Graham and a few of his other friends, Mike and Alexa at Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). They had an exhibit of comics from the 60s - 80s and the some other comic art. One cool exhibit was 6 white spheres hanging or sitting on the ground with video of an eye blinking or looking around projected on each one.
We went to Barcelona in old town Pasadena for dinner. We had tapas and sangria. After hanging out at a bar behind Barcelona we went to a coffee shop for dessert and then headed back to Kelly’s for the night after they kicked us out when they were closing.

1/13/06

Friday the 13th.

Yes. Another lazy day. We went to a restaurant like IHOP or Denny’s except they had a good selection of Vegetarian and Vegan food. Megan spotted a star sitting in the booth right next to us. It was Kyle from Real World Chicago. We also went to the famous ZJ’s board shop in Santa Monica. Megan tried on every snowboard boot in her size while Kelly found some gloves and a helmet.

Later we met Graham at the Getty Museum. We were only there for an hour but we got to see some really cool stuff. There was a news photography exhibit that had some amazing photographs from wars and other times of crisis.

We meant to go to Burbank for dinner but Graham missed the exit so we ended up going to his favorite Thai restaurant in Pasadena. Megan and Graham were really disappointed when they were out of mangoes, forcing us to go to Cheesecake factory for cheesecake. To finish off the night, we went to a place with the best Mojitos. They even have a machine that juices the sugar cane.

1/14/06

Graham and I had planned a mountain bike ride but it was raining when we got up so he and I went to the Rose Bowl aquatic center to swim. I wish we had a pool like that in Reno. There were actually 2 50M pools that were each 25M wide. I really enjoyed swimming outside in a pool so long. It is nice not having to turn around every 45 or 50 seconds.

For lunch we went to Akbar, Graham’s favorite Indian restaurant. We didn’t think this place was nearly as good as the first Indian place we went to. We started watching the Broncos vs. Patriots game at Graham’s before we left for the House of Blues, Sunset Strip to see Slightly Stoopid. The opening band was from Long Beach, CA and sounded quite a bit like Sublime. They were really good. It was really hard to hear the lyrics when Slightly Stoopid came on but they were still pretty good. Graham got bored so we ended up leaving early and going to a little pizza joint before heading back to Graham’s.

1/15/06

Megan has had enough of L.A. so we decided to leave for Mammoth today. We almost reserved an unheated tent in Yosemite, thinking that we would go to Yosemite on our way to Mammoth. Luckily we did a little more research and found out that the road between Yosemite and Mammoth is closed in the winter. So we just headed up toward Mammoth and finally decided to go all the way to the village at Mammoth. We found a room at the Sierra Lodge and found the local Thai restaurant for dinner. They didn’t serve alcohol but were totally fine with you going next door to the liquor store and bringing drinks over, which is what everybody was doing.

Our lodge had a spa outside so we checked that out but we didn’t stay too long because it wasn’t very hot. Megan was really excited when we got back to our room and found out that we could watch Grey’s Anatomy.

1/16/06

Today was a shopping day. We wanted to go snowboarding since we were already up here but not enough to pay $73 each for tickets. So we went shopping. Megan finally found boots that fit her and I found a helmet with speakers in the ear. And the best part was that it was all on sale. We ate at the Base Camp Café and then wandered around some more until we could check into our cabin at the tamarack lodge. Now we are sitting here in the Tamarack lodge in front of the fire. Megan is trying to get warm and I’m sick of typing now.

1/17/06

Went snowboarding. Mammoth is awesome. It was sunny and windy all day but the snow was surprisingly good. Megan did more runs than she ever has in one day and I got to the top of the mountain twice. The gondola is pretty scary in calm conditions because it is so high off the ground in some spots, but I almost peed my pants when I was on it in high winds. Not long after that they closed it because of the wind.

Megan met a lot of cool people sitting by the fireplace warming up. She also managed to lose her cell phone (again. The first time she left it in her sleeping bag) on the mountain. After she searched around the lodge and I retraced all our tracks on the mountain we finally found it at the lost and found at the main lodge. Thankfully someone had found it and turned it in. Megan has vowed to write down all her contacts so if she really does lose it, she'll still have everyone's numbers.

For dinner we went to Side Door, at wine bar we found last night that makes great crepes. Megan wanted to come back for the cheese. I don't think she ever had really good cheese before giving it up when she went vegan. Now that she has had a taste of good cheese, she's rethinking the giving up cheese part. She has been really good about not drinking soda or eating chocolate, two of her new year's resolutions.
Anyway, when we got to Side Door, the place was empty but started to fill up quick. We met a mixture of locals and visitors. The owner was there hanging out. The CEO of Mammoth even showed up. We got to try a whole bunch of good wines and champagne thanks to Tony, a generous local.

1/18/06

We woke up this morning to a foot of snow at our door. Unfortunately it was so windy that only a few lifts were open at mammoth. So we got vouchers for our tickets and headed home a little early. It was nice to get back in the daytime to unpack and go pick up Baby. We both missed her a lot. I'm really glad we put this trip together and did it. It was exciting to plan something together but not plan too much so that we were stressed out. We had lots of time to relax and enjoy the company of each other and our friends. Thanks, Megan. I love you!

Megan and Reid's road trip

2006-01-11T09:36:00.000-08:00

Pictures here

1/6/06

We got off to a late start but finally left town around noon. After a quick stop at Ikeda's for a tofu burger and some apple gummy candies we made it the rest of the way to Santa Cruz. We pulled into the New Brighton Beach after dark and put up our tent. It was weird to camp at a campground so close to the beach that you could hear the waves crash from our campsite yet only a few minutes from town. We went to dinner at a random Thai restaraunt that we found with help from the nav system.

1/7/06

After a long night of heavy rain, we headed down to the beach and rode our bikes from the Natural Bridges State Park down to the Boardwalk and back. The weather was great. It is such a shock for us to be comfortable in a t-shirt outside in January. After our ride we headed down the coast to Monterey. We first headed north, though to visit the Bonny Doone tasting room. It was the first time we had been to a tasting room. We liked a few of the wines and hated a few also. My favorite was the raspberry dessert wine served in an eadible dark chocolate cup. Megan didn't get to fully enjoy this since she promised herself that she wasn't eating chocolate on this trip. So I was forced to eat her cup as well :) Once we got to Monterey, we found a Comfort Inn to stay at since there were no campgrounds nearby. After microwave Thai food we went downtown to check out the nightlife.

1/8/06

My phone decided to not charge or turn on so it's out of commission for the rest of the trip. I guess that's not such a bad thing, though. After messing with that all morning we drove down to Cannery Row and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Megan's favorite things at the aquarium were the jelly fish and the sea turtle and the penguins. I liked the starfish.

After a lunch of fruit and peanut butter and honey sandwiches, we embarked on the 17 mile drive. There were some really pretty lookouts that I can't begin to describe. The houses along the drive were equally amazing. I really like the Monterey Cyprus trees. The are really cool looking with their crazy jagged branches. We saw the lone cyprus. The sun was starting to go down so we left Monterey and Carmel by the sea and headed down to Big Sur. We stopped past the second bridge to watch the sunset. Very romantic. We finally ended up at the Big Sur Campground where we had a gourmet dinner of cups of soup and crackers.

1/9/06

I wanted to get up early to run because I want to continue traing for the Wildflower triathlon while on vacation. I ended up gettin up around 8 and running down highway 1 towards Pfieffer State Park. I think that stretch of road is part of the Big Sur Marathon, which was pretty cool. After I got back, Megan and I headed down the road to the 2 Pfieffer State parks to see the waterfalls. On the drive down to Pismo Beach we stopped to see the Elephant Seals where a few had been born that day. I thought it was pretty strange that they only recently started going to that point to shed their skin and have their babies. The sign said they were first spotted in 1990 and the numbers continue to increase. Now you can see them year round there.
We drove through San Luis Obispo and ended up at Pismo Beach. We thought about beach camping but ended up at the campground about a block from the beach. Today was the first day that we got to the campground in time to set up the tent in daylight. We walked down through the dunes to the beach and tried to get lost on our way down to watch the sunset. It was the first time I saw a real pig on the beach.

1/10/06

After running on the beach in the morning we headed over to the dunes where we rented ATVs for 2 hours. We rented Honda 250EXs which had quite a bit of power. It was a blast. Megan surprised me with how daring she got. She even jumped it a few times. From there we headed down to LA. We got to Pasadena just before 6PM. After getting settled in Graham's apartment we went down to Old Pasadena where we ate at an Indian restaraunt. I think it was the first time either of us ate an an Indian restaraunt. The food was awesome. Megan even saved some of her curry for breakfast. The highlight for her night was her piece of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.

1/11/06

Graham and I got up early and went to the Rose Bowl and ran. They have an awesome aquatic facility. Now Megan and I are lying around, trying to get motivated to head down to Santa Monica where we'll meet up with Kelly.

Pictures on Flickr

2005-11-28T22:31:00.000-08:00

Hello isn't the most user friendly program to share photos on. I'm going to try using Flickr and see if that is any better.

www.flickr.com

More of reidweber's photos

baby helping megan with her school project

2005-11-15T02:20:00.000-08:00

the gym

2005-10-18T23:08:00.000-07:00

Our gym (Gold's Gym) finally opened last Friday. It has been pretty cool so far. I've been to a few spinning classes so far and I'm anxious to go to some of the other classes they offer like Yoga and Pilates. Megan and I were going to go to the spinning class tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM but it doesn't look like that is going to happen since it is already after 11 PM. Hopefully the pool will open sometime this week.

Ty and I went and ran the White's creek/Galena loop on Sunday. It was about 10.5 miles round trip. Baby and Missy came also. Troy went with us, too, but we only saw him for the first mile or so and then he took off while Ty and I struggled to get up the steep hill. Both of us had to walk a good portion of the first 3 miles, which were nearly all uphill. It probably didn't help that I haven't run in about a month and Ty hasn't been running lately since he decided not to go to Hawaii this December.

We are still looking for one more roommate. Rent is $400/month plus share of utilites.

check out my other blog about my diet.
http://plantbased.blogspot.com/

Busy

2005-09-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy at work which is why I haven't updated anything here in a while. Lots of exciting stuff has happened, though. Megan, my parents and I went to Black Hills, SD for my dad's family reunion. My parents rode on the Gold Wing to Rock Springs, WY where they met up with my dad's brothers.
In August, we went on a houseboat trip to Shasta for a week. We had 18 people on our houseboat. The weather was awesome and we got in some good wakeboarding time.
Kurt, Ty and I went up to Spooner lake and rode the Flume trail a few weeks ago. That was a really fun and challenging ride.
Tonight is Megan's Birthday dinner at Micasa Too. Next week I go to Vegas on Wednesday and Thursday to work at the show. I'm so glad that that will be over with. Hopefully I'll have time for a more comprehensive update soon.

Donner Lake Triathlon

2005-07-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

Megan and I did our first triathlon together this weekend. We did the Donner Lake Sprint Triathlon. It was a quarter mile swim, 6 mile bike, and a 2 mile run. The results should be posted here soon. It was Erin Larsen's first one as well. She used it as a warmup for the Pyramid Triathlon, which is in a few weeks. Thanks to Kurt, Ty, Dee, Bethany, Schmetty and Meng Pei for making the commute to support us. It was cool to have people shouting our names at the transitions.

Reno Tahoe Odyssey Pictures

2005-07-15T08:20:00.001-07:00

Pictures from Van 2 of the Angel Kiss foundation team in the Reno Tahoe
Odyssey.

Busy 4th of July weekend

2005-07-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

Megan and I stayed busy all weekend and were pretty beat by Monday evening. It started Saturday morning with a glider ride from Soar Minden. We took the Emerald Bay flight which took us across the lake to Emerald bay and Desolation Wilderness. It lasted about an hour. The view was awesome and I had a lot of fun, but Megan got a little sick. Luckily she waited until we were back on the ground to vomit. The coolest part for me was when we dropped down quickly and flew just above the tree tops at Genoa peak.

After the flight we headed back to Reno and then out to my parents' house for a BBQ for my grandma's and my birthday. We played Bocci ball and relaxed for most of the afternoon and into the evening. My parents kept the party going for over 12 hours to 1 AM.

Baby and I went running on Sunday morning from Virginia Lake out 4.5 miles and back. By the time we got back, it was starting to get really hot and Baby was pooped. Megan was at home enjoying one of her rare opportunities to sleep in. Around 1 PM, we headed up to Stampede with Ty, Soupha and my dad. Ty, Megan, my dad and I wakeboarded in a little cove where the water was pretty decent compared to the rest of the lake, which was really choppy. After we wore ourselves out there, we pulled the boat out and drove to Tahoe where we met Rachel and her friend, Jenny. We all went out on the boat and headed towards King's Beach from Lake Forest. King's beach had an awesome fireworks show. We took some pictures but I don't know how they turned out yet. On the drive back to Lake Forest I managed to soak Ty and Soupha and their sleeping bag when waves coming from all directions rocked the boat and filled the bow with water. After about 15 minutes, I got smart and filled the ballast tanks (located in the rear of the boat), which kept the bow out of the water. Somehow I also managed to ding up the prop on the way back into the launch.

We were all pretty tired by the time we arrived at Judy's cabin just outside of Tahoe City so we just crashed although there was talk of watching a few episodes of 24, Ty, Soupha, Megan and I's latest addiction. Monday morning we got up early and headed to Fanny Bridge in Tahoe city where Jenny and Rachel left us and Dan Johnson, Dan Redman and his girlfriend Becky met us to float down the river. Megan and Soupha were really excited that their new floating coolers from Costco worked so well. It was a relaxing float down the river with no dry spots forcing us to get out and drag our rafts like last year.

Anyway, I'm tired again just thinking about all the stuff we got to do this weekend. And this next weekend should be just as busy with the run on Friday and Saturday and our BBQ in our newly landscaped yard on Sunday.
Reid

Reno Tahoe Odyssey

2005-07-07T22:45:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey, which Megan and I are running. We are on a team of 12 that runs a total of 177 miles. Each person runs 3 of the 36 legs. I'm really excited about it. You can check it out here: http://renotahoeodyssey.com/

Fruita, CO

2005-05-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

Megan and I are in Fruita, CO right now. We have been here since Saturday. We'll be here until Friday. Janell's wedding is on Thursday. We've had fun sight seeing, meeting relatives and hanging out. We had the Bachelor/Bachelorette party on Friday night. It was a joint function where everybody came over to Janell's parent's house where we drank and hung out by the campfire. Megan and I visited the Monument today (see pictures). All 4 of us (Micheal, Janell, Megan and I) went to dinner at a nice Italian (pronounced "eye talian") restaraunt. Then we went to Banana's where the girls beat the guys by one stroke at miniature golf. Now we are back at Janell and Michael's house where we are dancing and enjoying a few libations.

Wakeboarding at Lahoton

2005-05-24T00:15:00.000-07:00

We went wakeboarding for the first time of the season at Lahoton on Sunday. The water was surprisingly warm. Megan, Kurt, Erin and I met Kurt's neighbor, Craig, up there on Sunday morning. Craig has a beautiful new Sanger V215. It holds a lot of people, has an awesome stereo and throws up a nice wake. I felt pretty good wakeboarding. I landed all of my tricks at least once. But I sure am sore today. And I need to remember to wear sunscreen on the tops of my feet. Ouch! I'm much better off than Kurt or Craig. Kurt sprained his ankle and Craig first cut his wrist on the board when he fell. Then he scraped up his leg while falling of the swim platform on the back of the boat. I didn't bring my camera but I'll either get pictures from Erin or take some the next time we go out. Probably won't be for a few weeks, though, since we'll be in Colorado next week.

Reid

Bay to Breakers pictures

2005-05-23T23:55:00.000-07:00

I finally got more pictures off the camera. Click read more to see pics from the corporate challenge and from Bay to Breakers race in SF

Bay to Breakers

2005-05-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

We're heading down to San Francisco this weekend for the Bay to Breakers race. Ty, my mom and I are going to run. It is about 7.5 miles. We're not looking for any record times, though. It should be a good time. We're going to meet up with Graham and some of his friends on Saturday. I'll try to take lots of pictures.

Reid

Summer houseboat trip

2005-04-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

We just reserved a houseboat (http://www.houseboats.com/shasta/boats_group3.htm#odyssey) for the week of Aug 6 - Aug 13 at Shasta Lake. We have 15 committed to going so that leaves 3 spots left. If you are interested in going please email me. It should be a ton of fun. Someone with a jetski would be more than welcome.

Mt. Hood Trip

2005-04-04T00:46:00.000-07:00

Ty, Soupha, Pamela, Rob, Reid, and Megan in Mt. Hood, Oregon.
We rented a minivan and drove up to Mt. Hood on Sat. March 26 and came back on Tuesday March 29, 2005. Our trip activities included

Enjoyed the rain
Listening to Ender's Game and Odd Thomas in the car.
Playing Othello, Pictionary and cards (31 and Rummy)
Swimming in the pool and lounging in the hot tub and sauna.
Sleeping in.
Visiting Motnoma (sp?) Falls and Pamela's friends in Portland.
Snowboarding at Mt. Hood Meadows (Ty, Rob, Pamela and Reid) in two feet of fresh powder.
Studying (Megan)
Eating lots of junk food.
Watching it rain...a lot!
Driving 45 minutes to a grocery story because the one within walking distance from the time share looked "like a thrift store". For the girls' sake, we won't mention names.
Driving on the sidewalk at 75 MPH but getting pulled over for speeding in a "Safety Corridor".
Did I mention it rained?

St. Patrick's Day half marathon

2005-04-03T23:57:00.000-07:00

Ty Jones, Dan Johnson and I went down to Sacremento to run the St. Patrick's Day half marathon (13.1 miles). We stayed with Graham in Folsom who also ran the half marathon. Dan did awesome considering that the farthest he had ever run before this was 5 miles. All our times are posted on the race website. http://www.ffsac.com/stpatricks/
click here for my picture from the race.
I started the run way too fast and paid for it not only toward the end of the race but for the next week when my legs and back were really sore.

New House

2005-02-25T09:48:00.000-08:00

I have been busy getting settled in the new house lately. We are finally getting everything in place. I'll try to post some pictures of the house up soon. While moving, I've come across a few things that I'm going to get rid of. I'm selling my motorcycle. You can check it out herehttp://www.cycletrader.com/addetail.html?78275880.
I also have a few 17" computer monitors that I'm giving away.

Night Boarding at Boreal

2005-01-17T14:36:00.000-08:00

I went boarding at Boreal on Friday night. It was $10 with a student ID ($22 w/o). The snow was pretty icy and it was warm enough to not need a face mask. There was no wind. It was like a big party. There was a competition that was going on when I got there. I was too late to enter but I don't think I would have done that well anyway. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful weekend. We went fridge shopping and made some really good raw sushi.

2005-01-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

Our snowman. He was stabbed in the chest by his own nose and slowly started to lean until he was resting on his celery arm. He's gone now but I'm sure there will be enough snow to build another one this weekend!

Snow, snow, snow

2005-01-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

Over the past week, we've had more snow in the valley than I've ever seen. And I've lived in Reno all my life. It has made for some epic snowboarding at Mt. Rose and the Chutes. We've also had quite a bit of fun playing in it around the house. Baby loves to play in it. I know these posts can get pretty boring without pictures so I'll try to get more up soon. I lost my camera for about a week but it finally turned up the other day so I should be back in business.

By the way, if you haven't checked out my newest blog, plantbased.blogspot.com, check it out and feel free to add your comments. If you want to be a member so you can post recipes, just email me

Last week of '04 update

2004-12-29T01:06:00.000-08:00

No snowboarding this week. Normally, I'm up snowboarding on my lunch break at least two or three times a week. But not this week.

Our passes to Mt. Rose aren't valid this week. Maybe I'll go up this weekend. I think I've been about 11 times so far this year. Hopefully we'll get a lot of snow soon. Also on the list of possible activities this weekend is mountain biking in Hidden Valley. Soupha will get to try out her new bike that she got for Christmas. Ty, Kira, Jay, Kurt and I went on a ride about a week ago in Pine Nuts, which is just outside of Garderville. It was a nice ride and a nice area but quite a long drive. I guess I should probably work on taking more pictures since these posts are probably pretty boring without them.

More pics of Baby

2004-12-24T13:39:00.000-08:00

Baby is doing well adapting to her new home. She spent Christmas with us at
my parents' house. Yes, my dad even let her in the house.

She really likes to
hang out with Megan and I. She gets along with Missy, Ty and Soupha's dog pretty
well as long as Missy doesn't feel threatened that Baby will take her food or
toys. I think Baby could care less about any toy we give her but I guess Missy
doesn't quite get this.

2004-12-24T13:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some sunset pics Megan took from our house. If you want to see how she is doing with her marathon training, check out her site Megan's Marathon Memories.

Pictures of our new dog, Baby

2004-12-14T14:11:00.000-08:00

She's about 1 1/2 years old. We got her from the Humane Society on December 7, 2004.

Megan got a dog last week. I picked her up on Tuesday, December 7 from the humane society. She is a retriever mix, all black with a little white spot on her upper chest and huge paws. She was very mellow when we met her at the humane society. She stood in the meeting room, her legs trembling and her tail between her legs. Baby continued to be very timid when I picked her up on Tuesday after getting spayed until Thursday. She keeps getting more friendly and excited to see us. Now she seems very adapted to us and her new home. She's still not so comfortable with the Costco dog bed, though. If I pick her up (she's 66 lbs) and set her on it, she'll lie there but she won't put herself on it yet. We take her to the vet for her initial checkup tomorrow.

Stan's Bachelor Party

2004-12-14T09:28:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from Stan's bachelor party. We started out at the Blind Onion and Loose Moose. After eating, drinking and a few games of pool and ping pong, we headed to Tony's house. Once there, we drank more and played poker.

Pictures from Stan's Bachelor Party	Stan and the Eric(k)s
Tony	what are you looking at
Ty at Loose Moose	Ty demonstrating to Stan how to shotgun a beer
Use the Subaru keys. They work the best	Punch the beer hole
Here I go	Going...going...going...going...still going. Evacuation com...Evacuation c...evacuation...complete

Christmas wish list

2004-12-13T12:04:00.000-08:00

spice rack to hang on wall

pocket tunes deluxe (http://www.pocket-tunes.com/)

scale (for people)

jeans (31WX30L)

belt (black) or wallet at http://www.thevegetariansite.com (regular, not dress) (31 in waist)

synthetic long underwear for snowboarding (not cotton)

synthetic socks (not cotton)

synthetic underwear (not cotton)

The Chutes

2004-12-13T11:21:00.000-08:00

I went up to Mt. Rose yesterday and took my first runs on "The Chutes". Even though I've looked at this terrain for 15 years while skiing and snowboarding at Mt. Rose, it felt like a completely new resort. Only about half of the runs were open, which was enough to make my legs burn. The runs were long and steep. The snow was really good since that side of the mountain never gets sun and the coverage wasn't that bad. It was amazing to ride down Cutthroat, the run from the Rose side that begins right under the lift. This is the run everyone looks at while they are on the lift saying, "Did you hear they're going to open up the chutes next year?" Or at least that's what they would always say for at least the last 10 years, if not since the resort first opened. I used to imagine that if I got stuck on the lift over that part of the chutes if it would be possible to jump off right there and start riding down the hill.

They also have some nice jumps set up in the Badlands Terrain Park on the Slide side. There are two tabletops like the ones in the Double Down Terrain Park last year where there is a small tabletop on the left side and a big step-down on the right side. Hopefully I'll get some pictures up here soon.

Reid

Marathon

2004-12-10T11:37:00.000-08:00

I ran a marathon last weekend. It was my first one. I finished in 3 hours and 39 minutes. I did the CIM in Sacramento (http://www.runcim.org/).

You can see me running the marathon here

Megan, Ty, Soupha, and my parents came down with me to support me. Graham also offered support in the way of letting us stay at his house in Folsom, which allowed me to sleep in an extra hour.

Ty is running his first marathon this weekend in Honolulu, HI. You can monitor how he does on Sunday here: http://www.honolulumarathon.org/results.html I think it starts at 7AM PST and they have checkpoints along the way so you can see his times while he is still running. I'll post a few graphs and pictures from my marathon when I get a chance.

Megan and Dan want to run a marathon before the summer. Let us know if you are interested in running with us. The few we have in mind so far are:
Fort Collins Old Town Marathon in Colorado
http://ftcollinsmarathon.com/training.html
Big Sur Marathon in California
http://bsim.org/frame.html

Feel free to add comments

Reid's Random Rambling

And the #G2E party is over.

Have I mentioned #IGT is hiring? Send me your resume. #hangoverslots

Where did all my stars go? Does @Starbucks use @amazon EC2?

XTERRA Real 2011 Race Report

What is Trainer Road?

How a running watch can make you a faster CrossFitter.

CrossFit Games: Which region is the most competitive?

CrossFit Games: Which region is the most competitive?

Tempo run explained

Took the cable car this morning

Nutrition and training tips for my Triathlon class

The Apple iPad event was next door to #gdc2011

Yerba Buena Gardens

Delayed until 5:15. The suspense is killing me. What's the free gift, @google? #gdc2011

More sweet clouds!

Sweet clouds.

My 200yd TT with the Finis Swimsense

Race Report: 2011 3M Austin Half Marathon

Creating a video podcast for free

Shooting and publishing videos from your iPhone 4

The quick and dirty method

How to make your movie a little prettier

Create your project in iMovie

Creating a title screen from an image

Adding your movie(s)

Publish

Increasing likes for free on a CrossFit site

Stupid human tricks

Leila's new trick

Lightning

Alexander Fire

2009 Christmas Letter

Pyramid Lake Triathlon 2009 race report

Ironman Coeur d'Alene 2009 race report

Six things you might not know about me

Moab

Mt Tallac

XTERRA USA Championships - Incline Village, NV

Virtual Mile

virtual mile

Paragliding off of Duck Hill

XTERRA Ogden

It was Fun. It was Real. It was really fun.

Live from Rothbury 2008

Race Results

XTERRA Tahoe City Race Report

Boca Race

Xterra Tahoe City Pre-ride

Wildflower Triathlon

MotionBased Activity from statute guest: 2007 Bizz Johnson Marathon

Countdown to the Bizz

new PR

Prosper loan

Prosper

Pyramid Triathlon

Family Reunion

Mom's Travel Agency

Dr. Mercola

YouTube video

Mammoth

Vacation in Austin, TX

Austin marathon 2007

Day 12 Master Cleanse

Day 11 Master Cleanse

Day 10 Master Cleanse

Day 9 Master Cleanse

Day 8 Master Cleanse

Day 4-7 Master Cleanse

Day 0 - 3 The Master Cleanse

Road Trip Part 2

1/11/06

1/12/06

1/13/06Friday the 13th.

1/14/06

1/15/06

1/16/06

1/17/06

1/18/06

Megan and Reid's road trip

1/13/06

Friday the 13th.