Things that are totally awesome.

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I think everyone has things that they do when they go off to college or move away from home for any reason at all.

  • Walk around with no pants
  • Eat a tube of cookie dough
  • Stay in bed all day for no reason
  • Stay up all night for no reason

Today I shall add my list:

  • Pop an entire roll of bubble wrapImage

    AWWWWWWWWW YEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Oatmeal and rain

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There is nothing that trumps the feelings of significance and adventure when rolling  out of the house when the weather is lovely, content and excited to spend the next four hours roaming the surrounding area by bicycle. There are, however, lots of things that compare to doing it when it rains POURS the entire time. Seriously, except for the first 2 and last 4 miles. I rode the entire 70 in an utter downpour. Not like “oh man, I need an umbrella” downpour, like a gather two of every animal and proceed to the nearest ark, sort of downpour.

Obviously a ride like that deserves a good meal afterwards, and on hand, I had oatmeal. After a little experimenting I believe I have come up with one of the best, cheapest, pretty decently healthiest meals I’ve ever had.

And it goes like this:

Oats. I like the ‘old fashioned’ variety. (note the only difference between quick oats and old fashioned oats is the size of an individual oat. Old fashioned are larger, and in my opinion tastier, but other than cook time they are nutritionally identical). I made ¾ of a cup of dry oats, for about 250 calories worth, which is a nice, healthy snack, and a good quick recovery meal.

But it gets oh so much better.

To the oatmeal we add:

Sweets!

A tbsp or so of brown sugar per half cup of oats. I have not just one sweet tooth, but a mouth full of sweet teeth, and so I like it sweet. I just happened to have brown sugar. Honey, syrup, normal cane sugar will all work equally well

Spices!

These aren’t measured, and are purely to taste. I like a decent amount of cinnamon, some nutmeg, and the oddball, some cumin. The cumin gives it a nice balance of sweet and savory, and is the one thing that really makes this in my opinion.

Others!

Blueberries are wonderful. Throw a small handful of frozen ones in when the oatmeal is done cooking and stir them in. By the time you eat they are cool but not iced. A little flavor bubble in the otherwise warm oatmeal.

 Butter. This is a personal preference, but it adds a nice bit of fat to the meal, and it takes only a small pad of it to make the whole bowl taste deliciously more complex.

And that friends, is some baller oatmeal

 

2013-07-15 17.19.44

Recipe recap:
Old-fashoned Oats

Brown Sugar

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

Cumin

Blueberries
Butter

BR
All of the ingredients are optional (except the oats I guess, unless you like sweet fruit butter mash)

James Island Sprint Recap or: The story of how I learned to stop worrying and cut the course

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Things are different down here in South Carolina. The barbeque is better, the confederate flags are larger, and the grits are grits-ier. The people are friendly, cars let you merge whenever you please, and everyone just meanders down the sidewalk. This is wonderful until you have to pee and are trying to walk down said sidewalk, in which case it’s a reason for justifiable homicide. In general life moves at a slower pace for everyone down here.

So after living the low-country life for a couple months I figured it time to go test the proverbial triathlon waters, wondering if the day-to-day ease of living would carry over to a crop of speedsters at the sport of kings (fyi, triathlon is now called the sport of kings. Says me. Effective now). So with that, I ponied up some serious cash ($50, actually rather reasonable) and signed up for the hometown sprint.

Being the weekend after the fourth, and having a few days off, I went out to check out the race site and course on the day before to see what struggles lay ahead. The swim, run, and start of the bike all took place within a county park that is only a stones throw from my house, so the plan as it were, was to head out to the park, drive at least the bike portion, and hopefully take a look at the swim venue. Of course, things are different in South Carolina… The park has an admission fee, $1 per car to get in, and try as I might to pay with my $.75 in car seat change, they just wouldn’t let me in. Of course this is no problem and I just went out and drove the remaining 10 miles of the bike course that weren’t in the park.

Course Prep

I am becoming a pro at taking pictures out the window while driving.

From this I gathered a good idea of terrain, road condition, sharp turns, sandy corners, possible wind directions etc.

So the rest of the day was Walmart for olive oil and parmesan, bake a pizza, pack up, and early to bed Saturday night for an early start on Sunday. Now with a 7:15 race start, I’d usually like to be parked and unloading by about 5-5:15. That’s plenty of time to set up transition areas, and pick up packets while still having an hour or so to warm up, stretch, hydrate, and worry. This is just my standard pre-race ritual, and in most cases, I’m not alone. The race is up and moving by the time I’m there. Lights on, music playing, freds applying their helmet badges and pumping up the 808’s on their comfort road bike. But of course, things are different in South Carolina. This was what greeted me as I entered the park, sight unseen.

Pre Race

“That one little speck of light was the cigarette of a homeless guy who hangs out at the park because he thinks he’s a goose”

Yup. I was the first person there. Not the first competitor, the first person. Except for the park ranger who opened the gate in front of me, there was nobody! No officials, no volunteers, no event staff, nobody! So after some frantic checking to make sure I had the date, time, and location correct (thankfully I did), I put the seats down in the back of my car, set my watch for 5:45, and took a snooze. Finally, I awoke to the sound of other cars being unloaded, and people filtering in. So packet pickup it was. Nope. Morning-of packet pickup doesn’t start open until 45 minutes before race start. Yup, that makes sense. Either way, it gets picked up and all my other pre-race festivities are undertaken, and it’s off to the start line.

Swim goes well, calm waters, but I came out of the water second and exited T1 in first (quick helmet skillz ftw). So off to the bike course, the latter 80% of which I’ve already seen. Of course, I still have to navigate the foreign 20%. So off I go, rounding the few turns as the volunteers and lead-car are still getting in place. Now you drive in, bike on, and run on this same first part of the course, so there are signs everywhere. Most are pretty straightforward “Run left”, “Bike Right”, but one rather ambiguous one says “Triathlon right ->”.  Of course, this is the part of the course I didn’t look at the day before. At this point I’m going 26mph, and out of breath from swimming, and seeing that the volunteer standing there isn’t trying to change my course, I assume the “Triathlon Right” sign to mean parking for cars or volunteers or something like that. Obviously if it was supposed to be for bikes, it would say “Bikes right” right? Sure whatever, the rest of the bike leg goes smoothly, and at the turnaround, I do a quick estimation that I’m up by about 2:30 on 2nd. Awesome! So it’s on to the run, feeling good and with a clear lead. The run starts and as you come around the first turn, you are right where the ambiguous sign is located. Now as I’m running, I see people making a right. Exactly where I didn’t…. Damn.

“Well at least finish up Ben, maybe you’re wrong as to where you went straight” I say to myself. So I finished, solid lead of 3+ minutes, good run split, feeling good throughout.

And the race director comes up to me, and the look on his face said it all. I was totally supposed to turn there. And I didn’t. So my bike split was .75 miles shorter than it had to be… so welcome to DQvile. Population: Me.

cbrown

And with that the day was done. The crappy thing about stuff like this is that there is no recourse. You can’t appeal, you can’t protest, there is absolutely no place to put blame other than my own aloofness. So like a Metalhead at an folk concert, I was pretty rocking bummed out.

Oh well I guess. Cool consolation was being called an “Elite.” I don’t know why, but that’s always fun! Also doing some quick math, I shorted the course by .75 of a mile, which at the speed I was going (24 mph average), would have taken just under 2 minutes. Still putting me in 1st. Hollow victories, but still nice. Of course, things change when you are actually right in front of someone versus being virtually right in front. There’s a lot of motivation that comes just from having someone in sight, so nothing is for sure, but on paper, still a good day.

Elite Sign

“Triathlon Panache”

-BR

Patriot’s Tri Race Recap

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And so the season begins. Triathlons normally being a sport that starts in April-May and ends in September-October doesn’t have much overlap with the school year, but that just means it’s a short season, which only means that every race counts so much more. Patriot’s Sprint, a Virginia Triathlon Series race was the first on the agenda for the NC State team, as selected earlier in the year. It would make for a good weekend trip and a good first race for the new members of the team. From what the internet said, every team in the conference was working hard toward this collegiate season and its got the foundations of being the most competitive and biggest turnout to date.

That being said, the cards were on the table and the heavy-hitters going into the race were known long before. As a team, we are sort of fighting for second place in the conference. The Naval Academy always has an extremely solid team all around and is on the whole a lot better then the rest of the competition. So collectively the mentality was to try to put points in on the other contenders that would be there: VT and Liberty. Each team has their own fast guys, and I made an effort to know who they were.

Getting into the water to start the swim, there was quite a bit of commotion. Every guy under 30 started together, and so there was some serious elbowing going on to get toward the front. I saw most of Navy’s team all gathered together, and stood second row right behind them to try to get out to a strong start. The horn came with a less then adequate countdown as made evident by the collective “oh $hit” from everyone in the water. But it got started, and it went pretty straightforward. From what I could see I was keeping up at about 7-9th for most of it, and was with 2 or 3 others pretty much the whole time. The finish was a very simple run up a ramp onto shore, and it was a quick indicator of a good swim when coming out of the water I saw 2 guys up in front of me who I knew were solid contenders for the win. T1, quick and efficient as per-usual, and left the transition area feeling pretty good.

The bike began, and after about a mile, there was a long straightaway, and it was clear that there were quite a few guys feeling strong-legged. There were at least a dozen bikes all spaced out 3 bike lengths apart with a few passes happening, but not many as the legal-drafting train was under full steam, cruising at 27 mph through the Virginia countryside. By the turn around (out and back course) it was down to about 5 all within sight, I jockeying between 4th and 5th for most of the time. The bike felt good the whole time, and oddly familiar which I attributed to the flat, beach-like nature of the course. The only hiccup was the very end. The last half mile of the bike was on what amounted to a hidden cart path. Lets just say if it was your driveway, you would never ever get pizza on time. It was tucked off in the woods and there were no volunteers, but luckily the guy in front of me made the turn, but otherwise I wouldn’t have seen it at all.

So the run began, and I left T2 in 5th place feeling strong off the bike and ready to go. The first mile was just shaking out the legs, and testing the waters to see how hard I felt like I could push. By the first mile marker, I had passed 2 people and was approaching the third. I was feeling solid running. Definitely the best I’ve felt in a long time. Quads were, as usual, tight and certainly feeling it after a decent bike effort, but I comfortably passed the third place runner and was in sight of second. Around this time, the road opened up and there was about a quarter mile straightaway that allowed me to get a rough estimate of the time I was looking to make up, and on the second place runner, it was on the order of 10 seconds and closing. On first place, it was closer to 45. Approaching #2, I started to feel my core tighten up just a little bit, but it soon went away and I continued to push until I had caught up with him. Old xc habits kicked in at this point, and the name of the game was to get as close behind him as I could and to be as quiet as I could. Both of these techniques mentally demolish the person in front, because they have no idea how you are running or how you seem to be holding up. This was right at the turn-around and I figured this was as good a time as any to try to push forward more. Right after the turn, I made a move to pass the 2nd place runner and began to push ahead. And this is where my story goes down hill…. It wasn’t but another 2 minutes later that I started to feel my abdomin tighten up again and it caused a serious lapse in focus. It’s really tough to try to run and solve problems at the same time, especially when those problems seriously effect ones ability to run. So in trying to sort myself back out, I was rejoined by the two Navy guys I had passed less then a mile before, and they really began to drive the pace. Running 3rd man in a line of 3 is perhaps the best place to be if you’re feeling good, but when struggling to hold on, it was nightmarish. With roughly a half mile to go, the two put on the serious gas and I was unfortunately unable to keep up. They moved out of sight and finished 2-3 in the collegiate race, I finishing 4th out of the college competitors, 5th overall. Lessons learned from this: First of all, I need to stretch more or at least figure out how to keep from tightening up in my abs while running. Obviously, this was a big limiting factor for the completion of the race. Second, it was nice to feel good running (and set a PR off the bike for a 5k in the process) but I think that by making my swim and bike better, I will be able to run more comfortably and also faster. This is of course, an ultimate goal of any athlete -to get better- but it was put forth by this race in particular.

All and all, great start to the season so far! It was great to see the competition and spend some time with some pretty cool people on our team! That aspect was what I thought the best part of the whole weekend was. Seeing people from my own team do well, and have a great time, and see people just plain old getting excited about the sport!