Athens Classic Marathon

I was asked to speak at a conference in Romania and found out that the Athens Classic Marathon was the Sunday following the conference. This follows the original route from the town of Marathon where the runner Phidippides in 490 B.C. ran to the city without stopping with the news of the Greek’s victory over the Persians. He burst into the assembly exclaiming “Rejoice: We have won” before collapsing and dying. This race would not end at the assembly but instead at the Panathenaikon Stadium which was built on the site of the original ancient stadium for the 1896 Olympics.  It was there that the Greek runner Spyros Louis repeated the run—without dying—in 2:58 giving rise to the modern marathon.

P90X – Week 8

Week 8 is a recovery week with the focus on stretching and Yoga. The timing is perfect—I’m running the Athens Classic Marathon on the last day of the week—so the more stretching the better! Having said that, it isn’t all easy. I found this quote on with regard to Yoga X: it is “is a 90 minute sonuvabitch that I hate. I have to be honest, I only do this video occasionally. I really hate it, not because it’s not ineffective, but because I’m inflexible and hate it.” So it is recovery but not easy…

Product Endorsement – K-Edge Chain Catcher

I was on a really hard group ride when I changed down too quickly and threw my chain all the way off the front chain ring. As I saw the group vanishing away from me at about 40 km/h I knew that was me for the night. Blast.  It was even worse when I shifted back up again to try and get my chain back on the chainring: it somehow got wrapped around the crank arm so I had to dismount and manually fix everything. Talk about a newbie error.

P90X – Week 7

This week started in Orlando Florida where I was speaking at the International Road Federation Road Maintenance workshop and ended back in Washington D.C.. It’s a real treat when I can do these workouts not constrained by a small hotel room and I had both extremes this week: avoiding the bed and dresser in my tiny hotel room to having a great large area in my friend’s basement. It was also one of the more dysfunctional weeks in terms of being able to follow the program as I was leaving the following week overseas, lots of meetings, as well as travel within the US. Still, I managed to get six of the routines done as well as a long run and some riding of my bike so I can’t really complain.

P90X – Week 6

I got an e-mail from one of the P90X coaches who had read my blog saying that I would soon be noticing the difference.  I was sceptical but sure enough the exercises felt easier this week. For the first time I was able to do all of the Ab Ripper X (OK – confession, I had to take a short break during the set of 50 George Mason’s).  The biggest problem was keeping up the training with travelling – Mon/Tues in Toronto; Wed/Thurs/Fri/Sat Washington; Sunday Orlando. When all is said and done must see how many different places (especially hotel rooms) I’ve done this in.

Product Endorsement – Drymax Socks

I was in my favourite running shop for some shoes and was surprised by the array of socks that were available.  What was noticeable was that they did not have what I have found to be by far the best socks: drymax. The really are the best kept secret of endurance athletes.

Making the NY Times

By TANYA MOHN

Published: October 19, 2009

Christopher R. Bennett, a civil engineer for the World Bank who was out of the country for work 172 days last year, is one of what experts say is a growing number of business travelers who bicycle while on assignment.

Elena Chesheva

Christopher Bennett, a civil engineer on assignment in Tbilisi, Georgia, for the World Bank, gets around on two wheels.

“To me, cycling is part of my DNA,” Mr. Bennett said in an interview from Tbilisi, Georgia, where he was overseeing investment in road construction. He travels with a bike that disassembles and fits in an average-size suitcase, or uses bicycles he stores at hotels he frequents. “Bellhops know when I’m coming and bring them to me,” he said.

Here is the full article… 

P90X – Week 5

Hard to believe that I have completed four weeks of P90X, with only a few missed workouts.  Last week was a rest week so now I am back into the harder training. They claim that after this phase of the program “you should start to feel very strong and ready to pump more iron (or stretch more rubber!).” We will see. The biggest challenge is juggling the routine around the travel and training for the Athens marathon.

Running Toronto’s Waterfront

My wife Lis says that my ideas fall into two broad categories: (i) brilliant or (ii) brainless, with few in between. I was up in Toronto for the weekend to visit my parents and needed to do a long run. Rather than do my normal out and back I decided to do a long run down to and along Toronto’s waterfront and then grab a taxi back home.  The run turned out to be one of the rarities: both brilliant and brainless … Kind of like my decision to run the Athens marathon in two weeks with only four weeks of training.

50 iPhone Applications for Triathletes

If you are an iPhone user check out this posting which lists apps that you might find interesting.  Thanks to Amber Johnson for this!