P and L

Well, the sidebar gets an update today. No, didn't set any PRs or win any races, but I sold one frame and a couple of wheels at the bike swap. Someone got a great deal on my 1991 Panasonic team bike that I bought from Markie Mark back in 97. In the end I had to let it go for $100 to avoid taking it home. It had a brand new headset and bottom bracket, along with some nice single pivot Dura Ace brakes, the original 8 speed DA shifters and derailleur, and even a seatpost, seat, bars, and stem (all pretty junky though). The guy got a steal, but he didn't even realize it. I wanted at least $200, but the need to reduce the household inventory was just too great to resist the c-note. None of my other items fetched more than $20, but I blew out tons of old components, tires, etc, much of them for $1 a piece and ended up netting $300 total. I didn't even look at what the other vendors were selling, as my mission was to reduce, reduce, reduce. KL picked up an extra set of ATACs for $20, but that was the extent of the damage.

So I still have a set of brand-new, in the box, early nineties vintage Campy Chorus brakes, complete with levers, white hoods, and cables that you can have for the Blogger special price of $100 plus shipping. These are perfect of any Italian bike restoration project. My N.O.S. Campy Victory Strada tubular rims (one 32h and one 36h) also made the trip back home, and I'd be happy with $20 each for those. Oh yeah, and BTW, I got $1 for the black Silca from last week's picture. It went in the first two minutes of setup, so maybe I should have held out for $3 or so...

The riches gained on Sunday will allow me to pay for a massage that I probably don't need tommorow. The four day weekend, complete with mostly good weather, didn't yield a big block of training. I'm in downtime mode now. The change is hard to get used to, but the next three or four weeks really are the best time to back off from the bike. After the long season, the desire to ride just ain't happening for me. In good news, my back feels better, still very uncomfortable when trying to sleep, but otherwise not on my mind. Early weight gain however, presents a bit more of a problem. I've already attained a higher mass than I did at any point last winter. This is a bit strange, as my fall program of running exceeds last year's. Perhaps my diet has strayed a bit too far away from where it ought to be, which is another dissappointment, especially after skipping Thanksgiving and all (although I did score a $10 pie for $3 at the day after sale at Big Y).

Now I'm mulling a bigger commitment to running this winter. Things have gone quite well so far with my three day a week schedule. My race results are way better than ever before, albeit in small time local races that host only a handful of "real" runners. That doesn't matter though, as I've personally knocked over a minute/mile off of my race times from just two years ago, all with minimal run training. This weekend I discovered the FIRST running website, which advocates, of all things, a three day per week running program. They have (for free) plans to prepare for a 10K, as well as half and even full marathons while running just three days per week, with strong emphasis on recovery. It's hard for me to commit to a winter running project, as I'm not too keen on running between the snowbanks, but I think I'm going to give the half-marathon program a half-hearted try, and if the winter stays mild we'll see where that leads. The biggest change from my current casual running efforts will be to do a long run one day each weekend. Saturday KL and I stayed out on the trails of Borderland for 1:10, a record for me. Over the next two months I'm going to try to push this up past 90 minutes. There is a 15k race in Raynham in January, then a 10 miler in Foxboro in February. If all this works out, could a trip to New Bedford postpone the start of my 2007 cycling season? Thanks for reading