Booya!

My bib number is 494. Only 29 weeks to go! Excited does not begin to describe my present state.

Hills!

I've decided to give up long river runs for a while. What's the point of going to the mountains if you don't take advantage? (Actually, several people have told me that Grenoble itself is one of the flattest cities in Europe; it's just that if you go any direction out of town, you go up.) To that end, I did a 4.9 mile loop: down to the river road for a warmup, then up, up, up to St. Victor, then up about .25 miles more, then back down the curvy road whose name I can't remember, then back through the park. Hills are hard! (But hard is good.) I'll post my route as soon as GMap elevation server is back up.

East River Run

I ran the east river loop today, which, thanks to the new Google Maps data, I now know is exactly 7.7 miles. Unfortunately, I don't know my time because I stopped my watch at 6:52 when I ducked into the woods to take a whiz, and I forgot to start it back up until well past mile 2.

Lifting

I visited the salle de musculation at INRIA and did my normal upper body circuit. Crashing now. Party last night kept me up until about 1, and I was up at 5.15. 

If I get some rest tonight, I'll do a nice long run tomorrow AM. Ooh! Last thing: Google Maps has expanded to all of Europe! 
 

West River Run

Another early morning run. The first few minutes are always brutal--it's still cold, I'm so sleepy, and limbs are stiff--but after that it feels so good to run early! I definitely prefer running at sunrise to sunset. 

I did the 7-8 mile loop along the Isère to the west (i.e., the big bend) in something like between 50-60 minutes (forgot my watch). The sun was just breaking over the Chaîne de Belledonne when I started and the rays of light caught the snowy peaks and turned them all sparkly--beautiful! 

Early morning run

Gave my legs a rest yesterday. Woke up early today (not quite Mair Fox early (!), but still, 5:20) and ran to the bridge and back at a relaxed pace. 4mi+ is a great way to wake up!

Is anyone else using the Blogger Widget on the Mac? It's great!!

Chamrousse

Well, it wasn't pretty, but I made it. Chamrousse, 1750m. I climbed more than a vertical mile today (Grenoble is ~200m, but there were several smaller climbs and descents on the way up). It was very hard, harder than I expected. Crashing now, I'll update this with a full description tomorrow (including details of a tire puncture on the final descent and hitching with retirees!)

Update: Grenoble is nestled in the valley that the Isère and Drac rivers carve out of the Massifs de la Chartreuse et du Vercors, and the Chaîne de Belledonne. I'd done climbs in Chartreuse and Vercors the last two weekends, so I figured this was the weekend to try a mountain in the Belledone. The closest climbable mountain is the Chamrousse. The 'hors categorie' route up the western face was used as the individual time trial in stage 11 of the TdF. I did the southern/eastern route which is slightly longer and therefore slightly more gradual--which is to say that the grade is a constant 6-10% vs. 7-10%--it's still quite steep! I started from Meylan, rode along the river to Domène, and did a short climb up the D11 into Revel. A short descent and another climb along the D280B took me into St. Martin d'Uriage. There I turned onto the D111, following the signs for the ski town of Chamrousse. I felt that my legs were stronger than last week, and much stronger than two weeks ago when I climbed in the Chartreuse. But even so, after about 40 minutes of climbing on the D111, I had to stop for a break. My breathing was not the problem (though, to be sure, climbing is hard work), but the muscles in my legs were like jelly! I've found that toe clips are indispensible when climbing--if you're only push down on the pedals, you wear out those muscles very quickly; if you can pull up too, it gives you a way to keep going and give parts of your legs a rest. So at 40 minutes, I ate some fruit and energy bars and stretched out my quads and glutes as best I could, and kept going up, up, up. The last hour of was really rough: I made myself go in stints of ~20 minutes, then I'd stop, get some water, and let the lactic acid clear out of my legs. Though the climbing was really hard(/slightly miserable?), the scenery was amazing. I was high enough that the trees were all pines and there were (rapidly melting) snow drifts on both sides of the road at times. Looking down into the valley I could see the villages of Revel and Uriage nestled on and between hills below, and far away in the hazy distance, the city of Grenoble, with the (now relatively puny looking) Chartreuse and Vercors looming above.

After my last break, the road circled around the top of one of the peaks, hugging the side of the slope and led me, at last, to the first ski station at 1650m. Sunday was the last day that the pistes were open so the die hards were all out getting their last runs in. From there it was just a short little climb of about 5km to 1750m! Then, finally and mercifully, the slope of the road pointed down, back into Uriage and Grenoble. I stopped and put on some warmer clothes and started in on the descent. I'd only zoomed along a few km when I heard a little pop, then flap-flap-flap-flap. I knew it was the tire, but thought maybe I'd rolled over something sticky and it was being whipped around the wheel. Alas, when I stopped I heard the tell-tale hissing sound. At this point, having forgotten to bring my pump, my options were either to pop a wheelie and try to hold it for the 40km ride back to Meylan, or stick out my thumb. I decided to hitchhike. The very first car to roll by stopped, and a very nice elderly couple took one look at me (I think I looked a little tired!) and said to hop in. The man thought I was pretty dumb, riding alone and without a pump--I kept hearing the words 'seul', 'les jeunes', 'idiot', etc. But they were very nice and went out of their way to drive me down the mountain and back to Meylan!

As always, the pictures above don't really do it justice. I need to fix my camera so I can take some of my own!! Here's a profile of the climb and a map of my route:



I'm still toying with the idea of climbing Alpe d'Huez one of these weekends. I know it will be humbling, but it seems a shame to be so close and not do it! For now, some more training to get respectable climbing legs is probably needed. The Bastille, which hangs right over St Laurent downtown, is a good place to start. It's only a 2km climb, but the grade is ridiculous: 20% average, 34% max!

44:30 and out.

Couldn't decide if I wanted to save my legs for tomorrow's crack at the Chamrousse, or if I wanted a full workout. Set out for the 4 mile loop and felt great at the halfway, so I decided to stretch it out a little longer. Kept along until the Bois Français sign, where I turned back (@ 22:30). Made it back in 22:00. I'm not sure of the exact distance, but I know where two miles from home is, and the first last/two miles were 14:20 and 14:00 respectively, so something like 6 miles?

River run

The river path, newly paved, hard, flat, and fast, was a nice change from yesterday's bumpy, hilly run. I went out fast--:30 faster after 10 minutes to the big bend in the river, and another :25 faster at the turn around than the last time I ran this route. I returned along the farm road, for 38:00.

I just finished this book. It's depressing, but gives a really intimate look at contemporary family life in Afghanistan. The book has been criticized for simply re-inforcing western stereotypes about Afghan culture, and the real bookseller now claims that the book has ruined his life; he is currently writing some kind of reply and preparing to sue Seierstad in the Norwegian courts. But even with all these flaws, I still think it's worth a read. I tore through this book, partly because it was well-researched and well-written (err, well-translated), but also because my dad and his family lived in Kabul while he was in 3rd and 4th grade. They travelled the Khyber pass, watched Buzkashi, and ate lots and lots of lamb. It was interesting to compare my family's stories from that time with how the same period, the 1960s and 70s, are described in modern Afghani memories. In the book, it is either remembered as Afghanistan's last happy time (the history since then has been nothing but war: civil, with Soviets, the cultural war imposed by the Taliban, and the American/Northern Alliance coup of 2001) or as the period of sinful modernism/westernism (by the fundamentalists). Thanks to DV and AK for a great travel gift!

Just hills

Ran for 35 minutes: warmed up with a slow run down to the river road, then up, up, up to St Victor. Then 5X intervals on the last part of the hill there: about 45 seconds charging up, then easy on the way down to recover. 10 minutes run home to cool down.

River + Hills

Tried a new route: the 2mi down to the bridge then back across the A41, up into the hills of Montbonnot, then back across behind the ZIRST, back the Chemin de Beausoir (sp?) and back into the 'hood. It took me just over 40 minutes, so I'm hoping it was at least 5 miles?

volleyball

I am a firm believer in blogging the highs and the lows. Today was another low. Played VB with the ESMT boys. We have 14 this time, and though I started out hot (first 4 or 5 attacks were all strong kills) we faced two strong teams in our next two games and everyone kind of lost it. Then it sucked for the rest of the time. Yuck. Next week will be better, if only because it can't get much worse!

Bridge run

Easter Monday is a holiday in France and Alan invited me to go to Annecy with his family. Woke up early to do a leg stretcher: 4 miles down to the bridge and back. Didn't take my watch, but the pace was slow, plodding; my legs are sore!

Joyeuse Pâques

I did a long Easter morning bike ride today. Last week I climbed into the Chartreuse Massif, just north of Grenoble; this week I checked out Vercors, the range to the east. Last week I felt a little unsafe: out of food and water, up above the snow line, and nothing warm for my legs, so this week I was over-prepared: my wonderful ColdGear tights + ziptop, fleece, and shell; 2.5L of water, 2 bananas, 2 apples, tuna, yogurt, bread. After getting out of town I climbed for about 40 minutes, straight up, to the Tour Sans Venin, and then on to St. Nizier du Mourcherotte. In St. Nizier I stopped briefly to eat some fruit and check out a WWII memorial. The town sits under this mountain that is topped by an amazing cluster of rock-spires. They shoot right up like oversized organ pipes. Anyways... back to the ride; 40 minutes may not sound like much, but to my poor legs, which are more accustomed to running along the Schulkyill or worse on a hamster wheel in Pottruck, it was more than enough for the day. Having climbed about 600m, I was tempted to turn around and cruise back the way I came. But the route I'd planned for the day had me going out to Lans-en-Vercors, so I changed into warm clothes (I was up at the snow line again) and trucked on for another 6-7 miles. Lans is a cute little Alpine sports town with a bunch of cute small hotels/lodging houses and food for active, outdoorsy types (pizzerias! creperies! and a few hunting-lodge-style full-blown restaurants). Then it was time for payback: having climbed to just over 1000m, I had a swift downhill from Lans and through amazing gorges--sheer rock face towering up hundreds of feet overhead. I zoomed back into Fontaine, around the Bastille, and finally back out to Meylan.

All told it was a really fun day! I was really glad that I continued on to Lans: it's a really cute town and seeing the gorges was an unexpected bonus. Next weekend, I think it has got to be the Chamrousse (the other big collection of mountains, situated to the south west).

No pictures (my camera is still broken and sitting completely unassembled on my desk... trying to get the gears that extend the lens to work again, but no luck yet, sigh) but here's a Google Earth view of my route into Lans on the right and the gorges on the left.

5.4

Did a reasonably quick (36:00) 5.4 miles along the river today. I came home and discovered that Saïd, a Moroccan guy who rents the other room from the family I'm staying with, had made an awesome tangine: potatos, onions, peas, lemons, beef, all cooked in the clay pot, the juices carmelizing and covering everything with a wonderful tangy sauce. I just ate the leftovers on a bed of hot eggs (whites)... absolutely delicious.

10 minutes (!)

It was not meant to be today. I tried to go out for a quick trot and felt like crap (actually, more like puke, but who wants to get into that?!) So, I just packed it in and jogged home. Grand total: 10 minutes on the trail.

Long run!

Longer than I wanted, over 70 minutes. Crossed the river to explore new territory. Made it two towns over, then ran up some hills, then back along the river. Started out running on uneven ground--muddy, bumpy paths through farmer's fields, then a forest trail--but then pushed hard from the turn around all the way home on the hard, packed towpath. Not sure of the distance but I hope 8+!?

Lifting, Sleep!

I did a quick upper body circuit at the INRIA gym, then headed home planning to do a short, intense run. Instead I fell asleep for approximately 9 hours. The reason? I've been reading like crazy. I've already plowed through all my copies of The Atlantic, 1776, and about half of Collapse. But two nights ago I was up late tearing through this (grabbed during our visit to Ann Arbor from my step-dad's pile of throw-away books before their big move to Boulder):

At the age of 37, bestselling author and journalist Bill McKibben stepped out of the ordinary routine of his life to spend a year in "real training" as a cross-country skier. With the help of a trainer-slash-guru, McKibben took on a regimen equivalent to that of an Olympic endurance athlete's, running and skiing for hours every day in preparation for a series of grueling long-distance ski races. What prompted this successful writer with an admitted aversion to competitive sports to push himself so hard, for so long? Partly it was pure selfishness; after a decade as an environmental writer and activist, I needed a break from failing to save the world. But mostly it was curiosity that drove me. By year's end I hoped I'd have more sense of what life lived through the body felt like.
If Long Distance begins as a story about the transformation of the body and what it means to challenge one's physical limits, it evolves into a thoughtful lesson about a wholly different kind of endurance. Halfway through McKibben's training, his father was diagnosed with the most virulent form of brain cancer. As McKibben was reaching peak condition, his father's life lurched toward an end, forcing McKibben to snap out of his self-inflicted self-absorption. He had tried to think of endurance as "the ability to fight through the drama of pain. But now I understood it, too, as a kind of elegance, a lightness that could only come from such deep comfort with yourself that you began to forget about yourself." And the elegance of Long Distance is in its ultimate lesson that each of us has a mind, a body, and a spirit, and we must find our strength in all three realms.

I was captivated by it--not for the athletic bits, which are a somewhat disappointing, but for the bits where he talks about the 6 months from when his family finds out his dad has brain cancer to his death. So many of the descriptions and emotions were things that I felt and saw felt two winters ago when I was going down to Rockland house all those weekends to be with my grandfather in his last 5 months... and it makes me want to take up skiing. Anyone up for doing a loppet? I love cowbells.

VB

i played 3-on-3 with the boys from ESMT again tonight. i felt much better than last time. maybe regaining some speed, more more importantly just playing with a bit of focus/smarter. legs are already feeling it again, but that's good--means they'll get stronger!

i feel the need to add an underwear report to dispell certain myths that are going around about a certain favorite pair of (if you believe the myth, probably also toxically bacterial) underarmour microfiber boxer briefs. aujourd'hui: les grenouilles verts, et sans chaffage!

quick one

after 11.5hrs at INRIA, did 4 miles along the river: 1 mile warmup, 1 mile pushing hard, 1.5 miles short sprint intervals, jogged back from the river to the house.

Update: I finally got caught up with my YTD tracking. I'm through Pittsburgh. As the satellite image shows, when I reach Ohio, the scenery will aparently turn from brown to green. Well I've been there, and let me tell you, this is flat out wrong; Ohio is the armpit of America. The only reason to go to Ohio is to pass through to Michigan. Or Indiana.

Slow Sunday run

Wanted to have an easy day but still get some miles in so I ran the west river loop at a nice easy ("conversational", I think your man Hal would say) pace. Listened to wonderful slow music (Wilco and Sufjan) and just watched the river go by as a gloomy Sunday turned to dusk. Total distance: 7.9 miles in a little less than an hour...

My first two Cols!

Went for a long bike ride today around the mountain that sits behind Grenoble. I'm too tired/hungry to give a full debrief now, but (a) I was high enough that there were still snow banks on the side of the road at the top (b) hitting the little sign marking the Col at the top and seeing that it was more than 1100m was AWESOME!

Biking is the new black.

Update: the bike i bought last week at the "bourse aux vèlos" is a liberia brand (french) from ca. 1983. it looks like it still has many of the original components (e.g., the pedals are those heavy shiny metal kind popular back then). but it was also very well maintained / it looks like it probably sat unused for years in someone's garage. there's a nice english language grenoble cycling page that has details of all these local climbs. i decided to start with the easiest one: a tiny 600m climb over the col de la clémencière, about 15km from my house. i looked on a map and it looked like there was a loop where i'd do the climb, decend, pop out between two mountains west of grenoble, and head back home. so i hammered up the col, stopped at the top to admire the view, eat a banana, and drink some water, and then i flew down the decent. then the road started to climb again! i stopped to look at my map and realized that i'd missed the turn off (it was a tiny road) and that i was headed for the next town (dèviation!). i kept climbing and climbing and climbing... then the trees turned to pines, i noticed snow banks by the side of the road, and worst, the sun started to set... i was getting a little bit worried but i'd remembered the story of my mom and step-dad's frozen day biking in france last fall (they spent all of september climbing in provence including le mont ventoux!) so i'd packed my ziptop, a fleece, and a shell (though no pants, should have brought running tights). i just kept going and hoped i wasn't headed off towards switzerland (you know how there are signs pointing to the next city on the freeway? here those signs say geneve)... at one point i tried to slip into my lowest gear on the rear shifter and the chain shifted right off the gears. i stopped to fix it and another cyclist came up behind me right as i re-mounted. he asked me "ca va?" and i said (in french), "i'm fine, but the bike is lousy". he, riding a fancy look-brand bike glanced down and said "ah! liberia! i used to have a bike like that. then i got this real bike". i laughed, and told him that the real problem was the state of my legs! he laughed, then told me that i could get home by going over the next pass... so i ended up doing a second col (i think col de porte... about 1100m? when i finally got to it i glance at the sign and elevation and can't remember now what it's exact name was). i hit the top right as the sun was about to slip behind the vercours range and flew through several small ski towns down the long, long decent back into grenoble.

Sundown trot

Did the loop to the second bridge = 7 3/4 miles. Going to bed!

Biking around Grenoble

My legs still feel stiff so I decided to mix it up and bike. Did about 90 minutes of riding, but it was stop and start through town with all the traffic lights. I went around to north edge of town to the Bastille, back through Gieres, and a pitstop at Carrefour for some groceries. Hit one nice hill going up towards the Bastille. There's a real Col a few miles further, I'm gonna go back when there is more sunlight.

The skies cleared up today and as I was cycling back to Meylan (west) the view of the sunset hitting the mountains was magnificent.

Did you know that "Mr Clean" is "Mr Propre" in France? Heh. That cracked me up. I know laughing at stuff like that means I'm a wide-eyed tourist (I used to sneer at the Americans noting silly things like that in England).

Two, two, two days in one

Yesterday: played 2.5 hours of volleyball with four guys from the Meylan club. We played beach on an 8m x 8m court. Having not played much in the last few months, I was quite rusty yesterday and sore today. They were really friendly though, and I'm looking forward to next week!

Today I did the same upper body circuits after work as on Monday, then ran 4 miles at sundown to loosen up my legs. 1 mile very slow/easy warmup then pushed as fast as I could go to the turnaround at the bridge. Then on the way back I did a hodge-podge of invervals at varying lengths (~100-300m?) for the first 1.5 miles and jogged the last half mile in as a cool down.

Mixing it up

Lifted arms after work (bench, rowing, curls, military press, tri raises) then ran 5k and jumped around a bit.

First volleyball with the Meylan club is tomorrow night!

soixante-trois minutes

Ran along the river, not very fast for about 8 miles, I think. Legs were hurting from biking straight up hill to church this morning... I'm weak! I need to work more resistance training into this blog.