User:Tchazzard
From MB Wiki
A little about me
I live in Southern Maine, USA with my lovely wife, Katy, my two daughters Spencer and Sydney, 6 cats, and 1 dog. I am a gadget junky and own way too many Garmin (http://www.garmin.com) gps devices. Just ask the fine folks at MotionBased (http://www.motionbased.com). I am an avid cyclist, runner, and back country skier.
Some web sites I maintain are:
My Web Portal (http://www.hazbro.com/). This is the front page to all the content I have thrown up onto my web site since 1995.
Climate Change (http://www.getting2zero.com/). I use this site to provide helpful information for the combating of climate change. I also use this site to re-post news (http://getting2zero.com/blog) related to climate change and sustainability.
The Quest (http://www.hazbro.com/velomobile): A page about my Velomobiel.nl (http://www.velomobiel.nl) Quest, which is basically an enclosed recumbent trike. This is the bike where I log all my miles going back and forth to work and for running errands. I think of it as my second car. Katy and I ride a Burley (http://www.burley.com) tandem equipped with Rotor Cranks (http://www.rotorcranksusa.com/) for our recreational rides.
My weather page (http://www.hazbro.com/weather). Yes, I am too young to own a weather station, but what can I say? I love being outside more than inside so need to know what the weather is or will be. And one of the meteorologist from the NOAA station here in Maine told me they had a lack of weather reporting stations since the demise of the merchant marine industry. He convinced me that my location close to the ocean would yield some valuable data. So I picked up a Davis Vantage2 (http://www.davisnet.com/weather/products/vantage2.asp) weather station late in 2004 and have been sending data to NOAA and the Weather Underground (http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=04006) ever since.
My MotionBased Digest (http://tchazzard.motionbased.com) if you want to track my running, cycling and other activities.
My activities are:
Cycling
Daily ride back and forth to work even in the dead of winter. The coldest temperature I have ridden in is -12F!
Yearly ride across Maine in the American Lung Association's annual Trek Across Maine (http://www.mainelung.org/bike_treks/home_trek.htm).
Various rides put on by the Bike Coalition of Maine (http://www.bikemaine.org/) and Eastern Trail Alliance (http://www.easterntrail.org).
Running
Despite an early interest in trail running, I logged zero miles between 1986 and 2002. In 2002 I decided to start running again as a way to augment my cycling and as a means for getting exercise when I was traveling. My running from 2002 until 2005 was infrequent and a long run was 3-4 miles.
In early 2005, my wife and I decided to train for a marathon. It had been Katy's dream to run a marathon. Her next goal was to qualify for and run in the Boston Marathon, Boston being her place of birth. After talking to a personal trainer, we decided to follow one of Hal Higdon's (http://www.halhigdon.com/) marathon training programs.
This first attempt at running in many years was not kind to me. I suffered from ongoing knee pains and was forced to miss a lot of our training runs. I also was not able to complete any runs longer than 15 miles. I rode my bike as an alternative to these long runs.
Despite the lack of training, we signed up for and completed the Mount Desert Marathon (http://www.mdimarathon.org/) in October 2005. The result was not pretty. I started experiencing severe knee pains at mile 13, struggled to mile 18, almost crawled to mile 20, then walked the final 6.2 in heavy rain, high winds, and temps hovering around 50F. My final time was 4:35:53 (see My Digest (http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValue=312750) for the gory details).
Once the horrors of MDI subsided, we decided to give it another shot and signed up for the Big Sur Marathon (http://www.bsim.org/), held on April 30, 2006. We again followed one of the Higdon marathon training plans. Again we missed a bunch of the training runs, including most of the long ones. And again, I suffered from an injury, this time being my right heel (skiing incident). Marathon day arrived, I felt strong, Katy felt strong, and off we went. The course was pretty hilly, the weather was nice, but the pollen got the best of Katy. She started having trouble breathing at about mile 12. This forced us to slow down, resulting in a new PR of, gulp, 4:26:32. I should mention that my right heel was painful during the entire run and that for almost one week after the marathon I had trouble walking. Oh hum. Again, you can see the details of this run in My Digest (http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValue=728568).
Beaten yes. Quitters No. So next comes the Green Mountain Marathon (http://www.gmaa.net/GMMinfo.html) on October 21, 2006. This marathon featured a reasonably flat course, so we thought, what the heck, it should make for a good Boston qualifier. We ramped up our training and missed very few runs. Unfortunately for me, I suffered yet another injury. This time I got a tad over ambitious doing 800 repeats at the local track. I ended up with one pissed off left calf and only two months until the marathon. I substituted some cycling on speed days, but kept on running. I also started seeing a massage therapist who was able to work out some of the kinks.
Finally race day came and yes, we had success!!!! I had picked up a copy of John Parker's book, "Heart Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot". Katy and I followed John's advice and kept our heart rates under 75% of max. Despite cold temperatures (36F to 41F), more hills than we expected, and a 25+mph head wind for the first 14-15 miles, we finished with a 3:37:24. Katy's cut off for Boston was a 3:40. So we are off to the 2007 Boston Marathon (http://www.bostonmarathon.org/). This was way cool. And almost as neat was that using John's heart rate strategy, we finished strong, passing a lot of people from mile 20 until the end. And we did not even feel very tired afterward. It was almost as if we had just finished a long training run. Life is good. The details are here (http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValue=1549819).
So what are we to do with all this free time until Patriot's Day 2007? Sign up for and run another marathon of course. Our next gig was the Philadelphia Marathon (http://www.philadelphiamarathon.com/) on November 19, 2006. This gave us a solid 4 weeks to recover, run a little, then taper again. Race day came, we both felt good, but alas, I was just short of my 3:30 goal again. As many have said, despite your best training, there are 1,000 things outside of your control which can effect your performance. One issue which started us out on the wrong foot was our lack of experience running in large marathons. The Big Sur marathon had been our biggest to date with approximately 2,500 runners. In comparison, there were over 12,000 runners lined up at the Philadelphia marathon. We got the starting line with only 10 minutes to spare. This forced us to start 50 yards or more behind the 10 min pace line. It took about 7 minutes to cross the starting line once the race had started. We then spent the next 8 miles trying to work our way through the slower runners. This resulted in a very slow pace for the first half of the marathon. Despite my best efforts, I was only able to chip away enough time to finish with a time of 3:38:08. Again, the details can be found here (http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValue=1658344). Note that my heart rate readings were all over the place early on in the race, so I turned my forerunner off, then back on. I then forgot to re-start until another half mile or so.
Analysis of the above marathons showing splits for mile 10, 13.1, 20 and 26.2 can be found here (http://www.hazbro.com/running/Marathon_Analysis.pdf). This is a PDF file.
I did in fact make it down to the Hyannis Marathon (http://www.hyannismarathon.com) on February 25, 2007 for one last bite of the apple. I was able to keep on pace to qualify until about mile 9. At this point, my nagging pain in my left Achilles started to effect my gait. I slowed down my pace which helped the pain, but meant I was not going to be able to qualify for Boston. So at mile 11 I dropped out in an effort to safe myself from further injury.
My running goals from here on out include:
1). Continue to run two to three marathons per year.
2). Complete a 50K trail marathon this year (Pineland 50K (http://www.mainetrackclub.com/pinelandfarms.html)?)
3). Complete a 50 mile trail marathon in 2008, perhaps the Vermont 50 miler (http://www.vermont50.com/).
4). Complete a 100 mile trail marathon in 2008, perhaps the Vermont 100 mailer (http://www.vermont100.com/).
5). Register and complete in the Gore-Tex Transalpine Run (http://www.transalpine-run.com/) in September 2008. This will be a big one, but very fun. I hope to start planning this soon.
Skiing
I have been alpine skiing since I was 3 years old, way back in 1963. I started out on skis made from wood with no edges and cable bindings. I switched from alpine skis to telemark skis half way through the winter of 1999/2000 and have never looked back. Although I still ski almost exclusively at ski areas, I prefer to spend my time in the back country seeking out pristine slopes with lots of trees. Unfortunately there just does not seem to be enough of this in Maine.
I am also blessed in that I have well over a thousand acres of wooded trails right out my back door. After work I like to head out on either Nordic skis or snow shoes with my dog in tow. Nothing like coming out of the cold and spending time in front of the fire with a nice glass of Chianti in hand.
That is about it for right now. Enjoy!
