craigmwilson.net

This sport can be a fantastic money drain. Here are a few new toys I got recently.

Aerus Transition bag. I won this courtesy of Blue Cycles and Adrenaline Tri Sport in Niwot for winning the Boulder Triathlon Club TT series in the spring (a good attendance award, really). I picked the pink floral print over the blue and gave it to my oldest daughter who was very excited to receive it to use for her swim club stuff. Great bag, has a dry pocket for wetsuit, ample room, comes with transition mat. Now I want one for myself (the blue one).
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XTERRA Velocity speedsuit. I got it to use for open water swims late in the summer. This is what I looked like after 2 1-hour swims. I had BodyGlide and a singlet underneath and I am sure it fits properly. I asked two others who own them and they both experience the same thing to some degree. Why would anyone want to subject themselves to that? While it seems to be well made and has a nice zipper system, I wouldn’t buy it again.
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Race Socks compression socks. I joined the legions of people I know who swear these things work for recovery since they promote blood flow. I have been wearing them to work on days after long runs. Now I feel good and look like Larry Bird, circa 1979. What more could you ask for?
A big thank you to Mike and AJ for these.

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Sampson Stratics Aero bars. I had the good fortune to win these in the Boulder Stroke and Stride raffle drawing. I have used these without bar tape for over 300 miles now and love them as these are fantastic bars in every way: They are very light. The slight drop on the wings makes for a favorable climbing position while still keeping the pads at the right height. They are highly adjustable and easy to feed the cables through. The oval shaped extensions are very comfortable and have gritty grip built in, The bend of the extension allow me to hold on without an awkward angle to my wrists. An unexpected benefit is the cable routing is so smooth my ders now shift much easier than with the big cable-kink my previous VisionTech bars necessitated. The only knock on them is that they do not work with brake levers that thread the cable through the internal center, like SRAMs new levers (which I never really liked and are now on Ebay). I recently bought ans installed the matching Sampson levers and they are very good, too.

During last week’s edition of the Stroke & Stride series at the Boulder Reservoir - put on by the great folk of Racing Underground - I had the good fortune to win the season’s raffle drawing and these awesome aero-bars generously donated by Sampson Sports based out of Denver. I am very cognizant of the good fortune I have had this year in my sport. I like to think it is good karma returning to me. Anywho… these are definitely going on the Cervelo asap and the old (new) bars will go to Christy. Those bars are the one thing I have wanted to replace on the bike - aside from the brakes which are extremely light but don’t work so well, but they only fail at slowing me down, which isn’t such a bad thing most times.
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I put in my highest volume of run mileage of the year this week, many laps around the local HS track, 1 bike ride and a couple of long open water swims. This week has been an effort in finding the balance between preparing for the only race I will do this year, IM Canada and feeling somewhat recovered for the Boulder Peak Triathlon Sunday. I am looking forward to this race and feel I am in good enough shape to do well. “Well” as in: destroy my PR on this course that I have done now five times. Last year I was 3 weeks post Ironman Coeur d’Alene, 2 weeks post Vasectomy, 1 week post frozen bag of peas down my undies and definitely lacking any mo’ whatsoever, and the result showed. Just like that last image I put in your head: Ugly.

IM Canada minus 51 days…

I got an iPhone a week ago. In that time, nearly everyone I show it to or talk about it with asks one of two questions: those who don’t have one ask: “What’s it do?". Those that do: “What apps do you have on it?” Here is my answer. In addition to the basic utilities everyone knows about: Calendar, Camera, Maps, Weather, Notes, Browser, Calculator, iPod, Photos and Phone, I have downloaded the following applications. Total cost for all listed below <$20; most are free.

•Free RSS » simple RSS reader, bookmark feed URLs, access in 1 click.
•Days Until » simple countdown with pictures. (156 days until IMCanada).
•LinkedIn » app for LinkedIn.com.
•Facebook » app for Facebook.com.
•Have2P» public bathroom finder based on my current GPS coordinates with user contributed notes.
•NPR Mobile » summary and links to their audio reports.
•Google Mobile » voice interface for Google search as well as quick links for all things Google: Reader, Docs, Talk, Photos, Earth, YouTube, Maps, Google 411 (call this if you haven’t before: 1-800-466-4411)
•WebMDmobile » First Aid info, Drug & treatment data and Symptom Checker.
•Gasbag » find nearest gas stations and prices based on current GPS coordinates.
•reQall » categorical voice to-do list, log and emailer.
•Urbanspoon » fun slot machine type random local restaurant finder.
•Measures » convert distance, weight, volume, currency and just about anything else.
•TwitterFon » fantastic and free Twitter client.
•Twitfire » launch camera and upload pic to TwitPics.com and post to Twitter with comments and tinyURL to the pic.
•Y! Fan Pro » manage Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball Teams.
•ICE » In case of Emergency, vital personal data with emergency contact info.
•Reflector » bright blinking reflector like image integrated with above ICE.
•GPS (MotionX) » advanced GPS, route finding and tracking utility.
•WikiTap » quick search of Wikipedia.com.
•Wapedia » similar to above, I haven’t decided which I like better.
•Air Sharing » connect to my PC as a mapped drive via WiFi, transfer files easily with utility for reading many common file formats, turns the phone into a wireless thumbdrive ($4.99).
•WorldWiki » encyclopedia of countries with images, and audio.
•beamME » transfer my contact information (vCard) to any email or mobile device in one click.
•REI Snow Report » set your mountains, 1 click to current conditions.
•Dictionaire » free dictionary.
•Constitution » the entire US document, easy to search.
•Yoga Trainer » 70 images of poses with audio, instructions and optional set programs with timer.
•WordRef » English to Spanish & Spanish to English dictionary with audio samples.
•Shotgun Pro » silly shoot ‘em game.
•Crayon Ball » very impressive game that has you manipulating rolling balls using the iPhone’s Accelerometer. My 6 year old crushed my high score in her third game.
•I See Ewe » my 4 year old’s favorite game. Follow audio instructions to find or match shapes, colors, objects, animals and more.
•Bus » Game. Every parent knows the song The Wheels on the bus go round and round. Click around on fun cartoon images as you sing along.
•Drink Pro » searchable Drink recipes and local bar finder.
•APOD » Astronomy Picture of the Day.
•Lifecards » enhance and decorate phone pictures before sending. Think postcards. see image my daughter made in 2 minutes.
•eReader » utility to read digital books. Works with Amazon Kindle files, adjust fonts, margins, bookmark, etc.
•iMapMyRide » turns the phone into a Garmin route tracker, easy upload to MapMyRide.com.
•SnapTell » take a picture of a product, click a button to get product reviews, local and online prices. Currently the technology only supports books, DVDs, CDs or games but they have plans for everything else. It worked for the book “Omnivore’s Dilemma", but not “Fit Soul, Fit Body", Mark Allen’s new book.

That’s it so far. But I have a lot of Gigabytes left to fill. If you have any other recommendations, I would love to hear them. More applications are listed here on Apple’s site.

I was playing with it the other day when suddenly it starting making a strange noise and vibrating which had me wondering what button I had inadvertently pressed that caused it.
It was the phone ringing.
Rigghhht! It. Is. A. Phone. I now want to go get lost for a weekend in a new city with nothing but a wallet and this device…

December and all is cold, nasty and dark, all of which has banished me to the confines of indoors. Crap, it just ain't right, all this sweating, fans and endless back and forths.

For cycling, I bought a Kinetic fluid Rock N Roll trainer a couple months back and have been using it quite a bit. It is very quiet so I can watch my Spinervals videos and movies. I am working my way back through the Lord of the Rings flicks. The trainer is nice in that it holds the bike in a way that allows you to lean sideways. I can imagine that this puts much less stress on the frame since when I get up to sprint the bike is moving with me rather than the rear triangle absorbing that force.

Since it is still so dark at 5:30am, I have spent 90" each of the last couple Thursday mornings with my old nemesis friggin' treadmill. It had been about 10 months since we saw each other last, and I really didn't miss it. Fortunately it overlooks the pool so I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what everyone in the water was doing wrong with their swim stroke - looking for some insight into my own aquatic inadequacy. Otherwise, lots of intervals help break up the time and actually make for very good running sessions. Perhaps I'll make peace with the treadmill - at least until I tire of my iPod playlists...