It was not our most successful state tournament, which kind of hurt after one of our most successful state tournaments last year. It reminded me of the 2009 State Tournament and the possibilities that never came. However, I am so proud of my students and all they accomplished this year. I think they truly enjoyed spending the weekend together, and I enjoyed spending time with them. In a season tainted by one student's anger, my students moved past it to work on their own goals to regroup and find the joy that they find in speech and debate.
I was quite sad on Saturday evening. I am losing three senior boys whose presence has added some frustrations but more often than not lots of laughter to my life. I felt like I had failed one of these students particularly as he is so talented, and I am just not a good enough coach to help him excel. I think I need to work harder as a coach, and I feel bad that I didn't step up this year.
Aside from my students, I truly enjoyed the company of people in the judges' lounge. From other coaches to parents who I have come to know and consider friends, I had plenty of laughs and good stories to share. I honestly don't have any "debatisms" from the weekend, probably because it was state tournament and the absurdity wasn't quite as prevalent.
There are things about state tournament that I find absolutely ridiculous, and while I am horribly tempted to write about them, I will just say that it is what it is. It is a tournament I still want to have a student win so criticisms out the door, it's still the culmination of the season and unfortunately, it's a culmination that always has tears, at least for me.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
1st Century of the Year
First off, I should have posted after last weekend's tournament. I wanted to write kind of an ode to my one senior and his junior partner who came just a couple of ballots short of qualifying to nationals, but I was scared I would show my age and lack of memory by forgetting some of the better stories I have about this kid. I am proud of them and the rest of the team.
Now, this past weekend was jam-packed with athletic pursuits.
Looking at the weather for the weekend, I had opted for a run Saturday and hopefully for better weather and a ride on Sunday. When I started running back in January, I struggled running for even 20 minutes. The cardio endurance was gone so completely that I could feel a sense of loss. Like most accomplishments in my life, I decided to start working on my running by creating a goal, a goal to run 8 miles by the end of February. Having a Saturday off in February is a rarity for any speech & debate coach in Ohio so I had lots of plans for the day and got out there and on the trail around 7:30. Now, it wasn't the fastest 8 miles I have ever run, but they were run at a much faster pace than I ran my 6.25 the week before. It was quite windy and definitely cold, but once I started, I was fine. When I looked at my watch about 3 miles into the run, I realized that I was running much faster than I had anticipated. I was worried it would prevent me from accomplishing my goal so I slowed down, but when I finished the 8 miles, I felt pretty good and hadn't slowed down all that much. In fact, the last mile that felt so hard was one of my faster miles. Now, I did wear knee high compression socks all day, but I was really surprised by how I didn't really feel any stiffness in my legs from the run.
Now, I also did some very "girlie" things after feeling very non-female when I got called out for not knowing that LBD stands for Little Black Dress. I got my hair done (first time since September), went shoe shopping, and even made a couple of purchases at Ulta (a cosemetics store).
Sunday, though, was a perfect day for cycling... well, as perfect as a Saturday in February in Ohio can be for cycling. When I was all ready to go, I took at look at the people who showed up, and the first thing I thought was, oh geez, seriously, all the heavy hitters??? There are four guys who ride with us regularly who I consider to be beasts for the pace they can push and continue to push for the entire 100 miles of a century ride, and they were all there! Jeff and Tom are just strong, especially on flat rides. SO doesn't even realize his superman riding skills (even TC said SO doesn't count because he's not human), and I think TC considers 100 miles a SHORT ride. Oh man, if these guys decide to push pace, there will be a lot of us dying in the wind.
The group opted to head south from Berea through Lodi then down to Wooster. There are some gentle rollers on this route, but for the most part, it's pretty flat. Part of me thought to myself, I will just ride to Lodi then head back, but riding short while others keep going is just really hard for me to do. I haven't ridden further than 40 miles this year, why force the issue and ride all day? But, here's the thing. Since the surgery, I have found everything unexpectedly difficult: swimming, running, cardio in general. SO said he thought I could handle the ride, and I tired of not being able to do what I want to do, so I did what I wanted to do: ride long.
I made it to Lodi in prestine fashion. I think the guys were making a conscious effort not to destroy each other in the headwind so I spent the bulk of my time sitting behind the lovely wheels of Jeff, TC and SO. On occasion, I would find myself to the left of SO's wheel, and I would think, "well, this wind just stinks, back to behind my lovely windshield that these three guys have created." Now, I don't think I stayed there the entire way, but there was no pull in me through that crap.
After Lodi, we had another 20 miles to Wooster. We rode on a road called Overton (and we refer to it as Overton valley), and after about 10-14 miles, I got dropped by the group. I wasn't the only one, but I got pretty nervous as the road kind of zigzags from one side of the valley to the other, and I was scared I would zig when I was suppose to zag. Playing safe, I waved down a car to make sure she had passed a group of cyclists, and she did, but as I turned, I saw TC behind me? What??? Well, apparently, he hadn't been riding long throughout the winter and hadn't really planned on riding the whole ride, and he was hurting a bit (he was also riding a fixie and getting dropped a bit on the short incline bursts), but he was a welcomed site as he helped tow me through that headwind to Wooster. As we got closer and closer to Wooster, we worried about making a wrong turn, but then a figure appeared, and sure enough SO came back to gather the stragglers. In total, five of us fell off the pace, three behind TC and me, but that wind was nasty, and once you were off the line, you were dropped pretty quickly.
As we ate our gas station lunch, we prayed that the wind wouldn't shift! As we got out, it had turned slightly, but not substantially enough to get rid of the tailwind we had earned for the way back.
For the most part, the group stayed together for the 20 miles back to Lodi, but we were starting to break up as we approached Lodi. Truth be told, Jeff jumped off the front and road there through the Overton valley. As we left Lodi, we had established an A and B group for the rest of the ride back to Berea. It was a little weird, one of the guys who got dropped on the way down, was riding with the A's on the way back. SO made a comment last week that seemed pretty appropriate, the wind can only break you down if you let it.
I was definitely in the B group and was scared I was going to be the dropped member of B. One of the guys and I kind of looked at each other as "drop buddies," but we managed to hang on through the rollers until we got to a pretty flat Station Rd with about 15 miles to go. On Station, one of the guys got a flat, and as he and a couple of others got it fixed, I started getting colder, and I started getting this really strong "I want to be finished now" feeling. So, when we got back on the bikes, I took over the front and stayed there for about 40 minutes. Now, pulling in a tailwind isn't exactly the exhausting task pulling into a headwind is, but I kept the pace up and kept everyone on board. When I dropped to the back of the line, TC said to me, "pretty good pull...for a girl!"
As we approached the finish, Eric, TC and I pushed off the front as we just wanted to be done. A couple of guys were really hurting those last 30 miles from Lodi to Berea, and I don't think having the only female in the group beating them up for the last 15 helped their egos much either.
Eric (the organizer) later told me that one of the guys commented to him about how fast I got towards the end of the ride. SO often yells at me for something similar, I play it safe for the bulk of a ride and then when the end is in sight, I drop the hammer like there is no turning back (because there isn't) and make everyone else suffer. It's probably good that 95% of the people who let me ride with them are so much stronger that my hammer is their slightly exerted, but I along with 10 friends, got in a century in Ohio in February!
I should say that Eric really went out of his way to make sure that the B group didn't get lost and didn't waste away riding inefficiently in the wind. I also found out that my computer was mis-calibrated for this ride, being about 3 miles off from everyone else's total.
Now, this past weekend was jam-packed with athletic pursuits.
Looking at the weather for the weekend, I had opted for a run Saturday and hopefully for better weather and a ride on Sunday. When I started running back in January, I struggled running for even 20 minutes. The cardio endurance was gone so completely that I could feel a sense of loss. Like most accomplishments in my life, I decided to start working on my running by creating a goal, a goal to run 8 miles by the end of February. Having a Saturday off in February is a rarity for any speech & debate coach in Ohio so I had lots of plans for the day and got out there and on the trail around 7:30. Now, it wasn't the fastest 8 miles I have ever run, but they were run at a much faster pace than I ran my 6.25 the week before. It was quite windy and definitely cold, but once I started, I was fine. When I looked at my watch about 3 miles into the run, I realized that I was running much faster than I had anticipated. I was worried it would prevent me from accomplishing my goal so I slowed down, but when I finished the 8 miles, I felt pretty good and hadn't slowed down all that much. In fact, the last mile that felt so hard was one of my faster miles. Now, I did wear knee high compression socks all day, but I was really surprised by how I didn't really feel any stiffness in my legs from the run.
Now, I also did some very "girlie" things after feeling very non-female when I got called out for not knowing that LBD stands for Little Black Dress. I got my hair done (first time since September), went shoe shopping, and even made a couple of purchases at Ulta (a cosemetics store).
Sunday, though, was a perfect day for cycling... well, as perfect as a Saturday in February in Ohio can be for cycling. When I was all ready to go, I took at look at the people who showed up, and the first thing I thought was, oh geez, seriously, all the heavy hitters??? There are four guys who ride with us regularly who I consider to be beasts for the pace they can push and continue to push for the entire 100 miles of a century ride, and they were all there! Jeff and Tom are just strong, especially on flat rides. SO doesn't even realize his superman riding skills (even TC said SO doesn't count because he's not human), and I think TC considers 100 miles a SHORT ride. Oh man, if these guys decide to push pace, there will be a lot of us dying in the wind.
The group opted to head south from Berea through Lodi then down to Wooster. There are some gentle rollers on this route, but for the most part, it's pretty flat. Part of me thought to myself, I will just ride to Lodi then head back, but riding short while others keep going is just really hard for me to do. I haven't ridden further than 40 miles this year, why force the issue and ride all day? But, here's the thing. Since the surgery, I have found everything unexpectedly difficult: swimming, running, cardio in general. SO said he thought I could handle the ride, and I tired of not being able to do what I want to do, so I did what I wanted to do: ride long.
I made it to Lodi in prestine fashion. I think the guys were making a conscious effort not to destroy each other in the headwind so I spent the bulk of my time sitting behind the lovely wheels of Jeff, TC and SO. On occasion, I would find myself to the left of SO's wheel, and I would think, "well, this wind just stinks, back to behind my lovely windshield that these three guys have created." Now, I don't think I stayed there the entire way, but there was no pull in me through that crap.
After Lodi, we had another 20 miles to Wooster. We rode on a road called Overton (and we refer to it as Overton valley), and after about 10-14 miles, I got dropped by the group. I wasn't the only one, but I got pretty nervous as the road kind of zigzags from one side of the valley to the other, and I was scared I would zig when I was suppose to zag. Playing safe, I waved down a car to make sure she had passed a group of cyclists, and she did, but as I turned, I saw TC behind me? What??? Well, apparently, he hadn't been riding long throughout the winter and hadn't really planned on riding the whole ride, and he was hurting a bit (he was also riding a fixie and getting dropped a bit on the short incline bursts), but he was a welcomed site as he helped tow me through that headwind to Wooster. As we got closer and closer to Wooster, we worried about making a wrong turn, but then a figure appeared, and sure enough SO came back to gather the stragglers. In total, five of us fell off the pace, three behind TC and me, but that wind was nasty, and once you were off the line, you were dropped pretty quickly.
As we ate our gas station lunch, we prayed that the wind wouldn't shift! As we got out, it had turned slightly, but not substantially enough to get rid of the tailwind we had earned for the way back.
For the most part, the group stayed together for the 20 miles back to Lodi, but we were starting to break up as we approached Lodi. Truth be told, Jeff jumped off the front and road there through the Overton valley. As we left Lodi, we had established an A and B group for the rest of the ride back to Berea. It was a little weird, one of the guys who got dropped on the way down, was riding with the A's on the way back. SO made a comment last week that seemed pretty appropriate, the wind can only break you down if you let it.
I was definitely in the B group and was scared I was going to be the dropped member of B. One of the guys and I kind of looked at each other as "drop buddies," but we managed to hang on through the rollers until we got to a pretty flat Station Rd with about 15 miles to go. On Station, one of the guys got a flat, and as he and a couple of others got it fixed, I started getting colder, and I started getting this really strong "I want to be finished now" feeling. So, when we got back on the bikes, I took over the front and stayed there for about 40 minutes. Now, pulling in a tailwind isn't exactly the exhausting task pulling into a headwind is, but I kept the pace up and kept everyone on board. When I dropped to the back of the line, TC said to me, "pretty good pull...for a girl!"
As we approached the finish, Eric, TC and I pushed off the front as we just wanted to be done. A couple of guys were really hurting those last 30 miles from Lodi to Berea, and I don't think having the only female in the group beating them up for the last 15 helped their egos much either.
Eric (the organizer) later told me that one of the guys commented to him about how fast I got towards the end of the ride. SO often yells at me for something similar, I play it safe for the bulk of a ride and then when the end is in sight, I drop the hammer like there is no turning back (because there isn't) and make everyone else suffer. It's probably good that 95% of the people who let me ride with them are so much stronger that my hammer is their slightly exerted, but I along with 10 friends, got in a century in Ohio in February!
I should say that Eric really went out of his way to make sure that the B group didn't get lost and didn't waste away riding inefficiently in the wind. I also found out that my computer was mis-calibrated for this ride, being about 3 miles off from everyone else's total.
All in all, I feel lucky to be included in this group and being able to get in so many miles and feel relatively safe that I am not going to get lost in the middle of nowhere.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Norton - A Cute Little Tournament
For the first time all season, I judged Public Forum for an entire tournament (and not just a random round). It was a really small tournament, with only 8 or 9 schools attending. Just because it was small, doesn't mean that competition was nonexistent nor did it mean that kids didn't come up with some rather... unique arguments. Since it was a VERY local tournament, nearly every judge in the judges lounge was a rather familiar and friendly face so we all had a ball discussing the various things we "learned" from the crafty students.
The Resolution: "Birthright citizenship should be abolished in the United States."
While I didn't hear anything nearly as funny as some others, I did hear "No senator wrote the 14th Amendment. The amendments were written by the founding fathers!" I guess we need to pray for reincarnation (which in itself is a paradox, I think) if we ever need an amendment passed again!
One judge (and probably a couple of more) heard the following argument in negation of the resolution:
"Immigrants have lots of sex and therefore lots of babies. Having lots of sex is good because it creates greater genetic diversity." I can't be sure whether or not there was empirical evidence supporting this claim...
And finally...
"Statistics cannot be used to describe the state of the economy." Which horribly confused the judge after hearing that particular team's arguments referencing GDP!
Doesn't judging debate sound like fun?? If you are interested, let me know as there are hours upon hours... upon hours of judging fun available this weekend at our national qualifying tournament! Interested in spending your entire Saturday in a Massillon high school, just let me know!
It was a very successful tournament for us as my sophomore placed 5th in LD and my only PF team placed 2nd. Other kids on the team received some much needed experience and seemed to have a good time.
The Resolution: "Birthright citizenship should be abolished in the United States."
While I didn't hear anything nearly as funny as some others, I did hear "No senator wrote the 14th Amendment. The amendments were written by the founding fathers!" I guess we need to pray for reincarnation (which in itself is a paradox, I think) if we ever need an amendment passed again!
One judge (and probably a couple of more) heard the following argument in negation of the resolution:
"Immigrants have lots of sex and therefore lots of babies. Having lots of sex is good because it creates greater genetic diversity." I can't be sure whether or not there was empirical evidence supporting this claim...
And finally...
"Statistics cannot be used to describe the state of the economy." Which horribly confused the judge after hearing that particular team's arguments referencing GDP!
Doesn't judging debate sound like fun?? If you are interested, let me know as there are hours upon hours... upon hours of judging fun available this weekend at our national qualifying tournament! Interested in spending your entire Saturday in a Massillon high school, just let me know!
It was a very successful tournament for us as my sophomore placed 5th in LD and my only PF team placed 2nd. Other kids on the team received some much needed experience and seemed to have a good time.
Monday, February 6, 2012
First Outdoor Ride of 2012
In the spring, I ride with a subset of people from the Lake Erie Wheelers. Starting as early as February, our fearless leader Eric organizes century rides (for noncyslists: 100+ miles rides) every Saturday that range from flat to rolling to somewhat hilly as preparation for his two favorite events: Calvin's 12 Hour Challenge and the National 24 Hour Challenge. Eric's rides typically start in February while I am still coaching so I was pumped that I had the first weekend in February free of tournaments that I could actually ride! To say I was excited is an understatement.
As a debate parent predicted to me, the weather was not as forecasted and was definitely not ideal, as I woke up, I went through all of my organization, put on my 4 shirts, my riding jacket, my two pairs of socks, made sure I had my gloves, my shoe booties, my two bandanas for my head and headed out the door to discover an inch of snow. What?!?!? I felt sick to my stomach, how could this have happened? I sent Eric a text and asked if it was snowing there, and he said that there was no snow there and that the ride was still a go. Okay, I thought, and I decided that I might as well go up and ride. I have ridden in some bad conditions, how bad could it be? Never a good thought, just never!
I pulled up to Eric's house, and as I got out of my car, a driver pulled up next to me to say, "Your rear right tire is low." Sure enough, as I looked at it, the tire was low and steaming. Someone later explained to me that the reduced air pressure increases the friction when it is making contact with the road, causing the steam. I called my mom, and she suggested to call my roadside, which I did and scheduled an appointment for them to come at 2:30 (when I thought would be finished riding).
As I rushed to get out the door at home, I forgot one of the "must haves" for me for cycling... my helmet. During the season, I never take my helmet out of the car. It and my air pump get used every ride, then go back in the car and do not leave. But, in my rush to get moving, I forgot to grab the helmet out of my bike room. While I know others who ride without one, you will never see me riding sans helmet unless I am on the trainer or the rollers. Fortunately, Eric had an old one that he let me borrow. It wasn't the greatest helmet, but it looked like it could handle the job.
Now, while there was no snow in Berea, but that didn't mean it wasn't cold and wet. As we started to ride, I got warmed up as I normally do, but was struggling to see out of my foggy glasses. I could see well enough so I didn't let it get to me, but I was starting to wonder if the foggy glasses were causing the problem or something else as I could barely read my computer. Seriously, enough hasn't gone wrong that my bike computer now has to stop working? Sure enough, 25 minutes into the ride, my computer died. "Oh well," I though, I will just keep up with the other 13 crazy people riding and figured I would be fine. As we continued to ride, my semi-exposed lower back started to feel very exposed, starting the misery of cold rainy 35 degree weather.
I should also mention that Eric is the guy who basically introduced me to SO. Man, on every ride, he gives me grief. Oh, Marie is smiling, guess who must be here! Sure enough, half way to Grafton, Eric rides up to me and said, "I am surprised to see you riding up here since SO is back there." Of course both he and SO started laughing.
As we rode, I think we all underestimated how wet the roads would be, causing everyone's feet to get soaked by the spray from the tires. Now, I was wearing booties over my shoes plus 2 pairs of socks, but it didn't seem to matter. My toes were starting to feel numb. After about an hour, we made it to our first stop in Grafton. As I got off the bike, I knew there was no way I was riding any further away from Berea, confirmed by the stiff frozen sensation I got from my tights as I went to the bathroom.
Sometimes, when you are that cold and wet that your clothes start to freeze, the worst thing you can do is let those clothes thaw and get wet again so as make you even colder when you go back outside. I learned that the hard way a few years ago when I was running in about 4 degree weather...that warm bathroom felt nice, but I thought I was going to get hypothermia about 5 minutes later. So, about half the group (me but not SO included) opted to ride back to Berea. Now, I was suppose to ride until 2, or at least that was what I had told the roadside, so I quickly called and was able to have them come at 11:30.
SO had stopped at a Rite-Aid to buy socks and to get some plastic bags for his feet, so I rushed off ahead of a few people to tell him my new plan and that I would see him later as he was going to keep riding.
As we started off, we were all pretty cold, you could see people shaking their feet and their hands in attempts to get blood circulating through the cold extremities. As we left, someone said to me, if we are going to ride short (35 miles), we might as well ride hard so hard we rode. We got into a pace line with short fast pulls, about a minute tops, and kept the pace up as we sprinted for the warmth of cars and showers and blankets. With a couple of miles left, I started to notice my feet, particularly my right foot was numb. We got stopped by a light, and as I tried to clip my right foot back into the pedal, and I couldn't do it... my foot was just too numb to control so I rode for a few seconds and tried again, no luck. After a couple of minutes, I was finally able to clip in, but it was a struggle. Then, with about a mile left to go, my phone rang and rang and rang. I was worried it was the roadside people telling me they were at my car about to leave so I pulled over. Thinking I was fine, I let the group keep going. I got the message that they are on their way and get back on my bike. The problem is that I never pay attention to the exact route back to the starting place. I could have pulled it up on my map, but I was too cold to think straight so I ended up wandering around Berea for a couple of miles until I spot a familiar church. Note to self: stop chatting at the beginning of rides and start paying attention to road names!
I finally got back and there was the roadside guy. He got right to work, which was fine, except I couldn't exactly hope into the back of my truck and change out of the wet clothes while he had the car jacked up. Plus, I had forgotten the code to SO's car to use it, so I ended up standing in soaking wet clothes for about half an hour waiting for the guy to change my tire. To say I was cold was confirmed by the uncontrollable shivering that I started doing. I called my mom to see if she could give me some names of some tire places, and she did, but she could only find one in Berea. I finally get squared away with the roadside guy, turn my heat up to full blast and make my way to the nearest tire place...which was closed because it was after 12PM on a Saturday. Not being familiar with Berea that well, I started to get nervous and googled Conrads (which my mother mentioned was in Parma). I found a Conrad's about 4 miles away in Brook Park and slowly made my way there.
They were open and said it would take an hour so I went into their bathroom and changed out of my cold wet clothes and sat there and finally stopped shivering after about 45 minutes.
So, yes, I did get to ride, and I did have fun. I adore riding with this group of people (whether SO is there or not), but it wasn't nearly as much fun as I had hoped. To summarize all of the things that happened:
1. SNOW
2. Flat tire - on car
3. Forgot helmet
4. Computer died
5. Near hypothermia
ALL in the name of cycling!
As a debate parent predicted to me, the weather was not as forecasted and was definitely not ideal, as I woke up, I went through all of my organization, put on my 4 shirts, my riding jacket, my two pairs of socks, made sure I had my gloves, my shoe booties, my two bandanas for my head and headed out the door to discover an inch of snow. What?!?!? I felt sick to my stomach, how could this have happened? I sent Eric a text and asked if it was snowing there, and he said that there was no snow there and that the ride was still a go. Okay, I thought, and I decided that I might as well go up and ride. I have ridden in some bad conditions, how bad could it be? Never a good thought, just never!
I pulled up to Eric's house, and as I got out of my car, a driver pulled up next to me to say, "Your rear right tire is low." Sure enough, as I looked at it, the tire was low and steaming. Someone later explained to me that the reduced air pressure increases the friction when it is making contact with the road, causing the steam. I called my mom, and she suggested to call my roadside, which I did and scheduled an appointment for them to come at 2:30 (when I thought would be finished riding).
As I rushed to get out the door at home, I forgot one of the "must haves" for me for cycling... my helmet. During the season, I never take my helmet out of the car. It and my air pump get used every ride, then go back in the car and do not leave. But, in my rush to get moving, I forgot to grab the helmet out of my bike room. While I know others who ride without one, you will never see me riding sans helmet unless I am on the trainer or the rollers. Fortunately, Eric had an old one that he let me borrow. It wasn't the greatest helmet, but it looked like it could handle the job.
Now, while there was no snow in Berea, but that didn't mean it wasn't cold and wet. As we started to ride, I got warmed up as I normally do, but was struggling to see out of my foggy glasses. I could see well enough so I didn't let it get to me, but I was starting to wonder if the foggy glasses were causing the problem or something else as I could barely read my computer. Seriously, enough hasn't gone wrong that my bike computer now has to stop working? Sure enough, 25 minutes into the ride, my computer died. "Oh well," I though, I will just keep up with the other 13 crazy people riding and figured I would be fine. As we continued to ride, my semi-exposed lower back started to feel very exposed, starting the misery of cold rainy 35 degree weather.
I should also mention that Eric is the guy who basically introduced me to SO. Man, on every ride, he gives me grief. Oh, Marie is smiling, guess who must be here! Sure enough, half way to Grafton, Eric rides up to me and said, "I am surprised to see you riding up here since SO is back there." Of course both he and SO started laughing.
As we rode, I think we all underestimated how wet the roads would be, causing everyone's feet to get soaked by the spray from the tires. Now, I was wearing booties over my shoes plus 2 pairs of socks, but it didn't seem to matter. My toes were starting to feel numb. After about an hour, we made it to our first stop in Grafton. As I got off the bike, I knew there was no way I was riding any further away from Berea, confirmed by the stiff frozen sensation I got from my tights as I went to the bathroom.
Sometimes, when you are that cold and wet that your clothes start to freeze, the worst thing you can do is let those clothes thaw and get wet again so as make you even colder when you go back outside. I learned that the hard way a few years ago when I was running in about 4 degree weather...that warm bathroom felt nice, but I thought I was going to get hypothermia about 5 minutes later. So, about half the group (me but not SO included) opted to ride back to Berea. Now, I was suppose to ride until 2, or at least that was what I had told the roadside, so I quickly called and was able to have them come at 11:30.
SO had stopped at a Rite-Aid to buy socks and to get some plastic bags for his feet, so I rushed off ahead of a few people to tell him my new plan and that I would see him later as he was going to keep riding.
As we started off, we were all pretty cold, you could see people shaking their feet and their hands in attempts to get blood circulating through the cold extremities. As we left, someone said to me, if we are going to ride short (35 miles), we might as well ride hard so hard we rode. We got into a pace line with short fast pulls, about a minute tops, and kept the pace up as we sprinted for the warmth of cars and showers and blankets. With a couple of miles left, I started to notice my feet, particularly my right foot was numb. We got stopped by a light, and as I tried to clip my right foot back into the pedal, and I couldn't do it... my foot was just too numb to control so I rode for a few seconds and tried again, no luck. After a couple of minutes, I was finally able to clip in, but it was a struggle. Then, with about a mile left to go, my phone rang and rang and rang. I was worried it was the roadside people telling me they were at my car about to leave so I pulled over. Thinking I was fine, I let the group keep going. I got the message that they are on their way and get back on my bike. The problem is that I never pay attention to the exact route back to the starting place. I could have pulled it up on my map, but I was too cold to think straight so I ended up wandering around Berea for a couple of miles until I spot a familiar church. Note to self: stop chatting at the beginning of rides and start paying attention to road names!
I finally got back and there was the roadside guy. He got right to work, which was fine, except I couldn't exactly hope into the back of my truck and change out of the wet clothes while he had the car jacked up. Plus, I had forgotten the code to SO's car to use it, so I ended up standing in soaking wet clothes for about half an hour waiting for the guy to change my tire. To say I was cold was confirmed by the uncontrollable shivering that I started doing. I called my mom to see if she could give me some names of some tire places, and she did, but she could only find one in Berea. I finally get squared away with the roadside guy, turn my heat up to full blast and make my way to the nearest tire place...which was closed because it was after 12PM on a Saturday. Not being familiar with Berea that well, I started to get nervous and googled Conrads (which my mother mentioned was in Parma). I found a Conrad's about 4 miles away in Brook Park and slowly made my way there.
They were open and said it would take an hour so I went into their bathroom and changed out of my cold wet clothes and sat there and finally stopped shivering after about 45 minutes.
So, yes, I did get to ride, and I did have fun. I adore riding with this group of people (whether SO is there or not), but it wasn't nearly as much fun as I had hoped. To summarize all of the things that happened:
1. SNOW
2. Flat tire - on car
3. Forgot helmet
4. Computer died
5. Near hypothermia
ALL in the name of cycling!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Big Littles Weekend
Last weekend was a crazy one...
I have to admit that Little Districts (our state qualifying tournament) is one of my least favorite tournaments of the year. Every year, I am pleasantly surprised by who qualified and saddened by the tearful faces of kids who didn't. This year was no exception. To be quite honest, the tournament ran rather smoothly. Despite having to host, most of the debaters I coach had a pretty good tournament, and they represented our school well. There were a couple of surprises of kids who did not qualify, and I genuinely felt bad for those students.
In the end, Copley got 2 PF teams and 2 LDers to state along with one student in oratorical. Not necessarily our best showing, but not bad either. Along with the state qualifiers, I earned my diamond coaching award, which comes with my 1,500th coaching point. Apparently, when a woman my age who has been dating the same guy for quite a while says, "I got my diamond," the first thing even other coaches think isn't about coaching... Sadly, even my own mother thought I had gotten engaged when she heard the news, sorry mom, not happening anytime soon that is for sure.
There are so many things I want to say here that I cannot air publicly. My VP at work once said, "You either get better, or you get worse, there is no staying the same." I think that this tournament and students' reactions to it illustrate that statement perfectly. My first national qualifier did not qualify to state as a sophomore. I sat next to him crying on the bus ride home, and I don't think anything drove him to succeed more than that feeling of not making it. I think of my senior this year who didn't qualify as a sophomore, and he and his partner worked so hard over the next couple of weeks that they backdoored at Bigs to make it to state. (Note: we have had a total of 3 students do that ever so it's not as easy as it sounds). I guess my point is that lessons need to be learned, and while there are plenty of excuses for why a kid doesn't qualify (bad judges, tough draw, etc), each student has a choice to get better or to get worse.
With that said, I fell asleep early Saturday night as I prepared myself for the big swim: 100 x 100's. I was super nervous about this swim this year as 1) I took about a month off from working out and 2) I found myself pretty tired after two miles of swimming so how was I possibly going to swim nearly 6????
Last year, SO and I trained for this swim by doing 100 after 100 after 100 for months. Then, when we got to the pool, we decided to double our normal 500 warmup. When we finished the 1,000 warmup, we looked at each other and decided, rather than doing 90 more 100's, we would just do 9 more 1,000's, which worked out very well for us. We finished in almost exactly 3 hours.
This year, we elected to use the same strategy, although we actually spent sometime training for the 1,000 reps. Over the last month, I have been getting progressively faster as I was pretty slow when I first started back after the surgery, but not nearly as fast SO has been. The two other people in our lane were willing to go along with the 1,000's so we were all set, except....
The lead guy in our lane was fast! We'll call him yellow cap guy. I mean, he tailed off after about 4,000, but the fist 4,000 he lapped us once if not twice per rep, and we aren't slow! I think there was only one rep where he didn't lap us, and that is because SO made a conscious effort to draft off of him.
Yellow Cap Guy was also rightly frustrated by the tendency to get pelted in the head or hand...most likely by me. To my defense, the lanes were very narrow, but when I watched the video of the challenge, it was pretty obvious I swim with my elbows out and ready to fire. Even though there was only three seconds of me on the video, still so dreadful to watch! How am I so fast yet so awful at swimming?
Yellow Cap Guy's frustration with the slow pokes in his lane forced him to cut laps in the middle rather than wait for us to get to a wall to let him pass. In order to pass people, he would get near the end, and as whoever was approaching the wall, he would just turn around and start swimming. It was a little weird, and I think he was doing extra laps to compensate for the yardage he was losing, but his extra laps threw off our count, causing us to do a few more laps than the 200, which felt unnecessary given the quantity we signed up for.
I was so drafting off SO for nearly 4 or 5 of the reps, I mean right on his feet. It's a good thing he's not ticklish because I was poking at his feet for hours! The 4th person in our lane, and a long time friend of SO's, even mentioned to me that she was surprised he wasn't annoyed with me being right on top of him. I kind of feel like it was cheating because it was significantly easier drafting off of him, but I knew I couldn't really go any faster than him so I didn't try to pass him, he could have held up at a wall and let me pass, and had the situation been reversed, he would have done the exact same thing to me.
We didn't really take that many breaks, and we finished about 5 minutes faster than last year. I am not going to lie, I am pretty happy with swimming 200 laps or 10,000 yards in less than 3 hours, but I think I was most grateful for 3 hours away from my phone in a world where the only thing I was focusing on was the number of laps completed in the set I was doing.
I think it's in It's Not About the Bike, but Lance Armstrong talks about questions he always gets asked, one of them being, "what do you think about for all of those hours you are cycling." To which he responds, "it might sound stupid, but I am thinking about cycling." I guess what I enjoyed most about the event this year was "thinking about swimming."
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Sylvania - What a Weekend!
Sitting at a McDonalds off the turnpike late Saturday night surrounded by the six debaters I took to the Sylvania tournament, I finally felt the passion I have for coaching that has been missing most of this season.
For the non-debate audience, the Sylvania tournament is in a suburb of Toledo, easily the biggest tournament of the year in Ohio with over 1,000 high school students competing, and the only overnight (stay in a hotel) tournament for the Copley team this year. The tournament starts Friday afternoon and ends sometime Saturday evening. In order to compete at tournaments, each school has to provide judges. For debate, the basic ratio is 1 student: 1 judge, 2 students: 1 judge, 3 students: 2 judges, 4 students: 2 judges. You get the idea. Because the distance away, we can't really ask our local judges for the time commitment and the expense of driving out there to help our team. We rely on coaches and parents who are willing to judge. Consequently, we just can't take our entire team. In debate, we can traditionally take two entries in each debate (Public Forum {PF}and Lincoln Douglas {LD}). This year, we also took a couple of kids on the speech side of the team, but because of the way the tournament is set up, I didn't really get to see them.
2 day tournaments work like this: the kids debate 4 rounds on Friday, then they debate 2 more on Saturday. After those 2 rounds, all kids with winning records (4-2 or higher) break into a partial double-octa bracket. At that point, it is single elimination until you have a champion in the final round.
Last year, we had a very successful Sylvania tournament. We took our senior and our only second year LDer and our senior and junior power house PF team and two sophomores. We left the tournament with the senior LDer winning and the power house PF team taking 3rd. Yeah, it felt good! The kids who didn't place had good tournaments, and we generally had a good time.
The decision of who to take this year wasn't all that easy. In PF, it was pretty simple, I only had two established teams, but in LD, it was pretty tough. Ultimately, we decided to take a sophomore over a junior because of that sophomore's level of dedication. The junior was very upset with the decision as were his parents, but ultimately, the decision stood.
For the first time in several months, I was in the judges pool. For the first round, I judged PF, and it wasn't a very interesting round. One team was quite weak, but showed some potential, while the other team was good, but I was more impressed (and distracted by the murals drawn on the ceiling).
For the non-debate audience, the Sylvania tournament is in a suburb of Toledo, easily the biggest tournament of the year in Ohio with over 1,000 high school students competing, and the only overnight (stay in a hotel) tournament for the Copley team this year. The tournament starts Friday afternoon and ends sometime Saturday evening. In order to compete at tournaments, each school has to provide judges. For debate, the basic ratio is 1 student: 1 judge, 2 students: 1 judge, 3 students: 2 judges, 4 students: 2 judges. You get the idea. Because the distance away, we can't really ask our local judges for the time commitment and the expense of driving out there to help our team. We rely on coaches and parents who are willing to judge. Consequently, we just can't take our entire team. In debate, we can traditionally take two entries in each debate (Public Forum {PF}and Lincoln Douglas {LD}). This year, we also took a couple of kids on the speech side of the team, but because of the way the tournament is set up, I didn't really get to see them.
2 day tournaments work like this: the kids debate 4 rounds on Friday, then they debate 2 more on Saturday. After those 2 rounds, all kids with winning records (4-2 or higher) break into a partial double-octa bracket. At that point, it is single elimination until you have a champion in the final round.
Last year, we had a very successful Sylvania tournament. We took our senior and our only second year LDer and our senior and junior power house PF team and two sophomores. We left the tournament with the senior LDer winning and the power house PF team taking 3rd. Yeah, it felt good! The kids who didn't place had good tournaments, and we generally had a good time.
The decision of who to take this year wasn't all that easy. In PF, it was pretty simple, I only had two established teams, but in LD, it was pretty tough. Ultimately, we decided to take a sophomore over a junior because of that sophomore's level of dedication. The junior was very upset with the decision as were his parents, but ultimately, the decision stood.
For the first time in several months, I was in the judges pool. For the first round, I judged PF, and it wasn't a very interesting round. One team was quite weak, but showed some potential, while the other team was good, but I was more impressed (and distracted by the murals drawn on the ceiling).
For the debatisms:
From there, I judged LD the rest of the tournament. The second round had one of the funniest cases I have ever heard, which takes some effort because the topic is "Resolved: It is morally permissible for victims to use deadly force as a deliberate response to repeated domestic violence." The topic doesn't really lend itself to humor, but...
The negative (arguing it's wrong for the abused to try to kill their abuser) used a case touting the power of peace and reconciliation. When he mentioned that women in Saudi Arabia can't drive cars, they couldn't possibly kill their abuser," I nearly lost it.
Ironically, this kid wasn't the only one running this particular case, as another judge told me, "I just heard a case that was just too catholic...and I'm catholic."
In that same round, I heard the phrases:
"something as arbitrary as domestic violence"
"There's a difference between domestic violence and your spouse killing you."
Later on in the tournament, I heard:
"What you can do in your home is different than what you can do in public. You can kill someone in the privacy of your own home, but not in public." Be careful folks when someone invites you over for dinner, you never know what might happen.
Now, for our hotel room, I was sharing a room with our parent judge and my sister. Last year at the state tournament, I tried to "share" a bed with my sister but woke up shivering as she had wrapped the blankets around herself and had proceeded to push me to the very edge of the bed. I decided just to take a sleeping bag and sleep on the floor, which was fine except cement floors covered in carpet just aren't comfortable. I ended up waking up at 4:45 and going and hitting the elliptical in the hotel gym.
There were some other funny stories. My two boy PF team shared a hotel room, and apparently, the one kid is quite the snorer. When the judge walked into their first round on Saturday morning, he commented that all of the students looked quite tired. The judge then said, "the first one who snores loses," and the one boy immediately pointed to his teammate and said, "HIM!"
Because of an internet server issue, the tournament didn't go as planned, they could only run 3 rounds on Friday and consequently broke only the topic 16 kids rather than all of the kids with winning records. So, the 5 of my kids who had winning records did not break, but they at least learned a lot from the experience. My sophomore was one of those kids with a winning record, and he was through the roof excited. This kid doesn't speak well. He gets pretty nervous and tends to stutter. This stuttering problem caused him barely to win a round last year. He seriously won 3 out of 20 rounds at his last four tournaments last year so for this kid to win 4 at one tournament for the second time this year just shows how hard he works and the passion he has to improve.
Now, the drive home had one noteworthy story. Sylvania is right off the turnpike so we along with nearly every other school from Youngstown, Cleveland, Akron, and Canton drive the turnpike home. While we only took 8 students, most schools take 20-40 kids. Well, we left the tournament around 7:30 Saturday night. Now, my sister was in a van and got a head start on the bus and told us to to skip the 1st travel plaza as it only had one restaurant open and to go to the second. Well, the Wadsworth coach had a bad feeling about that plan, so we stopped at the 1st travel plaza. My sister called me screaming to get back on the bus, that the 2nd stop had 5 restaurants. Since it wasn't my bus, I told her to call the Wadsworth coach. After 5 minutes, she convinces the Wadsworth coach to re-load the kids on the bus and head to the travel plaza 15 miles down the road.
As we are driving, my sister sends me a text that a school bus pooled in: it's Wooster, then another 2 from Youngstown, and then another 2 from Canton. By the time we got there, there were 7 buses and that all the restaurants but one were closed. Frustrated, we didn't stop and decided to get off the highway and hit up a McDonalds.
It was at that McDonalds where my debaters sat around me, and we talked about our team. I talked about why I liked the kids in the past so much, how they helped build the program I coach because they understood the importance of a team and the reputation of that team to their underlying success. Some of them were around for part of that, while others never knew that Copley didn't use to be a power debate school, that it was through their former teammate's hard work that people started taking our team seriously.
Taking a day off work and being in a high school with about 300 high school students for two days might not be how most 30 year olds spend their weekends, but it works for me.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Flashback to this Past Summer
There was a day this past summer that I felt so compelled to write about that it sat in my email as a draft for the last four months. So, take yourself back to the hot humid days of August and imagine this day, about two weeks before Ironman Wisconsin, one of my last big workouts before the taper for the race.
"I just felt it necessary to write about what a horribly stupid person I have been so far today...
Let's start with the morning. I got out my cereal and as I pour the milk, it comes out in a clumb. Dang it!!! Ok, plan B, I bought a bagel at Brueggers Friday so I was fine for breakfast.
I decided to ride with some CTC folks (actually begged for company on my ride and was heard by JE) up in Chagrin. I got on the entrance ramp for the highway and realized that I forgot my water bottles in the freezer so I decided to get right on the exit ramp and go home and grab them.
I got up to the place where we are meeting to start, and as we set out to leave, I royally dropped my chain. It was actually caught between the big ring and the front derailler. Fortunately, someone there fixed it for me so I didn't delay the group. We head south towards the valley, and I am talking to BH when I hit a major, bone shaking hole. I was sure I was going down, but both my bike and I made it through okay, but my heart started racing out of my chest. It took a good five minutes for my heart to settle down. For food, I was working on my nutrition, so when I hit that major hole, I managed to loosen my peanut butter sandwiches out of my bento box (little box velcroed on frame to hold things like said PB sandwiches), and they fell out without me noticing. Fortunately, someone was behind me and managed to pick them up for me.
From there, I was actually able to start concentrating on riding, but I was with a group of very strong cyclists. I mean, when I got there, I knew I was in for a hurt. My first lesson was that I am apparently a horrible descender. I kept getting dropped... on the downhills! By the end, I was really struggling. I think the problem was that everyone besides BH and JE planned on this 55 miles being their entire workout so they had no problem pushing harder to stay with everyone else. I, on the other hand, had every intention of finishing then going back out for an hour on the bike then going running for another hour and a half. When we got back to the starting place, after a hilly 55 miles, we averaged over 18 mph. I was hurting and still had 2+ hours to go.
So, I went back out to finish my ride, and on the way back, I rode through a vertical crack and nearly broke my wheel. After another five minute calm down from panicking, I got back to my car to prepare for my run. When I got there, I see that I forgot my fuel belt for running so despite it being about 90 degrees and humid, I have no easy way to carry water for my 90 minute run. I also forgot my purse so I had no headphones to listen to while running.
BH had suggested a running route, and it SUCKED. It was a very hilly road after about 2 miles of false flat. I was freakin' hurting, carrying a water bottle in my hand that kept slipping out, then I had the brilliant idea to stop at a gas station and fill that water bottle with freezing cold water at the soda fountain. I easily guzzled two full bottles...but I forgot I still had about a mile to run, yeah, that felt great sloshing around my stomach.
When I finished, I though, man, a diet coke and a cookie (my vision of heaven on earth) would just rock, right? Well, not for me because I forgot my purse and my wallet and had a total of $1 in my car.
So, my hunger pains started to become noticeable on the drive home so I decided to go home, grab my purse, take the bike out of the car, and go grocery shopping. I got to the grocery store, looked to the passenger side seat and saw NO PURSE. Are you f***** kidding me? I went home specifically to grab my purse and forgot the damn thing."
While driving back to my apartment, I called my mom crying, asking her, "what's wrong with me?" She agreed that with Ironman, I had lots of things on my mind so I probably wasn't very focused.
For those of you who know me well enough, nothing in this post should come as a surprise. Looking forward to 2012, I should make a resolution to be more diligent about remembering things which would have come in handy last night as I went to my cycling class..grabbed my clothes, trainer, bike, towels out of the car and realized I had forgotten my cycling shoes. Duh! Good thing I live close by...
"I just felt it necessary to write about what a horribly stupid person I have been so far today...
Let's start with the morning. I got out my cereal and as I pour the milk, it comes out in a clumb. Dang it!!! Ok, plan B, I bought a bagel at Brueggers Friday so I was fine for breakfast.
I decided to ride with some CTC folks (actually begged for company on my ride and was heard by JE) up in Chagrin. I got on the entrance ramp for the highway and realized that I forgot my water bottles in the freezer so I decided to get right on the exit ramp and go home and grab them.
I got up to the place where we are meeting to start, and as we set out to leave, I royally dropped my chain. It was actually caught between the big ring and the front derailler. Fortunately, someone there fixed it for me so I didn't delay the group. We head south towards the valley, and I am talking to BH when I hit a major, bone shaking hole. I was sure I was going down, but both my bike and I made it through okay, but my heart started racing out of my chest. It took a good five minutes for my heart to settle down. For food, I was working on my nutrition, so when I hit that major hole, I managed to loosen my peanut butter sandwiches out of my bento box (little box velcroed on frame to hold things like said PB sandwiches), and they fell out without me noticing. Fortunately, someone was behind me and managed to pick them up for me.
From there, I was actually able to start concentrating on riding, but I was with a group of very strong cyclists. I mean, when I got there, I knew I was in for a hurt. My first lesson was that I am apparently a horrible descender. I kept getting dropped... on the downhills! By the end, I was really struggling. I think the problem was that everyone besides BH and JE planned on this 55 miles being their entire workout so they had no problem pushing harder to stay with everyone else. I, on the other hand, had every intention of finishing then going back out for an hour on the bike then going running for another hour and a half. When we got back to the starting place, after a hilly 55 miles, we averaged over 18 mph. I was hurting and still had 2+ hours to go.
So, I went back out to finish my ride, and on the way back, I rode through a vertical crack and nearly broke my wheel. After another five minute calm down from panicking, I got back to my car to prepare for my run. When I got there, I see that I forgot my fuel belt for running so despite it being about 90 degrees and humid, I have no easy way to carry water for my 90 minute run. I also forgot my purse so I had no headphones to listen to while running.
BH had suggested a running route, and it SUCKED. It was a very hilly road after about 2 miles of false flat. I was freakin' hurting, carrying a water bottle in my hand that kept slipping out, then I had the brilliant idea to stop at a gas station and fill that water bottle with freezing cold water at the soda fountain. I easily guzzled two full bottles...but I forgot I still had about a mile to run, yeah, that felt great sloshing around my stomach.
When I finished, I though, man, a diet coke and a cookie (my vision of heaven on earth) would just rock, right? Well, not for me because I forgot my purse and my wallet and had a total of $1 in my car.
So, my hunger pains started to become noticeable on the drive home so I decided to go home, grab my purse, take the bike out of the car, and go grocery shopping. I got to the grocery store, looked to the passenger side seat and saw NO PURSE. Are you f***** kidding me? I went home specifically to grab my purse and forgot the damn thing."
While driving back to my apartment, I called my mom crying, asking her, "what's wrong with me?" She agreed that with Ironman, I had lots of things on my mind so I probably wasn't very focused.
For those of you who know me well enough, nothing in this post should come as a surprise. Looking forward to 2012, I should make a resolution to be more diligent about remembering things which would have come in handy last night as I went to my cycling class..grabbed my clothes, trainer, bike, towels out of the car and realized I had forgotten my cycling shoes. Duh! Good thing I live close by...
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