Bill Menees's Blog

Since the Du Run Run, I've trained a lot, but I haven't done any more multisport events. I rode my friend's bike some more, swam a lot in my pool, and did some bricks. But my swimming lessons at Excel Aquatics didn't work out so well. I got kicked out of class. Or at least they asked me not to come back until I learned how to swim.

It turns out that I'm a very inefficient breather in the water and that makes me a very inefficient swimmer. So they told me I needed to take a beginner's swimming class to learn how to breathe properly before I came back to the triathlete's swimming class. That was disappointing, but it was a fair assessment.

I bought the Total Immersion Swimming book and worked through several of its "fish-like" swimming drills. That helped some, but I feel like I'd improve 100 times faster with a live coach versus having to work solo on drills from a book. That works fine for me in most mediums, but it's not working that well in the water. I'm too out of my element there.

The multisport and outdoor swimming season ends around here in early September, so I didn't have much time to train this year. By mid-August I decided to forget multisport for this year and focus solely on running. The multisport training I did do seemed to help my endurance though, so I'm interested in picking it back up in the spring.

I'm averaging about 25 miles a week running now, and I'm doing most of them at medium to high intensity. I do 4-6 mile runs during the week with long runs of 11-16 miles on the weekend. I briefly toyed with following a marathon training program this year (e.g., for the Greenway Marathon), but I've learned that I really don't like long, slow mileage. Shorter, faster runs suit me better, and they reduce my injury risk. My IT bands don't bother me any more unless I do 15+ mile runs, so I try not to do them very often.

I'm also regularly doing strength training, stretching, and other exercises to improve my running muscles. I try to mix up my workouts so they occasionally include barefoot running, side running, backwards running, high knees, high heels, step/box jumps, rocket jumps, long strides/bounds, and short strides.

I've also found that back extensions, dumbbell lunges, and abdominal exercises really help me run faster due to improved stability and breathing. I used to finish fast runs, and my stomach/diaphragm would be hurting to the point of almost making me throw up. Since I started strengthening my core muscles, I've gotten faster, and I'm much less likely to puke at the end of a hard race.

In the last two months I've lowered my 5K, 10K, and half marathon PRs substantially:

• 5K - 20:40 (6:40 pace) on 8/9/08
• 10K - 45:09 (7:16 pace) on 9/13/08
• Half - 1:36:58 (7:25 pace) on 10/4/08

I'm looking forward to improving these times as the weather gets cooler. The weather was about perfect for this week's half where I PRed, but the 5K and 10K were set in hotter conditions than I'd like.

I've tried to run smart this year by listening to my body to avoid injury. So far that's worked, and my times keep improving. Unfortunately, I was foolish enough to sign up for the Flying Monkey Marathon again. I have no intentions of racing it though because I haven't trained to run fast (or even run) for 26.2 miles. My goal is to finish the race uninjured. If possible, I'd like to finish under last year's 6:19:36 injured time. So I'll be stopping to stretch, walking the worst uphills, walking through the water stops, and doing whatever is necessary to get through the race injury-free.

I've done 21 races so far this year - at least one every month. I'm hoping the Flying Monkey won't kill my legs and break that streak for me by ruining my December races. I'm signed up for the Cougar Crawl 5K on Oct. 18, and I'll probably run the Team Nashville 10 Miler on Nov. 1. After that it's the Monkey on Nov. 23, and then seeing which races I can handle in December.

Labels: Running

On a random personal note, I just finished building a treehouse for my son Aaron. Last summer I started talking about building him a treehouse, and I was planning to put it in a tree in the backyard. But in March 2008 we had to have an 80 foot red oak tree that was beside our house cut down because it was starting to rot in the middle. One of its 3 "trunks" hung out over the house, so we had the tree service cut all of them and leave a 6 foot high stump. That became the base for Aaron's treehouse.

Before beginning construction, I read all the books on building treehouses that I could find at the local library. The best ones by far were the excellent books by David and Jeanie Stiles:

• Tree Houses You Can Actually Build: A Weekend Project Book
• Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build

I decided to build a treehouse very similar to the "Basic Treehouse" described in chapter 3 of the second book. I used the free Google SketchUp 3D drawing software to create a detailed, layered design for my treehouse. This helped me visualize exactly what I was going to build, and by turning off layers and rotating the model, I was able to easily come up with a materials list when it was time to start construction.

In case anyone is interested, here's a link to the SketchUp file I created: TreehouseSketchUp.zip. Here's a pic of what the final design looked like:

On Labor Day (Sept. 1), I went to Home Depot and bought the majority of supplies I needed. I got everything except the siding and roofing because I hadn't found the perfect materials for those yet. By Sept. 6 I had the posts and floor frame installed.

The next day, I built the stairs and started putting on the decking. Aaron also had one of his friends over to see the "treehouse".

By Sept. 12, I'd finished the decking (with a cool "trap door"), and I'd framed in the walls and part of the railings.

On the 13th, I added the roof supports, and the framing was done.

I'd been looking for the perfect material for the siding. I didn't want to use 1x10s, OSB, or any of the flat sheeting I'd found. But one night, I was reading Popular Science, and it had an article that mentioned how the rings of Saturn were wavy like a sheet of metal roofing. That gave me the idea to look at sheet roofing materials for use on both the roof and sides. I found 2x8 foot sheets of Palruf PVC roofing at Home Depot, and Aaron loved the green ones. The sheets are tough but lightweight and very easy to work with. So by Sept. 18, I had the walls sided.

By Sept. 22, I'd put on the roof and installed a support beam for the upcoming fireman's pole and bucket/pulley assembly. Aaron had also convinced me to install a Pirates of the Caribbean "swing set accessory kit", which included a steering wheel, a telescope, a compass (as accurate as Jack Sparrow's), and a waterproof treasure map. It's in the center of the front railing.

By the 25th, I'd added a bench, a fireman's pole and bucket, as well as "steps" to climp up to the trap door. The railing beside the fireman's pole is hinged inward and spring loaded, so you have to pull it towards you to open it and get to the pole. That seemed safer than having a constant opening like I had drawn in my original SketchUp design. I let the fireman's pole stick up a few extra feet at the top because I may hang a flag on it someday.

The last things I added were a door at the top of the stairs and some hand rails by the stairs. I officially declared the project "finished" on October 3rd, and Aaron and I posed for our treehouse dedication photo.

All together it ended up costing about $500 for materials. The most expensive single item in the whole thing was the Pirates of the Caribbean accessory kit, which was $50 (10% of the cost)! There are several more things I thought about adding (e.g., a climbing wall, an escape hatch to the roof, monkey bars underneath, a flag, and a zip line down to the pool), but I'll save those for "phase 2".

Astute viewers will notice that I probably need to replace our tired, worn out fence before I do anything on phase 2 of the treehouse. I also have a backlog of programming and knifemaking projects I'd like to work on...