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Review: 50% longer with SportLegs….sort of

[Editor’s Note: For a full review and discussion of SportLegs, please read SportLegs: Ride Further More Comfortably.]

My brother, Matt, passed me a baggie yesterday with some pills in it. He told me that they are completely legal, called “SportLegs” (What is Sport Legs?) and will keep the lactic acid from building up in my legs, as quickly as normal, if I take them one hour before exercising.

I figured that I would give them a try this morning, because I would be pushing myself with a six-mile run. Six miles is the most that I’ve run so far – I’m working up to 13 miles for the Miami Half-IronMan this November. (For those keeping track, it took me just under 60 minutes to complete the run.)

I missed the one-hour mark, but I did pop three of the SportLegs pills about 20 minutes before going to the gym. When he handed them to me last night, he also mentioned that I should take ONE pill for every 50lbs and to not take too many at once, because there was the potential for getting ‘the runs’.

It had been three weeks since I had done any type of physical activity, because of a busy work schedule and a vacation mixed in there, too. So, I was surprised that I managed to get my 5K distance done two minutes faster that normal and still felt really good. When the clock ticked past 45 minutes, I was 4.5 miles into my run – a solid 10 minute mile pace. About this time, my legs felt a little fatigued, but I ran through it and started to feel much better with about 10 minutes to go to hit my goal of six miles.

I’m pretty sure that’s when the SportLegs kicked in. I was actually able to raise the pace from 6 mph to 7 mph. I think my legs could have taken more, but my heart rate was getting very close to my max. About 5 minutes before the 60 minute mark, my stomach started to feel ‘strange’.

I slowed the treadmill down to about 6.5 mph and had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment. I decided that I would power through it and get to my goal of a sub-60 minute 6-miler. I finished, did a quick cool down, practically ran to my car where I had a pretty good stomach cramp. Needless to say that I rushed home as quickly as possible. I’m glad that I was on the treadmill at my local gym and not running in the middle of nowhere.

So…. Can I go further with SportLegs with less pain and a quicker recovery?

While my legs felt GREAT comparatively to what they normally feel like for that distance at that pace, my stomach wouldn’t have let me go any further. After the ride, my legs feel very little pain. I think that I’ll try it again with two pills instead of three. At this point, the jury is out on SportLegs.

Adam

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Storm Advice: Hide From Wind, Run From Water

I have a bad feeling about Ike.

Like my kid, Matt, said. “The projected track is right down my driveway.”

There’s still time for it to turn, but we’re right in the center of the cone when it’s in the Bahamas on Tuesday. To make things worse, we were planning on heading to Memphis on Wednesday to ride in the MS-150 there. We might still make it, but my focus is on Ike right now.

This will be the first hurricane in recent history that we haven’t ridden out on The Palm Beach Post’s 4th floor, where I was telecommunications manager. I retired a week too early. The Post was a great place to watch the storms. We had a huge generator capable of powering the whole facility and banks of 120-mph-rated windows overlooking the whole city.

Watching transformers blow up

Watching the transformers blowing up with a bright green flash and a shower of sparks must be like overlooking downtown Bagdad during a bombing run.

Before I got into telecom, I was a photographer who chased 13 hurricanes ranging the whole coast from Mexico through all the Gulf states and as far north as Atlantic City, N.J.. Unfortunately, in those pre-Weather Channel days, I had a reputation for never guessing the right place to go for landfall. I chased Hurricane Elena 2,500 miles from Mobile to Tampa and then back to Mississippi while it tried to make up its mind. Continue reading “Storm Advice: Hide From Wind, Run From Water”

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Between Gustav and Hanna with Ike Coming

This is the time of year when folks in South Florida stay glued to the Weather Channel and the weather sites.

We got drenched by Fay, dodged Gustav and are keeping our eyes on Hanna until it makes a northward turn. As if that’s not enough, Ike is due east, moving quickly to the west and there are several other hot spots lining up.

So, what do you do?

You go for a bike ride, of course

Since it’s Labor Day, a holiday, I’m not sure if this qualifies as my first official ride of retirement after 49 years in the ink-slinging business. It probably won’t dawn on me that I’m unemployed until the alarm doesn’t go off in the morning.

Work, a cold and weather have kept me off the bike for about two months except for a couple of short rides. That’s not good, because I’m signed up for the Memphis MS-150 in two weeks.

I headed off to do my normal Lake Worth, FL, 12-mile neighborhood loop to see how the legs worked and to scout out new material for the blog.

With all the storms, I figured the beach would be a good place to stop.

Still repairing 2004-05 hurricane damage

Heavy equipment being used to repair damage to the pier from the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes is still in place. The red flag is standing straight out, indicating a 12-17 mph wind out of the northeast. The heat index was somewhere around 95 degrees because of high humidity.

That reminds me why I like to ride at night. Even if I do have days free, I may still favor evening and night rides.

Not everyone feels that one, of course. There were lots of bikes on the road today. Some of them were “serious” riders, some were casual riders and some were rusted beaters that showed the hard use of some folks who used them for daily transportation. I suspect that many of them ride more miles a month than the “serious” weekend warriors.

Politics on the beach

While shooting the pier picture, I started chatting with a couple of guys watching the waves. It was a free-wheeling political discussion with the one fellow telling me early on that he’s not comfortable voting for Barack Obama “because he’s black” and that he didn’t vote for him in the primary “because all the kids supported him.” Continue reading “Between Gustav and Hanna with Ike Coming”

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Florida Food and More from Jan Norris

Long-time Palm Beach Post Food Editor Jan Norris retired on August 12 and wasted no time in going right back to work.

She was up until the wee hours of the morning creating a blog that anyone who is interested in food, Florida facts and fun stuff will love to read. I happened to wake up at 3:30 in the morning and decided to see what was happening with the various hot spots in the tropics.

This email from her was waiting:

Man, it’s a lot of work — all those crazy links.
But: I even linked to Harry Belafonte on YouTube — in a piece about ackee!! And posted my own photos. So, I’m gettin’ there.
Will start doing recipes tomorrow and maybe cookbook reviews if I get back in time.
Will work in your bike site tomorrow when I talk about old days at Lake Okeechobee and fish fries, etc.
goin to bed now, however.
and matt — i don’t give a flying fig *if *Google is 24/7. Norris isn’t.

The next thing I knew, it was 4:30 in the morning.

There’s nothing cyclists like better than food. Jan’s site is going to be a great place to hang out.

Just don’t go there in the middle of the night.

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Lost on Your Bike Tour? Ask a Cow for Directions

While we prefer the high-tech approach to bicycle touring, others still prefer to take off for parts unknown with just a compass, map and a wool cycling jersey.

For those who insist on cycling without a GPS (and 11 pounds of batteries), we have great new research to report: cows point north.

Researchers scoured Google Earth for images of cows standing around being cows. After looking at 8,510 cattle in 308 pastures around the world, they concluded that cows do indeed tend to align themselves north/south. Big-brained scientists say it is because of the the Earth’s magnetic field and that deer display the same tendencies.

Boy Scout Handbook

When I was a Boy Scout, we learned all about moss growing on the north side of trees but science hadn’t progressed far enough to know about cows. This could save lives!

Unless, of course, you live in South Florida. We aren’t known for having a preponderance of cows or a lot of moss.

How to Find Your Way in Florida

If you bike far enough in any direction, you’ll come across water and clues as to where you are.

  • South: If you hit water and find Cubans or Hatians crawling onto the beach, you have found South.
  • East: If you hit water after having evaded a rent-a-cop security guard and are standing in the shade of a 20-story condominium, you have found East.
  • West: If you hit water, find no one under the age of 70 and there is no nightlife but plenty of early-bird dinners, you’re on West’s doorstep.
  • North: If you never hit water, you went North.

—Matt