Training and racing summary for 2012

Happy New Year 2013 folks! What a wonderful and productive year it was. looking back, I feel like it was one of the best years of my life - in many respects it was. Especially in terms of fitness and racing. In 2012 I did two Sprint and two Olympic distance races (won overall in Sprint and Won in my age group in Olympic) - the results are listed on the RACING page of this blog. I also did MS150 ride. In 2013 plan on doing two Sprints, two Olympic and two Half Ironman distances.

This year 95% of all of my biking I did on the indoor trainer - on my recumbent Schwinn 230i bike (circa 2001) - I will post a picture of it someday. I did some 95% of running outdoors and about 85% of that on trails and off pavement. My height is 172 cm (5'7'') and weight this year was between 69 to 75 kg (152 to 165 lbs). I had no injuries this year, except for a bit of light pain and "sensations" in the right foot and knee - especially after races. Nutritionally I think I did well and made fruit and berry smoothies on my Vitamix blender several times a week. I must admit that this Vitamix is the most important "fitness" equipment I own :-).

Some additional stats for the season (Jan 1 - Dec 31, 2012):

• total training + racing time - 541 hours
• total bike - 6,259 miles (adjusted 10% down from trainer miles)
• total run - 822 miles
• total swim - 117 miles
• crosstrain - 65 hours
• longest swim - 3,100 yards (2 min per 100 yards average pace)
• longest run - 13.6 miles
• longest bike - 101.85 miles (MS150 ride)
• longest training bike ride - 2 hr 20 min (on trainer ~45 miles)
• Power for the 1 - 2 hours training rides was 120 to 210 Watts (on trainer)
• best 100 yard swim - 1 min 30 sec
• best 50 yard swim - 40 sec
• best 500 yard swim - 9 min 10 sec
• best run pace at Sprint tri - 6:27 min per mile  (5K in 19m 20 sec)
• crosstraining - I usually do it in the morning before work and it takes ~25 min. I do use stability ball for abs, back, pushups and separately do pull-ups and dynamic side planks

Since most of my cycling is done on the trainer indoors, almost all of it is long steady ride with no intervals - after initial warmup of about 15 min, building up power to the steady level of 150 to 200 Watts and maintain it for the period of the ride (usually 90 min to 2 hrs), then cool down for 10 min at the end.

In  2012 I generally followed the following schedule of training and kept my log in the TrainingPeaks.com:

• Monday
  Recovery day or light bike
• Tuesday
  Crosstraining + bike + swim (3,000 yards, half drills and half normal swim)
• Wednesday
  Crosstraining + bike + run (hill repeats in the second half of the year, 4-7 miles total)
• Thursday
  Crosstraining + bike + swim (same as above)
• Friday
  Crosstraining + bike + run (usually 400 or 800 yard intervals in the second half of the year, 4-7 miles total)
• Saturday
  Swim (same as above)
• Sunday
  Long run (on the trail in North Park, easy to moderate pace, 7-13 miles total)

Museums in Russia: Polenovo, Tsvetaeva, Paustovskiy

This past summer during vacation in Russia we went on a day trip to a small town Tarusa in Kaluzhskaya Oblast - about 90 miles South West of Moscow. The town of Tarusa is known to have existed since 1246. During the Soviet period, Tarusa became the place where dissidents and people repressed by the Soviet authorities used to settle, since they were not allowed to live in Moscow, Leningrad and the capitals of all Soviet republics. Today the population of Tarusa is about 10,000 people. Some photos from this trip are in this Picasa Album.

Tarusa has few popular museums - the Tarusa regional museum of local lore and the Museum of the Tsvetayevs family (Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva) as well as museum of famous Russian writer Konstantin Paustovskiy. But the best of them all is the museum of Vasiliy Polenov, located not far from Tarusa, on the bank of Oka river. We drove to Tarusa by car. It was very easy to get to and the road was nicely paved. We got there in the morning and drove to the center of the town where the local market is (called "bazar") - right on the bank of Oka river.

 The ship goes to museum few times a week - leaves Tarusa at 12pm and comes back at 3:30pm. I found schedule on this site (but you may want to google for updates). The ticket was quite inexpensive and the trip one way takes about 35 minutes. While on the ship you can look around and better have your camera with you - Oka river is small, but beautiful! I was amazed to learn that it was only one or two meters deep, while being about 100 meters wide.

Once we got to the museum, we bought tickets and took a tour. We all loved it! The tour guide was quite passionate and very knowledgeable. Every room of the house is filled with paintings old furniture and many historical artifacts. Polenov himself designed and built the house around 1892 having in mind that this will become a museum and indeed - the house is designated as a museum since about 1918. Vasiliy Polenov was quite extraordinary man - excellent artist who advanced the art of painting and produced a number of excellent works. He was also an engineer, sculptor and educator.

His painting of the Jesus and the Sinner Woman (see prototype below in black and white) took him almost 30 years to produce, considering all of the historical research and travel he had done to develop that story and pain the final work. He has used real people as models and ordered all the costumes shown in the picture. The painting was considered against the church at the time, but was bought by the emperor of Russia.

After having returned from the Polenovo museum back to Tarusa we went to vosit the museum of Marina Tsvetaeva - russian poet. Unfortunately we only had 30 minutes before the museum was closed, but still had a good look. To quote wikipedia:

"Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (Russian: Мари́на Ива́новна Цвета́ева; 8 October 1892 – 31 August 1941) was a Russian and Soviet poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russian literature. She lived through and wrote of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Moscow famine that followed it. In an attempt to save her daughter Irina from starvation, she placed her in a state orphanage in 1919, where she died of hunger. Tsvetaeva left Russia in 1922 and lived with her family in increasing poverty in Paris, Berlin and Prague before returning to Moscow in 1939. Her husband Sergei Efron and her daughter Ariadna Efron (Alya) were arrested on espionage charges in 1941; and her husband was executed. Tsvetaeva committed suicide in 1941. As a lyrical poet, her passion and daring linguistic experimentation mark her as a striking chronicler of her times and the depths of the human condition."

After that we went to the museum of Russian writer Konstantin Paustovskiy. The museum opened in the summer of 2012, so we were among the first visitors to the museum.

Some useful links for the Polenovo museum:

1. http://polenovo.tula-oblast.ru
2. http://vikaskim.livejournal.com/2011.html

Thanksgiving week in Paris and Luxemburg

Last week I was on business trip to Paris and while there went to meet a potential IBM customer in Luxemburg. Since this was my 4th time in Paris I decided to not go for a city walk and just stayed in my hotel room finishing up a couple of projects for work. I stayed in Hilton Airport - a bit expensive, but overall a very nice hotel (with a nice fitness center). Hence all of the Paris pictures are from the window of my hotel room (click on the image below to view all pictures).

Boy, do I love this job - it's nice to be able to travel, meet smart people, learn new cultures, see places, try different foods, and get paid to do all that :-).

I took TGV train to Luxemburg. TGV is very popular high speed train in France. According to wikipedia its *average* speed is 279.3 km/h (173.5 mph). Took me 2h 15 min to get from the center of Paris to Luxemburg. Very comfy ride - no bumps, etc. Beats airplane any day. Luxemburg is one of the smallest countries in the world and only has half a million population - that is less than what we have in Pittsburgh! Luxemburg is also smaller in size than Pittsburgh and its suburbs (sorry for using Pittsburgh - my favorite measuring stick :-). Luxemburg is roughly 30 miles by 30 miles in size, which makes it 179th smallest country in the world!

Regarldless of its size, it seems to me people who live there are quite happy - all smiling, well dressed, driving nice cars, etc. In fact, IBM provides BMW 5 series cars to its sales folks in Luxemburg. Something I really miss in US :-). After my customer meeting I had two hours before my train back and took a walk around the city, despite light drizzling rain (click on the image below to view all pictures).

Uzbek Plov (rice dish)

Last time I cooked anything of significance was 15+ years ago, before I got married and still lived in the university's dormitory in Moscow, Russia. My wife is a great cook and nowadays I do not cook anything in the kitchen, except for the tea, coffee and salads.

However this summer a friend of mine inspired me to learn how to cook a super delicious meal called "Plov", which is a traditional dish in Uzbekistan (this friend of mine was born and raised there and moved to US few years ago).

I watched him cook it few times over the past year and finally decided to take a master's lesson. With my iPhone I took a picture of every single step while he was preparing the dish and when I was making the dish myself I literally held iPhone with those pictures in one hand and was cooking with another.

Now here is a complete list of photos I took while watching the Master cooking the Plov (click on the image below to see the slideshow) - below each photo you will see my comments:

In August my little sister got married and I volunteered to cook Plov for all the guests for the day two of the wedding. I did my first ever Plov cooking as a "dry run" one week before and the dish turned out pretty well, so that one week later during the wedding I was pretty sure that guests wont be hungry. It turned out pretty good this second time as well and I even brought back the Kazan back to Pittsburgh so I can cook Plov here in US.

I wont publish the exact recipe here, but you can get a number of very good ones if you simply google for "uzbek plov recipe". Make sure to look at both - the text search results and google images for this search! Just do not salivate to death while looking :-).

Photos from the trip to Kiev, Ukraine

Last week I was in Kiev, Ukraine for IBM business. What a beautiful city it is! For those of you who don't know, Kiev used to be the capital of the ancient Russia (Kievskaya Rus'). While being there I enjoyed excellent Ukranian food, including "salo" - something I ate extensively in my childhood since I am half Ukranian myself. Kiev is a great tourist destination as food and other services is relatively inexpensive and there is a lot to see in the city. US citizens and Russians do not need a visa to visit Ukraine.

On the day of departure I got a chance to tour perhaps the oldest monastery on the territory of Ukraine and Russia - Kievskaya Lavra, founded in 1051 - almost 1,000 years ago. Lavra is one of the seven wonders of Ukraine and is quite amazing. The most important part of Lavra is not even its buildings, but caves with burials of dozens of saint monks, including some very famous people, such as Nestor (the first historian in Russia) and Ilya Murometz (the legendary / mythical warrior who could alone win the battle against enemy army). Monks lived underground in caves and some even buried themselves in cells for many years with a small window left open for food. Listening to those stories makes me shiver.

Here are some photos I took during my short stay in Kiev:

Photos from my 2011 trip to Kiev can be found here:

Video recap of 2011 - 2012 race seasons

After watching few inspirational videos by Macca:
 
and other amazing videos:

I decided to create a recap video of my own for 2011-2012 race seasons. While my video is not nearly as inspirational nor dramatic, I hope you like it and perhaps even try triathlon for yourself???