The answer when we get there.

Then came the bike. 14 miles, fairly long for a sprint distance triathlon. I got on, took it easy for the first 200 yards while my legs got used to things, then pushed hard for the rest. Wasn’t sure how fast I was going but felt great. Way better than Wilmington where I was just miserable for the entire race. The guy who started right behind me in the swim, #155, was the only person to pass me on the bike which was good motivation for me to not let him get too far ahead.

Got back to the transition area and into my running shoes and I was still fairly close to #155. Started the run to Dave yelling “Set your eyes on #155! Run him down! Go go go!”. It didn’t take long to pass him with some authority, beating him by over 3 minutes on the run course. The run felt really strong. At Wilmington I have a particularly vivid memory of starting the run and immediately thinking “Oh god. This is going to suck.” and feeling awful throughout the entire thing. It was extremely mentally taxing. This was a much more pleasant experience where I felt better starting the run and didn’t start to feel completely spent until the last leg of it. I think a lot of it has to do with the bricks (biking and then running immediately afterwards) workouts that I’ve been making an effort to add.

When it was all said and done I was happily surprised to end up getting 11th overall (500+ people registered) and 1st in my age group. Thanks for coming out Dave and looking forward to getting a reality check next weekend at White Lake.

Overall men’s results here. Note: The guy in 6th place was disqualified for taking a wrong turn on the bike course and cutting 20+ minutes off his time. Age group results here.

The month in training: Big strides for me including 1000 yard swims, a 14 mile run, and a bike-40-miles-then-run-5.5 brick which left me feeling not so hot for a couple days (should have eaten more & rested the day after).

1 – Running – 10 miles – 8.5 min/miles with Charlie. Ran longer after we split. Epic. Felt great during the entire run and still feel great.

2 – Swimming – 600 ODS, 10×100 (with 30s rests in between) each around 2:00, 600 ODS.

2 – Biking – 100 minutes – 40 minutes of studying Japanese at low intensity then 60 minutes of long intervals. Added an extra 5 minute interval to my set to make it 4 5 minute intervals and a 10 minute interval. That last 5 minute interval killed me, which is a good thing.

3 – Running – 4 miles – Intervals. In the rain. By myself. 8×800 meters (half miles) at a 5:20 min/mile pace with 400 walking recovery between.

6 – Swimming – 300 yards. Wilmington Athletic Club triathlon. Had a pretty pathetically poor swim when my goggles filled with water immediately after I kicked off the wall.

6 – Biking – 11.5 miles – 20.5 mph. Wilmington Athletic Club. A little disappointed with my bike performance considering it was only .5 mph faster than the Cary Duathlon which was a much longer race.

6 – Running – 3.1 miles – 22 minutes. During the Wilmington Athletic Club sprint triathlon.

7 – Swimming – 150 (3×50) warm up, 300 (5:35), 200 drills, 500 (10:40), 200 drill, 300 (5:40), 150 (3×50) cool down. Really happy with today’s swim. Both 300s were fast (for me) and the 500 was the first time I’ve ever swam that long so I was really pleased just to be able to complete it.

7 – Biking – 95 minutes – Took it easy on the trainer.

8 – Running – 12 miles – 8.5 min/miles. Another epic run in Umstead Park. Equipped with my new phatty kicks (running shoes) and amphipod running belt (holds 32 ounces of liquid) I had a fantastic run.

9 – Swimming – 150 (3×50) warm up, 300 (3×100 w/ 30s rest: 1:42, 1:48, 1:46), 200 drills, 600 (12:41 total. 100 yard splits: 2:10, 2:09, 2:10, 2:06, 2:06, 1:57), 200 drills, 300 (3×100 w/ 30s rest: 1:46, 1:47, 1:47), 150 (3×50) cool down.

10 – Running – 5.5 miles – 8.4 min/miles. Merideth with Chris and Charlie.

11 – Swimming – 150 (3×50) warm up, 300 (5:18), 200 drills, 700 (14:38), 200 drills, 300 (5:28), 150 cool down. Great, great, great swim. Set some new time and distance records for myself

11 – Biking – 34 miles. A relaxing ride through some excellent greenways with Will.

13 – Biking – 40 miles. Greenways then did some laps in Centennial. Relaxed pace.

13 – Running – 5.5 miles – 8:15 (8.25) min/miles. Merideth. This was after biking 40 miles right before hand. I thought I was fine and it wouldn’t be much different but basically immediately upon starting my legs felt much heavier. It was a real struggle to make it the whole way. Lower back pain (forgot to stretch it) was also an issue. Turns out I was running too fast as well, oops. Feels like I’m running really slow when I’m in pain.

14 – Swimming – 1800 yards – 150 (3×50) warm up, 300 (5:18), 200 drills, 1000 (no watch, but felt like the standard around 2:05 pace), 200 drills, 200 (4×50 w/ 30s rest: 45, 44, 44, 47), 150 (3×50) cool down. Really pretty pleased that I can swim 1000 yards without swimming now. Used to freak out around the 200 yard point and not be able to swim any more. Also, swimming a 300 is no longer a dreadful thought like it used to be.

14 – Biking – 60 minutes. Trainer. Pushed, but didn’t kill myself.

15 – Running – 14 miles – Umstead park. Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!

16 – Swimming – First swim lesson with Greg Warren, Dave’s coach and fellow triathlete. Things to work on: Keeping my hands up in the water when extended. Don’t plow left hand. Rotate shoulders more. Swim with a smoother tempo. Get head up a little.

16 – Biking – 30 minutes. Trainer. Just a little something.

17 – Biking – 45 minutes. Trainer. Hard intervals before running.

17 – Running – 5.5 miles – Merideth. The standard run to the art museum and back.

18 – Swimming – Tried my new wetsuit out in the pool to see how much faster I can swim with it on. The answer: A lot faster. Swam a 300 in 4:19, almost a full minute faster than without a wetsuit. Swam the 1000 10-15 seconds faster each lap.

18 – Biking – 24 miles – Greenways.

19 – Running – 2 miles – Not good. Shin hurt a lot. Good timing though, I need to lay off before my upcoming races anyways.

21 – Swimming – 150, 500, 1000, 500, 150. No watch.

21 – Biking – 24 miles – Greenways.

22 – Running – 10.5 miles. It was raining so I was forced inside. This time I tried out a treadmill though, which was neat. It told me I burned around 1250 calories and let me control exactly which speed to run at. Was pretty boring for 90 minutes though, definitely missed Umstead park.

23 – Swimming – 1000.

23 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer. Pushed, but not too hard. Felt great and was on a pretty high gear.

26 – Running – 3.1 miles – 21:49 at Riverwood sprint triathlon.

26 – Swimming – 300. 5:10 during Riverwood sprint triathlon.

26 – Biking – 14 miles – 20.75 mph. Riverwood sprint triathlon

27 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer.

In 3 days I will be competing at Riverwood, a sprint distance triathlon.

In 6 days I will be taking my first of 4 exams.

In 9 days I will be taking the last of my 4 exams and my 4th year of college will be officially over.

In 11 days I will be competing with the big boys at White Lake, another sprint distance triathlon. This will be my first race in the more competitive North Carolina Triathlon Series. Previously all my races have been in the so called Triathlon Development Series which is geared more towards beginners. It will be my largest race yet, with over 900 people, plus it will be my first open water swim race. Instead of the typical 300 yard swim in a pool, it will be roughly 750 yards in a lake and will (hopefully) be wetsuit legal and I’ll be able to use my brand spankin’ new wetsuit at it.

In 14 days I will begin my drive to California. A day later I will meet Michael in Oklahoma City (he’s flying in from Bozeman and flying out of San Jose) and together we will continue on our voyage across the country.

In 27 days I will be starting my first day of work at Cisco in San Jose.

A lot of really exciting things coming up, just need to get these exams out of the way first.

Also, it appears commenting may or may not be broken. This is probably due to the fact that I’ve been bombarded with spam comments over the last 6 months. The spam filter I recently added a month or so ago has already collected around 200,000 spam comments total (insaneeeeeeeeeee). I don’t foresee myself having any reasonable amount of time to spend on this until I get to California so it’s likely it won’t be fixed for about a month. Oops.

In other not so great news I lost my cell phone so will be phone less for a bit until I get a new one.

In the never ending battle to acquire Japanese comprehension I have won another long-awaited, difficult victory. Previous to this battle I knew how to write and understand each of the 2000 standard use kanji, but just the meanings.  Now I know at least 1 word for each character so I am well on my way to knowing the readings for all of them. This will allow me to learn new words insanely quickly as they will now all be simply combinations of readings and kanji I already know, instead of brand new ones that are significantly harder to learn. I’m fairly confident this doesn’t make too much sense unless explained properly, so I’ll do that later when I have more time. Next step: start reading Japanese novels.

In a more whimsical note: How often are you disappointed with the Internet? It’s a fairly rare occurrence that I put something into Google and come up completely empty handed. The other day I needed to find a page with just really absurd French names like Jean-Pierre-Claude-Van-Damme-McSanderhosen but when I put “ridiculous French names” into Google I was surprised to find that within the roughly 35 billion websites online there appears to be nothing on the internet dedicated to this illustrious topic. Who will rise to the occasion and create this monumentally important website? Who?!?

err, anyways, things are great, definitely not having a problem staying busy. Looking forward to an amazing Summer!

The bike course was flat and devoid of wind so I was looking to set a pretty good time on it. Was frustrated to discover I averaged 20.5 mph, hardly any faster than during the Cary duathlon where I biked 3 times as far. My run time was about 22 minutes, also a little slower than I had hoped although still pretty solid. Overall I’m pretty happy with 29th in men and 4th in my age group. Full results here. Only top 30 finisher with a 6 min+ swim time, huzzah!

More Ecuador pictures:

I didn’t really know what to expect beforehand so I told myself I would run the first 5 miles at a comfortable speed, continue on the bike at a comfortable speed that wouldn’t kill me before the last run, then give it everything I’ve got left for the last run. Well, that’s exactly what I did and felt great until the last 10 miles of the bike ride when I started to think “Okayyyy, this bike ride could end now.” Once it finally ended the last run was brutttal. I was thinking it wouldn’t be too bad since I still felt pretty good at the end of the bike but quickly realized how wrong I was once I discovered that my legs had, in fact, turned into lead weights. I kept thinking that my results would be completely spoiled by an absurdly slow final leg of the run. I was pleasantly surprised at the end to see that I ended up running the first 5 miles at 7:06 per mile, biking 20 mph, and running the last 5 miles at 7:36 per mile. Turns out my last run didn’t spoil my results, and I ended up 28th overall in men and 3rd in my age group. Full results here.

Saturday was my first triathlon. It was a small one, with roughly 75 people and took place near Asheville. Chris, Billy, Mom, and Dad were all kind enough to come despite having to endure the rain and ridiculously early morning hours. It started in a pool, everybody lining up in order of submitted swim times. Fastest people in the front, slowest in the back. Competitors start every 15 seconds. Zig-zagging across all 6 lanes, down and back, 300 yards. I was number 25, but was pretty nervous because I’d been swimming pretty poorly recently. I pulled it together for the race though and ended up with my best swim time by far at about 5:15 which put my swim time at about 15th overall.

After that it was a matter of running to the transition area, ripping off my goggles and swim cap, putting on my jersey, bike shoes (no socks), sunglasses, and helmet, and then onto the bike portion of the race. Mom was cheering loudly for me as I left the transition area and quickly encountered a series of steep hills to climb, the worst of which I was going about 5 mph up in my lowest gear and still managed to pass a couple people, one of which had given up and started walking. My bike time was 10th overall, despite the fact that my average speed turned out to be about 16.5 mph, 3.5 mph less than the 20 mph I had biked at the Cary Duathlon the previous week. Just goes to show I shouldn’t worry about speed so much as my time compared to others.

Biked back into the transition area, Mom still there cheering me on telling me I’m doing great. Helmet, glasses, bike shoes off. Running shoes on. The bike-run transition was considerably different this time from the duathlon in that I started feeling awful and gradually started to feel better and be able to turn up the speed. I only saw one person during the run, a guy who smoked me, so I wasn’t sure how it was going. Ended up with a 23:19, slow because of the hills, but still fast enough to be the 5th fastest overall run time.

Overall I ended up in 8th place, and got 1st in my age group. Full results for men are here.

A couple pictures from the Cary Duathlon:

The month in training:

9 – Running – 4 miles – Slow. Merideth with Chris. Achilles’ tendon felt fine, no pain.

10 – Swimming – 600 ODS, 50s with 30 s rest when I realized my arms were too tired from the previous week’s manual labor in Ecuador to do any reasonable set, 600 ODS.

10 – Biking – 90 minutes – Trainer. Studied Japanese and took it easy.

11 – Biking – 90 minutes – Trainer. Same deal.

12 – Running – 5 miles – Merideth.

12 – Swimming – 600 ODS, 6×100 (30s rest) = 600 (1:57, 1:57, 2:02, 1:56, 1:56, 1:44). 600 ODS.

13 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer. Intervals.

14 – Swimming – 600 ODS, 6×100 (15s rest although cheated and added extra 20s rest at one point) = 600 (1:53, 1:55, 1:58, 1:57, 1:53, 1:47), 600 ODS.

14 – Biking – 90 minutes – Trainer. Japanese + Intervals at the end.

16 – Running – 7 miles – 60 minutes. Merideth. Felt really, really great today. Didn’t even notice my Achilles’ tendon.

17 – Swimming – 300 warmup, 300 (5:32s), 600 ODS, 3×100 (30s rest) slow. Got frustrated and left.

17 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer. Kicked ass. Seriously kicked ass. Did the Lance Armstrong training routine thingy. Was able to ride in a much higher gear on the trainer than previously before. Will have to adjust trainer’s resistance into the hardest difficulty. Awesome.

18 – Running – 5.5 miles – 8 min/miles without too much effort in Merideth. Everything felt great and still continues to feel great.

19 – Swimming – 600 ODS, 10×100 alternating fins/normal swim, 600 ODS.

20,21 - Rest before race

22 – Running – 10 miles – The first 5 were 7 min each, the last 5 around 7:45ish each. Felt great the first 5. Was in a world of hurt for the last 5. Biked 32 miles in between. Cary Duathlon.

22 – Biking – 32 miles – 20 mph. Cary Duathlon. Beautiful ride.

24 – Swimming – Made a pathetic attempt at swimming. Swam 400 yards maybe but was frustrated because I was so bad. Left.

25 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer. Long intervals.

26 – Swimming – 200 yard warmup. 300 (57,1:00, 1:00, 1:00, 58, 54 = 5:52 = slowwwwwwwwww). 600 yard ODS, 6×100 (30s rest) = 600 (2:00, 2:05, 2:00, 1:57, 1:55, 1:54), 600 yard ODS. Whyyyyy oh whyyyyyy am I still slow and getting slower?

26 – Running – 7.5 miles – 8.5 min/miles with Charlie in Merideth. Great run.

27, 28 - Rest before race

29 – Swimming – 300 yards. 5:15. During the Haymed.org triathlon. Best time so far, happpyyyy.

29 – Biking – 11 miles – 16.5 mph. Haymed.org triathlon.

29 – Running – 3.1 miles – 7.5 min/miles during the Haymed.org triathlon, my first.

31 – Swimming – 4×300 = 1200 plus 4×200 drills = 2000 total. Didn’t time myself but was really encouraged that I could swim 4 300s. A distance I feared greatly a month ago.

31 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer. Long intervals.

I was enthusiastic about all this and kicked some serious concrete ass the first two days. Okay, mentally I was enthusiastic about it for the rest of the time as well, but physically I felt like every inch of me had been beaten with a baseball bat when I woke up Wednesday morning. My frail raised-indoors-on-computer-games body was not used to this manual labor. I lost some steam midway through the week once bending down to pick up my shovel became a painful activity but was thankfully relieved of my constant concrete mixing command by reinforcements who came from the other work site.

We had Saturday and Sunday to do some non-manual labor things such as:

Stand on the equator

Stay in some surprisingly nice places.

Go dancing two nights.

Get to go to one of those beautiful high elevation spots you always see in pictures from foreign countries.

Get to ride in a cable car up to the top of a volcano. Unfortunately once we got there it was too cloudy to take pictures but the ride itself was worth it.

One of my favorite things: Long rides in vehicles when I get a chance to take pictures. I was lucky enough (and everyone was nice enough) so that I ended up with front seat for most of the rides. I was in heaven during the 3 hour van ride through the Andes mountains from Quito to Santo Domingo.

Also, Congratulations Dad! … on getting a pretty prestigious honor at UNCA for having some excellent creative ideas. And also on the purchase of a new 2008 Toyota Prius.

And in other news

I got an internship this Summer!

With…

*drumroll*

…

Cisco!

Wooo woooo (the sound the whistles make)! I will be working in San Jose, California this Summer as an intern for Cisco. I am really-super-duper-extremely-tremendously happy about this. Was really freaking out about finding a job this Summer so this is not only a weight off my shoulders but a pleasant surprise to find that my first choice company picked me after only a 30 minute, fairly relaxed interview. Was nervous until they e-mailed me an offer expecting to have to go through some nerve wracking, ego shattering interviews.

San Jose: The 10th largest city in the US. Nearly 1 million people. Known as the Capital of Silicon Valley. Safest city in the US with over 500,000 people in it. An hour South of San Francisco.

Cisco: 63,000 employees. Headquartered in San Jose, designs and sells networking and communications technology and services under a couple different brands, the most well known of which are Cisco and Linksys. During the dot-com boom in 2000 was the most valuable company in the world. International work opportunities (i.e. me living in another country *cha-ching*). Employees speak highly of the company and the work experience.

Not sure exactly what kind of work I’ll be doing yet. Should have some input into the kind of project I want to be involved in but most things involved with networking are really interesting and, at this point, fairly mysterious to me.

Continue to read about and see pictures from my first bike races:

The cycling races here at NCSU were really a great time. Although I only competed in the lowest level category, I was still surprised at the strength of a lot of the riders. Seeing the A, B, and non-collegiate pro riders compete was a fairly awe inspiring, motivational sight to behold. I was also surprised to discover how much of these races are dependent on skill and luck, not simply endurance.

The races on Saturday were on an 18 mile loop, of which us D class riders only go around once. The A class riders, on the other hand, go around it 4 times for a total of 72 grueling miles. It was really exciting to be in a pack of 30ish riders, everybody within a couple feet of each other trying hard to stay close to the guy in front of you and out of the wind. People are constantly trying to get a place in the pack close to the front. If you end up in the back of the pack and the front riders break off quickly and put distance in between you it’s really tough to catch back up with the wind in your face.

I was doing pretty successful at being in good position in the pack and ended up being in a front split of about 10 people who powered away from the slower back group. At this point the dynamic changed fairly significantly which I was not at all ready for. It basically turned into a long line of riders, meaning everybody is cruising along and only the one guy in front of the pack is killing himself doing work trying to keep up to speed. Nobody wanted to be that guy. Nobody was trying to intentionally be in the front at this point. The person in the front would generally stay up there for a bit and then drop back towards the back of the line, leaving the number 2 man in front. I did my share of work in the front a couple times (not a good idea) and then told myself I would conserve my energy and try to get out of front quickly when it came to be my turn again. Well, that turn came up an uphill. I slowed down to attempt to get towards the back of the group and *wooooosh* everybody shot passed me as I couldn’t get back to speed on the hill to stick to the back of the group.

Once you are dropped you are pretty much done for. I had been dropped from the front group once before and had to work my ass off to cut the 50 feet gap between me and the last rider. Couldn’t do it again. Thankfully we had put so much distance between the group behind us that I pedaled the last 5 miles by myself to the finish without ever seeing them. Ended up in 8th place. Was pleaseddd.

The criterion race the next day is 20 minutes going around and around a quarter mile loop. Less people this time but a bit more dangerous than the previous day’s road race, inexperienced riders racing around turns close to each other can certainly get sketchy at times. Not much you can do when you are surrounded on all 4 sides by riders other than hope nobody makes a mistake. Thankfully nobody made any grievous errors and, although I didn’t place well, I didn’t get dropped, had a great time, and learned some more lessons.

Here are some pictures,the first few are pictures from winter break I never got around to posting. The next are just some general pictures I took during Saturday’s road race. The last are pictures Paul was nice enough to take of the criterion road race I was in on Sunday.

Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far this is the section of this post where I tell you that I’ll be going to Ecuador at approximately 9:30 tomorrow morning. It’s with the Alternative Spring Break program here at NCSU together with Habitat. I’ll be back on Saturday, March 8th. Can’t wait!

The week in training:

16 – Biking –18 miles – 21 mph – NCSU Road Race.

17 – Biking – 20 minutes – NCSU Criterion Race

18 – Swimming – Awesomeee day swimming today. Warmed up with 500 yards of 50s and 100s then did a 5:40s 300. Felt really good about the 300. 50 seconds faster than my time less than 3 weeks ago. Really pushed myself with more 50 yard sprints, the fastest of which was 37 seconds, another record of mine shattered. 100 yard time was 1:37, which is also the fastest I’ve swam a 100. Exhausted but happy. 300 times (50 yard splits): 57, 1:01, 1:00, 57, 54, 50.

19 – Running – 10 miles. 88 minutes. Ran around campus for a while with Will. Realized I need to do 2 things: 1) Add an extra short run on the weekends before my long bike ride so my body isn’t so shocked to be running again after 5 days off. And 2) Carry water on my runs.

20 – Swimming – With the Tri club. Worked on stroke, not yardage.

20 – Biking – 75 minutes – Trainer. Took it easier.

21 – Biking – 55 minutes – Trainer. Pushed hard.

22 – Swimming – 300 yard warmup, 300 yard swim (53.42, 56.67, 57.14, 57.60, 57.68, 53.45 = 5:36s total). 600 yard ODS drills, 500 yard 100×5 set (1:55, 1:58, 1:54, 1:51, 1:50), 600 yard ODS drills.

22 – Running – 4 miles – Ran to Bruce’s house. Not the best decision. Assumed there would be sidewalks the whole way but they came to an abrupt end about halfway through the run.

23 – Running – 5.5 miles – Merideth. 8:08s min/mile pace there. 8:31s min/mile pace back. Felt great… until the day after. Achilles’ tendon starting hurting a little.

25 – Swimming – 600 yard ODS, 6×100 (30s rest) = 600 (1:47, 1:57, 1:54, 1:59, 1:53, 1:52), 600 ODS, 6×50 (46-50s each). Things to work on: Feet together, pull to the side, extend power all the way through the stroke, don’t pull on the left side before you’ve rotated back.

25 – Biking – 80 minutes – Trainer. Took it easy and studied Japanese for the first 50 minutes then intervals.

26 – Running – 3 miles – Terrible run. Thought I would crank out 8+ miles but could barely get 3. Discouraging. My right Achilles’ tendon region hurts and has been hurting a bit after my run Saturday morning. Bad idea to run that fast for that long. I will lay off running for a while. This will be easy as I’m going to Ecuador in a few days.

27 – Swimming – Bad. Goggles couldn’t keep water out of my eyeballs. Couldn’t swim, need to buy new ones.

27 – Biking – 120 minutes – Trainer. Not so pleased with my past run and swim, decided to do a long bike as long as my Achilles’ tendon felt okay. It felt fine, I would even say better afterwards. Took it easy and studied for my computer science test the first 75 minutes, kicked it up a bit with intervals for 35, cool down 10.

I wore a watch and timed myself for each mile to see what my times were: About 6:20 for the first mile, 6:30 for the second mile, and roughly 7:10 for the last mile (then add some time for the last .1 mile). Sooo, not so good at pacing myself. Felt really great after the first mile, still felt good after the second mile, then the third mile obliterated me, laying the hurt hold down strong for the last 5ish minutes. The last couple minutes I figured I had just pushed myself too hard the first 2 miles and had thoughts of just crumpling on the side of the street or walking for a bit. But alas, things turned out well, I pushed through and felt fine 5 minutes after it was all over. I’m pretty pleased with my time and glad that I have something to compare now and see my progress.

More about a Summer internship:

On the Summer internship battlefront things have been busy. Last week was the career fair here which is kind of like Disney World in the sense that there are long lines and lots of smiles but way less fun because your ride only consists of talking to a company representative for 90 seconds or so. 30 minutes for IBM, 30 minutes for Microsoft, 75 minutes for GE. I ended up talking to and giving out resumes to about 25ish companies. I had 3 interviews the day after as a result of all this and have a couple more coming up. I’ll highlight them briefly so it’s more interesting to see where I actually end up this summer.

Harris - Interview went: Really well. Have never laughed more in an interview, we got along well. The job would be in Rochester, NY and I would be involved with low level radio communication technology for the US Army.
Merck - Interview went: Pretty well. They asked me tougher questions then most companies have asked me. I believe this would be in New Jersey, close to NYC. They are a pharmaceutical company and were quite vague as to the nature of my work.

Cisco - Interview went: Really, really well. I felt great about this interview as she didn’t ask me any technical questions (other people were apparently asked them, depending on your GPA etc) and kept talking about how self-motivation is important and they are looking, not for networking specialists, but for people with a well rounded technical background. Great. I’m your man. Hire me! The internship would be in San Jose, California. They should get back to me by next Friday.

IBM - Interview on Tuesday.

Milliken & Company - Interview on Tuesday.

And there are other companies I’ve applied to positions for but haven’t heard back yet about interviews.

Tomorrow morning I’ll wake up at 4:30 am for the Cycling race here. Sunday I’ll be up around 5:30 am. Excitinggg, although if last week’s practice criterion race is any indicator (which it is) I won’t do well this weekend.

And the week in training:

6 – Swimming – 1800 yards – 600 yard ODS warmup, 6×100 with 30 s rest (note: couldn’t make it all the way through. Stopped after 200 yards, rested, then did the last 400), 600 yard ODS cooldown.

7 – Biking – Went out and did the practice criterion race with the cycling club. Competed with the Ds and barely held on the entire time, was pretty rough. About a 20.5 mph average for 25 minutes.

8,9 - Rest – Shipwrecked in Greensboro/rest for tomorrows race

10 – Running – 3.1 miles. 6:46 min/mile. Raced in my first 5k today, the Run for the Roses. Got 43^rd out of about 500 people with a time of 20:47.

11 – Swimming – 1800 yards - 600 yard ODS warmup, 6×100 with 45 s rest, 600 yard ODS cooldown.

11 – Biking – 75 minutes – Intervals on the trainer.

12 – Running – 9.5 miles. 80 minutes. Met up with Will from the Tri club and ran around campus for 80 minutes which comes out to around 9.5 miles. Felt really good about this run, a lot better than my 9 mile run in Umstead park last week. It’s a good sign for my endurance but it’s also a sign that Umstead’s hills were rougher than I gave them credit for.

13 – Swimming – 1800 yards - 600 yard ODS, 100, 6×100 with 30 s rest, 100 sprint, 400 ODS. 100 time during the set: Consistently 2:20. Slowww. But that’s okay, I couldn’t even get through this workout last week. 100 time during the sprint: 1:43.

14 – Biking - 30 minutes – Trainer. Right before running.

14 – Running – 4 miles. Tempo run. 8×800 meters at a 5:30s mile pace with 400 walking recovery between. Felt really, really great about this. I think these interval runs are going to be important for increasing my 5k time. Was with Alex and Will from the tri club who were good motivation. Hauled ass on the last 2. The last one I ran the half mile (800 meters) in 2:18. Biked 30 minutes right before I did it as well. Going to start setting up more bricks where I bike->run to get a better feel for it.

15 - Rest – Rest before races tomorrow.