Jeff Greene

Ironman Florida (IMFL) training…10 months away

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Jeff

For me, IMFL is pretty much a 1 year commitment to a shift in priorities. I want to do a monthly update just to track my own progress and catalog everything as the year goes on. I have to plan my daily activities around my training or it just won’t get done. This is somewhat of a challenge during the winter months since the days are so short, and cold….really cold.

After signing up in November, I pretty much spent my whole first month learning how to swim again.

Starting in December I really ramped up my activities and started base training 6 days a week at a relatively low intensity. 90% of my bike workouts and most of my run workouts were at the lowest HR range. Coach calls this the “Endurance Aerobic” (EA) zone. My targets are as follows:

Bike EA Zone (125-138)
Run EA Zone(135-148)

The hardest part has been trying to keep my HR down in this zone. I really have to concentrate. Most of my workouts have consisted of multi-sport activities; for example:

Bike 25 miles at EA pace
Run :10 min at E-pace (11min)

Bike (Trail Riding on the American Tobacco Trail)

For the last month, my log has been as follows:

Swim = Blue
Bike = Brown
Run = Red

Total workout time is only about 8hrs per week through December. Nothing really strenuous yet, just a couple of base-line tests for coach to get an idea of my current fitness level and abilities. See 9 months to go.

Posted in Ironman | Leave a comment

How to change a bike tire with CO2

Posted on December 31, 2009 by Jeff

Have you ever fallen over on your bike while still clipped in? If not, eventually you will(you know you already have). Likewise, you’re also eventually going to get a flat tire. My first flat came about 10yrs ago in my first Oly distance race at Carolina Beach, part of the NCTS. I was just getting into Tri’s and had a hand-me-down Cannodale road bike. I had 700c wheels. Oddly back then, all the Tri bikes had 650c wheels, so the folks offering assistance could only offer a 650c tube. I ended up walking barefoot for about a 1/2 mile before hitching a ride with an elderly couple in their Cadillac on the way to Sunday morning church service.

Lesson Learned: Be prepared. Offer help to others(It was the offer of help from so many others that got me hooked on this sport).

Just like everything else, it gets easier with practice. So I’ll get right to it. Here’s what you’ll need:

Tire levers
Spare tube
CO2 cartridge
Inflator (With flow control or without)…Get the one with flow control.

Cartridges come in different sizes – 12g, 16g or 25g.

Watch the video here:

Here’s the Step-by-step:

Deflate the rest of the air out of the tires.
Take your 1st tire lever and wedge between the rim and the tire.
Pry the lever back towards the spokes.
Hook the other end of the lever to the nearest spoke.
Take the 2nd tire lever and do the same thing on the next spoke.
At this point you may be able to pry off one side of the tire from around the rest of the rim.
If not…that’s why there should be 3 tire levers:)
At this point, you should have a tire that is half on the rim and half off. No need to remove the entire thing(especially during a race).
Remove the old punctured tube.
Before adding a new tube, use your fingers to check for any sharp edges inside the tire.
Blow a bit of air into the tube using your mouth….just enough for the tube to take form.
Insert the valve stem on the tube through the hole on the rim, working the rest of the tube around the rim and inside the rest of the tire.
Starting with the area around the stem, start squeezing the tire to get the “half off” side back on the rim. From the stem, work your way in both directions to the opposite side of the tire.
Eventually you’ll get to the other side. Getting the last 6-8 inches back on the rim can be a challenge. Sometimes it’s cake. Other times(with some race wheels) this can be tough. Hold once side of the last 6 inches in place and use a tire lever on the other side until it pops into place
Wiggle the tire around a bit to both sides of the rim to make sure that the tube is not poking out the side under the tire.
I use a CO2 inflator that has flow control, because otherwise you just have one shot to get the air into the tire(unless you have 2 cartridges).
Inflate the tire until it feels right…again checking to make sure the tire is on evenly.
Lastly, re-install the wheel to the bike the way you took it off remembering what cog in the back you were using.

** Important **

The CO2 is only good for about 24 hours. Since you are adding compressed CO2 to your tube, the CO2 expands once inside the tube. The CO2 will dissipate/shrink over a period of about 24 hours back to its normal size, so you will need to re-fill with a standard bicycle pump.

Holiday Cheer

Posted on December 21, 2009 by Jeff

While on my way to work this morning, I was looking for one of the entrances for the Tobacco Trail, so I could plan a workout for later in the week. You never know what you are going to see on any given day, so today I’m glad I had my camera.

Imagine if we lived in a world where you could only put out decorations in a certain way….you know, white lights, candle in the window, wreath on the door. Sure, it looks pretty, but there is so much that you would miss out on.

I passed these 2 houses on the same road. I think they are secretly in some kind of friendly competition, b/c both of these lawns are just over the top. The sheer number Christmas objects on the lawns is awesome.

The first lawn has these 2 12foot tall hay statues that resemble Frosty the Snowman and Uncle Sam. Thanks for the good chuckle!! I like the holiday spirit.

The 2nd house has probably 50-75 inflatable Christmas characters, that no doubt are blown up at night with lights, etc… They were hilarious as I drove past, resembling either a drive-by or a bunch of folks sleeping in the front yard. I’ll have to drive by sometime in the evening to see everything in production.

The first lawn is my favorite. You can’t beat the top hats!

Posted in Just for fun | Tagged Tobacco Trail | Leave a comment

Fish-like Swimming

Posted on December 8, 2009 by Jeff

One month has gone by since I signed up for IMFL. As mentioned previously, this will be my first Ironman since IMFL in 2000. Also, I have only been running for the last 4-5 years to stay in relative shape, so for all intents and purposes, we are starting over. No place is that more obvious than in the pool. It’s probably been about 2 years since I’ve seen the black line on the bottom of the pool.

So this is good right? I shouldn’t have any bad swim stroke habits, b/c I haven’t been doing any swimming. Swimming provides a good rest/recovery from my recent Marathon in DC back in October.

My plan of attack is as follows:

Learn how to swim again.
Drills, Drills, Drills.
After 1 month, meet my new stroke.

My first 2 must have tools for the year are from Total Immersion. I bought the DVD and the Book from Amazon. The techniques taught here absolutely work, especially for triathletes because the focus is totally on getting faster by being more efficient in the water. I had the VHS tape 10 years ago and it worked then too(I just don’t have a VCR anymore). Efficient swimming is just about the ONLY thing that matters in an Ironman swim. For me it helped to read a section in the book…then watch a section of video….then try it out in the pool. I would go back and re-read, re-watch and then Drill better the next day. The book and the DVD don’t necessarily go hand in hand, and Terry swims off the screen once or twice in the video, but the instruction is excellent.

So for the last month, my training has been as follows:

Drills, Drills, and more Drills!

Posted in Ironman, Just for fun | Tagged Drills, IMFL, Ironman, Swimming | 1 Comment

Ironman Florida 2010

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Jeff

Today marks the start of another new journey. My wife and I are both registered for Ironman Florida, November 6th, 2010 !! Online registration opened at noon, the day after the race(Sunday). I hit the General Entry right at noon to make sure I got a slot as they have sold out quickly in the past. Unless you are at the race site to register in person, online registration can be a nerve-racking.

IronmanRegistration

Whew!!…I went back to the site maybe 2 hrs later and saw that the “2010 Ford Ironman Florida General Entry is SOLD OUT.”

So, if you missed out on IMFL, check for another IM event.

Mark the sign up date on your calendar
Create an Active.com username/password as the race website redirects you to Active.com for sign-up.
Know the “exact time” that the online registration process is supposed to start(usually noon the day after the race).
Be online at the website for the race, i.e., http://www.ironmanflorida.com/
Hit the Entry button and go through the process of filling out your info.
Just make sure you don’t wait and say, Ok I’ll just sign up sometime this afternoon…It will be too late.
Good Luck

That gives us only 363 more days to train and prepare. This will be my 2nd Ironman, and my first since 2000. I hope to pass along helpful training information in the weeks, months ahead. Hope to see you in Panama City 2010 !

Let’s get it on!

Posted in Ironman, Just for fun | 1 Comment

Marine Corps Marathon, Washington, D.C.

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Jeff

On Oct 25th I completed the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC. As it has been about 8 years since my last marathon, I was just looking to have a good time. Washington, DC in October is amazing. We were very fortunate to have a perfectly sunny day in the Capital, 55 degrees, right in the peak of leaf season. Combine that with all of the historic memorials and landmarks and you have an incredible venue for a marathon.

Here is the Marathon course

This marathon is HUGE, drawing nearly 35,000 runners, and likely twice as many spectators. Naturally you would expect lots of waiting lines, etc. Not here — MCM really has this event down to a science, as everything went off very smooth, with hardly any waiting for anything. Packet pick-up at the convention center was a breeze, no waiting. On race day you arrive 2 hours before the race at Crystal City. 1 of probably 25 buses, shuttles runners to the starting line about 3 miles away. Once you are at the start area, there are another 25 or so UPS trucks. You drop your plastic bag with your gear in a designated UPS truck and they make sure it gets to the finish area for you to retrieve afterwards. After the race is over, just keep moving and follow the crowd of runners. You’ll receive a finisher medal and a plastic bag with food/drink. After about 2 blocks you see the signs for the UPS trucks, where you’ll pick up your gear again. There will also be alphabetically designated areas where you can meet folks afterwards.

Inspiration
So there I was at about mile 15-16, feeling what I thought was pretty significant pain in both feet and right hip. Then I come up on 5-6 Marines in wheelchairs that had lost their legs from the knee down. These soldiers looked to be no older than 22 years old. These men were having a great time just laughing and competing. I would hear them shout to each other, left, right, slow down, speed up, hard right, etc to aid in the navigation of their wheel chairs. I would later find out that one of the soldiers was blind and navigating his way through a marathon. Can you imagine enduring what these men have been through? I can’t.

Things that are helpful to remember
– Bring a trash bag or 2, cut holes for arms and head, and wear for the 1st mile until you warm up. No need to throw away a sweatshirt.
– Bring a bottle of Gatorade and cereal to snack on while you wait for the start. It’s going to be a long day so you’ll still need to eat.
– For chaffing, use “Body Glide”. I can’t say enough about this product.
– At the starting line, make sure you are in the correct corral for your estimated time. Your chip doesn’t start until you cross the start line. You’ll want to avoid the middle for the first couple of miles, as this will be the most crowded. I chose the left side, as the first couple of street turns were right hand turns. No need to be at the right side of a right turn when 35,000 of your closest buddies are there too.
– Aid stations will be every couple of miles on the left and right. BE CAREFUL, lots of opportunity to twist an ankle with all of the empty cups on the ground. If you’re not drinking at the aid station, stay in the middle to stay out of the crowd as much as possible. As the race progresses, it seems that you lose your ability to make sharp sudden movements, so just take it easy through these areas.
– If you need encouragement from the crowd, write your name large on your shirt, you’ll be amazed. I would say there were nearly 3 spectators for every runner, so the streets were pretty much lined the entire way with thousands of spectators. There were bands every couple of miles — anything from bagpipes to Rocky theme music.

This race is definitely worth doing!

Oh yeah, and I’m almost back to playin’ weight! I started out at 188 LBS on training week 1.

Posted in Just for fun, Running | Tagged DC, Marine Corps Marathon, Washington | Leave a comment

Wendell Odom’s Sneak Peek at the CCIE R/S Lab

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Jeff

Interesting write-up on v4.0 by Wendell Odom:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/46561

Posted in Networking | Leave a comment

Battleship North Carolina

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Jeff

I recently took a quick road trip to Wilmington, NC to check out Battleship NC (USS North Carolina). I hadn’t been since I was about 8, but it was cool then; and even better now. This was my second time visiting USS NC. I found the diary entries from the crew very interesting and insightful. The excerpts really gave me a better appreciation for those that served. One crew member mentions how many of the men would take their mattress up top on deck so they would be above if another torpedo were to hit below deck like the one on Sept 15th when North Carolina took a torpedo portside, 20 ft (6.1 m) below her waterline, and six of her men were killed.

USS North Carolina (BB-55) was a battleship of the United States Navy, the lead ship of the two-ship North Carolina class, and was the first new-construction battleship to enter service during World War II. Washington was her only sister ship. She was the fourth Navy ship named for the state of North Carolina. North Carolina participated in every major naval offensive in the Pacific theater. She currently rests as a museum ship at the port of Wilmington, North Carolina.

She was laid down on 27 October 1937 at the New York Naval Shipyard and launched on 13 June 1940; sponsored by Isabel Hoey, daughter of Clyde R. Hoey, Governor of North Carolina; and commissioned in New York City on 9 April 1941 with Captain Olaf M. Hustvedt first in command. The first commissioned of the US Navy’s new fast, heavily-armed (16 in (410 mm) gunned) battleships, North Carolina received so much attention during her fitting out and trials that she won the enduring nickname “Showboat”.

CCIE Routing and Switching Lab 4.0

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Jeff

The CCIE R&S v3.0 certification exams will be retired on October 18, 2009 and replaced with the v4.0 exams.

Interesting Webex discussion posted here:

Officical Update: CCIE Routing and Switching CCIE 4.0

Lab Exam Topics, v4.0

Posted in Networking | Leave a comment

MPLS Layer 3 VPNs

Posted on September 16, 2009 by Jeff

In the following diagram we have a very Basic MPLS network to demonstrate how MPLS Layer 3 VPNs work. In the Service Provider cloud we are running OSPF between R3,R1,R5, and R6. R3 and R6 are running BGP within the SP and are peering with each other, though NOT directly connected.

MPLS_Basic
Our customer routers are set up as follows:
BB3 running RIPv2
R7 running EIGRP 100
R8 running OSPF Area 0
BB1 running BGP AS 54

Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) allows multiple instances of a routing table to co-exist within the same router at the same time. Because the routing instances are independent, the same or overlapping IP addresses can be used without conflicting with each other. A VRF is a routing table instance, that can exist in one instance or multiple instances per each VPN on a Provider Edge (PE) router.

The idea is to use VRF’s to segment the traffic in the routing table into seperate virtual isolated networks, similar in concept to VLAN’s. Each interface, whether physical or virtual will be part of ONE VRF. There are ways around this, if you are using import/export maps. For this example lets just keep it simple.

Prior to VRF’s your routing table would like the following for R3.

1_routing_table

So, to get started, we are going to create 2 different VRF’s:
R7 and BB1 will be in VRF_RED
BB3 and R8 will be in VRF_BLUE

First, lets set up MPLS across the Core of the SP network (R3,R1,R5,R6). These interface configs will only be on the inward-facing interfaces. No need to add anything (YET) to the customer facing interfaces. See below:

Config_mpls

Next, lets create VRF_RED and VRF_BLUE on R3 to segment the customer’s traffic:

Global_VRF

The Route Distingisher (RD) can be in the format [ASN:nn|IP-address:nn]. This is what makes the prefix globally unique if you happen to have 2 customers with the same IP addressing scheme. The route-target(RT) is an extended BGP community that indicates which routes should be imported/exported from MP-BGP into the VRF. So, all we’re saying here is that VPN_RED is going to import and export 100:1 ID’d traffic and VPN_BLUE is going to import export 100:2 ID’d traffic.

Next, we will add interface f0/0 and f0/1 to their corresponding VRF on R3:

add_vrf_to_interface

**Note**
As soon as you add the ‘ip vrf’ statement, you get the following message:
% Interface FastEthernet0/0 IP address 10.1.37.3 removed due to enabling VRF VPN_RED

The reason behind this is that you are segmenting the interface and creating a new routing table, so you can’t have the same IP address on f0/0 and on “f0/0 VPN_RED”. So be sure to go back and add your IP address to the interface.

Now, look at how your routing table has changed.

Segmented_routing_table

The show ip route command only shows the routes internal to the Service Provider.
The show ip route vrf VPN_RED only shows the connected route to R7.
The show ip route vrf VPN_BLUE only shows the connected route to BB3

Also, note the change in syntax while issuing the ping command:

ping_vrf

At this point our VRF’s are up and functional, but we still need to have end to end connectivity from R7 to BB1, and from BB3 to R8. On R3 and R6 your IGP routing processes are not doing anything now because they were not specifically configured for the VRF’s.

A separate “address-family” will need to be configured under the corresponding IGP process before routing information can be passed.

Once you are under the “address-family” the config parser is pretty much the same.

add_IGP's

And now your routing table shows all of your local VRF learned routes.

new_IGP_routing_table

But still we do not have end to end connectivity. Don’t forget to redistribute the IGP routes back into BGP under the “address-family ipv4 VRF” sub-process. Also note the addition of the “address-family vpnv4” sub process. This is where your RD/RT community is sent between iBGP peers(mentioned previously).

BGP_address-family

Similar configs are needed for R6 BGP address family.

Next, test connectivity.

ping_from_R7_to_BB1

Troubleshooting:

Traceroute from R7 to 112.0.0.1 (loopback 112 on BB1) to see the labels at each hop. You can see that at R3 Label 18 is added and pushed to R1. Then, on R1, label 18 is swapped for label 16 and sent to R5. R5 pops the label and sends the packet to R6, which has a route to 112.0.0.1.

traceroute

Packets with Label 18 are sent out s0/0 towards the VPNv4 tunnel dest of 150.1.6.6.(Lo0 R6)

R3_fwd_table

R1 receives Label 18, swaps it for Label 16 and sends packet to R5.

R1_fwd_table

R5 recieves Label 16, Pops the tag off and send packet to R6 (150.1.6.6).

R5_fwd_table

R6 receives packet destined for 112.0.0.1 and sends untagged out S0/0.1.

R6_fwd_table

As you can see, both VRF’s have full connectivity(within their own VRF), and we are able to verify the push/swap/pop process along the path. All of this is done without R1 and R5 having any knowledge whatsoever of BGP or the global routing table. This is what prevents SP’s from needing full-mesh BGP topologies holding the entire internet routing table. MPLS VPN’s using VRF’s segment the customer traffic(essentially like GRE) so that they have no knowledge of each other.

For this scenario I found several good sites with good information regarding MPLS Layer 3 VPNs. I combined the ideas from PacketLife and INE to hopefully come up with a scenario that is easy follow.

Posted in MPLS, Networking, Routing | Tagged MPLS, Routing, VRF | 2 Comments