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Dictionary.com’s Word of the day for today?

gelid \JEL-id\, adjective:
Extremely cold; icy.

Despite best intents. Ah, well, tomorrow is a new day. Work got in the way of running today. I think this was the first time in a long while, and I fought it fiercely. But it did.

iPod repair is proceeding slowly. Just realized I need a tinier Torx head than I have to remove the motherboard. I got the case open, unscratched. Well, no worse than it was from 6 months of riding in my pocket. No large pools of LCD came out. Big thanks to Jon’s brother for LCD tips, BTW.

Work was aided by a bitterly cold wind. Which makes me think that it’s karmic retribution for bagging on Zephyr.

So here’s a couple of ideas in Wind’s defense:
1. Chris’ riff on “No Excuses, Sir.” That’s wind, baby. No hiding. No downhill. No cheating. No excuses, deal with it wherever.
2. Wind is a training tool no matter where you live. In the ‘burbs in Houston, my best runs were the ones on windy days, where there finally was a challenge besides merely putting one foot in front of the other.
3. Drafting. If you haven’t, take up road biking. Then find a couple dozen people who like to do it too. Learn how to pick up a wheel, and revel in the joy of instantly upping your top average speed by about 3 MPH. Then segue into dreams of riding in the pro peleton at average speeds of upwards of 30 MPH for a race like the TDF. That’s for the entire race.
4. And completely un-fitness related: Without wind, there’s no sailing. No prospect of building a boat in your backyard, rigging it up with sails, and going literally anywhere touched by the seven seas in the world without without burning a drop of petroleum, splitting a single atom, or dipping an oar. (Note the word “prospect” in the previous sentence.

Chew on that.

Me, I’m going to bed early. I’ve got me some running to do tomorrow. Or maybe swimming. Or maybe both.

But for sure, I’ve got a date with a one year old and a five year old (less three weeks) tomorrow evening that will involve roaring terrible roars, gnashing terrible teeth, rolling terrible eyes (Their mommy participates in this part), showing terrible claws, and will lead to a wild rumpus, complete with a parade featuring a barking dog and two terribly out of tune renditions of “Baby Elephant Walk” accompanied by a baby laughing his fool head off. And maybe cookies.

Not meant to generate more questions, but how does one best clean Liquid Crystal after one has cracked a Liquid Crystal Display?

And what is its effect on electronics?

I busted my iPod at the gym. Apple said “Ha, Ha!”. I’ve ordered a replacement screen, and have the install instructions. But I am worried about cleaning LC out of the iPods insides.

I figure I can just lick it …

Cross post from here.

Today’s topic of discussion: Wind or Hills?

For me, it’s a no-brainer – give me hills any day, and keep the wind. The caveat I’ll put on that is that I’ve never really ridden or ran mountains, as in over about 3 or 4 miles of continual decent climbing, and my max climb is probably around 500 feet (like on a routine basis – I’ve done a decent amount of backpacking/hiking in various sets of mountains). Yeah, I’m a flatlander.

Hills – Hills can be dealt with. Take shorter steps. Run slightly across the grade. Smaller chainring, bigger cog. They’re a challenge that can be broken down to one’s skills. AND there’s always the promise of a downhill while one’s running uphill. Although that promise is a lot more enticing when one’s on skis or wheels.

Wind? There’s not a darn thing you can do. If the wind’s blowing, unless it’s within about 45 degrees of one’s posterior, it’s going to slow you down. Vector addition and all that. Plus, wind always will shift to slow one down. And unless it’s really blowing, there’s not a whole lot of speed advantage unless one is sailing. And then, one needs to worry that the wind will increase the chop and potentially upset one’s drink.

4 easy miles today at lunch. No Forerunner, no iPod. No clue how long it took, ‘cept it was most likely closer to 10 minute miles than 8. But it’s all right. The whole thing pretty much felt good. I didn’t finish strong, but I finished. May have been a bit dehydrated, too. Oh, and the wind was fierce, blowing cold and strong straight out of Canada, with a healthy fetch across the bay.

I’ll skip the food details, but it was all good stuff. 50/50 extra lean ground beef / ground turkey meatloaf for supper. My wife should start a healthier food restaurant. I swear, there’s a happy medium to be found between sprouts and beans and deep-fried twinkies. Somebody needs to notice this and make a mint serving sensible but tasty food.

One last recommendation: NPR did a bit on Wayne Shorter, a jazz saxophonist who got noticed with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, was part of the Miles Davis Quintet with Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock. Brilliant.

My name is Hove – H to the oh-vee…

Someone mentioned mash-ups a while ago. There’s a lot of crappy ones out there, but I have got to wholeheartedly endorse DJ Dangermouse’s “The Grey Album”. Overlays samples from “The Beatles” with Jay-Z’s “The Black Album”. Nice and low-key, good beat, etc. I’ve legitimately bought both albums, so I don’t feel too bad about downloading. I do need to figure out how to get something over to Dangermouse to completely even out my whuffie on the whole transaction.

In any case, it’s a great sentiment – “Please allow me to re-introduce myself” – Not exactly a do-over, but more of a reinvention, rebirth, renaissance. It’s what I’m trying to do with 2005 – physically, professionally, and psychically (The husband and dad thing I’m pretty darn happy with – so I’ve got that going for me).

3 s l o w miles on the treadmill tonight while I caught up on Battlestar Galactica. (The show rocks – if you haven’t checked it out, they’ve got the first episode on their website. A download that won’t send you to jail, if you can believe it. I’m meaning to watch it. They’ve added 4 scenes. Plus, it don’t cost nothin’.) 10 minute pace, but it’s the first run in a week that has felt good. On track for the week, with drill over the weekend.

Eating was better today – coffee, clementines, and a Tim Horton’s raisin bagel for breakfast; 4/5ths of a 6″ Subway club (cheese and mustard, lots of veggies) for lunch with half a bag of bar-b-q chips; and a cup of whole wheat spaghetti with spicy sauce and 3 low fat turkey meatballs for supper. And no desire to hit the monster tonight.

Tomorrow will be a challenge. The program has me going to T-W-T-S-S for running days, instead of the old T-T-S-S. But I’m psyched.

Extra post for today –

1. I kind of blew the diet (already). OK, not diet, but counting calories. And not so, much, but just a bit. Breakfast, as you know, pushed 500 cal. Lunch – I did good; leftover fajitas, no cheese, no guac: about 400 cal, near as I could figure. Supper – My folks decided to treat us to a local seafood restaurant. Good stuff. In hindsight, I should have gone for the off-season lobster – if you avoid the butter, which isn’t needed now that the critters have their winter fat, it’s not so bad for you. Instead, I got the fried platter. I avoided the fries, and stole some of my wife’s salad, but I figure supper was 1,000 calories or so. So I’m up about 2,000 for the day.

If I fight off the monster for the evening, it’s not so bad. Plus, I swam, so there’s a deficit to make up there. Only, I’d hoped to make it up off of my belly (mmmm, whole belly clams….)

2. Speaking of deficit: I found the coolest calorie calculator. It purports to solve for your baseline, but more importantly, it gives inputs for calories burned running/swimming/biking, etc. Good stuff.

3. There’s been a bunch of good comments on about body fat monitors on Sunday’s post. Appreciate all the information about potential inaccuracies, but I’m pretty confident it was accurate. It’s too close to the BMI and my physical appearance as a little bit fluffy. Much like the scale, though, I’m going to continue to formally avoid it 6 days a week. Oh, and Jon – it was an impulse buy. $5 cheaper than normal.

178 – Added a pound but it’s within the margin of error, and I was sick last week.

One of the upsides of being sick has been getting back into a regular sleep cycle, so I was up early this morning to hit the pool at the Y. And hit the pool I did. 1,000 yards. Everything felt fine, but I was still fighting some of the lingering weariness that hobbled me last week.

**** WARNING – Nasty statistics to follow ****

I picked up a small body-fat monitor at Target yesterday. Yech. 32%. Meaning that I’m carrying around about 55 lbs of lard everywhere I go.

The upside is that the measurement “checks with chart” as the quartermaster would tell me back in my submarining days. Say I cut down to a healthy 15% body fat – that’s about 27 lbs to lose, which would put me right at 150, or about where the BMI calculations tell me I should be.

This, though, was a real eye-opener. In the past 3 or 4 years, I’ve peaked out at about 195 or so, almost 20 lbs higher than I am today. Yee cats.

**** Back to regularly scheduled navel gazing ****

This week begins counting calories. I’m going to shoot for an 1800 calorie base, with an addition of about 50% of what I burn in exercise. Breakfast – Trail Mix Bagel and Honey-Walnut Cream cheese. Only a gazillion calories. OK, only 530 cal. Washed it down with good old fat burning coffee. Yippee! (BTW, whoever posted about coffee’s fat solubility last week deserves a gold star.)