Day: August 17, 2006

More on Doping

Sorry, folks, but I can’t let this topic go. Maybe it’s one last, desperate grasp at childhood and the need to have heros. But this bit in PezCycling News got me thinking:

“Maybe you need a traveling laboratory with the event, instead of having (samples) sent to the other side of France, Switzerland or wherever they go” Anderson said. “It’s not a static event like football where you’re in a stadium. Every day you’re in a different spot. With the amount of money or infrastructure, maybe (the Union Cycliste Internationale should) consider having a laboratory as well.”

Why haven’t they done this yet? How hard, really, could it be? Back in my days operating a mobile nuclear reactor under the sea, we had a pretty extensive radiochemistry lab in a space way less than half of a standard shipping container (40’x8’x8′ is a standard trailer size). Sample and test in the same facility and know that the podium girls are kissing the right guy.

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee!

(S)tudies show that cardiovascular risk also decreases with coffee consumption. … Norwegian researchers found that women who drank one to three cups a day reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 24 percent compared with those drinking no coffee at all.

…(R)esearchers found that a typical serving of coffee contains more antioxidants than typical servings of grape juice, blueberries, raspberries and oranges.

“We were surprised to learn that coffee quantitatively is the major contributor of antioxidants in the diet both in Norway and in the U.S.A.,” said Rune Blomhoff, the senior author of both studies and a professor of nutrition at the University of Oslo.

Coffee as a Health Drink? Studies Find Some Benefits – New York Times

And the Norwegians should know – absolutely great coffee over there.

Other benefits (some from the article, some made up for comic relief):

  • Twitching burns additional calories equivalent to a donut a day!
  • Waking up to a cup of black coffee after a night out on the town reduces the risk of chirossis of the liver!
  • Slices, Dices, Circumcises, even makes Julianne Fries, whatever the hell those are!
  • Reduces the risk of death from all causes by over 15% (That one is honestly not made up)
  • Chicks dig guys who write and drink coffee
  • Changes your tie pattern on a near daily basis

From an American Classic, and the best movie you haven’t seen this year:

Smells so lovely when you pour it

You’ll want to drink a quart of coffee

It’s delicious all alone

It’s also good with donuts, black coffee

Yeah, OK, I’m done.

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Ladies and Germs, Buoys and Gulls, Children of all Phases!

Pencil in the date now: 21 August, 2006 – the beginning of the running world as you want it to be.

A while back, a couple of guys had a thought: Hey, there’s a bunch of folks running and writing about it out on the web.

Anyhoo, they’ve got a concept – start a spot with running advice and lifestyle info targeted at real runners – folks with real jobs, real commitments, and mundane, every-day challenges (like “How do I get out of bed in the morning to go run” as opposed to epochal challenges such as “I’ve just been diagnosed with cancer. How do I train to win the Tour de France”). Continue to build on the “wisdom of the crowd” but to consolidate and distill a little bit of that information into an easy to find, easy to use spot.

They’ve invited me and a grunch of other “old salts” of the RBF to write for the Complete Running Network. Frankly, I’m excited about it. I love reading my monthly Runner’s World, Outside, and other professional magazines, but in a way, I kind of feel like they’re geared towards folks with a much more single-minded drive than I have. The writing I’m planning on doing for Mark et al is going to be focused more on the transition from slacker to runner.

The rest of the regular cast should include:

Speaking for myself, I’m the first to admit that all I bring to the table is commitment and a love of sweat and shortness of breath. But smaller ideas with less passion have turned into bigger things!

Summer

So, I did make it out for a run yesterday afternoon, just not the lunchtime hammerfest. Decided to do 10K on the way home; felt REALLY good, so extended it to 7 miles. Got Lance Armstrong after the summary telling me I’d done my longest run ever. Think I preferred Paula.

However, I come not to blog about Billy, but to bury him… wait.

Anyway, Yesterday evening’s festivities were me as a spectator. We trundled on down to Old Saybrook so that Jake could run the L&M Hospital Kid’s 1/2 mile race (Can’t figure out why they’ve got him listed as living in Missouri), and Melissa ran the Comcast Shoreline 5 mile race. Jake gutted out his first ever side stitch to finish. Melissa ran strong through 4 miles (her daily routine) and gutted out the last mile.

The race rocked. Old Saybrook looks like it’s cut from a Norman Rockwell painting. The race starts on the town green, and runs an out-n-back course down to an old fort. The town does a summer concert series that the race coincided with, so the finishers got to mull about with live tunes, decent post-race grub, etc. There’s even a bunch of resturants and such downtown, so with a clean pair of clothes, a sink-shower, and lots of deodorant, you could make an evening of it. Plenty of parking.

This was the first race I’d gone to in a while as a pure spectator, and it was fun. Nate, Jake, and I ate sandwiches and drank juice boxes while watching the runners come in. Got to see the firetruck go out. Absolutely great summer evening.

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