Happiness in five parts…

At some point last week, I managed to get my act together, and actually managed to get in three runs, one swim, and a meander on the bike in over the last few days. Hopefully I can maintain that; somehow, however, I doubt it. Life has just been too good lately…

Part 1 – Renewal
Anyhoo, having all of my stuff in one sock for a change left me the opportunity to leave the office just after 1 on Tuesday, and finally hit the roads for a run. And run I did. Out of the parking lot, up hospital hill, over the hill, out past the golf course, and back onto the perimeter trail. Pshew – 20 minutes into the run, an excessively steep hill, and I’m saying to heck with this. So, staying true to long, slow, distance, I drop down to a walk and stroll up the hill.

On the other side of the hill, I decide to walk down the equally steep downhill. Hey, I’m strolling. Life is good. Get to the bottom, start running up the steep uphill. Near the first top, prior to the false flat, I briefly think “Hey, I’m going anerobic – better walk..”. Riight – I keep on running, the legs start burning, lungs aching – life is still good, thoughts of Lydiard are all gone.

The rest of the run is just that – a run. 45 minutes. Get back to the office, plug it into Gmaps Pedometer and see – 4.3 miles.

Part 2 – Continuation
Wednesday was a blustery, windy day. The news on the way to the base was all about the powerlines down and trouble with Metro North in the western end of the state. We don’t have all that fancy train stuff here (just Amtrak, which is pretty much worthless at about $100 round trip to either New York or Boston), but it was impressive to hear. Worked, and headed over to Bluff Point at sunset to go run. 45 minutes, the last couple of miles completely lost on singletrack (but totally happy) – good times all around. I’m guessing 4 miles.

Part 3 – Bonding
Wednesday night, got the kiddos in bed, grabbed the swimsuit, and headed over to the pool. Went from being completely packed at 8 to me and another woman swimming at 8:30. 5 laps of breast – nice, felt good to stretch. The first 10 laps of free – good. I was applying the whole sculling concept, carving S’s in the water with my hands, kicking from the belly instead of the butt. Yeah. I was completely getting lapped by the guys in the next lane, but such is life. Started another set of free, but after 3 laps, I thought about getting out, since the “feel” just wasn’t there – I was flailing. Stopped, took a deep breath, and had a great final set of 10. Didn’t push it, just swam nicely.

I did get busted at the end – I did a dive off of the swim meet platforms, and got hollered at by the cute lifeguard. D’oh. Guess those orange cones on them mean don’t dive…

After the swim, I caught up with some friends who’d gone out for supper. They’d had booze, I’d had endorphins. We all had some dessert and coffee, and I was happy.

Part 4 – Family
Real life caught up with me on Thursday and Friday, and I managed to avoid running both days. Stupid dumb dummy… Saturday, I drilled in the morning, but managed to wrap up in enough time to make it home for Family Swim at the Y (’cause it’s fun to play at the YMCA). Grabbed the kiddos, gave the wife the long face, and got the OK to run home from the Y (she works out during Family Swim). Got to the Y and discovered Jake had not brought a swimsuit. Missy had asked him to bring one down for the bag with Nate’s suit, the towels, etc, but Jake had thought it would be cool to take his own backpack. D’oh.

All was not lost, however. We live just far enough away from the Y that we might have been able to make it home and back, get changed, etc, before family swim was over. But, yesterday was beautiful – 40’s calm, and clear. So, we went and just adventured all over the Y property. Rolled down the hill. Ran around on the tennis court. Swung from the chain link fence. Picked up some trash. Threw some logs into the river to launch “boats”. Climbed all the way up the lifeguard tower, and jumped down (not Nate).

The run back was good. No pain, no shortness of breath, just good running goodness. Through downtown, up River Road, through old Mystic. Just felt good to go running. Karen had inspired me to use my forerunner again (no Mr. V, though), which ended up being both good and bad. Good, ’cause it took me mentally back to the days of early 2005 when the 101 and I were nigh unto inseparable. Bad ’cause the forerunner pointed out what I’ve become painfully aware of – I’ve completely lost a step. Short-ish runs which were in the low eights last spring are now in the mid-nines. Not that I’ll ever be 1337, but it’s humbling to realize exactly how much I’ve lost since the fall. I suppose being grouchy will do that to you… And it turns out that I wasn’t lying to Susan at all… Five + miles in 48 minutes.

Part 5 – What goes around
Took down the Christmas lights today. Put the youngest down for a nap. Told the boy to rest for a bit. Jumped on the single speed road bike and went a-ridin’. Down to the Y. Around Mason’s Island. Stopped at Mystic Cycle. Ever since they moved into their new box, I’m wondering if they left their soul back at their old funky place. They definitely left anything that might have been on sale. Loved the Specialized Cross bikes, though.

Road back up River Road, past lots of walkers, but oddly, only one cyclist, and back home.

Epilogue –
One of the things slowing me down might be my shoes. Two marathons and all the intense training leading up to them – think it’s time to retire the Gel Cumulus VII’s. There’s a pair of Gel Helios’ in the mail – think they’re a new style, and they’re about $10 cheaper than the GC’s. Worth a shot – the GC’s are too well ventilated for winter running. (And, no, I don’t really think it’s the shoes)

First real good week in a while. Not that the others have been really bad weeks, but it’s the first one I’ve had that I felt I actually put in an effort. I think I’m going to aim the next month or so for a 20 mile per week running base, and try to get in 2 bikes (probably Monday during 24 and Sunday after church), and 2 swims (Tues/Thurs nights, so Wed/Fri will be easy runs).

Overkill? Possibly. But, I want to maintain an intensity level that keeps me engaged and happy, rather than antsy and bored. I’ll listen to my body.

Shout to my buddy Jeff

A wonderful childhood friend and brilliant writer, Jeff over at the Shape of Days, has been gradually coming out of the closet regarding his running habit.

Quick story about Jeff, and how he’s scary smart. Our high school was a Magnet (or Mag-uh-net) High School, meaning that they grabbed all of the geeks out of the other schools in the parish and bussed us off to a school in a not-so-great part of town (believe it was called “Down Bottom) for, I like to believe, our own protection. Of course, the school didn’t have a football team, since, well, frankly, I think the biggest two dozen or so guys in the school could have been literally killed by any JV squad in the parish. Even if you’d gotten the JV squad to give up their guns, knives, etc. and play a fair game of football. But, you’ve got to have some sports for kids to play to put on college applications – we had, honest-to-god, fencing.

Yeah. Poking each other with metal sticks. Great fun.

Anyhow, Jeff fenced his first couple of years at Magnet; I fenced my last couple of years. Jeff and I were buddies for most of school – we rode the same bus, he lived not so far from my house, we both were geeks even among other geeks. So, when I started fencing, Jeff said he’d be happy to practice with me. As this is becoming a longer bit than I’d intended (mostly I just wanted to pimp Jeff’s recent 5K effort), I’ll come to the point:

I like to lie to myself on occasion and pretend I’m a reasonably bright guy. Yet when I do, I’m always reminded that Jeff managed to get me to voluntarily put on a blindfold and let him chase me around his front yard (yard completely festooned with tree roots and, I believe, dog poop) while whacking me with a metal stick. “Training” he called it…

Stupid fearmongering headline grabbers…

So Reuters has a bit up today with the headline Injuries Common Among Cross-Country Runners.

During the 2003-2004 school year, more than 364,000 students in the United States participated in high school cross-country running, which was ranked as the seventh most popular high school sport nationwide for girls and boys, respectively. Previous reports suggest that the incidence of injury among cross-country runners ranges from less than 2 percent to nearly 50 percent, but little research on the topic has been conducted among high school athletes.

(The investigation) team followed 421 male and female runners from 23 cross-country teams at 12 high schools in Seattle, Washington during the 1996 cross-country running season.

Overall, 162 runners experienced a total of 316 injuries during the season, the investigators report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The rate of injury was generally higher for girls than for boys, the study findings show, and girls were four times more likely than boys to experience an injury that kept them from running for 15 or more days.

What’s not mentioned is the number of injuries that kept runners from running for 15 or more days, or comparisons with other sports.

Why this gets my ire up completely is that it’s just another reason for parents to let their kids sit on their increasingly fatter (ed-posteriors) – “Oh, Sammy can’t run XC – he might get injured”. Or, to insist on further regulation and supervision of what ought to be just straight up play.

Sure, it’s sad when kids get hurt. But hey – twisted knees and ankles are far closer to skinned knees than to concussions, fractures, and cracked vertebrae. Suck it up, put on some ice, and let the kids go get muddy. There are far better stories with which to “raise awareness” and sell fish wrappers.

4 things

Four Jobs you’ve had in your life:
1) Dairy Queen – couldn’t eat there for a year after. But they’ve lured me back with delicious dilly bars…
2) Mechanic/Shop Boy – Built natural gas compressors. Pluses? I learned how to drive ginormous trucks, use practically every tool known to man, played with fire (heh, heh, fire), and spent lots of time in the outdoors. Minuses? The time in the outdoors was during summer. In Northwest Louisiana and East Texas.
3) Submarine Officer – not quite so cool as Tom Cruise in “Top Gun” or Alec Baldwin in “Hunt for Red October”. But close.
4) Summer Camp Counselor/Climbing wall instructor – best job ever. They paid me to play with kids. There was the little bit about making sure the kids didn’t get bit by snakes, seriously injured, or kill one-another in a tragic “Lord of the Flies” type encounter, but who cares about that? We had S’mores!

Four movies you could watch over and over again:
1) The Blues Brothers – No lie, I get up and dance when Aretha does her bit, and get the chills when John Lee Hooker launches “Boom, Boom”.
2) Ghostbusters – The first movie I can think of where the geeks are the heroes.
3) Hunt for Red October – a) The bit where Sean Connery’s reading “Revelations” and transitions from Russian to English; b) all of the excitement of four days crammed into 2 hours – much like actually going to sea; c) “One ping. One ping only”
4) Waking Ned Divine. ‘Cause I just know I’m hitting the Powerball someday.

Four places you’ve lived:
Chronological Order:
1) Hawaii
2) Austin, Texas – the land of milk and honey where the streets are paved with gold
3) Battle Creek, Michigan – left when I was 12, and I still have a sinking suspicion that there’s no finer place on earth to be a kid
4) Shreveport, Louisiana and Bossier “Get Down” City – Bossier City. From a travelogue: “Bossier City! Babylon on the Red River! Sin. Hot women. Sticky summer nights. The biggest strip of night clubs ‘tween Vegas and Miami Beach! … Then, in about five minutes old Wayne comes back in as white as a sheet and says: “Roy, let’s get the hell out of Bossier City.” So we did. But after only six hours on the Bossier Strip we had ourselves two flghts, two car wrecks, had a gun battle with the Southern Mafla, and Wayne Wilder had french-kissed a man in a dress! (Pause.lifting beer.) So Wayne, down in Huntsville-here’s to you boy.”

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1) 24. Wow.
2) Battlestar Galactica – but I’m kind of stymied on this one right now – they dropped SciFi from our cable lineup, and the iBook G3 won’t do iTunes videos.
3) My Name Is Earl – Kind of reminds me of some folks I knew growing up.
4) The Simpsons – I know they’re so last century …

Four places you’ve been on vacation:
1) Bar Harbor, Maine
2) Stowe, Vermont
3) Paris
4) South Park, Colorado

Four Websites you visit daily:
1) Bloglines
2) Technorati
3) Reason
4) Apple – ’cause I just know that the refurbished section of their online store is somehow going to list a 12″ G4 PowerBook for $200…

Four of your favorite foods:
1) Coffee
2) Ice Cream
3) Greasy, thick, medium-rare steak
4) Asparagus – lightly steamed

Four places you’d rather be:
1) Back in High School
2) Backpacking in a wilderness area
3) On a small boat
4) San Diego

Four Albums You Can’t Live Without:
1) Wilco – A Ghost is Born
2) U2 – The Joshua Tree
3) Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
4) Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique

Four Vehicles I’ve Owned:
(Chronological)
1) 1981 Datsun Station Wagon – AKA the Superwagon
2) 1980’s Ford Escort GT – the “GT” stood for “Piece of $&!+”
2.5) 1989 Ford Ranger Pickup – I was “the guy with the truck” for senior year of college. The list of frat brothers who puked in the back of the pickup is long and distinguished.
3) 1991 Jeep Cherokee – my Ensignmobile after graduating from OCS
4) 1989 Jeep Wrangler – Sold only to get a backseat for my firstborn.

Jank’s Road Bike Buyer’s Guide

This has come up a couple of times via e-mail, so I thought I’d throw it out for general discussion. Your mileage may vary; this is just my bit. Full disclosure – I’ve bought a grand total of two road bikes in my life – a second-hand Trek for $140, cash, and a 2001 Cannondale for about $1200. Most of this is second-hand experience with folks I rode with, mainly in Texas, and from talking with folks at bike shops.
Continue reading Jank’s Road Bike Buyer’s Guide

Mud!

So I’m taking this “FUN” thing about as seriously as I ought to. Did I sweat not being able to sneak out for more than one workout last week, despite a cold and a bunch of work? Nope – I hit my priorities, spent great time with the kids, and got a bunch accomplished at home.

Did I sweat that I had probably a couple too many cookies out of the galley while out on a too-small boat in the middle of january? Nope, figured that all the rocking and rolling was somewhat akin to doing crunches all day, and ended up back at 172, from a post-Christmas high of 174.

And this afternoon – had a couple of bang-up meetings, cleared out of the office early-ish, and headed to Bluff Point for what’s probably the best run I’ve had by myself in 2006.

I suppose the weather should have fallen into the “sucks” category, ‘cept any time it’s over 50 in January, it’s hard to call suckage. There was an especially cool mist in the air – absolutely spectacular New England gloom, straight out of the first chapter of Moby Dick. But, it’d been warm and sunny all week, so the trails at Bluff Point were solid.

The run was fun – fired up the Nano, clicked on the cruise control, and just kind of let go. The tri book I just finished is big on aerobic base, and going back through last year, I was happiest and making the most progress when I wasn’t fooling around with fancy workouts. So, I ran. Didn’t (much) charge hills. Didn’t (much) try to chase down people. Spent the run reveling.

Got about halfway to the point when I decided to shake things up. Took the fork up to the Winthrop foundation, ran down to the shore, did a little singletrack, looped back around, took another detour, and pretty much just kept running.

Walked for a few minutes when I got tired. Ran somemore.

Flipped on “A Ghost is Born.” Tried to make my ears bleed while listening to “At Least That’s What You Said.” Completely exploded down a hill, through the woods, over rocks as the guitar and keyboards played around with rhythm and melody, always staying on the finest edge between control and chaos. Seriously. Flying.

Wow.

Darn, I love to run.

50 minutes. A couple of miles (I’m guessing between 5 and 6).

Jake’s decided it’s fun to do calesthenics, too. Yesterday and today before the boys’ bath, we “worked out” in the living room. Nothing much – a dozen or so jumping jacks, situps, pushups, crunches, flutter kicks, triceps dips. Pushups were fun tonight – the little boy (Nate) decided he needed to sit on my back while I did them and say “giddyap”. Laughed when I realized that I was doing pushups with as much total weight on my arms not much more than a year ago.

So that’s pretty much it. If anyone hits the powerball this weekend, or is just feeling particularly generous, I’d love a new MacBook. Not that I’ve got $2K lying around. I’ll probably shell out for a new machine once the iBook goes Intel. Either that, or snag a G4 PowerBook off the refurb line – they’ve got a 12″ w/SuperDrive (DVD RW) coming close to $1000. But, I’d be exceedingly grateful …

That’s about it. Goals for the weekend are two good runs, a clean basement, clean singlespeed and swap out chainring and pedals, new bookshelf for the bedroom, and dinos in New Haven. Oh, and catch up on blogs. I’ve also decided that I’m on the trainer for all of this season of “24”. Not necessarily hitting the trainer hard, but got to give it something.

2006 rocks. Thanks in advance for the MacBook.

Brief

Update.

Been on Annual Training for the last week. Had a great ride on the single speed road bike on Sunday. Haven’t done anything else since. Spent most of this week at sea. Good times. Good work. Will likely clear out bloglines later this week; sorry if I missed anything big.

Well, except Jeff’s qualifying for beantown. That’s got me breaking out the shoes tomorrow morning.

“The Future”: or, “How I learned to stop worrying and love the death of American Engineering”

So Mark and I were swapping e-mail after my “Fun” post. I went off into my typical sob about “ for the vast majority of us, if we’re not really loving being out there, there’s not a whole lot of reason to do it, especially given the whole time and money sink that lots of fitness activities are. (it was) really liberating for me to hear this attitude, especially after a year of reading books implying that running/marathon/whatever was SO important, then getting the big anti-climax.”

Mark came back with

Hey, I am ALL about fun. In fact, I have a Bachelor of Arts in Recreation Administration – so does Beverly of One Step at a Time. (NB – Beverly also has kids that love ZooBooMooFoo, or one of the few unquestionably worthwhile shows on the idiot box) The degree gave me a philosophy of Fun, Play, Leisure and Recreation that permeates my life still. … Fun, discovery, growth and passion. That’s what life’s all about.

Which made me realize that there’s a big part of me that wishes I’d done something more like RA than Engineering. So I didn’t make the “Would you like fries with that?” joke…

There’s a line at the beginning of Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” (which if you haven’t read it – well, you should. First, it’s a way to dip your toe into Stephenson without committing to the 900 page “Cryptonomicon” or one of the 1000 page volumes of the “Baroque Cycle“, and Stephenson will be looked back on as the Twain of the 20th century. Second, “Snow Crash” is remarkably prescient about the way the internet and culture in general seems to be going – life broken up into a series of incorporated “franchiculates” instead of larger nations … interesting take. Is this parenthetical long enough? I think so.) where he says that the only things that the US (i know, Canada and all, but bear with) is good at are Movies, writing code, and high-speed pizza delivery. I’d probably modify that to be “Entertainment, creating new memes, and affordable cuisine”.

But the point he’s making is kind of a larger one – hard research and engineering have been refined to the point where that kind of creativity 1) can be taught to anyone, anywhere in the world; and 2) done cheaply almost anywhere (especially if anywhere’s environmental laws are not as restrictive as those in Western Europe and North America). Which sucks for guys like me. What’s even worse is that my fallback is an MBA, and business is even easier to learn than engineering.

Where the opportunity opens up is for people with a background soft skills , and the chance to sell … well, let’s say “fulfillment” for lack of time to come up with a more accurate term … “fulfillment” to the 3 billion or so soon-to-be middle-class engineering and middle-management types that are taking the lessons of the 20th century and applying them in China and India and places which were until recently associated only with crushing poverty and tragic disease. These places are soon to create the largest explosion of wealth and desire for leisure that the world has ever seen.

It does not matter that companies like Intel and Microsoft are moving offshore. It especially doesn’t matter that GM is not long for the earth, or that traditional airlines can’t make money. All of that is old industry, codified in textbooks and easily translatable into any language on earth, and able to be done more cheaply wherever the books can be read.

(Want to make a mint at somewhat of a high risk? Start laying fiber in Africa, especially if the UN goes through with this $100 laptop deal. Much like Levis and Coke turned all but the true-believer Soviets into capitalists in the space of a decade, IM, e-mail, and http are going to turn isolated pockets in Africa into folks who see that life doesn’t have to be muddy and malarial. Serve up even ’20s and ’30s-era agricultural material that’s passed into the public domain, and watch a little knowledge work miracles. You may not need the bullet if you’ve got the ballot, but it’s important to get a bushel of grain in every belly first. In any case, Africa’s going to skip the industralization that took 200 years to run its course with us Norte Americanos and Europeans, and will play out in about 50 years total in Asia. Africa’s going straight to the 22nd century.)

What I’ve been meaning to say is that you’re completely right “Fun, discovery, growth and passion. That’s what life’s all about”. Darn Straight. And the “Next Big Thing” is selling that to the 3 billion people who are about to learn that food in the fridge and a good job at a good wage still leave an empty spot in the soul.

Sorry, no real running news today. But exercising the mind is fun, too, right?