All this reminds me...
What were people thinking in 2004? Voting for Bush in 2000 was reasonable. The country certainly (and reasonably) had Clinton-fatigue.
But by 2004, Bush was a known quantity. How could half of us have missed that?
Remember, it wasn't too long after that when the scales finally started to fall from our eyes. Maybe it was a testament to Rove, et al. that they held it together just long enough to get through Nov 2004.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Getting sore
Hit the end of another 3 week cycle, and just in time. Thursday included a very intense leg strength session on the bike. I attend a bike spinning class late Thursday nights held at a local cool bike shop (Bike World), which is inhabited mostly by real roadies. So it's all strength and intervals. Friday, unsurprisingly, was sore. Saturday was the big day for the week: 40 min swim, long ride, then 30 min run. Had been planning on only 2.5 hours on the bike, but a couple other guys wanted to stay for another half hour, so I did too. And then one of them, who knows what he is doing, pushed us to do some intervals. They probably weren't that hard if they hadn't been at the end of 3 hours, but they were pretty hard as it was. Sucked it up and made it through.
Despite the fatigue of those long trainer rides, I always find the run after to be a relief, almost a pleasure. It's almost just stretching out the other half of those leg muscles is a relief, at least for a while. For now, I've kept them to ~30 min. Longer than that would mean more nutritional needs, especially after all that riding.
Anyway, Sunday was just an easy hour's spin. Or at least it was supposed to be easy. Hurt a bit just to get to 90 rpm in low gear.
So now it's recovery week. Nothing too terribly long. Took yesterday off. Slept like a rock two days in a row. Feel a lot better today. I hope this is how it's supposed to work.
Despite the fatigue of those long trainer rides, I always find the run after to be a relief, almost a pleasure. It's almost just stretching out the other half of those leg muscles is a relief, at least for a while. For now, I've kept them to ~30 min. Longer than that would mean more nutritional needs, especially after all that riding.
Anyway, Sunday was just an easy hour's spin. Or at least it was supposed to be easy. Hurt a bit just to get to 90 rpm in low gear.
So now it's recovery week. Nothing too terribly long. Took yesterday off. Slept like a rock two days in a row. Feel a lot better today. I hope this is how it's supposed to work.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Me and Coach Troy
Spent a little Quality Time with Coach Troy over the weekend.
If you have ever done time on a trainer in front of a Spinervals DVD, you know exactly who I mean. Fit, authoritative-sounding, pro Triathlete background, some kind of southernish accent, stopwatch. Coach Troy cajoles and yells and tells you you have to put it on the big ring on the front and the 12 on the back and give me 100% for only 1 minute. And that 30 seconds is plenty of time to recover before we do it again.
His DVDs have titles like "Suffer O Rama", "Have Mercy", "Bending Crank Arms" and "No Slackers Allowed". So perhaps we ought not complain, but just about everyone who has ridden with Coach Troy has wanted to throw something at him. In fact, you wonder if he's out of his mind at times.
But on "On-the-Road v. 4: Madison WI training ride", we learn that Coach Troy does have a modicum of self-awareness. For this ride, you're supposed to pretend you're riding with him and three other studs around the Madison Ironman course. It's about 3 hours, and doesn't have deathly crank-bending interval sets. In contrast to most of his DVDs, Troy actually rides. Although he clearly taped most of the commentary after the ride, it's done in a style as if he were riding at that very moment. He talks, and instructs, and talks. Actually, if you're alone, he keeps you company if you don't mind a one-way conversation, because at least on this one video, he isn't trying to kill you.
With between 45 and 43 minutes to go, though, find out that Troy knows what we think of him. Nothing dramatic, but he admits that maybe he is annoying and you might want to turn the volume down and not listen to him.
It's good to know he's human.
If you have ever done time on a trainer in front of a Spinervals DVD, you know exactly who I mean. Fit, authoritative-sounding, pro Triathlete background, some kind of southernish accent, stopwatch. Coach Troy cajoles and yells and tells you you have to put it on the big ring on the front and the 12 on the back and give me 100% for only 1 minute. And that 30 seconds is plenty of time to recover before we do it again.
His DVDs have titles like "Suffer O Rama", "Have Mercy", "Bending Crank Arms" and "No Slackers Allowed". So perhaps we ought not complain, but just about everyone who has ridden with Coach Troy has wanted to throw something at him. In fact, you wonder if he's out of his mind at times.
But on "On-the-Road v. 4: Madison WI training ride", we learn that Coach Troy does have a modicum of self-awareness. For this ride, you're supposed to pretend you're riding with him and three other studs around the Madison Ironman course. It's about 3 hours, and doesn't have deathly crank-bending interval sets. In contrast to most of his DVDs, Troy actually rides. Although he clearly taped most of the commentary after the ride, it's done in a style as if he were riding at that very moment. He talks, and instructs, and talks. Actually, if you're alone, he keeps you company if you don't mind a one-way conversation, because at least on this one video, he isn't trying to kill you.
With between 45 and 43 minutes to go, though, find out that Troy knows what we think of him. Nothing dramatic, but he admits that maybe he is annoying and you might want to turn the volume down and not listen to him.
It's good to know he's human.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Not the Prez any more
I don't mean Obama, I mean me!
I just finished my term as president of the local soccer club. In a way, I'll miss some of the duties, but I will certainly not miss having to keep up on every last detail. I remain on the board, so I will still be involved. Funny, though, what letting go feels like.
I just finished my term as president of the local soccer club. In a way, I'll miss some of the duties, but I will certainly not miss having to keep up on every last detail. I remain on the board, so I will still be involved. Funny, though, what letting go feels like.
Early swim
Swimming was the first thing my soon-to-be-14 year old son could beat me at all the time.
I got a grade 3 AC separation in my shoulder last spring, which did not do anything good for my already mediocre swimming. I had tried to make a point last winter of getting better at it, and I had taken my 1000 yd time trial time down from 17:45 to 15:47 over the course of a few months before I hurt myself.
This past recovery week I did my first swimming TT of the season, and came in at a pretty respectable (for me) 16:34. That's way ahead of where I was this time a year ago, but I think the "easy" time has come and gone. We'll see how fast I can get on my new-and-not-improved shoulder. I have signed up for a group swim workout, which starts in a week. Maybe there will be some good stroke coaching to come from that. We'll see.
Feeling optimistic.
I got a grade 3 AC separation in my shoulder last spring, which did not do anything good for my already mediocre swimming. I had tried to make a point last winter of getting better at it, and I had taken my 1000 yd time trial time down from 17:45 to 15:47 over the course of a few months before I hurt myself.
This past recovery week I did my first swimming TT of the season, and came in at a pretty respectable (for me) 16:34. That's way ahead of where I was this time a year ago, but I think the "easy" time has come and gone. We'll see how fast I can get on my new-and-not-improved shoulder. I have signed up for a group swim workout, which starts in a week. Maybe there will be some good stroke coaching to come from that. We'll see.
Feeling optimistic.
Base 1.
I'm old enough that I train on a 3 week cycle instead of the traditional 4 week cycle. That means 16 days "on" and 5 days recovery (low volume), instead of 3 weeks/1 week. My 5 day recovery cycle means a business week of low volume, and then I can come back with something longer on the weekend.
This past week has been my first rest week since I formally started my program to get to IM Moo. I have a 6 week "Base 1" cycle, followed by a 6 week "Base 2" cycle that will take me into early March. If these terms don't mean anything, a good place to look is Joe Friel's The Triathlete's Training Bible. Basically, this is a pretty low intensity time, meant to build strength and basic endurance. It's "training to train", as opposed to training for the race just now.
Anyway, the good news is that by about Wed or Thu, I felt ready to go again. Still taking the full 5 days. Don't want be great in April and burnt out in August.
This past week has been my first rest week since I formally started my program to get to IM Moo. I have a 6 week "Base 1" cycle, followed by a 6 week "Base 2" cycle that will take me into early March. If these terms don't mean anything, a good place to look is Joe Friel's The Triathlete's Training Bible. Basically, this is a pretty low intensity time, meant to build strength and basic endurance. It's "training to train", as opposed to training for the race just now.
Anyway, the good news is that by about Wed or Thu, I felt ready to go again. Still taking the full 5 days. Don't want be great in April and burnt out in August.
More on Rick Warren
I initially thought Rachel Maddow's take on the Rick Warren invitation to do the invocation at Obama's inauguration was a bit shrill - she did not seem to take seriously that there could be a reasonable "reaching out" component to it.
But Rick Warren recently dug the hold deeper. Rather than rehash the details, I instead draw your attention to another Rachel Maddow segment. Again, some of this is editorial and reflects her strong initial opinions, but there is a lot of plain old fact and quote in here.
If we are to give RW the benefit of the doubt here, this kind of thing sure doesn't help. Can you imagine the collective cringe by the Obama gang when they see this?
But Rick Warren recently dug the hold deeper. Rather than rehash the details, I instead draw your attention to another Rachel Maddow segment. Again, some of this is editorial and reflects her strong initial opinions, but there is a lot of plain old fact and quote in here.
If we are to give RW the benefit of the doubt here, this kind of thing sure doesn't help. Can you imagine the collective cringe by the Obama gang when they see this?
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