Enticed by darkwood tables

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Yesterday, while peeking through the window of a second-hand furniture store on Fort Street ("Antique Row") and admiring some marvelous dark-wood end tables, the shopkeeper approached the window from the inside and waved at me.  I decided to enter the store to say hello.  "I thought you were my nephew!" He said. "You look exactly like him, but then I saw your goatee and I realized you weren't him." 

I thought to myself, well it isn't really a goatee, but that's ok..."Oh, that's neat," I said.  "What is your nephew's name?" I asked.

"Gita." He replied.  "He's Portuguese.  What are you?" 

"Ah well, a bit of a mixture," I replied.

"Oh well then you're like me!" he said and, as the phone rang, he reached to take it and I waved good-day to him.

___________________

For transition training today, I decided to take my chances that the velodrome was open; if not, I would find a route nearby and simply lock my bike up as needed for the run portions of the workout.  Luckily the velodrome was open and a couple of trackies were there training.   As one changed his gears (track bikes are single fixed gears, so changing gears involves stopping and using tools to replace a chain ring with one of a different number of teeth),  I chatted briefly with him and he mentioned the gates are always open; he found if the track-house is occupied, someone will even turn the lights on for anyone training. Perfect. 

So after riding out there at a brisk pace, I warmed up by running on the track for 3km.  Each lap is 333 metres on the black line.  The apron, just below the black line is flat, aside from a slight rise just before the line.  The workout was 3 sets of the following: 1km run; immediate transition to bike for 3km; immediate transition to run for 1km.  1km jog between sets.

For the first set the first km was 3:05 (note: distance will have been just short of 1km, since I was running just below the black line); I couldn't separate the times for the bike and second run, but total time was 11:43.  Transitions were not overly fast but not bad.  The first set was painful, especially since after mounting the bike I sprinted as rapidly as possible to time-trial speed.  The second 1km was ghastly and I actully pulled up just short of the end.  

Second set was slower: 3:15 for first km, total time 12:15, over 30 seconds slower for the whole set.  Most of that loss was on the bike, but it meant that I felt really strong on the second run.  Third set was slower still: 3:18 for the first km, though I inadvertantly went two laps too far on the bike skewing the result, giving me 13:27 for the last set (I definitely was not going that much slower).  So 6km of running intervals and 9km of bike intervals. 9km on the bike may not seem like much, but when you're going max and fighting the acid buildup from the first run, it's one brutally hard effort.   Total run mileage: 13km; total bike including ride there and back, a shade over 40km.

I seem to remember doing 12somethings for a similar workout last year, quite a bit later in the season on a blazing hot evening, so my fitness is reasonable at the moment.

The walking wounded

Monday, February 27, 2006

One day when I am old and grey and nodding by the fire, taking down this blog and slowly reading of the days when I was young and fit (apologies to WB Yeats), posterity may find it interesting that I noted the following injuries:

Ian H - feared acute compartment syndrome in right lower leg, potentially paralyzing.  Downgraded yesterday to chronic CS, much less dangerous but characterized by generalized swelling of the lower limb.  Ian tends to oscillate between either being sick or injured, but still does one or two hard workouts a week and runs 26:10 8k races.  Now there's a body that takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin!!

Cliff K - went to emergency yesterday due to severe pain, and fearing something was snapped where achilles joins heel - apparently more likely just inflamed bursa, but scary for Cliff nonetheless.  Self-prescribed antidote - more cross-training and stretching after some time off.

Ased S - achilles - out for the foreseeable future.  This follows a hip and knee problem recently.  Antidote: physio.

Sophie P also has a foot injury after running two times last Wednesday following runs on Monday and Tuesday after a 1/2 marathon on Sunday (!). Antidote: pool running and time in gym.

Last time I ran into Bruce D we shared our own achilles complaints, but we agreed that the ticket was to train in light training flats and avoid the beefier shoes.  We'll see.  I heard Bruce was on the track this weekend, and I'm psyching up for bike/run transition training tomorrow - a session that is about as hard as it gets for the achilles, but hopefully it will hold up - may want to do it indoors.

I wonder if this spate of injuries is partially due to the colder weather, especially the achilles problems.  Blood flow is pretty restricted to that part of the body and often is partially exposed in the cold.

Yesterday I ran for about 1.5 hours gently (about 20km) once around the lakes and then in and around the roads near the lakes for some variety.  Today was an easy spin on the exercise bike and some weights and calisthenics.

The darkling plain

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Originally thinking I would run easily today with an easy ride following, I chose instead to ride only. Joining the group for what for some was going to be another Jordan River ride, it became an East Sooke ride instead for all of us.  Athough Brett noted he still needed to do another three hours of riding after I was finished.  My ride was about 2.5 hours.  There were about 15 that started, and it gradually whittled down to about 5 of us heading home together as a group, as the others either dropped off earlier or took alternative routes home.  Being rested I felt good, though I knew it was not a wise idea to push the pace too much, and only once did I make any over-the-threshold attempt, for about 30 seconds.  The balance was nicely controlled, although there were a couple of climbs that definitely necessitated some increase in heart-rate.  

It was chilly - about 1 degree for much of it and we saw numerous of the little white crystalline thingys descending from the sky.  It did warm to about 3 degrees for a while and, by the end, it was 5 degrees (Brett's crazy little computer shows not only caloric output and all the other usual stats, but temperature too.)

I had given momentary thought to going for a run as well, but decided it was not necessary (and too much given that I've been resting this week).  I did a short easy run yesterday, and I can go for an easy, longer run tomorrow. 

I was not as disappointed with Ian McEwan's novel, Saturday, as I was with the last one I read, Enduring Love.   The events in the book occur all on one day, a Saturday in 2003.  It is set in the context of the pending invasion of Iraq and the main character's uneasiness that Saturday morning - he simply senses something unusual for the day and awakes earlier than usual.  Events unfold through the day, some nearly catastrophic for him, a neurosurgeon, and his family.   As his theme, McEwan incorporates a poem by Mathew Arnold, called Dover Beach (one of my personal favourites that I used to recite before going to bed when I was 19 or 20 and living on my own).  The last stanza that reads

 "Ah love, let us be true
To one another! For the world which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept by confused alarms of struggle and flight,
While ignorant armies clash by night."

In the book the "confused alarms" and "ignorant armies" are those of England, US and Iraq, preparing for war.  These are coupled with the broken young man who assaults the main character and terrorizes his family, but who is placated by the neurosurgeon's daughter who reads to him that poem by Arnold.

Although the book is fantastically written and the theme profound, I think McEwan still doesn't fully pull it off.  There is something missing that would give a better sense of the foreboding of the world around him and his family, who are all so very squeaky clean and well-to-do, in a rather Hollywood fashion.  The love he and his wife and family all share that transcend the confused alarms and the ignorant armes is apparent, but not as moving in the backdrop of their affluence.  Even so, McEwan is such a great writer of prose, that the novel is a fantastic read.  3.5 out of 4 stars! Ha!

Jug 1/4 full

Thursday Feb 23, 2006

After a water leak from the ceiling near a window at work, a woman put a jug beneath and soon declared that it was 1/4 full.  "Don't you mean it's 3/4 empty?" I asked, adding to myself silently "you seem like the pessimistic type..." I wouldn't have thought that except for her continuous fretting around the printer, calling it a "twit", asking why no one comes to fix the incessant beeping it's been making.  "Well the fastest way to fix it would be to throw it out the window," I suggested.

Later I asked her if the jug was half-full yet...

My workout again was gentle - a 20 min spin on the exercise bike and a light weight workout.  Just doing the weights though has left me more tired than I expected, and I'm ending the evening flitting without focus between reading and listening to Claude Debussey.

Cardiff bound

Wednesday, February 23, 2006

A very easy 37 minute run this evening staved off that cooped-up feeling that often comes with too much time warming the hands in front of a hot computer.  The legs felt springy and it took some discipline not to start pushing the pace.  Yesterday I did a light workout in the gym.

On an unrelated note, I've finally learned that my abstract for the Philosophy of Sport conference in Cardiff, Wales has been accepted for oral presentation in mid-May.  This for me is exciting.  My original submission, however, was not accepted and the conference committee asked me to revise it, since they deemed it to be primarily sociological in nature and did not sufficiently address questions about the nature or purposes of sport.  So, I revised the abstract from what was a narrow discussion of specific examples of the application of complexity theory to sports, to a broader discussion of the implications of applying complexity theory to sports generally.  They then accepted it.

Below is my abstract. I've omitted references.

Sport and Complexity Theory

Abstract

Complexity theory entails principles of broad application and analyzes how components interact within a system, whether those systems are physical, biological, or sociological or otherwise [eg.1].  I discuss general principles of complexity theory and show how they may be applied to sports, with examples shown for both mass-start endurance sports and team sports.  One basic concept of complexity theory is that collective patterns emerge by the interactions between system components [1].  In sports these components are race or game competitors.

The  application of these universal principles to sport suggests that humans possess an inherent natural capacity to appreciate universal principles inherent in all complex systems through their simulation or re-creation in sport, and the meta-level structures that emerge collectively from sporting activities.  Every game or race, by having specific beginning and end points, may be viewed as a controlled version of naturally occuring complex systems. It is thus arguable that one primary purpose of sport is to simulate complexity in nature. Viewed this way, the primary purpose of sport is not competition; rather it is more fundamental: it is to simulate complexity in nature, and to be involved in sport or to observe it is to participate in a microcosm of universal collective phenomena.  As a result, here competition is not viewed as the primary purpose of sport, but is one system parameter among several that drive the meta-level emergent phenomena.

As examples, I show how complexity theory has relevance to mass-start endurance sports such as cycling, running [2,3,4] open water swimming, and cross-country skiing.  Similarly, complexity theory also has application to team sports [5,6]. I expand on existing discussion, drawing conclusions about team sports as self-organized dynamical systems.  In both sets of examples, I discuss how they represent examples of universal collective complex phenomena and explore why their simulation of natural phenomena is a primary underlying purpose of sport.

____________

Apparently there will be presenters from nine countries there.  So far the cheapest flight I can find is out of Seattle (even taking into consideration the cost of the drive down).  I won't be able to stay long,  though, since I'll need holidays for Brazil at the end of August and du nats, and possibly du Worlds if I qualify (long course worlds is out).  It would be nice to save a few holidays for miscellaneous unforeseen things too.  Hopefully I'll be able to arrange a short visit with one or two relatives near London, though.

corrections and apologies

Monday, February 20, 2006

I noticed that Mark Nelson had a little write up on a Frontrunners blog about the Bear Mtn run and I see that I was wrong on two things: Lucy ran 15:27, not 17:10.  I didn't think she was that far behind, but for some reason I seemed to remember hearing the latter time at the awards.  Obviously I wasn't listening!  Sorry Lucy, if you happen to have seen that.  Also, I saw that Morgan Titus was second in the Grouse Grind, although he and the first guy were both under the previous course record.

While I'm at it, sorry to Don P for leaving a triangle of crumbs on his couch, representing the shape between my legs where fell the crumbs from some very tasty chips we consumed while watching the Marathon des Sable DVD at his place.  I usually try my best not to be that much of a slob, but somehow I found myself out the door before I cleaned them up!

The only exercise I got today besides some walking, was to saw two little pieces of baseboard to fit into spaces left beside two new heaters recently installed in my place.  Wendy, my building manager wasn't overly open to hiring someone to fix the relatively small problem but had no problem with me doing it.  So, she provided me all the materials and, a little sawing and little painting later, two little gaping spaces that were starting to drive me crazy are now covered, and probably barely noticeable to company.  Bob's my uncle. (Last time I said that, Bob C. insisted that he wasn't).

Even so, the heaters are a different shape and reveal a bit of discoloured carpeting beneath them, which is a tiny bit annoying too, but I'm sure I'll get over it.

Hilly thoughts II

Sunday February 19, 2006

I think this morning's 3.5km hill run was the second shortest running race I've ever done (not including a couple of 400m track races in school).  I remember doing a two-mile race in West Vancouver once, but for the most part I've almost never done races shorter than 5km before. 

On a crisp but brilliantly sunny day, Nick Walker posted the inaugural Bear Mt Summit Challenge standard of 13:42, while I hung on for second in 14:10.  Morgan Titus was third and, although he set the course record for the Grouse Grind last year (I think), he is not at his fittest at the moment, though I don't think he was much more than 15 seconds back of me.  Young upstart Alan Morrison (I think that was his last name) who runs about once a week he said, was fourth, and Mark Nelson 5th in 14:40.  Nick said all the top 5 went under what was his previous fastest time on that course before, 14:42.  Apparently he and Mark train up there a lot. 

Lucy Smith, having decided to race - not pushing her baby carriage up the climb (!) -  won the women's in 17:10 (I believe), and I'm not sure who the second woman was.

Basically I stayed quite close to Nick until the last short slight descent before the left hand corner that heads up Nicklaus drive,  the steepest portion of the course.  On hitting that little downhill section I could feel all the acid pooling in my quads, and there was no hope of maintaining good speed to the finish after that.  Nick gradually accelerated away from me at that point, and two guys behind me closed in.

I know from experience that I can maintain a certain lactate tolerance on a pure uphill run, but as soon as the course flattens or turns downhill even for a short distance, my ability to tolerate that same level of acid accumulation vanishes and I go over my lactate threshold and tie up.  I've noticed time and again that I can often maintain the pace on hills with faster runners than me, but I slow up painfully when it flattens.  Maybe they just aren't going that hard up the hills and I'm going flat out and, when we hit the flatter sections, they kick it and I peter out - I suppose that could explain it!  Although I do tend to think I have a physiological limitation too in this respect that better runners don't have.  Granted, there was another downhill at about the 1.5km mark, but I wasn't at threshold leading into it, and I was able to stick with Nick even after that.  Whatever the case it was great fun!

I managed to get another 13 or so km of running in addition, including one more jaunt down and up the climb after the race.

In talking to Nick about the course, he said he found he could generally run up it faster than he could ride his bike up it, and wondered if it might be close between running/riding (ie a fit runner versus a fit cyclist).  I was fairly certain a fit rider could ride it faster (I didn't time it the last time I rode it), but I thought I would test it (not that I'm necessarily all that fit).

So, I rode out there this afternoon and did a hard effort up in 10:20.  Certainly the two little downhill parts are advantageous for the bike, which accounts for some of the gained speed, but even so, it is still considerably faster by bike (but not as much as one might think!).  I suspect there are other riders around who could go sub 10 mins, and a rider like Roland Green could ride up that climb in about 8:30 or less.  Definitely, though, a fit runner who doesn't ride that much could probably run up there faster than he could ride.

In any event I got a solid couple of hours on the bike as well.  I think I'm due for another break in the training regime, and may take two days off completely, with a super easy day Wed, and then Thursday off again, and build from there.  I won't be tempted to jump back into a hard tempo workout next Saturday though, which is what set me back (I am guessing) the last time - jumping back into the hard efforts too soon after the break.  My first hard effort again should come the following Tuesday.

hilly thoughts

Saturdya, February 18, 2006

Cliff gave me a lift out to join Ron B's 8:00 group this morning, during which I did 3 of the four prescribed 10 minute tempo efforts, in an attempt to save something in my legs for the wee 3.5km jaunt up Bear Mtn tomorrow, which for some reason has captured my imagination, largely I suppose, because it is a pure hill run, of which there are so few anywhere. 

A runner I used to train with in Vancouver, John N. used to regard his long runs as "sacred".  If I were to use that word to describe any aspect of my running, it would be for my hill runs.
I used to love my long hill runs in North Vancouver, numerous times running up Mountain Hwy to where it turned into a gravel road and wound around the east side of Grouse Mountain.

The 13 km up Mt. Seymour Parkway was always a favourite too.  Most of the time I didn't run to the top because the run down on the road was brutally hard on the legs.  There were three years, though, when I participated in a bona fide running race up the road to the top, with a best time of 55:24 (a course record). I seem to recall also running up to the top at least once pushing my bike along side me to ride on the descent back down.  I am fairly sure I did that once on Mt. Cypress too, though the memory is rather vague, seemingly a bit like a lifetime ago for some reason.  In recent years my other long hill runs have consisted of a jaunt down and up the 16km Mount Washington climb last September; and once or twice a year I make a point of running up the Malahat and back, starting at Goldstream park. 

All this hill climbing stuff reminds me of a funny story about bike training on Mt. Cypress with a few other riders.  I'll save it for another post though!

I hopped onto the bike later in the afternoon as well for a gentle one hour spin, which resulted in my needing a nap afterward to the strains of an Edvard Grieg piano concerto.  Guns n' Roses just wouldn't have put me to sleep!

those crazy beavers

Thursday, February 16, 2006

In addition to the many interesting events occurring at the Olympics, I must confess to getting a kick out of the TV commercial that depicts two couch-potato beavers.  The one stretched out on the couch, waving his hand dismissively to the other, saying "shat-pflzt - triple sow cow on", while lifting his leg to scratch his butt, could have been molded straight from a room-mate of mine many years ago, Darren S.

In fact I'm not sure they didn't study Darren first before creating the beaver's character and use his voice for the dub-in.  Darren - whom I'm sure would not be in the slightest offended if he read my blog about him - was self-described as the "not the laziest *#% in the world, but pretty damn close", spent many an hour horizontal on the couch with one hand in a bowl of nachos and a remote control in the other hand.  

To Darren I was the "best room-mate he'd ever had". 

Well, 15 years later, I've news for ya, D -- no kidding! I was never there! If I wasn't training I was working, and on the weekends I was traveling to races or, for a couple of months or so, away doing GMT (general military training)! When I was around, which was rare, I could do no other than to chuckle whenever you and Linda were telling each other to "get off your arse, do some dishes, and burn a calorie" or when you and Linda sauntered around the apartment (slowly I might add) incessantly repeating with a beautiful melodic lilt your favourite saying: "the crack in yer butt, the crack in yer butt, the crack in yer butt."   

Then there was the time when Linda told me I had nice feet, and you went snaky on her, and I decided it was time for my second bike ride of the day. Yah D, I made myself scarce around there pretty much as often as I could! And let's not forget the time when you put the TV against the wall of my bedroom and you watched it until 2:00 am; and when I told you I was having trouble sleeping you responded by saying "well that's the best place for the TV"! No kidding I was the best room-mate you'd ever had!! 

If you're not dead from emphysema and happen to ever see this D, get in touch and we'll go for a drink.  I'll have a real man's drink: peach cider, and you can have your wussy little Bud lite. Oh, don't forget yer cancer sticks...

There, I feel much better now.

Now to the real subject of my blog - I did 1X1200, 3X800 and 1X400 at the track. 3:47, 2:28, 2:27, 2:26, 1:06.  Total run about 13km, and decided that was plenty.  Legs feel better after session than they were before.  Saw Bruce D down there coaching some kids, and the usual small group of fast trackies.

The vertiginous moment

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

I think I will write to Ian McEwan, author of Saturday, which I am still not finished, and ask him if he is influenced by the works of Jorge Luis Borges; McEwan's style is so very reminiscent of Borges.  Not that I expect McEwan to respond to an email of mine, one of many thousands he or his agent(s) must receive.

Borges wrote in Spanish and his works translated to English.  Nonetheless, it is the translated versions McEwan would be familiar with.  Obliterate, vertiginous - these are words (translated from Spanish) applied in many creative ways by Borges, and I see similiarities in their creative application with McEwan. 

Todays effort was a gentle 75 minute run along the waterfront.  My legs do not feel great at the moment, and my feet in particular feel a little achy after trying a new pair of shoes from Frontrunners.   I may need to return them. 

While deciding with certainty to not race in Brazil this March, there is another UCI race there in August/September, I believe 7 or 8 stages, which I will plan on racing.  Daniel G (one time National Brazilian time trial champion) has indicated accommodations, food and race fees will be covered for that race too.  This was the same race in which friend Darren V crashed fairly heavily and photos of him being carted into the back of an ambulance made the front page of Brazilian newspapers!  Fortunately he was fine, but his race obviously ended rather abruptly.

Having thought my serious bike racing days are over, I expect an opportunity like this will not come again.  Make hay while the sun is shining, so it is often said.

The bootiless winter

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Just as a clarification on my last post re my "list": the list is of real or speculative components of a whole state of being human, not separate states by themselves. 

Leaving that for now, I slipped onto the bike as soon as I could after arriving home from work.  I thought to take a spin out to the Bear Mountain climb to preview the course for the 3.5km race up there this weekend, which I'm considering doing.  I crossed paths with Bruce S along Millstream, who was heading home in Metchosin after riding through the Highlands from work.  He joined me on a jaunt up Bear Mtn road, past the turn off to the resort and golf club, up to where a brick sidewalk ends in a little cul-de-sac where an area has just been cleared for construction.  There was just enough light to absorb rather a spectacular view from there. 

My fingers were cold and nearly immobile on the ride down, and my feet were getting a tad chilled too.  The state of my appendages reminded me of a comment many years ago by one time National pursuit champion, Paul Henderson, who said "Hugh is the hardest man in cycling. He is the only guy I know to have trained through an entire Vancouver winter without booties." 

Yah, but I was just a poor starving student then, and I couldn't afford booties!  But then last Saturday I had several guys asking why I wasn't wearing booties then too...hmmm.  

And THEN I remembered how Paul and I were both in a race in Langley once when it was about 3 degrees and pouring rain over a 120km circuit of about 10 laps whereon each lap was a nasty, brutal 2 km corkscrew climb that hit a maximum gradient of about 15 percent for 500m.  It was so cold and miserable and a sufficiently difficult course that on every lap a few more riders dropped out. 

With about 2 laps to go there were only about 12 riders left from the 60 or so that started, two of which were Paul and I.  Paul was riding beside me before heading up the ugly climb when I heard him say, "that's it. I'm outta here".  My lips were too numb to shape them in response, but I looked over at him, and he said this much more: "This is just your kind of race, Hugh.  Too stupid to quit!" He chuckled for a second and peeled off the course, while I suffered to the end with the few remaining die-hards and finished in about 7th.

Having said all that, I also got down to the gym to do a half hour treadmill run with 4X30 second strides; some light upper body weights, trunk exercises, stretching.

The list revised

In thinking of the "levels of being (i.e. human being)" Hinduism expounds, I've thought to make the list more comprehensive:

1) the body

2) the conscious mind

3) the unconscious mind

3) the collective unconscious (Carl Jung)

4) Indra's Net
(the interconnected web of all physical relationships - Hinduism and Bhuddism)
[roughly equivalent to the physics of dynamical systems dealt with by complexity theory]

5) the infinite cycle of birth and destruction (Hinduism) [equivalent to the multiverse theory or the oscillating universe theory where it continuously expands and contracts]

6) the Godhead or variations thereof (many religions)

No doubt there are others, but my thought is others would be very much like one of these, or could be excluded because they are not states of "human being" or somehow arguably inherent within it. 

In any event, I thought a bit about these various levels of "being" during yoga class today - appropriately so, since yoga (I've been reading) has its origins in Hinduism and the practice of attaining union with God.  Of course in doing so, my mind was not "free of all thoughts" as might be preferred in a yoga practice! 

I am definitely tired after the weekend, and actually felt a bit nauseated for parts of the yoga class.  Actually still do a tiny bit, and hope I'm not actually catching something...

Pings to spings

Interesting article below that says there are currently about 27.2 million blogs in the "blogosphere" and a new one is created every second.  Article mentions "spings", or spam pings.  I've learned that pings are computer generated messages sent to other computers to acknowledge an internet connection, or something roughly like that.  I guess one needs to be a techie to know that, which I am not, nor even a wannabee.  There are lots of things I'm a wannabee for - sometimes even to be a wallabee - but being a computer techie is not one of them.  Not that there is anything wrong with being a techie, I just wouldn't want to be one.  Shut up, Hugh.

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=179100780

I'm reasonably pleased with my race today, given the duration of my ride yesterday.  While the legs were certainly heavy, especially in the quads and the hip-flexors, it felt like my body was ready to tolerate a high level of lactic acid for a relatively long period.

I had no snap whatsoever off the start and so the front group of about 8 runners slipped away from me very soon off the start, unlike the last couple of races where I could at least hold with a few front-runners until 5 or 6km.  But the lack of quickness off the start also allowed me to feel quite good over the second half and I was able to maintain my pace all the way through and my splits were fairly even, being just over 20mins at 6km and 40:49 at the finish - and the second half has the really nasty uphills portions.  I managed to overtake Ian H and nearly caught Todd H, both of whom were quite far ahead at halfway.  Ian said that that was one of his worst races in all his Island series races, both in terms of time and how he felt. 

My time was about a minute shy of last year's run, though I'm not entirely certain I would have gone a whole lot faster this year had I not gone for long hard ride yesterday - I almost wonder if it helped!  That alone is a confidence builder in terms of my training, as I know that I can now train both the cycling and the running and maintain what for me are fairly high levels for both.

The infinite cycles

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Well, now that I've sufficiently sabatoged my race in Cedar tomorrow with a 150km ride to Jordan River and back this morning, I do at least know that my cycling fitness is at a reasonable level, despite relatively little riding this year. 

Originally thinking I would ride a couple of hours easily with the group to about Sooke and back (or less even), I found myself enjoying myself just a bit too much, and continued past the point of no return.  In this case the P of NR was when it seemed better to keep going with the group all the way and to return into a headwind with the group, rather than to turn around and face the headwind on my own all the way back.  With some rough calculations as to the relative perceived efforts required, in my mind that point came just past Sooke, and once I was there, I figured I might as well just keep going with the group.

The group was at one point about 20 strong, but guys continuously dropped off or turned around at various points.  Past Sooke and heading into Jordan River, I tested the legs by pushing a bit up the French Beach climb and found myself alone ahead with Brett B and a fellow with Alberta team clothing on. The three of us were later joined by Daniel G, as we did a four-up rotation into Jordan River.  There we stopped at the little burger stand and waited for the rest of the group to join us.  

On the return there were about 8 of us until about Sooke, after which Roger T and John W, and a couple of names I don't know, having rough days, dropped off leaving Jaime C, myself, Daniel and Brett finishing up the ride at the front.  Round about the Juan de Fuca rec centre, the lack of mileage started to grip me and I began having visions of being returned home in a body bag, but I did manage to make it home in one piece. 

Brett B, whose HR monitor provides an indication of the number of calories burned, said his counter was at 3400 calories burned for the ride, the equivalent of about 34 miles of running, I noted.  This will have been roughly the same for the rest of us, obviously - which is why I can now eat with impunity and without a shade of guilt to plague me!

Brett B and Daniel are heading to a six-stage UCI race (internationally sanctioned) in Brazil in March, and are asking if I'd like to go.  All race fees and accommodations would be covered by the race organization, though I would have to cover airfare.  I'll give it some thought, though realistically I won't be in good race condition by then, nor would it be good timing work-wise.  Anyway, something to think about over the next couple of days.

After watching an episode of Cosmos on DVD, hosted by Carl Sagan, and the commentary about the similarities between ancient Hindu beliefs and modern western cosmology, I've been reading a bit about Hinduism.  I find particularly interesting the belief that we are part of a infinite cycle of birth and destruction, and that we are connected to these infinite processes as a fourth component of our whole being, the first three of which are our bodies, our conscious minds, and our unconscious minds.  An interesting way to view things - that these infinite cycles are just as much a part of who we are as our bodies and minds.

Nail-in-foot syndrome

Thursday February 9, 2006

It seemed a good day to run easily with a few efforts.  I met up with Ian H who showed me some fantastic trails in and around the Camosun endowment lands (assuming they are called something like that) near his place by the Commonwealth pool.  It was nice to run on some completely different trails, reaching areas of sufficiently high elevation so as to come seemingly face to face with the Olympics, clear and somehow magnified by the dropping sun and a cool thickness to the air.   Near the end of our 1 hour 15 min run, I threw in 4 X 1min efforts, while Ian did some shorter strides. 

While I feel strong, I haven't any good sense of how I may run this weekend.  I certainly am not carrying a lot of confidence, but I will just try not to expect anything, since as it is often said, he who expects nothing is never disappointed! 

True to my nail-in-the-foot post of a couple of days ago, I found myself rather in a similar situation of having my feet up on my desk while others did all the work today.  Problems with my network access meant techie from afar had to remote control my computer while I sat chatting to him on the phone with my feet elevated.  Of course I felt it was terrible that I wasn't able to get my work done without access to the "N" drive and helplessly could do no other than to watch techie navigate my cursor through electronic labyrinths.

Attempting at the moment to locate a nice French song to learn. Most of the ones I've listened to so far are a bit difficult for this neophyte, but will continue searching...

The Hobgoblin of little minds

Wednesday, February 8, 2006

A few minutes ago I heard an interviewee on CBC radio quoting "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."  I thought it interesting, because I've heard the quote applied in a legal case, although I'd have sworn in that case it was applied as "INconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."   So I looked it up and it was in fact Ralph Waldo Emerson who originated the quote as "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."   Apparently Emerson argued that a great person does not have to think consistently from one day to the next.  Seems rather open to debate, but I haven't read the essay, so I really can't comment.  Nonetheless, that's the source.

I did only a very easy 23 minutes on the treadmill and some light weights today.  I tried a few medicine ball trunk-twist exercises (!) Great for the trunk and stomach, and I could feel every rib-cage muscle being worked and crunched.   Might even keep them up! 

I just heard that oysters co-existed with Tyranosaurus Rex !  Man, oysters are ANCIENT!  Apparently there have probably been more studies done on Oysters than any other invertebrate species!  I just heard it on CBC from a Molluscan inveterbrate biologist from Nanaimo!

"send pings"

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

I just noticed the term "pings" on the top of this "Write and Publish a new Entry" page and I'm suddenly rather curious to know what a ping is.  It could almost be some sort of one person game with a little paddle where you bat a little white ball in one direction only: pings, but no pongs. 

Actually, since it says "Send Pings - Rebuild the Index", I'm imagining some sort of internet proxy server where all your page instructions can be sent to rebuild it if for some reason it gets severely infected with a virus, or something like that. 

I've digressed beyond all repair, obviously. 

Since my hours at work have shifted due to beginning a legislative management temporary assignment this week, I'm now off at 4:00 and can get my butt on the road in the daylight now.  So I was on the road by 4:30 and ran a sub-tempo run (quick but relaxed) with 2 x 1min efforts and 1X2min toward the end of a 1 hour and 10 min run. 

There was still a tiny bit of light then and I managed to start a 50 min ride just barely in the light.  The ride was mostly easy spinning, but I threw in 2 X 1 min of gradual accelerations trying to time it so I was just beginning to accumulate lactic acid by the end of the effort. I don't want to push too much on the bike yet - building gradually.

I feel tired now, but my legs feel supple (with just a tiny bit of tightness in my left ham).

The Oak and the Ash (and the rusty nail)

Monday February 6, 2006

After a gentle 10km run during which I felt no soreness at all in my legs, to my pleasant surprise, I re-discovered a CD of English folk songs that brought memories of the many traditional English folk songs my father used to sing: Drink to Me Only, Greensleeves, The Oak and the Ash, among others.

All that singing business brings back that time when I was about six years old and belting out Little Jack Horner as I wandered like a minstrel in our back yard in Edmonton, only to step on a nail protruding from a board on the ground: "Little Jack Horner, sat in a corner, eating his Christmas P-aaaaaaah!" So went my nail-driven version of that little ditty. 

I remember a flurry of activity among my brothers about the back yard to clean up what other potential hazards lay in the backyard while I sat in the kitchen with my leg up on a chair and Polysporin smeared all over my foot, pretending to feel sorry for myself while everyone else was working. 

And so has it been ever since...ha ha !

"Cell death" in bicycle racing

Sunday, February 5, 2006

Having recently seen again the documentary "Death by Design" about the concept of apoptosis, or programmed cell death within organisms, I see there are situations in cycling races analogous to cellular "death by design".  As I have learned, cells continuosly receive signals from other cells that cause them to perform certain tasks, and in the absence of those signals they will simply die.  Interestingly, cells partake of their own death by creating certain molecules that faciliate their demise.  In this way cells literally commit suicide. 

A peloton, or group of cyclists, may be likened to a complete organism consisting of "cells" which perform tasks depending upon the signals given to them by other cyclists, whether those signals are literally words communicated, or ones that are understood based upon the particular circumstances cyclists are in from moment to moment.  When each cyclist adjusts his or her position according to the positions of others, they contribute to the "life" of the organism and its fluid dynamics.  Their proximity to each other is what drives this - the farther away they are from each other, the less influence they have on the shape or dynamics of the "organism".

There is an exception to this: when a cyclist is "off the front".  In that case he could be very far away and yet have great influence on the dynamics of the chasing cyclists.  However, when a cyclist is "off the back" he or she no longer contributes to the dynamics of the organism.  He may still himself be interacting with it in the sense that he chases to maintain or resume contact with the peloton, but as far as the peloton is concerned a cyclist off the back is a non-entity (there is at least one exception to this,  but I'll avoid that detail for the moment).

So, when a cyclist off the back no longer contributes or receives signals to contribute to peloton dynamics, there is a fairly high likelihood that he or she will give up the chase attempt, effectively "dying" as a contributing member of the organism.  In extreme but highly common situations, such a cyclist will abandon the race altogether, and in that case will also more clearly "commit suicide". 

In any event, these concepts can be developed much more fully, but an analogy can, it seems to me, be drawn.   It is just another way of viewing a peloton as a dynamic whole. 

___________

Run today: just short of 1.5 hours very easy with Cliff (about 17-18km); about two hours on the bike in the afternoon with a few of the IRC (Island Racing Club) members (formally Team Organic Athlete).   I took some longer pulls at the front to ensure I was getting in a moderately difficult ride in, which was of a slightly higher intensity than my previous rides so far this year.

Why cyclists shave their legs...

Saturday, February 4, 2006

A topic of conversation with Sophie P...
 
Three purported reasons:

1) You go faster because of reduced wind resistance;
2) Shaven legs are easier to massage;
3) If you crash, abrasions are easier to clean and to keep clean and bandages don't get stuck to hair.

None of these reasons, in my mind really are very good reasons, because they can all be shown to be largely not true or minimally valuable, although definitely shaven legs are easier to massage!  It really boils down to one thing: tradition.

Some may argue it's solely about esthetics, which it is to some degree, without a doubt.
However, when I started shaving my legs when I was 19, I had no concept about how it looked.  It was simply a matter that one Saturday I showed up for a training ride with my hairy legs and underwear beneath my cycling shorts (another faux pas which I was also told about, but that's another story) and, being surrounded by a group of seasoned cyclists, one looked at my legs and told me "you should cut that hair off your legs".

I said, "Why?"

"Because cyclists shave their legs," he said.

So I went home after the ride and thought I wasn't going to bother shaving my legs. But for the next morning's Sunday training ride, my legs were nicked and hacked but otherwise smooth as a baby's bottom.  My point is only that it wasn't because I thought it necessarily looked good that I shaved my legs, rather it was because the tradition of leg-shaving among cyclists had been imparted to me, and I chose to follow that tradition.  When traditions are passed on like this, my thought is that there often isn't really a "good" reason for doing them - they are just things done that have become part of the sub-culture you've committed yourself to.

Today's run this morning with the 9:00 am Ron B group at the lakes consisted of a 30 min tempo, with 2X 4:00 mins afterward.  Some among the group did 4X4:00 after the tempo, But Craig O and Ian H thought to do just the two, which worked well for me. 

After a 15 min warmup, the faster runners among the group, like John Brown, Bruce Deacon, Jim Finlayson, Eric Kiauka and Trevor O'Brien, David Jackson, went hard right off the start, while Ian, Craig and myself ran slowly until the 1km mark before beginning the tempo running in earnest at that point.  Cliff started at tempo at the start, though the three of us caught up at about the 3km mark.  Cliff dropped off at about the 5km, while I dropped off at about the 6km mark, and I could see ahead that Ian dropped off from Craig at about the 8km mark.  A third group ran just back of us, consisting of Marilyn, Shannon , Lisa, and Kate S. , Don E and Pano. 

The 2 X 4:00 felt hard but tolerable, as Ron suggested just to keep the legs spinning at a relaxed effort, though we probably pushed a bit harder than that.

I managed to get in 40 mins of spinning on the exercise bike later this evening.

The obliterating days and nights

Thursday, February 2, 2006

Feeling as though I may have gained a bit of speed from my high mileage in December, if nothing else, I've thought for the moment it won't hurt to keep pushing that end of things.  Of course if it doesn't translate into faster times over a longer distance, they won't be much use, but I'll plug away with speedwork for a while, basically as much as my body will tolerate it. 

So with that in mind, I ran down to the Oak Bay track where I thought to do 5X 1000, but which turned out to be 2X1000, 2 X800, and 2 X 400.  The idea was to maintain the speed, so after the first two 1000s, I decided I should begin scaling the distance back to make sure I could hold the speed.  Times were 2:58, 2:57 for the 1000s; 2:23, 2:22 for 800s; 1:07, 1:08 for the 400s with about 600m rests.  I wanted to be sure of adequate rest between so I could maintain the hard efforts on each one.  

I was pleased with the effort, especially since my hip flexors and quads were heavy from two days in a row of significant time spend on the bike (or exercise bike).  The times are encouraging, but I think I will need to do some longer tempo (or slightly sub-tempo) runs to bring the stamina for the longer distances up to where I want it to be.
_____________

Having finished the book Enduring Love, I have just purchased another of Ian McEwan's books, called "Saturday".   I love his use of the word "obliterate", which I've seen him use in a few contexts now.  His use of that word and style generally remind me of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges: "...and that is why I, Tzinican, let the days and nights obliterate me.." (from a short story, the name of which escapes me at the moment). 

As much as I enjoy his style of writing, I was actually mildly disappointed with Enduring Love.  McEwan seemed to have an opportunity to really allow the reader to wonder whether Jed, a man obsessed with love for the main character, Joe, was almost entirely Joe's delusion and whether it was this delusional thinking that drove his wife, Clarissa, away.  By making it all very clear that Joe was really right to be concerned about Jed's obsession, made it just an ordinary story, albeit a very well written one - in my mind anyway.

The zenness of darkness

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Roger T frequently tells me how he enjoys the sensation of riding in the dark along the waterfront or out the Galloping Goose when he slips into a kind of zen meditation along the way.  For myself I ordinarily don't enjoy riding in the darkness all that much, although I do know what Roger is talking about.  There are certainly periods of time along the waterfront when there are no vehicles to disrupt the consistency of the silence and the darkness. And during those moments a rider becomes intensely aware of the rhythm of his pedal cadence and the tension in his muscles while all external sensations are oppressed by the blackness and the stillness. 

During my easy one hour and 10 minute ride out the waterfront to Arbutus and then out toward Ash and down toward Mount Doug and back in along Shelbourne, I encountered the interesting experience of hearing a man sawing a log in synchrony with my pedal cadence - roughly 90 RPM!

I am unsure whether I lapsed into a cadence that matched the zoot...zoot...zoot of his log-sawing, or whether it was simply coincidence.  I do know that this sort of self-organized synchrony can occur, such as among some hand-clapping audiences.   From my own experience I've noticed it is sometimes difficult not to begin walking to the beat of music blaring from some person's car.  Sometimes when I find myself walking along to some incessant drum beat, purely by accident, I have to force myself to walk out of step to it -- for no other reason than to avoid giving any possible satisfaction to the young punk, whose music is blaring and who might see me strollin' to the beat!

In any event, the log-sawing/cadence synchrony was short-lived since the sound disappeared in the distance rapidly, but it was a sound nevertheless made sharper by the darkness and I may not even have noticed it during the light of day.

Having said all that, I can hardly wait until there is enough light to do all my training in the daylight! 

_________________

"Let's all get up and dance to a song
That was a hit before your mother was born,
Though she was born a long long time ago -
Your mother should know, your mother should know"

....hehehe, for some reason that old Beatles song is on my mind...