I skipped this morning’s swim, and I’m not even going to think about making it up. It’s a recovery week anyway, and I definitely needed the rest. If I have to choose between making a swim and making a run, I’ll choose the run every time. I’m considering even waiting until late tonight to do that, just to soak up more rest.
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I thought you were supposed to get better when you practiced something? I hadn’t spent any time in the pool for a good stretch up until a few weeks ago, so I wasn’t too tough on myself for swimming like a fish out of water. But it’s been 3 weeks…I should be getting better by now. My technique is so jacked up I don’t even know where to start to fix it. I just know that it’s bad all over.
Think I may be headed for a masters class or a swim clinic next month. This is supposed to be the easy leg of the race, and I want to keep it that way.
From Jack Chambless:
With the exception of Geitner, who is alot like Hamilton in his contempt for us commonfolk, the other three….well just look at the names slowly and compare the person from 1776 to the person sitting in the same office in 2012.
ZING!
The ubiquitous multi-touch edge-to-edge displays and pv-celled roofs are cool, but I think my favorite thing about the future is that all adults will be attractive and all children well-behaved.
HT Mashable
College students on food stamps.
“I did not even know that I was applicable for food stamps until someone told me about the site and to apply to see if I would get it.”
Added Smith, “Since then, I have saved a ton of money.”
I remember being a cash-strapped and hungry college student. My solution was to get a job at the school cafeteria. Minimum wage at a crappy job, but it was an easy job to get since no one else wanted it, and you got to eat when you worked. There were lots of days when the only two meals I ate were immediately before and immediately following my shift. I never even considered there may be a better different way.
I have some big fitness goals for the next year, and meeting big goals of any kind means having a great team supporting you. This is probably going to end up reading like some sort of paid post, but it isn’t. It’s just some recognition of what my friends Sean and Jay at AnyBody Fitness have been doing to help me reach my goals. I try to help these guys out with computer/technical stuff when they need it to show my appreciation, but I also wanted to publicly thank them for their help.
One of the toughest things about training for long distance races is the amount of training time that’s involved, especially on the bike. Running in the dark is no problem, but I don’t feel especially safe riding the bike in the daylight, much less at night. So two big challenges for me are finding daylight hours to train when it isn’t brutally hot outside and maintaining my bike with all of those miles (I’m not a great bike mechanic). My solution was to change over to a spin bike for most of my training. Sean and Jay worked with me to pick out a bike with all the features I needed and none of the ones I didn’t. Another plus of a spin bike is that other people (aka The Missus) have it at their disposal. That’s something I could not achieve with a trainer.
I couldn’t be happier with the bike. It allows me to train indoors (out of the sun), at any time of the day, and safely (no cars). I can also watch Ken Burns documentaries or Coach Troy’s Spinervals videos the whole time I’m riding. And last week when I called and asked if there were specific SPD pedals I needed for the bike they were able to get me a set with SPD on one side and toe clips on the other in just a couple of days.
These guys are pros at fitting out large facilities with commercial grade equipment, but they also sell the same equipment to the public. This makes them a really good choice for people who are looking to outfit a home gym. They also buy and sell used equipment, so if you’re local to Knoxville or Nashville and looking for a good deal on a treadmill or bike that has been checked out by a professional before you buy they are a great place to start. No yard-sale-grade stuff here.
Do yourself a favor and check these guys out…they will treat you right!
Denso (and others) Plea Guilty To Price Fixing – Coming soon, “Shame on Denso” signs in front of Alcoa Highway Wal-Mart.
Has the Higher-Ed Revolution Begun? – I’ll take advantage of the CS courses, but I’d really love to see a business school offer this type of program. We may have to wait all the way until next year for something like that.
What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind? – In summary (I think), they need to be taught responsibility and experience in addition to facts.
It’s time for us to get to work. To get busy. My advisors and cabinet members are going to sit down to find ways to help get out of your way. To encourage you.
Re-elect this guy. If we ever elect him.
Whatever happened to: Rucking?
The key advantage of ‘traditional’ rucking was that it produced quick ball. It also occupied forwards who might otherwise loiter in midfield clogging up the pitch.
The game started changing in this regard as my career was ending, and I remember that feeling (we’ve all had it) just KNOWING that the boots were coming after doing something on the edge of the law in a tackle in order to steal or secure the ball for my team.
And then…nothing would happen. Occasionally someone would curse your actions, but they wouldn’t dream of chucking boot and letting you know that was not acceptable.
I do know of at least one referee who was more than happy to have the game become more about him than the players on the field and welcomed the changes in rucking.
10 Things You Can Do to Raise a Reader – On of the most important things you can do as a parent.
Sweden Plans A New Superhighway For Cyclists – Not going to pretend I wouldn’t like to see this here. Privately funded of course.
Federal government debt site – But it doesn’t track the federal government’s massive debt. Instead, it gives them information on decreasing their own debt. Isn’t that rich?!
So Why Read Anymore? – Damn. Just…damn.
Somehow we must convince this new wired generation that speaking and writing well are not just the DSL lines of modern civilization, but also the keys to self-mastery, a sort of code that one takes on — in addition to others, moral and legal — to uphold standards of culture itself, to keep the work and ideas alive of our long gone betters for one more generation — as if to say, “I did my part according to my time and station.”Nothing more, nothing less.
The Future of Personalized Medicine – Can’t wait for this to be widely available. Can I get a GPS add on?
QUnit – jQuery JavaScript Library – Free, and a time saver down the road.
Spotify Free Unlimited Music Streaming Ends After Six Month Promotion – Sadness. Extreme sadness.
There are a few things they could have done to help themselves gain votes with Floridians:
- Campaigning here in August instead of January. Florida in January is a no-brainer. Who really wants it?
- Participating in a spelling bee with only Spanish words.
- Having a first name that isn’t a four-letter word.
- Having a first name that sounds like a name instead of an inanimate object.
Lobbyingconsulting with the National Hurricane Center to have the next devastating storm named after the other.- Attending a Marlins afternoon game. That would have almost doubled attendance.
- Make a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives like the one below. It never gets old.
If Mitt Romney had been thinking ahead, he could have put an ace in his pocket that he may just need. In rasslin’ terms, this would have been the proverbial foreign object or loaded boot. It may even be sneaky enough to be called an eye gouge.
Think about it–the guy’s been running for President pretty much continuously for the last 4 years. How shrewd would it have been to donate loads and loads of money to charities and err on the side of over-paying taxes for all of those years? Then, when his wealth/success became an issue and he was asked to release his tax information, he could reluctantly agree to release four years’ worth at just the right moment, showing just how generous and over-taxed he is.
And the obvious question to opponents would be, “how much have you given to charity and paid in taxes over the last four years?”
He’s spending money like mad anyway, and it doesn’t seem to be working. He probably could have donated his way out of his image as a one-percenter at a discount.
This is amazingly rich.
The federal government has a web site to help Americans with their debt. It’s called “Knee Deep in Debt“. I can’t think of a better place to go for advice when you’re knee deep in debt than an organization that is over its head in debt.
It gets better. According to the site, the first step to eliminating debt is to set a budget. From my experience, this is great advice. Dave Ramsey says the same thing. The thing is, the last time we did a budget at our house was 21 days ago, before the month of January started. The last time the federal government did a budget was over 800 days ago.
Next up, sites on healthy living run by fat smokers and tips on living clean and sober by alcoholic meth lab operators who supplement their income running product from pill mills.
Remember this bit of wisdom from the gov’ment:
Your financial situation doesn’t have to go from bad to worse.
I’m happy to say that Michael Silence is blogging once again.
For some of us who were (and still are) D-list Z-list bloggers, one of the first major milestones of our endeavors online was getting linked to by Michael. I’ve always appreciated the fact that he was out there bringing attention to the stuff us weeds growing among the tall trees of the internet had to offer to the blogosphere, specifically in East Tennessee. As if that isn’t enough, he’s a guy they bigger guys actually pay attention to. For example, I’ve received exactly two Instalanches in my blogging career exploits efforts time served, and they both came about because he was the first to bring attention to the posts.
Back a few years ago, there were several blogs in Tennessee aggregating smaller voices, and it fostered some great discussion. Slowly but surely, and with no small amount of drama, these all disappeared. The one thing that was different about Michael’s blog was that it was consistent, unbiased, and completely void of public drama.
Glad to have you back!!!
I know the general rule for missed short workouts is to just move on without worrying about picking them up. I usually follow this to a fault.
I’m rethinking this a little right now though, at least for the swim. I usually don’t place a huge amount of importance on the swim anyway…those are definitely workouts I don’t stress about missing since it’s the shortest leg of the race by far. This time around though, I’d planned on concentrating more on the swim for no other reason that it provides low-impact time training. I’m thinking of them as heart workouts as much as they are swim workouts.
But due to my inability to buy tickets for weekend youth hockey games in advance, I’m one week into a training plan with no access to a pool.
Long story.
What I’ve been doing instead is jumping on the spin bike and knocking out very light and short rides in place of the swims. My logic here is based on three ideas:
- Swim workouts are short periods at low heart rate, so I can ride the bike for 20-30 minutes at this low work rate without burning myself up and still get the heart benefits I’d have gotten from swimming, even if I’m not getting the swim technique benefits.
- The spin bike is available to me 24/7 and I don’t have to drive to it. It’s no problem to get on it at 2 am for 30 minutes if I have to.
- I’ve never (Ever!, EVER!!!) reviewed my performance in a race and concluded I spent too much time on the bike in training. Ever.
I still plan on abandoning scheduled short rides I miss, and definitely short runs. Missed runs are usually the result of being so whooped and beat up that I legitimately need the rest.
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If you aren’t really sure what Pinterest is, I’ll assume you are a male.
If you do know what it is and have spent any amount of time on it, you may have noticed the words that show up in the comments section underneath the photos of Stuff-Women-Fantasize-About-When-HGTV-Is-Not-On. On occasion, Pinterest users put these words together to form things that begin to approach sentences. My proposal is that we improve Pinterest by making it easier for them to choose a comment instead of having to type the same things out over and over.
***UPDATE***
Tizzle Van Dizzle has some Pinterest slogan suggestions.
My name is Scott, and I’m a mileage junkie.
The first step is admitting you have a problem, right? It feels good to say it out loud…like a weight off my chest. Now if I can just get some weight off the rest of my body.
I’ve been reading “Be Iron Fit”, and while it’s mostly a collection of the same advice and information I’ve read before, I think I’m actually letting stuff sink into my thick skull this time. I’ll chalk that up to the author’s effective way of preventing the material.
[amzn_product_inline asin=’1599218577′]
The mileage junkie aspect of my personality is just the tip of the iceberg of training mistakes I’ve made, but it’s the only one I’m trying to address right now. If you don’t know, a mileage junkie is someone who focuses their energy on racking up miles in training. This indirectly makes you a “pace junkie” by my estimation, and that’s a much more accurate description of me.
I like to tell myself I’m running on heart rate and not feel, but that’s not true. The truth is I usually try to walk a thin line between feeling ok and pushing my pace, and then pay attention to my heart rate…afterwards, when filling out my log.
I justify this by telling myself I’m training to throw caution to the wind for the running leg on race day based on feel and guts. That may not be an altogether horrible idea for sprints and olys, where my biggest fear is finishing with something left in the tank. But for 1/2 and full iron distance I’ve finally decided to give in a listen to what the science has to say about things. In most other areas of life, I start off by listening to science first, but in this case I’m going to blame my superstition and stubbornness on previous marathon training programs that specified mileage and tricked me into obsessing about pace.
I’m generally more disciplined about heart rate zones on the bike during training, at least for 80% of the ride. The trouble is, I end up looking at my computer and getting worried about average speed. Then I spend the last 20% of the ride jacking my heart rate up to see if I can squeeze out another .2 mph for the ride. Again, probably doesn’t hurt me much for shorter races, but it’s just not workable for 140.6.
I’ve done one 70.3, and the program I used referenced specified HR training and runs based on zone 2 minutes instead of miles. Of course, the first thing I’d do is figure out the number of miles I need to run based on “my pace”, then proceed to go out and try to run even faster than that. I ended up veering off of this schedule to suit my own needs. It worked out…for that distance. That time anyway. But I know I’m going to have to humble myself to the actual data and listen to some people much wiser than me to get where I want to be for 140.6.
I will train in zone 2.
I will train in zone 2.
I will train in zone 2.
I will train in zone 2.
I have much more to say on this, but I won’t spill it all it into a single post. I haven’t finished the book yet anyway. Right now I’m focusing on re-wiring my brain before I start training for a 70.3 the way the schedule says. That’s the second step.
Training for a 140.6 in January 2013 will be steps 3-12.
I’m glad this 12 step program doesn’t call for me to make amends.
Plugin Performance Profiler – HT @mwender. This is a good one!
English Pronunciation – The next poem will be on conjugation.
California, There It Went – California, Rest In Peace. That could make a catchy tune.
Orientation to Android Training – On the late night to-do list
10 Myths about Introverts – INTJs unite!
Shakespeare Takes Center Stage In The Digital Age – I once wrote a paper asserting that "Romeo and Juliet" was meant to be a comedy, not a tragedy. The data says I'm wrong. That's what my professor said too. I'm now publicly admitting defeat.