Life less travelled

Playlist - 6/22 Run/With video

2009-06-22T19:55:00.002-04:00

Pogues - Sally MacLennane
Lynyrd Skynyrd & Kid Rock - Gimme Back my Bullets
The Cult - Rain - pre metal
ZZ Top - La Grange
Lacuna Coil - Our Truth
Sleeper - Atomic (Blondie Cover)
Black Sabbath - Neon Knights
Meat Loaf - Midnight at the Lost and Found
John Sykes - Still of the Night (former Whitesnake guitarist)
Queen - I want to ride my bicycle
Alice in Chains - Man in the Box (Live)
Hole - Celebrity Skin
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three (there’s an irony there)
Black Crowes - Jealous Again
RATM - Take the Power Back
Lords of the New Church - Method to my Madness - 2nd song @ 3:47 - w/PSA
UFO - Long Gone
Black Sabbath - Die Young

5 miles, hot, evening sun, bug central. Love the smell of Deet in the evening.

Oh hell yeah

2009-01-06T16:13:00.007-05:00

Was a little disappointed with today’s WoD, as it contained handstand push-ups (do a handstand and then do a push-up from that position), nope can’t do them. Substitution as recommended is pike push-ups, nope, can’t do them either, but its something to aim for. So I substituted Swiss Ball push-ups, with just the tips of my toes on the ball, which tied in well with an ab focus on my core today ( plank with arm raise, side plank with push through and swiss ball work single leg bridges). The other exercise was a rope climb, nope don’t have one at the gym, so substituted chin ups.

Workout looked like this for 4 circuits, best time :-

400m run
15 swiss ball push ups
15 chin ups

The runs I attacked hard as tomorrow is a rest day and have two long runs scheduled Thursday and Saturday so a day break will be good. Each of the swiss ball sets were straight through, though the last two sets required a lot of concentration and balance through my core to keep my toes level on the ball and not fall off.

The chin ups, was great, first set of 15 straight through. Second set was 11 and 4, third set 8+5+2 and last set 6+5+4.

Total time 34 minutes, most of the delay being the one minute (one and a half) between the chin up reps.

The “hell yeah” at the beginning ?

All the chin up sets were unassisted, hence the sets being broken up with rests to complete. That’s the first time I’ve managed more than 30 body weight pull ups, and an indication of my strength gains in only 3 weeks.

Three days, three GREAT workouts (plus the 10k the day before). I’m guess the workouts the rest of the week are going to be doozy big rep stuff with a lot of leg/squat work as that has been missing. I also notice a pattern, the last two 3 day blocks were long and intense, very high rep routines, this block was more heavy lifting for two days followed by short, sharp one. We shall see...

...or maybe I'll do Thursday's run tomorrow and go get muddy in the woods...yum :-)

Hang free

2009-01-05T20:16:00.001-05:00

The are good days, and there are great days.

From a very productive day at work where everything seemed to move in a positive directions, even during the phases where three things were going at once (talking on phone, IMing with CEO and resolving an issue over email), a great run at lunchtime. While we have forecast for ice storms tomorrow the temp was still high enough for just shorts and a long sleeved top, admittedly the wind was a little stronger than I anticipated but hey if its cold, run faster ;-)

Tonight's CrossFit WoD was Hang Power Cleans. Something I've never done before, so this will be another day of a PR :)

Usual warm up of an assortment of Ab and core exercises, plus the obligatory three sets of pull-ups, push ups and dips and into it.

I did a couple of sets with just the 45lb bar to practice my form before loading it up

95lbs - 3 reps
105lbs - 3 reps
115lbs - 2 reps
125lbs - failed at both attempts
115lbs - 2 reps
115lbs - 2 reps
115lbs - 2 reps

It feels good to be working out at my limits, though it only occurred to me, in a slap your forehead way as I was leaving the gym that I could have used different plates and made an attempt at 120lbs..doh !

After two days of maximal lifting, tomorrow is almost certain to be a monster rep affair...I'm chomping at the bit ! :-)

Maxed out

2009-01-04T16:59:00.004-05:00

A Personal Record weight today !!!

In the deadlift of all things.

The RX was Deadlift - 3-3-3-3-3. Which means to build up to a weight you can lift three times, and then do five sets. I've never really done much 1 or very low rep lifting so I am really not sure what my max should be. Of course this doesn't include the 3 sets of sit-ups, pull-ups, push ups, dips, squats and planks that make up the warm up (I can think of times where my warm up would have been my entire workout !).

In terms of deadlifts I've done both the stiff legged and normal variety, but always found a limiter being my lower back, despite doing a lot of core work such as planks and back/hip extensions. A look at the these great videos and the problem in my form becomes apparent.

Previous best was 105 lbs for 10 reps. So I set a goal to get to 135 lbs. The first few sets were warm ups and to fine tune my form at :-

95lb - 10 reps
105lb - 8 reps
115lb - 6 reps
135lb - 3 reps
145lb - 3 reps
155lb - 3 reps
165lb - 3 reps
175lb - 3 reps
185lb - 3 reps
195lb - 3 reps
205lb - 1 rep

It just goes to show what good form and determination in lifting can produce. That's the first time I've ever moved over 200lbs in any kind of free weight lift, and incredible feeling of achievement to lift that final rep and not feel any kind of pain, just muscles working at my limits.

I think this is the thing I like best about CrossFit, pushing beyond my mental limits. Though I would add the caveat that I have a very solid base of both lifting and working out before I started this, and also the knowledge of when I am pushing beyond my physical limits into injury pain. While I like and agree with a lot of the core philosophy, I approach it with my own beliefs on lifting, of good form, and not forcing exra reps out at all cost with very bad form, as this path leads to injury and despair. Amongst the affiliate gyms, they seem to fall into these two camps themselves, some hardcore push everyone past their physical (not mental) limits, and then others who teach good form and drive them to their limits but not beyond.

As an old member of the Tri-DRS group said "Take what you want and leave the rest", I take the workouts, and the drive to push myself but have no desire to join a CF gym and do the group workouts. My workouts are my time, a solitary competition with no one except myself, and chance to center and focus on one thing, I'm certain that having others around me and competing on time would take away my enjoyment. It was these very things that drew me to triathlon originally.

But regardless, I'm stoked about today. With today being a heavy day, tomorrow is sure to be something with lots and lots of reps.

If you go down to the woods today...

2009-01-03T16:37:00.005-05:00

Yay...a day off from throwing weights (and myself around), but with such a jonesing to get outside and go run in the woods.

Although a little chilly, weather.com was reporting 34 degrees, it was sunny and with no wind. The trails were fantastic, dry, wintry and still. I had in mind to do the Watkins Mill-Rt. 355 out and back which would give 10k. The entire trail end to end is 12.5 miles and I've run (and) mountain biked every mile of it so many times over the last year but I never tire of it. Every time I notice or see something a little different, and each time running somewhere other than a road or laps around a lake just seems to lift my soul.

The first two miles (and surprise surprise, the last two) are up and down through the woods overlooking the creek before finally descending and running alongside it, the difference always jolting, one moment running well worn singletrack, the next hitting flat marshland vegetation. Even though it is mid winter, any number of stream and creek crossings are dried out, the creek itself running much lower than in the summer. My legs certainly could feel the last two days, the 300 squats, and all the cleans but yet they didn't feel dead, even after two weeks of Crossfit I could feel an increase in strength and spring in my step. Though the last two miles, the spirit and aerobically I was willing but there seemed little in the legs, not a tiredness, just very little in the bank.

Even so it was great to be outside, food for the body, mind and soul.

Legs like tree trunks -----> ;-)

This is the playlist along with a random thought that I had while each one played...

Smooth Criminal - Alien Ant Farm - yes the Michael Jackson song, but nu metal style
Twice as Hard - Black Crowes - such a raunchy opening guitar riff, and so difficult to not sing the chorus
Mary Had a Little Lamb - Buddy Guy - no blues player past or present gets as wild as Buddy, grin inducing stuff
Jump, Jive and Wail - Brian Setzer Orchestra - makes me want to Lindy Hop in the middle of the trail
Alfie - Lily Allen - no wonder her brother threw her laptop out of a window when he heard it
Pink Houses - John Cougar Mellencamp - acoustic guitars in the woods, perfect, I was just missing a porch to kick back on
Fire Woman - The Cult - ahhh takes me back to me yoof
Spit it Out - Slipknot - anger, resentment and detuned raging guitars, "All you want to do is drag me down, all I want to do is stamp you out !" - vid has extreme profanity, its not a rock show, its a war on the stage
Hangar 18 - Megadeth - Live in Buenos Aires, with a crowd going completely bonkers who sing along to not just the words, but also the riffs.
Crazy Train - Ozzy - Randy Rhoads playing is incredible, the solo just blows my mind every time
Head Like a Hole - Nine Inch Nails - BOW DOWN TO THE ONE YOU SERVE
Candyman - Siouxsie and the Banshees - Much more complex than I remembered it
I fought the Law - Stray Cats - Written by the Crickets post Buddy Holly funnily enough
Under My Wheels - Alice Cooper - Live - "This is my daughter Calico Cooper, go put some clothes on"
Madaleine - Winger - Reb Beach is a criminally underrated guitarist, great riff and a killer solo
Minstel in the Gallery - Jethro Tull - Songs in the Wood might have been a better choice, but nice and rustic
Garden Party- Marillion - Edgy eggs and queing cumbers, rudely awakaned from their slumber

Not Big

2009-01-02T16:21:00.005-05:00

Sandwiched between “Rolling” by Limp Bizkit and “Beds are burning” by Midnight Oil during today’s workout was this little gem, she’s such a Spitfire, in that very British 'Squeeze/Beautiful South' cynical lyrics to happy sounding songs kind of way. If the mood takes you and you feel the bitterness, the lyrics are here..

Today was the end of another block of three days straight and tomorrow is (yippee) a rest day, though I’m getting the itch to go for a nice 10k trail run in the woods as I haven’t been out there in what seems like ages.

The RX was to do 135lb clean and jerk - 1 in the 1st minute, 2 in the 2nd etc..until failure.

Not knowing my single rep clean and jerk limit (come to think of it I’m not sure of any of my one rep maxes having never worked out that way), this workout seemed to not work for me, but in the spirit of doing the exercises I thought a negative progression would supply the load and work required.

I started with 75 lbs on a 45 pound bar (usually use a 25 so the extra length was interesting to balance) and did 10 reps to start and then warm up, each successive set I dropped one rep and increased the weight

75lb - 10 reps
85lb - 9 reps
95lb - 8 reps
100lb - 6 reps (think I took too short of a break interval here, and the form was bad)
105lb - 4 reps
110lb - 4 reps
115lb - 2 reps
115lb - 1 rep
115lb - 1 rep
115lb - 1 rep
115lb - 1 rep

I stopped at 115lb as this was the weight at which my form was on the edge of becoming bad, when pulling a weight from the ground to your collarbone and then pushing it overhead, a loss of balance because of form could be somewhat catastrophic in terms of injuring myself. Equally I could still feel my workout from yesterday, its better to work hard but know your limits, two less reps or 20 less pounds is better than a month or two off because you pulled something. The workout was still enough to be challenging, with each of the last one reps making me think quite hard to get the bar up. It also make me pretty happy as that is 20lbs more than I’ve managed in a standalone shoulder press, adding the total weight up, that makes 4445 lbs lifted in one exercise/workout..damn.

Though thinking about yesterday’s and pulling my calculator out and assuming my body weight = the weight lifted, the pull-ups and push-ups alone total 36,000 lbs, which can’t be right, there must be some kind of estimate. Though I can easily compare to conventional weightlifting, my muscles are more tired and feel as if they have been worked much harder.

“Murph”

2009-01-01T19:17:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year to one and all ! :-)

As suspected the workout for today being New Year’s Day was going to be a doozy, and it sure as heck was.

“Murph” is one of CrossFit’s Hero workouts, so named as they are dedicated to members of the Forces, Police or Firefighters who have died in the course of duty. This one is in memory of Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y., who was killed in Afghanistan on June 28th, 2005.

Adding that memory puts some extra spice into giving my best to the workout itself which consists of:

1 mile run
100 pull-ups
200 push-ups
300 squats
1 mile run

Being a runner the first 1 mile scares me not one iota, the second one after all those squats was going to be interesting to say the least.

THe instructions suggest the exercises other than the runs could be broken up or partitioned in any way you choose, anyone who can do 100 pull-ups straight has to be a complete monster. I chose the advice of several of the commenters to break it up into a “Cindy”, so 20 circuits of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats.

Unfortunately due to NY hours the gym closed before I could complete it as RX’d, but managed the 1 mile run, 18 circuits and .75 of the last run before they shut the lights out on me, a quick 2 circuits of the outside of the gym including the car park kept it as honest as possible - total time 54 minutes. If I’d skipped a circuit of my ab/core workout I could have done it whole, but still, thats four more circuits than I managed on “Cindy”

Totals :

Incline sit-ups (*) - 60
Hanging knee raises - 60
Back extensions - 60
Side planks - 45

Pull-ups - 90
Push-ups - 180
Squats - 270

Total - 765

Wrecked/wasted/destroyed are all good descriptions of how I felt afterwards.

Now sitting with the aroma of my Chicken Cacciatora wafting up the stairs, and then going to the Movies later. A great start to the new year :-)

Give me a blankie !

2008-12-24T22:33:00.002-05:00

...now I feel like Linus in Charlie Brown's Christmas, give me a blankie !!!

In a very "Have a painful Christmas Day" the sadists, sorry I mean leadership at Crossfit have designated tomorrow as "Angie"

100 pull-ups
100 push-ups
100 sit-ups
100 squats.

Anyone else noticed yet that Angie, Eva, Cindy were all major hurricanes, it should come as no surprise searching through the archives that there is a "Fran" and "Isabel" too.

On the road, I'm on the road again.....

2008-12-24T13:44:00.002-05:00

A quick one as I wait for a confirmation email from Dell before I can hit the road. After the recent monster workouts, Eva apparently being one of the most brutal in the archive according to the Crossfit comments today seemed a little anti-climatic.

5-5-5-5-5 on Squats.

So did a hardish warm up of stretches, crunches (going easier than yesterday) pushups, pull-ups and dips it was onto the squat cage.

Start relatively easy with sets of 12-10-8 increasing weight, then rack the plates on until I'm at near my max for 5-6 reps.

Five sets with 2 mins rest between.

Done. But with a sense as I drove home of "Was that it ?", and feeling like I should go jump a tall building or run a half marathon.

But now its CHRISTMAS, and I'm off to go see the munchkin. Please spare a thought and a prayer for those less fortunate in this Holiday Season.

Y'all be good :-)

I did Cindy....

2008-12-23T18:44:00.002-05:00

...15 times in 20 minutes. And she kicked my arse !.

OK, so Cindy is a WOD (Workout of the day), which consists of:
5 pull ups
10 push-ups
15 squats

Repeat the circuit as many times as possible in 20 minutes. So 15 gives, :

75 pull ups
150 push ups
225 squats

In 20 minutes. By the end I was a heap of hurt lying in a pool of my own sweat. Admittedly I managed the first three sets as full pull-ups, then the next sets went to the assisted pull-up machine, first 2 sets each of 20lb, 30lb, 40lb, 50lb, and the rest at 60. THe last 3 sets of push-ups were from my knees rather than toes, my shoulders were simply giving out.

Yesterday was a very welcome rest day, I learned from last weeks over enthusiasm and did nothing :-)

Today was "Eva" - after reading it last night I was quaking, but anticipating and committing to it.

Repeat 5 times timed.
800 yd run
30 kettle bell swings
30 pull-ups

Total
2.5 miles run
150 kettle bell swings
150 pull-ups

Dammit, what is it with the **&&**!! pull-ups !.

First set 20 pull-ups, then 10 on the assist.

Total time 50 minutes. Slow, but again I completed the workout and I'm just starting out with this, things will improve. As one of the trainers pointed out today, that I'm doing something few people could manage even dropping the weights down, so that's comforting.

One foot in front of the other. Repeat.

2008-12-20T22:07:00.006-05:00

Today found me back on familiar territory of running, which after yesterdays “Filthy” was most welcome – 4 x 800m with rest between until heart rate comes down to normal. Cool - long intervals :-)

The path by my lake (in picture) has a trail that I've measured before. From the fork in the path to the first bench is approx 200 yards apart. Yeah it was cold, but nothing a good warm up can't take care of.

I'm still a little leary of my calf muscle having torn it in September and still bitterly remember the ridiculous amount of time it took to heal and the number of times I thought it was healed and then pushed too hard to set it back.

The first interval I hit out, going hard but not all out

4:45 – hmm, that's a bit slow, that's a 9:30 mile, it sure felt faster. 3 minutes to rest and off I set again

4:50 – at least I'm consistent. Another 3 minutes rest, and my calf is feeling tight

4:51 – damn, this was getting ugly really fast, I could barely feel my legs after yesterday and had difficulty in turning over

5:10 for the last set, yeah, the rails came off, physically I wasn't hurting, I was breathing hard and the last 400 going absolutely all out, but there really was nothing left in the tank.

A good cool down run and head home for warmth and food, and to sodding well measure that course more accurately. Onto MapmyRun and switch to satellite so I can see the two ends and measure it – 260 meters, making each '800' yds actually 1100. Which equates to a 7:30 average pace, much more respectable, and I'm happy with that knowing how fried not only my legs, but my entire body, especially my glutes and obliques, where the initial movements for running fire from. I'll be interested to do this as a test in 3 months to see how much stronger I am, but also by which time I will be three months back into regular running after my layoff.

The soundtrack today was just a thing of pefection :-

INXS – Kick

The Jam – Going Underground

The Tossers – Come Dancing - vids not on youtube, but imagine a drunken lurching acoustic Irish folk/punk song..difficult to run to actually.

Big Town Playboys – Shake your hips - no youtube, shame.

Kid Rock – American Badass

John Lee Hooker – Big legs, tight skirt

Aerosmith – Pink (got clicked forward halfway through just wasn't working for this workout)

Joe Satriani – Flying in a Blue Dream

Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies

Stevie Ray Vaughn – Superstitious

INXS – Devil Inside

Black Sabbath – Die Young - Oh yeah, it just drives along, perfect as I was making the final push on this one

As a side note I forgot to write what amused me on Tuesdays muscle buster. At the start of my first set Guns N Roses “You're Crazy” (aka You're ****ing crazy) came on...how appropriate.

Filthy, filthy, filthy...

2008-12-19T18:19:00.004-05:00

Very filthy, very, very, very filthy. Before this week I thought I was fit, and compared to most I guess I was (am?), I was wrong. Very wrong. I can see how far I can go, and how much further I can put myself, this is going to be a great journey.

Being the cretin that I am yesterday was a day off, as Crossfit is 3 days on, 1 day off, so muggins here shot out at lunch for a 45 min ride. Even though its my ‘easy’ route it still involves quite a few hills, one or two of which can be challenging. It took me nearly the whole ride wondering why the steeper or longer hills seemed so hard, my breathing was OK, and my quads weren’t sore or burning up but I just seemed to have no power at all….doh – the 75 hip extensions yesterday, plus all the Gordo core workout – when you ride, the beginning of the power for your stroke comes from your hip abductors/glutes – precisely what I beat the crap out of the day before.

But hey, I HTFU’d and enjoyed it anyway. Fast forward to last night and today’s WOD (Workout of the Day) was posted..at first it was disbelief followed by “This is going to be ugly” followed by cool, this will be so hard that it will make me strong !

A lot of that positive attitude was reading the Men's Health interview with Lance Armstrong about his come back and another small insight into what makes him tick. Unfortunately the article is not online yet, but a very edited version is on NY Times, looking at the shape he is in I would not want to bet against him next July. The other was Jason Statham's original article, how many times have we gone to the gym and not put in 100% thinking something is better than nothing, then have the same thing happen the next time, this article changes your thinking. Since I first read it I've committed to each and every workout even if I'm having a bad day, no skipping that last rep, no cutting sets short, and no half arsed efforts.

Similar warm up to Tuesday – 5 mins rowing, then 3 sets of 10 reps of overhead squat, incline twisting sit-up, push up, side planks, dip, plank+10crunches

Then THIS is the ‘Filthy Fifty’ as I did it

50 24“ Box jumps

50Jumping pull-ups (stand on boxes so bar is easily reached then jump and finish a pull up)

50 Kettlebell swings – my gym doesn’t have 36lb, only 20. This was the only one I could do straight

50 knee to elbows (hang from bar, curl lower body until knee to elbow)

50 45lb push to press (stand bar at shoulder, ¼ squat and drive bar overhead, lock elbows)

50 Back extension

50 Wall ball shots (20lb medicine ball, squat and then drive upwards throwing ball up wall, catch repeat)

50 walking lunges

50 Burpees

400 yard run

Row to cool down

Not counting the cardio or planks, that’s 530 reps in 43 minutes. Most things if I had to stop I could get motivated and get back on quickly in 5-15 seconds, in nearly every case I hit at least 30 reps before the first stop. But the burpees…which use almost every muscle in the body was 5 sets of ten, with a minute, maybe 2 minutes between the last couple, I didn’t realize how much they use the abs/core. One of the older citizens of the gym came over at one point as he thought I needed help getting up..I just looked at him because I wasn’t sure that I didn’t need help.

At the end I needed to sit down and quickly, Mr Pukey wasn’t quite visiting, but he was walking up the path if I didn’t stop moving, by halfway through the workout I could hear the blood in my ears, and flowing through my veins, a hammering in my head. It took a few to get my life back together again, and I could feel the workout in EVERY muscle in my body, but its workouts like this that push you beyond the edge that really provide the gains.

I want my Jason Statham six pack !

And I'm going to get it. And quickly ! :-)

It's going to be a slow death....

2008-12-17T10:59:00.004-05:00

Eagerly this morning (I know, I know, I’m sick) I logged into Crossfit to see today’s workout – the score on the door was as I planned the workout

Repeat as a circuit for 20 minutes, no rest:

400m run
15 L-pull-ups (a pull up but with your legs out in front of you parallel to the floor)
15 hip extensions

I'm going to have to change this a little, I think I can manage one set of pull-ups to 15 with good form, but have never tried L-pull-ups, so I"m going to attack it as hard as I can with normal pull-ups until my arms give out then move to an assisted pull-up. But the paperwork did say that the first month or so you will have to modify weights and/or reps, the important thing being to complete the workout having worked hard.

That's the pre-workout view, I'm stoked.

-------------------------

OK, so views afterward, this is the warm up :-

Row 5 mins
Warm-up (10-15 reps each except for the stretch) repeat x3
Samson Stretch
Overhead squat
Push-ups
Sit-up
Dip

Then managed 5 complete circuits in 23:10. To give an idea of how bad the fall off was I completed the fourth set at 18:05 (including say 30 seconds doing hanging knee to chest while waiting for the hip/back extension machine). But figured as I had started the fifth set then I was damn well going to complete the circuit. By this point the legs were very wobbly, I was drenched in sweat, breathing hard and stood in front of the pull up bars for a good 10-15 seconds until I had got my life together enough to get on them. The first two sets went well, clipping along at a good pace and hustling between the treadmill, bars and extension, by the third the spirit was there, but the body was beginning to give out, the fourth was ugly and the fifth was mental drive alone.

Afterward, completely shattered, sat up against a wall for a good five minutes before getting on the rowing machine to cool down.

So total workout:

30 incline sit-ups
30 push-ups
30 dips
30 overhead squats
1.25 mile run @ 7 minute/mile pace
75 pull-ups
75 back/hip extensions

On paper it just doesn't seem too different to what I did on Monday:

Clean and press
Weighted hanging knee to chest
Weighted 24" step ups
Wide grip pull-ups
Raised pushups (standard push up but with tips of toes on a swiss ball)
Dips

All 10 reps, 3 circuits with 2 minutes rest.

The key to why Crossfit today was much harder is that rest , ie. there wasn't any, so the tiredness between circuits just multiplied exponentially, unbelievably even. Also the total number of reps is much higher at 270 vs 180.

Brutal, destroy your world brutal. Can't wait for the next one. Unfortunately it is a 3 days on, 1 day off schedule and I joined up the day before a rest day. But, the weather is warming up for tomorrow so I see a play on my MTB before work tomorrow :-)

Death becomes me :-)

2008-12-16T19:38:00.006-05:00

“God will only give you as much pain as you can physically handle. The problem is that he thinks you can handle a heck of a lot of pain, usually followed by death”.

In life sometimes we look for new challenges. With the changes and studying on the professional side of my life, I have also felt the need to switch up and find a workout plan that will push me to my limits. I have worked out hard, consistently on an almost daily basis for nearly 18 months now so have built a good base of fitness both in strength and cardio, but on the strength side have become a little jaded to the same exercises week in/week out, most of which are conventional weight lifting standards (not that there is anything wrong with that). As such I have been looking for something that will really push me every workout.

Reading a couple of articles from Jason Statham in Men's Health started to change my thinking about how I wanted to approach this side of my fitness, the first in terms of attitude, and then the second which was an in depth look at one week of his training. This was fine, but finding how to keep that progress evolving without hiring his trainer was going to be tough, and as they stated this workout was designed specifically for him. In the meantime MH also published Daniel Craig's workout from Quantum of Solace, designed to make him leaner for this movie than his first. After a few weeks of that, yes its a killer, each day there will body parts that closely resemble rubber man. My first day of doing the legs day I made the mistake of running to the gym, running back home was 'interesting' to say the least.

Purely by chance at the same time a friend sent a link about Crossfit, at the same time I saw a couple of people doing these strange circuits, never doing the same workout twice, it took a few days to realize I was looking at Crossfit.

I've read up on it quite a bit, comparing it with P90X which a number of triathletes are swearing by. For the last week I have been looking at the daily workouts and thinking “Ouch” but thinking more and more I WANT TO DO THIS !!!. It's exactly what I'm looking for, hard, extreme sets designed to push you through barriers.

So trigger pulled, signed up for an account and let's get this going !!

* Yeah, so I mentioned Daniel Craig and Quantum of Solace, so I just had to insert a gratuitous picture of an Aston Martin ;-)

Cold enough to freeze the balls on a brass monkey

2008-12-08T16:43:00.014-05:00

A photography blog for today, how I spent yesterday afternoon at Lake Fairfax in Reston at the final race of the Mid-Atlantic Cyclocross series. Great racing but my gosh it was COLD !!.

It ain't over until the fat lady has ******* you over ! :-)

2008-12-04T08:35:00.003-05:00

What I listen to in the morning can easily shape my day, this morning once again was the Rocky Horror Show, Tim Curry is an absolute genius and as for Richard O"Brien (Riff Raff) for writing and envisioning the whole thing...

So my unconventional, conventionists...it always amuses me that the most frequent search term for finding this blog is "makka pakka knitting pattern", from an old post I made, now given my description of the character, why on earth is he the most popular, not iggle piggle or upsy daisy ?

Something a little different this morning, I've been using the "Genius" function on iTunes to build my playlists for working out recently and have to say I'm quite impressed. What it does is builds relationships between songs in yours and other people's libraries, allowing me to pick a song and it will then build me a playlist with however many songs I want in it, it doesn't necessarily stay in the same genre or style but will transition smoothly across them.

I tend to pick something upbeat for running for it to key off, and for weight lifting from the nose bleed end of my musical listening spectrum. This one was for lifting, keyed off Psychosocial by Slipknot, now its out of order as when I downloaded it to the shuffle I'd re-shuffled again, great for weightlifting, the constant change ups throughout the workout broke up the monotony of 4 sets of each eaxercise :-)

This was a fun exercise as I had never seen a great many of these videos...

Du Hast - Rammstein
Hand that Feeds - NIN - the one I have on the iPod is from the NIN remix site, so is just Reznor and a piano, somehow more powerful much like Johnny Cash's take on NIN's "Hurt"
Enjoy the Silence - Lacuna Coil - yes its a Depeche Mode cover
Man in the Box - Alice in Chains - on the live CD I have his guitar is sound of the apocaplypse, always surprises me how much Jerry Cantrell (guitarist) sang on AiC songs..
Rearranged - Limp Bizkit - yeah a strange one for those that know me, but have always has a soft spot for Mr Durst and the boys..
Lithium - Evanescence - their usual drab and dreary, low budget video ;-)
Not Big - Lily Allen - she's much maligned, but I always loved Squeeze and Beautiful South for their very British way of taking a happy sounding song and putting a nice sense of cynicism, irony and bitterness in the words, she's the same, sharp as a tack and quite a spitfire
Remember - Disturbed
Before I Forget - Slipknot - probably one of their more 'commercial' songs, and the only video without their stage masks, hey I did say this was a nosebleed selection.
Heaven's a Lie - Lacuna Coil
Mustang Sally - Buddy Guy - no blues player ever gets as wild as Buddy, or as soulful in the blink of an eye. Tours every spring, go see a 70+ old guy behaving like a 16 year old with ADD...

What is strange is that on the big iPod (iPersevere) I use in the car I predominantly listen to jazz...currently John Coltrane and Grant Green. Of the latter, very few videos exist of him, but here with another great influence of mine Kenny Burrel, both were that bluesy swing and Barney Kessel I remember seeing just before he died in a small pub in Nottingham. Looking at the guitars and era, each one of those guitars is probably worth the heavier side of $35k these days...

"I don't want no dissension, just dynamic tension - in just seven days I can make you a man" - Dr Frankenfurter

shutdown -r

2008-11-28T11:09:00.005-05:00

This has been so long since I have written, a period of change would be the best way to put things - its time to reboot.

I liked having this blog and writing on it, and I've missed the ability to go back and reflect on things I had written in the past. In many ways this blog is fairly selfish, as its my way of jotting down thoughts to please only myself, if other people took something from it then great. There are a few blogs I made a year or so again that I want to revisit as my life, and as a person I have changed and learned more over the last year. But to reflect, when I opened this blog back up I was at the start of a journey to change life and become healthy. Nearly a year on I have a attained a level of fitness that I don't think I have ever had, along with strength, for someone who was the skinny little runt at school only good for middle distance running still surprises me looking in the mirror.

Professionally it has been a year of at times confusing change, it seemed for much of the year I was trying to find a balance or a place in the organization(s). A more recent change into more of a project management role found a home where I could contribute to the company which was a nice feeling. More recently I came to understand that I had stagnated professionally, repeating the past and not seeming to be moving forward. Watching Randy Pauch's "Last Lecture" proved motivating, life changing and inspiring. I enjoy the project management as I have done many times in the past, but my last formal training was 12 years ago (in Hamburg and Paris - life is tough sometimes) Since then PMI has become the dominant methodology for IT and Software development. I want our next project to be the best we can possibly do, and the best that I can do in managing it. So its back to school for me, learning from home towards a PMP certification (Project Management Professional). Its not a task to undertake lightly requiring a great deal of commitment in time and learning, but it feels fantastic to be learning something new, that can contribute greatly to the company.

A year ago I thought I ate well, that my diet was good, now I know better. My meals and choice in what I eat has changed drastically, even when I'm not using the meal plans generated by Men's Health's Personal Trainer it has become second nature to buy and continue down that path. Though I do try and build in one 'cheat meal' every week or two weeks, which stops any minor temptations of feeling deprived - so I still like my Shepherd's Pie and occasional Delia excursions ;-)

One of the biggest changes fitness and health wise has been a sense of consistency, I'm paraphrasing Gordo Byrn who says "What you do in a workout is less important than consistency in working out", I've missed very few workouts.

Key to me has been doing weights, from the past weights were a way to supplement the cardio workouts. I believed, as most people do that you lose weight through cardio and build strength with weights. What I have come to understand is that weight sessions burn more calories, both during and for 24 hours after than almost any cardio workout. As such those sessions have become key and I look forward to those sessions. The strength has paid off, from my running, particularly the core workouts, and cycling - last year I could hang with people, this year holding pace on the flats has become easy, once the roads go upwards the increased power and lighter weight (175 versus 195+) allows me to pick people off at will, hey cycling is dog eat dog even on 'friendly' rides.

Taking Tuesday nights through the spring and the summer to leave work a little earlier and get out to ride with others for a change did wonders for my mental state, working from home can sometimes make you one dimensional with very little direct human contact, the rides were refreshing, on roads that I don't normally ride, good company, great weather and soup for the soul.

Moving house last year, at first, even though I still lived on a lake, the 2 mile loop wore fairly quickly, but the discovery of 15 miles of trails, with three trail heads within 2 miles of my front door opened up a whole new playground to run and mountain bike in. More challenging topographically and also technically they kept my motivation levels high throughout the year, getting out of the door regardless of the weather was always motivating.

The progress in running is a wonder, from the beginning of the year finally overcoming the limitations of my old injuries, and never quite being able to break the run/walk circle, through to now being able to click out 6-10 mile runs with ease, when and where I want.

A more recent addition to my training article has been Yoga, which I must confessed I always have sniffed at derisively. iTunes to the rescue with "Yogamazing" and Chas, funny little fellow, but have to love his 20 minute sessions, from relaxation to challenging, they've increased my flexibility but also my balance paying dividends in running and also my form when lifting (the podcasts are free on iTunes)

I've experimented with different weight training plans over the last year, each time gaining strength and each month developing further. I'm just approaching the end of 2 weeks of a 4 week commitment to what I'd describe as a celebrity workout, in this case from getting him in shape for Quantum of Solace. This is pretty ironic, as seeing him in Casino Royale was what inspired me to become committed to getting fit in the first place. This time around he's less bulky, but more ripped, a new target to aim for ! - now if only Aston Martin will let me play with a DBS for a few weeks, heck, I would even slum it in a Vantage ;-). The workout though, oh dear gosh its brutal and can be found , add in some ab/core work Mon/Wed/Fri and you have a week of brutal hell, the first week the body parts I was working on were numb by the end, not hurting, just couldn't feel them - awesome, "That which doesn't kill me only makes me stronger". Once a month I throw in the "300" workout as a test, the first time I did it I truly thought I was going to die...

So I'll sign off for now, and make the promise to myself to update this a little more regularly...picture is from yesterday's meetup.com Turkey Trot ride, only the three intrepid souls showed up, waking up to a thick frost made me think the ride would be character building, but by the end it was almost balmy, a great way to start off Thanksgiving Day.

Steppin' Razor

2008-09-03T22:39:00.002-04:00

In Daniel Coyle's book “Lance Armstrong's War” he has a description of how athlete's get to and maintain peak performance, he called it stepping out onto a razor's edge, that you will train as hard as your body will allow walking out onto a knife edge where even a tiny bit more will have you crashing off into a pit of oblivion.

I reached that point at the end of July, I knew I was training hard, but thought I was within my limits. Though my volume sounds high, there was planned recovery into it and I had spent many months building towards that, 3 weeks building in volume and then a very easy recovery week, not doing hard workouts back to back etc.

The mistake I made was that when you go through periods of high stress or anxiety you need to scale back training as it affects your ability to recover between workouts diminishes drastically, maintaining the same volume is almost like doubling the time or intensity that you have been training, a huge jump.

What did it feel like ? It was horrible, inability to sleep, getting out and not being able to come up to pace, not feeling strong running or cycling, but feeling weak. Eventually I just blew entirely, mentally I just didn't want to train, it became a chore that I just didn't want to do. It was cycling first, my favorite discipline, but the thought of getting dressed and having to ride 15 minutes just to get out of civilization, or spending 2 hours out just didn't appeal. Then came the injuries, little niggles, a soleus (calf) muscle that would pull every two to three runs forcing me to rest for a few days and be unable to run, pain after lifting weights in my shoulders even though I wasn't increasing the weights, my body was telling me to stop.

So much of August I just lifted weights, going out on the mountain bike occasionally and just doing short sessions rather than the monster ones I had been doing, just going as fast as I felt.

Finally this last week my mojo has returned, I'm looking forward to working out, instead of seeing my bike in the garage and not wanting to ride it, seeing it as an object, I now look at it differently, it calls to me, the lines looking fast at a standstill. Its also felt good to ride, almost as if I have to hold myself back, I want to ride faster, harder, to push myself to feel out the limits of both myself and the bike, feeling at one when riding not two separate entities any more but as one.

Even now in my mind I am thinking of early tomorrow morning, which route I am going to take, for how long, how the early morning air will feel, the road spinning past underneath me, in my mind feeling the turn at the top of the hill on Wildcat Road – after climbing steadily for a mile, it both makes a sharp turn and kicks up, forcing me to get out of the saddle and just muscle it round, the bike rocking, feeling each turn of my legs on the pedals jump the bike forward.

Yeah, I'm back.

Rubber Ball

2008-08-20T17:13:00.002-04:00

Reading the news over the last couple of days about Gary Glitter bouncing all over Asia like a rubber ball, I am not sure whether to be amused or disgusted.

But for those going "Who he?", he's a 1970's glam rocker, famous in the US for a song called "Rock and Roll Part 2", yup if you live in the US and have a pulse you have heard, quite probably heard it frequently..

In more recent years he has been convicted of child pornography (UK), then fled to Spain after serving all of 2 months, from there Cuba until they kicked him out, then it was Cambodia until finally setting up home in a kiddie fiddler village in Vietnam.

The British press being what they are chased him down in each place and publicized his presence, forcing the Vietnam Authorities to take action who then jailed him for 27 months.

Upon release the Vietnamese attempted to deport him back to the UK, but in Bangkok he refused to board the connecting flight, upon being denied entry to Thailand he instead flew to Hong Kong, and now they've denied him entry either. The reason he doesn't want to go back to the UK is that he will be placed on the sex offenders register, and the Home Office has publicly stated they will deny him future travel out of the UK.

I'm good with all that, but perhaps lets just send him to a country ending in "stan", they have ways of dealing with the likes of him that are quite efficient.

Now, seeing that video, or reading anything about this piece of filth, how about getting the playing of his song at EVERY US sporting event stopped - think about it, if they play it down at the stadium, or on a televised game, he gets royalties..so teams of any type contribute to his ability to travel. Contact your sports team, commentary team, club, school, wherever and make the request...

Ten Jew Berry Mud !

2008-08-19T14:51:00.003-04:00

So I have some grunt work I'm working on outsourcing at the moment. Copy content from 6,000 landing pages to a new container, horribly laborious, repetitive stuff that I just couldn't find a home for.

So I've put it on an outsourcing site we sometimes use. Naturally, and I don't know why I'm surprised, within two hours I'm facing a feeding frenzy from the Indian sub continent.

So at the moment my life resembles this old Internet classic between a hotel front desk and a guest..

Hotel: Morny, ruin sorbees.
Guest: Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service.
Hotel: Rye! Ruin sorbees ... morny! Jewish to odor sunteen??
Guest: Uh ... yes ... I'd like some bacon and eggs.
Hotel: Ow July den?
Guest: What??
Hotel: Ow July den ... pry, boy, pooch?
Guest: Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please.
Hotel: Ow July dee baychem ... crease?
Guest: Crisp will be fine.
Hotel: Hokay. An San tos?
Guest: What?
Hotel: San tos. July San tos?
Guest: I don't think so.
Hotel: No? Judo one toes?
Guest: I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo
onetoes' means.
Hotel: Toes! Toes! ... Why djew Don Juan toes? Ow bow singlishmopping
we bother?
Guest: English muffin!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.'
Fine.Yes, an English muffin will be fine.
Hotel: We bother?
Guest: No, just put the bother on the side.
Hotel: Wad?
Guest: I mean butter ... just put it on the side.
Hotel: Copy?
Guest: Sorry?
Hotel: Copy ... tea ... mill?
Guest: Yes. Coffee please, and that's all.
Hotel: One Minnie. *** strangle ache, creasebaychem, tossy singlish
mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy... rye?
Guest: Whatever you say.
Hotel: Ten jew berry mud.
Guest: You're welcome.

“everything louder than everything else”

2008-08-08T15:23:00.001-04:00

As Mike (Bubbleman) thoughtfully points out, this blog has been woefully neglected of late. Yes, the shoes are long past being mourned, a combination of new work responsibilities and some tough decisions leading to me pulling out of doing Savageman have conspired to leave a very uncreative or talkative frame of mind.

However, a couple of weeks ago I happened to visit DC 101’s website and simply because it was there entered one of their competitions. To be honest I’d forgotten about it, but on Tuesday my phone rang, and I’d won two tickets for the show. Game on !.

I guess I have spoiled myself in that I have been fortunate to see an awful lot of bands, so if I hadn’t won the tickets I probably wouldn’t have been too interested in this show, which given how great it was would have been a shame.

Judas Priest headlining, with Heaven and Hell, Motorhead and Testament. I had to go and look up Heaven and Hell, ahh, it’s the Ronnie James Dio era Black Sabbath, cool.

We missed Testament, sometimes it is inconvenient having a day job. But on arriving Motorhead had just started their set, audible rather clearly out in the parking lot. After going in and walking up the bank that shields the neighbours from some of the volume, cresting the hill gave the impact of just how loud they were. My tickets were way down near the front, a quick mental jog calculating just how loud they were going to be when we got to the seats, ooooh.

I was right, they were incredibly loud, Lemmy from Motorhead once said that if they moved in next to you, your lawn would die. I think there’s going to be a lot of dead grass around Nissan Pavilion this morning. I’ve always had a soft spot for Lemmy and the boys, fashion or changes in music never really interested him, he just carries on making Motorhead albums, one after another in his own inimitable and uncompromising style. On being asked how he felt as somehow over the years being accepted into a member of the rock establishment he replied “Yes it is IS amusing - and kind of disgusting! The only reason I was "accepted" is that I wouldn't die!”

A great set though, all the expected old chestnuts, and Mickey Dee and Phil Campbell on top form. (and definitely significantly louder than both other bands, who weren’t exactly slouches in the volume department).

Heaven and Hell I had mixed feelings about, though I liked the music way back in the day and still have Neon Nights/Die Young on my workout iPod mix, I’ve just come to think of Dio as being a little bit of a joke, an individual who takes himself and his position in rock history a little too seriously.

Their stage set when revealed looked a little hokey, but what the hell it was daylight, once it darkened up and the lights became effective it should look pretty cool. But they were great, starting with Mob Rules this was a band who had come to play hard, not just show up and roll through some old hits. I also take back what I said about Dio, he truly does have one of the most incredible and powerful voices in rock music. What’s not to like about a pair of 12’ gargoyles that shoot smoke and fire ?

Judas Priest, what on earth can you say about them, an immense back catalog, uncompromising, they know what they do and they do it very, very well. Just how many leather coats can Rob Halford change into, and does his voice never stop ?

A brutal set, great lighting, great stage show and another band that didn’t just phone it in.

Of course by this point in the evening, the antics of some of those who came to party hard and overdid it a little had become quite amusing as well, the trio that kept invading the front area, headbanging their little cotton socks off. Then getting tossed back whence they came by security, finally came unglued, passing out and security tossing them for good after one of their number truly tossed his cookies in a quite impressive style during a bout of over enthusiastic headbanging.

It also seems, if you’ve seen “The Decline of Western Civilization” or “Heavy Metal Parking Lot”, the uniform for metal heads has changed from the long hair and rampant mullets, its seems all self respecting metalheads have a shaved bonce and goatee these days.

But I still liked Motorhead, I should be able to hear again by the end of the weekend ! ;-)

Goodbye old friends...

2008-07-07T12:47:00.002-04:00

On Saturday I bade farewell to a couple of friends that have seen me through some hard times and an incredible period of growth. I knew the end had been coming about a month ago and had planned for this day.

When the day dawned I looked at them and knew it would be the day, but really hadn't given much thought, they were after all just running shoes, yet another pair of dozens that I have worn out over the year, at the end of the run they would be consigned to the trash.

As I ran my planned 10 miles, as usual my long runs covering the trails near my house I began to think about it. The pair before this took me from being more out of shape that I really thought I was up to 'fit'. I had reached my target goal weight back in March at about the time I got this pair, this pair have taken me from 'fit' to what ?...until I realized I've come to think of myself now as an athlete rather than someone who works out, a slow and insidious process. Though I have made bounds in the weight room and on the bike, it is running that has given me the most pride.

I've not sweated it, the frustrations of last year simply were shed, just focusing in the first three months of this year on simple 40-60 minute runs, forgetting about the pace and just building a base with an interval session per week.

The last three months though have seen my long runs stretch from 5-6 miles to 13-15, with a 10 mile now feeling fairly easy, my tempo runs have slowly increased in speed, and intervals, I have moved beyond my self imposed mental limits and am able to push myself further and faster than before.

As I ran, I thought about this progress, along the narrow trails, meadows, then single track between trees, and fern lined valleys, the almost arid hill top with the wild flowers and the wide stream crossing. I first ran these trails in this pair of shoes, wondering at the time if I would ever break that barrier and be able to go longer. These shoes have been out in the heat, the rain and were invariably covered in mud, living on their newspaper just inside the front door, not fit to come any further into the house.

I thought of the breakthrough runs, the first time I had broken 10 miles in more years than I can remember, that run going for 12 miles in the drizzling rain. I thought of the shorter run after one of our many storms this spring, with the enormous tree which had been brought down, the trunk taller than me as I clambered over it. The runs in the heat where walking through the water to cross the stream the cool chill being welcome.

On this day I didn't avoid the mud bogs or puddles, but simply went through them, a tribute to these friends at my feet, enjoying the feeling of being in the woods, long ago shutting off my iPod to listen to the birds and rustle of leaves and undergrowth, punctuated by the regular rhythm of my footfalls.

About half a mile from the finish, instead of crossing the wooden bridge I stepped into the small stream, letting the water wash away the mud from the shoes in a subconscious burial practice, a ritual cleansing before death.

When I got home I looked at them in my trunk and couldn't bear to throw them out just yet, so for now they are carefully tucked away in the back of my closet, thinking that taking them to Deep Creek in September would be a much more fitting tribute, to a race that would not have been possible without the training that I did the last 4 months.

Le Tour Baby !

2008-07-05T10:59:00.002-04:00

Finally my thumb is healing, a torn ulnar ligament, just very special. SO its been a case of train hard in any way I could and just not stress about what I couldn't do – though I am absolutely sure that a week of doing no upper body weights has atrophied every muscle that I've spent the last 6 months wresting from my body.

But its all been good, some good runs, the monster leg only workouts will pay dividends down the line, and the spin classes were actually good fun, though some of the music I could spend the rest of my life not hearing again.

Yesterday was the first day I was able to ride my bike outside, setting the trainer up in the garage/driveway was getting old very quickly. So 3 ½ hours outside on a mainly flat course with a few good climbs halfway round off River Road, I'd missed that feel, the responsiveness of my bike to small inputs from shifts of weight, the acceleration if I put pressure into the pedals, the hum of the tires on the road, all of it. I'm also surprised at my fitness, I had expected to lose a little, particularly closer to the end of the ride, but I was going faster, floating up the hills almost without effort. The last 5-6 rollers I started to attack, flying up them before the lactic acid could make my legs burst – Thursday's horribly hilly ride that I lead could be fun !

It has given me cause for thought though of the progress and the journey since the beginning of the year. From working on simple consistency, to work out 6 days per week but 30-45 minutes each, to today's twice per day sessions. Each step of the way, each plateau and each frustration has taught me more about myself. Equally every breakthrough workout where I have gone further, faster or lifted more than before being its own small triumph.

The process itself has also taught me the value of the mental side of training and how it has its parallels in life, the times when I have had bad workouts have tended not to be about my body failing or not being able to manage, but were simply that my mind gave out before my body and I defeated myself. The quotation about “If you think you cannot do something, then you are probably right” has never been truer. While obviously if you try to double your weights or run twice as far as you have ever done then thats asking for trouble, but those incremental gains each build strength, fitness and a sense of achievement, each step forward is a step that you don't take backwards.

I've also discovered that my limits are mostly preconceived, that we have a tendency to do just enough to get better, but the best workouts are where I have pushed myself absolutely to my limits, and discovered that those limits are beyond what I thought I could achieve; the sprint intervals where I have done more repeats and then pushed the last couple so hard that I end up on my knees, my lungs almost turned inside out, or the hill climbs where I attack the hill so hard I sure think my legs are about to explode and tear off, but that I can hold that effort..then the feeling of the lactic acid flushing out of my muscles as I spin the pedals over, each ride better and stronger than the last.

In life itself we set ourselves limits, a comfort zone of what we are comfortable with, what if we pushed at those limits and find out if they really are limits, or just some pre-conceived notion ?

Finally its Le Tour !!!. Three weeks of wall to wall cycling, a beautiful race, brutal full of heroic unbelievable feats by 180 of the fittest human beings on the planet. A shame that Astana were excluded, but a race that is wide open with maybe 8 or 9 riders potentially with the goods to win La Grand Boucle. Its also nice to see two new American teams represent, Garmin-Chipotle and Team Columbia. With some of the new rules this year it should be a closer, tighter affair with more of an emphasis on attacking riding with no time bonuses for wins, and a time trail and mountain stage both in the opening week just to shake things up. As I watch the last 20 miles of stage 1 the peloton is getting a little stressed and strung out, somewhat nervous as riders are beginning to hit the floor while they chase down 8 riders who got away earlier today.

The modern internet age makes it amazing in the data available to a fan, over on Bicycling David Millar writes a great column, as does Will Frischkorn, fascinating to get into the minds of the folks actually competing, the hopes, desires, failures, pain and broken dreams available in their own words.

OK, stage done, time to go for a run in the rain :-)

A loss ? Or an opportunity ?

2008-06-20T11:36:00.007-04:00

It’s always hard to restart a blog after a break, trying to find something of interest to myself, let alone anyone else. There has been a lot that has happened the last few weeks that I’ll come back around to, but I was reminded today to focus on what I can do, rather than what I can’t.

In retrospect last Friday (I think) I must have compressed a nerve in my wrist while lifting, I seem to recall a little pain at the base of my thumb whenever I moved it. Then I changed my handlebar position a little, and lifted the brake hoods up a bit, total change probably ¼-3/8 ” difference at most. However, just riding it up and down the street a couple of times was perhaps not the best test when I went out and rode for 4 ½ hours the next day.

By Saturday evening I had a severe pain at the base of my thumb and whenever I moved it, I figured it was just something I had pulled and it would go away, so I promptly compound and ignore the problem all week by swimming, lifting and continuing to ride, until yesterday when I finally noticed it was getting worse and had spread to my wrist, and across the base of my palm to the other side as if it were carpal tunnel.

So now I need to wear a brace for a week or two and to rest it as much as possible, My initial thoughts this morning were “Waaahhh !!!” and a pity party, invite one.

But as I have thought about it, it just means I change my focus next week, I can still ride the bike on the trainer, so that’s covered. I can still run, so I can do a heavy running week, which I have new shoes for – it is rather cool to realize I’m on my third pair of running shoes for the year, having completely worn out the first two pairs.

I can still do all the core exercises and workouts, and have more time to do them, and I can do some intense lower body weight workouts too instead of just squats/leg presses.

So ‘losing’ one thing means that I have the opportunity to gain in several other areas. I've watched a few people on a triathlon mailing list I used to subscribe to actively find reasons, or excuses not to train, which given the choice of sport just seems bizarre to me. While I look forward to racing in September immensely, it is and has been the journey and the training that gives me everything I could possibly want or need from the sport, the race itself is just the icing on the cake. As always the metaphor of life being a journey not a destination rings true again.

Now once more I am stoked for the coming weeks training. One door truly does open when another one shuts.

Plus this weekend is a trip to a nice sandy beach tomorrow, so I will finally be able to try some barefoot running.

This is highly illogical Captain

2008-05-08T16:33:00.001-04:00

OK, so life has caught up with me the last couple of months, between work, training, eating, sleeping and pooping (tm – HTFU) there really hasn’t been much time. Though there are a few things from the last month that I want to write about. But in the meantime, a couple of examples of my lack of logical thought process and general stupidity.

I had pack my things to head to the gym, not to lift weights, but to go swimming. I’m dressed in a t-shirt and the shorts that I will go swimming in, so why am I soooo piddled off that it is lightly raining ?. The whole 10 yards to my car, I’m unhappy and annoyed that it is raining, it took me most of the drive to get that realization…ermmm…I’m about to get straight into a pool, in these clothes. Dumb ass.

The other is more on brain not being engaged. After breakfast, I put the empty raspberry container, yogurt and banana skin in the dishwasher, and the dishes in the fridge. It took me until this afternoon to figure it out, despite being in the fridge this morning for my smoothie ingredients, and then again for lunch – the dishes never even beginning to register in my mind.

Driving up standards

2008-04-26T08:51:00.005-04:00

Its been a while, a lot of work, training, camping and all round frivolity. Which means, I haven't given the blog more than two shakes of a lambs tail in thought.

But THIS, this is a pure image of beauty, a perfect example of the complete and utter waste that the UK Labour Government under Blair and then Brown place on style over substance. This pair really have never stood for anything other than spin as they have lumbered from one disaster to another, all the while believing that they have managed to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

At top left is the new logo for the "Office of Government Commerce" - quite what was wrong the The Treasury as a name is beyond me, but the buffoons have never been too spectacular at making decisions that have any foundation of sense about them. As logos go its not bad, san serif font, clean understated design which should appeal to all. IT is supposed to symbolize “improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement”. Naturally lots of mouse mats, pens etc etc were produced bearing the new logo.

OK, now rotate it 90 degrees to the right, as in the picture here. I'm not sure how a snowman having a wank symbolizes an improvement in Government value for money and driving up standards. Though wait, with this Government it probably is an increase in quality compared to how they usually spend their work day. Jerk away boys.

It cost $30,000 to design.

Gotta keep moving forward

2008-04-04T14:12:00.004-04:00

Work has had a best abs contest for the last three months, which was originally set up as certain people were crying as they felt excluded from the “Biggest Loser” contest (funnily enough none of them submitted abs photos either).

It originally gave me the motivation to up the abs and core parts of my workout, which I have stuck to religiously, in fact expanding it as the benefits became clear. I also focused on the abs workouts almost as a training session in their own right, concentrated on each crunch, or swiss ball exercise on every rep. What I have found is that by targeting both abs and core (planks, hyperextensions, bird dogs) it has paid incredible dividends in my running and cycling, the strength training and not slacking off on leg exercises also come into play, but I can feel the muscles in my lower back and abs kick in as I run and ride. I have more power and endurance across the board, with gains exceeding what I would have had if I only trained in the sports themselves.

Initially I was a little disappointed in the photos, and not having a fully visible six pack, which had been my mental target at the beginning of January, until I went back and looked at my training diary, when the first picture was taken I weighed 183, on January 25th. The second was taken this morning at 175 pounds. So in two months as I look at the pictures I have lost pounds and become much more defined.

I’m lifting 30% more weight across the board in that time frame, and am now able to keep up with weight increases through consistency and mental focus while working out.

For the first time in my entire life I can look at a picture and be comfortable with what I see, I have always been either way too skinny, or too heavy in my eyes with my weight varying over the last 7 years from 140-210 (the latter in January 2007).

Exercise, workouts and what I eat have changed over the last year from a chore that I ‘have’ to do, on some days more a chore than others, to now have become an integral part of my lifestyle. If I don’t work out I am like a rabid rat terrier on crack.

If I can change my body this month in two months...roll on the next two months (though the two Birthday cakes that have sat in my freezer for the last month now have a very short life expectancy !!).

Ol' Winny was right

2008-04-01T16:53:00.005-04:00

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

Though I have still been training diligently, I’ve stepped back a lot of the longer stuff once I realized at the beginning of the month that Great Floridian just wasn’t on the cards this year financially, and that I need to dedicate those resources elsewhere. It was quite a blow mentally and emotionally, but I’ve come to realize after making the decision that it was the right one in terms of priorities.

Which brings in the quote above from Winston above. Someone always says to me that God will provide, which recently has been not something I really want to hear. But recent events show both that and the quotation to be true.

My company is a little nepotistic, in that my CEO’s youngest daughter is in High School, and was organizing an auction for her Synagogue, she asked one of her other sister’s who happens to be one of my colleagues if she knew of anyone who could donate things to be auctioned, so I ended up being asked if I would donate one of my photographs. I selected a frame and a few different pictures for her to choose from and took them to lunch with my CEO so he could pass them on. He was impressed by the pictures, as it was one of those hidden skills that even though you might work with someone there are often talents or skills you never learn about the other person.

Fast forward a month, and our company wants to stop using a stock photo agency, as after using it for 7 years our clients have seen almost every picture available and have been asking for something new. So my CEO asked if I would be interested in shooting for them, after doing some research on pricing and launching a bid through elance we agreed a price per image, and he supplied me with 50 categories. I spent the last week putting things together (this is for a Business eNewsletter so its things like calculators, clocks, light bulbs, tax forms, pens etc) and Sunday shooting a few of the images.

I supplied proofs through Picasa, and the response from those involved in the project has been incredibly enthusiastic, with them choosing 20-30 pictures. Further conversations have revealed that this is not just a one off project, but will be something ongoing almost indefinitely as new images will always be required. Which will make quite a lot of extra money each month.

M was right, keep on giving to life and God will provide.

But to training, Mike (bubbleman) wrote on his blog of his overtraining hole, which I had diagnosed upon him telling me how he had spent the previous week. Whilst I am not overtrained per se, I think I have killed my legs. Today’s run they just weren’t turning over and I felt stiff each stride, taking 20 minutes to get moving, but they still felt dead, but only a few more days until submitting a photo for the company best abs contest.

It took me a little while though to figure out why they felt dead…duh. One and a half hour run Sunday, followed by weights with extra emphasis on thighs, single leg reverse squats, Bulgarian split squats and step ups. Then last night I did a trainer session on the bike, 5 mins warm up, 8 minutes single leg pedaling and then a main set each minute changing to a harder gear until I could not complete a full minute. Then spin easy for two minutes, before changing back to that harder gear and coming back down the gears each minute. The legs were a bit wobbly even after a 5 minute spin cool down. That’s a lot of leg work in 48 hours. So cut the run to 35 mins easy today, and won’t push as hard on leg exercises doing weights tonight.

Tomorrow I really want to get out and ride outside, maybe an hour and a half before work, just a ‘smell the roses’ ride, I feel the need, I can taste the morning air.

One very cool little episode while I was running was seeing a Heron right next to the bank, eying up the water. Then he submerged his head for a few seconds and lunged, coming up with a fish in his mouth. I was only maybe two yards away, sadly without a camera, but it wouldn’t have worked out as he was behind some tree branches. Nonchalantly he twisted the fish around, gulped it down and took off. Who needs the Discovery Channel when you have a backyard lake ?

* - Images are from the photo shoot.

Breakthrough

2008-03-27T13:44:00.002-04:00

I haven't really been recording my run times/logging miles as sessions usually include a 10-15 minute warm up which skews any pacing of effort. I know my long runs (10-14 miles) are ranging in the 8:30-9 minute per mile mark, which I'm happy with as it is a deliberate effort to go as easily as possible.

Yesterday I warmed up by running up to the post office, so my run could be two laps around the lake, which is almost on the dot 2 miles. Total time was 29:27, giving 7:30 miles, which I am ecstatic about as I wasn't going all out, just pushing a little harder than I would normally. So I am not going to make any Kenyan quake with fear, but given last year even working out and running 3 times per week I ran into problem after problem even breaking through running longer than 90 seconds run/30 seconds walk, anything over five minutes straight and shins, calves or knees would scream in agony.

The last six months have really seen incredible gains in all areas of my fitness, at 190 lbs (December) I thought I could only stand to lose another couple of pounds, maybe 5 at most. The lesson learned is when you look in the mirror at your waste and think there's 5 pounds there, there's also at least another 5 pounds stored elsewhere. 175 pounds now has me within a smidgen of where I want to be. The top two abs of the six pack are clear and defined, now for the bottom two. Though unless I am running in the woods, no one is ever likely to see them - If an ab falls in the woods, does it make a sound ?

Now just to piss Guv'ner off, and to amuse bubbleman, here's my playlist from lifting weights today (on the iPod shuffle, on random).

Spit it out - Slipknot
Monkey Business – Skid Row
Heaven’s A Lie – Lacuna Coil
Eruption/You Really Got Me – Van Halen
Fire Woman – The Cult
Shyboy – Dave Lee Roth
Sweet Sacrifice - Evanescence
Poison (Live 2006) – Alice Cooper
She Sells Sanctuary – The Cult
Looks that Kill (Live) – Motley Crue
Round and Round - Ratt
Eyes of a stranger - Queensryche

Two pints of lager and a packet of cheese and onion crisps please John.

2008-03-27T08:52:00.004-04:00

Broadsheet sent this to me, its absolutely priceless. Guv'ner is the only one here who will really get it, but what the hey.

Though I love, even adore Indian food, especially the really hot bum burning varieties, my introduction to the food was much the same as most Brits. Pubs closed at 11, so with a skinful of lager there were two choices if more consumption of alcohol was desired - the "Nightclub" where watered down drinks and large men wearing dickie bows (Bouncers - *) would harass you or the curry house. The latter was the usual destination.

Many toilet rolls were put in the fridge overnight for the impending festivities the following morning, usually to no avail..a case of futility.

I think I shall break out Madhur Jaffrey's book and cook up a right hot Vindaloo this weekend :-)

* Called dickie bows as they were wrapped around dickheads.

Hey Sparky...

2008-03-24T09:18:00.002-04:00

This just amuses me, not because it was a member of Law Enforcement, but his attempts to get back up..

A quiet weekend as befits an easter holiday, with the biggest event being the discovery that I have another 20 or so baby guppies again, at least I think there are 20 or so. a) they are tiny and b) they won't hold still. So half an hour has already been spent this morning rounding them up and getting them into the little breeder floaty thing so they can be fed separately several times a day, but I've just noticed a couple of recalcitrant little buggers hiding underneath the driftwood, so I see several more attempts to get 'em rustled.

A great ride on Saturday though, just a quick two hours. At least after riding 3/4 hours the last few weekends, two suddenly seems like a quick ride, all hills. Uphill both ways it seems and always into a headwind, but the feeling was awesome, this week being a rest week, ie. much reduced training hours so my legs were due for a harder session.

Run and weights scheduled for today, and the weather could not be better, blue skies, decent temperatures and the view from my window being of green shoots, flowering pussy willow, and the geese beginning to nest, spring appears to have arrived. Of course being in the DC area, this means a couple of weeks of patchy good/bad weather and then the rains arrive for April and May.

OK so this tickles me...

2008-03-21T10:25:00.002-04:00

This was the first random entry....

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

That dastardly aquanet curse

2008-03-13T14:47:00.001-04:00

In a few recent blogs, hair metal has come under a little fire, with an equal riposte, but one of the bands castigated in that era was Whitesnake…

Now I’ve always been a Whitesnake fan, almost from day one (1978 or so), in a career spanning 30 years now they only made 2 metal albums, all the rest have been far more bluesy affairs.

To give a little history, Whitesnake is one person, the singer David Coverdale. They were originally formed from the ashes of the final version of Deep Purple (prior to their $$ reformation in the 80s), with Coverdale doing a solo album (Northwinds) and then “David Coverdale’s Whitesnake, very bluesy, very British affairs (think early Bad Company or Free), this set up the next few years – Trouble, Lovehunter, Ready and Willing, Come and Get It, Saints and Sinners and finally the transition album – Slide it In.

From the titles, yeah, its definitely cock rock, but there were also some gems of ballads and soulful blues numbers too, Coverdale once quoting “It’s a shame people don’t know me for the songs I’m proudest of, and I’m only known for the fondle my nipples songs”

After hair metal he released a few solo albums which were much more introspective affairs before renewing Whitesnake in the early 2000s, I’ve seen them twice since then, probably the strongest line up he’s ever had, capable of delivering the metal tunes with flash and aplomb, but also capable of holding back on the older numbers as well.

As a piece of trivia, not one of the musicians on those hair metal videos actually played on the 1987 album, he had to fire the band as a result of being broke, so the only thing any of them played was the guitar solo on “Here I go Again” (on the US release only).

For those that don’t believe me, below are a couple of early videos, including the first version of “Fool For your Loving” (“Here I go Again” was also a case of covering themselves). Both show what a truly great and soulful voice that Coverdale posseses…oh and “Here I go again” from 2004 (his voice is a bit rough..but its at the end of a 2 hour show..)

Oh, and don't even get me started on Thin Lizzy ;-)

Just for the Guv'ner....

2008-03-12T11:19:00.001-04:00

...I present the cheesiest of 80s hair metal songs, but with a touch of culture...

Fair warms the cockles of your heart, almost as good as the bluegrass covers of Van Halen - I kid not - "Strummin' with the Devil"

Pregnant Catholics and Bambi

2008-03-11T18:24:00.002-04:00

Oooh what a fun day. After the training last week I had started to plan for this week, clearing my decks of the minutiae that has been taking up way too much of my time and dealing with higher value activities (I quote). I was a man with a plan this morning, selfish to the point of rabid with my time, pushing my CEO off until it was a non prime calling time to have a meeting, then weights, lunch and admin/support before getting back on it.

It was also very cool to get back to doing what I enjoy most. Of course the arrival outside at 5pm of a couple of gentlemen with leaf blowers enforced a rapid re-think and getting some stuff lined up for tomorrow before taking a quick break. Which, by the way, when I returned from said break Jose and Jesus were busy blowing all the leaves back into the nooks and crannies that they had originally removed them from…Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot !!!!????

So anyway, back to my ‘break’. I’d lifted weights, had run and biked yesterday, but still wanted to do a little more, plus there is $250 on the line end of the months for the “Best Abs” company competition, and scarlett wants a new camera.

One of the few redeeming qualities about Comcast is that they do have a very good “On Demand” section, a quick perusal of exercise tv finding a men’s core/plyometrics/cardio workout of 24 minutes. Cool. Of course me, being me, the gentleman says to use a 5 lb ball, or 5lb or less dumbbell, so I picked up a 10 lb dumbbell – yeah, I did regret that by the end.

Only one problem, I obviously have the sense of rhythm of a pregnant catholic, and the grace of Bambi trying to walk on ice..both while on crack.

Thank the lords the blinds were shut else I think the whole neighborhood would have had the amusement value. Heck I’m have a certain grace when running, having worked long and hard on my style and efficiency, same on a bike, this however…oh my, its amazing I neither fell over nor broke anything (other than my dignity).

But hey, it did the trick, low impact and a change from just biking/running. I still feel a complete and utter wazzock though.

"I told you I was ill"

2008-03-10T16:10:00.001-04:00

I did it again, trained myself into a hole ;-).

No real worries, just a touch over trained, but at least these days I have the good sense to just take total rest instead of scaling back. Almost now right as rain, and raring to go again.

As for the title of this blog, well though its appropriate for what I just wrote, its not the reason for the post, it is the epitaph on Spike Milligan’s grave stone, though the church insisted he had it written in Irish, so “Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite”

“Who he ?” you are probably saying ?

He and his erstwhile partners in crime came back into my consciousness via a recent conversation about British comedy, and Monty Python in particular. Whilst the latter were groundbreaking in tv, they were preceded in Britain many years earlier, and heavily influenced by a radio show that came well before them “The Goons”, starring Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, and Michael Bentine.

It was the first of the truly anarchic British comedies, that completely broke the mould, there was not necessarily a punchline to a sketch, and the more bizarre the situation or humour, the funnier they were.

Peter Sellers obviously went onto great fame in the Pink Panther movies (originally designed to be a vehicle for David Niven), and Dr Strangelove, sadly he was taken too young. Spike, well he stayed Spike, scripting nonsense, and writing nonsense books, but invariably funny, influencing again a great many people including John Lennon and Douglas Adams.

Wonderful people, and worth checking out a little. Here’s the video of their last show (btw the “Charles” whose letter is read out would be Prince Charles). The drink being poured during the first song is making fun that when they originally recorded the show no alcohol was allowed in BBC studios, so they drank milk with brandy in it.

Lastly a slice of pure, and utter silliness. As a child I used to sing it incessantly...for hours

Nick Rhodes Fan Club

2008-03-10T15:44:00.004-04:00

Guv'ner has been let out of her private hell just long enough to spew vicious (though well deserved) slings and arrows at the music of the 80s on "Burt Reynolds' Moustache", mosey on over and take a look.

Whenever I hear the 80s and Duran Duran in particular, the Alcatraz song below springs instantly to mind..

"Lets take a plane and go somewhere exotic
To play with a non-descript song
We'll shoot all the crotch shots for 12 year old hopefuls
To make you a real man my son

Some cheap kid from Birmingham
Blessed with an accent
That pours like the darkest brown ale
Just one more puppet, piss elegant marionette
He's just a fast buck for sale"

About sums up the whole decade doesn't it ? Also nice to see a fledgling Steve Vai on guitar, before he became the high lord of widdly widdly

The other video, that has recently seen the light of day again was made by my friedn Paul Fillingham for a show that I believe was on Channel 4, it was some kind of public broadcast attempt where people could send in videos and the best would be shown on prime time, this one was a classic, the "Nick Rhodes Fan Club"

Tag you're it...

2008-03-10T15:27:00.002-04:00

Gosh darn it, I’ve been tagged.. Okay so I was tagged a while ago by Kona Shelley but have been too busy to write and I'm supposed to tag 7 others..more on that later. I have to list 7 random or weird factoids about myself.

1. I eat pizza with a knife and fork.
2. I have dedicated my life to attempting to fart the National Anthem (that would be God Save the Queen to you lot, those notes in the US anthem are just too hard). Mr Methane is my hero
3. My mountain bike is a single speed - ie. ONE gear
4. My favorite meal is a plain roast chicken with roast potatoes (crisp on the outside, fluffy inside)
5. I love riding/running in the rain..
6. In the last ten years I have broken over 20 bones (it amazes me that I can walk and talk at the same time without falling over, it amazes my friends even more so)
7. I can play the guitar standing on my head

OK, I’m not going to send or tag 7 bloggers, but list a few people here who I would like to see the answers from. Most of y’all don’t have blogs here, but you should, instead of writing on that silly myspace thingy. So either blog it, or put it in the comments …

Guv’ner
Broadsheet
Bubbleman
Michelle

Pass me the fork please

2008-02-25T18:12:00.003-05:00

Some rides just etch themselves in memory, yesterday being one of those. The weather was sunny, but a little crisp. This had me bemoaning the fact that I cannot find my other bootie to cover my shoes, with holes in the bottom for hot weather it made for a certain amount of tingling towards the end. Especially dumb moment coming when nearly home as it occurs to me that the tape I had wrapped around my pump could have been put to better use covering those holes...doh !

It was really the first ‘spring’ ride, trees are in bud, as can be seen in one of the pictures some crops are in the ground and calves are being born, the start of the re-birth of life after the winter hibernation.

The ride itself was 3 hours through west Montgomery County, from Gaithersburg up to Damascus then down through Laytonsville, Brookeville (which was the US Capitol for the Day once) and Olney before hooking back. The countryside reminds me of why I love this area, as can be seen all country roads allowing me to just roam, alone with nature and the solitude of my thoughts, my only company for much of the ride being the whir of my tires on the hardtop.

The treat on the way home was the line of Rolls Royce and Bentley cars outside Dave’s Bistro, absolutely gorgeous, I loved the juxtaposition of the boots on the running board of the oldest, the Smart car at one end, and not picture the Ferrari F430 parked the other end.

So 3 hours in the saddle, then topped off by throwing off my helmet and lacing on my shoes for a 1 hour run. Much like the swim it was encouraging to be able to complete that level of workout with no issues. It also topped off my longest week yet of 12 hours training. This week is a recovery week of around 7 hours training to allow my body to recover and rebuild from the increasing efforts of the last three weeks, and prepare for the next three week build.

The body is a remarkable machine :-)

More ride pictures here

Barren Tundra

2008-02-22T10:43:00.003-05:00

Despite training and work (and eating) filling almost every waking hour of life, there is also a huge void. In life, sometimes things you hope to always be there disappear, much like a mojo. When it was there, it was not just a case of taking that comfort and support, but went both ways, proving that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

I’ve noticed the effect across the board, in that though I am motivated to work out, it takes a good 15-20 minutes to truly get my head into the workout, and that I usually procrastinate starting the workout itself. Maybe its just that it takes that long to get fully warmed up and the intensity finally blocks out the ability to focus on everything else, much like an alcoholic and booze.

But the void is always there, creating a vacuum where its presence used to be, the presence of that gap almost comforting in a crisp round the edges way as if acknowledging the existence of something that was pure and good in its place. Truly though nothing could or should replace it, so that gap in my life shall stay where it is, a constant reminder and a chill for something valued almost above anything else that has chosen a different path.

Grunt, strain, grunt.

2008-02-21T11:56:00.005-05:00

I always feel a little awkward in a gym, as there are the farms of treadmills/ellipticals, then two sections of weight machines. But up at the back are the free weights and racks, the grunters gym. That’s where I need to be as I only ever use free weights, all my training calls for it. But that’s where all the big meaty guys are, and I’m just a little 180lb needle necked triathlete. When I first went there you could see the looks out of the corners of their eyes, or some outright stares, sizing you up, measuring muscles, whether you are fit to enter their domain.

What. Ever. I’m there to work out, currently on a maximal strength month (4 body parts per day, different parts each work-out, 5 sets to failure in 4-6 reps), one more week of this and back to circuits, but lifting 20-30 lbs heavier than I was 6 weeks ago. So I head there, iPod already switched on and cranked and basically ignore them, though I guess much like the wilds of Africa I get acknowledged now, as they are used to my presence in their midst. There are a group of 4-6 hispanic guys always there, they pack around a pair of stations and monopolize them for 1/2 hour at a time, one finally looks at my triathlon t-shirt and asks "you do those things", I unplug my headphones and go "huh" so he repeats it, yeah says myself, look of amazement on his face and much talking between them and then the looks changed afterwards. I haven't the heart to tell them that all my t-shirts are sprint or International short distance tri's not the monster Ironman they see on tv each year. ;-)

It doesn’t bother me as I know I am in great shape for what I do, but some stations face the mirror, each time I think I look ripped there is some ape with muscles fit to burst standing beside or behind me. Oh well.

Entertainment last night was this geeky, puny little guy walking in, square black framed glasses, grubby sweats and t-shirt that has seen better days, you could almost see the bristling, until he hopped to the pull up bar and proceeded to nail out 50 wide grip pull-ups. Wanders off to the free weights and does lateral shoulder raises with 30 pound plates then comes back without rest and peels off another 50 pull ups, perfect form and almost without effort. Eyes were popping out of heads, he was still repeating this when I headed for the pool…:-)

The pool was very encouraging, its only my third time swimming, or rather swimming to train in years. The first two I just focused on swimming drill after swimming drill, trying to re-develop my balance and feel for the water, which will come back with time, when I learnt how to swim freestyle properly (and more efficiently) it took a month. But last night I decided to aim for 2,000 yards, just swimming easily, as a l.s.d. - long slow distance – I do one workout per week in each sport like this to build aerobic endurance). Even though my form was going to the dogs after 1500 yards, if I concentrated I could hold it together and the yards kept ticking off. Total time was a shade under 60 minutes, which I know is slow, but will improve rapidly with more swimming. Even so that would scale up to a swim time of 1:54 for the 2.4 miles of the Ironman, well under the 2:30 cutoff. I would like to go under 1:30, which I think is possible, but we’ll see how my l.s.d. times come down with more drills and anaerobic sets.

Adding things up, given I’m still 8 months away from the race based on l.s.d. times (other sessions are much faster) would be

Swim (2.4 miles) – 1:54
Bike (112 miles) – 7:00
Run (26.2 miles) – 4:46

Total 13:40.

I would actually be happy with that. Though I know both in my head and heart that those times will come down. Lets see what the projection is at the end of March.

Weather still looking decidedly dodgy, snow forecast overnight changing to sleet and freezing rain tomorrow morning, which is supposed to keep going until Saturday morning. Dang it. So the pic above, that could well be how I spend my Saturday morning :-(

Numb nuts

2008-02-20T17:15:00.006-05:00

Two hands, three tasks......it was never going to end well.

Hand one - document I'm reading
Hand two - cup of tea.

Add an urgent IM from my CEO, oh dear gosh it was a mess. I managed to nail both laptops, both ipod docks, a USB hub, three phones and my wireless router. Oh, and the window. Thank heavens for having a towel to hand from when I was drying off after my ride. That and a washcloth/hairdryer to get the tea out of this keyboard.

I see my little google "scarlettbueller" searcher from Verizon internet is back..same IP but Olney instead of Gaithersburg, so between those two ISP servers, hmmm...now I have a pretty good handle on who. Why come here regularly to read, instead of just making contact, if you are curious enough to keep checking the blog out, why not write, eh ?

I'm always amused by the people searching on 'makka pakka costume' or 'tombiloo lawsuit' that find their way here, must not be quite what they are looking for. This title should result in some merriment. Lord only knows what they think viewing a couple of Steve's posts on shaving for triathletes.

Frozen winky

2008-02-20T15:34:00.005-05:00

Those living in the DC area know two things right now, its sodding cold, and its snowing. I had lunch with my CEO and one of my colleagues, so of course having missed riding early this morning due to a project taking longer than I anticipated (I ballsed it up first time round) I cycled down there. Hey 30 mins there, 40 mins back (different route), its all training miles in the bank. It looks like I timed it well as now the snow is settling outside. Also looking at the forecast for the weekend, Friday is supposed to be a wintry mix early, turning to freezing rain at lunch time, this is enough to seriously get my goat as this is a NJ weekend with the munchkin (number one son), and won’t happen if that weather comes to pass :-(

One of the great luxuries of training when its this cold, having sweat pants and a sweat shirt in the drier, nice and toasty, next stop was the microwave to heat some water for a cuppa tea. Ahhh life is good.

I added a new blogger to the roll at right, Steve Stenzel, after he left a comment yesterday on my aquarium pictures. He has two blogs, his photography really is absolutely stunning and his triathlon blog…well there are bits that are hilarious, check it out for yourselves.

I read an article the other day that caused me to sit back and think a little. The crux of the piece was asking whether you live your life in accordance with your own faith. At the heart of life our actions and behavior is defined by a set of beliefs; but how many of those beliefs are our own, and how many are as a result of taking on the beliefs, values and behaviors of others around us, not realizing that they may be the opposite of what we believe to be true about ourselves.

I know in my past, I adopted many values because of those around me, that do not fit with my values today, nor did they match my personal ethics. Since 2001 I have spent a great deal of time examining myself, my thoughts, views, faith and beliefs to become a better person, and I would add a much happier person as a result. But until this article I didn’t realize how much of my behavior did come from taking on the beliefs of others, and how opposite to that I am now.

As John Mellencamp once sang “You have to stand for something, or you will fall for anything”. I stand for being the best person I can be in every way, and strive for that each and every day in all that I do. What do you do ?

A quickie...

2008-02-18T15:57:00.003-05:00

Saturday was just simply an awesome day, poking around the boats in the Inner Harbor, six hours in the Aquarium, rays, sharks, frogs, dolphins, crocs. All seen through the wonder of a child’s eyes.

Absolutely exhausting but it really doesn’t get any better than this ! :-)

Pictures here

Up at the sparrow's fart.

2008-02-16T09:48:00.001-05:00

Another long run in the bank. One and a half hours just after dawn this morning, each key long workout like this now putting me one step closer to being completely prepared for my goal in October.

It is also runs like this, frost on the ground, in the chill of first light that make you truly glad to be alive. From the geese who were all uppity and being woken to get out of the way, to the first rays of sun appearing over my right shoulder and reflecting off the lake.

I made my way around the trials of the golf course at the far end of the run, not a single player out, no walkers, no runners, just the solace of me and my thoughts (And Whitesnake blaring from my earphones – “In the still of the niiiiyyyeeeeeeeeeettttt !”). Like a complete and utter muppet I decided not to take my camera, soooo many good shots this morning. My favorite definitely would have been the fountain on the golf course, from 100 yards away against the light it looked fantastic, then when I was closer an even better shot presented itself. Next to the fountain is a tree, which the water hits, of course with it being frozen, the last two feet of the branches are covered in icicles, the rest of the tree not, it looked like something out of Narnia. Next time, next time.

Now for the Aquarium ! :-)

Dum Dum. Dum Dum. Dum Dum.

2008-02-15T13:50:00.007-05:00

Interesting workout, it was on the schedule and I was motivated though it was my “B” workout for the day (“A” is weights and swimming this evening) but for some reason my head just wasn’t quite in it.

I completed it, and at the required training heart rate zones and effort, but I never really ignited into it. Admittedly there are a couple of work stresses, and I only slept around 7 hours fitfully last night so I’m perhaps not quite fully recovered, or maybe its knowing its just an interim workout to the key ones tomorrow and Sunday.

Oh well, can’t be fantastic every time, I’ll settle for great, or good in a pinch. This evening will be miles better as work will be over and can forget about it. As Stuart O’Grady put on wristbands for his team “HTFU” (definitely one of the hardest men in the peloton)

Tomorrow is very early am long run, then drive up to Baltimore Inner Harbor where I’ll be meeting my son for the day !. Aquarium, Outback exhibit, Rainforest, Dolphin shows, the submarine and coastguard cutter are all on the list. Any day out with a 7 year old is always an ADVENTURE.

OK, Sharks - now does the title make sense ?. Oh and that I'm swimming tonight, and as I try to be smooth in the water I cannot help but hum that to myself. Sadly Roy Scheider, the star of the Jaws films passed away this week.

Stupid Fish...

2008-02-14T16:29:00.001-05:00

Today was beautiful, sunny, no wind, blue skies, a little warmer (50ish). So of course I’m out for a run as scheduled after I made like a hamster yesterday in the basement/garage on the bike. I did keep looking outside thinking the rain will have washed away the ice accumulation, even going as far as to get cycling clothes out, but sanity prevailed, just one patch of ice coming down a hill and I’d be fairly hurt.

So its great, warmed up for twenty minutes, slipping and sliding away on the mud path on the rear of the lake to get to my interval place. It’s a gently sloping rise of 200 yards, so get to the bottom, ditch my jacket and take off like Winona Ryder with an armful of clothes in Saks, first interval fine and jog back down the slope, second one the same, third one my legs are slowing, not sore, or tired, or even that I’m out of breath, they just won’t turn over. The 4th one is the same - whiskey tango foxtrot guys, owner to legs, what gives ?

As I jog back down the slope I remember last night the 5 sets of lunges, at 4-5 reps to failure, and the 4 sets of single leg calf raises the same. Duh. So now I’ve moved my interval runs to Tuesdays, and a recovery/tempo run on Thursdays. It was weird, before and even after I could run at a nice clip with no problems, but as soon as I went to put power out..poof nothing in the tank.

The remaining 20 minutes home were awesome through the woods, I just love, love, love playing in the mud. The picture of the shoes, that was taken AFTER hosing them down :-)

Stupid Fish = Dumb Bass

Its not going to be a good day...

2008-02-14T08:39:00.005-05:00

...I have just realized sitting back up here at my desk that I just put my used breakfast dishes in the fridge and not the dishwasher.

I might need to switch back to caffeinated coffee. Still I have a long run at lunch time to look forward to, its a teensy bit cold at the moment.

And so the journey begins

2008-02-13T13:45:00.005-05:00

"Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - St. Francis of Assisi

I saw the above quote on a Pro triathlete’s blog, and decided to ‘borrow’ it for here, as its very appropriate to this blog subject.

Ten years ago this year (August) I had the bicycle accident that was shown on an X-ray on this post, that’s only the femur, there was a lot more breaks and a heck of a lot of blood. Someone up above was looking out for me that day, as this was in Hong Kong and the car that found me in the middle of the road happened to have two British nurses in it, who were able to stem the bleeding and take the actions required to save my life.

There followed a lengthy stay in hospital and then 9 months of disability, including two more operations as I rehabbed and regained the use of that leg.

I have always had in mind to revisit triathlons and re-acquire both the lifestyle and love for training that I used to have.

Privately I started on this path at the beginning of last year, though I was working out 2-3 days a week I weighed a shade under 210 pounds (actually a little more in Dec 2006), and started on a 10 month plan I got from Men’s Health Magazine, mixed up with a lot of mountain biking and attempts to return to running.

Most just thought I was getting fit and working out, but even then I had in mind 2007 was a year to transition, workout regularly, lose weight and regain fitness. All this in mind to build a base fitness level to be able to attack a Half Ironman triathlon this year with much more structured training.

By the end October my weight was down to around 195, and I had significantly reduced my body fat %, all my measurements reflecting a much better shape. But I hadn’t quite got the nutrition right, see-sawing between too little, not enough and too much of the wrong things even though I thought I was eating a healthy diet. So I signed up with an online trainer, over the next two months I followed the plan almost to the letter (adding more running than the recommended, but more of that later.

This did the trick, I dropped to around 182, but became much leaner overall, the nutrition balancing out my workload and also fuelling greater gains both in strength and fitness.

On January 1st I set myself some tests to reach by the end of the month before making a decision on racing, by now most people close to me knowing my intention to race a Half Ironman. I then blew them away, with the result that I drew up a training plan for the year, and am entering not a half Ironman, but a full one.

Great Floridian on October 25th – 2.4 miles swim, 112 miles bike, 26.2 miles run (marathon). Based on a projection of my training times now I hope to go under 12 hours, but will be very happy with a healthy and safe finish (cutoff is 17 ½ hours).
Training volume at the moment is three sessions in each sport per week, plus 3 weights workouts, this week is 10.5 hours, next is 12, with the week after being a rest week down to 7 hours, then build up to 15 hours over the next few months.

Long runs which at present are around 1 ½ hours will rise slowly, later in the year, my focus now being on increasing speed and regular endurance, whilst the rides will build from 2 ½ up to 6-7 hours later.

Its going to be an amazing journey, already I am fitter and stronger than I have ever been in my life, more motivated and organized with work (I have to be to work long and productive hours and also fit in the training), happier within myself, with the added bonus that it creates within me almost by default and incredibly positive outlook on life, partly as I really don’t have time for negativity or having to sweat the small stuff.

I want that medal, the finishers t-shirt, and the nice mylar wrapping at the finishing line. I want to toe the line, to start a day that will test me not only physically but force me to look deep within myself to keep going, hour after hour, to keep moving despite discomfort, and that last 100 yards up main street in Clermont to cross that line and the finishers tape.

So now the journey begins…..

Personal Mission statement : “I will explore and enjoy the gift of fitness, seek happiness, laughter, integrity and love at every turn, not only for myself but also with others. I will take every opportunity to find joy in not only this journey, but also with life and all those around me”

Sanity prevails…sorta

2008-01-31T07:42:00.000-05:00

This morning as I looked at the news I noticed that Britney Spears has finally been committed, yet what gives me hope is that it was below the fold on the Newspapers that I read (Washington Post and Daily Telegraph). Whilst this may come off as making light of her situation, I’m not.

Its just that the last time around it blew the primaries, and much more significant stories off the front page, and made you wonder what the hell is wrong with us that a has been starlet proportionally is more important than anything in the world at this point.

A sense of reality has returned. Of course now I'm going to TMZ to read all the gory details ;-)

The Hamster Dance

2008-01-30T15:54:00.000-05:00

OK, so I was asked what a trainer is. Its one of these, the axle of the bike’s rear wheel bolts onto it, then a drum is tightened onto the tire and you can set the amount of resistance. Even on easy, changing to a harder gear means you work harder, fully tight and the hardest gear, well a pro will start to cry. Lance Armstrong of course is excluded, he’ll burn the whole thing up and then eat it for breakfast before going and riding 16 Alpine Cols just to warm up.

But why I hear you ask ?. I’m a little strange in that I will run in absolutely anything, rain hail, hot, ice, it doesn’t matter. Cycling I already have the rods, plates and screws, so once it gets below 28 or there is ice outside, that’s it, I’m indoors. Also to build a good base of fitness there isn’t time to do too many one and a half to two hour rides during the work week and before dark. So the trainer, because you can’t coast or stop pedaling offers an honesty to workouts, the conventional wisdom is that half an hour on a trainer is equivalent to an hour on the road. It also allows specific drills such as pedaling one legged (makes your pedal stroke apply power all the way around instead of just pressing down), sprints, long hard resistance intervals etc, so you can focus truly on weaknesses and become stronger overall.

Now this is all great, there are many benefits from convenience, to specific training, higher intensity workouts and the ability to work on weaknesses. But it’s indoors. Staring at a wall. Thus impossible not to feel like a bloody hamster.

I’ve tried watching tv, but its unfulfilling, it doesn’t matter on the movie as I can only concentrate on doing one thing or the other. To be honest I get bored and get off the bike if I have the tv on, though the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre did work for a while. They also make DVDs for training, one chap being Troy Jacobson of Spinervals. With delightful titles such as “Suffer-o-rama”, “No slackers allowed” and “Have Mercy”, well you get the drift, he is what would happen if Satan, Michael Bolton and Celine Dion got together for a threesome and had offspring.

All I can say is this winter thank god for my baby ipod, stick it on, zone out while reading and warming up, toss the magazine and get down to business. Those who know me well already know that I’m not wired together right eg. My mountain bike is a single speed. ONE. GEAR, I am at my happiest when out training in the worst possible conditions, snow ? I’ll eat it, rain, bring it on big boy. So it should come as no surprise that this winter for the first time I look forward to and thoroughly enjoy working hard, sweating my nuts off, and grinning ear to ear the harder it gets.

I need to get out and get a bunch of those neoprene wristbands made for cycling, training motivation with “Suck it up, buttercup” on them (a favorite mental mantra). But what about the other side – “Git ‘r’ done” ? Thoughts ?

For something a little different, I wanted to introduce people to a friend of mine, Bob Mina. The two articles below are true classics from his xtri writing, and will strike chords with anyone who has ever been to a gym, enjoy, just don’t try to drink coffee while reading. His triathlon and Dragon boat race reports can be found to the right.

Spin class Part 1
Spin Class Part 2

Mental Health

2008-01-30T07:58:00.001-05:00

After Friday’s work meltdown, it didn’t get much better. My software refused to work over the weekend, necessitating the friendly ‘borrowing’ of another’s internet connection. The problem was eventually traced after way too much time on the phone with Comcast to the fact that they had blocked Port 25, 3 calls and they wouldn’t admit to it until I read up and asked to talk to the ‘abuse team’, its like a ‘friendly visit’ to the headmaster of Tom Brown schooldays.

Now I should add that whilst I am validating/verifying 6-8,000 emails at a time I am at no point sending an email, but instead verifying the address exists, using Port 25 (SMTP out). I am doing this to REDUCE spam by my clients, by validating the addresses on their newsletter lists, we don’t spend time trying to deliver to non-existent mailboxes thus clogging ISP email servers. We send out 1-1.5 million emails per week on behalf of these clients, so even a 10% failure rate can be a pain for all involved. Again, this ain’t spam – its opt in rather than out, and in 7+ years of business we have never been spam blocked or greylisted by any provider.

So they lift it, but that it will be re-instated probably within 24-48 hours of me hitting a search apparently, unless I switch to use port 587, ugh, guess I need to write more software, or get my developer to hurry up and move this to a server based version using our own servers, which are..NOT ON COMCAST !.

So that was a true piddler of a weekend, going loopy and ending up running these things round the clock from Saturday into Monday (go to bed, set alarm clock for 3 hours, get up save results and run next test), so one was a very grumpy little unit Monday morning. Times like these make me sooo happy I work from home, I think human contact in an office at that point would have resulted in genocide.

Though I had run and lifted weights on Sunday, it was only enough to lift the black clouds for a little bit, but completing everything Monday morning, followed by a conversation with my partner that I was going to go take a 2 hour mental health break and all became right with the world.

It takes me exactly 12 minutes to leave suburbia on the road bike, at which point I am on narrow, back country roads, the woods still full of ice that hasn’t thawed out from the last ten days. The last 12 months of riding and running and last 4 months of intense and committed training, much of the riding carried out on a trainer in my basement have provided incredible fitness dividends. So this ride was a release, a release and letting go of the stress, aggravation, frustration and annoyance, with the strength and fitness to back it up, I floated up the first few hills and then the next long one attacked, settling into a hard rhythm dancing on the pedals, then jumping out of the saddle and laying the smackity down on the road, repeat several times.

It never ceases to amaze me how getting outside and exercising truly shapes and changes my attitude towards anything in life, when I returned a couple of messages that would have been aggravating were just water off a duck’s back and were swiftly dealt with, my team was bonded with and a direction and plan was crafted for our launch next week.

All is right with the world, interspersed are a few pictures from the ride. I wonder why only one side of the mailbox received the abuse and bullet dents (.22 judging from the size and lack of penetration)…

Word for the day is rhinotillexomania – look that puppy up, it was on a triathlon blog !

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go." T. S. Elliot

Some days are born to greatness....

2008-01-25T13:14:00.000-05:00

…and some start off incredibly and then just fall apart.

Today sadly is falling into the latter category. Up at the crack of dawn, completed a task that I’ve been holding off on waiting for input and got it finished, all before 9. Then played hooky, stop with the guilt trip, I had been working since 6:30am and went for a run.

By gosh its caawwwwllllddd !!!. Thanks to plenty of cold weather gear I was extremely toasty, except my face and frostbite heals, right ? After being injured December and early January where I had to rehab a knee in the weight room and on the bike that my son had decided to land on, bending it backwards, the last week has seen injury and pain free runs. This morning’s around the lake a couple of times was delicious in feel, the ice over the lake, still patches of snow on the scenery and a full compliment of mallard and mandarin ducks, together with the ever present geese and herons. From the bustle of the running path next to the road, to the peace of the opposite side through the woods, feeling at one with the world and acquiring that zen state that comes from fitness.

It is now that I am seeing the benefits of the last 4 months commitment to both my health, diet and fitness training, though I’ve been training solidly for a year now, it wasn’t as consistent as it should have been. From October I found a new and renewed focus, taking care of all aspects, from weights, to running and nutrition, though I have many years experience the difference came in handing over the responsibilities to an online trainer, and the results have been better than I could have hoped for. Today was almost enlightening as I could feel every muscle firing and releasing, just floating above the ground, not just my legs, but the beginning of each stride in my core muscles. If you have ever done any of the meditation exercises where you focus on each part of your body and concentrate on them to relax you know the type of feeling.

Then I got back, whipped up a smoothie and jumped on a conference call at which everything went to hell in a handbasket. It appears our understanding of code that we have developed, then handed over to IT, that was all sorted in a conference call this morning is not what we thought it was. So now a new priority, that is dependent on which of two solutions IT is developing and which one will be complete first. Net result is I have to do all the prep work for both ways, rather than choosing one.

Oh well, its what they pay me kibbles for. Plus I know that I have a group mountain bike ride tomorrow morning in VA to look forward to. I think I’ll take a “Fukitol” pill, load up the shuffle with lots of sleazy 80s hair metal and go throw some weights around ! :-)

Ghosts in the Machine

2008-01-24T10:11:00.001-05:00

In today’s age and the ubiquity of search engines, social networking sites and the like it has become possible to reconnect with our past in a myriad of ways. As I wrote in my post “Walking the Straight Line”, life is not a single linear journey, but instead a child’s squiggle allowing us to go back and revisit the past but in the context of the present.

Over the last couple of years I have been able to reconnect with many people from past lives through Facebook, LinkedIn and a UK version of Classmates.

But also, sometimes in searching google a name pops up that elicits a connection or memory. My post of life in Hong Kong was inspired in just a way, and I chose to post it before writing of Alphonse.

Alphonse Vinh was one of the first people I met when I moved to the US, initially we connected through a now defunct mailing list on Southern culture where his insightfulness and sheer command of writing truly impressed me.

It was Memorial Day, and he was kind enough to invite my then girlfriend and I to a cookout at his home in Old Fairfax. Having read his writing, and spoken to him on the phone I had a picture in my head of an old style Virginia gentleman from days gone past, by no means a redneck, but the culture that you only see today in places like Charleston. When he answered the door, instead I was greeted by a Vietnamese gentleman (the name didn’t ring a bell for me), with a pony tail, blue blazer and old British Guards Club tie worn in my honor.

The evening was quite simply wonderful, is knowledge and passion for both southern culture and history encompassing and riveting. Also his graciousness both as a host and gentleman quite at odds with the way we live our lives today. One act illustrates this perfectly, when we were about to leave, he reached into a vase of carnations and presented it to Cairen, as he did for any female guest that visited his home, not an act with any shallowness, but simply an expression of his gratitude for accepting an invitation and spending time in his company.

Below is a piece he wrote on mourning, specifically the break up of a relationship. Every time I read it, I am transported to the place and an insight into his feelings, together with reminiscing of my own feelings at those times :-

"For those who have mourned and for those who mourn still"

A ubiquitous mist has enshrouded the mountain on this cold November day. The sky was like a Turneresque gouache of grey-white. Houses hid behind a soft, foggy screen of white, round twin circles of light-yellow glowing like will-o'-the-wisps peeked through the vanished roads, announcing the immanent approach of a car. A few ragged trees could be seen from my window silhouetted like photographic negatives of lean black lines against a white void. Unseen leaves made sounds like hollow gourds against the still grass and everywhere was the pale-white mist. The silence of my world covering the solemn morning like a mourning shroud was interrupted by the occasional caw-caws of crows in the distant, ghostly woods.

How unnatural seems the world about us when we mourn. We get up, we dress, we pray, we sip our coffee, we walk to work, we perform our duties, we serve others in their needs, and all the while our inner universe has disintegrated into the chaos of sorrow, and the galaxies of our soul exploded into a trillion fragments, and the worlds of our emotions are cold orbs where suns have vanished. And yet we must go on even when our home universe has exploded, we must try to go on, homeless exiles in search of a new, restored homeland.

As I went through the various duties of the washed-out day, the pain swelled inside, and I thought of my fellow human creatures at their diurnal routines across this shrinking planet, and wondered how many of them carried on with conscientiousness despite their private sorrows. Each man and woman suffers grief alone in his or her own individual way. One can never measure another person's pain, and should not. So often well-meaning friends and acquaintances will try to comfort the bereaved person by making light of their grief and referringto the sufferings of others in faraway India or Cambodia. But each human being is a unique moral universe with her own divine destiny. They do this not out of meanness, but because they feel so powerless before another friend's grief which is inexpressible. The joys and sorrows of each human person contribute significantly to the joy and sorrow of this earth. God created Man because without Man and Woman, who will be there among His creatures to hear the sound of a tree falling in the snowy woods and be aware of it? Every person born into this world will know joy and sadness, love and loss, and though his or her own experiences are uniquely personal, yet there remains a universal quality about those experiences which bonds each human being with the rest of this frail human race.

My afternoon was my own and I sat before my writing-desk and read and thought. As the mist swirled outside, dancing beneath the street-lamps, the gathering dark emerged, and the pale light from the newly lit street-lamps conjured up images of wraiths, those memories from my past, and I clearly saw the dear features of my lost love, and I remembered her long, slender hands, her grave blue eyes, and the curls of her blonde hair streaked with dark gold strands. For a very long time, I kept a lock of her lovely hair which she had sent me carefully folded in a ribbon of blue-gold silk, in my pocket-calendar, and every day, I carried her next to my heart. When we lose the people whom we love most in our lives for whatever reason, we must put away tangible tokens of their continuing presence in our lives. We must mourn for them, for their physical disappearance from our lives. In time when we can bear to gaze at the photographs of our beloved recalling happier times, they do not seem to resemble the live person we recall laughing and talking and embracing with. In following the long dark journey into the night of grief, the images of the loved one will change, perhaps fade way like the ghostly lights in a fog, and that too is necessary. Our love for the lost lover will not die, but it must be transformed, for the life we shared with them is over now and dead like the fallen leaves in winter. We must learn despite the pain to surrender our memories of her and let her go in peace. Somehow, some day, somewhere in time, by the mercy of the Spirit, we will wake up one morning to find ourselves in a new universe where the light shimmers and the myriad suns warm the glowing orbs of our soul, the mist of grief will have vanished like the will-o'-wisps of our haunted past, and we will walk out into a new life, and as we look into the newly leafed woods shaking with the spring breeze, we see the
faces of those we loved and lost, and our hearts will be full of love for them, but it will not hurt anymore. And then we will understand the brave words of Albert Camus, "In the midst of winter, I discovered within myself an invincible summer."

Alphonse Vinh – Sewanee, TN

Curious

2008-01-24T10:07:00.000-05:00

On my sitemeter I have noticed on an almost daily basis someone reading my blog, who accesses it from Verizon Internet Services searching on google using the part of my email address prior to the "@" symbol.

You obviously know me well enough to know my email address, drop me a line and say hello, eh ?

Orange Trees

2008-01-21T19:12:00.001-05:00

A few days before Chinese New Year in 1998, I decided to go into the office early. By this time I was living on the South Side of Hong Kong Island, in Repulse Bay, well away from the hustle of the metropolis to the North.

Although it was less than three miles from all the skyscrapers, my view from my apartment was of the beach down below, and out to see where at night the horizon would glow orange from the cargo ship's lights.

As I set off, the day was just beginning to break, it looked like another overcast day as it had been for much of the previous week. I was undecided yet to take a taxi or the bus to Causeway Bay, but settled on the latter by the time I had got to the bottom of the hill.

I waited and looked back up towards my apartment, which was one of only two tall buildings in the bay. Behind I could see the mountains, known locally as the "Twin sisters which I had hiked over the previous weekend.

It seemed strange to see trees in bloom so early in the year, and I thought back to my visit to the US, three weeks earlier, were the snow was still hard packed on the ground. Here I am just a few weeks later on my way to work in shorts and a t-shirt. The mode of dress was out of necessity, even in 'cold' season, when the local Cantonese dress in thick padded coats, the temperature hovers around 80-90 degrees, with oppressive humidity. Luckily all offices have shower facilities, with mine having a rooftop restaurant in amongst the A/C units, and two squash/racquetball courts. So suits and dress shirts stayed at the office, this slight inconvenience was my price for getting out of the city, with it's attendant noise and bustle. Here I could choose to spend quiet time, while still being able to take a 15 minute bus or taxi ride either to the teaming city night life, or a quieter evening down on Stanley waterfront.

As I ride the bus, we ascend the gap through Wong Chai Gap, and the view across Deepwater Bay to some of the houses and apartments always has me wondering how people can afford these, these are no 800 sq. ft, US $5,000 per month abodes - multiple cars outside, Porsches, Ferraris and Rolls Royces, anything les than an S Class Mercedes without you own driver and you are a nobody. As we cross the top of the gap, the panorama of skyscrapers comes into view, first Causeway Bay, then Wan Chai and finally Central, which is the skyline everyone knows and thinks of when you say Hong Kong. At first this was my impression, but slowly I began to appreciate how little of even the Island is actually occupied, and how easy it is to find solitude in the mountains. For an Island of only 9 by 3 miles, with three million people it never ceased to amaze me that within 20 minutes of hitting a trailhead that I could escape the madness and noise that went with the city. The incessant bleat of a hundred cell phones, the shouting, traffic and car horns...

Soon, we pass the racecourse and begin to circle the back streets of Causeway Bay, I decide to get off early and enjoy the ten minute walk to the office on what at 6:30 am are still relatively quiet streets. As I pass through the Island market, stalls are beginning to be set up, the artistry of arrangements on both vegetable and flower stalls already evident. The flowers amaze me, varieties and colors rarely seen in the west, stargazer lilies nearly nine inches across, with the scent following me. All too soon, the familiar smell of Hong Kong streets returns, together with the overpowering odor of the fish section of the market. Even this early people are choosing their fish from the tanks, and I briefly watch one of the workers expertly fillet the fish in almost seconds, how they do this with such accuracy with a traditional large Chinese cleaver is spectacular.

I soon come upon Wan Chai, a pale shadow of its former reputation during the Vietnam war, long gone are the working girls of Suzie Wong's time, to be replaced by seedy Thai strip bars, fast food stalls and western style themed drinking establishments, as I cross the street, I begin to notice all the orange trees , a tradition around Chinese New Year, they are a little over two feet tall with the darkest of green leaves and covered with small bright oranges, they are everywhere, in doorways, by stalls, in windows. Suddenly it seems as though the drab pre-dawn springs to color. I cross the square in front of my office, passing under the windows of Mulhanny's Irish Bar, towards the corner occupied by Joe Bananas Aussie nightclub, these places quiet now, but the familiar sounds of pounding drum and bass music can still be heard from places such as the Big Apple, the Kit Kat Club and Crossroads, the occasional early morning reveler appears from a doorway, a girl from the bar half on his arm and half supporting him - bleary eyed, clothes half askew and blinks in the daylight, perhaps surprised to find that night is almost ended.

As walk towards the escalator walkway that will take me into the second floor of my office building I pass a man crumpled in a doorway, a puddle at his feet, sadly not one of Hong Kong's few tramps, but a westerner, from his pin striped suit he could well be a banker, not a young man, and certainly too old to be sleeping in doorways. Part of the sad underbelly of Hong Kong life.

I reach the office, passing through the doors to a huge orange tree, newly arrived last evening - this one is full size. In addition to the oranges, there are hundreds of Lai See packets, covered in the traditional Chinese script in gold lettering. Tradition dictates that at Chinese New Year, a manager will hand out a packet to each of their staff, containing money as a good luck charm for the coming year.

I ascend to the roof, and collect my morning noodles, sitting at a table just as the sun makes it's first appearance for the week and collect my thoughts before showering and changing for the day ahead

The Clangers

2008-01-17T10:56:00.001-05:00

And you wonder why Brits are weird ;-)

How long is a piece of string ?

2008-01-17T10:48:00.000-05:00

The Psychotic Secretary has been posting recently of some of her adventures on first moving here, which brought back old memories of my first trips and then subsequent relocation to the US.

On my first trip alone were several language faux pas, from loudly announcing to a colleague across a very busy mall that I was going to go downstairs and buy some fags (I think every Brit who has been here has pulled that one). Through to a female business contact who announced in a bar “Look at the fanny on that”, I being of the male persuasion nearly broke my neck as me head spun round faster than the Exorcist wondering what kind of bar she had brought me too, however it was just some guy in jeans, look up the meaning and understand why Brits giggle uncontrollably when Americans talk about a 'fanny pack', I'm sorry we just can't help it.

My personal favorite was a presentation at a very large and very well known Federal integrator down in Mannassas, VA. While setting up the projector to my laptop (this was 93 so back in the days when getting these things to work required black robes and a suitable sacrifice to the gods of IT), this rather well built gentleman at considerable volume announced that “My suspenders are too tight today”, now that’s all well and good, and innocent. However, being fresh of the metaphorical boat from the UK and yet to be indoctrinated into the myriad differences in language I immediately wen with my meaning for the word and completely lost the plot, you see in the UK what you call suspenders are what we braces. However in the UK what we call suspenders you call a garter belt. Now you see my mental image ?. Good, it was the toughest presentation I have ever faced, involving many, many trips to the “Giggle Loop”.

Even today I can be flummoxed by what seems an incredibly simple question to answer, eg. “Is Britain on the metric system ?”

Now if you are from the UK you know the answer, but trying to respond, "yes, sorta" and "it depends" doesn't seem to cut it for someone from the US where even slang language itself is much more precise.

To try and explain :-

We use metric for small distances (mm, cm), weight (grams) almost exclusively...hmm, ok, that's not very easy.

Let me start again - distances first - mm and cm for short distances (* see note), though 2 feet is more often used than 60cm, athletics is metric (100m, 200m, 400m 10,000m), but longer distances are more often in miles (eg Nottingham to Lincoln is 40 miles).

Weight - grams for cooking weights, ie. small. Heavier weights would be tons rather than metric tonnes, and kilograms are used a lot. But for how much you weigh though you might know how many kilos you weigh as the scales have kg on them, you are more likely to know it in stones - 1 st. = 14 pounds. But we don't know our weight in pounds, more like 13 st 6 lbs (188 lbs) as that's what the scales say. So in "Whole Lotta Rosie" by AC/DC, Rosie weighed in a 19 stone, she's quite a big girl.

Petrol (gasoline to you lot, when we say Gas we mean natural gas - the stuff you cook or heat your house with), the petrol pump measures in litres, but we think of a car's economy in miles per gallon. Oh, and just to throw a complete wrench (spanner, which also means someone of dubioUs intelligence) to it all a British (Imperial) gallon is bigger than a US one

UK gallon = 4.55 litres
US = 3.8 litres

Fun isn't it, might as well just ask us how long a piece of string is.

* - for those with depraved mind, ‘equipment’ length is always quoted in inches. Remember how cm is only used to measure ‘short’ things.

"Makka Pakka, Akka wakka, Mikka makka moo!"

2008-01-16T15:33:00.000-05:00

I was reading an interview this morning with Andrew Davenport, creator of the Teletubbies and now 'In the night garden" which is receiving a lot of press currently as one of the people who played "Ooo" who happens to be a Tombliboo is suing them for faulty costumes.

Why he is suing now and not back when the show was made is beyond me, and now my son is older I'm a little out of touch with pre-school tv. Naturally Will grew up around the Teletubbies, who in their own right to an adult are rather bizarre, but to a child they represent something else. The thinking behind the tubbies is that if you listen to one its all the basic constructs of speech - ba ba, aa aa, te te etc...the first show to deliberately target that age bracket.

But anyway, in reading about his shows the descriptions of the characters make me howl for some obscure reason (I really must go and have a sit down chat with the voices in my head one day). Lets see, we have :-

Igglepiggle - the main character, big, cuddly and blue with red hair. Inside the costume is apparently some tatted up rocker from Liverpool.

Upsy Daisy - female and of Afro-Caribbean descent, usually chased around the garden by her be and has a catchphrase of "Ooh upsy daisy".

Makka Pakka - a cave dweller fond of cleaning things, especially his other forest friends with soap and sponge that he carries in his cart.

Tombliboos - there are three of them Ooo, Unn and Eee, beat on their drums and their pants fall down regularly.

Truly bizarre. Have a look at this slice of baby heaven :-

In my day it were just sock puppets called the Clangers on tv :-)

Oh and as a disclaimer, when out of your head on morphine in a Hong Kong Hospital the Teletubbies in Cantonese are essential watching.

One banana, two banana....

2008-01-11T15:54:00.001-05:00

Posted just for the Guv'ner

Now see, both Guv'ner and I have passports that say "Her Majesty" on them, and we remember this show. According to Wikipedia it was made by Hanna Barbera and shown on NBC...but how is it only British people remember it ?

Walking the straight line ?

2008-01-11T13:53:00.001-05:00

I recently read an article on the language of the spirit comparing several passages from both the Bible and the Koran and their similarity. In reading it I was struck by a line that a British comedian called Dave Allen always used to close his shows – “May your God go with you”.

Two things jumped out at me, the first was a simple sentence “You might not like who I am but I am all that I have. If we go back far enough, are we all not brothers of color from the red loam of the Dark Continent, trying to make our way home” – Scott Tinley.

This strikes home for me as we are in an election year, already I feel amongst people that I know the closing of ranks and drawing of battle lines in the sand, without rhyme or reason we stop listening to any point of view that differs even one iota from our own and metaphorically scream “I’m right and you are wrong”. As a nation and a culture we are already intolerant of any other view, and insular in our outlook, an election year seems to exacerbate this.

Surely it would be better if instead of being intolerant of others beliefs we embraced those differences, instead of being insular in our lives, groups and outlook that we reached out wider, learnt and experienced outside our comfort zone. These are things a Government can never provide us, yet we expect them to solve these problems. It is a free thing to do, and yet we don’t.

The other was the six tenets that he believes are his life, which made me think how I would interpret them as they apply to me.

We look outside and seek the answer to our own problems from others, or to blame what has happened to us on others or our ‘situation’. Surely the answers to our lives come from within us and the discovery of who we are, if we are lucky we find purpose from this self examination. After that we have to accept a great part of our answers and happiness will always come from others, whether they be friends, children or a random act of kindness by a stranger or acquaintance. So we find ourselves not only through insular self examination but through the connection of others. We must find a way to connect.

We should accept change and suffering sometimes, as through those experiences our character is shaped. This includes making and acknowledging mistakes we ourselves have made, together with understanding why we made that choice, otherwise we are doomed to not learn from that experience. Through this we find meaning, and a deeper appreciation for others bad experiences that we would have found easy to dismiss before.

Life today is at a pace that often brings with it chaos, confusing and struggle. We are buffeted at every turn by media and people telling us that we should have meaning and understand our lives. Accordingly we often make changes on a whim in the belief that a quick fix will provide what we are looking for. Yet very few people understand themselves to know what to pursue as a life path, we are all an experiment of one, so why would some talking head psychologist on a tv program or a book have the understanding of ourselves to provide a plan. Instead accept that life is a constant path of living and growing, take strength from the change and the limitless opportunities to grow and change as a person without letting that process get the better of you. The process of growing as a person is where we should define ourselves.

If we seek self awareness in one place, we will become one dimensional. No one piece of advice or plan can deliver an understanding of yourself, as there are many components from physical, psychological, spiritual, experience and knowledge. An old Chinese proverb says “Tell me, I forget. Show me, I learn. Let me do, I remember”, so unless we act on our growth and pay attention to what we have learned we will not realize fully the gains that we have made. There are higher powers we can follow, whether they be a deity or a belief in oneself that drives us to be all we wish, but ultimately no one power will deliver us the salvation we seek, but only through a constant desire in all areas of our lives will we see the power of self and accepting others.

We focus too often on worldly rewards as a statement of who we are and what we have done. Surely it is a greater satisfaction to look within yourself and see happiness and satisfaction as great person than to look out of your window at the greatest penis extension ?. While we should enjoy the trappings of success if we attain them, they should not shape nor define who we are. Ultimately a life without a spiritual attainment of self is still a hollow existence.

We imagine that life is a straight line, that while it may go through peaks and troughs is still linear in fashion from start to finish. I prefer to think of it as a child’s squiggle that they draw through a puzzle maze, that while sooner or later it might find its way to the exit, in the meantime it meanders, goes back and revisits mistakes and finds a new, more successful path. Life is not a straight line, and thus we should not treat it as such, if we allow ourselves we can revisit times or places that bring us joy, or repair bridges that may have been broken, but we were too stubborn to mend them.

Nothing in life is an accident, we have the choice to make who we are, and as a result, create our own fulfillment. If we are brave enough to live the squiggly line.

Ugh...

2008-01-09T14:53:00.000-05:00

...start a blog with all good intentions and then decide to merge your company back into the company that you spun out of. Not a good scenario for staying up to date on thought, with Christmas in the way to boot. While the merger is something I am completely behind, there is also a tinge of sadness that we couldn't push the company a little further first. It is truly the best thing for both companies and we will continue down the path we were going albeit with a bigger budget and staff.

While I gather my thoughts together for a blog more along the lines of where I want to go I could not pass this up in today's news released at the CES show :-

"Hit me baby one more time"

Isn't it just such a cute idea, groove along to your favorite tunes while putting someone in a world of hurt.

But it does raise the obvious question in my mind of what your top 5 favorite tunes to play while tasering the beejesus out of someone ?

2007-12-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

Something a wee bit different from my last posting. I’m hearing more and more hoopla about the Sex in the City movie, and it just passes me by. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good show, that anyone with a more attractive (ie the softer gender) has been forced to watch a time or two.

But with a dose of admitted bias I just prefer Coupling, similar subject matter but sharper writing, more believable characters (you can usually name each character as being familiar to people in your circle), and not prudish in ways that I find SITC to be. This latter point, some people feel Coupling goes too far, but there’s nothing explicit, the language is fruity but English, and much of what they are talking about is left to your imagination through innuendo rather than bashing you over the head. See below :-

On the subject of things I don’t care for, and sensitive souls may care to cover their eyes for this as I’m about to commit heresy, I don’t like Jimmy Buffett, or the Grateful Dead for that matter, or rather I just don’t rave about them and their music produces virtually no reaction in me. The Beatles always left me cold and wondering why everyone raved about them, and I just don’t think Led Zeppelin were seminal and the Gods people make them out to be. There, I said it, this should see my Friends list on Myspace reduced to zero as everyone deletes me for being a heathen ;-)

On a more serious note, I’ve noticed a few people around me, and one in particular sink into depression, some quite serious. The holidays can create a reflection and dis-satisfaction with life that deepens, with the resultant feelings of isolation. Remember to reach out to those people, and if you are one, realize that people reaching out to you, do so because they care about you, not that they are trying to intrude on your cocoon. Embrace that first touch, and then reach out to more people. Tis the season for goodwill after all.

2007-12-07T09:56:00.000-05:00

Starting, or restarting this blog seems appropriate at this time of year. This point was brought home by discovering that the word Nativity means birth, origin and bringing into the world a new life.

Those coming from either of my old blogs know that despite many years, not so much denying my faith, equally I did not observe it. The last few years have seen many changes in my life, and a striving towards growing in all aspects, from my spirituality, faith, as a person and professionally. Over the next few weeks to kick this off I'm revisiting some of those blogs with how I felt then, compared to how I have grown since.

The last year in particular seems to have been a major shift, a letting go of the past in many aspects of life that I have come to understand were holding back my development. Professionally it has seen the birth of my own company, both an exciting experience, but also one of trepidation now that I have employees dependent on my decisions and performance.

The greatest shift has seen an increase in quality time with my son, though the situation is not the best it could be, it is was it is and makes me truly value the time I do spend with him, and we've had more fun than a barrel load of monkeys this year.

Healthwise, from recurring issues earlier in the year I made a commitment to my own health through exercise and eating well, maintaining a high level of fitness throughout the year, making mistakes along the way by shelling myself into a hole overtraining several times, or just not eating enough to sustain those levels of workouts. The later part of the year brought a greater balance, that my training levels were equivalent to Ironman training, and there was no need to go that extreme with no intention of racing. An online personal trainer and meal plan took care of that and saw me shedding pounds to a level that I look in the mirror and am satisfied with how I look.

But even that is a birth, I have entered a half Ironman triathlon next year, so the next 9 weeks will be a drastic upswing on weight lifting intensity, with the start of a greater build in running, swimming and cycling mileage.

Professionally, the first month was beyond our expectations, requiring us to invest to fuel the growth, a couple of lean months with those greater overheads but my re-emergence as a developer together with my partners ability to ferret out potential clients for that service have seen us find a profitable niche to fuel the further growth of the company. Now from my kludged together pieces of code I am immersing in learning SQL to build it properly.

Personally the start of the year saw renewed activity from a situation I had thought long past, but except for a brief piece of surreal online activity and associated bemusement on my part in late spring that seems one dog that has decided to lie down permanently.

Echoing my good friend Mike's recent blog about special people this year has seen for me an emergence of a new group of friends, both virtually and in person through my various activities that leaves me feeling purely blessed in life, completely content with where and who I am.

Its also seen my recent house move, and the delight of my own place, and one that I enjoy, from the freedom and easy access still to running trails and roads for cycling, through the view from my loft window this morning looking out over the frozen lake, the goose island full of its residents, and the snow covered houses the other side. The benefits to mental health having a comfortable and inspiring environment are difficult to estimate until experienced.

Through everything over the last few years, my one constant has been a determination to never give up, as Winston Churchill said "When you are going through hell, keep on going". People eaither around me or who I know of constantly inspire me to be better, to achieve more and that the word "can't" should never leave my lips. Seeing this video on someones page recently brought back the same emotions as when I first saw it, after watching it I think of the tasks or things to do that I am back burnering and tackle them head on..

This video exposes our excuses for just what they are, excuses.

Life, yeah it truly is great ..get out and be great ! :-)