Weekend of 1-5-08 - Tri Training, Music, Politics

Sat. 1-5 & Sun. 1-6-08
Marathon Blog session

A full weekend. A little work, a dose of outdoor exercise, college basketball (Terps win) presidential campaign heating up with Iowa and NH, the final season of The Wire starting up (link). Augmented by the HD Radio for xmas - I can now revel in not just one NPR station and one Cspan but three of each (ital)

SPORT
Sat. 1-5-08
Bike: Fuji, outdoors, 3hrs, 50mi, 38-40F, no real wind, gray, dry. Heavenly.
Swim 33mins easy-recovery, some drills.

Sun. 1-6-08
Run 50mins, right knee feeling a little funky. Walked some, iced it after.
Core/strength 20mins

The sweet misery of a good hilly ride, that was Saturday. A good ride hurts, you know? Soooo nice to be outside. Tuckerman-Falls-Glen-Seneca-River Rd. Lots of riders out. Chit-chat at intersections but stayed solo, just out to play at my own pace. Jazzed to be out, no desire to engage in any weekend world championship duels. No need to take a caning and damper my day.

Putting on the snow gear (Dec. snowsuit post, below) as a kid has nothing on the prep for a cold weather ride. Getting out in cold temps is time consuming, esp given my penchant for wearing and carrying enough gear to comfortably survive a weekend on the Alaskan Range or lost on the trail of Big Foot. The 45mins of devising and redevising a layering strategy, prepping food and water, actually donning the gear, etc.- all worth it. Got it about right today, no cold bits.

Getting out provided a rude reminder of the cruel rewards of clean living (and clear head pipes). An enhanced sense of smell. No scent is good, it's all overwhelming. Perhaps accentuated by the dry cold atmosphere, everything is a tart smack to my finely tuned olfactory unit.

The worst: auto exhaust, tobacco, car scent trees and heavily perfumed occupants, all of which I do indeed smell via my finely tuned schnoz. Notable was the tag team of a fume spewing school bus and an old dirty-burning diesel Benz slowly accelerating past as I grind up a long, lung busting hill. No place to go, no way not to breath. It's not like the metro where I can avoid the nasal irritation and/or headache by jumping to another passenger car when Mr. Toomuch Cologne or Ms. Canaday de Hairspray boards.

Saturday ride data for the propeller heads.
Meat of the Ride:
Duration: 2:30:47 (2:33:24)
Work: 1584 kJ
TSS: 181.5 (intensity factor 0.851)
Norm Power: 196
VI: 1.12
Distance: 43.917 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 409 175 watts
Heart rate: 105 172 151 bpm
Cadence: 28 106 74 rpm
Speed: 2.7 38.9 17.5 mph

Entire workout (170 watts):
Duration: 2:54:38 (2:59:05)
Work: 1776 kJ
TSS: 202.9 (intensity factor 0.836)
Norm Power: 192
VI: 1.13
Distance: 50 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 409 170 watts
Heart rate: 70 172 149 bpm
Cadence: 28 106 74 rpm
Speed: 2.5 38.9 17.2 mph

2007 Bike Data
Year cumulative:
5500+ miles (4,924 for Jan. - Oct.)
291.9 hrs
179,244cals
Avg Power 172watts
Avg Normative Power 186watts
Avg Heart Rate 139bpm
Avg Cadence 80rpm

Biggest month of 2007: May
686 miles; 36.7hrs; 22,888cals

Biggest Week of 2007: Jan. 8-14 (followed by the 2nd and 4th weeks in May)
198miles; 10.3hrs; 6,830cals

• Only 8 weeks over 160miles
• Only 1 week over 100miles after 8/26
• Longest ride: 82miles 8/11/07
• Only 10 rides 65+ miles
• 30 rides 50+ miles
  

MUSIC
Hopped online in search of "Anyday" performed by Susan Tedeschi (think younger Bonnie Rait) with the Dereks Trucks Band at Eric Clapton's 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival. Derek is on lead guitar (slide), Mike Mattison is the impressive male voice. The song's been rolling around my head since I caught the PBS broadcast of the show a few weeks ago. That's got to be a sign I'm nearing the geezer tipping point, rocking out to PBS. To Youtube I go. Bam there it is. Beautiful thing that YT. Here it is.



Nodding and bopping to the music on my exercise ball chair (trigeek alert), I multitask over to the bikesnob blog. I'm dangerously behind in my snob reading. The Snob's latest entry (Fri. 1-4-08, he's a M-F guy) is re Clapton as trend setting cyclist, or at least lover of bikes as fine objects d'art.

And, the final stage of this marathon Big Ring digression session...

POLITICS
Sad that Biden is out. Plug for a friend - Here's a video put together as an evening project a few weeks ago by a fellow Biden-ite. Biden on Iraq voiced over images and with some music. Heavy, def not humor. Maybe if we'd seen more coffins the last few years would've been different.



Folks were certainly fawning over Obama's Iowa victory speech. Hard not to swoon. Soaring stuff.


Just when I thought Iowa was the last chance to get any level of policy discussion, the NH debate Sat. actually got into some. Except Bill Richardson. Yeeesh. Take that fork out of your back Bill, have a donut and get some sleep, you're done. Meanwhile you're taking yourself out of VP contention. How much better might that debate have been if Joe Biden, or Dodd, was in the 4th chair? Uh, much, much better.

HiIlary landed a blow equating a vote for the likeable, change, all-for-unity Obama to the error that was a vote for likeable , grab-a-beer, uniter not a divider GW. O wasn't too bad on specifics and defended his hope talk pretty well I thought. Edwards, fiesty and appealing but maybe too much anger coming across, fogging over his agreement re the desire for change/unity/bipartisanship.

Q: Was the Iowa turnout a fluke? Esp new and/or young and/or independent voters?
A: Not a fluke.

Q: Can Hillary dissolve the experience v change dichotomy that seems to have solidified?
A: Maybe blur it some.

Really off on a a horse race tangent...
Q: Will Ron Paul stay in to the end? Go indy? Be a spoiler for a Repub?
A: Yes, yes and yes... I hope.

Send Ron a little $, eh?
Or, maybe the Dems won't need any spoiler help.

Road ID on the bike.
Thanks B.