Zen and the Art of Speedskating

23 hours after we arrived at the Hospital, our daughter Arzelia Jane Love was born into this world, at 12:35am on october 29th.

She was 7 pounds, 5 ounces, and 19 inches long. Given how long & rough labor was, Jess is ok.

“RZ” has an amazingly calm & focused energy. There is a very clear personality already there.

A few notes on the name, it’s an old family name from Jessica’s side. Arzelia was Jessica’s grandfather’s favorite Aunt.

Jane was my own great aunt, a woman who loved my father deeply and believed in him when he really needed it. I remember Aunt Janey from my earliest childhood, and the ring I asked Jessica to marry me with has one of Aunt Janey’s diamonds on it.

About 2 hours after RZ was born, Jessica went to sleep and I followed RZ & a nurse down to the infant care unit.

The nurse taught me how to give her a bath, I changed my first diaper, plus they “footprinted” her, using me as a blotter.

and then RZ needed to be under a heat lamp to warm back up after her bath.

Among the rows of babies, I sat there next to her, one of her tiny hands gripping my finger. We looked at each other without a sound for a long, long time. Then she drifted off to sleep and that little hand relaxed & fell away.

Everything is different now. And there, finally, at 4am, I found myself physically shaking with emotion, exhaustion, love, and that tsunami of realizations common to new parents.

With my back to the nurses so they could not see, I cried & cried, while my child slept peacefully, soundly.

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There is an urban legend in Salt Lake City, about a Pizza that unfailingly brings pregnant women into labor.

As Jess is now quite overdue, she has tried many other home remedies like acupressure, a pedicure, extra long walks, and jumping around as the NY Giants beat the Steelers, so a Pizza sounded like a good idea.

The myth said the Pizza was located at Café Trio, so we went there & asked the staff for the “labor inducing Pizza” and they smiled, & said, “Ah, yes, we know exactly the one people talk about.”

The Menu said it was a chicken pizza with garlic, onions, mushrooms, & fontina cheese.

What the menu did not indicate is that there are at least 2 full heads of roasted garlic & fistfuls of mushrooms under that glistening cheese. Wow.

Omigosh it was good! But unfortunately, no labor; Or maybe I ate too many of the yummy garlic buds myself, & Jess did not get a “critcal mass” of garlic & ‘shrooms.

Mmmmmmmm–

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Filed under: from home

It’s 7am here in the Mountain West, 8am in Milwaukee. My coffee is half finished, and a thousand miles from here, warmup is underway for the first day of the fall long track world cup qualifier races.

This will be the first time in 5 years I am missing this race. If I didn’t have other mildly important things going on in my life, I’d be very sad.

I know just about every athlete on the start line. So many hopes & dreams, being judged in those few moments where the conscious mind sees this;

That ferocious moment where the nattering, fearful brain turns off, and lets the body do what it has trained it to do. Belief, ability, commitment, talent, all brewing together & turning into an electronic weighing on the scoreboard.

I send my deepest, heartfelt “good luck!” to everyone who is there. It’s too bad there are so few world cup spots. There are so many who work so hard for them.

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Filed under: from the coffee shop

World cup level short track is amazingly exciting, so much so, it’s easy to forget as a spectator the effort & stress the athletes experience to give us thrills from the stands.

I was near the waiting area during the 1500m heats, and was struck by the stony, inward focused silence of those awaiting their race, and the audible whimpering & painful coughing from those who had just raced.

Here is a a 1500m semi-final just hitting warp speed, an international traffic jam into a corner. These guys have some serious skillz!

A tiny moment later out of this crowded corner explodes Hamelin of Canada, Germany, Korea, Levielle of the USA, Britain, Hungary, & Russia.

This action is happening so fast & so quick these days, it looks like the UCI refs have an instant replay system (a great idea). The operator here had a dial he was moving back & forth reviewing the contact between two skaters frame by frame. Note the high tech cardboard “hood”

Travis Jayner, calm & focused among the traffic, pulled off one of the most amazing series of rapid-fire passes I have ever seen. Almost last place here 3 laps to go, then through the burning traffic up to second by the finish in his 1500m semi-final.

Jeff Simon won a bronze medal in the men’s 1,500 meters & Kimberly Derrick turned in a Bronze medal performance in the 1000m. She skated super aggressively, leading the amazing Chinese and Korean skaters as often as she could. To my eyes, US women really seem to like skating from the front, & use raw fitness & power as much as they can to blunt the amazing finishing speed of the Koreans & Chinese.

Due to the media hurricane that follows Apolo everywhere, his fall in the 1000m final attracted much mention. It must feel strange for him at times, being the calm eye in a howling media hurricane. Does he ever wonder, as the Beatles did occasionally, if he is only one out there who has not lost his mind?

Here is his fall, frame by frame. I can’t tell if he hit a rut, if the ice blew away under the pressure, or he booted out.

He hit the wall so hard that professional camera equipment that was resting on the top of it flew everywhere.

What I admire about Apolo’s skating in the World Cup on this day, is not something you will read about in the papers.

His skates were messed up by his impact with the wall. Anthony Lobello told me that in the locker rooms, they were “wailing on his blades with a hammer,” trying to make them skateable before the 5,000m relay semi-final.

Deep into that race, Apolo was obviously struggling with broken equipment he could not trust, he was out of balance & unable to get his best push. You could see it on his face.

The German & British teams were breathing down his neck. Along with Anthony, Jeff & Travis, he still had the determination to hang on & qualify for the relay finals (kudos to Anthony who gave a brilliant relay tag to Apolo, to move the US from 3rd to 2nd at a crucial moment). Jeff looked absolutely freaky strong, & the finals tomorrow will be awesome. Korea, USA, Canada & a surprising Russia.

Ok, I gotta run/ride, I need to get in my own workout before another day in the stands.

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Filed under: from the coffee shop

Jessica’s due date has come & gone, like most new moms, she is late. Or maybe the baby is already taking after the procrastinating dad.

Jess is standing in the middle of a particularly fertile Zucchini plant that has taken over our garden. She is at that final, waddling stage, where she is just ready for it to be over.

I keep trying to write a letter to my kid before they are here. There is so much to say while the slate is still blank. But I start & stall, overwhelmed.

Skating is simpler, and physical therapy is even simpler.

Here is my new best friend, the electric stim machine. The two cords are going to patches on my back, sending electrical impulses clawing their way into my muscles. If you have ever experienced electric stim, what do you think it feels like?

My thought was millions of espresso fed aphids wearing tiny demolition charges wriggling joyously through muscle fibers.

There is a switch on the machine that says “Biphasic Russian.” Having suffered greatly and improved greatly under Russian designed dryland programs, I was both sad & relieved when I found that we were not using this setting.

Also, here I am on a fascinating bit of WWI German technology, A Pilates reformer. The board I am sitting on has springs in it, Except for the arm swing, they wanted me to do what I am doing here. It made me really sore. Kevin Semans & his whole staff at the Sports Medicine Center of Utah are awesome. Thanks guys!

The first couple of days with this injury were quite painful. But it has gotten dramatically better, faster than I hoped it would. So I should be back to full power more quickly than expected. I did not hurt any nerves or joints. It’s just a flesh wound.

In the physical therapy room, I saw many people who were coming back from truly horrific injuries & surgeries. I feel blessed & thankful for my health and durable nature, or is that durable nurture? or both?

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Filed under: baby stuff