Zen and the Art of Speedskating

blah blah blah.. I say more and more blah to you, since you and I exchange blah on a regular basis… maybe an interesting blah??? its entertaining to me at least… the blah blah of our specific, little lives..

I am tossing these words out blindly into the dark, like hurling a stone at a lake in the pitch black of night…. I expend the effort to toss the stone/write the words, and far out in the dark, I cannot see the splash, but I know it landed in the water.. but who is reading the ripples? why did I feel compelled to toss the stone in the first place? Some collect things, some garden, some follow sports teams, I write.. I love the feel of the smooth stone of words in my hands, and I truly enjoy the effort of the throw…

So onward to today’s stone…The last 6 days has been a crazy whirlwind… I karmicly owe a lot to one of my sponsor, John Dimon of Dimon Sports, and I traveled to the Pettit center in Milwaulkee to help him sell speedskates at short track North American championships… That is john and his van here on the right.

I had a blast, but it was 5 exhausting, intense days. We had to be set up and ready before the first skaters came, and we took the stand down and packed up our booth after the last skater left.. this was lots of 14 hour days that started at 6am.

I have never lost my voice before, but these ripped my vocal chords raw, and my jaw was tired from all the talking.. it was nice though, to be back in Milwaukee, where I spent much of the last winter, I saw many of the excellent people I know there, and saw a little bit of some incredible short track skating…

This morning though, I am paying for these long days, I tried to do an easy bike workout, I could simply not turn the pedals.. I drank a ton of coffee and soda this weekend too, and so now I am at higher levels of caffeine addiction than normal… the best coffee I was able to find this morning within walking distance of where I am staying, was the el crapo BP gas station coffee…

oh well, probably its like methadone therapy for a heroin addict, maybe it will let me down easily during an enforced caffeine detox over the next few days..

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Filed under: on the road

The crazed, clawing the walls, freaky, I can’t live unless I get my daily endorphin fix is officially over.. I have spent the last 3 days working on all sorts of things, but I don’t have the addicts craving, the rhytmn in my head and heart to go work out… My coaches wanted 4 weeks of downtime from me, I don’t know why 4 weeks was the magic number, but I gave it to them, Week one was easy, I was tired and emotionally trashed, it was easy to rest, weeks 2 and 3, it was hard to sit still, but there has suddenly been a dramatic change from week 3 to week 4

In the middle of week 4, now I just want to lie around, keep working on learning CSS, take long walks, read blogs on the computer, and do the dishes while listening to BBC Radio. I am not a body anymore; I am a brain with feet… The dog takes my spot in bed the moment I get out of it, gives me a furry look, and sometimes its hard not to return. Lilly was very abused before she came into our lives, and now, seeing her all sprawled out and making happy grunting dog sighs, that is rewarding.

I feel the cables, pistons, and reactors within me slowly disappearing under the surface. When I am training my hardest its almost like I am closest to seeing the raw blueprint of how my body really is. I can feel every muscle and small flexor in my legs & hips as independent entities moving with and against each other, I can feel the anglings of the vertebrae in my back, the sheath of connections, muscular and tendons, that keeps me walking upright, and keeps me crouched over in the unnatural skating position. I can feel the astonishing slosh of energy within me, blood and muscle, like tides moving in and out. I eat, and the grand drug of good food, slowly changes my aura (ok, muscle glycogen levels), and readies me for another challenge.

But they are gone, cables & pistons, the blueprint has receded from view, it’s a memory, not a “right now” truth. I miss it. I frigign love it.

Next week I start up again, lots of easy cycling, high rep lifting, and trying to remold my body, to learn how to skate with a more powerful “cat back” instead of the “cyclists flat back” that I developed during a decade of intense bike racing. To learn to skate with my pelvis rotated forward, not down like on a bike.

Technique technique technique… yeah, that is what this whole next year will be about, it’s how I will go faster. But I love this path, this experience, the gift of understanding the blueprint of myself.

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Filed under: from home

My wife jessica is starting to ramp up the job search process, she came home yesterday with some interview worthy clothes. She looked so smashing I got out the digital camera. None of the pictures I took were as interesting as this one, where the animals came over and were checking her out. I would make some comment on how she cleans up nice, but she usually looks sharp.

Late yesterday we went to see jon stewart of the Daily show last night at Cornell,we went with some friends, one who runs the weather blog cirrus. In person jon stewart is as funny and earnest as he seems from TV. But of course, without the modicum of network propriety in the way, he was far raunchier.

One thing that really struck me when I was there, and we were only 50 feet from the stage, is that we are so used to seeing him on TV, that it was more familiar to watch him on this big TV monitors, instead of looking at his live face, right in front of us. He is a comedian with an amazing facial ability, easily equal to Jim Carey. The Jon on the monitor is the one we know, not the one standing in front of us. Its also easy to forget, since we see him in fake newscaster role on TV, that this fellow is really a professional COMEDIAN, by his professional training. I had engaged in this willful fantasy that he was something else. A journalist or writer who just happens to be funny. But this guy could work saturday night live, or in living color, as a cast member, easy. That is his gift. and wow, what a gift. In person, his talent is absolutely huge.

At the end of the show, there was a breif Q&A, and the final question was an audience member who just wanted to give him a hug. Hug was given. That moment symbolizes how many people feel about him, a sunny beam of laughter in some dark times.

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Filed under: from home

being the smart fellow that I am, I wanted to upgrade wordpress 1.2 (the blogging technology that i use) to wordpress 1.5, the latest release… of course I end up killing my blog entirely, mostly because of my own errors!!! luckily I had viewed it earlier in the day, so I dragged out and saved the cached copy, so I am rebuilding right now…

part of learning anything is the possiblity of making “kill it” mistakes.. I guess I am lucky though, in my wifes upcoming profession (veterinarian), if she makes a mistake, something dies!! but then again, tech-heads don’t get to save lives either, or cut the nads off of puppies… sigh…

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Filed under: from the coffee shop

I am sitting in one of the best examples of the genus/species “cheery morning independent coffeeshop”, if you are one of the fortunate few who live in or frequent gimme coffee in Ithaca NY, you know what i mean… gimme coffee has wireless internet, phenomenal coffee they roast themselves, and its a two block walk from my house…..

Successful coffee shops must have personality, and gimme coffee certainly does, its part of their whole business ethos. Even a starbucks has a very carefully crafted personality. What makes a great coffee shop? that has entirely to do if the coffee shop personality matches your personality….

from my memory of the physical and psychological geography of this country before the explosion of the coffee shop craze, it seemed that coffee really was a gas station thing, or a mandatory drug consumed at home before the drive to work or during finals.. there was little “experience” to coffee, except for the soaring sensation of the drink itself…

if I were a biologist, trying to classify the genus/family/species of “coffee drug delivery mechanisms”, and what are the distinctive characteristics of each, it might go something like this:

1. Cheery morning independent coffee shops: bright, early AM hours, clean, wood floors, frequently plays folk/dylan & light rock, sometimes serves more complicated sandwiches too, elegant pastries/scones/bran muffins are a must, a very diverse clientele, art on walls is gentle impressionism or art photography involving extreme closeups, if they have wireless internet there is often a schmo like me with a laptop in the corner “working”. Always has soy milk available.

2. Upscale/corporate coffeeshops: corporate, steel trim here and there, sells the NYT/USA today/local paper, often carpeted floors in the table section, matching tables, monstrous pastry selection, plays unidentifiable soft music, clientele is usually middle aged professionals, or people with lots of money, people are fervently talking, or reading the business section of the newspaper.

3. Arty collage punk coffeeshops: dark walls, if you can see the walls from underneath the art, must have wireless, often has smoking section, late late late PM hours, mismatching furniture or tables, plays techno-trance-edgy-rock-vibe music, floor looks cheap, whatever it is, food is often out of stock, maybe they sell wrap sandwiches and pizza too, chaotic is a sign of the genuine, the owner is probably younger than you, so is all the clientele, usually has at least 1 or 2 drinks that might be fatal, as they contain 4-7 shots, there is usually a customer in the corner writing in a journal.

4. Wannabe gas stations: 35 airpots of gourmet coffee to choose from, half the airpots are empty, some of the condiments are out, and the coffee can vary between passable and dirty water.. floor is linoleum, no seating, sells krispy kremes/doughnuts as well, music? hah!

5. Drive through “drugs to go” coffeeshop: usually a kiosk near a road, mandatory entertaining name, the floor is your own car, building usually painted red, or yellow, or other bright color to attract attention of sleepy eyes.. think a fishing lure, same color palette, the music is your car radio/cd player, the coffee usually makes your heart pound immediately due to extreme caffeine content.

6. Deli Coffeeshop: these places really started out as sandwich shops, and their menu/layout reflects this, but they discovered the insane profit margin of coffee, and shifted their focus a bit to attract this lucrative crowd of addicts.. name has nothing to do with coffee, large coolers of sandwiches/salads/pastries, 100% food service linoleum floor, no music, sometimes these are in strange locations.

Why am I expounding about coffee shops?? I am in a 4 week break from serious training and its driving me nuts… its as much a psychological thing as a physical “healing” from what I have done to myself over the last year, my body naturally de-trains quickly, and complains to me every step of the way… when I asked one of my coaches “how much should I train” he said “as little as you possibly can.. a good chunk of myself, physically and emotionally is bound up in working out… so not working out is REALLY hard… I mean I am doing some easy XC skiing, and light lifting and ab work, but its almost nothing compared to my usual twice a day efforts..

does this seem crazy? Olympic trials are less than 10 months away, shouldn’t I be training my brains out? actually, one of the fascinating things about the human body is that even though our minds love routine and patterns (how many gym-inhabitants have done the same workout every gym trip since they joined?) to improve a physical performance capacity we must constantly break routine and habit…

as soon as we have adopted to one type of physical stress, we really have to change the stress to get better.. its a basic concept of training periodization, I change how I lift every 4 weeks, for example… I have been in a routine and habit of training for a year now.. so I need to break the stress and habits of training for a bit, to reach higher fitness levels later… even Lance Armstrong doesn’t ride much for a month… the soul needs it too, I love to skate, so when I get a little sick of putting them on, (and I was the last month of the season) its time to take a break..

hmmm, my coffee cup is empty… time for more!! also I think i will mess about with the header of this blog, put a more atmospheric image in there..
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Filed under: from the coffee shop