cycling

cycling / I do not know what is happening. / iPhone / photo / running — Comments Off on A quick summation
8
Jul 14

A quick summation

Tour de France, World Cup, laundry and work. It was a day of watching little people go very fast over flat terrain, German going fast over Brazil, things drying fast in the dryer and composing emails slowly.

I rode a bit of the time trial course today. Thought I was taking it easy, but the computer was impressed. We’ll credit the new shoes, which still require some tinkering in fixing the cleats.

I almost passed a car and I didn’t feel like I was working especially hard. The point today, for me, was just to stretch out my legs, work out the last of the stiffness from my Sunday run and get in a little run at the end. It wasn’t a brick workout — combining two elements of a triathlon, and probably so named because of what it feels like in your legs — but I wanted to do something like a mini-brick. So I got in 13 miles of easy pedaling on the bike and one mile of jogging in the neighborhood, just to get moving, to keep moving, but not overtax myself.

I do not know what is happening.

And, now, a picture from last night of The Yankee and our friends’ dog, Trixie:

golf

There’s a fine line between patience and stubbornness in a dog. Trixie lives there. Her trainers, apparently, called her a stump, because when she doesn’t want to go, you won’t move her. So she’s easy to take pictures of, even with a phone in low light.

cycling / history / I do not know what is happening. / journalism / links / things to read / video / weekend — Comments Off on This car makes jumps
5
Jul 14

This car makes jumps

The world around you is one of the things a bicycle teaches you about. Things look different. Terrain is different. You come to understand that those aren’t two hills, but really one hill you approach from multiple directions.

The most important thing I have learned, so far, is that it has taught me not to judge. You never know what someone is going through, which is the personification of the “Walk a mile in my shoes” concept, which is writ large in my head every time I’m struggling to top a hill. Those people driving those cars don’t know, I tell myself.

Some of them probably do, but the point is that it can be hard.

Another important thing the bike teaches you is about more roads. Eventually you start looking for new routes, new challenges, new approaches to that same hill. I found some of those today, in part because I saw a neat road name on a map. The road is about four miles from our house and I’ve passed it dozens of times on my bike alone. But playing with cycling routes on a map led me to answering the question “What’s down there?” The answer was a private driveway.

And this:

General Lee

Had a difficult with the new shoes. They, surprise, didn’t feel right for most of the ride today, but I figured it out as soon as I got home and took them off. And it was an easy fix. Hopefully that will be taken care of today.

I went through three new neighborhoods today, though, and two of them I’ll return to again. The third featured a bad stretch of road that overruled the two extra rides up that same hill mentioned above. In just over half of the distance I climbed more than I will in next weekend’s triathlon. And, with that and the time trialing I did yesterday, I will begin to taper off the workouts.

Tapering, like I have a training plan. Like I’m an athlete.

Aside from the pretending, I do not know what is happening.

Things to read … so you’ll know what is happening.

The best thing you’ll read today: A Janitor’s Ten Lessons in Leadership

Rare, Remarkable Maps Trace America’s Path to Independence

Roger Simon: America’s glorious failures

‘Flying Farmer’ recalls WWII service

Total US Ad Spending to See Largest Increase Since 2004

Guardian Australia: lessons in online-only publications

Have I mentioned I need a drone? I need a drone.

Fireworks may be the most temporal of celebrations, and you’ve already moved on, I know, but that’s just awesome.

I can’t adequately describe this video, but I’d suppose the individual reaction to it is informative.

Now go back to your three-day weekend!

Auburn / cycling / I do not know what is happening. / running / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Phil, princes, pictures
2
Jul 14

Phil, princes, pictures

They gathered in the stadium of the 2,000 student school in the town of 56,000, which is a suburb of Atlanta. His coaches talked and his college coaches talked and his father talked and the sun set a remarkable shade of orange and blue and people thought, “Oh, Phil is a painter.”

And they lit candles and laughed and hugged and shared tears for what they’ve lost, what we’ve lost, and tried to imagine what his family has lost. And none of it was enough, but a lot of it was just right. There are eulogies and then there are eulogies. And this video played:

And it wasn’t at all about football. His sister tells you what it is about.

I rode one of the regular routes today. I did it in new cycling shoes. I couldn’t decide if trying new shoes less than two weeks before a triathlon was a good idea, and I still can’t decide, but here we are. It will take me a while to figure them out and how to avoid mishaps with them, but they are lighter.

Why all of that matters, in as much as it does. You’re familiar with the fairy tale of the princess and the pea? I’m a lot like that on the bike, which is to say I’m an elite athlete in tune with myself and the machinery I’m using. Of course that’s not the case, but I notice things that make The Yankee roll her eyes.

When I swapped from Continental tires to kevlar trainers, I noticed a big drop off in performance. When I swapped from the kevlar tires to Gatorskins, I noticed an improvement. When I changed water bottles, I could tell the new ones were heavier. I didn’t notice that in my hand, mind you, but I filled them up, put them in their cages and pedaled away and felt it within just a few strokes.

So these shoes are lighter. And, in cycling, lighter is better. I feel like they pull up better, too. These are clipless shoes, of course, which bolt you onto the pedals. They have two advantages, allowing you to pull up on your pedal stroke as well as push down. This exercises some different leg muscles. Also, the pros use them and you want to look like them despite the different sensations and the possibility of disaster that comes with them.

Falling in clipless shoes is something of a rite of passage. I’ve done it a few times. Once in front of a police officer and once in front of fire fighters. Both were embarrassing and only slightly painful. It takes a bit of time to train your foot to come out of the pedals and to do it in time. Hence the falling and the rite of passage and the skinned elbows and things.

With these new shoes, they feel like I’m starting over with the whole thing. That’s odd since the cleats are exactly the same. The pedals are exactly the same. The shoe feels different, and the sole is different, and I am the prince with the pea.

So I rode 18 miles and ran a 5K today. It was very warm out, both times. Also, I’ve been dragging the last few days and am in one of the inexplicable phases of not eating very much. It felt pretty good, though.

I do not know what is happening.

Nice picture and all .. You don’t often expect great lines from Instagram, but this one has it.

cycling / I do not know what is happening. / running / swimming — Comments Off on Last month’s workouts
1
Jul 14

Last month’s workouts

Here’s what I did last month. The red is on the bike, which was limited. The dark blue is running and the light blue is in the pool, which was especially limited. It isn’t nearly enough for where I’d like to be.

calendar

It isn’t nearly enough.

cycling / friends / history / links / Monday / things to read / Twitter — Comments Off on Monday titles always suffer
30
Jun 14

Monday titles always suffer

In the middle or late part of the evening yesterday we decided we’d run a brick, which is a workout where you combine two of the three elements of a triathlon. We decided to ride for an hour and then run for an hour.

So we we rode out of town as far as we could for a half hour. I went 32 minutes, which is nothing, but that got me to an intersection, a gas station and a turnaround. I thought I would race myself back, beat my time and all of that. Which is about the time my knee ligaments started hurting, so I slowed it down and still almost beat myself back home.

After which we started to run. Sometimes when you run, or when I run, at least, you just don’t feel it. You have to figure out when your body is telling you something and when your body is lying to you. Today I decided that it was not a day to run. Didn’t feel it, didn’t want it, didn’t press it.

And so that was that.

We had barbecue for dinner with a friend last night, that made it all a bit better. Tonight we dined with other friends who made jerk chicken, which was even better.

Things to read … because reading makes everything better.

If you don’t pay for it, you are the product. Or the research subject. Everything We Know About Facebook’s Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment:

And on Sunday afternoon, Adam D.I. Kramer, one of the study’s authors and a Facebook employee, commented on the experiment in a public Facebook post. “And at the end of the day, the actual impact on people in the experiment was the minimal amount to statistically detect it,” he writes. “Having written and designed this experiment myself, I can tell you that our goal was never to upset anyone. […] In hindsight, the research benefits of the paper may not have justified all of this anxiety.”

Kramer adds that Facebook’s internal review practices have “come a long way” since 2012, when the experiment was run.

There is a possibility that the sorry state of scientific research funding contributes to all of this. There’s also the possibility that, at some future date, some future lawsuits over this situation are landmark things we teach in research.

There’s more on IRB, the APA ethics and the notion of informed consent at the link.

Since we are at the 100-year anniversary of the beginning of World War I, here’s a good historical read with an Alabama hook. ‘There was never a braver lad:’ Alabama’s Osmond Kelly Ingram was first US sailor killed in WWI:

Ingram, 30, was aboard the Cassin off the Irish coast on Oct. 15, 1917 when the ship was attacked by a German submarine U-61. Ingram was cleaning the muzzle of a gun after morning target practice when he spotted a torpedo on a direct course for the ship. The Cassin began evasive maneuvers which seemed to have worked until the torpedo “porpoised,” or jumped out of the water, and turned towards the Cassin, Navy historians report.

Ingram, realizing the torpedo would hit near the depth charges at the ship’s stern, ran to release them in an effort to minimize the explosion and save the vessel.

Sadly, one of the first Americans killed at sea in World War II was from Alabama. The first American killed in Afghanistan was from Alabama too. One of the first Americans killed in Iraq was from here, too.

What will change Twitter? Twitter Rolls Out App Install And Engagement Ads, And New Click Pricing, Globally:

Twitter says that in the last quarter it made about 72 percent of all its revenues (equivalent to $181 million out of total revenues of $250 million) from mobile advertising.

On top of the app install ads, Twitter will also be expanding the kinds of reporting and analytics that app publishers will get around them.

The company says that keyword targeting in the ads will follow that of its other mobile units, with publishers able to set placement based on interest, keyword, gender, geographic location, language and mobile device, among other things.

This is all very logical. This will be very useful for those advertising in Twitter, and will refine things somewhat for consumers.

There is another plan that could come to fruition, which would be less useful. I remind you of, or introduce you to, what my friend @IkePigott said earlier this year:

In their last quarter Twitter reported $250 million in revenue — and $181 million in mobile advertising. This is all very big business.

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