Monday

cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Just some riding shots
19
Oct 15

Just some riding shots

Got out and rode a bit this weekend, putting in 40 easy miles and still trying to figure out where I left my legs. Maybe everything will come back this week, I figure. If not I’ll have to drive over to Georgia and see if I dropped them somewhere.

This is one of the big sprints in town.

My app says I only got up to 27.4 miles per hour. So I’m still tired and sore and slow. Or, normal.

I found a new piece of scenery. Turns out there is a pond at town creek. You have to go behind the park and down some paths to find it. But the view is worth it, even as the sun was going down. This was just to add a few turns to the crankset while running an errand.

You go down this hill, it bends a little to the left and then straightens out and turns back to the right and then you take the hard right into another hill. When there’s a car behind you you can actually handle this little stretch and create some distance between you, which is pretty neat.

The same hill, just looking up the other way.

I got to run an errand on my bike. I never get to do that, because I’m never here for it. Doing it felt good, comforting, somehow. Of course it was up the big hill.

cycling / maps / Monday / photo / running / swimming / triathlon — Comments Off on We did a half Ironman this weekend
12
Oct 15

We did a half Ironman this weekend

In Macon, Georgia it rained. We’d traveled over Friday night, stayed in a hotel and woke up early to get rained on. That wouldn’t be a problem. There was to be a fair amount of swimming on Saturday. Then there was lightning and big shuddering clumps of thunder. It rained and rained, everything was cold and wet and the lightning stayed around long enough to drive away the darkness.

For a time it seemed there would be no race. I talked to the race director who spelled out his options. The best option was that we’d have the full race. The longer the storm hovered over us, the less of the race we’d have. And it all came down to the formal start time. So I went back to the car and shivered from the cold rain and waited. I shivered and waited long enough that I started to hope the storm canceled the swim. The swim is my weakest segment of the triathlon. The rest of them aren’t particularly strong, mind you.

The storm pushed on through. And the race started just a few minutes late, which seemed an impressive feat while standing on the beach. Nothing else seemed impressive at the moment, though. I didn’t have enough time to finish my setup in transition, I was tripping over myself trying to put my wetsuit on while hustling down to the beach. I hadn’t had enough time to fill up the water bottles for my bike. It was a bad way to start.

But then the race itself started. It was a wave start. You go in with others in your age group. My age group launched second, so I didn’t have to wait around and get more anxious about it at least. I spent my time trying to count the buoys, make sure the wetsuit was fitting right and was in the water before I knew it.

There are two things about the swim everyone must consider. First, the cliche is that the race isn’t won in the swim, but it can be lost there. Well. I am no danger to the guys who were going to win the race. The second thing is that you have to try to not get your heart rate too elevated in the swim. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Well, a half marathon, but that’s a few hours away.

I’m swimming about 3,000 yards per workout in the pool right now. So I know I can cover the distance, which is 2,100 yards, or 1.2 miles. I know from experience that the first 300 yards of my swim are the worst. It takes that long to get my arms warmed up. I just wanted to keep my group in site for that long. I was pleased when my arms came around early in the swim and I was still surrounded by swim caps. And then I managed to hang on to the back of the pack throughout the rest of the swim, despite getting completely turned around in the lake twice. And by completely, I mean, facing the wrong direction.

Out of the water, off the beach, up the hill and into transition. I finished my prep, because I missed out early in the rainy setup period. Ran my bike over to the nearest barely-working water fountain and then started pedaling out of Macon’s Sandy Beach Park.

road

For 56 miles I pedaled. The course was described in such a way that led you to believe it was moderately flat. It was a little more hilly than that. More problematic was that the hills are a different kind of climb than what we’re accustomed to at home. That probably makes more sense if you spend a lot of time struggling to get up a hill. But it was a nice course; the roads were quiet, the route was pretty. The only real civilization was Roberta, a town of about 1,000 people, that served as the turnaround point.

I had to stop a few times, once for an apparel problem, once to refill water bottles and so on, and I was rather disappointed in my overall ride. I blame the hills. Around mile 53 I was ready to be done. Around mile 40 was when I let out my first harsh exclamation of the day. We drove the course the night before and I predicted when that would happen and I was right.

Before that I saw the cool Georgia Post building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

I also saw a really great old store sign that I wanted to go back and snap a picture. I didn’t stop on my ride, though, and we didn’t go back. This was about 17 miles into the course:

Which brings us to the run. After swimming 1.2 miles and riding 56 miles up and down the hills of central Georgia, I had to run 13.1 miles through the shadeless subdivisions of a few neighborhoods.

Remember, I said at mile 53 I was done? I found I was done again after the first mile of the run. And then at the fourth mile. This problem recurred pretty much on cue between miles eight through 12. But I got that emotional, finisher’s bit of steam after that.

triathlon

I finished within four minutes of my worst-case scenario time. (Which was very slow, because I am quite slow.) We got our pictures taken at the finish line and, what do you know, we got the car loaded up just as another round of rain came through.

Saturday, we conquered 70.3.

I do not know what is happening.

journalism / Monday / photo — Comments Off on How long does it take you to ride up Everest, anyway?
5
Oct 15

How long does it take you to ride up Everest, anyway?

Here is my social media practices class. They’re pretending to like me, I’m sure. Also, I was using this for an app demonstration, so they were interested in that a little. It is a fun group, and will hopefully be even better as the term goes along:

class

Things to read: They call it “Everesting.” You climb to the elevation of Mt. Everest. On our state’s highest mountain you’re going to have a 190-mile day in the saddle:

The cyclists returned to the base at about 35-minute intervals, after completing 9-mile laps around a segment of the mountain. For energy boosts, they took shots of maple syrup.

Hard. Core.

Here are two stories from Oregon that need to be read. These are the sorts that would sort of be diminished by excerpts, but give them a look.

‘Heroic’ Veteran Chris Mintz Was Shot 7 Times

Oregon shooting hero tells gunman, ‘It’s my son’s birthday today’

This is an interesting read for those interested in the craft of journalism, How a reporter captured the moment a fifth grader found out she was HIV positive:

THE MOMENT 10-YEAR-OLD JJ learned she has HIV had been carefully orchestrated for months. But for reporter John Woodrow Cox, documenting this moment and the events leading up to it were an exercise in not telling: not writing crucial details that would reveal JJ’s identity to the public, not attending events where his own identity as a reporter could compromise JJ’s privacy. “Our priority was not to expose her,” Cox says.

JJ, a fifth-grader, is one of the many children who have been born with HIV since the AIDS crisis started in the 1980s. She nearly died from pneumonia at birth. She struggled to take the medications necessary to manage her illness, along with ADHD and, later, depression. During all of this, her doctors at Children’s National Medical Center and her adoptive mother, Lee, worried over the appropriate time to tell her about her manageable but stigmatized disease.

Finally, this is said to be every photograph an astronaut has taken on the moon. You’ll like that.

football / I do not know what is happening. / Monday / photo / running / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Used to walk down it; now I run up it
28
Sep 15

Used to walk down it; now I run up it

I had a nice eight-mile run this weekend. Eight miles isn’t a lot, maybe, but it is a big number for me. This is only the second time I’ve run that far on purpose. I’m pleased with how it all worked, except for my overall time. I’m pretty slow, you see. Anyway, it gave me views like this, views I normally see on my bicycle:

field

This is not a view I normally see on my bike, because I don’t care for it. It is one of the bigger hills around, and it feels a little more severe on your legs than it does through a windshield or a computer monitor. I’ve shattered myself on this hill every time I’ve been up it on my bike. But I ran up it Saturday:

field

I do not know what is happening.

This isn’t the first one of these that you’ve seen, probably. It is a football celebration shot by both the school’s staff, but also their fans. It won’t be the last video you see like this. Storytelling is now a collaborative endeavor.

Sometimes you see stories of young people and think, ‘These leaders of tomorrow have it figured out.’ In grief, high school athletes show us the healing power of sportsmanship:

For those that are unaware, last year’s game between Davidson High School and Charles Henderson High School was marred by the death of a Charles Henderson High School student – Demario Harris. Demario died after sustaining an injury during the game between the two schools.

[…]

This brings us to this week and the events that took place. Throughout the week the students at Davidson High School have been selling orange shirts with the number 10 and Demario Harris’ name on it – which all of the band had on underneath their uniforms. The school purchased a plaque to present to Coach Brad McCoy and the players of Charles Henderson High School. There was a moment of silence for Demario and prayer for his family and community that are still grieving. None of which was expected of Davidson to do, nor were they obligated to do. Not to mention, it was homecoming week and the homecoming game.

And, I suppose, that is how you make the most of something that no high school kid should have to experience. And that’s a shame that had to come their way, but good for them, and the people around them.

Said goodbye to my in-laws today. They came in late last week. We took them to see the raptors, to see a football game, hosted a nice little party and a fancy dinner one night.

Also, we did this:

field

Lovely time.

links / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off on On design, tea and today’s quality of life
21
Sep 15

On design, tea and today’s quality of life

I have a friend who is a designer. Specifically an architecture, communicative environment, and product design specialist. Basically he creates things, and judges the rest of the things. I think that’s what he does. Interesting fellow. Full of explanations for how things work, why they work and, sometimes, how things ought to work.

He’s the sort that, when you talk to him enough, you start trying to imagine what he’d say about this handgrip or the size of that door knob or the spacing of those signs. It is the shared experience of understanding his experience, while having no qualifications whatsoever to match his experience.

if you’ve ever seen a photograph of a right angle sidewalk and the path worn in the grass cutting the corner labeled “Design” and “User experience” then you understand that. I felt like that today:

Tea

So I sent him that picture. And he simply wrote back “Like there’s need for such a thing as un-sweet tea.” Which I took to mean, “There’s no need to wax on about the employee addition of non-linear, open-manipulated, closed-environment design systems using upward communication for uncertainty avoidance. Let’s just say we only need one, you know, for the real tea.”

Which is a hard argument to overcome, as far as I can tell.

I will watch every one of these I see, because they are all amazing and unique and wonderful and provide the glimpse of young people that we all need from time to time. And this one is local:

I bet you didn’t know you needed a modular Nerf gun. You need a modular Nerf gun.

Not because of that, but … We’re Living Through the Greatest Period in World History:

The problem, the doctor said, is that these advances happen slowly over time, so you probably don’t hear about them. If cancer survival rates improve, say, 1% per year, any given year’s progress looks low, but over three decades, extraordinary progress is made.

Compare health-care improvements with the stuff that gets talked about in the news — NBC anchor Andrea Mitchell interrupted a Congresswoman last week to announce Justin Bieber’s arrest — and you can understand why Americans aren’t optimistic about the country’s direction. We ignore the really important news because it happens slowly, but we obsess over trivial news because it happens all day long.

Expanding on my belief that everything is amazing and nobody is happy, here are 50 facts that show we’re actually living through the greatest period in world history.

Unfortunate as it is when someone has to visit a doctor for a procedure, I’m always interested to hear about the latest thing and the faster recuperation or the newest therapy. Everything, as Louis C.K. says, is amazing:

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