tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30615772024-03-05T22:46:56.816-05:00Jacob's Land of Bliss and BlistersWhere the crap "just keep(s) coming, like the punishing fists of a well-conditioned boxer when the bellman has fallen asleep." -- Quote stolen from <a href="http://theprettiestdennyswaitress.blogspot.com/">Mickey</a>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.comBlogger902125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-79216235087499228442017-03-30T10:35:00.001-04:002017-03-30T10:35:59.300-04:00Confessions of a Girls Coach<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am not a woman. I have never been a girl.<br />
<br />
But I am a coach of girls teams.<br />
<br />
I have coached girls for as long as I have coached. My first coaching gig was tennis where I coached both girls and boys. After leaving tennis, I became a high school girls soccer coach.<br />
<br />
Well, technically, I'm the girls' assistant coach, but the head coach is also the basketball coach and the seasons overlap so we don't get to have her with us until after our first quarter of the season is already passed. Because of this, we function more like co-head coaches with me focusing on soccer skills and tactics and her focusing on conditioning and the mental aspects of being an athlete.<br />
<br />
I had originally signed up to coach soccer to make sure some of my male students who had been pushing for a team got a coach who took both them and the sport seriously, but I was actually okay with being assigned to the girls. One of our other teachers had been a soccer coach who founded a program at his previous school. Since the boys who were going to be on our team had actually been playing competitively on teams in the adult league organized by our local Catholic church for years, I didn't feel comfortable coaching a team where the players knew more than me.<br />
<br />
The girls were different. Whereas the boys' team was entirely Hispanic except for one, my girls were more diverse. A third of the team was Hispanic. We had a team-building thing in our first year where we asked our girls why they were playing. Many of these girls talked about they'd always wanted to play but they were never allowed. They had watched their brothers and dads play and were excited to get the chance to have their own team. Talk about motivation to be a good coach. Another third were athletes who'd never played soccer, but were coming from softball and basketball to play their second sport. The final third had never played any organized sport. They just thought soccer sounded fun. Some coaches would see this is a disaster waiting to happen. I saw it as an opportunity. This lack of experience would allow me to read, watch, and research my way to keeping my soccer coaching skills ahead of my team's playing ability.<br />
<br />
And it worked. A lot of teams in our area started teams the same year we did. We beat them all in our first season. We even beat a team with an actual history, and we had a chance of making the playoffs until our star scorer, a softball player who had never played before, was injured halfway through the season. Our second season has been even better. We have a good chance of ending the season with our first winning record and making the playoffs. We've done well as a team.<br />
<br />
But I have noticed something I didn't notice about girls' sports in my work with tennis and cross country. Coaches and referees treat our girls differently than they treat our boys. There are no officials in those sports in high school and there's never any legal contact, but soccer is different.<br />
<br />
We don't have a youth program in our county and none of our players have more than one year of experience. We can't rely on crisp passing, smart runs, and perfect positioning to win games. We work on those skills and we're usually better at those things than the teams we beat, but we have to hustle. We have to be aggressive, and I don't mean we play dirty. Soccer is actually a contact sport. You're not allowed to pull, trip, or push an opposing player, but if you're both going for the same ball, you are allowed to use shoulder-to-shoulder contact to keep your opponent from getting the ball. We coach our girls to be persistent and aggressive defenders without fouling. It's the same way the boys play.<br />
<br />
Coaching girls this way is natural for me. The women in my family tend to be confident and bold, or at least give off the outward appearance of being that way. My sister was an aggressive and competitive athlete and the other members of my family encouraged those traits in her. I'm pretty sure that part of her personality was what my dad loved most about her. Coaching my girls to play the way my sister would have played is natural to me. It's a challenge, especially since many of these girls have been encouraged to be the opposite and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/opinion/sunday/why-do-we-teach-girls-that-its-cute-to-be-scared.html?_r=0" target="_blank">discouraged from taking risks</a> their whole lives. Well, except the softball and basketball players. Those girls are used to being athletes even when they aren't used to be soccer players. The girls seem to respect our head coach and me, though, and we've gradually developed them into a team more willing to take risks and unafraid to be aggressive on the field.<br />
<br />
Except that frequently when they play the way we ask them to play, the refs caution our girls to stop being so aggressive, especially when they see an opposing attacker starting to get frustrated by our girls keeping them from being able to pass or shoot easily. I have seen refs caution one of our girls for playing too aggressively when she hadn't even touched the other player. I've never seen them do the same to one of our boys unless the boys actually committed a foul.<br />
<br />
Even worse, I often get stories after the game where refs were making flirtatious comments or commenting on the girls' appearance during the game. DURING THE GAME. This isn't just from the college kids we get as refs sometimes, but from middle aged men older than me.<br />
<br />
This frustrates me, especially that it doesn't seem to seem weird to the girls. I want to make my team a place where these girls learn that they can still be women even if they're willing to stand up for themselves and fight for something, that they don't lose their femininity just because they want to be an athlete. It hurts when I see parents who clearly don't take what their daughters do as seriously as what their sons are doing athletically.<br />
<br />
But I can let my girls know that I take them seriously as athletes, that I take pride in their successes, that I love seeing them be tough on the field, that even if their parents aren't in the stands that my parents are there (and they usually leave before the boys finish their game after ours).<br />
<br />
I'd love to be one of those guys who, because he doesn't notice it in his own life, dismisses women who talk about the problems they face in a society that is less sexist than it was in my grandparents' time, but is still not entirely fair to them. Because I care about these girls (and my sister and my wife, and my daughter), I can't dismiss it. I think it's important that more of us stop dismissing it.<br />
<br />
And in the grander scheme of things, sports don't even matter. I like to think that some of the things we teach our girls about not being afraid to make a mistake, not being afraid to ask for what you want, not being afraid to be competitive will transfer to their future lives. I don't know if it will, but when a girl works up the courage to ask me about playing time, I consciously work to explain to her what I need to see from her in order for her to get that shot. She won't always get that response in life, but maybe my treating her with respect and giving her an explanation and a plan to get what she wants may make her a little less hesitant to ask in the future when the consequences of her asking are much more important than just a place on a soccer field.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-1528906914810846252015-09-05T16:46:00.001-04:002015-09-05T16:46:16.213-04:00What If College Football Had Promotion and Relegation?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If you follow sports outside of the United State (or even American soccer where this is a constant low-level debate), you know about promotion and relegation. Many European professional leagues have a system where the best teams in a pro league get advanced to a higher league and the worst teams get demoted. This ensures that the best teams play each other and gives the fans a more balanced league, especially with the lack of the salary caps that keep the teams in American sports closer together.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The problem is that American professional sports work in a very different manner than European sports. In Europe, most teams are independent of the leagues in which they play. In the US, almost all professional teams are actually franchises of the league. Convincing owners who paid hundreds of millions of dollars to bring in a change that would potentially drop their property out of the top league will be impossible. There's a chance that the lower professional and amateur soccer leagues in the US may eventually band together to create a pro/rel system in US soccer, but it's likely that MLS will remain in the American format above all of that even if it comes to pass. After all, the players go where the money is and the money will stay where the safety is. Pro/rel is inherently risky, meaning owners with deeper pockets will just skip straight to the guarantee of MLS.</div>
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<div>
College football is entirely different. The teams exist outside of the league. Alabama is perfectly free to leave NCAA and join NAIA, USCAA, or even band together with other schools to form their own league. The NCAA dominates this area, though, and it is already set up into tiers. It would be really simple to make a few changes and introduce promotion and relegation to college football. The FCS (second tier of college football) playoffs would decide which teams would replace the worst four or eight FBS (top tier) teams. Same thing for Division II to the FCS and the Division III to Division II.</div>
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<br /></div>
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There are problems, though. Currently, there are way too many teams in every level to make this fair. To make matters worse, there are few rules about scheduling to ensure a fair schedule by which to compare teams. Going undefeated in the American Conference (previously the Big East) when all of your nonconference games were basically the easiest teams you could find is not even as impressive as going 9-3 in SEC or Pac-12.</div>
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Even the power conferences like the SEC and Pac-10 have their share of teams that are consistently crap and are there really only to make the conference look better academically (Vanderbilt and Duke) or because of their basketball prowess (Kentucky and Duke). With pro/rel, this problem is minimized.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The Top Tier</h3>
</div>
<div>
Here's how I say we fix that problem. Let's start at the top. The top tier will be a coast-to-coast conference of the best 14 teams in the nation at the end of the previous season. Every team would play every other team in that conference one time to make a 13-game schedule with no cupcakes. Every week you'd have seven games with prime-time quality match ups. There's no room for cupcakes and because of this, the NCAA can charge a ton for the TV rights to this league. Because of the increased costs for travel, these proceeds would help offset those costs for these teams.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Here would be the 2015 National Premier Conference:</div>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Ohio State</li>
<li>Oregon</li>
<li>TCU</li>
<li>Alabama</li>
<li>Michigan State</li>
<li>Florida State</li>
<li>Baylor</li>
<li>Georgia Tech</li>
<li>Georgia</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Mississippi State</li>
<li>Arizona State</li>
<li>Wisconsin</li>
<li>Mizzou</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
This is a very diverse conference. You have everything from the Pacific Northwest, to southern California to Florida to the Great Lakes. Sorry, but the Northeast kind of sucks at football.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The Second Tier</h3>
</div>
<div>
The teams in the second tier would be the majority of teams currently in the power 5 conferences, at least for the first year. Teams would be organized based on geography and density of schools into five conferences. The Southeast Conference (SEC) would be comprised of schools in the southeast, mostly the current SEC and southern ACC schools. The Northeast Conference (NEC) would be the northern ACC teams, some of the American Conference, and the easternmost Big Ten teams. The Northern Midwestern Conference (NMWC) would be the bulk of the Big Ten and the northernmost Big 12. The Southern Midwestern Conference would be the bulk of the Big Twelve, western SEC schools, and easternmost Pac 12 schools. The Western Conference (WC) would be the largest in square miles, but would basically be the current Pac 12 and Boise State.<br />
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All current mid-major conference (teams in the BCS that never got automatic bids to the BCS bowls) would be excluded unless they made the final top 25 ranking in the AP Poll. Those teams would form the pool that the third tier would pull from.<br />
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This is what your 2015 NCAA Second Tier would look like:<br />
<br />
SEC<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Florida</li>
<li>Tennessee</li>
<li>South Carolina</li>
<li>Kentucky</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Ole Miss</li>
<li>Auburn</li>
<li>LSU</li>
<li>Clemson</li>
<li>Miami</li>
<li>UCF</li>
<li>Memphis</li>
<li>Georgia Southern</li>
<li>Appalachian State</li>
</ul>
<div>
NEC</div>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Boston College</li>
<li>Syracuse</li>
<li>Pittsburgh</li>
<li>Virginia Tech</li>
<li>Virginia</li>
<li>Maryland</li>
<li>Rutgers</li>
<li>Penn State</li>
<li>NC State</li>
<li>Wake Forest</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>North Carolina</li>
<li>West Virginia</li>
<li>Navy</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div>
<div>
NMWC</div>
</div>
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Louisville</li>
<li>Cincinnati</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Indiana</li>
<li>Nebraska</li>
<li>Minnesota</li>
<li>Iowa</li>
<li>Illinois</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Purdue</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Bowling Green</li>
<li>North Dakota State</li>
<li>Marshall</li>
</ul>
<div>
SMWC</div>
<br />
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Arkansas</li>
<li>Texas A&M</li>
<li>Kansas State</li>
<li>Oklahoma</li>
<li>Texas</li>
<li>Oklahoma State</li>
<li>Texas Tech</li>
<li>Kansas</li>
<li>Iowa State</li>
<li>Texas State</li>
<li>Louisiana Lafayette</li>
<li>Arkansas State</li>
<li>Louisiana Tech</li>
</ul>
<div>
WC</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>BYU</li>
<li>Boise State</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Washington</li>
<li>Cal</li>
<li>Oregon State</li>
<li>Washington State</li>
<li>Arizona</li>
<li>USC</li>
<li>Utah</li>
<li>Colorado</li>
<li>Colorado State</li>
<li>Utah State</li>
<li>Air Force</li>
</ul>
<div>
Teams in these conferences would only play games within their conferences until bowl season when the teams at the top would play each other for the right of promotion. The top teams in each conference would play a mini tournament to decide which four teams get promoted to the NPC and which remain in their regional conference. Conferences would be reshuffled slightly each year to keep them balanced in number and as small, geographically, as possible.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A few notes on this list: The easiest conference to make was the SEC. The Southeast is the heart and soul of college football. While the NFL is the most popular sports league in the country, people in the south are often more passionate about their favorite college team than they are about the nearest NFL team. While the Falcons have been usually good in recent years, as much as it pains me to admit this as a Georgia Tech fan, UGA football is the most popular sports team in the state. People in Alabama barely even know what the NFL is compared to the rivalry between Alabama and Auburn. I had to drag in a few mid-major teams to fill out the new SEC, but the teams I added are solid teams with histories of exceptional achievement. Georgia Southern came into the FBS last year and won their conference in the first year. While still in the FCS, Southern scored more points against the 2011 Alabama Crimson Tide than any other team that year and that included the combined total for the ranked LSU team that played them twice that season. Last year they lost by less than a touchdown to both Georgia Tech and NC State. In 2013, they beat Florida. Appalachian State didn't have quite the successful entrance to FBS, but they were still good and have a history of being the most-likely regular-season loss for Georgia Southern.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The NMWC was perhaps the most difficult conference to fill. Despite having the 2014 national champion and a college football history only matched by Texas and the SEC, it turned out to be not as deep of a region than either the Southeast or south central. The worst teams in this conference are among some of the most likely to be relegated. This conference is also the only one to pull a team out of the current third second tier in the NCAA. North Dakota State is the only FCS team on this list, but they may be one of the teams least likely to be relegated. NDSU dominates the FCS and has won the last four national championships at that level. The also have an 8-0 record against teams already in this second tier since 2010.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Each level below the second tier would be organized in a similar way.</div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Predictions</h3>
<div>
The most likely teams to be relegated from the top tier in this hypothetical 2015 would be Arizona State, Wisconsin, Mississippi State, and Georgia. Arizona State has been inconsistent in recent years and there's no reason to suspect they're going to suddenly be consistently good against the best competition. Wisconsin rode a weak conference (outside of Ohio State) to their end-of-the-season ranking, and Mississippi state was fading hard at the end of last year and wasn't supposed to be good to start with. They were 0-2 against teams that made the NPC. I added UGA to this list partly because I hate Georgia (Go Tech!), but also because even Georgia fans are worried about their quarterback situation this season.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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The most likely teams to be promoted would be Clemson, Stanford, Marshall, and Louisville. Why? Clemson has always been the team that you were afraid to meet because of their talent, but who never quite could keep up with the best teams. With the best teams all in the NPC, they have a very good chance of making the jump. Boise State, Marshall, and Louisville are all good teams that will be playing in the weaker conferences. The West and North Midwest are both conferences that are in areas without a lot of depth. Take out the top couple of teams and it's suddenly a vastly easier conference to win. Stanford already was a competitor on a regular basis in the Pac 10.</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-34158051682619162672015-01-27T10:56:00.002-05:002015-01-27T10:56:27.516-05:00You Ever Heard of this New Sport Basketball?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7O7EDCGGHAwRThyF87vJG7NMcO_jS-D0MWctjeiRnjyj9y3TTT4qK2pGEArnwTxqfRFTFxML4G55cy5NNRuY7jIvX4_2GwI6ZbWtKvGRKqhq5Ku5TCBX2NdioQ4EDV-cKBzTB/s1600/8485538020_974b7aa74e_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7O7EDCGGHAwRThyF87vJG7NMcO_jS-D0MWctjeiRnjyj9y3TTT4qK2pGEArnwTxqfRFTFxML4G55cy5NNRuY7jIvX4_2GwI6ZbWtKvGRKqhq5Ku5TCBX2NdioQ4EDV-cKBzTB/s1600/8485538020_974b7aa74e_z.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo by: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gorillaradio/8485538020/in/photolist-dVQAPE-8woyyc-pxkxUn-a6Mmon-uEPfj-4c8nUE-7MgQC6-eao8sq-5HHsHA-jM8ssX-bPzGyV-3fAznk-5W7Gj8-4hzAHC-os8ctt-6gvF8Z-5j6Z5f-9gnV6M-4dCpFi-9qFzix-2jF5Gm-p3Nnf6-qzUyhi-dtNrZw-cuEoDG-8Wrbm3-5j7b5C-cDXtCd-fSyfx5-415EgZ-9srZVe-28UpH-5fcfHE-5N2NiJ-4eJ9n9-4mPGom-bE6bBh-9grggW-2WDBH-9EX5c-89JiP1-pB1zCh-PNSVX-cTfqw-pBU5EW-6mn9py-7iMj9b-dtGgVQ-4K6G8o-kJyfUB" target="_blank">Sebastiano Pitruzzello</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</span><br />
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Yes, it has been a while. I've been busy. I'm currently at least five episodes behind on every TV show I follow except the Daily Show, and that only because I watch it while I get ready in the morning. I'm still preparing for the Cheaha 50k next month, although my mileage is lower than I'd like. The time issue is not getting better anytime soon either. Tennis season just started up so my work day is 2 hours longer four days a week until the end of March, and now I'm coaching youth league soccer. I spent most of my free time last night researching how to do basic things like dribble and pass the ball since it's the only sport I watch, but have never played. I had a couple of "ohhhh, so that's how you do that" moments last night on something as simple as the most basic dribbling techniques.<br />
<br />
Speaking of sports I never really played, I started watching a little basketball again this year. I usually follow some of the early rounds of March Madness and there were a couple of seasons when I gave the Atlanta Hawks a chance to win me over for the NBA, but it never took, possibly because the Atlanta Hawks were the most Atlanta of Atlanta sports teams. (Not a sports fan? Our teams are notoriously mediocre and weakly supported by locals.) I didn't even watch a game last season as the Hawks only made the playoffs because the East was so bad that even a team that won barely 40 percent of their games got in. Sure, this made me a fairweather fan, but I tried. Basketball just wasn't that fun to watch.<br />
<br />
I didn't have any plans on watching this year, either. Sure, I'd check in on their record, much in the same way I follow the Braves' record each summer, but I wasn't going to waste any time on watching them. Basketball and baseball were just going to be sports that didn't vibrate at the right frequency to resonate with me. That's ok.<br />
<br />
Then the Hawks started winning.<br />
<br />
And my Twitter feed started filling up with names like Korver, Millsap, and Budenholzer and phrases like "that ball movement, though."<br />
<br />
And then they kept winning.<br />
<br />
So I gave them a chance. In case you don't know, Kyle Korver is one of the greatest shooters in the history of the NBA and that may not even be hyperbole. They guy is currently hitting 53 percent of the threes. That leads the league by a wide margin. (Second place is only 46 percent.) It is not uncommon to see the Hawks on a breakaway pass from the paint back to Korver for a 3-pointer. That is not normal. At all.<br />
<br />
Paul Millsap is good but there's a chance you watch basketball and don't even know him. I'll let this quote from a recent Grantland <a href="http://grantland.com/features/2015-nba-trade-value-part-1/" target="_blank">article</a> sum him up:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Wins himself three different honors: “Best Free-Agent Bargain of the 2010s” (Atlanta stole him for $19 million over two years, which seemed utterly insane even at the time); “Best Secretly Successful Player” (for career win shares of active NBA players, Millsap is one of only five under-30 guys in the top 50); “Best Table Test Guy” (hold this thought) and “Best Night-To-Night JumboTron Surprise” (he never jumps out if you’re watching him in person, then you look up with nine minutes left and say, “Wait, Millsap has 18 and 8 right now?”).</blockquote>
Mike Budenholzer is the coach. He was hired from the staff of Gregg Popovich, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs. Popovich is beloved by the geekier basketball fans for his genius as a coach. It seems Budenholzer paid attention during his time in Texas. The Hawks are running a very similar game. They spread the ball around, put a lot of people on the court over the course of the game, and get everyone to play to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. There are no ball hogs. Just guys doing what they do well and then helping the other guys do what they do. Then, because everyone seems to be on the bench for half of the game, the well-rested Hawks hustle to strangle the other team on defense. In their last game, which actually was an off night by this season's standards, four players ended with double digit points. It's common to see between five and <a href="http://espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400578850" target="_blank">eight </a>guys in double digits, though.<br />
<br />
Keep in mind that only five guys can be on the court at a time in basketball.<br />
<br />
I didn't even mention guys like Al Horford and Jeff Teague, guys who've actually been on the team for a while now and were beloved by fans or recognized as great talents long before this season.<br />
<br />
Oh, and they're riding a 16-game winning streak at the moment. And they're first place in the East. And they've recently beaten every good team in the dominant West except for Golden State, who they'll finally play on Feb. 6. And, yes, I'm being a bandwagon fan here, but when I've watched (and I've watched all or parts of most of the last month's games) basketball is suddenly fun. Instead of the usual repetition of get the ball to one of the one or two good guys on the team and watch him drive to the basket off a pick and roll followed by a trot to the other end of the court that seems to typify pro basketball, you've got a team that sends the ball all over the court on offense, and you never know who is going to take the shot, followed by full court defense even when they're up 10 points in the third period. They're complex. They're unpredictable. They're good.<br />
<br />
I just hope it's not a fluke. This is Atlanta, after all.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-23459038593425369892014-10-14T10:39:00.002-04:002014-10-14T10:39:36.977-04:00That Six Gap Thing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/vEM60dpW_6I" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
I just realized I never followed up about Six Gap. It wasn't because the experience was so traumatic for me that I avoided it. I simply forgot to pull up the blog and post. The short version of the story is that I finished. I didn't even hit a point where I felt even close to wanting to quit. I made sure to eat more and to drink more this year and I probably took longer breaks between climbs than I really needed. I finished the ride feeling pretty great and even managed to get done before the rain hit. Next year, assuming I do it again, which I probably will, my goal will be to finish faster, not just to finish.<br />
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As for the actual ride, let's start with the first climb of the ride's six serious climbs. The <a href="http://www.strava.com/segments/1806381?filter=my_results&gender=both" target="_blank">climb</a> up to Neel's Gap isn't a big deal, at least not compared to most of the others. It's mostly uphill, except for a short downhill in the middle, for 6.6 miles with an average grade of 4% according to Strava. There are moments when the grade gets up to 8% or so, but this is the range where I'm fairly comfortable. Remembering last year's massive flameout after the fourth climb, I kept my effort easy and still put in a nearly identical performance on this climb as I did last year when I may have gone out too hard. I averaged just over 9 mph for the 6.6 miles.<br />
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The fact that I felt like I was taking it easy while going about the same speed is probably largely due to the fact that I've been riding a lot more this late summer and early fall than I did last year. Last year, I started training for a marathon in August, running 5 days a week and only got in one ride a week when I rode at all. This year I was putting in about 4 rides a week and repeating every decent hill I could find. So, despite the fact I was about 8-10 pounds heavier this year than I was at last year's ride, I was a stronger rider, which we'll see evidence of later.<br />
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The next climb is <a href="http://www.strava.com/segments/661396?filter=my_results&gender=both" target="_blank">Jack's Gap</a>. This climb is actually harder than Neel's despite averaging the same grade and being shorter. The serious climbing is only 4.1 miles, but it's not a steady climb. You climb a section of nearly 10%, then you go down a little, you hit a sudden steep short burst and hit a section that is almost flat and then you hit the final mile and a half where you're constantly between 6 and 9%. Despite this, I actually finished this climb 11 minutes faster than last year, and like I said, I was trying to keep things easy in the beginning this year. This climb actually ends at the beginning of the road that takes you to Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia.<br />
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<a href="http://www.strava.com/segments/625633?filter=my_results&gender=both" target="_blank">Unicoi Gap</a> was actually a little slower, but this isn't a major climb. It averages 6% instead of the 4% of the first two, but it's only 2.3 miles and it's very steady. I'm good at steady. If I can lock into one gear and one cadence and just go, I do pretty well. This is that sort of climb. Fairly uneventful climb.<br />
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<a href="http://www.strava.com/segments/775015?filter=overall" target="_blank">Hogpen Gap</a> is my nemesis. This is where I broke last year and what caused me to quit, 14 miles after the top of the climb. Why did I manage 14 miles after the climb? Because the next 7 are all downhill so I didn't have to pedal and then it's actually a fairly easy 7 more to the rest stop. Hogpen is actually more than 7 miles from the start of the climb to the top, but none of the Strava segments cover the whole climb and the timed portion of the climb is only 6.2, but by the time you hit the timing mat, you've already been mostly going up (aside from a couple of short descents) for more than a mile. In that 7 miles, you climb around 2,000 feet in elevation and you climb all but 500 feet of it in 4 miles. If you clicked the link for this climb, you'll notice that the elevation profile looks flatter than the previous three, but if you hover over the chart, you'll notice the numbers are all much larger. The timed segment, which includes a short descent, averages 5%, but hits sections of steeper than 15%. If you look at just the steady climb for the <a href="http://www.strava.com/segments/3479007?filter=overall" target="_blank">last 4 miles</a>, it's averages 7% with a max of around 16%. Sure, this doesn't sound much worse than the previous climbs, but when you start this climb you already have more than 60 miles in your legs and it's more than 2 miles longer than any other climb. You don't hit the steepest sections until you've been climbing for miles. When you get to those sections, you're putting all the power you can into your easiest gear and still barely getting the wheels to turn. I started passing people while only going 4 miles and hour. That's not normal.<br />
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This is where my story changes from last year. First, I finished that last 4 miles of Hogpen 7 minutes faster and unlike last year never had to get off the bike and hike. I was able to ride the entire climb and averaged a mile per hour better for the climb. I got to the top and I was tired, but not spent. I took a 15-minute break and got ready to descend.<br />
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I bought a knock-off version of a Go Pro camera called a Nabi Square off of Woot.com this year for $50 and I brought it along for this ride to video some of the descents. I had a waterproof, shock resistant case that I kept it in. As I got on the bike to start the long, fast, winding descent from Hogpen, I started the video and went.<br />
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Now, one of the dichotomies of Hogpen is that the road going up is smooth and freshly paved. That's good because rough pavement would make those steeper sections nearly unrideable, but the descent is much worse. It's not necessarily dangerous (or any more dangerous than would be reasonable for a steep descent where only your brakes are keeping you from hitting 60 mph), but it's rough. Bouncy. I'd gotten a quarter mile into my descent when I heard something clattering on the road behind me and I looked down to see I was missing my camera. I was going around 44 mph, but luckily, there was a parking lot just ahead, so I slowed, pulled over and went looking for my camera. First, I found the detachable viewfinder on the shoulder. Destroyed. Then I found the battery a few yards uphill. Not destroyed, but not in the camera. A good 15 yards further up the hill in the grass I found the camera itself. Surprisingly, the battery cover was lying next to it and the only damage to this part was scratches on the corners, but the lense and body were still fine. I put the battery back in, closed it up, and it seemed like it could still be working (although without the viewfinder I didn't really have proof). As I gave up looking for the case and turned around I saw the protective case lying in the middle of the road. I picked it up and noticed it had shattered the hinges. Unrepairable. I decided to reattach the camera to the mount without the case this time and video the rest of the descent and discovered the problem. The protective case had a faulty connector to the mount. My camera screwed in tightly to the mount while I never could get the case to feel secure. The camera never did fall off and unlike with the case, the screw holding it on never loosened. The resulting video is what starts off this post. Still a little sad it didn't save the video of the actual fall. That would have been neat to see.<br />
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My descent of Hogpen was actually a little slower this year. This wasn't because of caution, but because of people in the way. Every time I got to a really steep descent and could have really opened it up, I caught more cautious or lighter descenders who didn't' give me a safe line to pass for a while. This was not their fault. The road constantly winds around the mountain and at those speeds you don't want to take the turn on the edge, you want to use the whole lane. Finding a straightaway long enough for me to pass safely was difficult, so I scrubbed a lot of rubber off my break pads during this descent.<br />
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I also realized just how tired I was after Hogpen last year. The section of the road that convinced me I was too tired to continue last year was, I thought, a flat section where it felt like I was working too hard to just be going 14 mph. When I got to this part this year I realized it's actually a visible, but easy, climb. It's not even a true false flat. It looks like you're going up, albeit slowly. It's at the end of this very gradual climb where you hit the aid station where I quit last year. I didn't really want to stop there this year because of bad juju, but I could really use some caffeine, so I stopped at a gas station a couple of miles before the aid station, drank a Coke, and then cruised by the aid station and immediately made the right turn onto the Wolfpen Gap climb.<br />
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Wolfpen is the second of the two timed climbs and it's name is incomprehensible to me. Cowpen Gap makes sense. There was probably once a pen full of cows up there. Hogpen, the same thing, but what kind of hillbilly farmer keeps wolves in a pen? It boggles the mind.<br />
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Anyway, <a href="http://www.strava.com/segments/1086705?filter=my_results&gender=both" target="_blank">Wolfpen </a>is actually just as hard as Hogpen, for the exact same reasons (with the addition of adding Hogpen to your legs), but it's shorter. Technically, you're climbing without respite for about 5.5 miles, but 2.5 of those miles are like 1-2% grade and don't really count. The real climb averages 7% and lasts for 3.1 miles. It's hard climbing and you hate yourself just as much for those three as you did for most of the 6.2 of Hogpen, but the knowledge that it's only half as long makes it more bearable. I made it to the top, took another short break. Ate something and found out that the last climb was just ahead and apparently really easy. I was going to finish after all.<br />
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<a href="http://www.strava.com/activities/200888290/segments/4734943759" target="_blank">Woody's Gap</a> is only a hair over 2 miles long and averages 3%. When I hit the aid station at the top, I was actually surprised. What's better is that once you crest it, 90% of what remains is downhill, including a steady 6-mile descent following by 10 miles of rolling terrain that trends downward. Woody's descent is fast and really fun. I was in good enough shape this year that I was able to enjoy the descents, punch it up the short remaining hills and actually sprint for the finish line. The guilt about giving up last year has been redeemed.<br />
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I'm just going to make sure to go in lighter next year. Weight matters in the mountains.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-85906490956311046912014-09-25T10:45:00.003-04:002014-09-25T10:45:41.745-04:00Six Gap Again... Sort Of.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/randar/" target="_blank">Tom Simpson</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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Last <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com/2013/10/four-gaps-and-decision-part-i.html" target="_blank">year</a> I <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com/2013/10/four-gaps-and-decision-part-ii.html" target="_blank">attempted </a>the Six Gap Century bike ride in the north Georgia Mountains. It didn't end well. The long, vicious climb up Hogpen Gap cracked me and not long after the descent, I loaded my bike into the trailer of a SAG wagon and hitched a ride to end my day. I was 74 miles in but I had 30 miles to go and wasn't sure I had what it took to finish the last climb of the day. This has bothered me ever since, although my recovery and subsequent wall-busting in this year's Cheaha 50k eased my wounded ego a touch. I'd had a similar moment of existential crisis at an aid station for that run, but unlike Six Gap where I packed it in, I eventually forced myself to keep going and I'm glad I did. It still didn't fully let me get over that Six Gap DNF.<br />
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To punish myself for the last year, I have refused to let myself wear the jersey for the event that I purchased last year. I plan on wearing it on my second attempt this year. If I quit this time, it goes in the trash (or more likely is given to another cyclist somewhere). There are several factors going into this year that suggest I should be able to keep that jersey. First, I've ridden my bike more this year than I ever have before. As of today, I have ridden 1,581.9 miles and my two best months were July and September (272 and 269 miles respectively). August was a bit of a rough month, but compared to 2013 when I only rode twice in the month before Six Gap (and only 5 times the previous month, I'm essentially at least twice as prepared. To give perspective, I've ridden nine times already this month and have gotten more consistent with my training the closer to the ride I've gotten. Last year I was really more focused on getting prepared for my second marathon than riding. My cardio was great, but for anyone who's ever put the bike aside to focus on running (or vice versa) has discovered, training for one does not prepare the legs for the other. There's also that guilt for quitting last year that I hope to be able to tap into when things get hard to keep me going. Finally, I have that memory of Cheaha where I felt just as bad, perhaps even more defeated, but ended up getting my head back and genuinely enjoying the second half of the race. Just because I feel done at this moment doesn't mean that feeling will last.<br />
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But there are a couple of catches. The distance was never the problem last year. I rode 100 miles in 2011 when I'd only been riding a bike for five months and had never attempted anything close. I was in much better shape last year when I attempted Six Gap. What killed me were the climbs. I simply have no way to truly train for them where I live. I have been trying to simulate something by repeating this one hill near my house where a quarter mile averages around 6% grade and gets up to 8 or 9% at times, but even repeating that doesn't match the miles of unrelenting climb I'll face multiple times Sunday.<br />
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There's also the fact that I'll face Hogpen Gap close to 10 pounds heavier this year. That may not sound like a lot, but weight really matters when the roads start to get steep. I had a rough summer in regards to self control and I came into August at my heaviest since early spring 2011. I've worked my weight down to the point where I've lost half of what I gained over the summer, but I'm not where I hoped to be. This worries me. I'll need to forget that it worries me on Sunday. Endurance events are always at least as much what's in your head as what's in your legs. Let's hope I can remember the Cheaha and not the jiggle.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-76047083039475590812014-09-05T15:34:00.002-04:002014-09-05T15:52:27.145-04:00An American Sports Primer for Sports Fans Not From The US<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/30649191@N00/" target="_blank">Clint Mickel</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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I've been watching a lot of soccer the last couple of years. Before that, I watched a lot of rugby, back before the jerks at DirecTV snatched up the American rights to basically every rugby match to ever be televised, denying me and my Dish Network service the chance to watch. Paying attention to international sports has made me realize, perhaps more so than the average American, that Americans are really weird when it comes to sports. First, we don't even play your sports. Our interest in a sport is inversely proportionate to the sport's global popularity. We only care about our distantly related versions of the sports your emigrants gave us, and the only other places in the world where our sports are played are countries we pushed around a lot back in the 1800s and early 1900s. And Canada, which, surprisingly, is not actually one of the 50 states.<br />
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Let's assume you're some rando in Slovenia who, despite learning to read English fluently and living in a world dominated by American culture, doesn't actually know anything about American sports. The first thing you need to know is that we like football best and by football we mean that sport where we carry and throw the prolate spheroid ball with our hands and only use our feet to kick it sometimes, usually when our offense sucks and he have to give the ball back to the other team or settle for 3 points instead of 6. You may have been under the impression that baseball is the most American game, but unless you're in a time warp and reading this from 1949, baseball hasn't been the most popular sport in a long while. Major League Baseball brings in a billion dollars less per year than the NFL. After baseball, you have basketball and our fourth sport is hockey, although that's really more of a regional US and Canadian thing. This ranking also ignores that college football is also a huge business and no other minor league in any other sport matters, except for college basketball one month in the spring.<br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cardijo/" target="_blank">Harald Kobler</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></div>
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Being a complete newb to sports in the States, this order of importance may surprise you. After all, lots of northern nations play hockey. It's in the Olympics. The same goes for basketball, which seems to be quickly turning into the world's second favorite sport after your football (which we call soccer). Baseball is played by a few countries, but mostly just countries in the Caribbean and Latin America because of proximity and our past political meddling, and then Japan and Korea because we fought wars there and then never completely left either country. Our favorite sport basically isn't played outside of the US and Canada (although the Canucks put their goal posts in the wrong place). In other words, the more likely a foreigner is to play our sport, the less we actually like it. For example, soccer, by far the world's favorite, is only a distant fourth in the US despite the continual improvement of the quality of play in the league and its popularity.<br />
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Oh, and there's also lacrosse, a sport that has been a part of American culture long before there were any Americans. American Indians from at least modern day Georgia to Canada played the direct ancestor of this sport. It's an awesome sport that sadly only rich suburbanites and private school kids play.<br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/oneshotbeary/" target="_blank">Tom Beary</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></div>
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That's not the only weird thing about our sporting culture. Going back to our favorite sport, it's actually arguable that in one region of the country, the South, that an amateur minor league is actually more popular than the top pro league. This is partly due to the fact that the South was slower to leave behind traditional sporting values that held amateurism as pure and professionalism as crass and only for the poor. (Think about the origins of the Olympics and you'll remember what I'm talking about.) It's also partly due to the fact that our weather and environment kept population growth slow until the advent of cheap air conditioners (and the eradication of most mosquito-borne diseases) in the mid 1900s. We just didn't have the cities big enough and wealthy enough to host top pro teams until relatively recently, so college sports were our only option. The NFL is increasing in popularity, but it's rare to find a football fan in South whose opinions on the main college team are weaker than those for the regional pro team. Seriously, try to find a Falcon logo before you find fifteen bulldogs in Georgia. Ain't going to happen unless you're actually in Atlanta on a gameday Sunday.<br />
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Also, I realize that in most places, college sports aren't really a thing. I'm not entirely sure why, but in the US, academics and athletics became inseparably intertwined sometime in the 1800s. Every high school in the country has varsity sports teams that play other regional high schools. The high school in Barrow, Alaska, even flies their football and basketball teams to games further south in the state because they're so remote. Colleges often take athletics even more seriously, especially the big football schools. In fact, unlike you with your youth programs run by professional clubs, the vast majority of the athlete development done in most sports will be in grade school or college with a school team and coaches paid by the schools.<br />
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Finally, despite the fact that the US is one of the most capitalist countries in the developed world (although it's hard to match the level of capitalism you'd find in Somalia and other failed states), our pro sports leagues are among the most socialist. You know how it seems that every great player in Germany seems to play for Bayern Munich and how Real Madrid somehow manages to stockpile players in the top 5 in the world for their positions? That can't happen in any US league, except baseball, and not even there, really. The NFL has a hard salary cap and a salary floor so all teams have to spend more or less the same on the team payroll. There are ways to fudge the numbers, but even with those loopholes, once you start to get a great team together, the price for those players starts going up and you have to start making decisions on whether it's worth keeping that guy with his bigger paycheck and have to pay less for players at other positions or to let the expensive star go and stock up on cheaper younger players with upside. The NBA and NHL have variations of this that make it just too difficult to build an all-star team. The leagues want teams to be even and to make it feel like your team may suck this year, but eventually they'll have their chance. Unlike the fans of Queens Park Rangers.<br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithallison/" target="_blank">Keith Allison</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></div>
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Baseball has a luxury tax, but teams wealthy enough to pay it just stock up on stars anyway. This is why everyone hates the Yankees.<br />
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Oh, and this all happens because the clubs aren't independent entities. The teams are franchises of the leagues. They have their own owners, but they can't go play anywhere else unless the league tells them to. The league makes their schedules. The league set safety and behavior rules. The league takes in most of the money and then distributes it to teams as it sees fit. In contrast, the Barclays English Premier League has almost no real power over the teams.<br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/" target="_blank">woodleywonderworks</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></div>
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Then we have the MLS, our soccer league. Despite pro soccer in most countries being basically capitalism in its purest form, Americans took soccer and made it a communist state (although, much like Mikhail Gorbachev in the 90s, they've started introducing economic reforms). While the other leagues have drafts, salary caps, and profit sharing to spread the wealth among the teams, the MLS actually owns all the players and distributes them based on a pecking order so the worst teams get the best players and the best teams have to wait their turns. The league had good reasons for this system as the previous attempt at a premier league in the US ended with bankruptcies as spending on players grew more quickly than income. The MLS, hoping to avoid the bidding wars, made sure that the teams were staying within their means. This actually could be why the league has survived and had a chance to grow in popularity instead of flaming out in a blaze of Beckham encrusted glory. It's been a long time since a team in the MLS folded. It's only happened twice and both teams folded in 2001, only five years after the league was founded. Also, both were in Florida and Florida sucks.<br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/12149783@N04/" target="_blank">Francois Meehan</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></div>
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So, dear foreign friends in sport, you now have a beginner's understanding of the bizarre world of American athletics. To sum it up, we like sports inversely proportionally to the popularity of the sport outside of our borders, we get really worked up over kids playing football for schools we did not attend, and our pro leagues are socialists functioning in a capitalist state. Enjoy. Take this weekend's break from club soccer for international friendlies and watch Michigan State at Oregon (both excellent college teams) on Saturday or Indianapolis at Denver on Sunday (the NFL's Peyton Manning, our Messi, versus his old team). See what it's like for us American having to watch commercials every 10 minutes during a game.<br />
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Seriously. It's ridiculous. If they score, it's score, commercial break, kickoff, commercial break, next offensive series. The NFL even created an special two minute warning at the end of halves exclusively so they could show more commercials. What the hell? How do people without DVRs who can watch on delay to skip commercials even live during football season?</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-76184581352008494412014-05-23T11:49:00.001-04:002014-05-23T11:49:10.807-04:00One Step Forward and Two Steps Back<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/xtianyves/" target="_blank">Christian Yves Ocampo</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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First, before we get any further into this post, if you're a regular reader of this blog (do I actually have any?), could you take a moment and post a comment below and tell me what type of writing and writing topics are my best? I recently applied for a part time editing position with a publication I actually respect and my rejection e-mail included a line suggesting I come up with some freelance ideas and send them to one of their editors. It even included an actual email address to someone with an actual name for sending said pitches. The forms of writing they suggested were pretty broad (from essays and news to humor and lists), so I'm having complete idea block just coming up with something I do well.<br />
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Actually, let's face it. There's a chance that the veil of self-effacing pessimism and ironic detachment that I developed in the 90s may have to do with some serious self esteem issues about my writing, this despite the fact I was accused last year of having an excessively large ego for having the gall to express differing opinions and trying to explain my positions with facts and logic.<br />
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I may also be harboring bitterness about that incident as well, it turns out.<br />
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But anyway, if I've ever written anything you like (or a type of writing that you like), let me know so I can figure this thing out. So far my only idea is about being a semipro rugby team groupie. I could write about teaching, but there are many problems with my writing on that topic, especially if I'm trying to be funny and wanting to keep my day job. You know, food costs and everything.<br />
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Insert transition that makes the sudden change in topic and tone make sense here.<br />
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This is going to seem like a weird thing to include in the same post as a light-hearted request for suggestions, but two of the guys who graduated high school with me died this week. The truth is, when I heard, I didn't really feel anything. Despite growing up in a very rural area and graduating with a class of only about 120 students, I didn't really know either kid. I actually recognized the name of the first one to die and had a vague impression of the kind of person he was in school, but the second was a name I don't remember and even a visit to his Facebook page where he had photos of himself didn't ring any bells. This is normal for me. I've never been very outgoing and unless we're close, share some major interest or you make an effort to keep in touch with me, I spend very little time thinking about you. It's not elitism or dislike. It's just that social interaction is work for me and I'm a naturally lazy person. I'm only really comfortable with relationships where I know exactly where I stand and the other person puts in at least half of the work. In other words, if I've ever e-mailed or texted you, you're really important to me. If I've ever called you without having a very specific and practical reason, then you're probably my wife. If you're not my wife and remember an actual phone conversation with me that wasn't about a specific need or question, you called me.<br />
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Because of that, I'm often embarrassed when approached by former classmates or get asked by my students if I remember their mom/dad/cousin/brother/sister/aunt/uncle/whatever. Show me a picture and I may recognize the person, but probably not the name. I don't remember them. They weren't important to me, not because I looked down on them but because I had no more reason to emotionally connect with them than I do some random dude in Syria. Sure the civil war there is depressing and I hate the loss of life it entails, but I can't get too emotionally worked up about it. I only have so much social capital and I have to be careful where I invest it. The deaths of those two guys who happen to be my age and from the same hometown feel the same to me as the deaths of a Syrian villager or a South Sudanese refugee. This may seem cold, but tell me how many tears and thoughts you've spent on specific individuals in Syria or South Sudan.<br />
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This social detachment makes it ironic that I got my feelings hurt at a school sports banquet last night. At the end of the banquet the seniors made their farewell speeches and they always make sure to thank the coaches. This year I didn't coach the high school, I coached the middle school so I was there for the middle school portion of the banquet, but I had coached those four seniors for three years before this. I liked all of them. These are kids whose names I probably will remember in four years. These are kids whose fates will be of more personal interest than random Syrian strangers. That's why when only one of them actually thanked me in their speech, it bothered me a little. Even though I was sitting right next to their coaches for this year and even though the kid who actually thanked me went first, two didn't mention me at all and the fourth only thanked me by way of showing just how awesome the woman who replaced me was.<br />
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Except that's not an accurate portrait of what happened. It's an accurate portrait of what that emotional intuitive part of my brain felt and I've always been extremely skeptical of that part of who I am. My feelings were hurt, but I have trouble ignoring multiple sides and explanations for things. This makes me annoying if you're trying to talk through your feelings with me and it's even more annoying when it's me with the stupid emotions. This slight can easily be explained away. First, these are kids. I know from ten years' experience how tactless and accidentally mean teenagers can be. (They're rarely capable of being this subtle when they intend on being mean.) I also had almost no contact with these kids this season. I went to a couple of matches, but I don't teach seniors and never went to practices. They probably thought about me no more than I thought about them and that would be fair. Second, being used as an example of how great the new coach is shouldn't be insulting. The girl's entire point was that having another woman there who could understand her better was a nice change from the all male coaching staff she'd always had before. It's an entirely valid point. I am not a woman. I don't think I come off creepy, but it probably was nice for our girls to have someone of their own gender in a leadership position for them. For any kid looking to personally connect with their coach, I'm not the best candidate. I understand that. I don't go out of my way to make connections with people. I stay in a social comfort zone, and don't reach out to them. When I was coaching the high school, I was just about tennis. I didn't concern myself with their social lives. When I talked to them it was always related to the team and the sport. Because I don't talk about my personal life with them, they're not going to come to me with theirs.<br />
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I should be immune to feeling this way. After all, I understand it's my fault. If I'd been more outgoing, more personal, more open with them, they would have liked me better and thought of me more when I left. But I think this taps into something that was part of why I left the high school team to start with. The other male coach is just like me in his social connection with the team, but he sits higher in their thoughts. Why? He's the tennis expert. I was a competent coach by small-school standards, but I wasn't the expert. I never played or coached at the levels he played and coached at before retiring to be a part-time high school coach. The kids knew that. I knew that. I was okay with that. The problem is that the only way to make up for that deficit is to be more parental, the guy who shows true warmth and caring and makes them feel a part of a greater group, but I'm not that guy. I actually did feel that way about most of my players. I cared about their success on and off the court, and that's why I think this hurt a little. The feelings weren't mutual because I wasn't able to make them mutual.<br />
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Luckily, at the lower level where I coach now, I am the expert. I don't have to be the daddy. The other guy can do that. I just have to coach. And if you're worrying about my kids, don't. I have no trouble being open and warm with them, no more than I do with my wife, but then they make it easy. I know what a dad should be. The aloof, reserved man my athletes have always known will always be a stranger to my own kids. That's the way it should be.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-9682000812303501692014-05-21T12:01:00.001-04:002014-05-21T12:01:31.982-04:00I Like Sports<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/n1ct4yl0r/" target="_blank">Nic Taylor</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</span></i></div>
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I'm not exactly sure how I ended up discovering today's topic. I started the day looking at random Minor League Baseball caps. (By the way, if you want to buy me <a href="http://www.milbstore.com/store_contents.cfm?store_id=1&dept_id=-1&product_id=48845" target="_blank">this</a>, <a href="http://www.milbstore.com/store_contents.cfm?store_id=1&dept_id=-1&product_id=35098" target="_blank">this</a>, <a href="http://www.milbstore.com/store_contents.cfm?store_id=1&dept_id=-1&product_id=47138" target="_blank">this</a>, or <a href="http://www.milbstore.com/store_contents.cfm?store_id=1&dept_id=-1&product_id=35578" target="_blank">this</a>, I'll gladly accept the gift.) I think it started out with me realizing that there are two minor league teams with Burlington in their name, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington_Bees" target="_blank">neither</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington_Royals" target="_blank">which</a> turned out to be from Vermont. Then I went to Wikipedia's page for Burlington, VT, to see what sports teams they did have (turns out their baseball team is the <a href="http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t462" target="_blank">Vermont Lake Monsters</a>). Somehow that turned into doing the same thing for Jacksonville, FL. They have a bunch of teams, although only one is in a major league. The Jaguars are probably the worst franchise in the NFL, but they also have a <a href="http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t564" target="_blank">minor league baseball team</a>, an <a href="http://www.jaxsharks.com/home/" target="_blank">Arena Football League team</a>, a <a href="http://www.jacksonvillegiants.com/" target="_blank">semipro basketball team</a>, and will have a <a href="http://www.armadafc.com/" target="_blank">minor league pro soccer team</a> next year.<br />
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They also have a <a href="http://www.jaxaxe.com/" target="_blank">semipro rugby team</a> and one that is apparently pretty good as they went undefeated in their first season in 2012 and lost in the league final last year. The Jacksonville Axemen play in the US Rugby League, which plays under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_rugby_league_and_rugby_union" target="_blank">Rugby League code as opposed to the Rugby Union code</a> most of you will be more familiar with (if you're familiar with rugby to start with). Basically, the rules in Rugby League result in fewer chances to fight over possession for the ball, meaning the gameplay is faster paced and supposedly a little safer. For people more familiar with American football, the pace of Rugby Union is already ridiculously fast paced. League just takes that up a notch.<br />
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Now, I already love rugby. If I were able, I'd watch a lot more of it. The problem is that DirecTV has locked up pretty much every rugby competition worth watching on private deals for their personal rugby station and I have Dish Network. I'm also a lot more familiar with Rugby Union. The international competitions that got me into rugby in the first place (Tri-Nations, Rugby World Cup) are Union. There are comparable competitions in League, but they don't get any coverage in the US. When rugby returns to the Olympics 2016, it'll be the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_sevens_at_the_2016_Summer_Olympics" target="_blank">sevens form of Union</a>. I have never actually watched a League game.<br />
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Despite this, I'm seriously considering going to a few games. I'll probably be in Atlanta when the Axemen play the Atlanta Rhinos. Jacksonville isn't far from me at all by local standards of distance to a city. Going to a few of their games this summer could be an easy excuse to get out of the house, especially since we're not really going on vacation this year. The games are cheap. The normal season ticket is $30. The most expensive is $75. Single games are $8 and kids are free. I wouldn't mind the excuse to go back and revisit <a href="http://www.aardwolfbrewing.com/" target="_blank">Aardwolf Brewing</a> and <a href="http://www.greenroombrewing.com/" target="_blank">Green Room Brewing</a>.<br />
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Those two breweries are incredible, by the way, and you're basically not going to get to try them unless you go to Jacksonville. <a href="http://www.intuitionaleworks.com/" target="_blank">Intuition Ale Works</a> and <a href="http://www.pinglehead.com/" target="_blank">Pinglehead</a> weren't bad either and neither seem to have very wide distribution.<br />
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There are some catches to this idea of following a Jacksonville rugby team, though. First, there is the aforementioned Atlanta team in the same league and I have a strong tendency to default to the Atlanta team in any league where an Atlanta team exists. It makes picking a team easier (and picking a team makes following a sport easier), and Atlanta is a city where I actually spend a lot of time despite living a couple of hundred miles away. Jacksonville is closer, but they don't have a lot of teams in sports I care about and I hate Florida. I really, irrationally, hate the state of Florida. The only place I'll root against more than Florida is New York City and the New York thing is less about hate than it is my tendency to prefer the underdog over the favorite. New York is the Yankees of cities.<br />
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I actually just hate the Yankees.<br />
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Despite my strong dislike of Florida (its weather and speed traps are what I imagine inspired the creation of Hell), I've mellowed on Jacksonville in the last two years. Sure it's the epitome of urban sprawl. Sure it has crappy weather in the summer. Sure it's in Florida, but it's not the crapfest I'd always assumed it to be. They've got good restaurants. They've got good beer. They have interesting neighborhoods. Plus, Jacksonville really, culturally, should be the spirit city for where I live much more than Atlanta. I think I could manage one team in Jacksonville without feeling too dirty.<br />
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I'm still going to Jacksonville Armada games next season dressed in full <a href="http://www.atlantasilverbacksfc.com/" target="_blank">Silverbacks</a> gear, though. Screw Florida.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-72190654094121789492014-02-19T14:17:00.001-05:002014-02-19T14:17:36.442-05:00I'm Nervous<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Tomorrow is my last day of work this week. This after last weekend went from a scheduled 4-day weekend to a 5-day weekend because of weather (rain, not ice). Friday morning, I'll be driving to Alabama to get ready for the Cheaha 50k trail run on Saturday.<br />
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I am very nervous about this race.<br />
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Why? Part of it is the distance. I've run 26.2 miles before. Well, I ran about 20 of those miles and then started taking occasional walking breaks after that. 50k is the same as 31 miles. Thirty one miles is longer than 26.2. Thirty one is 11 miles longer than 20 miles, which is the farthest I've ever run without stopping. I think I'm more nervous about the terrain. This race is in a slightly mountainous region of Alabama where you run up to the highest point in the state. There's a lot of climbing. I'm not good at climbing. I'm a big guy, over 200 lbs. I also live in a place where it is impossible to train on similar terrain on a regular basis. That's not ideal training.<br />
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There's also the fact that I ended up with a serious chest cold this weekend that still hasn't completely dissipated. I got winded walking up a single flight of stairs on Sunday. Add to that the fact that something weird happened to my foot on Saturday when I stepped on the threshold of my front door on the way outside and twice had a sharp shooting pain that felt like a wasp was stinging me from inside the bottom of my foot. It felt a little bruised a day or two later.<br />
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Luckily all of that is passed or passing. I ran again yesterday and my foot is fine. My chest is clearing up in a hurry, partly because I went to the doctor to speed up the process, although I'm still not 100 percent there. I spent a lot of yesterday's run trying to figure out how to run through coughing fits. It's harder than it sounds.<br />
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Despite these worries, I'm really looking forward to the challenge. I'm not sure I've been as excited for a race since my first Peachtree or my first triathlon. We'll see how things turn out.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-43759279959909973212014-02-05T15:00:00.001-05:002014-02-06T07:59:02.536-05:00Debates Are Stupid, But...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/anantns/" target="_blank">Anant Nas Sharma</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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Before I get to today's post, I remembered this week that I created a blog last year that is not connected to this account so I could keep my running/biking/triathlon stuff off of this blog. I like to keep this blog semi-anonymous so I can be a little more open with what I write about, and it's annoying writing about all of that anonymously. No one will be offended that I'm a middle of the pack runner, so that stuff deserves its own spot. If you want to follow me there, leave a comment below and I'll get you the link. I don't want any direct connection between these two blogs.<br />
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As for today, I've watched/listened to about half of the debate last night between <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Bill+Nye&oq=Bill+Nye&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2065j0j4&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank">Bill Nye</a> and <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/outreach/speakers/ken-ham/bio/" target="_blank">Ken Ham</a>. I may listen to more of it after work if I'm out of podcasts. Listening to it, I was reminded of something I'd read an hour earlier while teaching Thomas Paine to my 11th graders. "Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice."<br />
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That basically sums up the debate and that basically explains my title for today's post. Ham has decided that a very literal interpretation of Genesis is the only option, and he freely ignores any evidence to the contrary. The irony in Paine's statement is that judging from his tone, he was at least as guilty of being set in his opinion as the Colonial loyalists he said should be kicked off the continent and whose property should be confiscated to finance the Revolution.<br />
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I don't think that specific irony applies to Nye and many like them. I believe them when they claim if that they were given real evidence to support the claims of Creationists that they would change their minds. After all, that's how science works. The modern understanding of evolution and natural selection is not exactly the same as the idea that Darwin set down in the Origin of Species. Since the publication of that book, new evidence has been discovered that has led scientists to modify the theory. True, Darwin and his most famous book are still taught and often revered in scientific circles, but, like Nye pointed out, any scientist would love to disprove such a foundational theory as evolution is to biology. It would make his career.<br />
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Besides, Ham never really made any real points. He has three main arguments (at least so far). His main argument, the one he keep coming back to is that we weren't there, so we can't know that things worked the same way throughout history. This is technically true. In fact, assuming systems like climate and ecosystems are unchanging would lead to bad conclusions. The problem is that his point is even more valid when attacking his own position. We weren't there when the Bible was written. How should we know whether to take the creation story literally or figuratively. When your only guide to the authenticity of the evidence is the item of evidence itself, there are obvious questions left unanswered. At least with science there are ways at looking at other things and seeing if they support the evidence.<br />
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He also kept referencing scientists and inventors who are creationists. It is true that some scientists are young earth creationists, but these are fringe scientists or people in unrelated disciplines. Trying to convince the public that these guys are more legitimate usually results in creationists having to resort to conspiracy theories, which is ridiculous. Like mentioned earlier, if these guys had good evidence, they would be stars in the fields of physics and biology and not outcasts.<br />
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His final main point is that if we allow science to go unopposed, religion dies and that's bad for kids. I think that people like Ham do more harm to belief in religion than any science textbook ever written. After all, what are intelligent children expected to do when faced with a preponderance of evidence suggesting an ancient universe and evolution through natural selection and religious fundamentalists claiming that their religion says the truth is some crackpot idea unsupported by the facts? I think that if I had grown up in a religious environment where the science was acknowledged and a figurative reading of the creation story was accepted that I would have never been driven away from organized religion. People like Ken Ham try to force believers to make a choice between reality and faith when the choice does not have to be made. While it is true that mainstream scientists to to be atheist and agnostic at a higher rate than the average American, that doesn't mean that there aren't completely mainstream Christian scientists. They just aren't Ham's scientists.<br />
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And this is why I hate myself. I just spent all this time writing this post about something not even Bill Nye should have given the time to validate by arguing the point.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-11989163902259396832014-02-03T13:05:00.001-05:002014-02-03T14:09:34.481-05:00Jamie Casino: Master of WTF Advertising<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unless you live in the Savannah television market like I do, you probably didn't see this advertisement. It was the first commercial that ran at the beginning of halftime during last night's Super Bowl. It's insane. It makes no sense. It's full of Orthodox iconography and a sledgehammer that makes dirt burn. It definitely made me obsess over who Jamie Casino is and just why he smashes his brother's gravestone with the aforementioned hammer.<br />
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Seriously. Watch it.<br />
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For a little context, Casino is a personal injury lawyer in Savannah and his brother was murdered in 2012 and he claims he was misled by police. After a little research, it turns out that issue was that the Police Chief said there were "<a href="http://www.wtoc.com/story/19549691/savannah-chief-issues-clarification-of-no-innocent-victims" target="_blank">no innocent victims</a>" during a press conference and the families of the victims took offence. The police chief issued a statement saying that Casino's brother and girlfriend weren't suspected of any wrongdoing related to their deaths and the murderers were later <a href="http://www.connectsavannah.com/savannah/charges-in-biancosinopickel-murders/Content?oid=2322037" target="_blank">arrested</a>. Later, the police chief retired while being investigated for sexual harassment unrelated to the murder case. Still, Casino's a personal injury lawyer, not a prosecutor, so I'm thinking he's just cashing in on his brother's death. He's not really putting villains behind bars or even hunting them down for vigilante justice like the ad makes it sound. Despite all that, the ad is still insane and fascinating. Here's an interesting piece that appears to be written by Jamie Casino on CNN's citizen reporting <a href="http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-843028" target="_blank">site</a>. That's his side of the story.<br />
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Here's my interpretation of the ad:<br />
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The guy is a personal injury lawyer whose brother is murdered. Casino realizes it's an interesting story that he can dramatize for a Super Bowl ad and create something that will really stick his name in people's minds. It sounds sleazy, but this guy is a personal injury lawyer who advertises heavily. When has that type of lawyer ever not sounded sleazy? I'll even accept that he was really ticked off about how the murders were handled.<br />
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And if you have any idea what the actual point he's trying to make in the ad (beyond "I'm a lawyer and I'd like your money"), please fill me in with a comment.<br />
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Because I still have no idea what's going on.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-22807423171448869442014-01-28T11:33:00.003-05:002014-01-28T11:33:32.872-05:00The Wrestler<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alvarotapia/" target="_blank">Alvaro Tapia</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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It's difficult for me to know how best to teach my son to be tough. On one hand, a certain type of toughness, tenacity, is an incredibly valuable trait for a person. It's something I wish I had more of. On the other hand, sensitivity isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not only that, I want to be careful not to cross the line from trying to help the kid become the best he can be and being a total jerk.<br /><div>
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This is part of the reason we signed him up for youth wrestling. I thought it would be good for him to do something that wouldn't come easily for him and have to really fight to succeed. Of course, that wasn't the only reason. He also really loves play wrestling at home with me, so I thought it would be something he'd enjoy. I was right. He looked forward to practices. He talked about going to tournaments after the team season was over. His first match impressed us with the toughness and fight he had in him. After all, he's like me. We're both gentle souls and neither of us are really all that driven to beat other people. We both like to win, but beating others isn't the motivation. Despite that, here he was doing everything he could to not get pinned (he never did) and try to pin the other kids (he did a couple of times).</div>
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The problem was after that, the matches didn't go so well. First, the kid is only 6. He was the youngest kid on the team, just like he's usually the youngest kid in his grade. This is easy to forget with his size (he's usually one of the biggest kids in his grade) and his vocabulary, which surpasses that of some of my high school students. He's often tired after school, especially on the days he goes to gifted, which happened to be the same day as the matches. Like his mother, he doesn't always handle being tired with the most grace. He tends to get emotional and let things gets blown out of proportion late in the day. In two of the matches this season, he spent half of the evening crying about little things that he'd normally be able to brush off. It took me until the second of these matches, one last week where we actually took him home early because he couldn't control himself, to realize the problem. He was frustrated. In the regular season matches, they don't weigh in. He would often wrestle kids who were older, more experienced and 10-15 lbs heavier. He wasn't winning. When he was trying, he was holding his own, but he couldn't win. This frustration led him to freak out because someone stepped on his foot or got him in a hold that was too close to his neck. Never once did he actually get injured, but he didn't have the emotional strength to fight through it. It was frustrating for us too. He was the only kid there who cried. Trying to talk to him at the time didn't seem to help. He just wasn't rational enough.</div>
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We did keep talking to him for the rest of the week, however. We kept telling him that it's okay to lose. It's going to happen sometimes, but as long as he keeps trying, we're proud of him no matter what happens. We even made a deal that we'd buy <i>Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2</i> if he'd be tough and really try at Monday's tournament. The tournament was the real deal. Instead of the refs just keeping the matches fair and safe, they'd actually be keeping score. Instead of a pin resetting the match and having the kids get up and start over, a pin would end the match automatically. The kids had to be weighed and put into weight classes. The winner got medals. This was the entire point of the whole season. I wasn't sure if that'd get him to really try or cause a freak-out.</div>
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In warm ups, I lost a little hope that he'd do well. While sparring with another kid on the team, he started crying. We're still not sure why, but after my wife talked to him, we knew he wasn't hurt. Luckily for him, the high school wrestlers who run the team and coach the kids have surprised me all season with how well they handle my son and the various other problem behaviors of the young kids they coach. They talked the boy down and by the time they lined up at the mat for their age and weight group, he was fine.</div>
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Then came his first match. The kid was shorter, but broader and seemed to be possibly stronger than E. The match started off not going in his favor. The short kid was controlling the play. E was taken down and never managed to take the other kid down. The score was close (4-6 before it ended), but all of his points came from getting out or reversing the other kid's moves. This kid kept going after E's head and neck, a trigger for his freak outs in previous matches, but I could tell he was really fighting to keep it together this time. He was also doing the moves we worked on with him on for the past week to give him more of a sense of control when the other kid had him locked around the neck or head. It was the last time that the other kid had taken him down, E on his hands and knees and the other kid locked around his neck that the match changed. E grabbed the kid's wrist, pulled away and reared back. The kid fell off onto his own back, E pounced, and within seconds, he'd gone from losing to winning by a pin.</div>
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I went down to to congratulate him and it seemed like his win hadn't registered yet. His response to my congratulations was, "I want to cry, but I'm not." He had been getting frustrated and it was that emotion that he still felt. The pin came so fast, joy hadn't had a chance to take control. It was a little sad to hear, but it made me proud. We've been trying to teach him it's okay for things to go wrong. It's okay to feel bad, but you have to keep fighting. Last week, he would have just quit and let the kid pin him, but instead, he kept working and got a win because of it. A few minutes later, I noticed he finally realized what had happened and he was grinning and celebrating with one of the teen coaches.</div>
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Of course, he didn't win them all. He lost his last match of the night. The other kid was closer to his height and after E deflected a few of his charges, the kid managed to get a hold on him and take him down. Instead of landing on his stomach, which would have given E a good chance to escape because he's hard to roll over, he landed on his back and the other kid was quick to attack. After an extended struggle, the other kid managed to get the pin. Oddly, he seemed less upset about this outcome than he had earlier, but I think the win helped ease the frustration of this loss. I went down to tell him how proud I was of him for working so hard and gave him a hug. After that, it was just a wait for the awards ceremony.</div>
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Turns out that he got second place. He's gotten medals before. He's gotten them for the reading program at school. He's gotten them for his running of the mile at local races, but this one seemed to be a bigger deal to him. He grinned like a madman on the podium with the other medalists. He ran up to us to excitedly show of his medal and then did the same to the coaches (who treated him like a star). When we got home, he demanded to be able to wear it to bed and he did (although under his shirt to keep it from tangling on anything). I think it's because he recognizes that this one was harder to get. Reading and school come easy for him, too easy, probably. Running the mile is almost as natural to him as reading. This, however, was hard. Things went wrong. He got upset. He fought through and was rewarded. That why it's important to him.</div>
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When I went in his room to see him this morning while getting ready he looked at me and said, "I don't deserve the medal or the movie."</div>
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"Why," I asked. "What did you do?"</div>
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"I just don't deserve it." He sounded dejected. We'd gotten home after 10 pm last night and his bedtime is normally 8. This is the moodiness I mentioned earlier. I worried that today was going to be a bad day.</div>
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"Yes, you do. Didn't you work hard for that? Didn't you keep fighting even when it was hard? Isn't that exactly what we wanted you to do?"</div>
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"Yes." He looked at his medal and paused. "Look at the cool flames on the ribbon. They're blue! Can we do those tournaments in Atlanta the coach was talking about?"</div>
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"We'll see."</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-49635997741288048632014-01-22T11:39:00.003-05:002014-01-22T11:39:58.720-05:00There's a Chance I Could Die<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/outdooralabama/" target="_blank">Outdoor Alabama</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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I signed up for an ultramarathon. Remember my <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com/2014/01/fitness-goals-for-2014.html" target="_blank">tentative goal</a> to run one from my goal post back on January 2? About two days later it became a mandatory goal because I went ahead and signed up for it. Next month, I'll be running the Cheaha 50k up to the highest point in Alabama. This was a bad decision.<br />
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One may think, Jacob, you just ran a marathon less than a month ago and, despite horrible weather and your near drowning from rain, you dropped about 30 minutes off your best time. One would be factually accurate in thinking this, but that misses a few key issues. The first of those reasons being that tennis season started up just as I needed to resume serious training for this race. Normally, I'm off work and able to start running by 3:30. With tennis practices four days a week, I'm lucky to get started before 6 p.m., meaning I'm finishing even my shortest runs during the week in the dark. Getting up earlier isn't an option. I'm not going to run unlighted dirt roads in the dark at 4:30 in the morning just so I get home earlier. I'd need to be in bed by 8 every night to make that work. Back in the fall, working in training was easy. I'm actually having to work to find time for my runs now. I also should really be resting my right knee. I tweaked it on my second 20-miler of the fall. I took a week off and was able to continue running without swelling or pain, but it still gets a little stiff and clicky after my longer runs each week. I really need to spend a month where I don't run farther than three miles and spend most of my time on the bike to let it recover. Running 50-mile weeks is the opposite of recovery. Finally, I have no way to adequately train for this race. True, the highest point in Alabama is 2,000 feet lower than the highest point in Georgia, but I also live (and train) more than 2,000 feet below Alabama's highest point. The elevation difference will matter. In addition to the elevation, I have no way to match the terrain. Most of the land near where I live is pancake flat. Luckily, if I run near the river, which isn't far from where I work, the elevation drops around 100 feet and turns into rolling hills, some fairly steep. Still, there's never an extended climb of more than a half mile and usually much shorter. Even if I could find some really good hills to train on, I can't match the terrain. There just aren't any rocks. I've got a good trail that I do some of my runs on, but the soil here is so free of rocks that you're just running on dirt. It's relatively smooth and level. I'm not having to navigate rocky trail and only at the back end of that trail where the trees change from pines into swamp-loving deciduous trees do I even have to worry about roots. There is no way I'll be prepared for the terrain of the Cheaha course with its single track and mountain.<br />
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That doesn't mean I won't try, of course. It doesn't even mean that I won't meet my goals. That knee really isn't that bad. I just want to rest it, and I will after this race in a month. After this race, I don't have any race plans until late May and nothing that requires much in the way of long runs. And the terrain? I'm okay in the mountains and my speed expectations for this race are pretty low. Unlike that Jacksonville Marathon where I know the weather, the terrain, and the flatness match that of my home, I understand that I have no real way to know what I should be capable of so when I go out there. I'm going to run when I can, walk when it gets steep, and finish. I can do that.<br />
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I think.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-4393501512180819642014-01-09T12:34:00.000-05:002014-01-09T12:34:28.711-05:00You Mean I Have a Life Outside of Running and Bikes?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jjjohn/" target="_blank">Giovanni Orlando</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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Actually, the answer to the question in the title is no, or not one I enjoy enough to actually talk about.<br />
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That's not entirely true. I usually like my family, but I try to limit writing about them here because I consider this a semi-anonymous blog. Despite that tendency, I may currently be willing to sell certain members into slavery at an Indian brick factory, but that's not a permanent state of mind. <i>(The screaming. Oh, god, the screaming.)</i><br />
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Anyway, this week sucks and it's largely the weather's fault. I should point out that I don't have a problem with cold weather in a general sense. I don't feel cold as soon as the average person and I actually enjoy the feel of being a little chilled. Also, when you're running, cold is something very easily dealt with. A pair of running tights, a quick-drying hoodie, and a pair of gloves paired with my normal technical T and shorts has served me well down into low 20s and high teens. I've taken a warm cap on my coldest runs, but I usually end up taking it off after a couple of miles because it's too hot. The freakish cold was not the problem by itself.<br />
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The problem is that my house isn't designed to sufficiently deal with temperatures more than 5 degrees away from 70. It's build off the ground. It has huge windows. There's no insulation under the floorboards. Also, our hot water heater was installed in an unheated storage room off the main part of the house. We actually have to go out onto the porch to access this room. Even worse, the pipes from the water heater go through a wall to the outside of the house, down the wall and travel underground about 20 feet until they reach the point where the crawl space starts and they can go into the crawl space.<br />
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Now, these pipes that are exposed completely to the elements were insulated. We actually re-insulated them on Monday before it got cold in the hopes of making things better. I also hope to get around to insulating the pipes (and the underside of the house completely) sometime this year. I'm just hoping we get enough money from our tax return to pay for it.<br />
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This time, the foam insulation didn't help us. We left our cold water dripping that first night of the Polar Vortex, which left us with cold running water the next day. It probably also helped that all of those pipes are either underground or at least in the crawl space where the heat leaking through the cracks in the floor would have helped keep them warm. We didn't leave the hot water dripping because that seems a good way to burn up the hot water heater. Bad decision. We awoke on Tuesday to no hot water.<br />
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When I got to school, I got an e-mail from my wife saying that the oil light in the van had gone on suddenly and that she had had the local mechanic come pick it up. A little later, she said that the van had stopped working on the way to the mechanic and they had to tow it. Later that day, my parents texted me to tell me to check out our cars because one of them had left a giant puddle of oil on the carport. Due to a lot of business that day, the mechanic wouldn't be able to work on it Tuesday. Great.<br />
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The forecast for the day would peak above freezing, but only by 1 degree. When I got home after school at the end of the day, still no hot water, although that was no surprise. Luckily, my parents live just down the road and we were able to take warm showers that night, but there's something about not being able to take a shower in the morning that throws me off for the rest of the day. First, even though I washed my face the next morning (and even dunked my head in the cold sink so that my hair would behave), I feel dirty and tired. Of course, with the temps dropping quickly back into the low 20s Tuesday night, the hot water didn't thaw and we went about our Wednesday morning again with only cold water. This time, I was having to deal with my wife and son and getting them to school as well. Of course, getting all three of us moving at the same time pushed me back to the point that I didn't get to my room at work until after 7:40, which is when students show up for first block. Not having a chance to settle in before the kids show up is a horrible way to start the day. Luckily, the kids weren't that bad so my mood kind of idled along at merely crappy instead of getting worse.<br />
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When I got home, the first thing I did was test the hot water. Sweet! It flowed and with good pressure. Of course, it wasn't warm yet. There's a long trip for the water to get from the heater at one end of the house to the actual taps in the back, so I wasn't worried. I went about my business for a few minutes while it ran. When I came back and tested it, lukewarm. It had been long enough to warm up, so I shut of the water and went to test the breaker. Our breaker for the hot water heater has a tendency to trip (and without any discernible reason so far) so I checked that first. Not tripped. Just in case, I turned it off and then back on. Nothing happened. Normally, when we use a lot of hot water or when it's been off because the breaker tripped in the night, it makes a hissing or bubbling sound as the filaments heat the cold water. This time, nothing. Crap. Something about the frozen pipes had caused it to die. I called the appliance guy and set up a time for him to visit later in the evening and got changed to go out for my run. I was finally going to test out my new <a href="http://www.skechers.com/style/13915/skechers-gorun-ultra/cctq" target="_blank">Skechers Go Run Ultras</a>.<br />
<br />
It's a good reason I wanted to test the Ultras. They're designed for trail ultra-marathons, so I was going to test them in the woods behind my house. If I had been running the roads, I likely wouldn't have gone behind this part of the house yesterday. After about 10 yards of running, I stepped in an unexpected puddle. Realizing that part of my yard was flooded, I noticed a faint hissing noise, turned toward the sound and saw a fine spray of water coming from the hot water pipe at the back of the house. Apparently the pipe had cracked when the weather was still freezing because there were these huge, globular ice formations on the ground near the pipe for about 6 feet and then just wetness farther out from when the pipes thawed and the water flowed more freely.<br />
<br />
Run cancelled, which is enough to normally put me in a bad mood anyway, but now I had to fix something and I hate fixing things, mainly because I really suck at it and I'm not used to doing things that I suck at, or at least things where my suckiness is shoved in my face so aggressively as when I try to do basic home maintenance. Luckily, my dad isn't like me in that regard, so he came out, sussed out the situation and we went together to the hardware store for supplies. Before it was even fully dark, we had the pipe repaired, although it takes 12-24 hours for the pipe cement to cure before it can handle the water pressure so we'd remain with hot water this morning. Again, we took turns showering at my parents' house, although this time with the added joy of a toddler who napped really late and wouldn't fall asleep until 11. Normally this would have been hugely frustrating, but because I'm trying to get off some weight I gained in the last two weeks before I attempt the Cheaha 50k in February, I got on the bike trainer for an hour around 8 to make up for missing my run. Exercising that late makes it hard to go to sleep on time, so I would have been up to at least 10:30 anyway.<br />
<br />
Today should have been better. There's reasonable expectation that I'll have hot water tomorrow, although at this point optimism is hard to come by. The new joints could fail. Despite the appliance guy saying the water heater seemed fine, the workload it had during the leak could have damaged it, but things are looking up. I got up, got ready, and left my room at about 7:05 to grab my bags and the kid to get on the road to school. Thursdays and Fridays are usually my worst days for being late because I have to take the toddler to daycare instead of my parents' house and that takes twice as long. Today was going to be an exception. I was leaving early. Except it was 7:27 when I got in the car. How did it take 20 minutes to do what normally takes me 10? I'm still not entirely convinced that time is completely linear. Today I didn't actually get to my room until the tardy bell rang. Not a good example to set for your students when they spend two of their first three days in the class waiting in the hall for the teacher to get to school.<br />
<br />
We still don't know the full deal with the van, although I expect to know something today. It'd be nice if I'd won that huge lotto jackpot a few weeks ago. None of this would have been stressful then. What's the risk of a $2,000 car repair when you're using a million dollars in ones as your blanket at night?<br />
<br />
Oh, and I just got the message. The worst case scenario is right. Looks like we'll be car shopping this weekend.<br />
<br />
Hey, look on the bright side. Everyone dies in the end, right?</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-74129316488681100092014-01-02T16:58:00.000-05:002014-01-02T16:58:00.108-05:00Fitness Goals for 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This year I have four goals that I'm certain I want to pursue. First, I want to continue to improve my time at the Peachtree Road Race in July. Maybe I should actually do some real training in June this year for once. This was my first ever fitness goal, actually. In February of 2010, I decided I was too fat and convinced myself that if I registered for Peachtree that I would feel obligated to actually train and get in shape. For once in my life, I actually stuck with something that was hard and completed the 10k race without taking a step walking. My time was over 10 minutes per mile, but that was a huge success then. Because of this, Peachtree is important to me. I will run this race every year until I can't run anymore. One day, I'll have to stop setting goals of dropping my times, but I don't think I'm there yet.<br />
<br />
My second certain goal is that I'm going to attack the 6 Gap Century again and this year it will be something I train for. I made the mistake last year of thinking that my early-year successes at much shorter distances in much less mountainous terrains would combine with my extensive running to make finishing possible, but I was wrong. Maybe I didn't take in enough calories. Maybe I just wasn't pushing myself hard enough. Whatever it was, I didn't finish last year and it's my biggest disappointment of the year and I want to correct that.<br />
<br />
I want to maintain my exercise regimen through the summer this year. For the past four years, summer has been a rough patch in my training. Even when I have a set training schedule, I often let myself slide, sometimes for days at a time, because of a combination of travel, heat, and a lack of daily routines. Okay, I'll be honest. It's really just the last two. My training usually gets better when I travel because I almost always travel north where the weather is better. It's really difficult to get motivated when I'm sitting at home with nothing I actually have to do all day and it's 98 degrees and soupy humid out. It's easier to get out in the heat when I'm at work because something about having that automatic transition of work and going home makes it easier to make myself put on the shorts and shoes before I leave work and run. I also do pretty well in our long winter, fall, and spring breaks because the weather is nice. It's just that combination of heat and lack of routine that kills me. My job for the next four months is to decide how I'm going to go about doing this. Am I going to just suck it up and run or bike as late as possible when the low angle of the sun makes the heat more bearable, or am I going to get in the habit of getting up and running at 7 in the morning when I don't have to get up at all? I really like having a few hours after the kids go to bed that the summer gives me, but I can't stay up until midnight if I'm getting up at 7 every day. Still, this may be the best option. It'll create a routine based on transitions that may help me stick to the plan.<br />
<br />
Finally, I want to get back under 200 again. I was there very briefly in December before Christmas and travelling and tapering on my marathon training did me in. I want to get back under 200 before the end of school and stay there until the end of the year. If I decide to go for the first of my tentative goals, this may be an easy first half of the goal.<br />
<br />
Now for my tentative goals.<br />
<br />
I'd like to complete a trail ultramarathon. I've really enjoyed the shorter trail races I did this year. The trail duathlon this summer was difficult, but a really refreshing change of pace. I'm not as good on the trails as I am on the pavement, but the trails tend to be a lot more fun. And while I struggle in the last miles of my road marathons, there are actually built in rests in a trail ultra. I'm not going to be running steadily for every step of a trail race. I'm not going to run the steepest hills. I'm not going to run the creek crossings. I'm not going to run really rough terrain. I think I could manage this despite the distance increase. Why is this tentative then? There's something else I'd like to do the same month and I can't do them both. I'm having to decide this week which one I'm doing. I think the timing is good, though. I'm only days off of my marathon training. I'm not injured, and carrying through to this should be easy.<br />
<br />
The next tentative goal is to complete a half-Ironman distance triathlon. The race I want to do is in May and if I complete that Ultramarathon, I think this distance will be a breeze for the bike and run. The catch will be the swim. If it's a cool spring like it was in 2013, I may only get a month and a half to get swim conditioned. Sure, the half-Ironman distance of 1.2 miles isn't much farther than the 1.5k swims I've completed fairly easily the last two years at my Olympic distance races, but those have always been well into the summer. I also don't know if I really want to spend the time getting ready for the swim. There was a point last year when I was considering giving up triathlon just because I didn't really like swimming. This one I need to think about.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-60366559505501964762014-01-01T16:20:00.001-05:002014-01-01T16:20:54.961-05:002013 Fitness in Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I just realized that I never got around to posting my 2013 goals at the end of last year. On <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com/2012/12/2012-fitness-goals-in-review.html" target="_blank">Dec. 28</a>, 2012, I posted that I would do that with my next post, but then I ran that trail run after an ice storm when I hurt my knee and I think the distress from not being able to run distracted me enough that I forgot to ever set any formal goals. So, instead of comparing my performance this year to my goals, this will just be a description of a few accomplishments from the year.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Running</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This was a bipolar year for running. I was forced to take a break for 68 days due to the ITBS in my knee and I felt sluggish for most of the year after that. It was partly a timing issue. I didn't want to push my training early on and by the time I was comfortable with my knee, the weather had turned warm and I don't respond well to heat. Due to work starting so early in the morning for me, most of my running is in the afternoon and it's a huge struggle for me to post decent efforts in 90+ degree weather. It wasn't until I got a couple of months into my marathon training that my fitness and the weather hit a sweet spot and I suddenly felt great again. Despite this, I somehow managed to run the Peachtree Road Race 10k race on July 4th a little faster than the last time for the fourth consecutive year, posting a 48:58, about 30 seconds faster than my previous time.</div>
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You never would have believed that time if you'd have seen me in October during my early weeks preparing for the marathon. I was overweight from my normal summer weight gain. I really haven't mastered motivating myself to push through the 90s and high humidity of our five months of summer and it shows every fall. Despite this, by November, I was starting to regain confidence in my abilities and, despite not having done any speed work in over a year, I posted a personal record 5k time by averaging 6:57 per mile, my first time averaging under 7 minutes per mile. I also dropped almost 40 minutes off of my previous marathon time. I'll post a race report on that later. My 2013 running stats:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Total Mileage:</b> 691.1</li>
<li><b>Duration:</b> 103:39 hours</li>
<li><b>Biggest Month:</b> October, 154.3 miles</li>
<li><b>Worst Month:</b> January and February, 0 miles</li>
<li><b>Fastest Run:</b> 6:57 minute/mile pace for 5k</li>
<li><b>Longest Run:</b> 26.2 miles</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Biking</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I don't have a lot of concrete results in this category, but this was by far my best year on the bike. While that ITBS flare up hurt my running for most of the year, it was the best thing that ever happened to my biking because I spent most of February and March getting up early a few weekdays every week to ride my bike on the trainer while watching Game of Thrones. All those hours added up to my fastest year on the bike by a fairly significant margin. It got to the point that I was posting my fastest ever average speeds (21.5 mph) on routes that were some of my longest ever. It also didn't hurt that I found a group of guys who ride in a nearby town and was able to do group rides on a regular basis for the first time ever. Riding in a paceline makes going fast so much easier. I even managed to hold a fairly steady speed of around 25 miles an hour for a stretch of 3 miles (not even downhill) near the end of a 54 mile ride.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I did have one disappointment with my biking. I signed up for 6 Gap, a century ride in the north Georgia mountains that's one of the hardest amateur rides out there. Unfortunately, it happened in the fall when I'd had to give up regular riding to make time for marathon training for about a month. I was just doing a long group ride every Saturday at the time. I did make about 3/4 of the route, but the miles of steep grade up Hogpen Gap blew out my legs and I had to take the SAG wagon instead of finishing the last 20 or so miles. I did hit my fastest mile every, averaging 44 mph for the first mile coming off of Hogpen Gap, hitting a top speed of over 50 at one point. My 2013 biking stats:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Total Mileage:</b> 1453.6</li>
<li><b>Duration:</b> 78:20 hours</li>
<li><b>Biggest Month:</b> February, 206.9 miles</li>
<li><b>Worst Month:</b> November and December, 0 miles</li>
<li><b>Fastest Ride:</b> 21.5 mph average for 54.33 miles</li>
<li><b>Longest Ride:</b> 74.3 miles</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Triathlon</h4>
<div>
This was a mixed year for triathlon. My running was weaker than the previous year thanks to the extended layoff to start the year, but my swimming and biking were both better. The problem was is that I couldn't get motivated for my races so my transitions were bad and only seemed to get worse as the season went on. I had gotten good at transitions in 2012 and I'm not sure what my problem was this year. I actually lost out on winning my age group in my last race of the season by much less than the time I added over last year's transitions. I did win my age group in a larger race to start the season, which was an awesome experience, but things just seemed to go downhill from there. It got to the point that I was considering giving up triathlons entirely just to focus on riding and running. I don't even like swimming much to start with. I'm still trying to decide what I want to do with this discipline.</div>
<div>
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Tomorrow I'll post my 2014 goals. I actually have a few this time.</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-15167186402549547252013-12-16T14:51:00.003-05:002013-12-16T14:51:32.476-05:00Knee Update<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEfxHtlKY939NYLOR_XQfKhIUftkHZcGT6a5oK0CSYOxMvKDz-knxLfVBxisjto7_QyZgvYehnNUrvM8qbNmReRdoNd0qdrrlO236Z_JAuEpsMosP_aphyphenhyphenJC9uOXPau5_KaFz/s1600/2652670470_07f0dd5e84_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEfxHtlKY939NYLOR_XQfKhIUftkHZcGT6a5oK0CSYOxMvKDz-knxLfVBxisjto7_QyZgvYehnNUrvM8qbNmReRdoNd0qdrrlO236Z_JAuEpsMosP_aphyphenhyphenJC9uOXPau5_KaFz/s320/2652670470_07f0dd5e84_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aye_shamus/" target="_blank">aye_shamus</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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Everything seems to be copacetic. I ran five miles yesterday while letting the DVR get a nice tape delay for the Falcons game and everything seemed good. It was a little stiff to start, but that's not abnormal. After my warm up, the knee felt loose and I kept going. In fact, I'd only planned to do three miles, but couldn't justify such a short run when my knee was feeling so great. After the run and, more importantly, this morning my knee feels great. I still don't understand what the problem is, but the good news is that currently, I don't have to worry about skipping the marathon. I am wearing that brace when I run, though. Just in case.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-26225450682875214742013-12-13T10:16:00.002-05:002013-12-13T10:16:50.898-05:00I Hurt My Knee. Where's That Damnèd Apothecary?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKy6hmmMRSXCyInbp-WzQyPl8n492JkbUr9jJqCg0miLb6rWfSqGMQlCXoZojHN2HUPLBRzK1jAwVzhIiXBPIB3K_bK5sXJji9p-VqS4sZMpo8JUk9hsEsYvJbZ8ixTYlBYK9F/s1600/3816946844_eb026c4cf7_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKy6hmmMRSXCyInbp-WzQyPl8n492JkbUr9jJqCg0miLb6rWfSqGMQlCXoZojHN2HUPLBRzK1jAwVzhIiXBPIB3K_bK5sXJji9p-VqS4sZMpo8JUk9hsEsYvJbZ8ixTYlBYK9F/s320/3816946844_eb026c4cf7_o.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sangrenelojo/" target="_blank">Marco Villar</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span><br />
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I've been teaching <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> in one of my literature classes and I'm going to be honest with you. This is (hopefully) the worst thing Shakespeare ever wrote, at least of what still remains. There are elements of the play that aren't so bad. Mercutio is a great character. He even seems to be mocking the melodramatic seriousness that makes the rest of the play so unbearable. Unfortunately, dude is killed off way too early in the play to save it. It's also a private entertainment of mine to watch my students read all of Shakespeare's sex jokes in this play without a single student seeming to get them.<br />
<br />
The problem with the play is everything else. Let's start with the fact that this isn't a love story. I don't think Shakespeare ever intended it as such. This isn't about true love (I'll follow up on that later), this is about blinding hate. That in itself isn't a problem. There are plenty of great stories out there about hate. This just isn't one of them. It annoys me that so many people seem to think of this as a great love story. Let's just break down why it's not:<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Romeo starts the play moping about Rosaline not loving him back. He's been locking himself away in darkened rooms, not sleeping, keeping to himself. He doesn't want to talk to family or friends. Keep in mind that his conversation with his cousin Benvolio about how horrible it is that Rosaline doesn't love him was the morning of the same day he proposed marriage to Juliet. He seems pretty fickle.</li>
<li>Also, it doesn't seem that Romeo is really so upset about Rosaline not loving him as it is that he's upset about her not putting out. "<i>And, in strong proof of chastity well armed
From love’s weak childish bow, she lives uncharmed.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,
<b>Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold</b></i>." Dude's a douchebag. Sure, maybe this scene is supposed to contrast with his feelings for Juliet later in the story but he falls in love with Juliet only hours later. That's a load of crap.</li>
<li>The agree to marriage the same night they meet. Sure, courtship was a short thing back then when it was even involved, but there's no way that's true love. That's getting excited about your first boyfriend.</li>
<li>Juliet is thirteen. Romeo is about 15. Don't give me any crap about people growing up faster and being more mature back then. Go read any of the lists online about complaints about teenagers written in Shakespeare's day. Teenagers were exactly the same then as now. They just got married younger. They weren't in true love any more than any other 8th and 10th graders are now.</li>
</ol>
<div>
Finally, Romeo and Juliet are both excessively impetuous, overly emotional and irrational. Sure, that's actually a fairly <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/29895/5-reasons-teenagers-act-way-they-do" target="_blank">accurate depiction of teenagers</a>, but it doesn't make for characters that are easy to sympathize with. You want an example of what I mean? Romeo gets banished the afternoon after his wedding. Juliet's first response is to slit her wrists. (Technically, I think she wants to plunge the knife into her chest, but same diff.) Friar Lawrence has to talk her down when she pulls her dagger. Romeo's no better. Just look at his moping to start the play and his own quick leap to suicide at the end.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That being said, I see a little of myself in this annoying couple. I hurt my knee this week. I ran my last 20-miler of my marathon training on Sunday. It was a great run that left me expecting to actually meet my goal for this year's race. After the expected soreness disappeared Monday, I noticed my right knee felt a little stiff. The stiffness was actually worse on Tuesday and by the time I got home from work Tuesday afternoon, it was visibly swollen. I think the normal reaction to this would be to be mildly frustrated and start working on getting it better. My first reaction was "Screw it. I quit." Not "Screw it. I'm not going to run this one marathon," or "Screw it. I quit running," but "Screw it. I quit life."</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I'm not saying I was suicidal here. I'm just saying I was planning on stopping caring about my health and I was just going to sit on the couch and get fat again. The difference between me and Juliet is that I didn't need some adult to talk me off the ledge here. After a few minutes of moping, I researched the symptoms (still don't know what the problem is, but at least I found out how to treat my symptoms and got to work on that). I bought a knee brace that offers compression, which is supposed to help the swelling. I took Advil for a couple of days. I tried to keep the leg elevated and iced when possible, although that's nearly impossible with my job. It's even much improved. The swelling was mostly gone by the end of Wednesday. The knee was a lot better Thursday, and today I'm seeing how it handles not wearing the brace at all. It still has a tendency to pop when I straighten my leg after sitting, but my knees always have a tendency to pop. This is just worse than normal. I may even test my knee out with a run on Sunday. Sure, it won't be the 12 miles I'm supposed to do, but it's positive thinking, reasonably based on the evidence at hand. Romeo couldn't have managed that sort of thinking.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Okay, I'll admit that I may have eaten more junk food this week than normal trying to drown my sorrows in sugar and cholesterol. There were candy bars, and chips, and a bacon cheeseburger with a side of nachos for supper one night. (Last night.) I may have spent more time worrying about my stupid knee than I have all other thoughts combined over the last four days. I would probably be insufferable if I were a protagonist in a Shakespeare play about mediocre amateur distance runners, but that's the thing. My life isn't supposed to be great literature. It's okay if I'm annoying. Shakespeare should have known better.</div>
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I just got an e-mail confirming my entry to the marathon in a couple of weeks. I need some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frito_pie" target="_blank">Frito pie</a>.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-90775189735156196202013-10-21T09:57:00.004-04:002013-10-21T09:57:51.256-04:00For a Weekend, I Forgot Where I Lived<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/katariinajarvinen/" target="_blank">Katariina Järvinen</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span><br />
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I don't live in a hotbed of amateur athletics. It's a rural county in the center of region of rural counties. Obesity and infant mortality both far outpace the state averages in a state that outpaces the national average. Most of the guys you see riding bikes along the side of the road are on a bike not for their health or to train to compete, but because they're drunks who got busted for one too many DUIs and can't drive a car anymore. Usually it's just me clad in lycra and going hard on a bike just to go hard. Usually it's just me running big loops to and from my car, my phone giving me feedback on my pace in half-mile increments.<br />
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This weekend was different. Almost every Saturday I ride with a group of guys from a neighboring county named after a dead guy named after a very savory cut of meat. This week we set out for a 50-miler on a route we do pretty frequently. Fifteen miles in, the weirdest thing happened: We saw another group of about 10 people on their bikes heading in the opposite direction. I had heard there were clubs of guys like us in the larger small towns in the area, but I'd never actually seen them in person. I'm not using hyperbole when I say the hairs stood up on my arms and neck. This chance encounter made me very happy and I took my next pull at the front of our paceline at 24 mph for 2 miles. It wasn't even downhill.<br />
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The next day I got up early to go for my long run. I'm training for a marathon in a city that used to be called Cowford and has a really horrible NFL team. I set out from my front door to run 15 miles. Three miles in, I passed a guy I know from local races who lives 1.8 miles from my house. (I know this because he lives on the road I run on the most when I don't run at work and I can tell you the exact distance to the tenth mile of every landmark from my starting point on every route I run regularly.) He was on mile 14 of a 23 miler that day. He's training for a marathon in Savannah. We stopped for a short chat about training, and the border collie that had followed him from the lake (and who always follows me too) stopped following him and then followed me for the next 12 miles.<br />
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When I finished this time, I was too tired to drive the dog back to the lake, so I left him outside with water and shade so I could shower, lie down, and drink in some calories until I felt better. Before I got up the energy to drive him home, however, my wife and kids let him into the house so they could play with him, but he was too tired, so he climbed up in my lap and we watched the Falcons game together.<br />
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For a single weekend, it felt like I was living in a town like Boulder or Asheville, a place where I'm not the weird guy doing things for long distances that only the drunk and the extremely poor normally do.<br />
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The dog stunk a little, but so did I. My calves hurt too bad in the shower for me to take the time to use soap.<br />
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It was nice.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-91276619045007512482013-10-03T12:00:00.000-04:002013-10-03T12:00:05.354-04:00If You're Fit Enough, 6 Gap Is Worth It<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fouquier/" target="_blank">Fouquier ॐ</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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The last two days may have made you think that I hated the experience of 6 Gap, but the truth is quite the opposite. I was disappointed in the fact that my poorly trained legs couldn't keep up with all the climbing, but the ride itself was impeccably run. The course is well marked. The road surfaces aren't bad. You will hit some slightly rough pavement at times. After all, this is the middle of nowhere in the mountains, but I never rode any pavement rough enough to make me think about the pavement. I can't say that about all of the roads I regularly ride on at home.<br />
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As for the rest areas, they're well stocked, well staffed, and well spaced. Normally, most of the the century rides I've been in space their rest areas by as regular of a distance as possible. This makes sense on the flat to lightly rolling terrain of south Georgia, but not so much in the mountains where it may take you an hour to get through the 7 miles up the mountain and only 10 minutes coming down the other side. So, the first rest stop was about 20 miles in, but you'd been riding over rolling terrain that looks almost flat compared to the climbs that would come later. You've probably only been on the bike for an hour. Later in the race, they'd often have rest areas only 7 miles apart, mainly because it'd take you an hour to cover that distance. Hogpen Gap is only a 7-mile climb but there was a stop at the halfway point and again at the peak.<br />
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The bike mechanic who told me not to stop at the rest area at the halfway point was right, by the way. That section is too steep. Unless you're a strong climber, just kept slogging to the top where you'll only have to point your bike in the right direction to get moving again. There was a sign suggesting that the stop had beer and it was sponsored by a bar, but I have no proof they had any booze. I took the mechanic's advice.<br />
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Also, they even have guys with water jugs on the side of the road at the rest areas where you can pull off, refill your bottles and not have to even get all the way off your bike if you're looking to hit a certain time mark and don't want to take breaks during the ride. That's the first time I've seen that in a big ride.<br />
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The finish line also seemed well organized and there were booths for massages and the like along with access to the school gym for showers, and a spaghetti dinner in the cafeteria, although I partook in neither. I had been told that the hot water was gone when I went in for a shower, and I was too mad at myself to eat at the time.<br />
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Finally, the scenery is gorgeous. You're rolling through the most beautiful part of the the entire state and you rarely pass through anything remotely like a town.<br />
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So, if you decide to do 6 Gap, here's what I think you need to know:<br />
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Make sure your bike is in good condition. You're going to be stressing it more than normal. Hitting a bump in the road at 15 mph is not the same as hitting that same bump at 45. The same goes for your brakes and tires. You really don't want to them to fail you at high speeds. Make sure they aren't too worn.</li>
<li>Don't push yourself. Unless you have ridden the course before or at least ridden something similar on a mountainous course, don't ever let yourself have to breathe hard if you have the option of going slower or turning an easier gear. My problem is that my lowest gear actually proved too difficult to achieve that goal on large sections of Hogpen Gap. It's just mean to put that climb after 60 miles of riding in the mountains.</li>
<li>Learn how to descend safely. I don't think that's a particularly hard skill to pick up, but you don't want to find out that you don't really know how to take a turn when you're approaching a sharp bend in the road travelling at 15 mph over the speed limit.</li>
<li>Eat. There's a chance that I didn't take in enough calories, but I burned around 4,000 calories from riding less than 3/4 of the course. You can't take in all the calories you're going to burn, but you need to take in as much as you can without getting sick. I kept Gatorade in my bottle because I find it's easier, especially when tired and thirty, to drink calories than it is to eat them, but I've also found that I enjoy <a href="http://www.belvitabreakfast.com/" target="_blank">Belvita</a> cookies and <a href="http://shop.honeystinger.com/categories/Organic-Stinger-Waffles/" target="_blank">Honey Stinger</a> waffles when riding. I've also ordered <a href="http://feedzonecookbook.com/portables/" target="_blank">The Feedzone Portables</a> cookbook to make my own food for rides, especially because there are some non-sugary options there and most endurance food is so sweet that even I, with my ample sweet tooth, get sick of it before long. I'll probably post some reviews of that book when it gets in.</li>
<li>There will be a traffic jam getting onto campus at the high school where the event starts and finishes. Make sure to plan on getting there at least 30 minutes before you actually want to be there.</li>
<li>Finally, the group start is huge and I was by far the most concerned for my safety there than I was at any other point of the ride. People are packed into together in a mass of bikes slowly creeping toward the starting line and it doesn't open up enough to really ride your bike until you get to the starting line several minutes later. Not everyone has enough sense to straddle the bike and walk it up so you can clip in when it's safe but not until then. People did crash during this section even going at a shuffling pace. Honestly, unless you have some sort of weird obsession with your overall time, don't even bother trying to start with the crowd. Just wait until most of them have gotten past the line and then get going. There are no rankings for finish times except for the King of the Mountain challenge for the combined times for Hogpen and Wolfpen gaps and then only the time it took you to finish those climbs counts. It doesn't matter how long it took you to get there.</li>
<li>Make sure to spend some time before and after the ride day to enjoy where you are. Like I've said earlier in this series, this is the most beautiful part of Georgia and Dahlonega isn't tarted up for the tourists as badly as Helen. Hang out and watch the criterium races and cruise the bike expo on Saturday, and take Monday off work. I did the former, but my dumb ass didn't think about being on a bike for up to 8 hours on a Sunday followed by a 5-hour drive back home and having to get up for work early the following day. It's Thursday and I'm still suffering from that decision. I'm not sore. I'm just sleepy.</li>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-41300250587485070512013-10-02T12:00:00.001-04:002013-10-02T12:00:07.514-04:00Four Gaps and a Decision: Part II<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slimjim/" target="_blank">slimmer_jimmer</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</span></i></div>
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<i>This is a continuation of yesterday's first post about my attempt to ride the full 6 Gap Century. If you haven't already read the first installment, click <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com/2013/10/four-gaps-and-decision-part-i.html" target="_blank">here</a> first.</i><br />
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The day before I set out to ride the 6 Gap Century, I had taken my bike in for a safety check. I hadn't noticed any problems with my bike and it had been riding well, but I've also never changed the brake pads and they were the same ones that came with the bike when I got it used more than three years ago. Luckily for my checking account, the bike was fine and needed no work, but I had been warned by the mechanic that there was a rest stop halfway up Hogpen that I should avoid at all costs. The road at that point of the climb is just too steep. He said that if I were to stop there, it'd be difficult to get the bike moving again even in my lowest gears. I took his advice and I steadfastly pedaled past the rest stop. Then, what felt like 30 minutes after passing the rest stop, I was all of 20 yards away and I hit the wall. I had to stop. I stood straddling my bike, rested my head on my arms above the handlebars and took a few deep breaths. When I felt a little better, I tried to get back on my bike and realized my thighs didn't have the power to get me started again. The mechanic was right, so I walked.<br />
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I would have felt a lot worse about having to walk here if the people passing me weren't going so slow. I was able to carry on lengthy conversations with the people who passed me before I couldn't see the fronts of their faces anymore. I was walking up the hill at 2.7 mph (my bike computer still registered the speed as I walked) while the guys passing were probably going around 3.3 mph. Both of those round to the same mile per hour, so I was basically walking as fast as they were riding. And hurting less. I walked probably a quarter mile before the grade let up a bit and I got back on the bike. The weird thing is that my legs didn't feel very tired when I was walking. I was able to keep a brisk pace up the hill with no problems. Just goes to show that you don't use your muscles in the same way between the bike and running/walking.<br />
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That wasn't the last section I had to walk. When the grade peaked again about a mile from the crest, I had to again get off and walk a quarter of a mile until the grade let up before I could get back on the bike and finish the climb.<br />
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When I did finally get to the top, I could barely get off my bike. My legs didn't want to work. I walked around, ate a sandwich and some Belvita cookies (which work great for me as bike fuel, by the way), drank some, refilled my bottles and worked up my courage for the descent. I'd heard the descent off of Hogpen was dangerous. Rough <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipseal" target="_blank">chipseal</a> pavement (and as I descended I realized a little chewed up in places), and sharp turns make this a more challenging descent that the others on the course. This was where a woman died a couple of years ago. Apparently hitting speeds of 60 mph coming off the mountain is fairly common and the road is far from straight. There are several sharp corners where you're going to have to scrub off significant speed to make the turn.<br />
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Oh, and watch out so you don't overheat your brakes and rims and cause your tires to fail.<br />
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Apparently, my weeks of mild concern about my ability to coast down a mountain were misspent. I at no point ever felt the least bit in danger. Thrilled, yes. In danger, no. The closest brush with death I had was less than a mile from the top of the pass when someone had had a bike failure and a stupid SUV was parked on the side of the road taking up almost half of the lane and the cyclist was taking up most of the rest of the lane putting his bike in the vehicle. In front of me, too smaller riders were slowing up to try and pass safely.<br />
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Let me take a quick break here and point out that I am over 200 lbs. and my break hoods sit kind of low on the front of my bars, meaning to be able to have my hands in a good position to work the brakes easily and safely, I have to lean forward a bit giving me a fairly low profile. My weight and slightly aerodynamic position mean that I pretty much fly past anyone who is not pedalling downhill. I frequently passed people on descents even though they were pedalling and I wasn't.<br />
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In this particular situation, my inertia was not beneficial. I tried to scrub off a little speed by braking and hoping, but the guy loading up his bike didn't seem in a hurry (or aware of the dangerous situation he was in and causing) and the two guys in front of me seemed to decide to just brake to a crawl and pass him really slowly. That would have been great. I would have been perfectly happy to stop if I had had to, but I came around the previous bend at about 45 mph and could see well down the road on both lanes and had assumed the two guys in front of me would have just passed over the line and kept going instead of rubbernecking. By the time I realized they were going to go with the rubbernecking route, I didn't have time to slow enough. As I quickly increase my grip on the brakes (and visualized them melting against the tire rims), I tried to get a good enough look at the oncoming lane to make sure I wasn't going to hit an RV head-on and just hoped one of the rubberneckers wouldn't be so unaware of his surroundings that he'd veer into me as I passed.<br />
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Luckily, there was no oncoming traffic and the rubberneckers stayed their lines and I flew by as slowly as I had been safely able to go.<br />
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After that, my descent was incredible. The turns were tight and required me to pay attention and to use the cornering form I knew, but all of them were visible enough so that you had a really good idea of what to expect before you got to them and you could prepare. It wasn't easy, but it was great. I hit speeds I've never hit on a bike. Strava's analysis of my GPS data says that I hit a top speed of 59.9 mph. I don't have any independent confirmation of this because I couldn't look down at my bike computer much during the descent for safety reasons and the max speed record on it was reset accidentally on the trip home Sunday before I thought to check it. I'll take Strava's word for it. Seems reasonable. There was that one shallow pothole that I hit near top speed and I swear it sounded like my wheels snapped, but my bike really seemed to hold up well.<br />
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Of course, when you're descending at speeds of up to 60 mph, you don't get very long to rest. Distances that took an hour to travel uphill on the other side literally may take only 10 minutes coming down. If I had been able to coast for an hour, I think I would have arrived at the first aid station after the top of Hogpen rested enough to take a quick break and attack Wolf Pen. Instead, I finished the descent in minutes and struggled on the relatively flat last three miles before the rest area. There were sections that I'm pretty sure were mostly flat where I could barely manage to hold 12 mph. I knew this was bad. Normally, 19 mph on relatively flat terrain is keeping an easy pace for me. When I got off the bike, I went and found a chair and sat, which is where I started yesterday.<br />
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I don't think I was dehydrated. I actually had to stop and pee several times on the ride. I also don't think I was in serious carbohydrate deficit. I actually didn't feel particularly tired. It was rare that I breathed hard at any point of the ride, even on the steepest hills, I wasn't gasping for air. I was just breathing like I would on an easy jog. The problem was simply that my legs were quitting on me. I sat there in the chair, ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some cookies, and drank some Gatorade. I texted my wife my location. I waited for a few more minutes and then texted her that I was considering calling it a day.<br />
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She didn't text back immediately and I watched the SAG wagon load a trailer full of bikes and load up for a trip of people too tired or with broken bikes back to the start/finish area. I half hoped that K would respond back and urge me to keep going. I wasn't sure that I couldn't make the last climb, and if I made that climb, finishing the ride would be easy and mostly downhill. I also knew that Wolfpen wasn't really a lot easier than Hogpen, especially given that you hit it around 80 miles into the ride. I called K and told her I was calling it a day. She was supportive, but it was hard to talk. I wanted to cry. I've rarely been as disappointed in myself as I was in that moment. I'm not used to failing when I set a challenge for myself. I loaded my bike in the trailer of the next SAG wagon, climbed in and stared out the window as all the Floridians babbled about their rides and damaged bikes and waited to get back to the high school so I could go home.<br />
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My attitude changed gradually after I got in the car, got a full meal in me and drove back to Marietta. I hadn't really trained for this event, and even though I've been riding better than I ever have in the last few months, I've only been riding once a week for more than a month. My cardio fitness is excellent, hence the fact I never had to breathe too hard during the ride. The problem is that biking and running don't use the same muscles in the same ways. That's why I found it so easy to walk up those sections on Hogpen at almost the same speed as I had been riding on those sections. It was other muscles that were failing me that aren't used as much in walking or running.<br />
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Also, I did manage four of the six gaps, which totalled 74 miles and about 9,000 feet of elevation change. That's like pedalling almost two miles straight up into the air. It's significant, especially for a flat-lander who had only even attempted riding in the mountains once before in his life. When I got back to Marietta, I was still disappointed in myself, but not so miserable about it and I was well on my way to convincing myself that next year I'll just officially train for 6 Gap so I'll have a better chance of it.<br />
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And that's the thing. By the time I got back to Marietta, I had stopped focusing on my failure and started focusing (without realizing it) on what I was going to do next year to fix it. I'd already decided to ride the century again without realizing I was even making a decision. It didn't hurt to have a little girl's face to light up when she saw me and demand to be picked up and a little boy running around yelling, "We're so proud of you daddy!"<br />
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So, next year when I finish my last triathlon in early August, I'm going to be transitioning into a training plan for the bike. I'll be spending 4 or 5 days a week on the bike, looking for the steepest hills I can find within a reasonable trip of my house and putting in the hours. I even started talking to my parents and sister about going in together on a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina so I can afford to stay up there a couple of weeks and just ride the mountains.<br />
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I am aware of my obsessive tendencies. Thank god I don't love heroin.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-24384480551409579852013-10-01T08:24:00.001-04:002013-10-01T08:30:03.372-04:00Four Gaps and a Decision: Part I<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/srahn/" target="_blank">StephenGA</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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Sunday around 2:30 in the afternoon I was sitting in a folding chair under a tent shelter at the first rest stop after the Hogpen Gap descent during the <a href="http://6gap.com/index.php/the-rides/six-gap-century" target="_blank">6 Gap Century</a>. My helmet was at my feet where it held my gloves and phone, and my bike was propped up against the side of a porta-potty. As I looked the squiggly line of salt residue on my right leg of my lycra bib shorts, I debated sticking my bike on the back of the SAG wagon and calling it a day. I was 74 miles in to the 104-mile ride.<br />
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Seven hours earlier, the day hadn't started badly. It was a little chilly as I got out of the car and started getting my gear unpacked after getting to Lumpkin County High School where the event began and ended. I had left Marietta around 5:30 that morning and I actually had to stop a couple of times, first at a gas station only to realize they hadn't turned their pumps on yet, then at a QuickTrip that was actually open, and finally at a RaceTrac in Dawsonville for a second breakfast. I'd be burning through thousands of calories that day. I probably needed the donut and coffee. I had assumed I'd be skimming into Dahlonega by the merest margins for the century, which started at 7:30. Instead, even after the stops and the traffic jam getting into school parking lot, I ended up having time to leisurely get everything set up and still have time to have to wait for the official start.<br />
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There were a lot of cyclists here for this. Thousands, actually. We were packed in pretty tightly in the school's main driveway and we probably took up a good quarter mile of two-lane pavement. I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of getting started in such a tight crowd. I'm pretty good at holding my line and being aware of my surroundings, but what about the other 2,000 cyclists around me? One they sent us on our way, it was several minutes of walking my bike forward before it opened up enough in front of me to actually put foot to pedal and go.<br />
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I took it easy in the beginning. I had no time goal for this ride. I just wanted to finish. The course includes 11,200 feet of vertical climbing and I don't get the chance to do much climbing, living in the flats like I do, so I knew it would be hard. I also haven't been riding much lately. I started marathon training at the end of August and I only have one day a week to ride. True, those Saturday rides have all been over 50 miles for the last two months, and I push hard, but our hills are barely hills. At 6 Gap, the hills are actually mountains. Mountains as in we passed the entrance to the short road that takes you to the top of the highest peak in Georgia and we weren't even at the top of the climb for that section of the ride.<br />
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I was doing pretty good on the first couple of climbs. When we hit the first true climb, not one of the famed gaps, but two and a half miles of steady climbing for 400 feet of elevation gain, I felt great. I was passing a lot of people, but I was holding myself back so I didn't start breathing hard. I knew I needed to save myself. This was actually pretty pleasant. The climbing kept me warm and the scenery was beautiful. I was truly happy. When we crested the first gap (Neels) around mile 26 (and this was a real climb of 1,300 feet over 7 miles of riding) I texted my wife where I was and that I felt awesome. I had promised to text her throughout the ride. I had been a little worried about the descents. I don't have a lot of experience there and I had heard stories about riders coming off Hogpen at 60 miles an hour and even a death a couple of years ago from a crash on a descent. The fact I had mentioned my concerns to her had her worrying about me, but at this point in the race, I felt like I could go all day. I wasn't the least bit tired, so after 10 more miles, mostly downhill, when I hit the intersection where the 3 Gap Fifty riders turned left and the 6 Gap Century riders kept going straight, I kept going straight.<br />
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Don't get me wrong. I knew that 100 miles (plus a few) is much farther than 30 miles, but I wasn't even close to feeling bad. The issues that would creep up later in the day weren't even starting to show at the time. If I had turned with the 3 Gappers, I don't think I'd have even considered my day much of a challenge. I was keeping a good speed with low effort and I made sure to take my time at the rest stops and to keep eating and drinking. I was doing what I should have been doing, or so I thought.<br />
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I hit Jack's Gap not long after deciding to commit fully to the full century. This was actually an easier climb than Neels. First, there's only one really steep section, but it's really short. I popped down into my lowest gear and climbed it easily. After finishing off the short steep section, there's a short section of relatively flat or easy grade, followed by another short steep section (but not as steep as the first section) that finishes at the top of the gap. Again, I climbed easily. However, my next text to my wife very conspicuously leaves out any reference to how I'm feeling. My legs were starting to get a little tired. The same thing happened at Unicoi Gap. It's steep, but really short. I climbed it without too much trouble, but I was starting to wonder how much I'd have left for the big monster of Hogpen still to come.<br />
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One of the weird things about this sort of riding, and something I've only been able to experience in one other ride in my life is that you spend a lot of time just sitting there on your bike, fingers draped over the brake levers just in case. It's not boring. Rolling so fast that the wind blocks out every other sound in the world except its own roar is thrilling in itself. Despite my pre-ride concerns, coming down off the gaps was as easy as the climbs were hard. The only difficulty is knowing how to take a corner at high speed and knowing how to slow enough before you get to the turn to take it safely. I'm actually surprisingly good at that. Even in the sharpest turns, I was able to take the turn at over 30 mph without getting any closer to the outside paint line on the roads. The more gradual turns I took at whatever speed gravity decided was right for me. Outside foot down, inside foot up, inside knee pointed out, and lean into the turn. Road bikes, at least mine, handle surprisingly well on pavement. Who woulda thunk it?<br />
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I was a little tired, but pretty hopeful for finishing the ride when I finally hit Hogpen. Hogpen Gap is more than 7 miles of climbing with a couple of false summits thrown in to try and break your spirit. In addition to that, the grade frequently gets up to as much as 15%. The first 3 miles went by without too much trouble. Sure, it's frustrating to know that you've got 7 miles of climbing and you can't get your bike computer to say you're going any faster than 7 mph (and usually slower than that), but I was at least moving and feeling more or less okay. Then I hit the first really crazy incline and realized that I was going just over 3 mph. I was literally riding at a walking pace. What was worse is that no one was passing me. I crested the first false summit and then after a brief descent (knowing the whole time I had to climb all that lost elevation back before I even got close to the top), hit the second really steep section. I was hurting.<br />
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<i>To be continued tomorrow.</i></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-77654122322996568052013-09-17T09:52:00.001-04:002013-09-17T09:53:03.491-04:00My First Time Racing a Mountain Bike<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsm_photography/" target="_blank">Shane Mathews</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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<i>Today's post is inspired by Fat Cyclist's fairly recent post complaining about the <a href="http://www.fatcyclist.com/2013/08/27/an-open-letter-to-about-90-of-everyone-ive-ever-asked-howd-your-race-go/" target="_blank">short answers</a> he often gets when asking about people's rides. He didn't ask me about my experience in the Dauset Trails Dirty Duathlon this weekend, and neither did you, but here's my answer.</i><br />
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I bought a mountain bike back in May and before this weekend I had ridden it four times on trails. Of course, it seemed natural that I should go race it this weekend at the Dauset Duathlon in Jackson, GA. For those not in the know, a duathlon is like a triathlon, except they replace the swim leg with an extra run leg. This race was a trail race with a nearly 2-mile run, nearly 7-mile bike, and that run again. All courses took place on single-track trails through a wooded area.<br />
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First, the basics: My runs were good. Had this been just a pure trail run, I would have been fourth place in my age group in the top three or four for every age group but one. I don't even think I had a great day with my running, actually. I felt a little sluggish, but I can't decide if that was the terrain or me. The bike leg, however, was a different story.</div>
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My lack of excellence on the bike is not surprising. My Strava segments for cycling are drastically different depending on whether you're looking at a road ride or a trail ride. On the road, I'm usually almost exactly in the middle of the rankings for the big climbs. It's bizarrely consistent, actually. I consider this pretty good, given my size (slightly taller than 6'2" and over 200 lbs). Obviously, I'm not a natural climber. On the downhill segments, I'm frequently in the top quarter. I think this is also due to my size. On both the road bike and mountain bike I frequently have to use my brakes to not pass smaller riders in front of me on the downhills (assuming we're not on a technical trail).</div>
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On the mountain, things change. Suddenly, my performances fall to near the bottom of the Strava rankings for a given segment. The problem is not my fitness. You give me a smooth, relatively straight section of trail and I can keep up with some of the best. The problem is that you rarely see that sort of path on mountain bike trails. Instead, you have to navigate for the best lines and know how to handle different obstacles and terrain to take advantage of your fitness. I have the fitness. I'm a pretty strong time trialist. I can maintain a fairly high level of effort for a fairly long time. I can't keep up with a pro, even a bad one, but you have to be an exceptional amateur to hope to drop me on flat terrain. (You just need to be my equal and 40 lbs lighter to drop me on hills.) I don't have the technique. I get extremely uncomfortable going downhill, especially when there's anything more than a gradual turn during or ending the descent. I waste a lot of speed braking on the downhills to keep within my comfort zone while descending. I climb better (after a period of learning from my mistakes this spring) but I'm still slower than I could be due to my lack of experience and understanding of how to more efficiently navigate technical sections. I also think I have a tendency to turn my handlebars on sharp turns instead of leaning into them like I should, which is weird. I don't have that problem at all on the road bike.</div>
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That's exactly what happened in this race. Instead of gaining on guys who were a little faster afoot than I am like I do in road triathlons, I lost a ton of time on the bike this Sunday. Coming out of the first transition, I was in fourth place in my age group. I was less than 60 seconds out of third and and 1:35 and 1:47 ahead of the two next closest guys in the group. Things were going good. Then I had to start pedalling.</div>
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The course was surprisingly challenging for a location well south of the nearest real mountains, but I was doing well. I was handling the terrain confidently (but a little slowly). I actually passed several people during the climbs, but I was passed by several people during technical flat and downhill sections. Just so you know, passing and being passed on singletrack is frustrating for everyone involved. First, it's expected that if you're the slower rider in the front, that you make it possible for the faster rider to pass. Second, if you're the faster rider behind, you have to wait for the rider in front to find a spot where the trail is wide enough to allow safe passing. In a duathlon, there's also the added fact that the slow rider was faster than you during the run so it's your fault that you're having to wait for his fat, inexperienced ass to feel safe enough to get over to the right for you to pass.</div>
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I would also suggest that if you pass a guy that you not have to have to hike-a-bike up a short technical climb that he cruises right over while passing you, forcing both of you to go back through that annoying social interaction of passing on singletrack all over again.</div>
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It wasn't until near the end when I finally had any real problems (other than not being able to take advantage of my strength due to my lack of skill). On the roughest descent of the day something happened. I hit a patch of sand, caught a large root or rock off center, or I misjudged a bend in the path. I can't remember, but I ended up losing control of the bike momentarily and ended up in the bushes at the edge of the trail. This was not a real fall. I managed to unclip in time and get a foot down, but I did somehow bust up a knuckle on my left hand and leave a fairly big scratch down my right shoulder that I didn't notice until I got in the shower after the race. I was a little rattled for the next half mile. A fall always leaves me less competent than before because I've come to realize that it's safer to to be less cautious on a mountain bike than to be too cautious. I still consider this to be a success. For once, my only fall while riding the mountain bike came during the hardest part of the trail.</div>
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Luckily, I nailed the biggest climb of the day not long after that fall and was able to get back into that zone that I had been in earlier in the race so that I finished the course feeling confident in my abilities. The only time I had to get off the bike the entire ride (other than that fall) was when a longish, easy flat section ended suddenly in a not-quite-hairpin turn that instantly turned into very technical, very steep climb. It came up so fast and unexpectedly that I had no time to downshift to a gear that would have let me attempt it. It seemed to catch a lot of guys off guard judging from the fact I didn't see a single person in front of me or behind me riding it.<br />
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Mickey, who was riding near the front of the pack, claims he was able to ride even that section of the trail, but there's no way he can really prove it. Having seen him ride several times before, I tend to believe him, but there's no way he can prove it.</div>
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No matter how happy I am with my riding, I don't get time bonuses for self-satisfaction. It took me 51 minutes to finish the bike course and my 1:35 and 1:47 advantages had turned into 10-minute and 6:30-minute deficits. Not only that, but the podium finishers had pulled even further away to a 13 minute difference just to reach third place. There was no way I was going to run two miles 13 minutes faster than someone who ran the first leg in less than 16 minutes, although I'd love to be able to knock out 2 miles in 3 minutes. If I could, I'd quit my job right now and go pro. I wouldn't even have to get any better on the mountain bike. I'd just have to post 1:30 miles on all the running legs and laugh as I blew past guys who had smoked me on the bike.</div>
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I didn't post 1:30 miles (or even 7-minute miles), but my last run wasn't bad. I was a little sluggish during the first half mile on that significant, but not ridiculous, hill that started the run course, but after that, I got my second wind and went on to post a time that closed in on both of the guys who passed me on the bike. I cut the lead of the guy who had been 10 minutes ahead of me to only 3 minutes. That makes it sound like I ran like the freaking wind, but in reality it's because the guy apparently blew himself up on the bike and had to walk most of the way. Over 26 minutes on a 1.84-mile course seems ridiculously slow, especially for a guy who posted one of the fastest overall bike times. The other guy who passed me on the bike started the run with a 6:30 lead, which I managed to carve 2 minutes out of. Unfortunately, the run just wasn't long enough for me to catch them. I really think that had the run course been one more mile, I would have finished in 4th instead of 6th. On the other hand, if the bike leg had been much longer, no length of run would have allowed me to catch up.</div>
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I'm actually okay with my overall result, though. I knew coming in that I don't have the trail-riding chops to match my road-riding abilities. I didn't go in expecting to place. It was nice to see some of my friends place (none of whom would have been racing if I hadn't signed up and nagged them to race too), but it was annoying to realize too late that this race classified Clydesdales as 200 and up and that would I would have easily made the podium if I'd registered for that, but I'll survive.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-17838400283380448642013-08-20T08:28:00.001-04:002013-08-20T09:22:11.697-04:00Maybe I'll Try Some New Things<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/justinwkern/" target="_blank">Justin Kern</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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I watched <a href="http://www.ridethedividemovie.com/" target="_blank">Ride the Divide</a> the other night, thanks to a recommendation from Mickey. I think I was a bit of a jerk when he brought it up because instead of saying "Thanks. I'll have to check that out," I instead vented my bitterness about not being able to stream Netflix at home because of being stuck with stupid satellite internet because I'm too far out in the boonies to have a high-speed internet provider who doesn't stick a ridiculously small limit on my data usage.<br />
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The movie was good though. If you're at all interested in people pushing their physical and emotional limits and think imagery from the wilderness out West is just awesome, it's worth watching. If landscapes and tired people on bikes doesn't strike your fancy, maybe it's not so good. I'm not sure this is necessarily a transcendent documentary that can make the topic fascinating even to those who don't come into the thing interested in the subject matter, but I liked it.<br />
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The only problem is that watching the movie made want to actually take on the <a href="http://tourdivide.org/" target="_blank">challenge</a> of riding on a mountain bike from Banff, Canada, to the border with Mexico along the Great Divide. The ride is over 2,000 miles and seems to take around a full month of riding for most who finish it, which is not many. Researching the actual race did not help this desire to try it myself. The official grand depart for the race is in early June and I could probably finish it before I had to be back to work in late July. I wouldn't even have to take off work. Plus, the hardest parts of the trip (besides riding a bike more than 2,000 miles over the course of a few weeks) is sleeping outside with only what you can carry and loneliness. Considering the fact that I enjoy backpack camping and am not particularly susceptible to loneliness, I could be an ideal candidate to actually do this.<br />
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The only problem is that I have a wife and kids back home and it's against the <a href="http://tourdivide.org/the_rules" target="_blank">rules</a> to have any contact with friends or family during the race. I could personally handle that because I'm kind of a jerk. The problem is that my wife and kids wouldn't be fond of that and I'm not enough of a jerk to completely not care about what they think.<br />
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Well, the girl probably wouldn't care too much. She'd still be young enough next year that she'd just forget who I was after a week or two. No real suffering on her part. The boy is old enough to hold onto these things and stockpile them as fuel for future maladjustments, though.<br />
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Outside of the physical realm, I think I'm going to enter into a <a href="http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-column-contest-time-again" target="_blank">column-writing competition</a> for McSweeney's. A friend posted a writing-type job opening a few weeks back that I think I would have actually enjoyed. I applied for it, of course, but it's been long enough without hearing anything that I'm assuming it's another case of my not even making the cut for the first round of interviews. It's a really good thing I actually have a reliable job already or I'd be getting really desperate by now. It's been years since the last nibble at my résumé. Despite that, it made me think about how I may have given up on my earlier career path too soon. Sure, the newspaper and a work schedule that had me seeing my wife only twice a week despite sleeping in the same bed was a dead end, but I think I bailed on that path for the known possibilities of education too soon, and public education has been a little like Calypso and her island for were for Odysseus. Sure, those summers without work are beautiful and that pension at a relatively young age is pleasant, but I'd really rather be somewhere else doing something else.<br />
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That's why I think I'm working on coming up with a concept and a pilot edition of a column for that contest. I want to start dipping my toes back into the work I'd rather be doing. I'm not in a financial situation to jump all the way in, but at least I can try to do what I can. As for the column, I have my idea, and I think it's something that's not been done a lot, but I'll wait to share it until after the contest. If I win, you'll get to see how I do with it. If I don't win, I'll get to publish my pilot here. The rules say I keep all rights to my submission.<br />
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I'm also strongly considering trying to take part in the National Novel Writing month. This is in no way a practical attempt at getting where I want to go, of course. The McSweeney's thing actually comes with money and a contract for writing for them for a year. I just want to try the novel because I have an idea, and, like riding the divide, I want to see if I have it in me.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3061577.post-54765583221068228982013-08-01T09:00:00.000-04:002013-08-01T09:00:25.720-04:00In Which I Swim, Bike, and Run to Confusion!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonivc/" target="_blank">ToniVC</a>, Flickr Creative Commons</i></span></div>
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School starts back in the next few days and I think that usually that's the cue for some really crappy, depressed navel gazing coming from this blog, but I'm going to avoid that. Sure, a certain job opportunity came up that I probably won't even get an interview for but will lead (has led) to uncontrollable daydreaming that will make showing up for work every morning even that much more depressing.<br />
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Shit. I suck at not being depressing. How do I even have any friends?<br />
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Okay. Refocusing. Ignore that you're surrounding by a jumble of desks and unpacked boxes full of textbooks and office supplies. Ignore that you gained 10 pounds this summer because you're a fucking lazy bastard who can't manage to stick to a training routine when you're not forced into a schedule by work. Ignore that some people won't get that these first three paragraphs are tongue-in-cheek, intended to cheer yourself up. Ignore that they're also heavily based in the truth of your personal experience.<br />
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Moving on. Instead of whining about work, I'm going to talk about a few of the highlights of my summer. My summer break started off with my winning my age group at my first triathlon of the season. It was an interesting day, actually. Most of the sprint distance races I do have quarter mile swims or something similar. That's 440 yards. This race was 650 yards. I had not realized that when I lined up at the starting line, so when I stepped out of the water heading into transition and looked down at my watch and saw a time well into the double digits, my heart sank. I'm not the fastest of swimmers. I'm usually middle of the pack. I'm okay with that because I'm above average on the bike and run and the swim is the shortest, least important part of the race. It's just not a good way to go into transition thinking that a performance you thought was solid was actually a disaster. Turns out that it wasn't a disaster. It was exactly what I should have swum over that distance, but I didn't find that out until later the next day. I overcame my disappointment, and I flew on the bike, my fastest bike leg ever. I did okay on the run. Looking at the preliminary results, I thought I was probably getting 3rd place in my age group. That was cool. This was a much larger event than the race where I won Clydesdales and my age group last year so third place was solid.<br />
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The problem was that my name never appeared on the preliminary results. When I realized they were posting names of people who finished well after me, I talked to race officials to see what was up. Apparently my timing chip didn't register at the finish line. Luckily, races have a backup system of a pair of volunteers with stopwatches and pen and paper who spot racers as they cross transition area boundaries and the finish line. They found that and told me they'd get it figured out. The only problem is that the preliminary results never included my name, even when they started the award ceremony later that morning.<br />
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I walked over to where the awards were being given out and waited for my age group. That took a while. The women's categories were awarded first and then there was a long pause as they waited for results before announcing my age group. Was that my fault? Maybe. They announced the third place in my age group. Not me. I couldn't help but be disappointed. I could have sworn there had been two times faster than what I had on my watch at the finish line. Second place. Still not me. I started to stand up to get my bike and head back to the hotel. First place: Jacob's LandofBlissandBlisters! I still have no idea what happened to the two faster times. Had I looked at the wrong age group? Were the the two faster times mistakes? Did I just read them wrong? The time I was given was almost identical to what I expected and almost 2 full minutes faster than 2nd place. Not a bad way to end a race.<br />
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As for the rest of my summer, this is getting long. I'll finish it tomorrow.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From <a href="http://aracauna.blogspot.com">Jacob's Land of Bliss and Blisters</a></div>Jacobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768654376657640904noreply@blogger.com2