Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Alright, I'm not a raging liberal or anything like it. I tend towards a conservatively moderate political outlook with a a view towards social justice and a strong conviction in a conservative monetary policy (i.e.-balanced budgets, simple tax plans, etc.). I side with those who feel that a stricter interpretation of the constitution is what we need in the courts with legislators doing the hard work of drafting policy. I'm in favor of a stronger congress and a weaker executive branch. Events of the last couple of days have convinced me that W is in need of a swift kick in the ass. The Executive Branch has its own court to approve warrants to spy in folks for national security reasons. Yet, the President has decided that he needs to be able to bypass this. This is, to me, a clear violation of the 4th Amendment and if the Pres doesn't come clean, apologize and promise not to do it again (with some real oversight) then I think the Congress ought to issue articles of impeachment. To any Republican Party election types: if I had to do it again, I'd now vote against the President. In three years, I'll not support the Reublican party unless it strongly distances itself from these events.

Now, down here where I live, there is a lot of support for W and the "War on Terror" and so there are a lot of folks who don't seem to mind the intrusion but that how civil liberties get eroded. We talk about saving lives but what abobut the principles and the lives given to establish them between 1775 and 1781. The price of liberty in our nation is that we will always be less safe that those who choose to restrict it for their citizens. I'm willing to pay that. There are families that has lost sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers in this war. The rest of us need to accept that our values require that we are at risk and that we will be at risk as long as we commit to protect the 4th Amendment rights of our citizens and we askew the atrocity that is torture. The lives lost will be, as Jefferson might have said, martyrs for liberty.

I know that's easy for me to say as I haven't lost anyone close to me in a terrorist attack but restricting civil liberties was wrong when John Adams did it after the XYZ Affair, when Lincoln did it in the Civil War, when Wilson did it in WW I and now when W had done it in his nebulous "War on Terror" (which fighteningly sounds like Johnson's War on Poverty and Reagan's War on Drugs). If you don't have a case that'll stand up in court (and this court has turned down 5 requests out of thousands given it) then you don't have a case. Yes it might just cost some people their lives but it'll preserve the principles that thousands have died to defend.

Anyways, sorry for the political heaviness and thanks for reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Saturday, December 10, 2005

So the plan today was to go out and ride a hundred miles in training for an endurance race I'd like to do in February. The idea was to try and stay below 150 on the ole heart rate while keeping the speed in the high 19's. Great plan. The weather called for cold conditions with little wind so I figured I'd wait until about 11 am and then ride during the warmest part of the day.

As I got out the temp had warmed into the low 40's and I was stoked for a good ride. I was going to do two 50 mile loops with a stop at the house to refill the bottles so I wouldn't have to carry more than two. As I left I realized that there was a bit of wind but it didn't seem to bad. At least not until I got about ten miles into the ride and then it was like someone decided to flog me. I fought into a 15 mph head wind for aobut 15 miles until I made a turn and got the wind at my back. After thet it wasn't oo bad for a while but I had used a lot of energy fighting my way into it. When I got home the first time I switched bottles and it seems that the wind switched as well. For the second loop I fought head or side winds for most of the ride.

I ended up averaging about 18.9 mph and burned about 10% more calories than I usually do. That was pretty much a bummer as I'm wiped out right now to some extent. Still, it was a good training ride and I expect to do more like it over the course of X-mas break. I just wish I could find a route that was a little less hilly. The endurance race (24 hours of Sebring) will be held in Florida and I'm guessing I did more climbing in the first loop of my ride today than I'll do in all of the event in Sebring.

Thanks fo Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Friday, December 02, 2005

Well, I'm through the first month of the training schedule. For my newer readers this is what Joe Friel, author of the Cyclist's Training Bible, calls the Base 1 period. Lots of low intensity riding with a few single legged pedaling drills and form sprints thrown in to keep it interesting. Add to that a little work in the weight room and you've got yourself the foundation of a better training and racing season, assuming you can stay with the program, not get bored and not fall to the temptation of training with too much intensity (i.e.-riding too hard). The numbers for November came out at 1154 miles in 3353 minutes (or about 56 hours). The somewhat staggering number is that I burned (at least according to my heart rate monitor) a whopping 36321 Calories (or kilocalories for the scientifically minded) above my basal metabolic rate. That's enough caloric output for me to have lost over 8 pounds if I hadn't replaced some of those calories. While my weight didn't change, I am noticing that I look a lot leaner which makes me think I lost some fat and gained some muscle, probably due to the combination of riding and weight lifting.

Now I move into the Base 2 period. During this cycle (each cycle is about 4 weeks long if you include a week of recovery) I'll shift from doing pure endurance work along with a little skills training to working on my muscular endurance a good bit more along with more skills training (got too teach those legs to spin faster as well as harder). This is where I lay the foundation for my time trialing season by doing increasingly longer blocks of riding near 80% of my maximum heart rate. These are called "tempo" sessions because you try to ride them with an even cadance and heart rate. I'm still working at well below my lactate threshold (the heart rate where my body clears out lactic acid at the same rate my muscles produce it) but the rides get to be a little more fun because I don't feel like I'm dwadling about. I can do a little hill work now but nothing that requires real power and I have to remain seated for any climbing I do. The idea is that power development is going to happen in the weight room this month as I move into the muscular strength phase of my lifting schedule (yes, everyhting is scheduled; it's how you get competitive to race). I hate this part because this is the phase when weight room work really hurts. I know that it does me tons of good but I really do hate it. I don't mind suffering on the bike because the sensation is more of a whole body thing. In the weight room it's like I target one specific muscle or muscle group, torture it and then move to the next. Since the pain is more localized, the suffering seems a lot more intense even if it is for a much shorter period of time. I would rather suffer with my whole body for an hour in a time trial than in my quads for eight reps on the leg curl machine.

The most interesting thing is the feeling of being hungry a lot but not ravenous. At some point every season my body decides that I'm not feeding it enough and I have to endure urges to eat every single thing in sight (much like when I was 17). Usually I'm working out so much that I deal with this and still lose weight. This usually doesn't happen until I'm really into the main build training cycles. Right now, the feeling is lurking. Every once in a while I go on a tear (or maybe it's better called a binge) but for the most part I'm able to moderate my eating. It's unsettling though to think that I'm dealing with this sort of thing this earlier in the season. Probably it's a good thing because it means I'm training with a bit more intensity and duration which is good for a February peak but as I get into the higher intensity and longer duration of Base 2 here I wonder if I'll begin to eat us out of hearth and home. What I'd rather do is lose some more fat and gain a bit more muscle (though if I do too much more of that in my legs I'll have to buy new pants again).

Anyways, thanks for reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |