Junior turns ten

Well, 10 months.
Happy birthday.
Here's a photo.

Friday funnies

How to win an election when your name isn't John, George, Dick or Bill: have your fans (remember when they were just "supporters"?) reclaim it?
Reprinted without permission from today's xkcd.

Nerd yoga

I was just swimming back from the campus library (it's really humid out), and there were a bunch of people doing yoga on the quad. Yoga. On the quad.

Sure enough, this is a regular occurrence; perhaps I would notice these things were I to emerge from my subbasement laboratory more often. The group looked like a very awkward of non-hip faculty (or at least adults) and uber-nerdy summer students (read: grunt labor).

Next week, I'll bring my mat.

Secret weapon

When we're already been through The Very Hungry Caterpillar twice, complained at cats in hats and tried to stretch our way our of the rocker at any mention of Curious George, dalmations or dwarves, it's time for a little Maverick Room. I really like some of the pieces therein, but its immediate value is how it sounds like a rhythmic drone to a ten-month-old at bedtime.

... like an ampersand
between eyes & ears,
the soundtrack strung
together images
the way popcorn butter & soda syrup
held us to earth.

Scenes from a.m. jogs in NOLA

Running past Jackson Square, en route to breakfast munchies.
Along the riverfront, back toward the hotel.

Training 2008W23-25

I took Monday off. I don't remember why; my calendar says "Lyndhurst council mtg 8pm", but I don't think I went.

Tuesday I took advantage of an early Julian bedtime and headed out for a mini-brick: 6 miles on the bike over to Performance to see if they had caps for my cleats. They didn't have any that fit my Teflon-endowed Looks, which might reflect on the availability of such a product or the incompetence of the hired help. I'll try a real bike shop next time I'm in the neighborhood. I digress. Having ridden home, I switched to sneakers for a surprisingly quick 5k. Like, 7:30 quick. Like, sub-24-minute quick. It's high time to run another sprint, or at least a 5k with race numbers, to claim that PR.

A couple of rainy days stumped my bicycle commute, but Friday was nice. I rode to work, then took the medium-distance route home, down the valley. 26 miles total, in about 90 minutes including traffic-related pauses.

On Sunday the 8th was the CTC's Sunday in June ride in Burton, Ohio. I rode the 100-km route with Andrew and Scott, completing the trip in about 3:50 riding time. The weather was beautiful (sunny and warm, a bit windy on some of the more open roads); the ride was through Amish country, which aside from passing by the occasional horse-drawn buggy or clusters of Amlets playing outdoors in their Sunday best (rather than, I presume, in the air conditioning with eyes glues to Nickelodeon like their modern brethren) didn't add much of note. But, road conditions were good, and riding with gobs of other cyclists is always fun. Here's a Google Maps view of our route.

I commuted a couple of times to school the following week, 17-18-ish miles round-trip. On Sunday, Andrew, Scott and I again hit a morning ride, which we dovetailed into the regular Roads Scholars run for a 20+8-mile brick. But, I haven't downloaded the Garmin info to claim any numbers for it yet. More to come.

My legs were still a bit sore that afternoon as I boarded the plane to New Orleans for a few days of scientific adventure at the 2008 SNM meeting (note: link is not as dangerous as you might think). Monday I took off from running (which had nothing to do with touring Bourbon Street the night before, but I did get some leisurely jogs in on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, about an hour apiece, I'd guess 5-6 miles. I was highly motivated by post-run beignets.

The Friday evening following, J and I put the jogging stroller to its first semi-serious test around my usual neighborhood 5k route. No problem: he woke up about 20 minutes into the run and spent the remainder happily looking around. So, we tried again on Saturday: a family 5k at Bedford Reservation (sans hound; we'll add him into the mix at a future date) along with {J,R}V, with another 5 tacked on without the stroller, for fear of sleeping-position-induced neck soreness for the little one. In retrospect, though, he didn't seem to have any ill effects at all.

Encouraging velo-commuting

I always enjoy Dr. Hamermesh's succinct economics posts; this one from a few days ago discusses an incentive to bicycle-commuting (or, more specifically, bicycle ownership by employees of a company) in the Netherlands. The deal there is $750 pre-tax, once every three years.

A similar subsidy in the U.S. seems like a good idea. It's common for companies in urban areas to offer a payroll deduction for car-parking or public transit passes; I assume, but don't know, that this is because there's some method in the tax code to pay for this before income taxes are withheld.

$250 per year (say, $1500 to build and maintain for 6 years a loaded-up touring bike with racks, bags and Spy Hunter -worthy guns and oil slick for negotiating rush-hour traffic) seems like a reasonable cap. Pre-tax dollars are equivalent to about a 10-20% discount, depending on how much one actually shovels out to the IRS. If one worked for a hip, modern European corporation, maybe said company would be hip and modern enough to put up a matching 20% for the brand value of having a parking lot full of shiny new bicycles.

Training 2008W21-22

I took a week off of anything other than stretching after the marathon and am now slowly starting to move my legs again. [1] Something like:

Sunday (marathon)
The next Sunday: 3.8 mi around the neighborhood @ 8:22/mi
Tuesday: bicycle commute (20 mi @ 17mph)
Wednesday: Trail run at N. Chagrin with CTC group, 5.6 mi @ 10:10/mi
Sunday: Ride 1 hr @ 15 mph average, medium effort

Sunday's ride was down into the valley and back: average 22 mph there (peak 35mph; note to self: check handlebar alignment before doing that again), 11 mph back. I stopped at Caribou for unleaded beans on the way back, confusing the bean-counter by asking for 1/4 lb in each of two small bags. Isn't that why bike jersey pockets are symmetric?

My HRM claims that my max for the ride was 239. 239?! That wasn't a single goofy beat either; according to the data shown, I spent some time in 200+. Maybe my metal spokes rotate at RF frequency, interfering with the wireless HR transmission? Given that I've maxed out in the high 190s during hill repeat runs, I find these rates hard to believe. Then again, the profile over time makes sense: after 15 minutes or so, my HR settled to 160 and stayed there.

Wednesday's run was beautiful: after work, sunny with a cool breeze, full of summery sights and smells. I'm glad the CTC regulars had some idea of how to construct an hour run from the myriad of available trails; I'll definitely hit this weekly meeting as my schedule allows. Here's the gmap of our run route. And here's why my legs were more tired afterward than on my traditional 6-miler on the streets:

[1] I was going to write a footnote to that, but I don't remember why.