Draining

In more ways than one.

The crud is slowly going away. I felt like crap this morning, so I slept until noon. Which meant I didn't get to the dump. And I really didn't feel like running. Or biking. Or doing much of anything else.

Went to Wal Mart with Lisa to get some clothes for her, and barely did that. Hard to figure out why that place suddenly sets my teeth on edge.

John wanted to do more algebra this afternoon. Who am I to complain? He's finished the first of six parts of his Algebra I class. Considering it's supposed to be done in eight weeks -- and no fewer -- he's doing pretty well, I'd say. We may have inadvertently hit upon something that'll help him out in school.

I've passed the crud baton to Will and feel badly about it. Almost as badly as he does, I suspect.

Did a little bit of puttering this afternoon. Cleaned about half of John's room before he announced he wanted to go to bed (around 8 pm). He's been getting to sleep early and waking up at some horrible hour lately. Again, I probably shouldn't complain.

The peeps are getting downright snotty. They're taking over the bathroom. I put down some cardboard in a couple of strategic spots, but I'm going to have to figure out something to do here quickly. I may need to step it up on the coop annex construction.

Watched an hour or so of television while folding laundry. Caught the last 30 minutes or so of United 93. Maybe it wouldn't have been such a jarring experience if I hadn't been in New York on Sept. 11, but I don't think so. Talk about draining.

Hopefully, not more of the same tomorrow. This not training business is starting to get on my very last nerve.

Signs of the Season

No out-of-state license plates this morning. Another sign of spring.

The boys were awake early this morning, so we made the bus in plenty of time. Had a talk with John -- one day after shelling out nearly $300 for a new pair of glasses for Will, it turns out he'd lost his pair of glasses, too. Good news is he wants contacts. I'm trying to work out a deal with him to get a haircut, but I don't think he'll bite on that one.

I'd woken up feeling fat this morning. And technically speaking, I am still fat. My BMI is 25.1, just a hair overweight. Argh.

Anyway, I ran my 5K, averaging 8:57 per mile. Jumped in the car, drove to the gym, and did a rather slow 13.2 mile bike ride. Read a decent organic gardening book and a heart monitor training guide. Some of the heart monitor ideas may finally be sinking in, but it's a slow, hard slog.

Because I am fat -- and the federal government should know fat quite well when it sees it -- I decided to do a quick half-mile in the pool. It was nice. A few people sat in the hot tub, but no one came near the churning, drowning fool on the far side of the pool.

Picked up my mail and had goodies galore -- an Amazon shipment with Handy Farm Devices and Storey's Basic Country Living. Hooray! Also had my grain mill from Lehman's. Hoorah! The grain mill is an impressive piece of work, all metal and heavy. Can't wait to clean the packing grease and try it out on some hard winter wheat berries. And I got my seeds from Burpee. Huzzah! Two types of corn, giant sunflowers, Brandywine tomatoes, onions, carrots, cilantro, sage and thyme. They'll send the potato seeds, strawberry and blueberry bushes separately.

Also got some triathlon porn: The TriSports.com annual catalog.

I'd better find some extra income quickly.

Went to the internet cafe and started an upload to work, but had to take a break and take Will's gym shorts up to his school. En route back, I stopped by a local smokehouse and picked up some good stuff: pepper bacon, summer venison and jalapeno cheese sausage, and local salsa. Can't wait to try any/all of it, but hoping I don't get carried away.

Spent much of the afternoon working like a Roman orchard slave, but got quite a bit done and now may stand slight chance of being caught up by week's end. Stuffed belle mer salmon and giant salad for dinner. Treated myself to 3oz of Monterey Jack cheese for dessert. An odd dietary day: Less than half from carbs, but still more protein than fat. Hmmmmmmmmmm. I'm guessing this is my cheap excuse to get into the bread again tomorrow.

Can't wait for the weekend. Must plant seeds, assemble chicken brooder, catch up on laundry and cleaning, grind wheat, bake bread, take bike into city for tuneup and run/bike/swim.

Tipping Point

If only whining were an Olympic sport.

Woke up a little before 6a and spent a good 15 minutes trying to justify why I should just run this morning. I was doing a pretty good job of it, too. Problem was, after I got dressed for running, it just seemed like a waste to not do any more. So I threw my swim things in the bag. And my bike things, since you can never tell if there's going to be a 4-year-old's birthday party at the gym.

Did my 5K. I'd zoned out and forgotten to charge the Garmin, but it felt a little faster this morning, even with a stiff breeze in my face most of the way. My iPod display has been screwed for a couple of days, though. I think it got cold.

Scooted down to the gym and did a little better than a half-mile swim. I know -- I was going to go long, but Lisa needed the car early for weaving class. Given that I was wearing an extremely nice hand-knitted wool sweater that took about 200 hours for her to make (Christmas present and quite possibly my favorite garment these days), it might've been a little counterproductive to complain.

Sweater and I returned in time for Lisa's class. Spent much of the day catching up on scutwork and looking out the window. Today's the proverbial tipping point -- days are going to get longer now. You can feel the trees stretching.

Diet was OK today:

Pre-workout breakfast: Strawberry vanilla yogurt bar
Breakfast: Apple cinnamon granola with skim, blueberries, strawberries
Blueberry kefir
1 c cooked plain pasta
Lunch: One-pot pasta with vegetables
Afternoon snack: 1 c carrots
Bread. Butter.
Dinner: Broiled King salmon
8 c salad

Great food site: 101cookbooks.com

Great training site where I've, um, liberated some JavaScript from: breakingthetape.com

Tempted to make more bread this week. Ordered my new grain mill and everything. But I know what that leads to ...

The Incompleat Consumer

So while I was running Sunday, my mind got to wandering ...

It seems to me that there were four major religions in the last place I lived: Protestants. Jews. Muslims. And Consumers.

This was more than a minor irritant for me. It wasn't just that they got all the good parking spots. It just seemed ... wrong.

It's much better where I live now. After a day like Friday, though, I still feel like such a freakin' consumer. So I made myself feel a little better today by hitting up the seed catalog.

Veggies: Corn, tomato, potato, onion, carrot seeds
Fruits: Blueberry, strawberry bushes
Herbs: Thyme, sage, cilantro
Flowers: Mammoth sunflowers

And I called in a tree strike: two apples, two peaches, and, for joining the Arbor Day Foundation, got 10 more mixed trees -- maple, birch, oak, spruce.

Also called the hatchery and got my chick order changed. I'm now getting 25 New Hampshire Reds and 25 Arucanas. I'd ordered 25 "assorted rainbow layers," but figured I'd be better off with Arucanas in a cold-weather climate.

This means I'll probably feel better in two or three years. Might even get to the point where I produce enough to not feel like the Compleat Consumer.

On the training front, I swam 0.5 miles today. Meant to do more, but I was at 60 laps when the stroke people took over the pool. I don't mean the stroke people, like the people who might be able to help me out; I mean the cerebral event survivor people. Anyway, I didn't want to take up a length of the pool, since it's not divided into lanes, so I got out about 0.25 miles early.

(Really. I've got a few relatives who have had strokes.)

Diet didn't go too bad, although I should have an implant that delivers a near-lethal shock every time I get near the bread. The menu follows:

Pre-swim breakfast: 1 slice bread
1 tbsp peanut butter
Breakfast: 1 bowl granola with skim, blueberries, strawberries
Kefir
Morning snack: Bread. Butter.
Lunch: One-pot pasta
Bread. Butter.
Afternoon snack: 1 c carrots
1 c grapes
Bread. Butter.
Dinner: Jalapeno buffalo chili
Bread. Butter.

See a pattern here?

I'm going long tomorrow morning. And I ain't stopping for bread. Or butter.

Getting Carried Away

Possibly. Or possibly, keeping a continued (if tenuous) hold on my sanity.

Another horrible professional, familial and existential day yesterday that's just too horrible to blog about. I ran my 5K and didn't have time for anything else. Managed to more or less keep from giving into my worst dietary impulses.

Breakfast: 1 Nature Valley vanilla yogurt granola bar
Lunch: Omelet with habanero cheese
2 slices toast
Snack: 1 c dried apples
Dinner: Low-carb bagel with light cream cheese

Slightly better day so far today. The boys continue to amaze and please by waking up early, in time for breakfast and decent conversation. (It's just dad who's a tad on the slow side.) Dropped them off at the bus stop around 6:30 a.m. -- damn! forgot it was backwards day for their Spirit Week! -- and did my 5K.

Where something strange happened. I averaged less than 9 minutes per mile. When I first started running, around 2000, I generally had a training pace of 8 minutes. Maybe 8:30 if I was really tired. Since then, though, I've slowed to something closer to 9:30. No breakthrough, no eureka! moment, just a startled look at the Garmin after I finished running.

Drove to the gym and did 13.6 miles on the bike in about 65 minutes while reading a book on training for first triathlons. It's dedicated to the author's granddaughter, who is training for one. She is 3 years old. And will require therapy. By the time she is 5 years old.

I've come to the conclusion that biking is going to be my weak event. If I've got to go 112 miles, I need to be biking about twice as fast as I am now. And that's not real good. I can't spend 10 hours on a bike. So I'll be working on that a bit harder.

My swimming is coming along. I did my usual 0.3 miles in something south of 15 minutes, but I wasn't hugely worried about the time. More than anything, it's becoming a wind-down exercise on most days.

Took a shower and came home to work. It's just lovely right now outside the window -- mud season is in full bloom. It's been raining the better part of two days (think east Seattle) and will continue until the weekend, when everything turns to snow again.

On the minus side of today's ledger: My laptop hard drive died. And a software program that I use daily wouldn't start because nobody paid the annual license. Sigh.

On the plus side: I am getting faster. And I feel like I might even be getting a bit stronger. I'm eating pretty well.

Breakfast: 1 c blueberry yogurt
1 banana
Lunch: 4 oz stuffed salmon
Maple cheese omelet
Toasted bagel
Afternoon snack: Homemade chocolate chip granola
1/2 c blueberries
Dinner: 8 c mixed greens

For some reason, this site entertained me. It's a list of UN World Heritage Organization sites, grouped by country:

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/

Outrages, we got outrages. Can't deal today, though. Too much on my own plate.

I'm bikin' long tomorrow.

Swimming to Indonesia

Oh, yeah. I'm going running with you. As soon as you come and get me.

I knew it was a little warmer this morning before I even looked at the outside thermometer. I'd had a decent night's sleep, only up once and then only for about 30 minutes. I woke up for good around 5:15 a.m. because Stink the Border Collie was jumping around on the bed, demanding to be let out before he could stain every corner in the house. I got up, let him and Pepper (the girl border collie) outside. They were back at the door in about 30 seconds.

"We really didn't mean it," Pepper said. She's the agreeable one.

"Run by yourself," Stink said. His name speaks for itself.

"C'mon," Pepper said. "Let's go crap in the basement again."

I didn't mind so much. One of the problems with running with dogs in winter is the plowing. The plow guys around here use all sorts of salt and chemicals that can be extremely unpleasant on paws. Unless there's new snow and unplowed roads, it's not a good idea to take a dog running, even on a dirt road (where I run). So I got the boys ready for school and bundled up like the little brother in "A Christmas Story." Clothing list:

• Running shorts




• Two pairs socks (one running, one hunting)




• Thermal underwear




• Fleece-lined warmup pants




• Sleeveless shirt




• Composite fiber long-sleeve




• Cotton turtleneck running shirt




• Cotton hoodie




• Running jacket shell




• Gloves




• Ear warmer




• Neck roll




• Shoes




• Red Sox baseball cap

You could barely see my eyes. I went out to the car and the 15-year-old started laughing: "It's Abu Daddy! He make jihad upon triathlon!"

Really, I was probably a bit overdressed, even for -10. Warmed up to a fairly toasty degree around the second mile, and the iPod generally cooperated. It kept cutting out at first until I took it out of my pocket and tucked it inside my glove. Seemed to work a bit better. Finished my 5K in about 28 minutes (375 calories, according to the Garmin, although it seemed a bit sluggish), jumped in the car and drove to the gym for my morning swim.

I should probably explain that I come from an ancient line of sea people. Going way back to the early 1500s, our people lived in Genoa and did all sorts of fun things for the business there. We emigrated to England by way of France _ something about Hugenots being burned at the stake for Sunday afternoon entertainment was involved in the hasty departure_ and took some of the first bunches of Puritans to Jamestown in the early 1600s.

I know -- you can thank us later.

Unfortunately, the family tradition of being comfortable with water stopped at the edge of the New World. I blame it on the Native ancestry. We wound up marrying one of the local princesses and took over the tribe. As far as I know, they wound up liking the white man only slightly less than the water.

Fast-forward 470 years. As a child, I used to envy my older brother's swimming lessons until I realized he was coming back from them with a perpetual thousand-yard stare and a refusal to talk to our mother for the following six days. My personal swimming lessons, which commenced around age 7, were worse. They generally involved a neighborhood teen-ager trying to drown me for $10/hour. (After I tried to file several complaints with various law enforcement and child welfare agencies, the rate was upped to $25/hour.)

As bad as my older brother and I were, our younger brother hit a low-water family mark when it came his turn. My parents were so appalled at the total lack of swimming ability in the gene pool that he was frog-marched to the first meeting of an actual swim team. Mom introduced him to the coach, tipped generously, and retired to the club bar to steel herself with a steady stream of vodka and tonics while I inhaled french fries on the porch and cackled at the knowledge that the little brother would soon return -- an older, sadder, wiser, version, but still non-buoyant. After an hour, we returned to the pool, where everyone had emerged and been joyously reunited their parents ... except my 5-year-old brother, who was nowhere to be found.

This was in the late 1970s, so the fuss was considerably less than it might have been today when he failed to reappear after an hour. Still, I seem to recall about 20 squad cars parked at the club with blue lights flashing, a couple of helicopters buzzing about, a TV news crew or two, and a very strong sense of injustice that these people hadn't been around when I was burning up the phone lines to the Houston Police Department and Texas Child Welfare Division.

After a three-hour absence, my brother was discovered. Hiding. In a bathroom. With his feet on top of the toilet seat. And refusing to unlatch the door and leave until my mother promised (a) no reprisals, (b) an immediate end to the swim team experiment, and (c) a moratorium on squash, for at least a week. The cops, while having a few qualms about the lack of reprisals, had a brief caucus and announced that there was a reasonable demand or two. They urged Mom to agree. She wanted to wait for Dad, who was en route from a hastily interrupted business trip. I wanted to wait for Dad, since it would be very exciting for a 16-year-old to see his little brother executed on camera and might even get me a date if I pretended that it was a terrible tragedy. It was getting late, though, and the TV crews had deadlines, we had dinner to prepare, and the cops had a city full of donut stores that had now been abandoned for several hours, so Mom reluctantly gave in.

Technically, my 30-year-old brother is still grounded.

I digress a bit, no? I was at the gym pool around 7:45 a.m. and did 1/4 mile in about 15 minutes without drowning, mostly due to a sidestroke (I'd call it an "Australian crawl," but that would be like calling a pit bull a "Staffordshire Terrier." Technically correct, but a bit pretentious).

The first 20 or so laps went, well, swimmingly. The last 15 ... not so much. Part of this was due to my complete lack of buoyancy and pervasive goggle-fogging, but the other problem came from a couple of women who had apparently just gone on a Twinkie and coffee binge, and hoped to work it out in the pool. At least, I'd assume Twinkies and coffee, since these women didn't quite fit the body image associated with most meth addicts.

Understand: This is a large pool. Then again, these were large women, and they were quite, um, jolly. They jumped in the water together, and I was immediately displaced a good two feet. If they had cannon-balled, it's quite possible that entire Indonesian villages would have been consumed by a killer wall of water. So I finished the last half or so of my swim alternately bobbing with and against the tides.

I figured 0.25 miles in 15 minutes with about 125 calories burned. Not too bad for a morning's work -- about a half-dozen KFC boneless barbecue wings. Still, could have been better. Used the low calorie-burn to guilt myself into eating just a bit better:

Pre-run: 1/2 whole wheat bagel
1 tbsp peanut butter
Breakfast: Banana
1 cup fruit yogurt
Lunch: Cheese omelet with salsa
1/2 whole wheat bagel
Afternoon snack: 2 c raw carrots

6 wheat thins

3 oz cheddar
Dinner: 4 oz canned salmon
1 cup green beans and new potatoes, mustard vinaigrette

Yeah. I need to cut down on the cheese. It's tough.

Speaking of brothers, it's my older brother's 49th birthday. He's a (rather well-known) writer who lives in a remote part of the Rockies. How remote? The family Christmas joke with his wife used to be, "What do you get the girl who has everything except electricity?" I wouldn't say it's rural, but "Hee Haw" comes on their television through the local PBS affiliate.

(Rim shot. Take my blog. Please.)

Anyway, I called last night to see what was up, ask him how he was going to manage one last year without AARP membership, let him know that his birthday present from Cafe Press would be a few days late, etc. Since much of his writing centers around the environment, we began chatting about climate change and how nearly every state in the country had been affected, and whether or not it would make a decent story. We went through a few states, covering most of the West and most of New England. White pines in Maine, cranberries in Massachusetts, the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire, birch trees everywhere. Potatoes in Idaho, storms in Washington, early warm weather in Wyoming.

"I know the maple syrup industry in Vermont has gone to hell," I said, "but what about Montana?"

"Um, the glaciers?"

I suppose he had a point:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13363560/

Worked hard, too -- lots of telephone interviews and some light manual labor, although I was dogged by the proverbial slow start. Wife and stepdaughter spent most of the day in College Town, where stepdaughter's taking a weight-lifting class to get into shape before shipping out for basic training. I'm told with a straight face that she'll have to run a mile and a half before graduating. Oh, my.

Again, I think I'll sleep well tonight. And it's supposed to warm up tomorrow to a tolerable zero around 6 a.m. Even a 30 percent chance of snow. Somewhere, Stink is cowering ...

The Dog Said No

He did. Really.

I woke up at my usual 5:30 a.m., full of sunshine and good cheer. Rolled over to check my handy outdoor thermometer -- 25! Not bad!

Took me a minute and a pair of reading glasses to figure that was, um, -25. Might have had something to do with the fact that the thermometer is on the west side of the house. Couldn't have been colder than, oh, -20 on the east side. Wind looked like it was out of the north, about 40 mph, but it was hard to tell since there was a nice little mini-whiteout of blowing snow.

I looked over the edge of the bed where Stink, one of two the border collies, had taken up residence. Border collies are smart. But border collies also need constant motion. If border collies had opposable thumbs, we would not be snacking quite so high on the food chain.

"Wanna go for a run?"

Stink (who like Native Americans, earned his name) thought about it for a minute.

"Did I get into the trash again last night?"

"It's not punishment."

"Bullshit."

"It'll be fun."

Stink snorted.

I respect a border collie's intellect. So I went back to sleep until about 8:30 a.m. Got up, did manual labor in front of the computer all day (if I didn't mention it, I work out of the house. The commute from my old office was, oh, two hours. On a good day. So this isn't entirely an awful gig, just one I'm questioning. A lot). Since I felt badly about not going out in the morning, I compensated with a decent diet:

Breakfast: 1 c raspberry granola
1 c skim milk
1 c blueberries
1 tbsp sugar

Morning snack: 1/2 dozen wheat crackers
2 c dried apples

Lunch: 1 c green beans/new potatoes with mustard vinaigrette

Afternoon snack: Nature Valley maple granola bar

Dinner: 8 c green salad with salsa dressing, cheese, tortilla strips
Banana

Not enough protein, I'm thinking. Should've boiled and eaten the border collie.

Worked until 5 p.m., then blew the proverbial whistle. I usually spend most of the morning recuperating from running and shift into a higher gear around 3 p.m. or so, but since I didn't run this morning, I'd actually gotten a fair amount done before noon. So I changed into my slightly schizo running outfit -- Texas flag shorts and a University of Alaska hoodie -- and headed out to the only gym in the valley.

The bicycling wasn't bad, but that might have had something to do with the fact that it was (a) indoors, in a lovely heated building and (b) on a stationary bike that didn't have to dodge the ski trash coming up for a very early weekend without snow tires or, as near as anyone can tell, an IQ. Anyway, I did 13.2 miles (365 calories) at a very slow pace (65 minutes) while reading a book about canning food. Which sounds kind of intimidating, full of warnings about botulism and exploding glass jars and pH levels. Should've stuck to the gardening book.

I thought about the treadmill, but I pulled an Achilles tendon a few weeks ago and didn't want to go through that again. For some reason, I really hurt myself on treadmills -- shin splints, runner's knee, you name it. Doesn't matter if it's a good treadmill or a bad one. I get hurt. So I went for the elliptical trainer and did 3.2 miles (395 calories) , again at a pretty leisurely pace (8:30 per mile).

All in all, not a bad workout. Burned enough calories for, oh, one Burger King Whopper! With cheese! And got the accolade from one of the gym rats, which made me feel good. Kid must've been about 12 years old, all muscle and tattoos with no stamina. I'd been on the cycle about 45 minutes.

"Dude," he said. "You're still going? Dude."

I think I'll sleep well tonight. Lately, I've been waking up around 1:30 a.m. or so, not being able to go back to sleep until 3:30 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. Myocalm puts me down, but doesn't keep me down. Makes for a grumpy morning run, if at all. So that's another incentive to keep plugging away.

Supposed to be cold again tomorrow, about -10 at 6 a.m. and breezy.

Somehow, I'm guessing what Stink's answer will be.