Convenience

When you're down in Arkansas it's important to be able to get what you want when you want it.



Now, here's your "Where's Waldo/Wild Kingdom" diversion for the day:



Somewhere in this riveting photo you'll spot a particularly ghastly species of serpent working to devour a young, innocent amphibian. Alive.

God, what is the world coming to...

Let me tell you something else. I REALLY got to get my ass back out on the bike before the earth caves in on me.

Arkansas

Heading down to the natural state for some R & R.


Hey, down there the people rule.


Damn the content on this site blows.

1st Shorts Day, Suckas

Das right, shorts weather today here on the island paradise. Cut out of work early to celebrate in the sun. Put in a solid two hour bike and added on a run later in the day. Even sat for a spell out on the Adirondack and broke open a new book from the jungle. Damn, damn buggy today tho. Critters prolly been lying in wait through the mild winter in order to strike back with a vengeance. Actually think I have mosquito bites.

But it's back to rain and 50's tomorrow.

Ugh

Physical exam today. No fun once you become "of age." Enough about that.

For shits and giggles I've been following the Base Building for Cyclists routine quite regularly this spring. It's my understanding my good friend Heywood is also a member of the club. So far, what the hell seems good. More than anything else it gives one a defined structure to follow each week, something me likes very much. Sort of a reason to get out of bed in the morning. What results will follow? Prolly nothing new. When you ain't got the huge engine or burning desire to begin with, nothing less than needles will likely do that much good.

(abrupt transition)

One of the highlights of my life was winning Henry's CX Contest #4 this week. For my pick I went with the LI day one race that Vervecken won. Lots of good memories of a warm day and lots of on-camera time for yours truly and Heywood along with plenty of running commentary on the run-up from yours truly's daughter. Think I'll be ordering a few more of the films at 10 bucks a pop. Send Henry your love and a few bucks for a film--the guy works hard to pull together footage for us cross freaks.

Speaking of DVDs, I understand Ritchie has got a new one out too that's getting the rave reviews. Hmmm...to get in line or not to get in line for one of those frames?

(another abrupt transition)

Funny, I have the nagging sensation that someone stuck a finger up my ass today.

Four Conversations For a Tuesday

#1

Dad?
Yes son.
What are all those green bottles in the frig?
Those are beer.
Are they Belgian?
No son, but I like the way you're thinking.

#2

Dad?
Yes daughter.
Can I go over to Tess's house all afternoon?
Yes daughter.

#3

[Moveitfred?]
Yes neighbor.
Can your son come along with us for a hike and then along to the movies this afternoon?
Yes neighbor.

#4

Dad?
Yes daughter.
Can we ride bikes over to Tess's house?
Yes daughter.


Moveitfred is overjoyed and swelling with pride. By the way, all this freedom allowed me to get in 90 minutes on the cross bike, a short run, and a bunch of seeds into the garden.

Dualie-Man Fred (or Tri-Man Fred, if gardening is a discipline).

Content and Musings

So Solo wants blog content this week...

OK, content. I've been fighting off the grime once again, the second time this off season. Weird. Both circumstances similar with an intense flu-like experience for a very short time. So this event was my past Thursday and Friday (both days with the kids home with friends tearing up the house and me, barely conscious on the couch, pleading with them to not break anything under my watch). Got in a short one hour spin on Saturday and a hike through the woods on Sunday, both leaving me fatigued and short of breath. Damn, this bug really knocked me out.

Moveitfred needs a hug.

So it's back to the routine today. An easy spin on the bike and some eastern efforts this evening with an attempt to ramp up the fitness back to acceptable levels this week. No "work" this week for me, so I have the goal of some long trail rides on Wednesday and Friday.

Now on to some musings about the road bike. So I've had the titanium dream machine for several years now, the road bike that I thought would be the last and greatest of my pathetic career. But y'know, I'm not so sure. See pretty much ever since I've had the thing I've endured these regular harmonic blasts resonating from the frame. Tesla, I believe, had my frame in mind.

All this noise comes from around the BB area, and I've tried it all short of replacing shit that I can't afford to replace. So it was back into the shop this past week for the yearly tune up that I'm too lazy to do myself, and I was rapping with the trusted mechanic about this overall noise annoyance.

Well those of you who know of Moveitfred know that I'm grotesquely tall and misshapen, and the titanium dream machine sports a triangle that Oprah could squeeze through. The trusted mechanic speculated that, unfortunately, due to the material and the size of the dream machine that it will likely forever be plagued with this resonance problem. It's just so damn big and tingly that it probably just has a nasty habit of picking up and magnifying any little bling or twang or twinge to monstrous levels of annoyance.

So trusted mechanic did a nice job of rebuilding and lock-tightening the BB, threw on the new chain and brake pads, and got her ready to roll for the year. Good to go. But I know it's going to start banging and clicking soon enough.

Maybe this isn't the material for me? A crawl through the web brings up other tall-dude experiences with the titanium that leave something to be desired. Don't get me wrong, the masters did a great job joining the tubes into a stiff performance machine, but maybe this just wasn't the best idea from the get-go.

Maybe I simply need a steel workhorse for the road. Steel frame, steel fork, Centaur group. Solid and tight and bomb-proof. Have this guy do it (if'in he's still doing it), or this guy, or maybe this guy. I even hear this guy does a good job on the cheap.

Anyway, that's the content for the day.

Al and Fred's 1st Annual Dualie

As reported elsewhere, Al and Fred are pleased to sponsor the following (approved for PG consumption):

AL AND FRED'S 1ST ANNUAL NORTH SHORE UNDERGROUND DUATHLON!

WHEN: SATURDAY, MAY 10, 9 a.m.

WHERE: WEST MEADOW BEACH PARKING LOT, SETAUKET, NEW YORK

WHAT: 2 mile run / 12.5 mile bike / 2 mile run

WHY: TO GET YOUR [BEAUTIFUL BODY] IN SHAPE BEFORE SUMMER

Some details:

Both runs will be from the West Meadow Beach parking lot out to the end of Trustee's Road and back to the lot. That's about two miles for each run. You run AROUND the outside of the circle at the end of the road--these aren't suicides where you touch the end of the road with your foot and turn around.

When you get back to the lot from your first run you need to do whatever it is you need to do to be happy and comfortable on your bicycle (hardcore dualie-men call this the "transition zone"). You can do this in your car, under a towel, or out in the open. Al and Fred don't really care what you do.

The bike portion is basically this (for those of you who know the area): from the West Meadow lot go out to the tennis courts and turn left, up and over Mount Grey Road and turn left at Old Field Road, bust your ass out to the end (lighthouse), return on Old Field Road all the way to the post office, turn right past the Neighborhood House and turn right on Christian Ave, ride over the rolling hills down into Stony Brook Village, turn around down at the Stony Brook Yacht Club, come back up out of the village on Hollow Road, turn left on Cedar, right on Woodbine, and right on Christian, then turn left on Quaker to Mount Grey and get your [beautiful body] back to the beach. Here's a link to the route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1681148

Change back into your running attire and get yourself out to the end of Trustee's Road and back again. Touch the chainlink fence at the parking lot. You're done.

Invitation: If Al or Fred contact you and say you can do it, you're invited. If you contact Al or Fred and either one gets back to you and says you can do it, you're invited. If Al and Fred ignore you, you do not fit in and you are not invited. Sorry, but this is like high school parties--there are the cool people who get invited, and then there is everybody else.

Liability: if you get yourself killed by some Three Village parent screaming down the road because his/her kids are late for soccer practice, don't come crying to Al or Fred. We don't care and don't want to hear your whining. THIS COURSE IS NOT CLOSED TO TRAFFIC. THERE ARE NO CROSSING GUARDS. WATCH YOUR TURNS. WEAR YOUR HELMET.

Despite what you've read so far, we're hoping lots of people come out and have a good time. Bring the kids. We're thinking/hoping there will be enough non-competitor members of the families around so that the kids can hang out at the beach with supervision and then we all come together when the pain is over for more eats and beach fun.

Questions? Email Moveitfred: moveitfred at yahoo dot com

Long Island Alps

Great day to put in some substantial time on the bike. Upper 40's, no wind, big sun. I put in a solid 2 1/2 hours as part of my basebuilding plan for the spring.



All things considered I'm fortunate to live along the north shore of Long Island where we not only have some very scenic and quiet roads for training, but also some hills. Yes, I know...snickers of laughter coming from those in the north. Big rolling guffaws coming from Heywood out in Cali. But at least this aint Florida or Kansas.

One town to the east is Port Jefferson which sits in a bowl surrounded on three sides by some steep pitches. Climbing up East Broadway from the ferry dock is a classic destination for a big burn. It's not long (.35 mi), but it's a mild 10% to killer 18% all the way up. There are several other pitches in PJ that equal or come close to Broadway, too. A few years ago a couple of locals mapped out a loop route in town that repeats the steepest roads over and over. They used the route on a regular basis to train for a summer tour of the famous climbs in France. Although they couldn't come close to matching the length of those climbs, they did say that a dedicated regime in Port Jeff got them in good shape to handle those French mountains.

Here's a link to some of the short climbs around my home:

Hills of Long Island

Those steep, short pitches are cool, but my fav small climb is just a short ride up the road from my house:


Old Town Road meanders slowly up from the intersection above for just short of 1.5 miles, making it one of the more sustained ups in the area. So what it lacks in rise it, for this flat spit of sand we live on, makes up for in run. I'd estimate the road to be about 3-5%, but it is always going up for its 1.5 mile length and if you shift into the big ring and do it enough times it hurts.

So that's what I did today for the first time in the new season--put in a few modest hill repeats on Old Town. I got in three today, and my habit has been to build to ten for my hardest summer training days.

Good to be back on the hill in the sun.

Spring In The Air

Cancellara takes the Eroica today. Beautiful looking race--Italian countryside, gravel roads, kits sans legwarmers.

I got out for two hours on bike yesterday with a few modest hill repeats. Complete deluge of rain today is putting a wash on everything, but the next few days look to be warming and dry. As reported elsewhere, I'm considering a wade into the shallow end of duathlon this spring. In fact there may be breaking news soon of something very important and groundbreaking and edgy and very, very secret (to be reported elsewhere).

In conclusion, I found the report of swimming in the Pacific from the A-team to be ceaselessly humorous (if that makes any sense). Why the hell go to the beach at 70 degrees when you can just wait a month and go when it's 80?

To add--I think more bloggers should post pics of humans in swimwear. Just in general. More swimear no matter the time of year and context. That's what I think.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Support CX Magazine and read good things.

Thinking

See I've had these two weird bouts of illness recently, but both strikingly similar. First, last weekend. Saturday I woke up with a pounding headache, no energy, woozy-doozy head. I pretty much literally slept all day.

Felt OK during the week but then the same thing happened this past Friday. Yesterday I felt better, today about the same. Still a little woozy in the head but I'm managing to get through my days.

So what am I, just some whiny, sick fuck? Maybe I've got a touch of this flu going around? In all it kind of sucks, but it's given me time to think about the 08 cycling season...

Once I got back into this cycling groove a few years ago (after about a twenty year break) I fell back into old habits of training for a typical road season. I relied on old memories and probably older theory. Long base miles in winter and early spring before transitioning into a standard weekly pattern of some speedwork and intervals and more long slogs. In all, good enough I guess.

But now I'm thinking, what the hell? What the hell am I doing? First off, do I race on the road to the extent that demands this kind of prep? No. No, I don't. Most I ever do is 25-35 miles of concrete circles at the circuit races on Long Island or NYC. 60-90 minutes.

I'm just so bored by that stuff. It has taken everything I have to load up the car and get to these races, mostly just because I don't really care. I can tell I'll feel the same way this coming season. Rut, I guess. But I'm digging the idea of more cross in the fall. 45 minutes of fun. Summer weekends are for family, beach, camping--I just can't wrap my brain around the thought of trying to squeeze in summer racing, especially anything off this godforsaken island.

So here it is the first week of March. What am I doing (he asks rhetorically)? I had this notion of doing some structured base building this winter, but that's kind of fallen apart with work and this flu bug. I've been moving, keeping active, doing the smorgasbord whatever-I-feel-like workouts. All the other Long Island racers are gearing up for Central Park racing in a week or two. They've been POUNDING out long workouts, speed, hills all winter. Sheesh. Not me by a long shot. Central Park: dark, cold, icy, horse shit on water bottles and teeth. Nope.

But now what?

So here's a serious question if anyone is reading to this point: If all I plan to do this year is some speedwork circles over the summer leading into a cross season of 45 minutes nailed in the coffin this fall, is there any reason to slog out long base miles?

Right now I'm thinking, what's the point of anything over, say, two hours of hard intervals/hills as the hardest, longest workout this year? Keep everything else to 90 minutes or less? Do a little running starting now? Figure out dismounts/mounts and running with the Zank BEFORE the cross season starts? Wouldn't I be better served doing some fun mountain bike rides of whatever rather than forcing out some antiquated road training pattern over the summer? What's a cross racer who wants to have fun to do? HELP! Somebody be my coach. For free.

That's what my woozy head is thinking anyway.

What Moveitfred Is Doing Right Now

This is a new, riveting installment of this blog. What am I doing right now? I'm reviewing a book for a publisher. When I agreed to do this weeks ago it seemed like a good idea at the time. But then came the inevitable delays in getting the copy to me and then I let the project sit, and sit, and sit in my inbox until I got the annoying "reminder email" from the editor that the review is due today.

Fuck.

So I've put in an hour and plan for an hour more of this torture. Then it's going to be off on the cross bike into the woods across town. Got to do it. Got to go. First time out on the cross bike in weeks. And then whatever is left of this project will string out into the blurry night.

Yeah, well

I'm pretty much anti-blogging right now. Plenty to keep me busy in real life, I guess. Gotta get some time in on the bikes. Time's a ticking....

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, Boom!

Ouch

That sucks...

And now

some are gearing up for a big weekend at Worlds. The course looks very spectacular from the story/photos in Velonews.

Scary drop (photo by: Charles Pelkey)

Seems Compton, Trebon, and Bessette are no-goes. Too bad the representation from North America is dwindling. It's a long freakin' season.

The a-team is out in Cali. Two pieces of advice: stay away from Heywood the accountant and eat lots of Tacos. Felt is in Cali. Heywood is in Cali. I'm not.

And me. I should be building up some courses for work but instead I'm killing time until the temps creep into the 30's so I can get out on the bike.

A la Felt (RIP) I'm thinking of putting in some more time on the mountain bike this year. This is just random, bullshit, mid-winter rambling right now (sort of along the same lines as horking out volumes of January discourse on the various attributes and shortcomings of training devices), but a thought nonetheless. Maybe a mountain bike race? Might be fun to watch my cheap-o Specialized fall apart under my ass as I spit dirt from my lungs.

Hey, I hiked/sort of ran for an hour and a half in the woods yesterday. I'm a little sore. Isn't that cool?

What Retirement?

I really need to "get into something."

Books

This is one of the times of the year that affords me some flexible hours for random reading. One of my habits is to wander the stacks at the public library and grab whatever looks good. Random stuff.

So I started this reading free-for-all season with some heavy-ass shit: How to Read the Bible by Kugel. Kugel is a former Harvard prof who taught intro/bible theory classes to packed rooms of wide-eyed masses. The book is heavy, thick, and rockin' good esp when he brings to light the various historical approaches to viewing this book and how these approaches had a profound influence on the shaping of societies. He tackles the topic with great ambition in a format that's easily digestible for a simple mind like mine.

After all that mental exercise I needed to lighten things up. One of my many weaknesses is for splashy, new-agey health type books. These are my celeb magazine fodder. I'm captivated by the promises of high energy, long life, great sex, and smiles by just nailing down the right combo of vitamins or taking the time to hug someone each day.

They give me moments of hope before I descend back down into the depths.

So I grabbed two of the big names in this genre, and although these dudes both promote the same goals of overall goodness they disagree quite a bit.

The two guys in the ring for this showdown are that big smiling teddy bear Santa beard Andrew Weil and the survey-promoting list guy Michael Roizen of the RealAge empire.

I don't know much about this Roizen cat but he seems to have quite the thing going with his "revolution" of surveys and numbers that allow you to calculate something called your "real age." I got bored taking the multi-page survey at the beginning of his book (I found in most every case question I was subtracting months/years from my chronological age, so I assume I am somewhat younger than my birth certificate would state--good for me), so I ended up skipping around in the book for all the advice that would supposedly yank years off my aging process.

Weil always appears so mellow and grounded and sure every time I've ever seen him on TV, but something about that big-ol' tank frame of his gives me the geebies. I don't imagine he's very svelte getting over barriers on a cross course. But his potions are so convincing.

Two of the areas of big disagreement between these dudes are alcohol and coffee.

Roizen makes is seem as if you have a duty to get lit up every night whereas Weil speaks of alcohol as "harder than herion, cocaine, LSD, and all the other illegal drugs" and you are an evil, weak degenerate if you partake.

When it comes to coffee Roizen spouts specific data to suggest without a doubt that heavy coffee consumption is good for y'all and will shed years off the aging process. He also claims you'll reduce your risks of Parkinson's and Oldtimer's diseases by hammering the joe. He's talking six or more cups of full strength a day.

Weil lets coffee have it. It's just below the evils of alcohol and 'bacco for him. It's "most irritating to the body" and he claims to have "files...filled with dramatic cures of long-standing conditions, brought about simply by getting people off coffee."

Everyone and their fahking agendas...

Roizen is my boy. Just finished a pot of Kona. I feel so mellow and right with the world.

Time to go pet the dog.

Could Someone

please explain Assos to me?

The CX I Didn't Do

Pal Heywood busted out his ghetto single speed yesterday and headed down the mountain into Sacramento for that uber-rare event: the Cali CX race. Pictured above are some of the A's negotiating the sloggy banks of the American River before turning to hoof it up. Wood told me it wasn't all together uncommon to get caught up in a bad line in the post-storm mud and end up in the river.

Any topless cult meetings taking place along the river, Wood, or does that only happen at the spot you saw fit to lead Moveitfred's kids to this past summer?

Also heard there was something going on in CT this past weekend.

As for me I just did a lazy two hours around town on the CX bike and managed to almost fall asleep in the sun down at the beach. After the recent below zero temps the 50+ degrees today felt like 80, or something like that.

Fishing

The warmish temps here on the island this past weekend convinced the son that fishing would be a good idea. Despite my caution that it might be a tad colder down by the seaside and the bountiful schools of fin were likely gone, sluggish, or holed up in deep water we did indeed pull out the tackle and walk down the road to the harbor.

It was all good fun until the repeated casting got boring, the action changed to pulling out creatures from the muck, the jeans got wet, and the sharp breeze off the water put a freeze on the whole experience.

[transition]

So in the NYT today Stanley Fish [clever, huh?] had a few choice things to say about the Humanities.

Will the Humanities Save Us?

Hmmmm...

First, the title. Isn't Fish stretching for effect what people expect from the Humanities in the first place? How dramatic! "Save Us?" Look, the Humanities ain't gonna save us [whatever the hell that means] folks, no matter what. OK, so Fish admits as much in the essay.

Forget the title. Where Fish pushes buttons is with his suggestion that the Humanities don't hold a strong place, outside of themselves, in the academic experience. His overall stance seems to create a model for education that adheres to a vocational framework. Not that there's anything wrong with a vocational or skills education mind you. Look, if some dipshit plows into me and I'm spurting blood all over the twisted metal of my minivan, I don't want a philosopher on site ruminating on the effects of our hurried human condition. I need one dude powering up the jaws of life and another applying arterial pressure.

But what about this from Fish:

"Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say...."

The Humanities don't serve a larger good? Really? I'll admit that anyone would be hard-pressed to draw a specific line of "good" from a humanities classroom to some specific goodness out in the world that can be measured into a "larger" context [wait, and are we talking economic good only?]. But have we lost the corner of our intellect that suggests engaging our brains with the interesting thinkers and ideas from the past is a worthy good?