working toward trekking again

Having recently joined the Adventure Cycling Association, I've been getting mail (and cycling route maps) to help me think outside the gym.

Although I've started working out and tweaking my diet for general fitness and health, quality of life is bigger than just that. Pretty much everything has been getting easier as I lighten the load (to the tune of 1-1.5 lbs/week) and increase in strength & flexibility.

And that includes cycling! I just returned from a bike route featuring some challenging hills. We call it "the Booger route" in honor of a friendly dog named Booger we used to encounter along the way.

One hill in particular is traditionally a real beast, and more than once I've run out of steam before making it all the way up. But today I made the entire route with a few additions in about 55 minutes without even taking a break.

My workout routine is a combination of resistance training, cardiovascular work, and stretching. I believe each of these is making a meaningful contribution to my ride.

But not every workout should be in the gym. Just as in golf playing a round isn't treated like a trip to the driving/chipping/putting facility, I don't approach the gym the same way I'd approach cycling, swimming, canoeing, or going for a walk.

hit the Anytime Fitness in Richland today

I am finally able to enter the Richland location, which is much closer to my house.

At first glance, I can see some obvious points of comparison between the two.

First off, the one in Madison is very quiet. People watch TV on personal-sized flat screens with headphones while on the cardio machines, but there's not a lot of background noise.

In Richland, there are TVs, but they're massive things and not dedicated to individual workout stations. Local radio station Y101 is playing loudly through the place, commercials and all. But it was tolerable, if only by a slim margin.

There are more stationary bikes in Richland than in Madison. I tried out a recumbent today, and found it to be more feature rich than the 'bent in Madison, as it's loaded with electronics. The electronics made it a stone cold mystery to figure out at first, though. But it was great to be able to monitor my heart rate on the bike.

The rest of the bikes I saw today appear to be fashioned after time trial bikes, and I will definitely give them a good checking out soon.

I discovered quickly while on the treadmill that some of what makes the magazine Every Day with Rachael Ray a fun read for me makes it terrible reading on the treadmill. The articles and features are fantastic for short attention span reading while waiting in line or killing a minute, but no good for long stretches of time.

I put in 37 minutes on the treadmill, varying the speed and incline for an interval session. Then I put in about 32 more minutes on the 'bent, sticking to around 90 RPM with varying resistance levels (10-15, mostly) for more interval work, recording a distance of 7.68 and 253 calories.

while ducking the #%$!ing heat....

I've ordered up several Adventure Cycling maps of routes in and around Mississippi. And my main riding partner has been threatening to get a bike mount for his Tom Tom.

We've been making noise about doing one or more Longleaf Trace Trail rides before long, as well.

Alas, we've had some pretty sketchy weather lately. Temps (not even counting the heat index) have gone over 100° F some days, and it's been consistently as hot as hell. And summer here also means spontaneous storms, of course.

So having a place to get some exercise and blow off steam without having to be out in that misery is great. Hooray for the gym, I guess.

I'm already seeing some results in both strength and cardio activities there. I look forward to putting my conditioning to the test outdoors when the weather cools more to my liking.

Today I made it back to the gym after a weekend of more normal life. (It'll be 30 days before I can go to the other locations close enough to home for me to go on weekends.)

Saturday morning I got in a vigorous bike ride, and Sunday I took a "recovery day" to let my body catch up with me a bit.

The gym was packed with people after work today, which was almost a surprise after my visits Thursday and Friday, during which I only saw a few people. One of the many people I saw today turned out to be an "ex" I didn't care to see, but I guess it's the nature of the beast.

During my orientation workout Friday, I was introduced to so many activities and machines that I was only able to figure out most (but not all) of it today. I'll have to see if I can find out what the remaining few items on my workout list are.

I put in half an hour on the recumbent stationary bike (by far my most favorite piece of equipment at this point), which reported that I had burned off 250 or so calories. I can't imagine that the calorie estimate is reeeeally accurate, but I do know that a steady half hour of cycling with resistance is a good way to get the heart beating.

I was unable to complete 2 sets of 10 reps on some of the machines, but feel that I gave it a fair effort for today.

enter Anytime Fitness

I've done something I always assumed I'd never do: joined a [gym|fitness center].

This just never seemed like my sort of thing. I associated them with jockstrap football players like my brother, then later heard the universal story of joining one on some draconian contract only to never actually go and work out.

But I'm 37 now, well-fed and overweight. Sure, I can bike or walk in the hills, go play golf, or take a swim, but I haven't been really doing what needs doing to get and stay fit.

In between the workday and the commute, the harsh reality is that when I finally get out of the car at the end of the day, my motivation is drained.

A friend of mine who fell into the "sign contract but don't work out" trap a while back had brought my attention to Anytime Fitness, and I checked out the location near the office a few days back at lunch.

After a really brief look-around, I signed up. The next afternoon I showed up with a list of things I can already do and one of fitness goals. The manager looked at this and went through a session orienting me to the equipment and writing up a workout plan I can follow.

In a month, I'll be able to go to any Anytime Fitness location at any time day or night, a few of which are near my home (so I don't have to go all the way to Madison to work out, which is out of the question).

I haven't checked out these locations, and understand that there's considerable variation from location to location. But the one by the office is pretty nice in my book. I can watch the golf channel (or whatever else is on cable) while doing cardiovascular work, which is fine by me. And the prospect of an on-site shower expands my options.

I have some ideas in my head about how best to get into a workout routine, but I'll have to see how the realities of my situation play out.

Of immediate interest is the prospect of stopping for a workout while the rest of the cagers ride out the evening commute. But I may have to check out some sessions during lunch to see if this suits me. I often go out to lunch just to escape the office at lunch, so if I can hit the stationary bike and a shower instead on some of these occasions, I may even be able to save a little cash.

We'll see. The real trick is to get into a workout habit, so that's my most immediate goal.

back in the saddle again

In between illness and foul weather, getting outside hasn't been super fun lately.

I took private lessons with a golf pro all winter, so I at least had something going on, but it was nice to spend some quality time on the bike here lately.

Yesterday, although feeling so sick I was white faced and nauseous, I cycled 12 miles, mostly with companions.

Today I did another 16 miles solo and in mild-to-moderate traffic. It was gorgeous.

I'm pooped, though, and have a bit of a headache.

I was down so much last year from injury that I'm really chomping at the bit to get out and do cool stuff this year.

I took a few pics of things seen during today's ride, btw, which I posted via picasa.

37th birthday

For my 37th birthday, my buddy Jay gave me a golf practice net to replace my old raggedy one.

I gave myself the gift of a trip to the family physician for a good ol' check-up. Better safe than sorry some times, after all.

The golf pro also noted that abdominal weakness is one of the challenges I face in my golf swing. So I've programmed my Treo to nag me on weekends to work on that a bit.

I'm not one of those "couple of hours in the gym" kinda guys. But here lately I've been veering more toward the lazy end of the spectrum, so a bit of balance seems in order. Trekking is harder when you're out of shape.

golf lesson update

This week's lesson was pretty upbeat. My daily practice has enabled us to continue moving forward.

We spent some time fine tuning my full swing, working on:

• stable knee flex
• rear end up into a more stable position
• ending my backswing when my chin is touched by a certain spot on my left arm/shoulder

Then we moved on to putting for the first time. I gravitate toward a dragon claw grip, which he told me to keep, because it seemed to work just fine when we made a few changes:

• ball position more forward in my stance
• eyes not so far back from the ball
• feet square inside the width of my shoulders instead of so wide

These are just the highlights, of course. We touch on a a variety of points in the lessons, but make it a point not to leave with me having to focus on "the 97 simple steps to ideal ball contact" or anything.

He told me to plan on bringing in at least a 3W & 5W next time.

golf lesson time

I love playing bad golf, but have decided to see if I can learn how to play somewhat *less bad* golf, and have taken a few lessons.

Just for giggles, here are a few highlights so far...

A teaching pro from one of the local (amazingly nice) courses has set up an indoor training facility with the full treatment of cameras, computers, & such.

In the first lesson, he had me work on three things:

• grip change
• mindfulness of where my hands are located when I stop my backswing
• posing for the cover of Golf Digest in my finishing position

Since I surprised him by actually doing daily work on the three homework assignments, we moved on to a new list based on where my work had taken me. So for the next few weeks at least, my focus during practice is shifting to:

• placing a penny, tee, or other small object between the bottom right pad of my left palm and the grip to see if my hands open up, allowing it to fall
• keeping my arms in front of my chest instead of opening up at the end of the backswing
• beginning my address position with a new wrist position, addressing something of a wrist cock that was breaking my posture from the outset

Other details come up during the lessons, and we give them varying amounts of attention. But so far much of this amounts to the two of us working on translating ideas into language and concepts that fit my brain well.

He noted pretty quickly that my day job as a programmer forcing me to think analytically all day contrasts with how I'm inclined to approach golf. Talk of clock positions and such don't seem to connect with me as well as body sensations, visual cues, etc.

When I first walked in the door a few weeks ago, he mentioned a six month time frame to make a change to someone's golf game in general terms. I'm coming at this process in terms of "oh, I think it would be nice to play golf better" instead of "fix my slice" or some other specific goal-directed approach.

I have no idea whether that makes his job easier, harder, or what. But so far we look at what I'm doing on the video/computer system, study it in various ways, and keep making tweaks. It's a fascinating process, really.

first time flying my new HobbyZone Aerobird 3

A local guru took me out for my first introduction to RC flying this morning. He brought along his Aerobird Xtreme (big honkin' plane), and I had my smaller but still formidable Aerobird 3.

I experienced no crashes, no damage, and three successful landings! I snagged some of our morning outing with my Treo 650P's built-in camera, producing the following videos (and a few others):

A perfectly good take-off...



Any landing you can dodge successfully, right...?



Juggling the camera during a hand launch...



A quick pre-flight check...



Aerobird Xtreme (in yellow) and Aerobird 3 (in orange), ready for action...



Damage free after some fascinating newbie aeronautics...

built a solar cooker today

This afternoon we built a funnel-style solar cooker from household stuff & plans found at http://solarcooking.org/plans/funnel.htm.

The notion didn't hit us until the afternoon, so the first test ("How hot can we get this water?") was pretty brief. Performance seems impressive so far.

We used:

• a cardboard JVC I'Art 27" flat screen TV box
• about 2/3 of an ancient bottle of Elmer's glue & a roughly equal amount of water (way more than we wound up using) spread on the cardboard with a basting brush
• Bell 1-qt jar, spray painted glossy black (because we didn't have any flat black on hand)
• Reynold's Wrap Heavy Duty aluminum foil
• box cutter (aka "utility knife")
• printed copy of instructions (because returning constantly to the web during construction is just impractical)

My brother-in-law is pretty enthused & wants to take a crack at something similar, and I can't blame him. These puppies will be handy for recreation & the next inevitable hurricane.

PyCon all up in my veins

First off.... Yes, yes, I know I don't update blogs consistently. I haven't had a bunch to say on the "trekking" angle for a bit, what with Winter & all. But all that's a-changin'....

I drove off to PyCon 2007 in Dallas, TX (right down the road from where I was born a life time ago) and crashed at the Marriott Quorum to see what other Python junkies look like. (More attractive than average, I found to my complete surprise!)

I went with a simple plan:

• I took no computers, no books, and nothing that could seriously distract me from the actual conference & general having of a good time.
• I sought out volunteer opportunities, and did a few hours as a session chair Friday. This turned out to be a great idea, a chance to meet some really cool people and help them get through some public speaking without having to worry about anything but the presentation.
• I gave away to random attendees these spiffy little credit card sized multitools with my name & a link to a website I'm putting up soon. People love multitools, and I love seeing the looks on people's faces when they get one gratis & unexpectedly.
• I figure I at least briefly talked to a significant percentage of the people in attendance, if only to be friendly while in the elevator.
• I also attended various talks & hit the jython BoF. I aim to try to help that project out any way I can, and tried to get a feel for the current state of things. By the looks of things, if nothing else, I can write documentation.

I made the trek in a rental Pontiac Grand Prix, arriving in Dallas after dark, which translated to an additional four hours of driving lost in a clusterf!ck that frankly John Crichton would've had trouble navigating.

By the time I arrived at the Springhill (because the Marriott bumped my roommates & me at the last minute, forcing us to crash in one hotel for the night & live out of the car for most of the next day in a limbo state of sorts), I swore that once I left, I'd never step foot in Dallas again.

Once I was at PyCon, I was over it in about 15 seconds. heh

One of the first talks was Visual Python in Computational Physics, presented by some students at the University of Dallas and their professor Dr. Richard P Olenick. This was, without question, one of the coolest things I've seen sober. Whoever hires these guys when they graduate is in for a treat.

In between conference rates & a couple of roommates, having a bed to sleep in turned out to be one of my more reasonable expenses during the trip. The roommates thing worked out pretty well, and as they'd bought new Macbooks (one the day before he arrived, and the other a full two days before), they were able to entertain themselves! ;)

As for my own entertainment, I talked, ate, and drank with lots of random people, and the local night life proved ample. Fortunately, an old friend from back in the day called me up to show me how the locals party Friday night, and my nose for food & conversation took care of the rest.

I recently found myself nailed to the floor by acute bronchitis, so my body wasn't all the way back in prime, which makes for a hard trek. In between that & the weather, my conference experience included no golf. :(

I've got more to blog about later, but all in good time....

My bike's been in & out of the shop lately, and the guys at my local bike shop have replaced the rear rim.

The new one has fewer spokes and reminds me of more of racing-oriented rim than the one I had previously.

I doubt it was designed with much load-bearing in mind, and I have yet to see how well it'll survive hauling me up & down these steep hills out here. But I'm putting it through its paces to see what it can handle.

On the general fitness front, I've been adjusting my diet more toward plant consumption and easing off my carnivorous ways a bit. I'm not going vegan or anything... just balancing the diet.

I've been focusing on some weight lifting, swimming, walking, etc. while the bike's been less available. It seems to me this has been making me more capable on the bike when I am on it.

The weather's been a little less oppressive lately, as August winds into September. The question of the day is whether this is just a quick reprieve or an actual seasonal shift.

Hopefully weather, finances, and schedule will allow for some actual travel soon.

fitness focus

Bike's still in the shop, so I've been forced to break routine. This has meant breaking out the heart monitor and getting a little creative.

On the fitness front, I've been walking with sprinting intervals to make the heart work a little harder for short periods.

And I've added in a little more emphasis on weight training, stair climbing, push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, and the like.

Most of this activity is of the type that requires rest days for muscle recovery & such.

And I'm still working on that elusive healthy diet thing. Bleh. Parents teach your kids to eat rabbit food while they're young, because it's mighty hard to do in middle age.

hoofing it

I haven't been in the best of health lately (various stresses coming together at one point in time, for the most part), so getting exercise is even more important to me than normal.

There's a temptation to reduce fitness activity when one isn't feeling well, and I've taken that path many times. But as I grow older and chalk up more life experience, I've been concluding that most of the time that's exactly the opposite of what I should do.

So I got up early for another ride, but a pre-ride bike check (a very good thing to do regularly if you put your bike through any real strain) revealed a couple of popped spokes on the rear tire.

I'm not equipped for such repairs (although I'll have that fixed soon, as I can't imagine a spoke wrench & a few spares can be insanely expensive), so I had to make alternate plans.

Fortunately, I invested in a new pair of crosstrainer shoes the other day, so I donned a floppy hat and Camelbak, and headed off for a vigorous walk (something my riding partner has been reminding me to do anyway).

I don't know exactly how far for for precisely how long I walked, but I put in several miles around the lakes & hills here.

Just as I have a more intimate experience of my environment when cycling than when driving, walking provides a closer look than just cycling.

However, insects & the many, many unfettered dogs around here are basically impossible to avoid while walking. The city dweller with no experience being attacked by dogs & bugs would've likely had a bad time doing what I did this morning.

It's good to break up the routine anyway, as trekking is more than just bicycling.

For me, it's important to maintain at least basic fitness for a range of activities including walking, cycling, and canoeing. This way I'm able to take advantage of many opportunities to explore as I stumble across them.

I also need to work on some other skills, such as getting up & down the sides of hills & caves. But the hills around here don't make it too convenient.

I have consistently good results from focusing on trekking opportunities that fall within my budget, interests, and local availability. This makes it easier to maintain some level of motivation.

Unusual ride after work today. Turns out someone from a nearby town tried his hand at swimming in one of the lakes around midnight and drowned after swimming out around 30 feet.

As I cycled by the lake, his family was in mourning while the monthly Fishing Club meeting took place maybe a hundred feet away. It was surreal.

I tried to be respectful and mind my own business as best I could.

---

As I proceeded with the ride, I noticed that I was making certain hills in significantly higher gears with much less effort than on previous occasions. I attribute this to the longer weekend rides pushing my limits & forcing my body to adapt.

I'm just trying to think of ways to get at it more without the heat killing me. First thing in the morning's not so bad, but after work it can be much less tolerable.

How the local racing gearheads get out & hit the road for 30 or 60 miles after work is beyond me. Cheers to them!

32-mile Longleaf solo ride

I made my target plus a few miles this morning.

trip = 32.0 miles
avg speed = 12.9 mph
max speed = 22.2 mph
time = 2:28:32

And I passed the 500-mile mark with a final odometer reading of 512.

Start time was 7:50 a.m. from Prentiss, as I didn't want to spend time driving to Bassfield that could be spent pedaling.

I turned around after about an hour & a half, knowing from experience that it's desirable to be off the trail & out of the heat by 11 a.m. (It is still August, after all.)

I just missed the 11 a.m. target, as I spent a little extra time at rest areas chatting with fellow riders who actually happen to live on a road near my home on which I'd actually ridden yesterday.

One of them also turned out to be a fellow Trek 7300 rider, although hers is the 2006 model. The other earned a little of my respect by making the entire trip on a big ol' Mongoose with knobby tires.

Their trip was just shy of the distance of mine, although they'd started riding at 6:30 a.m., allowing a more leisurely pace. But they picked up the pace from Carson to Prentiss when I warned them about the heat factor.

About 3 miles from the end, my right knee protested acutely, but a quick stretch stop got me going again.

Pre-ride, I had a cup of coffee & bowl of Total at the house before driving to Prentiss. My next food was a cup of mixed fruit at the 20-mile mark, and it tasted like the most delicious thing I've ever tasted at the time.

As soon as I had the bike mounted, I dashed straight for a country cookin' buffet in Prentiss without bothering to even towel or change clothes. At around 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday, I suddenly found myself surrounded by people in their Sunday finest as I drained the buffet of anything that looked calorie-laden.

I couldn't have managed more stares if I'd donned a top hat & cane to sing Hello, Dolly.

But I figure I'm not the first sweaty guy they've seen walk in to throw a little tourist money around.

Not all aspects of getting out & exploring are what one might call sexy, exactly.

Today I spent around an hour of wheel-spinning time out on the bike, and it can be fun rambling on at length about that part.

But then I kicked myself for not having gotten around to basic bike maintenance lately. So I headed out to The Bike Rack and picked up the degreasing fluid I always forget when I'm there (because degreaser isn't as cool as new bar ends), then I came back and spent a while degreasing and oiling the drive train.

In no way can this be considered fun, although there's a certain geek fascination to such processes.

I also had to plot out my route for tomorrow's trip. This sort of thing is probably only interesting to map geeks such as m'self. As I'm 20 miles away from breaking the 500-mile mark on my new bike, and I didn't put in the 30 miles I'd planned this morning, I'm leaning toward something like taking Longleaf from Bassfield to Sumrall and back.

Then there's digging up food to take along, cleaning the Camelbak, mounting the bike rack on the Sentra (and covering it in plastic, so it won't be soaked in the morning from tonight's rain), and putting gear together in general.

It's not actually necessary to make a lot of fuss about all these details for most people on most trips. But as my bad memory is the stuff of local legend, and I plan to ride solo in the morning, I try to be a little extra fanatical. That way I only need to worry about getting up & conscious in the morning before starting the drive to Longleaf.

In fact, much of this isn't strictly necessary for the kind of half-day touring I do during the summer heat. One could get away with carrying only a bike, some water, and a credit card.

Even most of the bike maintenance can technically be skipped, as well as they make bike components these days. My usual riding partner's idea of maintenance mainly consists of airing up the tires every 20 riding miles and periodically spraying some WD-40 on the drive train.

He also routinely tells me I don't travel light enough, while depending on me to carry the extra load. Of course, 25 miles is the most I've seen him ride, as his mountain bike isn't much pleasure to ride after a while. So to me it seems natural that I'd be more likely to think in terms of riding off into the sunset.

Simple fact is that different people ride differently. I, for one, focus on a zillion details between rides, then figure I'm good even if WWIII breaks out while I'm on the ride.

After work yesterday, I added some of what I call "scorpion" bar ends to my 7300, essentially adding several additional hand positions for bike riding. After more meaningful distances, more options correlates somewhat with more comfort.

And I strapped on a small tool kit under the seat for flat kit & such. In a nutshell, I'm making one or two additions at a time to gradually increase gear load while gradually increasing distances and more technically challenging routes.

This morning I also added in some uphill sprinting.

Add in the fact that my bud got us exploring a route I hadn't ridden since my teens (long enough that I'd forgotten a few beastly details), and this morning's ride was fairly novel.

We hit it early enough to get in a vigorous ride before heat & traffic had a chance to become just intolerable.

August heat is certainly a factor. I figure when things start to cool down this fall, what I call "bike touring season" should present some great opportunities, simply by virtue of the fact that the environmental conditions won't be so oppressive.

With all the hilly terrain out here, it's just not possible to slide into the steady cadence of Longleaf trail. I might find myself dropping as low as 5.6 mph up a long, steep hill, and 32.7 mph down the other side.

At one point, my partner expressed relief that a certain hill had finally become less steep, but seconds later we went into a turn revealing a punishing change of slope. On at least one hill I can think of off-hand out here, I find myself entering a sequence of 90-degree turns at over 35 mph.

This morning's obligatory stats: 32.7 mph max speed, 12.3 mph avg speed, 11.7 m trip, 58:13 time.

My bud's started getting a craving for a faster bike, on which he can make longer rides than on his MTB. So in the spring he may be pushing me to my very limit instead of the more leisurely rides of 2006.

exploration

In my present job, I'm essentially responsible for turning (usually large amounts of) paper into digital stuff (databases, images, searchable PDFs, etc.). So I'm in the office a lot. The desire to get out and explore can be pretty intense.

My last job had me traveling around Mississippi a great deal, but seldom with any meaningful time to explore at a leisurely pace. I drove around working on computer networks, always spotting places I'd like to check out by bicycle, canoe, on foot, etc. I filled countless hours behind the wheel with Pimsleur Spanish CDs (which really do work, to my astonishment and pleasure) and daydreams of coming back and seeing more.

One of my absolute favorite ways to explore is by bike (not motorcycle, although that's also cool). When I'm cruising on my bike, I can look at exactly the same things I'd see from through a vehicle window, but I see so much *more*.

Bicycling is slower, and slower is simply better. Details aren't lost in a blur.

Sound and scent aren't blocked by the noise & fumes of internal combustion engines and sealed windows.

It's also not passive, like driving or riding. On my bike, I move myself with only the mechanical assistance of the ol' Trek.

Don't get me wrong, now. I'm not fanatically against cars. My faithful Sentra serves me pretty well and even carries my bike to places I'd like to get to know better.

It's not that cars are inherently bad, but that foot on pedal or oars in water are just that great.