inauspicio.us

ok ok, a bunch of the links over in the left hand pane don’t go anywhere. so sue me. or, if you can spare a little over seventeen minutes and have a pair of headphones, here’s an awesome project that i worked on for almost a year.

my family spent christmastime 2004 in switzerland, and we took lots of pictures. my mom, particularly, took lots of pictures of doors. because, you know, they were so pretty. never mind the dozen other (photogenic!) family members, or the stunning mountain vistas, those doors were hot. the first chapter is dedicated to her opus. the rest is a surprise.

what are you waiting for? click here to watch it!

Smart, you appear to be in pretty good shape, do you work out?
I jog 100 miles every day! Would you believe it? 100 miles!
I find that hard to believe.
Would you believe, 50?
No!
How about two push ups and a deep breath?

When I was just a young toaster strudel, every tuesday night my father, stepmother, brother, and I would sit together and watch a movie. There aren’t that many movies that an eight year old and a ten year old can enjoy with two adults, but we had a taped version of the 1989 made-for-tv reunion movie Get Smart, Again. Man, that was a great movie. Don Adams, the star of the movie (and the preceding tv series) died this past Sunday at age 82. I understand the movie is now available on DVD, so I’m going to rent it.

“egg tag”

I’m working on it, I really am. I put a wiki up at http://inauspicio.us/loas, but sadly I know crap about how to use it, so for now it’s just sitting there. Let me know if you have any insight. I’m working on getting my pictures straightened out, and on moving into my new apartment.

And I keep forgetting to buy important things for it, like trash bags. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, does it? See how long you last without trash bags, jerk. And I have been playing a lot of computer scrabble, so I’ve been getting really excited about seven-letter words. And my vocabulary is as good as, like, whatever. This is what passes for excitement in my life.

Dan, on the other hand, has been accosted by otherwise intelligent people trying to make conversation.

“what happened to you?”
“looks different”
“you’ve got, uh, half your head shaved”
“who cut your hair?”
“oh that’s interesting”
“so, i’m curious…”
“so, why the hair?”
“looks like someone tied you down and shaved half your head”
“how much did you pay for that haircut? because it should have been HALF PRICE!”

who, me?

Aside from a less-than stellar 13:17 4k tempo run last Sunday in howling wind, my final preparations for this weekend’s powerman ohio are going fine. I took Monday off and Tuesday easy, since I was still feeling pretty ordinary following a very solid buildup over the past month. Yesterday I did a modified version of my regular bike workout:

-10 minutes warmup including spinups
-1 hour as 45 minutes steady, 15 minutes tempo
-5 minutes easy
-8 times (1 minute threshold, 15 seconds full out, 45 seconds rest)
-5 minutes easy
-Pyramid, 3-2-1-2-3 minutes above threshold with 1 minute rest.
-Cooldown.

And then an easy run in the evening. This morning I had swimming practice and I’ll have a moderate run in the afternoon. So I figure I’m about as ready as I’m likely to get. And I’d like to share this excerpt from the pre-race press release with you:

“…a strong U.S field led by Josh Beck (TN), Will Ronco (WI) and Tim Luchinske (CO)…”

Aside from the obvious quibble that I am not from Wisconsin, I am excited to have this endorsement. Hopefully I will be able to live up to it.

In other, non-navel-gazing news, an intergenerational stage adaptation of The Little Mermaid that I am directing performs tonight at Jesters. I’m a bit nervous as to how it will go off, but the kids have worked really hard and put together a great production of a show that is really very, very hard to do live. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to snag some pictures.

How many boards would the Mongols hoard, if the Mongol horde got bored?

feeling insecure, ten days out

You could be forgiven for thinking (or hoping) that I had given up on the pointless aerobic navel-gazing that has characterized these pages for some time now. The respite could never last.

High volume and higher intensity training has seen an across-the-board improvement in my running paces of about 30 seconds per mile since February. My tempo runs are comfortably below six minutes per mile and easy runs are under seven. I’ve had to add distance onto all of my runs to get the correct time in. Similarly, my bike power is up noticeably (although not measurably, since I don’t have anything accurate with which to measure it) and I have finally begun to lose some of my holiday pudge.

Which should be a huge confidence boost. Instead, I am having my annual pre-first race of the season freak out. I’m going to powerman ohio the weekend after next to race in a 5 mile/35 mile/5 mile duathlon. It’s held on a race car track, which should be fascinating; it’s my first short-course race as a pro, which is terrifying. The specifically frightening thing, for me, is that a similar race last weekend saw the pro men take the first run at 5 minutes a mile. That’s 5k pace for me. Or it was, anyway, the last time I ran a 5k, which was in 2000. In theory, in some universe, I should be able to keep up with them now. But the fact that I’ve never run that fast makes me uncertain of my ability to do so.

I know that that’s the reason we have races; you train and train and train and after a while, the training starts to seem like an end in itself. One workout sets up another, and you track minute levels of detail for the tiniest thread of improvement. You learn to become overjoyed with improvements that could be down to weather or footing; perceived, subjective improvements, and you fool yourself into thinking you’re getting a lot fitter. Or maybe, just maybe, you are getting a lot fitter. You drag yourself out to a race in an unfamiliar environment. Put your toe and a big chunk of your self-worth on the line and see how you’re doing. It’s a test of every energy system, every facet of your preparation.

Nerve-wracking. But don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted, whether you like it or not.

“I will not subject these people to dry, boring, vomitless Shakespeare.”
-The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged

If you were me, and let’s just say for the sake of argument here that you are, then you used to have a snow-cone machine when you were growing up. It was a Snoopy brand snow cone machine, insofar as such things can really belong to a brand and still conform to the societo-cultural mores of the era from which they originate, and it cost ten cents at a garage sale in New Jersey in 1986. Family legend maintains that you were ripped off.

Fast-forward to 2005, when those fun-loving Disney people decide to put out a sequel to their unexpectedly successful, unapologetically suggestive take on the smoothie-maker. Think you’ve seen it before? You have [content warning]. The smoothie maker is guaranteed to gross you out and scare your small children: “OK, put the food into Mickey’s head! Wow, look what’s happening to it! Now let’s have a refreshing smoothie.”

Well, next to your countertop Mickey Mouse PeesASmoothie, you can now have your very own Mickey Mouse Snowcone Puker. Maybe you won’t be that hungry once the snowcone is done, anyhow. And if you are, you can test the strength of your stomach against Disney’s other new kitchen appliance, a hot-air popcorn popper that appears to be a realtime model of the human digestive system. Whee!

Now that “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?” (1982 Tony Award winner, Longest Running Title) has closed I can begin to comment on the absolute train wreck of lyric composition that made it up. Consider the following actual lyrics from songs in the show:

I must be in love – she gave me a “hello”
A major league star can afford to be mellow
This, I need hardly point out, rivals Steve Miller’s liberal interpretation of the word “rhyme” in Take the Money and Run, where he attempts to rhyme “Texas”,”taxes”,”facts is”, and “justice”. In fairness to Mr. Miller, although his lyrics do not rhyme, they at least make sense. “She gave me a hello”? What the hell?

[Fr. O'Reilly]When you’re in a jam, they’ll get you off of the hook
[Eddie] Oh, I’m always off the hook, father
Seriously, who comes up with this stuff? I won’t nominate the show for worst musical trainwreck in history (no contest, see the Sheldon Harnick and Joe Raposo’s musical interpretation of “It’s a Wonderful Life”), but sheesh.

The show in fact had many redeeming qualities – my buddy Joel was a faithful representation of Eddie Ryan, and it was great to be back at the theatre. That said, I think I speak for everyone involved when I quote the following actual lyric: Thank God, it’s a song that won’t be sung again.

I confess to using oatmeal for purposes other than those originally intended. There’s dinner, for starters, as well as cookies and bread, but oatmeal soap really takes the cake here. I first came across this soap when I was looking for something like my lavender bubble bath, but designed for more everyday use. It would be possible to have a bubble bath every day, but that would detract somewhat from the gravitas. So I needed something more like soap.

I was at first less than impressed with the idea of cleaning myself with oatmeal. It’s certainly heart-healthy and delicious, but I feared it would lack the cleansing power that I often require after several hours of running in variable weather. However my initial fears have proved unfounded: this crap is totally awesome.

Cleaning Power: Excellent. The oatmeal has subtle abrasive qualities, as well as a unique ability to absorb chlorine.

Scent: Oatmeal has no scent, so that just leaves the lavender. So it smells great, unless you don’t like lavender. Of course, if you don’t like lavender you’re a freak anyway, and you have bigger things to worry about.

Compatibility with existing personal care products: Fruit-themed grooming products are contraindicated due to a likelihood of estrogen overload. “Fresh” and “Sport” scents are somewhat enhanced by the lingering aroma of lavender that results from proper use of lavender oatmeal body wash.

Health Benefits: The benefits of oatmeal as an aid to lowering cholesterol, promoting weight loss and boosting heart health are widely known.

I did my Sunday run on the New Santa Fe trail in Monument yesterday.

20.5 miles in 2:25 as:

-14 miles easy to steady in 1:42:30 (7:22 / mile)

-5 miles tempo in 29:50

-1.5 mile cooldown

Obviously a 29:50 5 mile tempo run is nothing to scream about, but I’m going to anyway, for two reasons. First, it’s a minute and twenty-five seconds faster than I have ever gone on this section of trail. My previous best was 31:15, also in perfect conditions, while peaking for Ironman Florida last fall. Second, I was, like, totally not working as hard as I could. I mean, if my left shoelace had been tighter I obviously would have run 24:30. Seriously.

I guess I’ve really only been writing about running lately, but I’ve been hitting the bike pretty hard as well and swimming well (for me) despite a lack of time in the pool. Here’s a great bike workout you might try if you’re into this sort of thing (warning, you need to have some concept of “steady” to do this workout. this is about 20-25 beats below threshold for me, but ymmv):

Warmup 10 minutes
2 x (45 minutes steady (LT – 20bpm), 15 minutes pretty hard (LT – 10 bpm))
Cooldown 5 minutes
Lie on floor.

In practice I find this to be roughly as taxing as a half-ironman bike ride. Try it out. You may want to go just once through the set your first time. Or if you’re tougher than me, which is likely, you could go three or four times.

I tried the double-Boulder Res loop tempo run again yesterday, with vastly improved results. Here it is:
15.5 miles in 1:42:33 as:
-20′ Warmup, HR 130
-Lap 1: 33:20, HR 158 (6:24 / mile)
-Lap 2: 32:37, HR 168 (6:15 / mile)
-17′ Cooldown, HR 137

Total tempo run was 10.4 miles in 1:05:57 including a pee break and
stopping once to tie my shoe. Actual effort was steady for first
50 minutes, then tempo for the last 16. Much more useful for me
to keep the effort level down – actual tempo running is a much higher
effort than I can sustain in a long race, so I feel like there’s not
too much point in training such a high intensity. So I’ll train
the lower intensity for now. Good results lately!