Unsettled Weather

The last few weeks in Houston has seen some of the most beautiful weather of the year as well as some of the most fearsome outside of a hurricane. Several inches of rain in an hour or two on two separate occassions hit Clear Lake. Cars stranded on medians. Hail, wind and lightening. Brilliant sunny days with low humidity.

And so it is in life. The good, the bad and the ugly.

The good for me has been continued good fortune at work, a brand new car, a great time at iFest Ireland, a daughter who got the internship she wanted for the summer, a real nice Thursday evening at two separate parties, a sweet 85 mile ride to Austin Texas for the MS150, an awesome group of friends, and more than 4 miles done at the LP run.

The bad for me has been the fact that my leg is still not ready for consistent running, my bike seat collar breaking while riding in Terry Hershey Park(although had it not broken I would not have done the LP run), and the complete loss of my running pace putting me back to square one if I ever do try to compete again.

The ugly was an LP run well below PR pace and as well as a slow 3.6 mile run this morning.

But the LP run was a run with a bib, first individual one since Memorial Day 2008. I will run the relay next weekend and then likely put the running shoes in the closet until further notice. To run again, I'll have to be able to train consistently since it will take several months to regain my running fitness. I do believe my lower leg is slowly getting stronger and more capable, but it may be quite a while yet.

Reading the above the good is much more than the bad and the ugly. One needs to remind oneself that as we can all too often focus just on the bad and the ugly.

iFest To Feature Ireland

Last time Ireland was the feature at Houston's International Festival, we had a marvellous time. Some outstanding traditional Irish music talent performed including, if I recall corrrectly, Sharon Shannon, Danu, Kila and Solas. This year it does not seem that so many big names in Irish music are on tap. However, Beoga looks to be the headliner this year and I can't wait to see them. I've linked a video of their BBC performance.

As for my run today, I ran 3.65 miles with Lee Anne at a 9 min pace, followed by a real easy 10 mile bike ride. I am not happy about the run pace since my heart rate was pretty high. However, my legs felt like bricks, primarily from yesterday's killer workout on the bike. Now I will have to noodle on whether to do the LP run. I won't go unless I think I can run more than 4 miles in 33:20 and I won't aggravate my leg. Both are uncertain in my mind today. It will be a last minute decision since I have a little 180 mile bike ride to complete next weekend.

Jager Bolsters the Spirit

This evening I had the good fortune to spend some time with good friends. A few beers and greek food in Kemah. Followed by a Jager to steady the nerves. Today I had a challenging 76 mile, 19mph, 144 avg HR bike ride. Several of the club members were going 100 miles, but I had to cut it short as I was toast.

But I have indeed achieved a reasonable level of cycling prowess....they did not drop me on the Fred Hartman Bridge nor the Kemah Bridge. And last week I came in second in the final sprint. Today I did not have it.

It is with trepidation I will retire tonight as tomorrow morning, Easter, I shall attempt my first run of 2009. Alas my leg is still tight and sore, so I expect little other than the recognition that I am alive, my heart is strong, my will is undiminished and I shall never surrender. At least as long as there is St Arnolds and Jager nearby.

Big Mouth Strikes Again

Yes I am back. Morrissey from the Smiths fame in town. Maybe I can twist Gerlinde's arm to go see him at Jones Hall tomorrow night:}

Hmm, I wonder if they will play my Smiths LP at the LP run if I bring it along.

I Remembered My Password!!!

Bless me bloggers, for I have sinned. It has been almost two months since my last posting.

Some of you realize that I joined Facebook a few months ago. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, my blogging time was pretty well shifted to Facebook. But I will endeavour to balance my FB and Blogger time.

So where are we.

My collar bone is fine and my cycling fitness is back totally. I'm ready to go for the MS150. However, I have no intention of soliciting funds from friends this year. I've got my pledge covered. Feel free to help someone else out or put the money you would have pledged for me in your kid's college fund.

I've done no running this year and only one swim. We are continuing physical therapy on my lower leg and there has been a little progress, but not enough.

I've gained no weight during the layoff and reentry.

Hope you are all well fellow bloggers.

Happy National Engineers Week

Being engineer week, it is time for some numbers. I span my wheels for 45 minutes on the bike trainer, 90 rpm, 133 average heart rate.

Chemical engineers do it in fluidized beds.

Our Yearly Video

Great job by Veronica putting together the BARC 2008 in Review video

6 Weeks Off And Now It Is Time

The bike has been checked by the bike mechanic.

The bike has been cleaned and lubricated.

The bike has been installed on a bike trainer indoors.

Tomorrow, six weeks after my crash, I shall ride it indoors.

Can't say six weeks of no running, swimming or cycling has helped my leg, but it hasn't hurt it.

Time to get that cardio engine revved up again. I am ready to train.

I hve gained NO weight during my lay off.

All This Time

Now if I was a night owl, I would go to the Last Concert Cafe tomorrow night to hear the Heartless Bastards. I like them.

Got Age?

I read something today that was like fog lifting, an "aha" moment. Young is out and old is in. So says New York Times columnist Gail Collins in this article.

The case is made as follows:

- The pilot and 3 flight attendents of the US Airways flight that landed like a feather in the Hudson are 58, 51, 57, and 58.
- Bruce rocked the house at 59.
- Stump became the oldest dog to win the Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club this week. He was 10, which makes him 70 in human age.
- Robert Plant (60) scooped up 5 Grammy's

Not to mention that locally, 59 year old Sabra Harvey won the Master's division at Buffalo Wallow.

Yep, we're good.

Don't trust anyone under 50.

Movie Trivia Results

Central Texas is in the midst of a bad drought and so has my blogging. First of all, congratulations to those clever folks who did so well at the movie quote trivia. You got them all but (6) and I'll bet Steeeve knew that one. The answers are:

1) Knute Rockne All American
2) Lord of the Rings
3) The Godfather
4) Braveheart
5) Goldfinger
6) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
7) Forrest Gump
8) Pulp Fiction
9) The Graduate
10) Animal House
11) Love Story
12) Rocky Horror Picture Show
13) Fargo
14) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
15) Casablanca


My collar bone is healing fine. I've gained no weight but my fitness must be slipping daily. But this is easily rebuilt, health permitting :)

Tagged for Movie Trivia

OK, Gaslight asked for it. I'll try to make it reasonable.

Movie meme, taken from the Briantolgist

Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
Post them here for everyone to guess.
NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search or other search functions.

Feel free to answer in the comments, all both of you.

1. "Rock," he said, "sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper.

2. In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair!

3. Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

4. Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!

5. You're a woman of many parts, Pussy!

6. You see in this world there's two kinds of people my friend - those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.

7. I had run for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours. I'm pretty tired... I think I'll go home now.

8. Well, if you like burgers give 'em a try sometime. I can't usually get 'em myself because my girlfriend's a vegitarian which pretty much makes me a vegitarian. But I do love the taste of a good burger. Mm-mm-mm.

9. For god's sake, Mrs. Robinson. Here we are. You got me into your house. You give me a drink. You... put on music. Now you start opening up your personal life to me and tell me your husband won't be home for hours.

10. How interesting. I have a husband named Dean Wormer at Faber. Still want to show me your cucumber?

11. Love means never having to say you're sorry

12. It's just a jump to the left. And then a step to the right! With your hands on your hips. You bring your knees in tight! But it's the pelvic thrust / That really drives you insane / Let's do the time warp again!

13. So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it.

14. Kid, there's something I ought to tell you. I never shot anybody before.

15. Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.


I am not so cruel as to tag anyone.

Sunday Reflection

It seems to me someone is trying to tell me something. Suggesting to me maybe I should use my energies a bit more for others and a bit less for myself.

Signs pop up here and there. This week all I have doing is stumbling across death by cycling articles. These include two from a few years back in Houston, an ND grad in his 50's in NW Houston and an exceptional female runner in North Houston. Disturbing. While I do like cycling a lot, running would be better and safer. But it appears well out of reach for the moment. It has been three weeks since my bike crash. My collar bone is progressing well. I have had no cardio workouts. I have gained no weight and indeed have lost a couple of pounds in my self-discipline. I had hoped that complete rest for the first time ever would help with my Achilles issue. No progress. We are going to get an MRI with contrast now. Usually one would want a negative result. Not me, I am hoping we find something that requires surgery. Either way, running looks several months away.

But so what. This is a little problem in the big scheme of things. I almost hate to pick up the paper these days as it is filled with doom and gloom. Job losses. Never ending conflicts. Even 20 year old Brazilian models dying from drug resistant bacteria. One thing that must be selling very well at the moment is medicine for depression. Spec's must be having record sales. I think one reason the US Airways pilot has been acclaimed so loudly is because people are looking for heroism and success in the face of seemingly intractable situations.

So while I convalesce and strengthen for the challenges ahead, I will give great reflection to two passages from the President's inaugaration address.

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept, but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.

and

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those that prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

Yes We Can - Good Luck Mr President

Curious Anole

Photo courtesy of cwulmer

Well Gaslight, I think I'd rather be a fleeting nymph than a green cold blooded lizard. But thank you for suggesting I should be your neighbor, since it is well known that a stable population of anoles has established itself in a Heights nursery (Source: Polychoridae - Wikipedia) On the positive side, breeding season for anoles lasts for several months.

But you are correct, nymph is a poor simile since nymphs are minor female deities. Perhaps I should have used the roaming satyr, who love their wine and pursue the nymphs with frivolous abandon.

Gold and blue, not green, are indeed the official colors of the University of Notre Dame. The colors predate the moniker "Fighting Irish" and the gold is now well linked to the Golden Dome, while the blue is linked to the sky above or to the Madonna whom the University is named after. Nevertheless, green has been used often as a color since the days of Knute Rockne. And if any of this is incorrect, H-Town Runner can correct my error for you.

Battling Blogger Marathoners Looking Good

Perplexing Things

Some things seem so odd and variable that they defy my understanding even when I do my detached rationality thing (one of the various personalities/states of being of Crosstrain the Chameleon).

Things like why the marathon is the most exasperating thing. I have read how several friends have been struck with illness or injury over the past few weeks. I have my selection of a dozen bibs to run in as an alter ego. Others float through marathon after marathon, always healthy, never bonking. Perplexing. Is it worse to have been injured and not register or train at all, injured in the last few weeks leading up to the marathon, or injured in the marathon itself. The answer is all of the above, they all suck big time.

Things like Facebook. Which I have started using lately. I don't know about Facebook. I guess since I started using it, I must have ADHD. Yes fellow Facebookers, you must have ADHD. I plan to go for a little pharmaceulogical treatment of Avery IPA this afternoon after the EXPO. Blogging is a calmer, more thoughtful activity than Facebook. I am immersed in my own world on my blog, safe from the chaotic live stream of friends. I can dig deeper in my blog, standing on the mount and proclaiming with some lucidity the solutions to all the worlds problems. On Facebook I am a flash, a sound bite, a fleeting nymph, a hummingbird sucking nectar from one flower and heading to another over and over again never stopping to linger.

Things like medical science and our bodies. Medicine seems so primative in its ability to solve problems to this chemical engineer. Why can it not evaluate a simple thing like a tendon and determine how to make it work properly. That is just ridiculous. And don't get me started on our understanding of how the brain works and neurological problems. For some afflications, the doctors might as well be using leeches and bleeding the the bad ether out of us. The science is weak. We have such a long way to go.

I could not handle all the uncertainty of medicine and chose better as an engineer. I don't mind problems, I do mind problems that are apparently hopeless.

Enough for a Saturday morning that I should be biking. But that day will come soon. Tendons may not heal right but bones do. I like bones. They usually are problem solvers. I hate tendons. They are unpredictable. Like a marathon for most of us.

I had a piece of steak last night. Second piece of meat since TIR 2008.

Elites

Fooled ya this is not about fast runners. It is about those certain foreign follks that our outgoing President feels don't quite get it and don't appreciate his foreign policy.

He is thinking about a guy like Ivan Illich, the deceased Austrian philospher who once said,

"The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts."

I Like Morphine

The band, not the drug. They did give me hydrocodone pain pills for my shoulder, but I only took one at bedtime for a couple of days.

Doc says my fracture is progressing as expected. I will see him again in 3 weeks.

Most collar bone breaks are in the middle part of the bone. Those heal almost always on their own with no problems. Mine is less common as it is way out at the end by the shoulder joint. This can be problematic. There are a few fragments. This can be problematic. Fortunately, they all seem to be relatively good sized fragments all in the right place. They look to fuse all back together again and I shall have no residual effects other than an asymetrical set of shoulders.

Oh horror of horrors, I may look funny in a running singlet. My life is ruined!

Wait. I already look funny in a singlet. Phew.

No Retreat Baby, No Surrender

Super Bowl. The Boss. Oh Yeah.