Git'R Done

We all love a challenge, and mine often come in the form of scheduling challenges.

Challenge: fit an hour of intervals on the bike trainer into a day that already had a morning swim, work, kid pickup, and soccer practice.

Solution: cycle AT soccer practice.

This was before I started dripping

The really cool thing is, that ALL the parents were doing something active: hula hooping, shooting hoops, walking a dog, jogging around the neighborhood, or throwing a ball. Siblings were playing on the playground and everyone was having a great time!

 

I have to admit the plan to watch my child did not work out too well when I hit the threshold segments.

The kids are coached by two VT students, Luke and Ed, and this is the team's third season with them. They are AWESOME coaches and I've seen them develop their skills too. We are so fortunate to live in this fabulous college town!

And just in case my kids aren't yet completely embarrassed to have me for a mother, I have this bit to add. My PT Mike had suggested a slide board to strengthen my abductors, but being a bit cheap, I figured I could just improvise with a can of Pledge and a pair of socks. Works like a charm ;-)

USA Triathlon - Age Group Stats 2009-2011

Not too long ago, USA Triathlon released the final standings for 2011 in which they rank all participants who have completed three or more sanctioned races of any distance. You can check out the algorithm that is used to score race performances and download rankings from 2011 back through 2005.

The top 5% earn USAT All American Honors and the next 5% earn All American Honorable Mention. (I came in at 180 in the 40-44's, putting me at 7.2%, right square in the Honorable Mention Category.)

What I found interesting was the distribution of racers across age groups, and the steady increase from 2009 to 2011. I went through the last three years of results and made a spreadsheet (yay!) of how many qualified triathletes (3 or more races) there were in each age group by gender. Below I give you the raw data and two graphs. Yes, I had other things I probably should have been doing with my time but I found this exploration irresistible!

There are nearly twice as many men as women represented. The men fall into more of a symmetrical bell curve, while participation among women seems to drop off more sharply after 44. The greatest growth area for both genders is in the 40-44, 45-49, and 50-54 age groups.

So, uh...enjoy! (Click on images to see them larger). If anyone wants the spreadsheet to play with, drop me an email and I'll send it your way.

The Meaning of Food

For the last eight weeks our family has been on the receiving end of a gift of a weekly meal, prepared from scratch and delivered to our doorstep. The preparer is herself a mom and her food "values" align well with mine. The fare is vegetarian, hearty, and scrumptious.

The thing that has been so neat about this experience is that it has rekindled my reverence for food and reminded me what is missing from the institutional corporate food world. I can't sit down to these meals without thinking about the planning, time, energy, and care that went into preparing them. Not one bit of it goes to waste. Here's what we've enjoyed:

• Lasagna and Pea Soup 
• Burritos and Minestrone Soup 
• Sesame Noodles and Vegetarian Chili 
• Beans & Rice and Potato Chowder 
• Stuffed Shells and Lentil Soup 
• Vegetable/Tofu Pot Pie and Garbanzo soup 
• Enchilada Casserole and African Peanut Soup

She's very generous and the meals last several days which means I have some awesome lunches at work!

So what do I mean that this has "rekindled" my reverence for food? Well, I used to be part of a team that taught an experimental interdisciplinary two-year Earth Sustainability course here at VT and we devoted a semester to food and agriculture. We read Michael Pollan's Ominvore's Dilemma, visited Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm (and read Holy Cows and Hog Heaven). We learned about the importance of local agriculture and sustainable farming and livestock practices and brought the local Farmer's Market to campus. We began to unpack the cultural and familial significance of food while coming to realize that all eggs/carrots/beef/etc are not created equal. I think I had drifted away from some of that.

Having meals "gifted" to me has been a much-needed reminder of what I want my children to understand about food. I've probably over emphasized the idea of food as fuel and under emphasized the sustainability and cultural/meaning aspects. In them, I want to cultivate a reverence for food as a scarce and valuable resource that relies on healthy soil, water, and air. Right now there is a major war going on that few people are aware of: monopolizing bully industrial land-raping chemical food creators versus conscious sustainable land steward farmers. Okay, maybe that's an oversimplification, but that's the gist of it.

Something that really scared me was that an effort to create a community urban farm in our nearby city was withdrawn this fall amidst tremendous opposition from neighbors. The didn't want a "dirty smelly farm" near them and just wanted to get their food from a store. If they understood the big picture from an environmental and political/corporate perspective they would very likely feel differently.

Folks need to understand the issues surrounding food and agriculture. So thanks to this gift of food, I've reopened these discussions with my kids. I think our next family book reading will be Holy Cows and Hog Heaven.

If this is an area that you are not familiar with, I'd recommend Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma as an excellent introduction and overview.

The final "45" installment

 

This one was not hard to predict. I got the bike back yesterday from Steve at Just the Right Gear with the new "Merry Birthday" wheels on, new chain, and new cassette. It's a gorgeous day in the 70's and I took the morning off of work. What to do, what to do? Hmmmm. yep, 45 miles. That was easy to guess.

I headed out on a route that I had only done a modified version of once before. On a loop of just three country roads, I got most of the 45 miles in.


I'd forgotten just how nice this bike is to ride. It's just smooooth, shifts easily, and it felt awesome especially after Steve and crew went over it. They sure know their craft.

My mother-in-law, Therese, had given me a copy of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen, & the Greatest Race Ever Run by Matt Fitzgerald as an early bday present and she said that she read it first! Even though Mark Allen and Dave Scott suffer orders of magnitude beyond what I could ever do and I'm not an "Ironman" nor aspire to that, she said it gave her more of an understanding of the sport and my attraction to it. Then yesterday she gave me this magnet to the left which meant a lot to me. She grew up in WWII Germany and has always been a very very hard worker in school (master's in Electrical Engineering) and in work. In her generation and facing wartime issues, sports were not exactly a high priority and she did not have those same opportunities. So I really appreciate her interest and support! 


Anyway, lest you should think I have gone overboard on the whole "birthday thing", rest assured the majority of the day was very VERY normal. It included: a few hours at work, dishes, three loads of laundry, a child home on the third (and hopefully final) day of a stomach flu, a quick trip to the grocery store (to buy my own little birthday cake of course, the oven is still broken), filling the gas tank, and a stop at the auto shop for a new turn signal bulb and a teensy little minor repair. Plus I still will hit the gym this evening. Regarding my ancient falling-apart minivan, my dad said of it today that I was "getting all the squeal out of that pig"!!!!  Haha!!

Dirty dishes

Sick kid (and happy dog)

Laundry to be folded...it's taunting me.

Back to "normal" tomorrow!!

45 Pull Ups. The birthday adventure continues.

Today's 45th birthday week challenge was 45 wide-grip pull ups. I've always loved doing these and they are a staple for me in the gym. Great for the lats but even better for just feeling strong and capable!

It took me 7 sets (12, 8, 6, 6, 6, 4, 3) and about 10 minutes to do them all with about 45s rest between sets.  Notice how my legs try to push off of ummmm...the AIR... to "help" me up on the tough ones!! All in all, not bad considering I'd had a swim this morning too that included a set with paddles, taxing the lats some. But with the power of the pink lifting straps, all things are possible!

It was good to have a bit of help and extra motivation from Kurt -- rep 26 was a perfect example, haha! After this we went through a back and bicep workout: one-arm dumbbell rows, seated rows, face pulls (rear delts), cable ez bar curls, shrugs, and alternate dumbell curls.

The 45 pull ups workout was a nice addition to the 4500y swim on Sunday. There is still at least one more "fun with 45" workout yet to come...maybe two. The actual b-day is on Thursday the 22nd but the celebration goes through Friday when I told the kids I am having a sleepover birthday party just like they do. But they are the only people I want to invite :-)

The last three years I have done age x 135 lb sumo deadlifts (1 set) - here's last year's 44 x 135.  Even without the slightly wonky hip I knew I wanted to change it up this year and it ended up expanding into multiple events. I guess that is appropriate as a multisport athlete.

Seriously, is there a better way to celebrate a birthday?? I think not!