mining the rsd archives.

the initial wsj thread

scroll down to 14 to read the article.

questions for discussion. where do we go from here. how do we improve our image. what is the future of ultimate. but more significantly, go read RSD, and search wsj, and find the sweet posts. reply with links.

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I haven't gotten much response from my question:

right outcome or 'consensus.' you decide. it's actually a significant personality point question, and I think it may be telling about the nature of different focuses ultimate frisbee players have. me, I'm a 'right outcome guy.' I try to balance this with self officiating, but for me, AS MUCH AS I AM ABLE, I prefer a right outcome.

if I see my coached players make a bad call, I just won't let them stand by it. if their ignorance is such that they make a bad call, that's unacceptable to me, as it's cheating. i, as much as possible, try to direct my thoughts on bad calls by the opposing team to the other coach, and not interfere with the game.

is this right? I think it comes to my question. i sincerely have a problem with teams going with the 'let them work it out approach' as I wonder, what is the virtue of someone who is in the wrong winning by 'consensus.'

I do, conceptually, appreciate the viewpoint that consensus and agreement is a positive outcome of a selfoficciated sport: but, and a significant caveat, if all parties are

1) objective
2) understanding of the rules

nuff about that.

Friday, I took off, slept 1.5 hours after school, went to bed tired, woke up tired, but got dragged out for a bike ride. Rode about 35 miles, recouped, then ran (tired and slow) 4 miles, and did a quick strength sesh. (14 chinups, 20 pushups, 23 100 pound squats (full parallel: it matters).

Cooked up some jambalaya, caught the end of the celts game, watched 300.

Photo.

Team picture (A and B) from state.




thurs.

uh, wednesday, i went for a VERY slow 1.25 hour mtbike ride, a very hard 4.25mile run (about 7minute pace). then lifted weights.

today, played a mini tournament with the kids. so, 5 games to 3, the last against the 'stacked team' was 15 minutes long with lots of running.

next week we go back to practice seriously getting ready for district (the local tournament)... my joke with the kids, is, we peak for state, then we ramp back for districts. we'll have tryouts after that. i like everyone loose for tryouts.

then i had league night tonight. we won, running away, but it was chippy. i'm probably to blame: but here's where i got bent.

disc goes up, our deep deep (athlete, but novice player), holds his ground, and gets the sky. on the way down, or perhaps as both, basically stationary players go up, there is some minor contact. the offensive player calls foul. i don't yell, 'send it back', but i do turn to the captain and say, 'really, what do you think?' he says, 'hey just let them sort it out.' that shit just kills me, but what do you think?

what is a correct outcome:

let them sort it out?
or, is it correct to make the right call?
is it a 'no contact sport?'

i know where i stand, but i'm looking for feedback from the conflict resolution crowd.

I think we won 11-4, and i got a comeback block on game point. i was prety high on that, even if it was a mediocre block in the grand scheme of things.

updoc.

I wrote a post the other night about states. IN retrospect, I was a bit peckish (look it up, I was also hungry, in addition to being surly. To summarize: the winners deserved to win, we got what we deserved, I'm proud of my students for playing their best, and comporting themselves in a great manner. I feel that HS teams SHOULD be coached, and that supervision should occur as a few players on a few different teams were allowed by their coaches to act with bad sportsmanship, and the occasional bad call, but I bench my kids for the same. It is a failure of the game when players don't hold themselves to sportsmanship.

This is a different argument than Toad, etc.'s desire for Refs. I'd ref a HS game I wasn't coaching, but I think that sportsmanship: how you comport yourself in a game during a discussion is important, whether it's in a winning or losing situation. I think it's OK to react to bad behavior, but as kids, I want them to see the value of maintaining their cool, but sometimes, it's OK to disagree. It's very complicated, and kids need direction.

Sunday I played a few points of ultimate; I think I was mildly heat exhausted.
Monday I split my survivors into two roughly equal teams (they both won; i had very few 'jv' players there).
Today, we did a lightish practice, but it was so windy all we could do was dutch (pretty cool had a new player out there who was all about the no look behind the back passes and working hard... I'm all about ambition, If he keeps coming out, we'll talk about strategery later)... did a scrimmage after.

Then a 1.5 hour pickup scrimmage. I did some goodstuff, some bad stuff, but i tried. Just frustrating to play in a mediocre game. But workout wise, a good day.

state, league night

lessee, friday, i think i rested. i coached the track team, but they were running late season sprints, and it was at the local juco, where they were having alt-ed day. so i picked up a neck massage, and called it good. Saturday, I skated 40k, and biked for 1.5 hours (about 25 miles), so a sweet 50m day. but wasted. i took sunday off. monday, biked for about an hour. tuesday, ran drills with the kids for 2 hours (including 30 minutes of JV (plus me) vs. Varsity, jv gets a point for every Varsity turnover, game to 3. I think we won 4-2 (so, it was a 2-2 tie). Wednesday, 30 minute run, 1 hour bike, 30 minutes weights. Today, throw around session, finalize rides to state, figure out (I know it's crazy) how many kids were going to state. The final numbers are based on girls. We have 14 girls going, not enough for 3 teams (it's 4-3) for 2 days in 85 degree heat (I know that sounds sissy, but we're going from 40-60 degree temps for 3 months to this. I can't do it responsibly: I'll limit numbers to the varsity team, but I just can't afford to have 4 girls play for 2 days. Then I biked to league play. The plan was to bike to the game (30 minutes) drop off the game bag, bike for 30 more minutes. But I flatted, and my spare was bad. Luckilly, a buddy of mine (parent of kids i coach) lived less than a mile away on this sweet, weird, runway that's kind of down town. If it sounds like a weird setup, it is, but i got a patch kit from him, (oh, and he's invented all sorts of weird things like a pen that writes like a spirograph, and a ball that turns into a frisbee. and a former rescue Parajumper. crazy guy). But my tube wouldn't take air (ANOTHER HOLE. CRAZY BUT IT HAPPENS). So rick gives me a ride to the fields, warm up, and we play. 4-1, 4-3, then 10-3. Weird. I threw some golf discs today, I don't know if it matters, but I was overthrowing everyone. but weirdly, the pulls were the best i've pulled in a while. After an embarrasing line drive to the goal line, it was 5 straight coffin corners that led immediately to goals. But tons of long overthrows. shanks and errors. weird. But several 'ds' and played every point until 10-3. I was embarrassed to see my team go with the 'all upside down point' when receiving 10-4. I feel that sort of shit dishonors the game, and mocks the other team. Respect, for me, is respecting the game, and playing to win cleanly, and fairly.

In school, I told my seniors I was giving a test on 'senior skip day'. The rich, entititled kids were apoplectic with rage that i would dare make them accountable. I said, skip the class, you take a different test. And it will be harder. Come in in the morning, take the easy test. Come to class and take the test. I don't care. I actually test prep before every test and READ THE QUESTIONS to the students: All year, 3 kids have taken advantage of this. So, I'm not impressed, but despite my anger at their awful, white bread, juvenile behavior, i tried to use reason. They were having none of it. I was mildly pissed, and yes, it's punitive, but the bottom line is that It is inherently discriminatory to reward kids whose parents will lie to make an excuse, where other parents allow kids to do what they want.

How will the kids do?
Well, first of all, my coaching strategy is to let them do the playing. No screaming, no marionetting from the sideline. Alex Fergeson, not Bobby Knight. I will make sure they don't get 'cheated' on any kind of egregious bad calls... but, I'll make adjustments.

The Varsity team could play great. They looked fluid and brilliant Monday at scrimmage: ladder cuts, dumps and swings, opportunistic long throws. If they play like that, we could maybe make the semis for the first time ever in the 10 team pool. But it's high school, and if heads hang on defense, or if the couple throwers fall in love with their throws... then...

Well, we'll see. I'm taking 40 kids camping. Luckily, parents are going. But, we'll see how it goes. My policy, is that if any kid breaks a rule, the tournament is over for all kids. I'm blessed in that everyone of my kids is generally respectful. But I'll stick to it.

thursday.

as usual, tired, from the weekend, ramping it up.
Monday, Varsity vs. JV, as Mt. View Played bend. A disappointing showing by varsity, with too many turnovers. I put my psycho freshman on my main handler, and told him to harrass at the mark, and get crazy. It was hilarious, and successful.
tuesday: Light turnout, kids worked on my beloved 'stanford handler weave'... with mixed results. i'm really high on the drill as a cutting drill, it's designed to reinforce the value of dump, swing, give go and LOOKING OFF THE CUT STRAIGHT UPFIELD. It also looks really cool, and there is a lot to be said for a cool looking warmup drill to get you feeling good.

most importantly, it's totally relevant to ultimate. this drill has affected the cuts I make at frisbee, as i refresh my own love of the game, and it's a great set up for handlers, and how to clear and reset the stack.

thursday: all zone, all day. I tend to wait really late in the year before introducing zone. my goal is to teach the kids to be good frisbee players. I find that if i introduce the zone early, the lack of disc skills makes the zone TOO effective as the turnovers are too easy to generate.

personal: monday: rest day. very hard to do. it was beautiful, but rest was due.
tuesday: city pickup, and i tried hard.
wednesday: a 1/2 personal day, so i took care of my banking and etc., then after a 30 minute run with the track team after school, skated 20km, then tele'd a bunch, then lifted weights. whew. big day.
thursday: coached (played a little) then went to the city league clinic, took them through a basic handler cut, a continue cut, and an away cut (3 different drills) then did a cycling flow drill with a handler cut to an out and in cut to an away cut. then scrimmaged for 1.5 hours.

I was tired and flat: 3 days per week of ulti, plus the running, skiing, weights is hard. Hard to get fired up to dive at everything, but I made an effort to play some defense, until the 3rd or 4th turnover each point.

weekend.

Thursday, lightly attended practice (as threre was a big school charity function that night). drills, playing. then I helped coach the local league deal. sparsely attended, but productive.
Friday, ran 6 miles, lifted, swam 20 minutes.
Saturday: Skated 1 hour, biked 50 minutes.
Today: Toured for 2.5 hours, (probably 1.5 hours of climbing), biked for 1 hour, played ultimate for 2 hours.

Ultimate was frustrating: My mindset at these pickup games is, don't make calls, and my biggest pet peeve, is, if you don't know if the opponent is in or out, just call it in! So right off the bat, the calls are coming from the other side (i'm not so one sided as to think that there is only one way to look at the universe, i'm just saying, Further adding to my low blood sugar ire: as more skilled players showed up, they all stayed dark. We should have gotten killed in the Game to 7, instead, down 4-3, went to 5-4, then 5's, 6-5, 6's, then we scored on a give go, a down the line pass, and a hammer.

But, they had more throwers, and should have dismantled us. They had 5 guys who could all throw, plus 2 subs. We had a slightly stingier approach: and in the end it was enough.

I just don't like ticky picks and tight line calls and violation calls at league play. But I mean, that's just me. And I was exhausted. Probably the longest training day of the year.

For the week, 6 hours of cardio, 4.5 hours of ultimate, 2.5 hours of strength/core.

This week, Varsity v. JV in the scrimmage. If it gets out of hand, I may bring in a returning player (brother on the team) and / or play a little, and make it a zone practice day. Might ride tomorrow, but I'm thinking of running a 5km trail race tuesday. Probably not worth doing if I don't take a rest day tomorrow.

Pretty light week.
Scrimmages:
Summit Varsity: 15-4 (now 2-0) over Mt. View (Pretty good team, skills, they need some tourneys).
Summit JV 7-9.

Varsity is shaping up, It was windy, and they handled it pretty well, throws and decisions shaping up. Focus was on playing sharp, and overcoming our habit of watching throws as thrower and team. Slows flow.

JV: Not dissappointing, as they are shaping up: a little frustrating. I have decided to minimize my during game coaching, especially in match play local games, be more like sir Alex, and less like Bobby K. There was a little more involvement from the other sideline (making calls (OUT) on a variety of throws. I explained my position to my teams, all the calls that they didn't make (in calls, line calls, foul calls), and said, my intention in not babysitting you is that you learn from the consequences. For example, one of my players clearly caught it in, (but a little tight, catch with foot down, step (in) third step out). I stepped back from the line, just pointing in, the other members of the team were all in the far sideline sort of yelling IN IN, but the kid trusted someone. Yes, a call for refs, but coaches aren't refs. The lesson to the kids was, spread the sidelines, and just point if it's honestly in or out, but let the kid only use that as a guideline, especially if no PLAYER (of the 14) is in any position to be making calls on an unlined fields. Also, one of my kids made a call, but play sort of continued: he, and the team now knows to just stand there hold your hand up, make a call, and as team mates, to stand there, stop, and echo the call. Learning. Teaching moments. The other team ran a zone, and there was lots of double teaming: between points, I explained the double team rule, but also said, I CAN"T CALL THAT FROM THE SIDELINE. Lesson learned. There was also the usual, occasional mystery point discrepancy. I said, you have to keep up with that yourselves.

Honestly, in a game, at 'state', i'll advocate more actively, but I want them to learn the rules. read the rules. stick up for themselves.

Tuesday, in truly shitty conditions (38, snow, 30mph wind), we did 2 new drills, and the 2 basic drills, but with the focus on never looking at your throw. Some improvements were made. I intended to do some other drills, related to cup, 10' rule, and mark breaking, but we ran out of time since i wanted to do a little dutch for a workout.

Wednesday, oh wait, that's a track day. Coached in cold, cold weather, kids did fine. A girl turned in a 2:18 800 (1:06 split, no one to run with. beat the pack by 20 seconds. A skier, 1st 1500 of the season, went 10 seconds off a PR, it was cold.

Personal: Monday, I was tired. So I just lifted. Solid, decent weights.
Tuesday: Practiced pretty hard. Meant to do some additonal cardio. Call it 1.5 hours.
Today: After coaching, I ran 3 x 1000's. here's the history.
9/29/2005 3:42, 3:49, 3:49, 3:49, 3:34.
10/3/2005 3:41, 3:38, 3:38, 3:40, 3:30
9/20/2006 3:37, 3:25, 3:21, 3:20, 3:16, 3:16
9/19/2007 3:45, 3:35, 3:30, 3:25, 3:30. Plus 2km warmup, 1.5 km cooldown
9/26 3:40 3:35 3:30 3:25 3:30 3:40

4/30/2008 3;30 3:30 3:30 (only 3, but i was tired, cold. ran them in heavy sweats. short recovery (2-2:30). Actually a very good workout, but the feet, muscles, started hurting, so that was plenty. Actually a very good workout. It'd be nice to hit some of those faster times this fall (3:15), but, if I could do 3:30 x 5 with short recovery, I could legitimately start looking at a sub 18 5km, which would be a great goal. (I need to run an average of 3:35 to go 17:55. So I can get faster (and it is VERY early) or stronger (shorter recovery) or both. Not going to be easy.... but.... but I was pretty happy with the effort, and the consistency of the workout.

I'll be shooting for an in season (or sooner) workout of 3:35, 3:30, 3:30, 3:25, 3:20, 3:15. With short recovery, that should get me right at 18. If I can hit that by mid summer, I'll look to shave 5 seconds off all those times.

Then weights, light squats/lunges, pull down, dip press (machine takes weight off), pushups, vert row, military press.

Tommorrow, coach, then go run a city league coaching clinic. don't know who's showing.

recap.

Took a Boys a and B team, and a girls team, and well, the only team my varsity beat was the jv team, but this is nonetheless, an improvement. Why... you ask? Well, We're going up against teams that play longer, with more experience... so, I'm Ok with it. Our V team lost at the cap to a team.. We scored the last goal to lose 10-9, and on a run. This is a far cry better than the past. As an explanation, the tournament only includes, for the girls, studly Churchill, and for the Guys, a western bound south eugene, a churchill team that's a bit off from past years, and a CV team that was short handed, but game. (We only had 10 boys per team, but I felt that it was important to split the teams).

If things go to plan, we'll play BETTER at the co-ed states in 4 weeks, and then peak at our home tournament 2 weeks later. I'd love to be better sooner, but it's not really relevant to our season. In lieu of the 75 degree weather we played in corvallis, I look forward to a week of snow. Snow, snow, and more snow. and I mean, in town, not at the mountain.

Today, I road for 2 hours, then played ultimate for 2 hours of pickup, even, trying.

state

wednesday, 45min run, weights (core, balance, 2x10 squats (140), 2x10 single leg squats, straight dead lift, bench, chin, dip, latrow), 45 min on the bike trainer.
thursday, practice (30 min warm-up drills/dynamics/sprints, 30 minutes 5v5 dutch hard). 1:15 bike ride
friday: coached track (sprints (didn't do them, gave kids times), then ran to gym (25min, core, weights (:45 min), swam 800m (20 min), ran home (25min).

tomorrow: 40 kids on a bus, single gender state. 6:00 am. 3 hour ride. we're woefully unprepared, relative to the world (which has been practicing for much longer). my girls get the shaft: one game only. churchills girls after their likely win. by a likely large margin. have agreed to clinic / scrimmage for a round. Then I told my girls they could get games playing against the other guys teams.

my varsity team could be OK. I've split the teams into V and JV, probably 12 each, maybe a couple more. I have 1 legitimate handler (in that he demands the disc, stays behind it or near it), 2 guys who want to run deep more than they handle, 2 guys who are definite lane cutters, 1 guy who just wants to play 'd' and never turn it over, 3 legitimate mids who just look to flow and continue, and 3 sort of new to the game 'a' teamers. If I had ONE guy who was a legitimate take down guy, I'd feel we were very close to the perfect balance. as it is, if I can get some plays out of the boys, and encourage protecting the disc, we'll be OK. As I look at the team, we could have a great, 'flowing' team. but how quickly they buy into possession, the better. the basic disc skills are as good as any team i've ever had.

we'll see how it goes. we've never won a game at 'this' state tournament, but if it gets us closer to state, the better. my challenge will be getting us closer to success at the co-ed states...

our offense is a very basic V-stack. I stress a short stack, mixing handler cuts, and basic swings, and continuation cuts. i focus most on moving the stack back, and too the center. i like to stretch the stack in 'their' endzone, so that we can make endzone cuts to the front of the stack.

we need to work on crossing the field, avoinding throws into the traffic, looking off passes, cutting too soon.. in otherwords, field sense.

the girls are doing pretty good, we lack the take down receiver we've had, but we have throwers now who can deliver the pill up field, and varied cutters.

i'm looking forward to it.

update.

deleted the last post. sorry. didn't like it.

1 week later.
Last week:
Wednesday, ran 35min (track)
thursday: frisbee, then a 1 hour ski hike
friday, 50 minute run, then weights, and a 30 minute swim(track)
saturday, coached all day at a track meet.
sunday: bike 45, run 55 (7miles), swim 25 min (900m)

mon: frisbee coaching: JV loses 13-4, varsity wins 15-1. weights (core, proprioception, squats, chest, chinups)
tues: oh, that's today. 2 inches of snow on the ground, then pouring rain all afternoon. cancelled practice, but 14 or so varsity players showed up, and i got roped in. 1 hour HARD scrimmage (i even dove twice) working on covering the current best player (a new player with a great soccer/football background who's very quick. so i'm able to focus on quick movement right now, and slowly start ramping up the big runs. since i'm also running track practices, i'm working 'back to the middle' with quick movements and longer movements moving towards an open field game. good practice. how is the team? we'll see. this week is the 'single gender states'. we're usually lucky to score goals.... i mean, take a team of skiers with 1.5 months of practice, and stack them up against a bunch of teams with year long play. it's just a tough go.

personally, I AM playing poultry days, with PAX. Winners of every even numbered year since 2000, the pax is older, older, and older. but, this may be the year. one for the thumb. it's the first year that teaching hasn't conflicted, and I'm psyched to see the old crew, many of which are former college roommates/team mates. go PAX.

summary notes: the weights are going well, tommorrow is a 50min run, swim, bike, lift. My goal for the week is 11 hours of training. we'll see. thursday is practice and team BBQ, friday, 50min run, saturday, big yellow bus and coach all day.

uhm. i thought this was for sure a 'rebuilding year' for HS team, but it's looking more and more like a reloading year. I'm only losing a few, and the young guns are bringing it. the challenge: not enough tournaments for HS kids. The UPA Westerns makes it great for the elite, but is currently making it hard to break into the elite. What to do?

Shaaa, I dunno. Word is the count is coming to poultry days. That will be good for laughs and entertainment, even if our teams don' meet. Unless your looking for a team, count?

sabe

Lessee, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I participated in a nordic ski/coaching clinic. Lot's of good drills, Lot's of tips, video work, discussion of weights. Really valuable.

Friday, I ran 45 or 50 minutes, and lifted. Saturday, I biked 1.5 hours, and helped set stuff up at the frisbee party for the tournament I missed. Weird, I love playing frisbee, there are just things, after 18 years, that i love doing more... at times.

Sunday, another 1.5 hour bike ride after the clinic.

Monday, Practice. 75 degree weather turned to cold and snow during the day. There are some really good things going on. Kids are moving down field and clearing the line suprisingly well. The throws are flatter and flatter. I'm getting decent moves and throws on the pivots. In what I thought was a total rebuilding year, we're moving towards having a nice year. Probably 35 kids.

then I hiked mt. bachelor (total climb time, 66 minutes, plus ski time down). then the usual... kids in the room at 7am, and no downtime until the end of the day.

Tuesday: 30mph winds early, so i changed from one of our first full field scrimmages to some dutch, 4v4 in an endzone area, teams divided varsity boys (plus one girl), girls, boys. The divisions were their own. I just said get into groups of 10 or so. Only about 25 kids. Then scrimmage, and the wind dropped, and the scrimmage improved. Then I ski-hiked for 40minutes, and ski'd down.

We'll start scrimmages next week with the Central Oregon League. We'll see what we see. In the past, we've been too proud, and it takes tournaments to round us out. We've lost to other city teams in the early season, as I try and develop offense and defense and the other teams just huck it and f##4 it. But we'll see. Now, we have as many as 50 players, and the other 3 teams have 10-12 players each, so I'm not sure how I let teams play. No rhythm if i play everyone, hard to hold the starters out... what to do...

tommorrow night, coaches meeting. the COL sched will be set.

frisbee content, at last.

for the younguns of the world (cultimate, dk jr (dude, your brother should MAKE you add my blog to your blogroll, if you don't know, just ask him), I actually have some ultimate content.

it's just a drill, but one i think is good for HS, or college. I call it the 'stanford handling drill'. I call it that because it reflects my belief that the 'stanford' 'o' with it's handler set, tends to have handlers hovering around the disc (this is old stanford, not any H stack, which I think is great, but has limitations). The point of the drill is to teach players basic understanding of movement in the 'backfield' or near the disc. I'll put a link up to a flash demo in a couple days, but, here's the basic.

3 players in a short vertical stack. 1, 2, and 3. 1 with the disc. 2 cuts for a swing to the line and receives a pass. 1 cuts give and go. 2 cuts right past him calling for the pass. This is the cut Mike G has referred to as 'the worst cut' in that you are cutting for a pass straight up field with the defender on your hip, and NO ANGLE. I accept that there are time that you should make the pass, but my HS kids are constantly seeing any upfield pass as a good one.

So, 1, to 2 on the swing. 1 goes for,and receives a nice give go on a 45 degree angle (or if the the swing was really wide, takes the defender with a few steps straight towards the sideline 2 receiver, jab steps, and goes upline for the give go. then 1 runs straight by them and cuts back to the middle for the dump/swing. Pass thrown. At this point 3 (who has ideally 'backed the stack up by walking slowly backwards) cuts to the far sideline for a gain. Now 2 cuts for the give go and the process repeats. 1 drifts to the middle (front of stack) and backs up slowly, getting into their position for the next swing after the whole 'give-go', 'dump swing'.

Any cut up line is into a great position for a long throw to a cutter, or to someone cutting underneath. And I want my throwers to hit those. But I'm trying to develop a concept of active cutting, moving the disc side to side. Yes, I could just line them up 3 accross in an H stack and put the worst handler on the backhand side (since everyone forces flick), but I'm trying to teach full field play. In a perfect world, once you were 'out of the play' you might break deep... but that's for later. I realize written descriptions are inadequate, but it's a really cool weave drill that I'm sure someone else out there is doing, I just can't find it online.

I found out on wednesday that the local tournament is this weekend. That's pretty funny. But true. So far am I removed from playing right now, I could infact give you far more details of upcoming college and club tourneys (which I'd be more likely to play) than of my own local tourney. So tomorrow after day 2 of the coaching clinic (which is really sweet, and informative) I may bike ride out there. Oh, we had 2" of snow tuesday, and it was 75degrees today, and awesome.

Instead, I'm still skiing, just took my studs off, drove to school in 2" of snow tuesday...

I'm a lot more focused on coaching than playing right now, but I'm slowly training up on the off chance I play club this year.

This week was my 'rest week' for the year. Sunday I graded papers for 8 hours. Monday I had an orthotics fitting appointment, changed my studs out, graded for 4 hours, and spent a couple hours at school prepping for the sub. And I coached, and got in a light workout of 20 min running, throw, and played a little dutch. And weights. Tuesday, I just coached, very light workout. Wednesday, coached track and ran 45 minutes, and weights. And 2 hours grading (grades are due this week, so I have gobs of reworks and last minute submissions). Thursday, Frisbee (very low key for me, mainly coaching, little workout, and a 1 hour ski tour). today, I took a coaching clinic for 3 hours (for skiing), worked at the office for 3 hours (It's a teacher work day, so I owe another hour of 'clock time (which is stupid to me, since I work on average 50-60 hours per week, and this week 70)) then coached track (50 min run) (i'm a half time track coach, and the speed workouts are usually on frisbee days, so it works out GREAT). Then lifted weights.

I've done one set of pacing 1000's, but I'll do two 30 min tempo runs, one per week, and then add in more intervals. I'll also do increasing dynamics and sprints (which I do with the kids, but the 40's I'm currently striding, not sprinting as I try and slowly limber up my 28 year old hamstings).

Gave myself my semi annual haircut today (which involves shears, newspapers, and 10 min).

spring break 08

woo hoo.
let's see.
this week we had 30 on monday,and 14 today, which is not bad. we got chased off our fields (well, not chased, our fields were in use by a softball tournament) b/c we're on borrowed ground what with our entire multi-acre facillity falling into a sinkhole and being part of a 6 million dollar recovery effort. i'm not exaggerating.

i prefer very little structure over spring break. i do keep things moving, move the kids through games (dutch, mini, full field), and today, i regulated the scrimmage with drills (brief) and discussion to try and get crisper play.

we started with 50, i suspect, i'll take only one boys and one girls team to state, but possibly a jv boys team.

we'll have for shure an A and B co-ed team, but maybe an A and two JV teams (i'll probably weight them evenly, or on academic years to give the froshies some developmental play).

i'm going to play vertical stack, b/c i think it improves overall field sense more than H-stack, and the valley teams ALL play H-stack, so why, in our shortened season, develop a weaker version of the game the teams we'll play will play.

personally, my race season is basically over: ski'd a terrible 25km this weekend (Actually, an awesome course, etc). I finally got a battery for my heart rate monitor, and found that I was training too hard on my easy days, which is really bad. But fair is fair, last year, I never had a bad race, always felt sharp. This year, I always felt flat, and never had a good race (hampered by injury, i thought, but now, I know, I blew my training).

spring break, today, i skied (truly easy) for 2 hours, 20 or 25km, ran for 20 minutes during practice, lifted. yesterday, ski'd for 1.5 hours, lifted legs. sunday rest, saturday race, friday, ran and played ultimate (too hard) (duh, dumb), thursday, frisbee, and skiing, wednesday, ran 5 miles hard, drills, ski'd (toured) hard, set a new PR on a climb up the slope on skis (dumb on race week)... etc.

if it snows more than 4 inches tonight i'm skiing early, otherwise, sleep in and swim.

thursday practice, etc.

30 mph winds, transitioning to sleet and snow at the end. 50 kids.
the plan involved 'looper' drills, short drills, dutch, and scrimmage in 'stations' with kids cycling through.

the winds made me shift to short pass drills and dutch, with some mini thrown in. i want the kids to feel success right now, and the high winds force me to revise things. it's actually going well. the large numbers of of kids are creating a 'positive feedback loop' and there is a lot of success in throwing.

the scrimmages (usually shortfield 6v6) are showing some good defense, in a relatively unstructured setting. i stress to the athletes that their focus should be on

throwing
catching
defense

we'll keep it pretty light for another week, then spring break will be the 'mini-camp' we'll increase field size, and focus on flow drills and full scrimmage.

track coaching (the other days) is going well, but mostly i'm just running 30 minutes with the kids. the sprint interval days are on my off days (the ones i coach frisbee) so i'm still doing my intervals on snow. 5x3min last week on some day i'd run sprints with the kids. so i'm not getting morbidly obese.

friday was a day off from school, so friday and saturday i would tour (hike up and ski down) for a few hours. total climb time, 1:45 each day, with ski time too. sunday (today) i did a total of 1:00 of climb time, then a 1:15 total time of skating. friday night i lifted core, pt stuff for foot (balance and foot excercises) (legs (squats, let extension, curls, calves)), today i did the same core/pt stuff, with upper body stuff (chest (push up and machine), pull (machine), pulldown and chinup, dip, millitary press, vertical row)... pretty wiped. up at 6 each day,

if i yearn for anything, it's the first saturday where i can't ski, so i can sleep until i wake up before excercising. of course, that can wait until june.

t

frisbee begins.

lessee, 3rd practice, something like...18 'varsity' and 30 'jv'... there was some overlap among the teams.

throw
run 800
jv throw, v marking drill
run 600
jv do handler cut, then continuation cut, varsity do 3 man flow drill (2 versions)
varsity scrimmage
jv scrimmage, with one group doing a conditioning (dutch) drill

i pretty much just let the jv play with little correction. trying to observe players, and see abillity.

varsity, i played a couple points, stopped after a bit to work on some things, ran an endzone drill, and talked about power positions.

thursday will be stations: scrimmage, drill, dutch, drill, mini. should be fun, and hard.

personally, skiing, still, went up after practice for an hour, then weights.
i don't know how much i've ski'd this year, i'm not logging it all.. 90 plus, i think... doesn't count 2 a days.

weight routine, right now, 3x per week, 3x light weights (ie., 3x15 130 squats, machines for upper body, or stand on one leg and do row and press). Next week, I'll move to 3x10, more like 150, then to 3x8, then 3x4... then back to 3x 15, hopefully more like 3x140 or so... ski wednesday, not thursday. conferences in the evening. maybe night ski.

let it begin...

It's the start of a new semester. And the halfway point to the end of the year. The end of HS Nordic. The start of frisbee and track. And hopefully, the start of my ski season.

The school year is going well. I've got a bit of a trouble class now, large (38ish), with a couple of attention seekers (loud silly answers to questions, but at least i'm a tallish dude. Talking with a woman who teaches, she mentioned the kids who like to yell penis everytime her back is turned). great. but I'm teaching US, a class I really like, and AP Gov, a good class, with great students.

The HS nordic team is sweet. The biggest issue is the set of kids who would prefer it to be a 'ski club' and their spotty attendance causes logistical probs. But there is a great group of kids involved, and we're on top of the game.

Frisbee is looking promising. 35 kids showed up to the first meeting, with a huge number missing. Big numbers are a 'good problem' and I'm excited about the year.

Track, well, I'm just along for the ride. I've been asked to coach on the questionable assumption that I'll be helpful with recruiting for the middle distance folks. I'm looking forward to the workouts, and the team will do fine (It's unusual for us to not win the district or to podium at state).

And my ski season is finally beginning. Odd to say, what, with something like 70 days of skiing, but I've been hampered by a foot injury since august, and it seems like i'm turning the corner. I'm not HAPPY with my results the past 2 weeks, but they show improvement, and I'm trying to 'peak' in march, so it's OK.

Today, I ski'd a 20km, finished midpack, with strong skiers in front of me. And I ski'd to work on form, and get a 'tempo' workout out of it, focusing on my form as I ski'd, trying to iron out form issues I've not been able to deal with lately. I just held my position for most of the race, and then went hardish for the last 3km, and gapped the group behind me a bit, and finished 'fresh'. So, a good 56 min workout. I'll do another 20km next weekend, then a 10km the week after that.

It's pretty interesting being a 38 year old, 'new skier'. Young skiers get to develop in shorter, 5 and 10km races: I get the 10-30 km races. When I'm focused to hurt, this is groovy, but like today, I just didn't have it in me to 'suffer mightily for 52-53 minutes, so I backed off to a tolerable level. The 10km that's coming up is one I'll focus on, taper a bit the week before, etc.

I've been continuing my weight training (good long term, but the muscles are feeling it), skiing 5-7 days each week, and most importantly for my injury, showing due dilligence on the PT stuff that heals through strength. This week, I skied a race sunday, skied monday for an hour, intervals tuesday, rest wednesday, ski'd as hard as I could up an alpine ski run on skate skis (30-45 minutes, i didn't time it, but that was really my race for the week), ski'd 1.5 hours friday night (up and down the pass on the closed highway), coached saturday (1.25 hours classic easy, then raced today).

I'm going to try to sell out next week, in the 20km, and really get after it the week after. Our HS team has state friday and saturday, so I'll either be rested or exhausted, depending on weather, and my workload. If I end up time trialing the HS races (5, and 7.5 km courses), I might be less than frisky sunday...

I find that the fact that I'm on my feet for the full day right now (dynamic teaching helps corral the kids) is leaving me a bit tired.

Back to frisbee.

For the varsity, we'll run a mix of vertical with isolations, H stack with basic resets, and fast break.
Defense will be basic zone, and man.

Freshman and JV, a mix of roll out the balls and skill focus, with a move towards integrating newer players.

doldrums, mild ultimate content.

and so it begins. i feel like my personal ski season is just beginning (injuries), but nonetheless, the high school ski season draws to a close in two weeks, and my new commitments begin.

this year, i'm also coaching track (half time). in the past i've offered frisbee 5 days a week, and the result has been spotty attendence, and teaching the same concept over and over all week. my hope is that by only offering ultimate 3 days per week, i'll get better turnout, and therefore, better conceptual understanding and 'buy-in.'

it's the usual returning mix of freaks (and i mean that in the good way as being way too commited in the way i once was to frisbee), geeks (still in the good way, genius students who are finally trying some athletics), and... i don't have a rhyme. new players, some of great athleticism, just showing up. the 'a' team will be the freaks, and the returners, plus the odd late commer with mad athleticism. the 'b' and 'c' teams will be a mix of young 'c' team and new 'b' team. or vice versa. or a mix based on commitment/desire.

fields are an issue here. the field we will play on is still groomed for skiing. our own fields are in the middle of a multi-million rehab for sinkholes. half the team will be on the track team, which means off days will include running and throwing. i think for new young players, 5 days/week of ultimate is fine, with short practices, but we're not doing that this year. so, 5 days of throwing plus 2-3 days of ultimate... should be good.

i have a good motivated assistant, enthusiastic kids... supportive parents... should be fun.

personally, start of spring sports means 6 PM skiing. it can be a terrible time to nordic skiing as icing occurs, but i'll deal. oddly, it can also mean SUPER touring (hiking up mountains and skiing down), which has a crossover benefit.

the past 2.5 weeks since my last post have found me racing the WORST race of my life, some good training, improving foot health, and generally good cheer. i went to the boulder mountain tour and somehow had horribly slow skis. (there are reasons, i'll leave them for the comments page). suffice to say there are people i beat in a 12 k this weekend by over a minute who beat me by over 14 minutes in a basically downhill race. disastrous. c'est la vie.

i've been training OK, i feel i am in posistion to make a move in the next few weeks, i just am not having the results i want. i'm also struggling with form, and spending too much energy trying to fix minutiae, and losing time thinking when i should be hitting it.

still averaging 10 hours of skiing a week, looking to maintain that for a few weeks, and then add training hours in the form of running, swimming, biking.

that's all. except that the cracker song, the world is mine, in the commercial with tiger, federer, is sweet

zcvzxcv

Winter continues. It'll be interesting to see what the local ultimate scene (HS) holds without the tireless leadership of Luke J. He pretty much made Oregon HS ultimate Tick with good coaching, and great league organization.

We are covered in snow/ single digit temps/ etc., and we don't actually have fields as they collapsed in a sink hole and are currently being rebuilt to the tune of like 13 million dollars. We will have a place to practice, but there are no simple solutions.

I assume the program will be pretty usual, a growing core of players (fully 15 or so 3rd year players, a record), supplemented by the usual new crop of seniors trying a different sport. We'll probably have enough numbers for 2 co-ed teams of 15-20. We've always done pretty well, given our short season and remoteness, but last year I think we underachieved (I think we dropped 1 seed) where we've usually overachieved (by a seed or two, so, the program is improving, if not reaching the levels that i'd like). Probably fair: I"m a teacher first, and a coach second, and I try to give my all to whatever sport I'm coaching. We had 3 key injuries last year, which in 4-3 coed is pretty telling, but, it let some younger players grow a bit.

I think we're going to have some sweet unis this year, but in an old school way. Mock - up to follow.

We might get some custom poly, if i come up with a design i like.

I'm still pretty loathe to commit right away to H-stack stuff: my goal is to teach the kids to play; i think that if they understand general field spacing and movement, it's easy to switch to H-stack in college, but that it's harder to turn a cutter into a player, than a player into a cutter. I prefer overlapping play, with cutters coming from anywhere on the field. But I'll have my 'o' run it enough to develop an understanding of the eugene teams offensive 1st and 2nd handler options and primary downfiled options.

Personally, last night i full moon ski'd with the team. It was awesome. Cold (1 degree? maybe 8 degrees?), clear, with the mountains clearly visible reflecting the moonlight. So good. Today, 4 x 4 min intervals. And weights. Core, PT for foot, single leg squats on a bosa ball, vertical row and millitary press with single arm dumbell on a bosa ball, squats x10 (120, 140, 150), chin up, dips.

that's all.

keepin' on

thursday, intervals, but with moderate intensity (the last 2 were hard)
friday, rest. actual, honest to god rest.
saturday, i was supposed to intervals, but it didn't happen (coached a different group) so we did a nice easy 10km with some discussion of technique. weights and PT for my foot. i've included some single leg work on alternating days with my squats (i do squats, fairly light, like 135, full parallel with an explosive aspect, but i've added in single leg press for balance on alternating days)
sunday, 1.5 hour ski, included some 4x4 min intervals. just brutal. i was neither fired up, nor feeling it, but, the workout was quality.
monday, today, lost my keys. my friends graciously picked me up (yeah friends), and classic ski'd 2 hours in about 5degree temps, with similar snow conditions (that's cold: the skis are slow then). my new skis are fast. very fast. or at least, my old skis are slow. very slow. i'm happy.

found my keys, after a 4 hour process. they were in fact, in the last place i looked.

meh

lessee.
really good day. good 'flow.' the school day went great, never a given, you know, intentions are worth whatever...
then skiing. first decent day since the recent foot injury (2 weeks) and beyond that, possibly the best ski day of the season... best of 49 days, some with 2 a days... best, period.

intervals, 4x4min, not perfect workout wise, but learned a couple things, made improvements and adjustments throughout the workout... so hey, when maybe you're not a perfect athlete, the incremental things matter.
and then, my flippin' cd player in my 20 y.o. 800 dollar car (including extra snow tires) started working, and the dome light kicked in! yee haw for the little things in life. and a decent weight set.

yesterday, 4x4 intervals on classic skis, some double poling, lower intensity, but technique specific. then i crashed like a superhero, flying forward about 15 feet, faceplanting on my head and shoulder. humorously, the last thing that went through my head (before my ass did) is that 'boy, i'm skiing great'.

monday, off,
sunday, 16km ski, uphill, weights.
saturday 2 x 11km skis,
friday, 16 km ski downhill, 11km ski...

thursday, messy 1hour skate ski. (pt excercise)
wednesday, 1 hour skate, weights.
tuesday, 1 hour skate (pt excercise)
monday, weights

sunday, 1 hour ski
saturday, 1 hour ski
friday, pt for foot

thurs, rest (and football)
wed, 15 min ski
jan 1, 1min to injury, 9 extra min...

and the new team suits are sweet.

flippin feet.

Done something to my foot at the race tuesday. Dumb, b/c i really had no desire to even try hard... it was just a fun new years costume thing...

So wednesday, i went to the doc, nothing broken, just some kind of acute tendon-o-thing, along with some kind of chronic tendon-o-thing... so basically, it's drugs, and minimize activities that irritate it.

like skiing. so like the mature responsible guy i am, i've really cut back on the skiing, but not really.
mon, 3 hour ski tour, then a 2.5 hour ski practice, tuesday, the race, say 1 minute in popped (audibly) my foot, then ski'd about 11 more minutes... wed, 4 hours at the doctor to find out that it's not broken, thurs, 15min ski (exquisitely painful), friday, PT. So that was really my rest time of functionally no skiing. Saturday, I skied probably 15km, easy, but painful, then weights, then today, hiked /skied for 2 hours, then classic skied for another hour... kind of limpy, but i faked it allright.

So this was like an 11 hour week... weak... lots of swimming this week, probably only do the team practices...

i'm a little cheesed, but this too shall pass.
off to do a little PT...

the rest of the rest...

week one of break...lessee, dec17 was my last day off of skiing... since then i've done one race, and 6 sets of intervals... the last week of school is a blur, with 5 hours / night for sleep doing really good. it really affeted my training, as I've been very flat, and tired, both in practice (mine, not the coaching, i can in fact yell good job when i'm tired), and in events...

this week of school it's been just dumping snow... so i've been touring (drive up to mountain at 6 or so, then staying to ski for an hour or two... or going back later... basically i'm thrashed...

today, hadn't planned on skiing (would have made 13 days in a row), but i woke up at 5;15 like clockwork, so i got up, ate, and drove up early in a blizzard. in the parking lot I had to push myself out of a snow drift, but once i get going the car planes out just fine... i had left an important part of my boot in a ski partners car. so i turned around. no problem. beautiful sunrise, or would have been were it not whiteout conditions.

so it's technically a rest day, but i may go do some upper body and abs at the gym. Note: Ski tour means put climbing skins on skis, and skin up runs, before removing gear and skiing down. Usually done at a ridiculously early hour. Could be done in the wilderness, but i'm going for convenience and safety lately.

disregard what follows. it's just for my archive. 17.5 hours. 2 weights. 3 intervals.

12/30 weights.
12/29 Saturday: slept 7 hours. 2.5 hour ski tour, then 4x4 skate intervals, had a hard time keeping up w/ training partner, but the guy is good. Felt better. feeling 3rd interval set of week.
12/28 Friday. Slept 5 hours. Tour, 2 hours, great snow, 1.5 hour classic ski easy. felt flat.
12/27 Thursday. Good sleep. Ski tour. 2 hour I think. Fantastic snow. Then skate intervals. 4x4, with 4 minutes rest. A little flat. Weights.
12/26 Wednesday. Good sleep. Ski tour. 2 hours
12/25 Merry Christmas. Good sleep. Intervals. Classic. 4x4.
12/24 Ski tour in morning. 2 hours. Night ski under full moon.
12/23 Sunday. Good sleep. 2.5 hour ski in pouring rain.
12/22 5 hours sleep. Ski race. Ski'd at 'tempo' i.e., i took it pretty easy for the first half.
12/21 5 hours sleep. Oh crap, I may have rested then! that means....
12/20 5 hours sleep. 2 ski train. with team. then intervals after.
12/19 5 hours sleeep. 2 hour ski. weights...
12/18 5 hours sleep (see the pattern?) two skis...
12/17 5 hours sleep. rest day.
12/16 3 hour skate ski.

ski race.

10km, 35 min, improvement from this time last year but didn't make goal. this week, 42km sunday, mon off, tuesday, 1.5 hour classic, 1 hour skate(with 4x3min intervals), wednesday, 45 min skate, thursday, 1 hour 15min skate (w/ 4x3 min intervals, and one, 1min), friday, 1 hour skate (w/ a 2min,3, 4, 3, 2) set, saturday, 7km warmup, 10km race, 5km cool down.

i guess tapering wouldn't have killed me.

skis delaminated friday night, so i glued them back together, and got some quick wax on them and made it to the race...

with 10 seconds to spare (literally)... lessee, in the past year, i've had a 'miss my start', fall over in my start, break a pole in my start, and 4 :10 second just in time starts...

yipppee..

tommorrow, something like a 40km ski SLOWWWWWW. 2 more weeks of ridiculous intervals, then a month of easier intensity (maybe one intensity per week, and one race)...

ultimate to follow.

pig

OK. I don't know if you knew this but my dad is a doctor. In fact, he scored the highest score in the state of Georgia on his medical boards. That is to say, Smith's are good at standardized tests. Anyway, Rodney aced his shit at the Medical College of Georgia, and was valedictorian.

As an aside, my mom or my dad was summa cum laude at Emory, and the other was magna cum laude at Emory. I'm not sure which is which, but my mom was better, and she graduated in 3 years, to my dads' 4. Apparently for all their smarts, neither was smart enough to keep an accidental child from occurring. Apparently they were right in Health class.

In any event, my parents moved to rural Maryland, where my dad entered school, and at Georgetown in Residency, redeemed himself in his inability to be number one in the family. He was served to the National Institute of Health, where he served in early viral pathology research.

Afterword, we moved to a rural area outside Atlanta. I was in 2nd grade, but I was stuck in a mix of city and country.

My mom, despite the fact that she was magna, or summa, or whatever, had been burdened down by 4 kids in 6 years. or perhaps she was bored, or, as will be revealed, capricious, as she was several years away from being one of the few people in the country who passed her CPA exam, all 4 parts, in one attempt... but I digress.

Mom was given a gift: as far as I know, it was the first Vietnamese potbellied pig purchased in the USA . This pet pig turned out to be ACTUALLY, a full on PIG, and grew up big and strong.

Albeit, with 3 legs.

So anyway, there we were, living in Northern Georgia, and as was the case in the 70's and 80's, it was not uncommon for a doctor to be both a doctor, and as was the case for my father, following his passions, a farmer.

in any event, in late 1979, or early, 1980 (i can't remember), our family farm was visited by a traveling vacuum salesman. Now you have to imagine the scene; at the time my parents (now happily divorced) were happily married, but during this era, cable was non existent, north Atlanta was farmland, there was no internet, and my dad was too smart for his own good.

On this particular day, I was home. Technically, I was the 'owner' of this pig. I mean, once we realized 'PIG' was just a pig, not 'Gavroche', we were all pretty OK w/ raising 'PIG' to be food. But like many young children of age 5, I was not a good steward, and, my dad was the de facto parent.

But I remember the salesman showing up, and the conversation went something like this.

The salesman showed up, and asked my father about our current vacuum cleaner. It was late 70's and we DID in fact own a perfectly serviceable vacuum cleaner.  He was however blessed, or cursed, with a proclivity for bullshit, and he brought this salesman in with his usual vigor associated with boring afternoons grilling proselytizers on scriptural detail. he was not particularly devout, but like many southerners growing up during this time, he was fairly well educated in the distinctions between Leviticus law and new testament 'turn the other cheek' issues.

He was educated, even beyond his rather egregious knowledge of 2 season corn growing, viral pathology, and Georgia basketball, in the area of basic fundamental dogma. and more specifically, he was extremely well versed from years of reading Scientific American, and felt comfortable grilling some yokel Yankee in the arena of vacuum technology.

In any event, I remember well my father, gentleman farmer, sitting there with his tie on (as was the case with many gentlemen farmers of the era), meeting with this particular salesman. And as the salesman insisted on showing his vacuum's ability to suck up coffee grounds, etc... my dad kept going for more virulent dirt, and nails, etc. He was being a jerk.. I mean, my dad was a doctor. We had a vacuum. Technically, we had a maid. but, life on the farm had boring moments, and dad was never one to fail to capitalize on them.

In any event, after a couple hours of my dad grilling this young man about venturi effect and Bernoulli law, he finally let him off the hook. But as the salesman was leaving he commented upon my pet pig.

Now, as I mentioned, PIG had originally been named Gavroche (named for the urchin in Les Miserables) but when it turned out that he was not in fact a Vietnamese Potbellied pig, but in fact, a full on HAWG, he became my pet. but as is often the case when you give a pet to a child, care of PIG fell to dad. Well, our three legged pig was extremely bright, and, as the vacuum salesman watched, limped in and out of the door, over and over.

And as he was leaving, the young salesman had the temerity to say to my father, 'Say sir, I'm just dying to know, what's up with your 3 legged pig?' And my father replied with the following story.

'Well son, once, one march, we all were sleeping soundly. meanwhile ,our Christmas tree was downstairs. Now, I admit, I should have disposed of that tree some time earlier, but the fact is, the can of seven up i poured into the base of that tree had in fact evaporated, and perhaps, my tree was a bit dry. Suffice to say, a bit of an electrical spark occurred, and that tree caught on fire.'

At this point, the young man interjected (i was busy doing whatever it is 5 year olds did in 1980 georgia, probably eating pudding) 'so, did the fire burn the pig?'


My father replied, 'No, No, No, sir. have you been paying attention? You see that doggy door there? That pig, raised like a member of the family, ran into the house, and woke me up, and we were all saved!!!!'

the young man replied, 'so, I don't get it. The pig got burned?!!!'

My father rolled his eyes, and said, 'young man you just don't get it. Let me tell you another story.'

'I was out running the combine one time between house calls' (did I mention my father was a gentleman farmer) when it broke down. I got out to free up the blades when my tie (again did i mention my dad was a gentleman, physician farmer) got caught in the blades.'

The vacuum cleaner salesman interjected, 'so the pig got caught in the blades?'

My father replied, 'Ah callow youth.  No,  there i was, being dragged in, when PIG came running out, ran across the fields as my good for nothing son sat at home playing atari PITFALL, ran up to the combine, and... to this day I don't know how or why, came up and bit my tie off at the neck. I don't know why or how, but PIG saved my life!!!!'

The traveling salesman replied, 'sooo did the pig get caught in the wheels?;

My dad replied, 'SON, are you listening!'

The salesman got up to leave, scratching his head, and as he finally walked out the door said, 'sir, dr. smith, i just don't get it. why does your pig have only 3 legs?'

My father said, in the way that only a doctor with too much time on his hands could say,' damn boy, don't you get it! you can't eat a pig like that all at once.'

turkey

thanksgiving
Well Thanksgiving was pretty adventurous. Saturday, I did bike intervals, and a 2 hour run/hike/orienteering project in pouring rain. Sunday, I ddi a 1 hour swim, and 1.5 hours of core/weights/cardio. Monday, I drove 12 hours to Vernon BC to ski. Silverstar is a great resort. Snow coverage was a little thin, which meant the lower trails were not skiable. But I skied 3 hours tuesday, and 2.5 wednesday, and did 2.5 hours Thursday in a continuous ski, skiing over and down the mountain and back. I've still got this mystery foot issue going on: I can run now, but the foot is stressed by skiing. I'm hopeful it'll 'train up', but i'm busy taking therapeutic (Read, LARGE doses of aleve in the meantime). Thursday afternoon, I drove to Missoula, arriving at 3 in the morning. Yeah... thanksgiving. Friday morning I drove to yellowstone, and skied for an hour. Saturday, I somehow talked myself into skiing in the Supertour race. US Ski team members, elite college kids, etc. Basically, I was totally humbled, but learned a lot. Skated for an hour that afternoon. Got up Sunday morning, skied under the full moon, and then as the Sun was coming up skied back to the hotel, and drove back to Bend.

Some funny highlights: As I was trying to get ready for the race, I was starting to rush to get ready as it neared my 11:11 start time. I finally got my skis waxed for the 16km classic race, and i was trying to put my insoles in my classic boots... and they wouldn't go. So I shove and tuck, nothing happens. Finally I shove it in there and try to adjust it with my hand deep in my boot. That's when I find the hard boiled egg shoved in my shoe.... AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH I yell!!!!! But I actually did not yell AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

I got a student to stay for the raffle, and I won a pair of nice skate poles... Holmenkol carbon poles.... they're probably worth 150 or so... I told him I'd give him 10% of anything I won... so we decided on 15 dollars as an arbitrary amount for these poles.

I managed to average 10 or 20 over the limit for my 9 hour stretch home, and we made it in 10.5 hours.

I was pretty wiped this morning, but school was great, and a kid gave me a delicious turkey sandwich at lunch, so I finally got my thanksgiving Turkey. Tonight I went skiing at bachelor and just did drills for 40 minutes. About 1.5 inches of snow fell while I was there, so hopefully I'll be skiing decent snow the rest of the week, albeit with a headlamp.

I told my famous pig joke today in class, and was rewarded with a willing victim who, by the conclusion was partially willing to believe that I grew up with a 3 legged pig, commonly left my christmas tree up until march, and had my life saved on multiple occasions by my pet pig.

Frisbee corner: I'm glad the flame war on RSD has come to a close, UNCW is being accused of being cheaters, but frankly in several years of playing against them, I found that they never cheated me. And even their assertion that you needed to be willing to get in a fight to win your ground against them never seemed to be the case. You did need to know the rules, and play hard.

So, I need new classic skis, as mine are slow as christmas. I'm also increasingly impressed by the value of weights.
Also, I've been swimming a good bit, and i've gotten up to about an hour. The race, I think I averaged about 3.5 min/km, which is pretty pisspoor, but it was super cold (makes skiing slower), I didn very minimal ski training this summer, my foot hurts, and it was my first race, and i need new skis. That's enough excuses, I suck, and it's time to work harder and smarter.

state of the luke, and mild ultimate content.

mon, swam in the am, (30 min) ran in the pm (45min)
tuesday, no swim ran 45 min, then suffered the gym (30min bike, 30 min core/weights (keeping heartrate up) w/ core/squats/chin/pushups, military, vert row/ cable tower axe chops), then 30 min swim)
wed, swim am, 45 min run, 45 min bike pm
thurs, 30 min swim, 1 hr bike, 20 min run

ultimate content. the foot is good enough for the next two weeks: i'll have 2 or 5 hs practices during that time, and we'll mainly roll out the discs and play. we'll have a warmup (5min run, 15min drills) and play (15 min mini) and play (20 min scrimmage)... no discussion of new topics, just see how players are playing.

then ski for 8 days, 2x per day, then it's winter here.

state of the luke

today, 30 min swim (6am), 35 min run, 15 min fartlek
sunday, 45 min swim, 1:45 bike
sat: 50 minrun (20 minutes HARD)
friday, 20 min run, strides
thurs, 30 min swim, 40 min run
wed, 30 min swim, 20 min run, intervalson bike, 6min, 5/5/6
tues, 30 min swim, 45 min run, 40 min bike
mon, 40 min run, weights

foot achy, but improving. running wise, i'm BASICALLY where i was 3 months ago, w/ no overall loss in fitness.

not a terrible injury cycle, all things considered.

state of the luke.

state of the luke.

well, yesterday, i ran for an hour (slow), and played guitar w/ a friend for a couple hours, and did chores. this past week, i did a tempo run (4 miles at a little under 28 minutes), and did an interval set of 2 miles warmup, then 3;30 (:60 recovery), 4;30 (:90 recovery) and 5:30. i meant to go 'back down the river' but i had a meeting. still some quality.

the sprained foot is still an issue. threw in a couple easy runs though.

today, biked (easy) for 85 minutes, then did the team time trial (3200 m) that i missed early season w/ injury. i was 12:25, so that's OK, better than last year by almost :23 seconds, not where I wanted to be this year, but, injuries aside, i'm at least back to where i was late summer. and i was basically running alone, so no one to race (that matters), so it's really an OK workout.

the team is ramping up for districts and state. I won't actually 'taper' as the entire school year has felt like a taper as i've moved from 20 hours a week to just doing the team workouts. so i'll try to add base training over the next few weeks. my goal would be to go 10 hours, 12 hours, 14 hours, 16 hours over the next 4 weeks, w/ no (or minimal) speed work in there.

in 2 weeks, i'll start the frisbee team going w/ our 'fall mini camp'. basically, i just roll out the discs, but it's a good chance for them to get some play time. in the past we've gone with a one day tourney, but i don't see that happening this year due to a variety of reasons.

last year was a year where w 'underperformed' at state, but we've over achieved in the prior years, and it's not like we collapsed, just failed to make our goals in a year where 3 key losses (injury, injury, moved) took away a few kids from key opportunities to help the team.

in terms of experimenting, i may have incorporate some H stack this year on a limited basis, mainly to train the 'd' to be used to it as all the valley teams play it. i still prefer to develop V stack as opening up opportunities for full field play, but it's an experiment. i'll probably run a simple H stack based on the preferences of the valley teams, which is

disc in the middle, hit the main cutter under, looking for the deep look, dump to handler.
if disc is swung, preference is give and go, look deep, w/ a bounce back and recenter to other handler, then reset.

if we can do THAT, and defense 'that', it will at the very least force the valley teams to go to 2nd and 3rd options. main goals will be to stop easy under cuts, and to deny the up line handler cuts. sounds easy enough.

state of the luke.

frisbee corner:
vertical stack is much misunderstood and overuse of h-stak presupposes that handlers can't go deep. h stack is a nice modification to what is now a windless national series. this is the year of hurricane chamique, the vertical stack team wins.

1000's
9/29/2005 3:42, 3:49, 3:49, 3:49, 3:34.

10/3/2005 3:41, 3:38, 3:38, 3:40, 3:30

9/20/2006 3:37, 3:25, 3:21, 3:20, 3:16, 3:16

9/19/2007 3:45, 3:35, 3:30, 3:25, 3:30. Plus 2km warmup, 1.5 km cooldown.

and last week
9/26
3:40 3:35 3:30 3:25 3:30 3:40 plus 2km warmup, 2 kim cooldown. so one extra., tighter group, faster overall.

so, just ok. the foot is just coming around (thanks to my sponsor, aleve, 4 per day). last saturday i did 4x4 minute runs, and a hard monday run, so, it's improving. this past week was the intervals, then a couple easy runs. kids had a race saturday, i did 5 x 4 min intervals, w/ 10 min warmup, 90 seconds between intervals, plus additional easy running for 1:10 total. sunday was a juggling festival, learned 4 new tricks (clubs under left leg, under right leg, 5 ball flash (so i exchange 5 balls, but cant continue to juggle them), and a new pass (i.e, between 2 people juggling). oh, i was driving a borrowed car, so i dropped off the kids i was chaperoning (and my gear) and then jogged home 4.5 miles.

mon, 8 miles, with 10 x 1 minute hard w/ 1 min recovery mixed in at the end.

today, 35 minute run. probably a slow 4 miles. plus weights (3 x squats (bar only, full parallel squat, 15 reps), sit ups in the chair (leg lifts) til failure, pushups (3x20 w/ feet raised), chinups (3 x 7), side leg lifts (in the dip thing), back extensions (3x20).

my foot is improving, but not good. there is some smal chance i'll make it to nationals, but no promises. i MIGHT go play ulty this sunday night. bottom line, i'd be accepting of my numbers if i was healthy, considering i'm a MUCH better cylclist than last year: but i think THINK i'd be 5 seconds better accross the board if i hadn't gotten hurt.

nationals preview.
semis: sockeye v. chain. furious v. bravo. finals, sockeye d. furious by 2.
other quarter finalists, bravo, jam, condors, boston.

ok, i actually think it's jam's year, but i bleed green and red. too many years at nationals w/ fish and chain. so boys, put that last bit on the locker room door and fucking bring it.

my 28th birthday in 20 minutes. school is good. tommorrow, 1000s on the 'slow course', so if i go faster than 4 on them all that's good. the 1000's are longer than a 1000 though, so, i go into it only wanting to pick off some kids.

review of year goals:
guitar: my goal was to be able to play 25 songs. check. but i still need sheet music to do so.
running 5km: sub 18. uh, not looking good. but i've got 1 month of charging, and i'm on the mend. but i missed 8 weeks of training, so if i go sub 19, that'd be a win.
juggling 5 balls: well, i've flashed them, but i'm not fully there
skiing: sub 29 10km on a fast race day: tbd.
teaching: be better. check. accross the board, but i'm still bad/slow at grading. but preliminary work indicates i'm aceiveing the bigger goals (buy in, attendance, participation, mastery) without a bunch of easily graded busy work.

go throwback.

1000s

Thousands in the park.

9/29/2005 3:42, 3:49, 3:49, 3:49, 3:34.

10/3/2005 3:41, 3:38, 3:38, 3:40, 3:30

9/20/2006 3:37, 3:25, 3:21, 3:20, 3:16, 3:16

and today
9/19/2007 3:45, 3:35, 3:30, 3:25, 3:30. Plus 2km warmup, 1.5 km cooldown.

That's after a grand total of 6 runs in 8 weeks, and nothing fast since, a whle ago. so, i'm mildly psyched. If i can end this (lost) season in no worse running form than last year, it's a win, and the base training is better this year (i hope i didn't put in all those hours for nothing). I think if i'm lucky, I could run 6 in a couple weeks at 3:40, :34, :28, :22, :16, :10. But given my lack of time running, i'd be pretty happy to just do the same as last year.

Foot hurt bad, quad was fine. Didn't notice.

I'll see what tommorrow brings.

the long road to recovery

So pulled a quad back in late july. Then as i rehabbed that, i somehow sprained my foot. So the training has been prety squashed. Basically, I've been biking. Lot's and lots of biking. Lately I've started running a little, which basically feels like my left foot is running on, oh, say, medium size round rocks?

That said, here's what's going on:
Today, 4.5 miles, 35 minutes (7:50/mile). Core workout (push-ups, no-weight full squats, situps, side situps, back extensions, start at 10 each, then 9, and so on), then 26 minutes of roller skiing. That part really hurt.

Yesterday: Intervals on the bike. There's a hill by my house, it's like a 600 vertical foot climb. I did that 3 times, (13(warmup), 11, 10) then did the top 2/3 twice (5.5 minutes, harder). Before that, set up a race for the kids, plus 1.75 hours riding.

Last week, mainly just ran, painfully, like30-40 minutes per day, and last week, a couple long rides, including a 75 mile day.

The prior weeks look like that, but more riding, less running.

School is great. good classes, great kids. challenging as i teach 3 different classes back to back to back.

Hopefully the foot is healing up. Not clear that it is. But i'm hopeful.

Basic fitness: high.
Biking: Pretty good.
Speed running: shit.

owie.

well, i maintain my years long policy of the occasional injury, but without missing an event. i popped my quad in a soccer game the other day, i went to chip, and the toe cleat on my football cleat (dum) caught, and pop. it may have been contributed by all the squats (fatigue), the bike wreck (bruise)... and the training (20 hours /week).

or it may have been dumb luck.

just doesn't matter.

luckily, while i've kindof limped around for a week, i was able to function in my weeklong job as as a baggage handler on a bike ride... and i was able to tolerate rides of 30,40, 30, 75, and 40 miles, then 30, and 40 for the past two days... so, i'm avoiding atrophy.

but i have a race in 1 month i want to do, plus labor day... and they are both in doubt. but i'm doing my nerdy straight leg raises, and quarter squats, and icing... etc.

the job was sweet. i couldn't have had better co-workers, i was pretty tired, and achy, but i tried not to be any bigger of a d-- than i could... with mixed results.

so, 14 hours last week, which doesn't include the manual labor (6 hours/day, i'm calling it 1 hour per day for training purposes, so it's a 20 hour week)...

um, beyond that life is the usual crazy mess of dealing with life, and getting ready for school, and a running camp i can run at (quad) (ill bike there, then paddle accross the lake... not like a total loss), and more work... and trying to get the world figured out.

frisbee corner:
oregon HS frisbee is in a position where hopefully we can arrange tournaments around cross, so while i'll miss some top athletes, i can at least get year round tourney experience for the team as a whole.... also, summer games were good. towards the end, i was even diving and shit, which was fun personally, and as a whole, the new freshmen look talented... should be a good year. speed at the new positions, fire, diving, and no quit. nothing like a 13 year old screaming by you yelling, LUKE RIGHT BACK RIGHT BACk.... and my favorite...

n... toe-ing the line... "im' in!!!"
andy (frosh)... no way he was out...
luke, i mean andy, keep it real, could you see? what if you made the catch.
andy. thoughtfully. oh yeah. then i guess i would have been in.
luke.. hee hee. just play fair dude.

first of all...

if you're flippin' stupid, there is no way i would actually spoil Harry Potter and the Magic Thing online. that would be so lame. So read away. Or ignore away.

Next: 2Day. first ever Tri.

results Pretty good result. Could have done better. I had a achy hammy, due to over training. Thats' for those of you you read the blog, and go, gosh, how could dipshit possibly train that much.

Apparently I can't.

But the race was super fun.

Pre Race: I get up at 5, and kind of lounge about. My self requirement is that I eat 3 hours BEFORE the bike. My race starts at 8:25, so I eat at 5:20. So far so good. I pack the bag, grab the pam (wetsuit lubricant), and show up at the race about 1 hour before start. I was the last to register (like, each bike rack has a number, 1-100, 2-200, etc., and it ends at 493. Me). Apparently, that's what happens when you register day before 5 minutes before close. But Some Jackass has followed instructions. Get there early, place your bike, set up your gear. Of course it's some kind of mountain bike with bikerackes, and like 5 square feet of towel with shit on it. Me, I get lean my bike up against the rack, and throw my shoes in the grass.

Ok, the swim. In the water, and yes, there is one good way to warm up the wetsuit in cold water. I'm not sharing. Use your imagination. But it was a down river swim. I was Psyched, right up until I got caught in the gilly weeds. I'm swimming along in shallow water, because I failed to practice in the river, and I can't find the channel, and I look over and some dude is standing up about 2 feet from me. Ouch. Regardless of my poor navigating, apparently swimming for 30 minutes a year is not the best warmup for a Tri. ALSO, it appears you should practice transitioning from swim to bike. I didn't do so well.

The bike was fine. The run was OK. I had a mild hammy that i nursed. IN summary, it was OK.

Lessons for next time.
1) scout the rout
2) practice the trannys. swim/bike. bike/run. totally key.
3) taper properly. resting up an injury is not the same as tapering.

so it was fine.

In the world of oxymoronic good TV...
I'm diggin' John from Cincinatti.
Flight of the Conchords.

That's it.

ciao.

SPOILER ALERT

Yesterday (Saturday) I picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows down at the local bookstore. It was the next to last copy available. I'm nursing a hamstring thing, and I was going to attempt a triathlon today, so I felt a full day of lounging was in order.

Several hours later, my years long exploration of Rowling's England had concluded. And not without a few genuine chills and thrills. And on more than one occasion I seemed to get a little dust under my contacts.

I have a few small problems with some of the literary devices Rowling has utilized in her latest novel. Do they add to the story? You will have to decide for yourself.

First of all, the rather odd choose your own adventure ending did not do much for me. I found it rather forced and contrived, but that said, I did work my way through as many of the various permutations as I could, and I have some comments.

My favorite ending was clearly, 'Harry Goes to Vegas and opens his own Illusionist Show.' I thought that that was fairly clever, and provided a nice bridge from the Wizarding World to the Muggle world. I was a little less enthusiastic about the 'Harry and Lord Voldemort go to Vegas and open an Illusionist Show.' It just made me somehow uncomfortable, and I'm not sure why they needed a group of white Ligers in their show.

I was particularly fond of what I refer to as the 'Annakin' ending. Having Harry 'Strike down the Evil Lord, and take on the mantle of Dark Wizard', well, it does open the door for a whole redemption cycle series. But frankly, While Rowling has for years borrowed heavily from the Genre, this is just a little too, 'StarWars' for my taste, and I'm not sure I'm buying Neville Longbottome as the new Luke Skywalker.

The ending with Ron's broken wand disarming Harry at a MOST inopportune time was brilliant, a grim reminder that fate and happenstance are closely related. As opposed to the overwrought use of deus ex machina in earlier volumes, and in children's literature in general (and tom clancy novels), this is a refreshing reminder that sometimes, well, your gun jams.

Gandalf, er, Dumbledore's return in one ending was OK, seemed a little forced to me, but I mean, Fawkes Phoenix Droppings and butterbeer mixed in the TriWizard cup... can't argue with that.

The ending I like to refer to as 'Dark Phoenix', (X-men homage, not fawkes) where Hermione goes bat shit crazy after 6 years of removing alfalfa and opie's bacon from the fire and getting no credit was interesting. Given Rowlings rags to riches story, and living as a single mom, it's really no suprise that she would upend social conventions in such a manner, but the whole lazer beam eyeballs thing on Ron, well, I mean, I was really hoping they'd work it out, they're just kids.

...LIke in ending 7-B-3, where we look to the future, and the whole thing has unravelled like some protracted 'Beyond the Glory' sports montage, and you can't help but wince at Mary Grandpre's stylized art of a portly balding Harry, reduced to babbling on about the good ole days like some over the hill NFL star with failing memory (can't spell cast anymore) and arthritis (clumsy wand manipulation)...

And I could really have done without the ending in which Harry awakes from a very vivid dream to reveal that he's just a 12 year old boy being kept in a closet under the stairs by his creepy relatives. What the heck is up w/ Rowling? It's supposed to be a kid's movie. It's like the scene in Napoleon Dyanamite, where they shoot the Cow in front of the school bus. But.. that was funny... this was just, painful.

good weeks.

last week was the largest bulk week of my life. 22 hours. lots of easy... sunday (included in week) was a 40 mile ride, pretty brisk. like, avg 19 mph... so, ok for just 2 riders. then a swim, 15 minutes (swimming in river). monday, 1.5 hour mtbike ride, 45 minute run (not easy, but not hard), plus weights, tuesday (today), 1 hour (plus) mtb ride, 1.5 hours frisbee, mixed the strategies up between 'you go, i throw' and 'modified all super give and go technique'. then 30 minutes of roller skiing, later a 20 minute swim.

sadly, today was the last official day of on campus frisbee at summit, as they prepare to remove 25 feet over several acres to remove sinkholes.

tommorrow, no early ride, watch the tour live, run 50 minutes, get a bike in sometime, get some dentist love, swim...

i should really consider some form of 'taper' for this race, but it's just not that a big deal, well it is, but not b/c i'm trying to win, but because i want to have a good workout.

that's all.

uh, good day. up at 6, watched the tour, then a fun trail hike/run. 3.5 hours on the trail, 11.5 miles, including rest time. walked fast on the hike, ran down on the flats. fun stuff. super fun. ice cream after.

biked to and from the carpool. such a good time...

yesterday, i rode 1.5 hours, ran 25 minutes w/ 8 minutes at level 3... then squats. then a 300 mile road trip to fish. got into a trophy fish, but lost it when i tangled my line. still, super fun. home at 12:00.

tommorrow, up early to watch the tour, then a 17-51 mile ride. i don't know, and won't know until i go. i need to swim, too, what with this tri next weekend. again, no goals for performance. just want to finish the race in style.

ciao.

dueling titles...

i can't decide between...

'I have been to the mountain' and 'Googly moogly i am such a dumb shit'

Got up at 6, had some cereal, turned on the tour. After biking up to frisbee practice this morning with a sack full of cleats and cones, and T-shirts, (10 total, played dutch, and mini, talked about marking drill, breaking mark, and facing mark), I watched the start of Stage 2 of the Cascade Cycling Classic (A big multi day stage race held here annually, Lance Armstrong used it as his springboard after his recovery). I thought, gosh, I should go for a ride. So, I went home, drank a smoothie. And jumped on the bike. I should have had like 2 eggs, some yogurt, etc. Oh, and left say, 3 hours earlier.

Instead, It's 11, and i'm walking out the door. With $5 in cash, my drivers license, and 2 water bottles. I THINK I had pump, tube, tire irons, etc. 80 miles later, I limped home. But most of the ride was awesome. I road to this cool observatory and pass so a couple thousand (plus) elevation gain net... a sweet view (high country lava field, check out DEE WRIGHT OBSERVATORY.

Needless to say, the sparse food i had, and the 2 power bars i bought with my 5 dollars led to some late game bonking. I also got a lemonade. In general Hydration wasn't too bad, I managed to pound 7 bottles (refilling) over the course of the ride... and I ran into two friends training for a 24 hour adventure race, who gave me some fructose and sucrose (like more gatorade, and a vitawater) but i was seriously bonked. And the heat was, well, minimum 100-105, riding for part of it on a good sized state highway, in what all of you (by all of you, i mean, you, the reader (singular))... so perceived / reflective heat was harsh.

I stopped once i got off the highway and walked into a farm field, and stood in the irrigation sprinkler, and stopped again probably 7 miles (yes, a measly 7 miles) from home when i saw some people feeding horses in a barn right off the road... where they not only had water but also a fruitjuice, and a banana.

so i made it.

Parts of me actually felt suprisingly good. My dogs were barking a bit, but 80 miles in cycling shoes will do that, but I kept my cadence low enough to stay in a fat burning metabolism... but i truly, truly truly bonked.

But the view was nice. Hence the dueling titles.

Here's the
map.
I like the 'hybrid' button to see the climate changing as you bike east.

So things to improve: Eat more before. Don't ride 80 miles without throwing in the 60 miler. Take more money. Buy more food. Don't ride in the heat of the day. Don't go by myself (share the lead, share the work)

What did i do well.
Well, I did use sunscreen, looking now, no, i should have re-applied that two. Dumb shit it is. But not two significantly sunned.

i had the money, i bought the pudding.

well, my wetsuit came today. last year's model from f2r, a really good price. you can get custom printing on them. I should have. A batman logo would look sweet, and give me some good halloween costumes for years to come. but i went all black. why do i need a wetsuit you ask? well, i'm a grown man. i'd have looked pretty stupid if i'd spent it all on pudding now wouldn't I. And the wetsuit, on sale, cost me significantly less than the pudding. And if you're not buying 240 dollars worth of pudding, your just screwing around. You did watch the video, didn't you? i'm doing a triathlon in 2 weeks. i should probably go for a swim first. the swim is in a river. the temperature might be 63, at best. as importantly, the wetsuit makes you float, therefore, less Kcalories expended, more speed.

Been playing the guitar a couple hours a day, some progress. Just maded a smoothie, and a pasta salad. Recipes follow.

Smoothie. Put crap in a blender. Blend until smooth. You didn't really want a smoothie recipe, did you? (banana, blueberrie, OJ, water, ice (but varies daily)
Pasta salad: curly pasta, boil, rinse/cool. Add grape tomatoes, finely cut parsely, a cucumber (peeled, cubed), kalamata olives, feta dressing. total time, 10min. Serves, uh, just me. Although, with the leftovers, i guess it serves me, myself, and i.

saturday, an honest rest day. sunday, 2 hours on the mt. bike. Monday, 2 hours on the mt. bike, 45 min run, 5x150m strides, weights. Today, 1:15 Mtb, :30 road, 1 hour frisbee (run, throw, dutch, small field).

For some reason there is this 12 foot diameter hoop. So we set it so part of the hoop was on the field, overlapping the endzone, catch it in the endzone, AND in the hoop, two points. So half the fun was trying to catch a two pointer.

The other half, was attempting to surreptitiously change the portion of the hoop on the field, i.e., during points, when we would get a 'd', after points, attempting to distract the other team, while a team mate would move the hoop. Pretty fun.

Oh, tour's on too. So i've been getting my tour on. Yeah, deep cable.

OK, this PM, gotta go tryout my new wetsuit in the water, then, uh, eat more, and get up, and do-it-again.

movie reviews

pans labyrinth rocks. this is an amazing movie.
i'm very excited about black sheep. the zombie sheep movie. i'm looking forward to placing it on the shelf next to dog soldiers, and the brotherhood of the wolves...

effin' cars

so, today, i rode my bike from 6:30-8, (easy, and lest you think otherwise, easy means EASY), then ran, EASY (i.e., ran at the back of the entire pack... sort of), then lifted... then i had to go to the doctor. but i had to go have some blood work done, so i had to bike to the other office, accross town... so at one point, i have to cross several lanes of traffic, and some idiot trys to pull the cross from one parking lot to the mall parking lot, straight accross 5 lanes of traffic, and i'm screaming obscenities at her... she sees me, i live... now i'm in line in the turning lane (middle of 5) to turn left, and is my wont, i cruise up the lane so i don't have to sit in traffic. technically a no-no, but i did have the option of going to the sidewalk (which you can ride on in oregon), so i thought it was no big deal... it was a backed up red, and i wasn't zippin' through traffic... of course some jackass moves over to cut me off, because i was not only stealing gas (i guess) but also reducing traffic load, and screams, get in line asshole.

so i make the turn, and this cowboy, in a decked out monster truck, covered in galvanized steel plate, pulls over into the BIKE LANE to further cut me off... what the fuck. what's his motivation. i've seen this a 100 times since i moved here (and i don't drive at all). drivers mortally offended by the fact that bikes can move in busy traffic faster. literally lurching into the bike lane, offended that i'm going to catch a light they won't.

wtf. is it fear? i mean, what. if i smash their truck w/ a rock, are they really going to jump out at some 6'2 185 pound dude and get into it? note: if they did, i'd try to steal their car, and barring that, i'd run, but, still... i mean. shit.

jackasses.

so after the hard races, i'm on strictly recovery easy rides / runs/ roller skis/ etc. this means less than 75% of max heart rate, conversational (pledge of allegiance pace) easy work. for at least 4 days, w/ decent volume (3 hours/day)

tommorrow, bike, and swim or roll...
sunday, bike and run
mon, 6:30 ride, 50 min run, pm ski
tues, early ride, frsbee (agillity)...
wed run, swim
thurs... should be first interval set. probably in the pool. sun interval set on run, tues brick (swim/bike)... next week first ever tri. this assumes my wetsuit comes in the mail, the inbetween days will be easy/easy, high volume, low intensity.

die, duathalon, die

done. 5 and out. terrible time: 101, heaven knows what the 'road' temp was. I followed appropriate guidelines for hot weather racing, and kept my heart rate percentages in appropriate zones: 85 ish for the bike ride (82-86), 88 for the run (82-93). Of course my heartrate according to my watch assumes i'm 25, so i got my heart up to 186. it was my worst time of the 5, after improving on each of the previous four. but after a decent race yesterday, i have nothing to complain about as far as a good workout.

in other news, i'm doing my first triathalon in 2 weeks. a 'sprint' distance, w/ a 750 m down river swim, a 12.5mi bike, and a 5km run. i need to spend some time in the pool and try to remember how to swim w/ decent form. no specific goals for the upcoming race.

frisbee attendance is pretty poor right now: camps/vacations/work interfere. but i'm going to start including some 'agillity work' so that i get some relevant practice as i move towards laborday and more particularly, the regionals.

adios.

Transformers...

..kicks ass.

Comments?

(if you post a negative comment, i'm going to edit it, so it appears that in addition to your comment, you said, "bleah blah blebby blah blah. i'm an idiot". so obviously, it's not in your best interest to be a nattering nabob of negativity (a term attributable to some famous quaker).)

Also, crappy turn out at frisbee this morning, but i got in a throw, and i have my last duathlon tonight at 6:02. Not looking forward to it, because it's 100 F out right now. Strike that. Just went up to 101. F. No, that means Farenheit.

Tommorrow, i'll bike at 6:30, and run at 8:30, and swim, or paddle in the evening.

Same over the weekend. Anything hard will be early: But the heat is supposed to pass after today....

god bless my underwear.

i really love that song. what's up this week. monday was the workout day, 1.75 hour bike, 40 min run, 4x200 striders, core, weights. tuesday, just frisbee, for like 1 hour, plus the usual requisite biking about... dentist, race packet, etc. wednesday (today) was a 5km. I guess I tapered, seeing as i did a 22 hour week, a 14 hour week, and then an easy tuesday... like a taper, but not. but the result was OK, i wanted to go 6:05 for each mile, instead, I was like 6:10 ish... it was fine. i can't say it was 'off the couch' as i've done at least one half assed interval workout a week for a month. i need to race more, however. it's painful, but visits to the pain cave pay off in dividents. So i was 19:19, 17th loser. My goal is to run under 18 this year... not impossible, but nor will it be a cake walk. Oh, i biked to the run, ran 2.5 to warm up, and then did 3 or so as a cool down... tommorrow is ultimate early, and duathalon 5, die, duathalon, die.

Which of course means, the duathalon, the.

Probably not doing anything for the fourth but read a little, and get the bike ready. Oh, I'm going to go get a flyrod in a minute.

Exciting stuff.

Friday, 2 hour early ride, practice, weights, maybe a late evening roller ski (long easy day)
Saturday, long day, long bike, hopefully wi/ hike thrown in.
Sunday, long ride, need to roll. Got to get some paddling in.

new deal

Saturday, i went rollerskiing, not long, like 40 minutes (skipped the intervals) and biked 1.75 hours...
Sunday, 30 minute run, and went fly fishing. Pretty fun. a couple hours kicking around in a float tube, wearing waders, first time casting a fly rod. I could basically make the cast, I caught a 12" rainbow and released it... I'm 'hooked'. Going to go get a rod this weekend... nice something to add... there are several places to fish that i can do some nice bike rides to.

Tommorrow, AM ride, 8:30, 40 min run, 4 x 200 strides, core, 10:00 weights... rest of the day nap and read.
tues, frisbee, rest pm
wed, 5km race
thurs, frisbee, pm TT...