Intervals, Week 2: in which the fox begins to gnaw.

One minute on / one minute off didn't feel so awful while doing it, but I was a tad fuzzy around the edges by 3:30 this afternoon.  Overall, not bad.  But next week is going to hurt.
Think I'll get in another trail ride tomorrow while the weather's still semi-cool.

Well of course.

"Water is always a good choice to rehydrate after working out, but researchers suggest beer is better" NBC Action News reports.   Why would this surprise anyone?  Could've just asked a mountain biker.
Side note to the roadies: Michelob Ultra doesn't count.
Also of note: if you drop the h in Michelob and correctly insert a hyphen, you get Mice-lob.  I'm not sure what that means, but I'm staying away from both.

Been there, done that.

Permalink back to PhD comics.

Hurricane Kate was so much fun, but I wouldn't know because I was busy bouncing between the computer room and accelerator vault.  No windows in the cartoon, poor baby; my old lab was underground.

Actually, we did get sort of clued that something was going on when the power went off and the generator kicked in.

Cobras....?

Heck I like snakes, but this creeps even me out.

Wearin' yer de Nimes bleu Genes right now?

Denim's origins probably solved through images captured on canvas by "the Master of the Blue Jeans" at known dates and locations, as seen here.  More on the topic here, and all seven of the paintings discussed in the two articles can be seen here.
Looks like a pretty airtight case.  Applied art history– just... wow, it's so cool.

Intervals: Day 1 - Among the Roadies.

My weight loss program that I’d started at the end of January has stalled out.  To be sure, ten pounds down is nothing to sneeze at but I really need to go another twenty before racing up Oak Mountain.  Well, at least another ten by then, and I’ll worry off the next ten before the fall race season kicks in.  But as I said, I was stalled. 

Advice from a friend: “Do sprints.  That’s what works for me.”  Advice from brother: “Less hammerhead riding, more structured weeks of easy/hard cycles.”  OK, that makes sense.  Less stress, more structure, hammer when and only when it’s time to hammer.  Smash up this metabolic plateau I’ve landed on, get the weight loss going again.  Yeah.

So I did an easy trail ride over lunch yesterday (Monday), then showed up at the road bike meetup point at the usual Bat-Time and said my prepared speech: “Gents, it’s been great riding with you.  But my weight loss has slowed, and I need to branch off and do intervals for month.”

The effect was as if I’d waved a scooby-snack over a box full of puppies: “Oooh, can we do’em with you?”  “Hey, that sounds like it’ll hurt be fun!”  “That’s like two minutes on then two minutes off, right?”  “Yeah, let’s do it!”

While they were all crawling over each other with eagerness, one roadie slipped off and gained about a hundred yards sprinting (remember, no warm-up) into a stiff north headwind.  “D’oh!Squirrel!!”vrooooom!  The pack launched.  I shrugged, grabbed on the back, dropped off when they hit 19mph (remember, into a stiff headwind), and watched their lycra’d rears red-shift off into the distance while I dialed back to cruising speed.  Thought to myself “Yep, that was about how I expected it to go.” 

Then I went on to do two sets of six 30-sec-on/30-sec-off intervals, and arranged it so that the wind was a tailwind home.  Beautiful.

This week: 30/30’s today and Thursday.  Next week, 1min/1min.  Add 30 seconds a week until it’s 2:30/2:30 on week 5.  Then... just go ride.  No stress, no hammerheads, no problem.

Wind power's not all that either.

As seen here.

Somehow, I think I'd rather live next door to a nice safe clean fission reactor.