BACK FROM VACATION

Why people do not move their bodies regularly and vigorously is beyond me. Our Creator painstakingly designed the human body to move fluidly and often, yet most of our world populace moves only when absolutely necessary. God help us should we lose the TV’s remote and have to lift our over-sized carcasses off the couch to change channels or fiddle with the volume.

Having been on vacation this past week, unable to continue with our stringent workout routine, both Janet and I were amazed and distraught at how lethargic we began to feel during that one week hiatus.

Most of our vacations are typically centered on marathons and the like, this vacation we focused only on family time. It’s not that family time isn’t important, but in this case we should have injected some sort of body-moving routine into our busy days and evenings.

Now home after driving our truck 2,845 miles within six days, we are back to our daily routine of running, biking, swimming and lifting weights – not to mention resting in our own bed and bathing in our own facilities.

And we missed our two cats terribly, as they did us.

Home Sweet Home is not just a common adage, it is clearly a reality.

ALLIGATOR ATTACKS TRIATHLETE

Regarding an alligator attack on a man that was swimming in a Central Florida lake May the 16th, in my opinion the alligator had every right to defend its territory by whatever means available.

The man, a Central Florida triathlete that was allegedly in training for competition, chose to swim in a lake well known for supporting Florida’s natural predators.

Doug McCard was swimming in the lake at Moss Park on Sunday when the alligator chomped down on him. The alligator was believed to be 8 or 9 feet long. The 35-year-old says he swims in the same lake every weekend to train for competition.

Admittedly mindful of the lake’s gator populace, he should have known better.

A trapper has been dispatched by the Florida Water Commission to catch the alligator.

Let’s switch this around to a hypothetical scenario and pretend that the gator uninvitingly crawled into Doug’s home and Doug and family began chomping at the gator in defense of their home. Would a pack of gators have the right to storm into Doug’s home in search of Doug and family for the sole purpose of destroying the family or displacing them to a different and unfamiliar location?

Same question should a man or woman be bitten by a shark or barracuda. What should we as humans do, go into the oceans and rid the world of all sharks and barracudas? Of course not!

Why, then, doesn’t Doug and company decide on a different lake or body of water for their triathlon training? How does a manmade swimming pool sound?

Why must mankind continue with his selfish, despicable carnage, not only on animals but also his own kind?

I am again reminded how we treated the American Indians when we unlawfully settled on their land, slaughtered their animals, destroyed their crops and raped their women. One only has to go back in history to learn the senseless brutality of mankind.

And sadly it continues to this day!

http://www.wftv.com/news/23570784/detail.html?cxntlid=cmg_cntnt_rss

BIKING ON A WINDY DAY

Why is it so difficult peddling a bicycle on a windy day? I fully realize that a stiff breeze generates additional resistance against the bike and rider. But my goodness, even when you change course or direction, it seems like you’re always riding against the wind. Am I the only one that has experienced this?

During this past Friday’s forty-two mile training ride in our local county park, the steady swirling wind hampered any chance of achieving a respectable mph pace. As much as I tried, the wind speed would slow down the bike to a crawl, resulting in a pace that would embarrass even a small child on their tricycle. I may be slow apart from the wind, but averaging a pace of 12 mph is totally unacceptable.

On the other hand, why should I care what my final pace is as long as the mileage is achieved legitimately and within most event cutoff times?

To be honest, I’m never going to sign up for any event that calls for swimming in bodies of water other than a filtered swimming pool. No way! If it’s all the same, I’ll keep my body out of murky, polluted, shark & gator infested bodies of water. And besides, I would resent having other triathletes kick me in the head just because my swim pace might be slightly slower than theirs.

It's like I was explaining to my wife the other day during a casual three-mile walk: "People's priorities change over time."  What was of utmost importance a year or so ago may no longer be important.

Take speed for instance. Moving my body from point A to point B as quickly as possible used to be my number one priority. Now my number one priority is to move my body from point A to point B and have fun doing it without speed being a factor.  And I believe I'll live longer and be healthier for it.   

No, I’m not after a fast time. I’m doing this only to have a good time during my initial attempt at completing all three disciplines in our GPS-measured, neighborhood, Bob and Janet sponsored half ironman event.

1.2 mile swim? Should be no problem! 56 miles on a bike? Brutal but doable! 13.1 miles of constant power walking? On any given day!

Did I mention that this particular park has five low-grade hills, all five transcending well above the roadway elevation, further ruling out any chance of a fast pace?

Excuses, excuses, excuses…

BIKING

Down with the bike seat and up with the handle bar, anything to make the bike more comfortable during miles and miles of peddling in the county park.

I fully realize that bikers legs should be fully extended when on the down peddle. I also realize that the most brutal part of biking, at least in my opinion, is leaning forward supporting your upper body with your hands, arms and shoulders while grasping the handles of the handle bar. And this doesn’t even take into account the crook that one gets in their neck during this exaggerated leaning. After all, the rider must look forward to see where they and the bike are headed.

Racing bikes are specifically built to have the rider lean forward, resulting in less wind resistance. I get it! I can even buy into this for shorter distances, but certainly not for 56 miles or more!

Try sitting upright in a chair and then leaning your head backward to view what’s directly behind you. Remain in this awkward position for one or two hours and see if you don’t come out of the trial with a crook in your neck.

Up to now, I have ridden my bike four times, 10, 20, 25 and 30 miles respectively. My legs are fine during and after each ride. The only biking concern so far has been the uncomfortable ride due to the old bike seat and the required leaning. The bike seat has since been replaced.

Like I said, “Down with the bike seat and up with the handle bar.” I’m hoping this alleviates the problem even to a small degree.  I would prefer to have more quad strain than neck strain.   

LONG-DISTANCE WORKOUTS CURTAILED

Other than a 30-mile bike ride in CB Smith Park this past Monday, this week’s triathlon training has been scaled back somewhat. We did manage a couple of workouts that included swimming, biking and walking, but those training sessions paled in comparison to our typical LD training.

Any why is that?

I regularly run, race-walk, bike, swim, lift weights, yet I throw out my back while leaning over tying up a garbage bag, and the bag wasn’t even heavy. It was one of those occurrences when you lean over just a smidgeon and suddenly the lower back tightens. There was no pain to speak of, just a tightening that wouldn’t untighten when standing upright.

This setback doesn’t come as any surprise, though. When a person is stricken with spinal stenosis, sometime the slightest movement can trigger a negative response from the lower back area, especially my lower back area. On top of the spinal stenosis, four out of the five discs in my lumbar area are herniated.

And it appears that I’m not the only one in this household with back issues.

Following this year’s Goofy Challenge in Walt Disney World, Janet has been experiencing excruciating discomfort in her upper back. The pain began during the last five or six miles of the second day’s event and hasn’t subsided since. She has since had an X-ray and all it revealed was arthritis.

What makes matters worse is the slight bending over that she must do while working at the retail store. Doing so is a necessary evil of her job, which makes her situation all that much worse.

I’ve been applying Biofreeze on the area followed by comforting back massages, and she does get lots of relief afterward. But as soon as she begins running and bending forward to any significant degree, the discomfort returns.

We’ll see how it goes, but for right now we are both considering curtailing all long distance training for similar reasons. It may be to our long-term advantage to return to moderate workouts accompanied by low-mileage training walks.

Running is completely out of the question.