Ever read the book Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight? It’s an interesting read about life in Africa. It also has nothing to do with this post which is actually about going to The Panthergirl Today and posting a comment. Panthergirl is a friend of Greyhounds and will make a donation to Greyhound Rescue and Rehab for every comment she gets. Go on over and blab – its for a good cause.

Ever read the book Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight? It’s an interesting read about life in Africa. It also has nothing to do with this post which is actually about going to The Panthergirl Today and posting a comment. Panthergirl is a friend of Greyhounds and will make a donation to Greyhound Rescue and Rehab for every comment she gets. Go on over and blab – its for a good cause.

I have always been terrified of bike riding especially on busy roads. I’m quite certain that I will get hit by a car or skid on gravel, fall in the road and have my torso run over by a truck causing my guts to squirt out my mouth thus ending my life as a wanna be athlete (not to mention a mother, a sister, a woman with dreams, etc). As such, the number of miles I have biked in my life until last summer could probably have been counted on my hands if you leave out my disastrous triathlon of 2001 (and we won’t count that, please). I did that one on a Schwinn Varsity 10 speed and that’s all I’m going to say for now.

Last summer my siblings and I took a vacation in the San Juan Islands – the ones off of Washington State. We rented bikes and biked all over the place and it was really, really fun. Who could have imagined what having another 11 gears could do for the sport? I was a much better biker than I had remembered and I was able to manage my fear of cars reasonably well.

When I got back I discovered that a couple of friends I swim with also really like to bike and a biker chick was born. I even took an upgrade on my bike about a month ago and went from my utterly ridiculous Schwinn 10 speed that I bought for 10 bucks 17 years ago to a nice Trek 7300 hybrid bike. I love it. My friends and I have gone out for a couple of nice long rides together.

Recently friend C called me up to ask if I would join her on a road ride in March called the Cinderella Classic. Sure I said, tell me about it. She started reading the brochure, “The Cinderella Classic covers 65 scenic miles…”
“WHAT???!! Did you say 65 miles??”
“Sure – you can do that”
“I can?”
“Sure – it’s just a ride. It isn’t a race”
“Well, okay. sure”

And thus it has come to pass that on March 25 I am going to ride my pretty new bike 65 miles in a row with a couple of stops for food. What the hell a ride that length has to do with Cinderella is beyond me. I mean really, shouldn’t it be called the WonderWoman Classic?

Today was beautiful so I went out and took a 15 mile ride and it wasn’t any big deal. I guess that means I can handle 65 miles. I hope it does.

Senate confirms Alito to high court – Yahoo! News

Alito is in which comes as no surprise to me but it does make me sad. I can only hope that he does come as a surprise to the conservatives and isn’t half the anti-civil rights guy he currently appears to be.

If only I could figure out how to tie up the camels on this one……

I found a site today called tauquil that has a post titled ‘Is Religion the Root of all Evil’. This is a mini-series showing some work by Richard Dawkins (a British scientist specializing in evolution) who goes out and interviews religious fundamentalists. I think it is unfortunate that he asks the question ‘Is Religion at the root of all evil’ when the real question is ‘Is Religious Fundamentalism at the root of all evil’. I would say “no” to the former and “yes” to the latter.

I am not myself a person of great faith but neither am I an atheist. I believe in the spirit (my own, yours, the zeitgeist of the culture, the powers that be) but not in any formal way. I recently watched a great documentary about Tibet called ‘Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion’ which is about how China has invaded and destroyed Tibet with impunity. Shameful, shameful, shameful on the part of the US who worked very hard to keep Tibet free before Nixon and Kissinger brought the cold war to an end and Coca-Cola and KFC to China which necessitated playing nice with China by not defending Tibet. But I digress. What I got out of that movie in addition to my outrage about Tibet is the sense that I am inherently a Buddhist – sort of. I believe in starting every day anew; I believe that harboring resentment, shame and remorse are useless and I believe somewhat in fate. The “sort of” part comes because I also believe that luck favors the prepared and that you tie up the camels and then trust in God.

I sometimes envy people of greater faith. It would be nice to be able to attribte more to God and less to what John Gardner referred to as the ‘hit and miss of the cosmic pumpkin’ but I’m afraid I err on the random noise side. It would be nice to have a stronger belief in what happens after you die other than that you are gone (again, I’m a little short in the Buddhist arena, there). If something bad happens it would be nice to believe that it is for a reason. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that people die in car accidents so that their surviving family members can grow stronger in faith, or have a reason to work for MADD or something like that. I think people die in car accidents because there are bad drivers out there and bad road conditions and things just happen sometimes. I don’t see how a good and merciful God can bestow the blessing of new life on a young couple and then have the mother die of cancer or the father die in a war. To me believing it is all about God is just the desperate act of trying to make the insane seem somehow rational and the incomprehensible acceptable. But be that as it may the faithful derive comfort from their beliefs and to them I say, good for you, there is nothing evil about it as long as you don’t think I’m a bad person for not sharing your faith.

Anyhow, enough about me. I thought that the debate profiled in that post was interesting and the blog is just full of fun stuff (check out the archives) so I give it those of you who don’t already have it as my Monday “let’s have a great week” kick-off. And on that note I think I’ll go back to rambling locally instead of globally.

After reading The Black Knight’s 23Km run report (more than a US half marathon) I’ve decided that I need to target a marathon in Italy. After all, they get wine and plates and cheese and there are castles and ancient ruins and culture there. How fun!

This will require saving up some money as well as training but it could happen – really. How about Rome in March 2007? Or Venice in October (Oct 22 – see the city before it sinks!) or Maranello Oct 15? Or how about Padua in April 2007? And there are more, oh so many more. Anyone want to make it a goal? We could go see Stefano and have a really, really good time. Talk about an excellent location for carbo loading! Who’s in?

Go see my new tenant. She has some delicious things to make and eat. You can search for great recipes by category and if you spend a little time cruising her site you can learn some interesting facts about regional foods.
Welcome Donna, et al and to all of my readers bon appetite!

Maybe this is what I need – a singleringen. It fairly screams, “I’m single! Take me, I’m yours!” It comes with a built in community of singletons who are so desperate to become doubletons that they buy a stupid ring to make that abundantly clear to …. to all the people who read popgadget and buy the rings. At least that’s my guess. I think I’ll pass and just honor the day by buying my kids some candy, instead.

Thanks to SFTR for turning me on to this very puzzling quiz. So why am I not a latent engineer? I spent years being a software developer so this is doubly puzzling.

Are lactic acid crystals a fact or fiction? That is a rhetorical question because I had a very strong suspicion the answer was ‘fiction’ and it took about 22 seconds to confirm that.

I don’t have one of those ‘100 things about me’ posts but if I did number 42 would read: I spent 2 years working on a PhD in physiology. Because of that training I often doubt popular but odd sounding nutritional and fitness theories. If I had any guts I’d find a way to go back to graduate school and get a PhD in exercise physiology but I digress.

Not only are the crystals a myth, there isn’t really any lactic acid that forms in your muscles. What you get is lactate which is a by product of metabolism and is something you need. The whole ‘lactic acid threshold’ thing is grossly misunderstood and widely misrepresented. I even recall the Discovery Channel doing a thing on Lance Armstrong where they showed that he didn’t produce lactic acid the way most of us do. I’m sure Lance does something different than the rest of us (like winning the Tour de France 7 times) but I’m guessing what we all understood from that special isn’t quite right. If I think of it I’ll do some more research.

Anyhow, back to the crystals:

From Lactic acid and running: myths, legends and reality – the ABC :
Most runners still believe that lactic acid is released during hard or unaccustomed exercise and that this is what limits running performance, as well as being the cause of stiffness. Neither is correct. But not even is the terminology of “lactic acid”.Lactic acid does not exist as an acid in the body: it exists in another form called “lactate”, and it is this that is actually measured in the blood when “lactic acid” concentration is determined, as is done from time to time. This distinction is important not only for the sake of correctness, but more importantly, because lactate and lactic acid would have different physiological effects.The greatest myth is that lactic acid is the cause of the stiffness felt after an event such as a marathon. Stiffness is due mostly to damage to the muscle, and not an accumulation of lactic acid or lactic acid crystals in the muscle.

From the link in the title of this post which is also found here:
health.iafrica.com fitness online running Cramp: every runner’s nightmare

Another misconception is that lactic acid (melksuur) build-up causes cramp. This is patently incorrect. High levels of lactic acid in the muscle contribute to fatigue and the inability to sustain a particular exercise intensity by interfering with muscle contraction. On the contrary cramp is a sustained muscle contraction. Lactic acid is generated during high intensity exercise where oxygen delivery to the muscle is insufficient to meet the demand. In endurance events oxygen transport is not a limiting factor, so lactic acid production is minimal. Also, lactic acid does not stay in muscle for very long – it is shunted off to the liver to be recycled into more glucose. It does not form crystals, either in the muscle or anywhere else, so this additional explanation for cramp and also muscle pain is also without physiological foundation.

So – if you are laboring under the idea that you have lactic acid crystals in your body or some other form of lactic acid poop fagetaboutit. Not true. A massage feels great – I absolutely endorse getting a massage at every opportunity but know this – it isn’t about your crystals, it’s all about your chakras.