October 2009 Archives

it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x4d!

what better way to start the new year than with a mild hangover? and deadlifts.

today i ran two miles completely barefoot. not "barefoot" with my vibram fivefingers, but completely unshod.

a coworker sent me this webpage after i mentioned i ran barefoot:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/phys-ed-is-running-barefoot-better-for-you/?em

here's the short version, quoted from that article, on why i'm running unshod:

"On the one hand, no one has yet published a study on whether barefoot running is better for you -- the evidence is all anecdotal," Lieberman says. "On the other hand, no one has ever published a study showing that running shoes prevent injury."

in my case, running shoes have always been a problem. i had a pair that i liked, once, years ago, and then they were discontinued to generate more profits for the shoe company. these were top-shelf, wildly popular shoes, too, and the revision was totally different. even the fivefingers irk me on a longer run, and they encourage bad behavior.

in the 5fs, i tend to run too high on my toes, or to flap my feet on teh pavement when i attempt to correct for toe running. barefoot, right out the door i noticed i was immediately in a much better foot posture. the tenderness of my toes instructed me straight off when my landing/takeoff was sloppy. the feedback from the road was incredible - as barefoot runners will tell you is always the case.

i was very surprised how much of the road feedback is actually masked by the 5fingers. true, the 5fs are far, far superior to "traditional" running shoes - they punish heel-strike almost as much barefooting - but they mask other bad habits, like toe-running, toe-scraping, and foot flapping. not only that, but they *do* have arch support, which i find conflicts with the natural expansion of my feet over a run. i have to stop and loosen them, or suffer.

in any case, i finished my run with absolutely no pain anyhwere but my toe pads. i expected my toe pads to be torn and bloody but they were intact, just a little irritated. i will work more on my landing/takeoff to avoid scraping them, but i won't be putting shoes on again for my runs.

i find arguments like this to be specious at best:

The debate about whether barefoot running is somehow better underestimates the main player in the whole argument. "The body is quite smart and adaptable," Nigg says. In complex biomechanics studies that he's undertaken recently in his laboratory, he's found that people's leg muscles adjust, rather smoothly, to changes in their footwear. If you run barefoot and land near the front of your foot, he says, the impact moves up your leg along a different pathway than if you wear shoes. But your body can sense that difference, he says, and, as a result, different muscles fire, while other relax -- without any conscious volition on your part -- and the overall impact on the leg's various tissues remains about the same.

That's certainly fine on a treadmill but a real outdoors run involves curbs, uneven surfaces, cambered surfaces, and rocks and pine cones. in shoes, these things always twist my ankle -- i've been fortunate never to have injured my ankle seriously. barefoot, i'm paying so much attention that i never come close to such obstructions.

i don't buy the "overall impact" argument, either. in my running shoes, i impacted far more heavily than i do in the 5fs or barefoot, because my technique is vastly different. again, this is less apparent on a cushy lab treadmill, or even outdoors, since technique changes gradually.

"The body learns very quickly to compensate," he says. So, Nigg concludes, if you like your shoes, "stick with them." If you want to try running barefoot, Ross Tucker says, be judicious. "Many years of wearing shoes condition the muscle, tendons, and skeleton and a sudden shift to barefoot running" could, at least in the short term, be painful, he says. Start by running barefoot perhaps once a week, he suggests.

i used to buy this line of crap, too. but i deadlift, cycle, and climb -- i don't have any weak muscles, tendons, or skeletons. i'm not ready to run a marathon barefoot (i do have weak, soft soles) but my limiter is definitely not weak tendons.

That's what I love -- just being a barbarian, running through the woods.

- Born to Run, p149, "Jenn" speaking.

It sounds like she gets some of her inspiration from the same place as me.

As I pressed my kettlebell today, I thought of some friends of mine -- all of them, in fact, to whom i have proselytized the bells -- who scoffed at the high cost of the ugly hunks of iron, and consequently, do no weight bearing exercises at all.

i admit that it's silly to pay $200 for 24 pounds of cast iron, but once i did, the rewards i got were worth more than $200. I am fortunate to have the resources and the attitude to make possible such purchases, and the proper mental tuning to let such purchases not go to waste.

yesterday i found my barbarian self in san francisco, thinking no more and no less than the holy words: civilization - ancient and wicked.

we made it safely back to uncivilization where i could happily resume my own particular idiom, unappreciated as it remains.

yesterday, i calculated that every bad habit i indulge, i balance with two good habits. i consider this a good ratio, and it protects me from acquiring new bad habits, as i am too lazy to expand my repertoire of good habits. speaking of which, it is unclear into which column 'laziness' falls -- though I consider it a good habit.

this calculation was predicated on me being a runner, which has not been the case for the last several months, but which is now once again true. in preparation for my travel during thanksgiving, i am taking up running again, since it's easier to bring shoes than a bike onto a plane.

the running brought me back in touch with another good habit of mine: meditation. it is something i do only while running, it doesn't happen on the bike, and certainly not while climbing and drinking.

i reflected today upon my mohawk. a month or two ago i was asked a curious question by a stranger: does my mohawk represent anything symbolically, or is it just fashion?

it's never been fashion, per se. originally it was a joke, then i realized its practicality, enjoyed its airflow, and eventually liked the way it looked -- which is similar to fashion but not quite the same thing.

The esoteric interpretation of the indisuputible Law Of Fives states, clearly: go looking for meaning, and you will find it.

So during my short re-introduction to running, I went looking for meaning in my mohawk, and found it, easily.

The mohawk symbolizes my supposed devotion to the essentials of my life, the notion that -- should i deem it necessary -- i could willfully remove everything but what i need: like robert de niro in heat when the heat was around the corner. all the bad habits, most of the good, they could all be shorn away, leaving only a small portion of me, the essential me, condensed into itself and surrounded by memories of what used to be but proved, after all, to be inessential. it is a monk's haircut, representing a core of spirit surrounded by crufty amusements and time-wasting distractions.

in other (slightly variant) words, the hair in the middle represents me, and the stubbly bits all around it represent Pink Floyd's "The Wall".

Anyhow, that's the theory, and it'll only be borne out if push comes to shove, whatever that means. but it's always a comforting fantasy to think i could do it, and a reminder of the time when I actually did do it.

it's frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x4c!

a bit chilly for a mohawk, but now is no time for a change in style.

my ride today took me down mountain home road, where there are always lots of equestrians. today, though, was some special horse event, and there were even more lots of horses.

i always give the horsies a wide berth, because they're large, heavy, and unpredictable, whereas i'm only heavy and unpredictable. road rage doesn't frighten me nearly as much as horse rage.

i was going along my way, and i shifted. noisily. oops. the chain said "kerchunk!" and a nearby horse went up on his hind legs. it took me a minute to figure out that my noisy shift had scared the horse, and as i passed, i said, "sorry!"

the rider of the scared horse snapped back: "asshole!"

i'll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide who's the asshole in this story.

i was out early on the porch this morn, roasting up some kona, and i witnessed some road rage. i heard cursing and shouting, so i looked out toward the stop sign and saw a middle-aged, professionally dressed black man cursing and swearing at a minivan. as the minivan drove off, he shouted, without much conviction, "your mom's a bitch!" then he got in his car and drove off toward hillsborough.

i had to laugh at the incongruity of it all.

Day 5: Left Ragged Point 9:30, arrived SLO 3:45

Nice, leisurely ride until Harmony, after which we encountered a lot of wind and a lot of hot sun, and a lot of hills.

We had a fair amount of inland riding where we didn't see any coast or any fog. While it was a nice break from the fog of the previous days, I'd gotten unused to riding in warm weather, not to mention headwinds. But I had plenty of energy and got to do a lot of riding in the drops. We saw elephant seals, wild (?) turkeys, and hawks. In Cayucos, we stopped at Ruddel's Smokehouse, an absolutely spectacular find that I was drawn to by mysterious forces. Seriously, it was off the main drag, and I was guided to it. I had a smoked salmon sandwich -- made on incredibly great bread, with lettuce, apple, curry powder, and wonderfully smokey salmon. They also have incredible ahi jerkey, and the smoked fish tacos aren't bad either. We sat on the steps to the beach and enjoyed our lunch. On the way out of town we stopped at a candy shop and i picked up some taffy and caramels, which i chewed during the rest of the day's ride.

After Cayucos, the weather became very hot -- it felt at least 90, possibly hotter. I passed some folks (on the uphill, yay me!) who later turned out to be touring from SF to SLO -- with a van! lucky them.

The super8 in SLO is serviceable and close enough to good restaurants that it didn't matter that their breakfast is ridiculously bad. Woodstock's pizza was unremarkable at best, though they had no corkage fee.

In all, the most surprising thing about the tour was how easy it was. There wasn't a single morning where I didn't feel like riding, particularly after it was over -- I got anxious on the days we didn't have a planned ride, and tried to fit rides into our schedule. Once home, that was a different story, I got a bit lazy and skipped some rides; but on the tour, I only wanted more and more.

I would have liked to do a little more exploring in the cities we visited, but I also enjoyed the fact that our tour was not overplanned -- we had to talk to locals to find good places to eat lunch. we could have covered a lot more miles per day if some of us were faster, but the leisurely pace was good for our longevity, i think. i felt that i could easily have maintained that pace indefinitely.

we had no mechanical issues of any sort, though i did get a couple of saddle sores after day 1, and promptly adjusted my seating such that i was not bothered by them the rest of the trip.

the trip was incredibly fun, and i won't hesitate to plan another -- with the possible caveat that part of the fun came from being on the central coast that i enjoy so much.

once we were in SLO, I visited with my old friend and mentor, visited some favorite beaches, ate at sylvester's, the cracked crab (didn't enjoy it as much as i used to, my dining standards have been raised quite a lot since 2007), farmer's market, and mcclintock's.

oh, a special "no thanks to you" goes to enterprise rent-a-car, who did every possible thing wrong at every possible step of the way. that was the only part of the entire trip that i would classify as "went poorly". enterprise has lost me as a customer, but i fear hops is more forgiving. here is the list of their offenses: despite hops checking thrice on the reservation, our minivan was not at the airport as it was supposed to be (though we arrived an hour early, to be fair to enterprise). when hops picked it up at their satellite location, it was covered in dog hair. we took it back to have it cleaned, and the rep said "oh, that van was used by a seeing-eye dog". oh really? was the dog supposed to vacuum it before returning it? instead of cleaning that van, they gave us a new one, which turned out to have non-functional A/C, which wasn't a problem until our drive home through 100F weather. we survived it all right but didn't get much of an apology, or a refund.

i'd rather not end the post on a sour note, so i'll point out that we're working on getting around to planning a short tour of sonoma in the coming months. also, on our trip to slo, we ran into several other tourists besides the SF group and ward and jackie -- of all the bike tourists we met, we were the ones going the shortest distance. someday, that won't be the case.

Day 4: Left Big Sur 8:45, arrived Ragged Point 3:30

To recap: Big Sur River Inn (and to be fair, most of Big Sur) lost power. Around 8, we had the worst breakfast of our trip, and by far the worst coffee (it was mingled with flavored coffee, bleah).

As soon as we hit the road, we were greeted with a very long grade -- nothing too bad, but it would have been nicer to ride the grade having spent a day warming up, and skipped Big Sur altogether. The weather was foggy and cold, but the hill kept me plenty warm.

We passed several inns along the way, including Big Sur Inn and Lucia Lodge, which may have been alternate stopping points for day 3. We lunched at Lucia Lodge, which was a huge win: fantastic fish and chips, nice scenery, great service... pricey. But really, really good fish and chips, and lots of friendly people staying or stopping, including fellow cyclists. We spent about an hour on lunch.

After lunch, we headed back into the fog, and had a whole lot of long, gradual ascents and zippy descents. The hills were rolling, but very long rolls (unlike, say, our own rolling Canada road, which is very short rollers). The portion after lunch was the second hardest part of our trip, a distant second behind the first day. The weather was cool and refreshing and we arrived at Ragged Point Inn in good spirits. I spied a couple of Caltrans workers drinking (a large number) of beers by one of the rooms.

After cleaning up, I went over to the Caltrans guys and, rather sheepishly, thanked them for the high quality of the roads we'd ridden in Monterey County (i'd learn the next day, as we rode SLO county, that the road quality was unique to Monterey!). I thought I was being very cheesy in my thanks, but they really appreciated it -- they don't get a lot of thanks from people, in fact, usually quite the opposite. As it turned out, they were electricians and had nothing to do with the road quality, but they still were appreciative.

The room was very nice, roomy, and had a fantastic view -- probably. It sounded like a very nice ocean view, with a beautiful, rugged sea cliff and crashing waves and the works, but I couldn't see any of it for the fog. The fog was there when we arrived, when we went to bed, when we got up, and when we left. We never got to see any views at Ragged Point. But I enjoyed the fog. I'd forgotten how much I love central coast fog. Ragged Point reminded me. Of all the hotels, Ragged Point Inn and Carmel Mission Inn are the two I'd visit again.

The restaurant had great, open-air atmosphere, and potentially great views. The steak was meh, the local wine was good.

Breakfast was (again) not open until 8. We weren't in a hurry for breakfast since the ride to SLO was supposed to be easy. Bananas were not available for breakfast, the coffee was lousy. Still, not a bad enough breakfast to put me off of staying again. In fact, next tour, we should bring our own coffee -- and give up extra clothing for the weight.

Day 3: Left Carmel 10:00, arrived Big Sur 12:45.

Day 3 was planned as a short 35 mile day, so we lounged around at the hotel in Carmel before leaving. In retrospect, we should have lounged around downtown Carmel until 3pm and then headed out to Big Sur. Live and learn.

This was our first real day of the "scary" part of Hwy 1, ocean to the right of us, single lane, scary cars. In fact, it wasn't scary. True, the fog was so thick that we had only 40 foot visibility (I could hear the ocean the whole time but not see it). But the cars were very cautious, we had a bike lane in most cases, and the shoulder/guard-rail was sufficient-looking in most places.

There were lots of gently rolling hills. The ride was entirely too easy. We thought we'd be tired by day three, but even had we been (we were not) we could easily have handled a much longer ride, and reaped the benefits, as well -- our stay in Big Sur was boring, and we could have missed a lot of boredom by riding further on day 3.

Shortly after Carmel, we met Ward and Jackie, two amazing bike tourists who've been at it for 3 years now. We traded some stories, and loaded up on inspiration, we went on. We'd see Ward and Jackie pass us on the road after we'd pulled in to the inn at Ragged Point, but we never caught up to them, despite their claim of being slow. We're much slower.

Occasionally, through the fog, we'd catch glimpses of gorgeous scenery. Even without much scenery, this was the first day that I felt like I was on tour - or at least, the first day I was on the tour I wanted to be on. I was on the central coast! And the fog and the sounds and the trees were all central coast-y and just what I'd hoped for. It was a truly wonderful ride -- and it was too short, and ended at a crummy hotel.

The Big Sur River Inn is a mystery to me -- I can't understand why anyone would be tempted to stay there. It's in the middle of nowhere, close by car to Carmel to the north, or San Simeon to the south. There didn't seem to be much to do while there, certainly not on foot, and even by car, it seemed like you'd just take a trip to Carmel or San Simeon -- so why not stay in Carmel or San Simeon?

The room was $100 and that included a voucher for breakfast -- with a mandatory 18% gratuity! Breakfast wasn't served until 8am and we really didn't want to stick around that long. The room was tiny, dirty-ish, with a joke of a shower that was too small for actually washing anything, and, worst of all, no television.

We had a burrito at their new burrito bar, and it was the worst burrit I've ever had, without exception or exaggeration. Microwaved parts, unmarinated beef -- it was a flavorless experience that I'd not wish on anyone. We ate our tasteless burritos on wooden chairs set in the Big Sur River. The water was refreshing and hops and I explored upriver a bit, avoiding slippery rocks an poison oak. It didn't really get particularly scenic or nice, the water was muddy and had garbage in it (some of it, dangerous).

We finally managed to kill enough time to have dinner at the inn's restaurant. The restaurant was not bad, but there weren't many choices. The food was decent, overpriced, pretentious, and the apple pie was not good (though they claimed it was "famous", of course). The power went out overnight. There were a ton of smokers.

Lessons learned: bring a book, bring more cell phone games, plan better for boredom. Pack less.

At 7:00, we were disappointed to find the restaurant didn't open till 8am. The "burrito bar" opened at 7:30 -- but doesn't start serving burritos until 8! The dude made us an exception and we managed to have a worthless breakfast (microwaved breakfast bagel sandwich) by 7:45, affording us time for a relatively early start at 8:45. Obviously, I couldn't wait to be out of there and on the road -- a feeling that didn't go away each morning until we returned to San Mateo.

Day 2: Left Santa Cruz 8:30, arrived Carmel 4:30, energized!

After a crummy breakfast, we left Santa Cruz in a hurry. The hotel was right by the entrance to Hwy 1 S, which we thought was very convenient. Our route took us from SC to SLO entirely by way of Hwy 1, so we figured we were set.

After about 5 minutes on Hwy 1, I told hops that it sure felt more like a freeway than a highway. About 10 minutes later, a CHP heading the opposite direction said through his loudspeaker, "bikes off the freeway!". So I guess I was right. At the time we were about 200 yards south of the last exit, a mile to the next exit. We didn't think it'd be safe to reverse course, so we continued on at a faster pace.

We didn't make it to the exit before the CHP pulled us over. We explained that our route plan took us on 1 and that we thought it was legal for bikes. He said it was legal north of SC and once we hit monterey (monterey county, we would later discover) but where we were, bikes were forbidden. He followed us off the freeway and gave us an alternate route that took us inland to Watsonville.

Once in Watsonville, we tried to ask the local police how to get to monterey by bike. They proved to be entirely worthless, and while hops tried to get in touch with the CHP, i looked on my google maps and deduced which parts of 1 were bikable. hops arrived with the same information that'd i'd gleaned from the map glyphs, and off we went.... to another freeway entrance. we backtracked and found an entrance to the bikable highway 1. In all, we wasted no less than 2 hours in Watsonville. The entrance from Watsonville onto 1 required us to cross two lanes of highway traffic. It was possibly the scariest part of the whole tour but we made it.

We stopped in Moss Landing for lunch, at a place a local recommended: Phil's Fish Market. We easily found a place to park our bikes and sat in a covered outdoor area. The lobster roll was great, but the fish and chips were too greasy and overdone. Might stop there again but would probably try to find a better place.

After Moss Landing, we had to exit 1 again at Marina. By this point we were getting good at telling when we could be on 1 and when we couldn't -- a skill that we'd use again on the last day of our tour. There's a bicycle path that goes from Marina (a town that I didn't know existed) to Monterey. The path is mostly scenic, with lots of plant-covered rolling dunes. It's also meandering and likely added a lot of unplanned miles on to our second day. Once in Monterey, we continued on the path until we met two local roadies and stopped to ask more directions.

They debated the merits of getting to Carmel via 17 mile drive, or the much shorter, more direct route through Iris Canyon. One of them, Dave, volunteered to lead us through Iris Canyon, since his 80 mile ride that day hadn't tired him out. His friend claimed that the route through the hills was a third of the distance of the flat route, and there weren't any climbs more than 10% grade -- Dave said there were 13s, at least.

Dave turned out to be right. The road through the hills was about 2 miles instead of 17, and contained a 15% climb and a 13% -- neither of which turned out to be too bad with our touring gears. It was definitely the right choice after a frustrating day of making our route up as we went along.

We arrived at the Carmel Mission Inn where I nearly panicked when they said they'd never heard of us, and I couldn't find a confirmation number. They looked at the checkin list for that day and found me - my name misspelled. The staff was very hospitable, the room had a really far out decor, it was clean, roomy, and a welcome upgrade from the dumpy place in Santa Cruz -- at the same price! Before dinner, we sat around an outdoor fireplace and traded stories with other guests who shared some wine with us. The hotel is located on the outskirts of Carmel, or, at least, not walking distance from downtown. There's only one option for walking to dinner, the Rio Grill, a locals' bar and grill.

The Rio Grill had very good service, good food, a very good scotch selection, and prices that seemed a little too high. Still, there wasn't any other option.

Our stay included a breakfast buffet, which started at or before 7 -- this would be the last day that we'd get breakfast before 8, much to our chagrin, since we aimed to leave by 8:30 each day.

The breakfast buffet was well done, tasty and way too hearty for day 3's ride.

from september 19th to 23rd, hops and i took our first self-supported credit card bicycle tour, beginning at our place in san mateo and ending in san luis obispo. along the way we had many adventures, a whole lot of fun, and not a very difficult time at all. i will attempt to recount the hilights. in the meantime, here are some pictures from the trip:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=27257&id=1643019056&l=726b00c824

We were credit card touring, meaning we stayed at hotels and took no camping gear. as such, our loads were relatively light, although, as beginners, i felt we took way too much stuff (overpacked), which is exactly what i did on my first couple of backpacking trips.

Day 1: Left home (san mateo) at 9:30, arrived at comfort inn, santa cruz
The climb up old la honda was difficult but very manageable with our lightened loads. day 1 was by far the most difficult day, with the old la honda climb accounting for at least half of the climbing of the entire trip! we took old la honda to 35 to 9 to santa cruz. i didn't study the route too carefully and was expecting 9 to be all downhill -- i was in for a surprise around felton, where, nearly at the end of our day, we ran into a rather steep hill. i found the energy to make it up and over, hops had to stop and walk a little bit. after that, it was an easy downhill straight to the hotel.

Comfort Inn SC: overpriced, they put us on 2nd floor (claimed not to have gotten my 1st floor request). coffee was decent, but the breakfast was a joke: no fruit, packaged danishes. bleh.

Dinner that night was at Tavernetta Limoncello, recommended by the internet. We were starving from our difficult ride. Limoncello had warm service, great bread, fantastic bisque, and a so-so, overpriced entree. After dinner we went in search of first-aid items, not because we needed any, but because we'd somehow forgotten to bring any. Santa Cruz gets real cold real fast, and I had forgotten this and left my fleece at the hotel. Nobody in that area of town could quite grasp the concept of "we have no car" and kept giving us driving directions whenever we asked. We ended up with a reasonable kit after a lot of looking.

Next time: stay closer to downtown SC, try a different route to avoid felton's hill