The Strong Program, Part II

This past week, my mom and dad were on a road trip that brought them through Omaha. Katherine and I put them up with us in the yellow house on 52nd Street. It was grand. We had a fun evening catching up. When it came time to retire, I commented that I was planning to get up for 5:30 AM swimming practice the next morning, but to help themselves to anything should they get up before I returned.

Mom was already up when I went to make coffee the next morning. She asked if she could tag along with me at swimming practice.

I thought watching swimming meets were boring, but watching a swimming practice? Eessh.

Still, who am I to deny such a request? Especially from my mother?

We arrived as practice was starting. Coach Samland was busy delivering instructions to the 35 or so gathered on deck. After warm ups were underway, I introduced them and then hopped in. At the end of warm up, my friends were asking what was up. Some of them had already guessed that it was my Mom. One of the younger female swimmers said that she was "so cute, with the biggest smile on her face while watching me."

I sorta felt like I was in sixth grade again, and mom had the dreaded playground patrol. Imagine how mortified I would have been if she started doing calisthenics right then and there on the pool deck, like she did on the playground back in the day, bless her dear heart.

But truly, it was a delight having her there. I'll always have the memory of that big grin on her face. Or, how she was clapping for me when I emerged from the water when practice was over.

Afterwards, she had nothing but compliments to hand out to my friends. She remarked how wonderful it was that so many people, spanning multiple generations, got up that early to workout. She even said that she was inspired to get in the water when she returned home.

I hope she follows through with it. My parents recently moved to a condo that has a heated indoor pool with lap lanes a few hundred feet from their front door. And she'd have a partner, too. Dad's already a regular swimmer these days.

Swimming is an activity one can do for a lifetime. It's never too late to start. Affordable adult swimming lessons are widely available at YMCAs, fitness centers and many local universities.

You can do it, Mom. Shoot, in no time, I bet you'd have your own strong program.

Cheers and happy Friday

Farty Far Debriefing

As many of you know, I celebrated another birthday yesterday: 44. Or as I mentioned in my facebook selfie, "farty-far" as they'd say in St Louis.

Like a lot of places, St Louis has evolved its own dialect over the years. Though it's a Midwestern city that prides itself as the "Gateway to the West", it retains a lot of eastern ties. Perhaps with its Irish influence, it thinks of itself as a smaller Boston. Or the Italian neighborhoods on the hill are reminiscent of a slice of the Bronx. St Louis seems to embellish these traits.

But what about the city's southern influences? While eastern influences have been flaunted, southern tendencies have seemingly been suppressed in almost all areas except its lexicon.

While I could go into an in depth study on the subject, this is not the appropriate place nor time to embark on such a grand scheme. Trust me, it would be fun to try to trace the etymology of how the word "Hoosier" (and its variants 'hoos', and the well-to-do, 'hoos-wah-zie') went from being a term of honor and distinction in the state of Indiana, to becoming one of the most derogatory terms a person could be called in St. Louis.

But I'm getting off subject. The point I'm making is that St Louis is a great melting pot of people, and try as they might to suppress it, the southern contingent is there for the long haul.

I'm somewhat of a subject matter expert because I grew up in the St Louis suburb of Kirkwood. We lived near Interstate 44. I never noticed that a lot of St Louis folks spoke with a southern draw until somebody told me to listen how the number "forty four" was actually pronounced in common, every day speech. The very next morning, I heard the radio traffic reporter clearly state, "Expect a 20 minute delay along eastbound highway farty-far."

Farty far?

Yep, that's the one. And try not to confuse it with farty (hwy 40). Farty runs parallel to farty-far, see?

That's all I've got today. Besides, it's time for some more birthday cake.

Cheers everybody.

This Little Piggy

Recently, I won a Ginny Award for being the best LT story teller while one tries to hold on to a paceline. An award like this deserves to be ensconced in olive branches and displayed among all my other palmarès on this blog's sidebar.

The story I told to earn this Ginny is also an example of the power of suggestion.

The power of suggestion is a strange phenomenon when someone imagines something happening before it actually occurs in the real world. It's as if their suggestion caused it to happen. For example, there are countless reports of people who had earthquake premonitions days before it actually happened. Closer to home, the power of suggestion kicks in when someone says that they had a dream that Rafal's crank arm fell off during a race. That particular dream must be a recurring nightmare, because Rafal's crank arm falls off quite a lot. 

You get the point. The power of suggestion is real. Word.

Anyway, my Ginny Award connects the old school playground game of tetherball to an incident that happened in the NFL recently. My story goes back to my college years. It's about my friend Matt Brennan, who told me of the time he had to move a tetherball stand across a school's parking lot. In the process, he dropped it on his foot. 

Tetherball is that game that Napoleon Dynamite liked to play. It's rad. It's a poor-man version of volleyball. But you don't need a net. You don't even need other players. All you just need a ball, a rope, a steel pole, an old wheel and some ready-mix concrete to anchor it all in. Only in Matt's case, the tetherball pole wasn't anchored to a wheel, but to a rusty 55 gallon steel drum half-filled with concrete.

The drum was very heavy and awkward to maneuver. As a result, he only managed rolling it a few feet before he lost control and dropped the drum on his foot. There was a flash of searing before he was able to lift and remove his foot from beneath it. Aside from his big toe throbbing a little, he was otherwise fine. Matt shrugged it off and pressed on with his task until the tetherball stand was moved off the parking lot.

By this point, his big toe was throbbing pretty hard. He sat down to take a look.

When Matt removed his shoe, he was surprised to see that his sock was bloodied. He remarked that that was odd since his leather shoe was not cut. He peeled off his sock and casually dropped it to the ground.

That's when he heard a soft but distinct "thud".

A moment later, he was staring in shock at a bloody stump where his big toe once was; the stump squirting its rich maroon ink all over the blacktop.

Fortunately for Matt, his father was a local surgeon. He picked up his sock with toe still in it, hobbled to the car and drove himself to the emergency room, whereupon arrival, asked the ER nurse to page his Dad to sew his toe back onto his foot.

Matt's dad was no plastic surgeon, but by golly, aside from some jagged scars and a permanent 7° loft, his big toe had been successfully grafted back onto his foot. Why, covered with a pair of heavy wool socks, you'd barely even notice the 'frankentoe.

That's the story that I told Fred while riding in an LT paceline. It was an honor to receive a Ginny for it. 

But what's amazing is what happened two days after I received my Ginny.

Apparently, during punt coverage, Rashad Johnson (no relation) somehow lost the tip of his finger and didn't discover it until he removed his glove. He said that he doesn't know how it happened. Well, I do. It's called the power of suggestion. Sure, there were no tetherball drums, but a digit was severed completely off that was later discovered in an article of clothing. That, only two days after I won the Ginny for a similar story. Coincidence? No way. That's the power of suggestion.

At any rate, I couldn't help but wonder if Rashad Johnson first saw that his finger was missing, or if he heard a soft "thud" while tossing his removed glove aside, and then saw the bloody stump.

The power of suggestion is real, my friends. Stay healthy, and may you keep all your toes and fingers safe in the coming days.

Happy Friday. Peace Out.

That Guy From Spain

I ran the Omaha Corporate Cup 10K last weekend. It was a tough race. The 33 or so years previously had been run on a very flat and fast course with one turn. I'm sorry, two turns. This year's new course had 17 turns and just about as many hills. It didn't make for fast running.

I'm in this picture. I'm in a blue kit in the second row on the right hand side, tucked in behind Luka Thor (#10820) and Luke Christiansen (#8974). I drafted both of those guys for about 20 paces before they ripped my legs off. I'm still looking for them. My legs.

Still, I ran a respectable 37:16. That was good enough for 15th place overall. The winner's time was about a minute and half slower than last year's best. Since I ran a 35:54 last year, I suppose I ran comparably this year. I'll take those results.

But don't tell my Mom that. My Mom thinks I'm a super elite stud or something. She even brags about it to her friends. Check out this email thread where she's boasting about my recent Hy Vee Triathlon performance.

While it's true I won my age group, it was in the joe six pack citizen race. Can you swim, and do you own a bicycle? Any bike? Good. Then you could have entered the citizen race, too. And I was sixth overall in the citizen's race, not third. At any rate, I wasn't two, nor five places behind that "guy from Spain" who won $100,000. Ha! That guy was in the pro's race. His name is Javier Gomez and he's also the current ITU World Champion. He beat me by well over 25 minutes in a two hour race. That's huge. And there were about 100 men and women who placed between me and Javier, that guy from Spain.

But a Mom can dream. And brag. Bless her dear heart.

Shhhhhh. This is our secret. Don't ruin this.

Happy Friday.

Foam Roller Foamer

As I mentioned in last week's Tri Barry post, I suffered a severe calf cramp a few miles into the run. I was hobbled, but I gutted it out to finish the race. Had I not been racing, I would have pulled the plug and called for a ride. It was that bad.

My calf muscle was very sore for a few days following the race but has made good progress since. I owe a lot of this to my Foam Roller coach, whose prescribed methods of foam-roller therapy has smoothed out the knot that the cramp created.

Wait, what's that? A foam roller coach?

Yes, you heard it correctly. I have a foam roller coach.

I have lots of coaches.You're already familiar with some of them. There's coach Shim (cycling), who yells "pedal faster" when I need to pedal faster. And there's coach Mod (Cyclocross). Actually, Mod doesn't know he's coaching me. I've been secretly poaching Mod's 'cross workouts from his Strava feed. Shhhhh. This is our secret now. Don't ruin this.

Well, in addition to these two, I also have a foam roller coach on the dole, and his name is Dr Peter.

I first met Dr Peter years ago on a Wednesday Night Worlds group ride. At the time, Dr Peter was in his 50s, and he was killing it. In a strong headwind, he had broken away from pack, soloed up the road and was holding off a chase group for a good ten minutes. It was an impressive effort. Especially for someone like Dr Peter, who's of smaller stature and weight (5'7 and 135 lbs). But there he was, 200m off the front and putting the hurt on the group.

A few years later, I bumped into Dr Peter again, this time at Omaha Masters Swimming. I may not have recognized Dr Peter at first. But on that day, Dr Peter didn't have proper swimming gear. Instead, he swam in the next best thing: over-the-shoulder MWCC cycling bib shorts. If the suit fits...

As I got to know him better, I found out that Dr Peter is very competitive. Allow me to illustrate.

Earlier this Spring, I began doing a couple bonus sets of push-ups at the end of swimming practice to strengthen core and upper body. I did this on my own initiative and without telling anyone about it. But people took notice. After a couple days, some started asking questions. Dr Peter wasn't one of them. Instead, he began critiquing my push-up form: my arms were too wide, my back sagged, my nose didn't touch the floor, yada yada yada. But telling me how simply wasn't enough. He then preceded to get down and show me how a manly-man does push-ups.

The problem was that Dr Peter was conducting this impromptu push-up clinic in the locker room shower after practice. He was also quite naked.

"Hang on a second," I said. "Let me get my camera and take some photos for Facebook."

Laughter erupted in the locker room.

Dr Peter retorted, "No way, that'd be too kinky."

"I'm afraid it's too late for that."

More laughter.

Anyway, what Dr Peter knows about push-ups pales in comparison to his experience with foam rollers. He owns at least a half dozen of them of different shapes, colors and sizes. Yes, we're still talking about foam rollers here. Anyway, he swears by the effectiveness of a foam roller massage, and rarely skips a day without using it.

Unless you really want to know and you have the time for a five minute 'speale on the benefits of foam rollering, don't ask him. You'd be cheating yourself of a good education, and more importantly, the opportunity for Dr Peter to tell you about it. He's passionate about the foam roller and pitches it like the As Seen on TV® guy.

If you had the time, it might go something like this:

"Hey Dr Peter, I was doing some push-ups the other day and felt a slight strain in my upper back."

"Oh, push ups, huh? How many? Last night, I did three sets of 20: hands wide, hands under shoulders, and hands together. Let me show you --

~ You catch Dr Peter mid-stoop and wave him off ~

"No, I know you are awesome and that my push-up form sucks. What I need is a little advice on foam rol--"

"-- Foam rollers?"

~ you may be imagining it, but you swear he's beginning to foam at the mouth ~

"...did you say foam rollers?!" He's nearly frothing now. "I foam roller! Every night. I have a several --"

"Yes, yes, Dr Peter, you have a half dozen of different shapes, colors and sizes. You've already told me. Anyway, I was wondering if you could recommend a particular set of roller exercises for my upper back..."

~ Dr Peter takes a step back. The lights directly above him power up a dazzling 400% while those above you fade to black. Suddenly, his voice crackles with the electricity and static of one of those chintzy road-show kiosks ~ 

"The Body Solid Full Foam Roller can be used in a variety of different ways. Enhance your body awareness, muscular flexibility, dynamic strength ..."

"Let me get my camera," you say to nobody in particular. "At least this can be posted on Facebook."