A Day of Two Happinesses

Well, there were two highlights to my yesterday, but I'm sure happiness was a flow rather than a pair of instances.  Here's the first one. (This will probably bore anyone but the me of tomorrow, but it's my log.)
         ;-)

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The Body Electric

First, I performed well in a Computrainer session. It's always nice to have a good cycling day, whatever the venue. But I have been painfully ill three times since the new year, and lost a lot of ground. My functional threshold power, 160 this time last year, is now 120. Without going into details, it has a lot to do with stomach acid affecting my breathing, almost an asthmatic condition. So a good performance signifies recovery progress for me, not just a good day.

I have been working on breathing while I am cycling, as if the process weren't autonomic: measured breaths, reaching, with a full exhale, one after another. I've also been teaching myself to relax instead of tightening under pressure. I've been mentally sorting out stress triggers, and been able to re-categorize a whole bunch of them as unnecessary. And I'm improving my nutrition, trying to recover a better acid balance, although I am dragging my feet all the way as I have to give up one foodstuff or another. Alcohol was easy, but coffee is proving harder.  I suspect in the end I'm going to have to give up meat, but the thought just makes me hungry for rare cow.

For the second time this week, we performed 4 sets of power intervals as follows:

• 30 seconds at 150% of FTP followed by a minute of recovery/Zone 2, 
• 60 seconds at 140% of FTP followed by a minute of recovery/Zone 2, 
• 30 seconds at 150% of FTP followed by 4 minutes of recovery/Zone 2. 

Kay and Barbara during a rest interval

On Tuesday, we did 4 of these sets on a 2% climb; on Friday, we did them on a 1.5% downgrade. With an FTP of 120, I should be anaerobic at 168 and 180, but I'm not; I was well over that in both cases, doing more of an all-out effort on the 30-second intervals, especially yesterday.

So I was able to do it on Tuesday, with Susan, and felt good about that. But yesterday, I did it well.  Pierre coached us through the first two sets, suggesting when to apply power. And in the last two sets, I pushed the final 30-second interval to see just how fast I could go. Oh, how I pushed to break 30 mph! And at the last gasp of the last interval, found enough to reach 29.9.

Definitely a sign of recovery. I may not have the stamina or the climb strength yet, but it's coming back better than ever.  I credit two things for the improvement (besides the coaching):

1. The breathing just seemed to click on Friday. I was doing it right without thinking about it, and for almost the first time, the breathing seemed to mesh properly with the spinning. I have never been less winded for this level of effort. THAT just has to get chronic. Clearly I'm on the right track here. I haven't consulted any online resources yet about this, but like several of the links I found for this post. 
2. I've really been working to develop a smooth pedal stroke. Bouncing around in the saddle turns my tummy into a churning food processor, uncovered and flinging acid right up my throat. I've developed a much smoother pedal stroke so that I can maintain a reasonable cadence. Really high cadence work is out of the question for me right now. But I'd love to run the SpinScanTM Pedal Stroke Analyzer software again. 

Breathe! It's the key to everything.

The Reverend Cat Peterson Blake

...found me after three decades through my webmaster link on a defunct website.

Here she is at the helm of Sojourn, the 45 foot steel ketch on which she and her husband spent the last five years cruising in Mexico. They are in Maui now, where she is writing a book about their sailing adventures.

Since I last saw her in Moss Landing, California, she has studied Ayurvedic, Chinese, and herbal medicine, homeopathy, and become a minister with Interfaith.

• College of World Health
• Wise Eating, Dr. Steve Blake. Part 1. Part 2. 
• Leilani Farm Sanctuary Board of Directors
• About Steve Blake
• Steve Blake: Figuring Out Fats: Omega-3, Trans Fats & Cholesterol (2008, San Francisco Vegetarian Society presentation)

Apart from reconnecting with an old friend, it's pretty cool that the universe reconnected us when I so needed direction and strategy from this kind of expertise.  The universe has tossed me a couple of physical challenges recently; I believe my comfort and health over whatever years[?] are left me depend mightily on the kinds of choices I make in 2011.

Right Mindfulness | Samma sati

I tumbled onto today's lesson on the Eightfold Path by Diane Cohen's simple act to "like" Pema Chodron on Facebook.

Pema Chodron, What is True Mindfulness?  -- A very clear briefing, succinct; good to

• read,
• then sit and think, 
• then no-mind.

What is True Mindfulness? Meditation isn't really about getting rid of thoughts, it's about changing the pattern of grasping on to things, which in our everyday experience is our thoughts. The thoughts are fine if they are seen as transparent, but we get so caught up judging thoughts as right or wrong, for and against, yes and no, needing it to be this way and not that way. And even that might be okay except that is accompanied by strong, strong emotions. So we just start ballooning out more and more. With this grasping onto thoughts we just get more caught, more and more hooked. All of us. Every single one of us. It's as if you had vast, unlimited space —complete openness, total freedom, complete liberation —and the habit of the human race is to always, out of fear, grasp onto little parts of it. And that is called ego and ego is grasping on to the content of our thoughts. That is also the root of suffering, because there is something in narrowing it down which inherently causes us a lot of pain because it is then that we are always in a relationship of wanting or not wanting. We are always in a struggle with other people, with situations, even with our own being. That's what we call stress. That's what we experience as continual, on-going stress. Even in the most healthy, unneurotic of us, there's some kind of slight or very profound anxiety of some kind, some kind of uneasiness or dissatisfaction. When Trungpa Rinpoche came to the West and was teaching in the early days in Vermont at what used to be called Tail of the Tiger (now Karme Choling), he used to tell the students: "Just sit and let your mind open and rest— let yourself be completely open with an open mind, and whenever you get distracted and find yourself thinking— in other words when you are no longer fully in the present and are carried away— simply just come back again to resting your mind in an open state."

So I don't really think theres much more than that to say about mindfulness.  I will have to think about it, eh? Right now I am content to reflect quietly with a smile on my old friend Cat Peterson, back in the early 80s when she spent an entire year Living (and Speaking) Deliberately. Small wonder that she is who and where she is now.

Some links to explore:

• Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Way to the End of Suffering, Chapter 6: Right Mindfulness
• Wikipedia's article on Mindfulness
• Right Mindfulness, Pharmick Ratanapanyo Bhikkhu

Nate Wilson

• Nate's blog
• CalGiant

My Facebook posts this morning...

• Diane Strock Royal via Jim Wilson
  

  CalGiant's development squad includes former HPC Cycling junior, Nate Wilson. "Now we have Nate Wilson, John Bennett, Chris Stastny is back and all those kids have won at the junior level, the collegiate level, they’re ready to pop," says Directeur Anthony Gallino. The 17-man roster includes mentors that train and race with the development riders. Nate's in Belgium with the U23 team now.

  Youth Movement At CalGiant/Specialized | podiuminsight.com

  www.podiuminsight.com

  Last year, a rejuvenation took place for the elite amateur squad California Giant/Specialized and what a success it was with breakthrough rider Andrew Talansky. For its tenth year of existence, the team has continued with the youth movement and has taken the mantle of being a development team.

  
  

  
  

  
  Diane Strock Royal via Jim Wilson

  Following up on Nate, his Dad posted the update on today's race... "Nate races U23 version (GP Waregem) of this today, same course, start of Tour of Flanders race week ... race sees the riders travel 203km around Flanders and includes nine sections of pave and 12 short, sharp climbs known locally as 'hellingen' ... Weather in Gent is predicted sunny, 59 deg F. That's good ... Venga!"

  News | Elite Men | Dwars Door Vlaanderen

  www.ddvl.eu
  

  Flanders Classics is the umbrella organization of the spring classics in Belgium

  
  

  
  

• 
  

Open Windows on My Desktop

There will be more than one of these posts listing browser windows open on my desktop...

I am not ready to make any statement about this yet.

Left over from yesterday, opened this morning, a baker's 13:

1. IEEE tutorial registration page, Test and Measurement of High-speed Communications Signals
2. a LinkedIn request from a neighbor
3. Gmail - I'm waiting for a message from a Wednesday Irregulars ride leader
4. the final draft of Phase I of Tyson's Corner's Bicycle Master Plan
5. the home page of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe (Tucson, Arizona)
6. biblioklept's post of an animation of Italo Calvino's "The Distance to the Moon," from Cosmicomics
7. National Geographic's article this year on the vernal equinox
8. "Achieving a Smooth Pan in Photography," Panning (Camera), Wikipedia
9. a Google image search, terms: "accent color photography"
10. David Brooks, "The Social Animal," TED Talks
11. vote acknowledgment page for Mike Gould's New Futures funding competition at Deals for Deeds, open until March 26 
12. "Perigee/Equinox Moons," at the Starship Asterisk* astronomy discussion forum
13. the latest post from Tumbleweed Jo, with typo now corrected.

For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.

Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me. 

Jimmy Stewart as Elwood Dowd, in Harvey (1950)

Super Moon Photos

From the Guardian's 24 Hours in Pictures, March 20, 2011

Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

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"Almost Full Moon," by Joan Britt,  Day 23, 365project

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"Super Moon," a collection at the Flickr Blog

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Moon Over Espejo's Castle, by Paco Bellido

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There are many more, each as wonderful as its predecessor...