benefits of exercise - nytimes

Today I was talking to the director of physical education at the school I work at. He's probably in his 70s but probably is in better shape than most of the students on campus. He's doing the same tri on Sunday as I am and in our conversation today was re-counting his workout schedule for the past week:

9mile run
1200 swim
18mile bike ride
27 mile bike ride
3 mile run


That's at least what I remember. Some days I really wish I didn't have to sit in front of a computer screen all day. I wish I was a swim coach, tennis pro, personal trainer. But I hope when I'm as old as my friend above I can be as active as him.

Along those same lines, one of the most popular emailed stories in the NYTimes today was this piece by Jane Brody: You Name it, and Exercise helps it . The best line comes at the end:


“Even if exercise is tough to schedule,” Dr. Moffat said, “you feel so much better, it’s crazy not to do it.”
More Articles in Health »


I totally agree!!!

Move first?

Maybe I have this backwards. Maybe if I moved first to Cali and then look for a job?

I am moving to California.

I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.
I am moving to California.

But I need to find a job first.

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This was my reaction to attempting to ride my bike in 38 degree weather with 15 mph headwind. Its almost May.

Race Day Wardrobe

Like I said, I was hoping for a warm day for race day but its not looking like it.
Currently, my race day wardrobe I will be wearing Zoot tri-shorts for the swim, and then wearing a quick-dri t-shirt for the bike. I'm a bit concerned its going to be a cold ride, so I will probably adding a few more top layers. But I was thinking that its too bad I don't own a pair of Speedo Fastskin leggings because they might keep my legs warmer on the bikeride (although its not what the suit was designed for!)

Spring showers

I was hoping for 90F and 10% humidity for race day, but alas I don't live in Tucson anymore. Instead, its looking like highs in the upper 50s and lower 60s with chance of showers. Its frickin' May. If anything, after doing this triathlon I will have even more motivation to move to a warmer climate where I can swim, bike, run, and play tennis (a forgotten hobby of mine) year round.

Sexism in physics

Like all nerds I look forward to electronic table of contents of journals I try to read. This week's Nature had a small news story about sexism in physics . A former female researcher has shown that men at the Fermi lab were preferentially allowed to give talks at conferences.

Women are poorly represented in physics, making up just 10% of faculty in the United States, for example, but the reasons for this have proved contentious. Now a particle physicist claims to have hard data showing institutional sexism at an experiment at one of America's highest-profile physics labs.

Sherry Towers claims that female postdocs worked significantly harder than their male peers but were awarded one-third as many conference presentations proportionally. “There was this shocking difference,” says Towers, who now studies statistics at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. “Particle physics really hasn't moved forward in 30 years.”

Readers are allowed to comment on the news story. After reading the one below I nearly fell out of my seat:

My experience as a physicist working with the occasional female colleagues leads me to a subjective impression that women really think differently. Female thinking seems to be more lateral then vertical. By that I mean, women in physics are generally harder working than male colleagues and are great co-workers in terms of encouragement, diligence, and backup support. They do not, however, contribute a great deal of original ideas and rigorous logical analysis to the research. Female judgment seems to more emotionally biased.

* 23 Apr, 2008
* Posted by: Paul Kantorek

Wow. Just wow. What a discriminatory comment. At a time when the United States is falling behind in science and engineering, more students should be encouraged to study subjects like physics. And then we have people like Mr. Kantorek. I'm glad I never had him as a physics teacher!

its not fun being sick

For some reason I caught a nasty bug. Had a sore throat that literally kept me up all night since I could barely talk or breath. Stayed home as well as missing a bike-run-bike workout. I hope I get better quick because race day is the 4th.

Open Water

Via SCAQ swim blog I read this story in the Wall Street Journal about the bruising new Olympic sport of open water swimming .

"No lines, no lanes. No walls, no mercy. The newest sport at the Olympics," Steven Munatones, a onetime open-water champion, declares on the Web site he recently created called 10Kswim.com

For the first time in nearly a century it will be an Olympic medal sport. Since China is has an epic pollution problem I would think twice about swimming in open waters of the Chinese coast. But from the story:

To open-water fanatics, the Beijing 10K will seem tame. Instead of a rough sea or a river with currents, it will take place in a lake-like rowing basin built especially for the Games.

The first time I attempted to swim in the ocean was this past October in Maui. I swam along the beach of the Maui Prince Resort. It was kinda freaky because the waves go up and down and making forward progress is much more difficult. I was scared to stray off too much, fearful of a current or some unknown beasties from the sea ready to eat me. All the more reason to move to Australia and try their rock pools .

The Olympic competition is going to be a 10K race. That's 10,900 yards which is an equivalent of over 400 laps in a 25 yard swimming pool. But in open water there are no lane lines and you have the potential to get kicked or punched by your fellow swimmers:

Open water presents challenges rarely encountered in the pool: waves, often icy temperatures, the absence of direction-helping lane lines and collisions between swimmers. "It's common for someone to come out of the water with bruises or a black eye," says Paul Asmuth, a former world-champion American marathon swimmer and current coach of the U.S. team.

No wonder Michael Phelps doesn't want to be an open water swimmer.

To many stars of the pool, open-water swimming is the sport's Wild West. Superstar Michael Phelps said this week he wouldn't consider swimming outside the pool. "Not a chance. No way. I won't swim open water," he said.

And I don't think I will be doing any 10k swim soon, but I would consider doing the La Jolla Rough Water in the near future!

Swim-Bike test

Tomorrow is a big test for me. I'll be doing a 400 yard timed swim, then transition over to the bike for a 7mile ride. I'm getting more comfortable on the bike and I've had some good workouts in the pool this week. I'm curious to see how my body handles the transition. Usually after a tough set in the pool I'm used to a recovery period. I'm looking forward to it.


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Update - I was looking forward to this morning's workout that I could hardly sleep last night. I got up at 6:30 or so, even if I didn't start till 10:00. To gain inspiration on the swim I watched this video as well as and this one to gain inspiration. We had timed 400 yard swim and then transition to a bike ride of about 7 miles. The swim felt great. I did open turns (yeah, until I do flip turns consistently, I'm not a real swimmer). But I finished with a time of 6:24 which was probably nearly a minute faster than anyone else in the class. I was gunning for 6:30 or faster, so I was right on target. Unfortunately, my transition was slow to the bike. People who finsihed nearly 1-2minutes after me were of and racing, while I was still saddling up. There is an upward slope starting the bike path. It took about 10 minutes to get my legs warmed up and adjusted. I bought a Camelbak which made it easier to stay hydrated. Coming back was on a downward slope. I didn't let loose on the bike since I'm still conservative with my speed as I fully get used to it. But I finished in about 37 minutes.

I can't wait for race day!!!

Xterra Swim

My friend sent me more pictures of the Xterra Championships triathlon he did in Maui this past October. Its quite crowded at the start of the swim as you can see in this picture. I uploaded a few additional pics from Maui which you can see here .

Shine a LIght

I went to go see the Rolling Stones concert documentary Shine a Light directed by Martin Scorcese on an IMAX screen. I think I'm a bit too young to be a hard core Stones fan, but I know a few of there famous songs. But after reading the reading the NYTimes review my interest was piqued.

I was not disappointed. The first 15 minutes lead in is kinda slow, but once the concert starts its one hell of a ride. Seeing it on the IMAX screen almost makes it feel like you are at the concert itself. The band members have aged and you can catch a glimpse of what looks like to be needle marks up and down Keith Richards arms. All four of the band members are having a blast on stage. There are cameo appearances by Jack White (of the White Stripes), blues legend Buddy Guy, and Christina Aguilera. In between songs are interview clips of the band over that past 40 years. But they are still doing what they love to do and its a lot of fun to watch.

95th percentile rule

Took a cramped red-eye flight last night. I thought I was given an exit row seat but the way the Boeing 757 was laid out it really wasn't. I think that if you aren't in the 95th percentile of height for your sex you should automatically give up your seat for a person that is (like me). Its no fun being stuck between to fat guys on a 4 hour flight.

Pain is temporary, pride is forever

I was on an airplane for a few hours so I got some alone time to read more of my Complete Triathlon Book . This passage from the Determination section in the chapter on Mental Training caught my eye

As a triathlete, you need determination in order to overcome suffering and give it all you have when racing....

A second way to increase your determination is to stake your self-image on your ability to overcome suffering- that is, to make determination itself mor important to you- by engaging in a certain kind of self-talk during races. "If I don't push through this, I know I'm a wimp and I'll never let myself live it down". I began using this tactic in every race after I finished a few triathlons knowing that I'd held back a bit for fear of suffering. I decided the shame I felt when I did not show true determination was worse more unbearable than the suffering associated with show true determination.

This may sound harsh (the author does warn that if you really aren't feeling well, sometimes you need to hold back and throw in the towel) But this passage struck a chord with me. When I was younger (middle and under-class years of high school) I swam for a club team. I wasn't the fastest by any means. But one day the head coach told me that if I really wanted to improve you have to be willing to pay the price, in the sense you have to push your body. The swim team had a week during winter called "Hell Week" where the workouts were extremely tough. The people who attended all of the workouts got t-shirts. One year they had the phrase "Pain is Temporary, Pride is Forever".

I'll be honest, in my years as a high school swimmer, and now recreational swimmer, there have been few times where I have really pushed my body to the limit. I was afraid of the pain. I didn't want to experience the pain. But the times that I did push myself (most recently last summer in my swimming fitness class we swam a 1750yd timed swim), I felt great. And in the moments afterwards, I thought to myself 'I wasn't that bad'

Along those lines, here is another section from the same passage in my book:

In most cases, the more often you push through suffering, the more natural (I won't say easier) it becomes to do again. All forms of suffering become less acute as they become more familiar. Herin lies the third means of maximizing you determination in triathlon. When suffering think about past times when you've suffered greatly and pushed through it, and how proud you felt afterwards.

How then do you push yourself harder, go to the edge but not over it. How do you push your suffering threshold higher? And just what are the limits of suffering my body can do? Well, that's one of the reasons I want to do triathlon.