Try Tri Again

A number of years ago, I did a couple of sprint triathlons for fun with friends, both individually and as a team. Now, some ten years plus later, I'm training to do another one in a few weeks. While I don't have high expectations, I have personal goals I hope to meet or beat, particularly in swimming.

I've always found that despite being in decent running and biking shape, swimming would leave me wiped out. I thought at first that maybe it was I'm fairly lanky, but that doesn't fly as top swimmers are also fairly streamlined. That meant I was probably in need of corrections to my technique. This is where the fun started. As I began to research swimming technique, I came across a number of articles and training clips breaking down the strokes of elite swimmers and what they did to make themselves more efficient. Here are a few that were helpful:

- Swim Taller
- Swimming in Circles:
- Of Gravity and Air:
- Total Immersion site clips. Chose your bandwidth, then choose appropriate clip samples to view, such as Use Your Head to Swim Better, Freestyle Made Easy, and The Secrets of Freestyle

The combination of the total immersion notion of maintaining a horizontal body position by keeping your head aligned with your spine by looking down and front quadrant swimming have made a big difference in the effort required to swim. While I don't think that there's enough time to noticeable speed improvements by my triathlon date, these techniques are definitely helping me swim more efficiently which will leave more energy for biking and running. If you swim and haven't heard of any of these ideas before, check them out as there will likely be at least one thing new for you to try. For more seasoned triathletes, there may be some tips you find helpful in the ACTIVEdotCOM series of videos, such as this one.

Some great things about this upcoming race are that it's short enough to make training reasonable and it's been a great incentive for me to get into good shape.

Intelligent Business

Having recently completed contract work for a company, I'm currently filling the position of Head of Business Development for Me Inc. After years of working in roles which require various degrees of technical or analytical ability, the field which sounds the most interesting to me given my work history is Business Intelligence. I've seen it defined as "the art of sifting through large amounts of data, extracting pertinent information, and turning that information into knowledge from which actions can be taken", though that Wikipedia entry has now been modified. Just the same, the idea of helping people sift through data to extract the information from which they can make meaningful decisions appeals to me. If anyone has a suggestion, link, or contact for a smiliar position, please let me know.

53 Americans of Iranian Descent in Under 2:00

Beijing: Environmental Focus of Olympic Proportions

(source: newsimg.bbc.co.uk)

It was most certainly not the intent of the organizers of the upcoming Olympics to have the world focus on environmental issues, but that's what seems to be happening. By now, most of us have seen, read, and heard commentary from climatologists, meteorologists, and other scientists who have described the pollution situation in China near the Olympic sites. The government is frantically trying to perform a clean up, but in doing so, has captured the world's attention in how it proceeds in trying to resolve large-scale issues with water and air quality. Hopefully, some good will come of this attention and intentions:
First, the world is becoming more aware of how China operates. We are certainly no environmental angels in North America, but perhaps our business leaders will be forced to take notice. As savvy and conscientious consumers, we need to pressure them with our wallets and choices into considering the ecological impact of their decisions when considering options such as outsourcing. The term filthy rich may take on a whole new connotation in today's economic climate if companies continue to operate based solely on shareholder's equity and increasing the bottom line.

Second, now that China has drawn attention to its ability to mobilize, it will be difficult for it go backwards. It, too, will be (and should be) forced to continue to consider the environmental impact of its economic growth. It will no longer be able to sweep its soot under the rug as its own citizens, as well as the eyes of the world, have seen that it can be forced to change. What it needs now is to ensure sustainability as it grows in order to promote long term economic benefits and a healthy environment for that growth.

Lastly, when the IOC considers host cities for the next games, there needs to be consideration of the impact of the games by consultation with the scientific community. Why? Because host cities bend the truth to be chosen. In China's case, the world may actually benefit if it forces them to adopt better environmental practices: they may not have realized that in today's world of blogs, cameraphones, and YouTube, you can't hide for long. London is the next host for the 2012 games. We already know that the UK has the highest rate of landfill use per capita in Europe. How do you plan to handle waste of Olympic proportions? We'll be watching, London.

Hey, you with the cell phone - pay attention. It could save your life.

On the way to the metro this morning, I witnessed something that gave me quite a jolt. A man with a cell phone glued to his ear jogged across a busy thoroughfare when the light was red for him. After he passed the median, he kept going. A car was coming in the centre of three lanes just as he got there, slammed on the brakes and hit him. With a screech and thud my heart stopped as I watched him bend at the waist and then bounce off the hood of the car and roll back onto the road. By some miracle, the man got up, phone still glued to his ear, and ran up the street. I couldn't believe it. I imagine he felt some pain after the shock wore off later on. That poor driver must have been shaken by the experience, as well.

The point of my telling you about this is not to wonder at his good fortune, but to underline the inevitability of the event. People lose focus while they're on the phone. I've had many occasions where I've had to honk at oblivious jaywalkers and judgement-impaired pedestrians as they wander into the street absorbed in their phone or music player. If this sounds like you, then I'm asking you to keep your head up, your eyes open, and to be more aware of what's going on around you. The last thing I'll say is that guy is damn lucky the driver wasn't on the phone.

White vinegar = cleaning product

I've read a number of useful columns on a site called Dumb Little Man. This one confirms something with which others have also agreed: white vinegar should be placed under the sink as a cleaning product and not used for cooking. The article suggests a few ways to use vinegar for cleaning and if you're interested in natural cleaning products, you can also look up what you can do with lemon juice or tea tree oil, as well. I know that lemon juice works really well in removing calcium deposits in the bottom of a kettle, for example. Even if you don't use them exclusively, it's a good idea to use them on surfaces where you prepare food so that you don't have to worry about any harsh chemical cleansers in your meals. Happy cleaning.

Notice to Attached People

A few times now over the past few weeks, I've received surprisingly insensitive comments from Attached People about my currently being single. The comments were particularly blunt from those with children: "You have to stop doing this; you know, you're almost out of time; etc." Here's a little reminder to those who spoke those words: there's a 50% chance you won't stay attached You have the same probability of maintaining your current status as you do winning a coin toss: heads you win, tails you lose your wife/husband and kids. Is that really something to gloat about?

Another related topic is the idea of a Soul Mate. While the idea that there is a perfect person out there for someone, I think the odds of meeting The One is astronomically small. I think that people end up with someone with whom there's good chemistry and who meets enough of the items on the checklist. For you to meet that person takes luck and for things to last takes effort, compromise, and a little more luck. Granted, you can improve your luck by adopting certain attitudes and behaviours, but you can't control all events. If you're attached, how certain are you that you would stay together if you lost both your savings due to your investment choices; if you changed physically and weren't attractive to them anymore; if you discovered your partner wasn't really working late?

Given all the things that need to go right for a relationship to work out, I'm asking you, Attached People, to be a little more understanding and encouraging with those of us who, despite the odds, are trying.

Food Network junkie

I can't pinpoint exactly when it started, but sometime over the past year, I've become really interested in making whatever food I'm preparing really good. I've been cooking my own meals for about eight years now, but used to be very practical about it, seeing food as something to keep me going with occasional splurges or efforts to make something special. I used to find it difficult to make something interesting if it were just for me. Somehow, somewhere, that changed. Maybe it was the book Taste that K gave me, or spending Saturday evenings making dinner for ourselves and slowly enjoying a bottle of wine with F, getting a culinary schooling from R who cooks at restaurant quality or better - when's the last time *you* made preserved lemons? see?

I think what tipped the scales for me was getting the Food Network. It was and is a real eye-opener and inspiration to take things up a notch. I've gone from making things that were alright to growing herbs in my window sill - basil, mint, rosemary, and parsley seem to do OK - to making the breakfast bread I've always wanted filled with raisins, cranberries, orange rind, cinnamon, vanilla, walnuts, almonds, whole wheat flour and flax. R teases me is inching its way to becoming fruitcake, but I swear, I've only used a little alcohol once when I had no oranges. A little Curacao never hurt anyone, right? Seeing Jamie Oliver get so much enjoyment out of simple, fresh ingredients, Ricardo Larivee make an effort to support local producers, Iron Chefs' creative variations on an ingredient (and I don't mind that there's some prior-to-show knowledge), and of course, the sweet, pretty Laura Calder whose mix of French cooking skills and girl-next-door charm leave me weak-in-the-knees and craving toasty baguette, creamy Brie, and an earthy Bordeaux.

To leave you with something useful, here's something I've discovered prevents the burning eyes brought on by chopping onions: I've found that if I take the cutting board over to the stove and turn on the overhead fan to at least medium speed, my eyes don't burn. Apparently, if you have a gas stove, you can also burn off the syn-propanethial-S-oxide gas.

Bon Appétit!

Winter: all the more agile for it?

As I walked home this evening, dodging huge slush puddles, and climbing over snowbanks like a mountain goat, I wondered if there are going to be some interesting benefits to all the snow we've had this year (over 3 metres total so far). I'm sure we're going to find we have a little extra agility on the soccer field, that our ankles feel strong when jogging, or that our sense of balance has improved and we no longer tip over in yoga class. I can also imagine that after this winter, summer is going to one long celebration of sunshine with terrasses (patios) packed for 5 à 7s (happy hour) from May to September. For now, don't forget your boots. You'll need 'em.

Happy Brew Year

Alright, perhaps it's a bit late for New Year's wishes. Our family's Ukrainian, though, so I'll ask that you be kind and consider that Ukr. New Year just took place on Jan. 14. (For a detailed explanation on the transition from a Julian to a Gregorian calendar, this article is quite interesting.) Regardless, I hope that you're having a good one so far and that you haven't already blown your New Year's resolve to learn to tango, lose 2.6 pounds of fruit cake padding, and learn conversational Urdu by the second week of January. If that is the case, then I do have some good news for you if you're a coffee drinker: new research - including a 125 000 person, 10-year study by Harvard School of Public Health researchers - shows that moderate consumption has health benefits due to the antioxidant properties of caffeine. Among other things, it's been shown to reduce the risk of liver cancer and kidney tumours. So, if the new year hasn't gotten off to the start you'd hoped for, I hope this bit of news perks you up (painful pun intended).