Saturday New & Notes: Beat Colgate!

Hey folks.  The Saturday Celebration posts weren't doing a lot over at AFF, so we tried something new and moved that particular discussion to Thursday.  I'm not sure it did any better on Thursday, but the end result freed up the Saturday spot here, and here we are.

Some of the stories I'm following this weekend are after the jump.

5 Things on a Friday: Did I Mention That It Snowed?

Happy Friday, folks.  We’re 'bout to get our weekend started right!

Thursday turned out to be a cold day in Hell.

Friday Mad Science: Putting Ourselves Back Together

I feel better.  

I suffer from a touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder, which I would personally argue is not a disorder, exactly, considering that most people struggle when they don’t get enough sunlight.  But whatever.  My symptoms are complicated by the reality that I work in a windowless bunker in Midtown Manhattan, and they were complicated even more this past weekend when temperatures in New York and Connecticut dipped into the single digits alongside several days of snow and overcast skies.  I usually deal with my SAD by swimming and bike commuting, but I couldn’t get to the pool early in the week, and with the weather, cycling was impossible as well.  This left me with far too much energy, too many ugly brain chemicals, and not enough light.  At exactly the same time, I was also dealing with some profoundly negative thoughts about a project I’ve allowed to become entirely too personal.  By midday on Tuesday, I was bouncing off the walls.  I found myself snapping at my wife and indulging some rather nasty fantasies…  This was not good.

I finally got to the pool Tuesday night, and it was a Godsend.  My main sets were as follows.

Snow Day

It started innocently enough.

This didn't seem so bad.

More Snow & Other Stories...

Most of the time I love Connecticut.  I really do.  But there are time when I absolutely cannot believe that this is where I wound up.  I've lived everywhere, yet somehow can't seem to escape the Hudson River Valley and its surrounding environment.

*sigh*

It's fourteen degrees, and we're supposed to be getting another 5" to 8" of snow this evening.  And what am I going to do about?  I think I'm going to try to run outside later today, so that I can at least get a little sun and vitamin D before the next round of frozen tundra descends on the entire area.

Pics from the Blizzard

I'm sure I'll have more of these as time goes on, but here are a couple I took on the walk to the hotel.

Tri Training Log: 1/5 to 1/11 (Week 2)

Last week was great.  This week... not so much.  With all the snow, I only made it out on my bike for my commute once, I cancelled my Friday run, and I didn't even make it to swimming Tuesday night.

*sigh*

This is not how successful triathlon seasons are built.

5 Things on a Friday: Black Friday Edition

It's Black Friday, and I don't mind telling you that I ate too much last night at dinner.  It was worth it.  We had tons of Sally's family over, along with Hannah's best friend and the best friend's mom.  That's a total of thirteen people!

With that many folks, I thought we might struggle to feed everyone.  However, we had a seventeen pound turkey, at least two full trays of stuffing (including one gluten free!), a whole roast pork loin, and tons and tons of other stuff.  We wound up eating much less than half of the food we prepared, but as Thanksgivings go, this was a good one.

It Could Be Worse...

You could be in Albany with me. It was 22-degrees this morning.

The Newest Winter Olympic Event

The Penguin Slide!

Here's Hannah, showing the form that made her the Gold Medalist in this event.

 

I'm Getting Sick of Snow

This Winter Wonderland can kiss my ass.  Seriously. Six to eight inches Monday, followed by something like four this morning, which is supposed to turn into freezing rain midday. Ugh. I've seen predictions calling for up to a half-inch of icing on top of all the snow, which is going to turn the greater NYC area into something like what Atlanta was two weeks ago, except with scattered power outages at the distribution level on top of everything else.

Training Log: 1/20 to 1/26 (Week 4)

As I've mentioned before, I usually train on a four week cycle--three working weeks, followed by one rest week.  But the year has started slow, so even though this week was theoretically a Rest Week, I just went ahead and worked through because I don't feel like I need the rest.  That said, it wasn't like a killer training week or anything.  I ran Monday, did squat Tuesday through Friday, and then tried my best to catch up on the weekend.  That isn't exactly good training practice.

Moreover, Connecticut has been a frozen wasteland all winter, which has been throwing me off big-time because I've been missing my commute-riding mileage.  But what can you do?

Five Things on a Friday: Fitness is Walmart Edition

Happy Friday!

Let's get to it.

1.  Sally’s Gym Experience

My wife and I have a lot in common.  Like me, Sally is more generalist than specialist, which is to say that she’s a bilingual elementary education teacher who also teaches art and occasionally teaches fitness classes at one of the local gyms.  Sally has long been an athlete, but her career as an actual fitness instructor is new; she discovered this, her third or fourth career, via the wife of one of my classmates.

Pictures in the Snow

I took these on the walk to the train station and then while I was standing around waiting for the train to come.  I liked 'em much better after I filtered them through Instagram. 

66th and West End Ave, yesterday afternoon.