Workout note 17 August 2011

Running: my runs have been unpleasant lately and my piriformis isn’t ready for fast walking (13-14 mpm is ok for 5-8 miles). So I tried something different: run/walk (4 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking).

I did my 5.2 mile course in 53:21; I jogged to West Peoria (3-4 minutes) and started the 4-1 when I crossed Main Street and continued it (though I ignored the last walk interval as I had only 2-3 minutes left). 11:10 at 1.05, 21:40 at mile 2, 42:12 at 4 and the last 1.05 took 9:37.

More importantly: it was almost pain free, and it was fun! This reminded me of the way that running used to be. And frankly, it wasn’t that much slower (if at all) than I had been doing. So I’ll do this a couple of times a week.

This kind of workout won’t get me into racing shape, but it might get me ready to start training…if I am patient.

Weights:
Rotator cuff stuff plus lunges.
Bench: 10 x 45, 10 x 135, 10 x 145 (not difficult)
Incline: 10 x 115, 8 x 125
Military press (dumbbell): seated: 2 sets of 12 x 40 lb., standing: 6 x 45 lb.
Curl: dumbbell: 2 sets of 12 x 25 lb. (strict), machine: 10 x ???
Row (hammer): 3 sets of 12 x 200
Pull down: 3 sets of 12 x 140
push-backs (glute): 3 sets of 10 x 110
adductor: 3 sets of 10 x 170
abductor: 3 sets of 10 x 170
sit ups: 4 x 25 (incline).

It was all good..now to finish my proofing.

17 August 2011 Irrelevant stuff and snark: You can’t make this stuff up.

I am going to try out my academic year routine, sort of.

First about just “making stuff up”

PWN’D, but too dumb to realize it:

(click for larger)

Either these women are this guy’s relatives, or he is rich:

see more funny videos, and check out our Yo Dawg lols!

Politics
The e-book version of Christine O’Donnell’s book was labeled as “fiction”. Really.

WASHINGTON — Failed U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell is out with her new book “Troublemaker,” which she describes in the introduction as “a political memoir slash campaign diary slash position paper slash rallying cry, with an emphasis on the slash.” In an email to supporters, she promised the book would offer “the real, raw story of my life.”

But the e-version of her book says she’s making it all up.

The copyright page of her book in both the Kindle and iTunes versions state that O’Donnell’s memoir is, in fact, a novel.

“This is a work of fiction,” reads the disclaimer. “All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.”

Rick Santorum’s campaign might be labeled as fictional also. But he is out there saying things like this:

At a campaign stop in Iowa this weekend, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) doled out a frothy mixture of revisionist history about what it was like to be alive in the late 1700s:

Our founders said [our] rights were given to us to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Does anyone here believe that first inalienable right is as whole as it was at the time of our founding? It isn’t. Does anyone believe that our freedom is as whole as it was at the time of our founders? It is not.

This is what infuriates me about conservatives: when they say “our” they mean, well, white guys. Seriously; remember that our black neighbors were slaves at that time and that females couldn’t even vote. More free? Really? Conservatives have a very narrow view as to what an American is. (hat tip: Billy Dennis)

Republican Debate

Some troll put this on the Mitt Romney facebook wall. It is pretty funny though.

16 August 2011 PM: Rick Perry Follies and other topics

First, how about a bit of science. Bacteria can be engineered to kill other bacteria:

Nazanin Saeidi and Choon Kit Wong have found a new way of killing Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an opportunistic species that thrives wherever humans are weak. It commonly infects hospital patients whose immune systems have taken a hit. It targets any tissue it can get a foothold on – lungs, bladders, guts – and it often causes fatal infections. To seek and destroy this threat, Saiedi and Wong have used the common lab bacterium Escherichia coli as a sacrificial pawn.

Their E.coli recruits produce a protein called LasR, which recognises molecules that P.aeruginosa cells use to communicate with one another. When LasR detects to these chemical signals, it switches on two genes. The first one arms the bomb. It produces pyocin, a toxin that kills P.aeruginosa by drilling through its outer wall and causing its innards to leak out. The second gene detonates the bomb. It produces a protein that causes the E.coli to burst apart, killing itself but also releasing a flood of deadly pyocin upon nearby P.aeruginosa.

Politics

Barack Obama: hitting hard on jobs! Haven’t we heard the saying “the Do Nothing Congress Won’t Do”?

Facts You hear conservatives lying about the marginal tax rates all of the time. Here is a bit of fact:

So, what is the opposition up to? Sucking up to the Tea Party?

Now there is Rick Perry. He is the one who is known for talking about secession. Sure, the right wingers will point out that he said this (one time):

Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday stuck by his earlier statement that Texas can secede from the United States — a far-reaching, legally questionable prospect that nevertheless drew Perry a fresh favorable mention by Rush Limbaugh, one of the nation’s leading conservative voices.

The idea of secession — which Perry did not endorse — surfaced suddenly Wednesday after Perry appeared at an anti-tax “tea party” at Austin City Hall, where some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, “Secede!”

Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday there’s no reason to dissolve the United States’ ‘great union’ but that he can understand why Washington’s recent actions would make some want to.

According to The Associated Press, Perry suggested in response to a reporter’s question that Texans might at some point get so fed up with Democratic-led actions in Washington that they would want to secede.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that? But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

On Thursday, Perry called potential secession a “side issue of Texas history. … We are very proud of our Texas history; people discuss and debate the issues of can we break ourselves into five states, can we secede, a lot of interesting things that I’m sure Oklahoma and Pennsylvania would love to be able to say about their states, but the fact is, they can’t because they’re not Texas.”

A Perry spokeswoman said Perry believes Texas could secede if it wanted.

Sanford Levinson, a professor at the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin, said that between the Texas Constitution, the U.S. Constitution and the 1845 Joint Resolution Annexing Texas to the United States, there is no explicit right for the state to return to its days as a republic.

Emphasis mine. (“thumb their noses”? By doing what, passing something with more votes??? Never mind that…)

But the above wasn’t the first time he mentioned secession:

Another thing: he is quick to rally the troops against threats…that don’t exist:

Rick Perry pulled a Michele Bachmann on Tuesday, passionately condemning a policy that does not actually exist.

This time round it was over farming issues. “If you’re a tractor driver, if you drive your tractor across a public road, you’re gonna have to have a commercial driver’s license. Now how idiotic is that?” perry told a Des Moines crowd. “What were they thinking?”

As it turns out, Perry’s claim is based off a false rumor that was circulating among farmers that the Department of Transportation recently put to rest. The Wall Street Journal reports that the confusion was over a federal review of a proposal by Illinois to require commercial licenses for farmers, but the DOT ultimately concluded — as Perry did — that “the common sense exemptions that allow farmers, their employers, and their families to accomplish their day-to-day work and transport their products to market” should not be tampered with by states.

“We have no intention of instituting onerous regulations on the hardworking farmers who feed our country and fuel our economy,” DOT Secretary Ray LaHood’s said in a statement responding to Perry’s claim.

And yes, Politifact rated this statement as FALSE.

16 August 2011 am

Well, the school year is only 8 days away; we have our University Conference in a few hours. I can’t believe that I am saying this, but I am actually looking forward to getting back in front of the classroom!

Workout notes I did yoga with Kimberly this morning (went to class with Lynn). She isn’t the hardest teacher I’ve had, but she is easy on the eyes. Then I ran 4 miles on my own (4.2 actually in 41:42; 10:18 for the first 1.05 and 9:36 for the last 1.05). I didn’t set the world on fire, but it was actually slightly easier than last time. Slightly. The knee hurt just a bit less.

I then did step ups, toe raises and lowering, lunges and rotator cuff stuff with dumbbells.

Posts

This made me shake my head. (hat tip: Jerry Coyne)

Republicans and Town Halls: what do you do with angry constituents? Well, if the “friendly” ones are the wealthier ones, you do away with town halls and hold “meet the candidate fundraisers”. That is what some (not all) Republicans do.

I have to give Aaron Schock (R, IL-18) credit. He holds fundraisers, but he holds regular meetings too. I don’t agree with his political positions but he works with his constituents well; come to think of it so did Ray LaHood and Bob Michael.

Speaking of what (some) Republicans do, Paul Krumgan has some words about Rick Perry and his “threatening” of the Federal Reserve Chair:

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who entered the presidential campaign on Saturday, appeared to suggest a violent response would be warranted should Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke “print more money” between now and the election. Speaking just now in Iowa, Perry said, “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.” Treason is a capital offense.

Dr. Krugman points out that Republicans have done this before (to Bill Clinton) and that Mr. Bernake was…well, appointed by President Bush. Dr. Krugman goes on:

(Incidentally, threats of that kind are a long-standing feature of modern GOP rhetoric; as early as 1993, Republican Senators would joke about what might happen to Bill Clinton if he visited their states, and the Broders of the world pretended not to notice).

But somehow everyone I’ve read seems to miss the bit about Bernanke playing politics — implying that anything he does would be in the interests of helping Obama get reelected.

That’s a hell of an accusation to make — especially when you bear in mind that Bernanke was a Bush appointee. But this is apparently how people like Perry think.

After this, I suspect that Perry is a shoo-in for the nomination.

15 August PM

Workout notes Swim; 250 of fist/free, 250 of kick/free, 250 of fist/free, 250 of kick/free (kick sets with fins) Then 10 x 100 on the 2: disappointing. Then I did 200 cool down (back with a pull buoy).

1:42, 39, 39, 40, 39, 39, 38, 39, 39, 39. Well, I was consistent but slow; my guess is that my upper body was fatigued from yesterday’s weights and I was slowed by the choppy pool.

I then walked just over 4 miles outside (hodgepodge). It was a pretty day.

Posts
This is a fascinating post about the search for life’s origins; evidently scientists have found that molecules that are simpler than RNA can self replicate…and such replication might have taken place in ice instead of in hot water.

Politics
Rick Perry’s Texas record is way overstated; his joblessness rate is roughly that of New York and Massachusetts (and follows roughly the same trajectory) and, as is often the case with states, one can sometimes lure jobs from another state.

Warren Buffett: says that we are too easy, tax wise, on millionaires:

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

Now before conservatives cluck “well, let him give more money to the government”, ask yourself: well, gee, if you want a speed limit, why don’t you drive slower?” We, as a people, sometimes have to ask people to do what they might not want to do.

Jobs agenda: come on people!

In what can only be described as a triumph of bad policy and craven politics, Congress and the Obama administration have spent the year focused on budget cuts, as the economy has faltered and unemployment has worsened. Official unemployment is 9.1 percent, but it would be 16.1 percent, or 25.1 million people, if it included those who can only find part-time jobs and those who have given up looking for work. For the past two and a half years, there have been more than four unemployed workers for every job opening, a record high, by far. In a healthy market, the ratio would be about one to one.

By a large margin, Americans have told pollsters that job creation is more important than budget cuts. Yet Republican leaders are wedded to austerity and appear to think that high unemployment will hurt President Obama politically more than it will hurt them, so they will likely resist efforts to create jobs, no matter how great the need.

Without more jobs, both the economy and the budget will deteriorate further. It is past time for Mr. Obama to send a jobs plan to Congress that has popular appeal, one that he can use to try to shame Republicans. He will need cooperation from the Senate, which should bring one jobs-related bill after another to the floor, forcing its members to approve jobs initiatives or go on the record to show that they just don’t care. [...]

But it is possible that those of us who are pushing President Obama from the left might be misreading him:

The predominately white progressive intelligentsia don’t see Obama clearly because of our racial blind spot. We don’t see the role of race in how he seems to understand himself and how other perceive him.

First of all, we think that he understands himself as one of us. A progressive activist, heir to the radical and New Left movements most of us were raised in. He is not; I think that he understands himself (and certainly his real base understands him) as the first African American President. We’re thinking Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. We should be thinking about Harold Washington, the first African American mayor of Chicago. Washington was elected and immediately faced a solid wall of opposition from most white aldermen in the city. Washington understood his role as breaking down that wall of opposition and assembling a governing majority, which he finally did after his re-election. Unfortunately, he died shortly thereafter. By the way, one of Washington’s political strategists was David Axelrod.[...]

White progressives often think that African American elected officials are politically naive. We will far more credit to Cornel West, who has never been elected to anything, than to an elected state senator, or even the President of the United States. We think that Obama does not understand the nature of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell or Eric Cantor, as though he has not sat across the table from them. He doesn’t understand how mean they are, we think.

Obama acts entirely within the tradition of mainstream African American political strategy and tactics. The epitome of that tradition was the non-violence of the Civil Rights Movement, but goes back much further in time. It recognizes the inequality of power between whites and blacks. Number one: maintain your dignity. Number two: call your adversaries to the highest principles they hold. Number three: Seize the moral high ground and Number four: Win by winning over your adversaries, by revealing the contradiction between their own ideals and their actions. It is one way that a oppressed people struggle.

Obama has taken a seat at the negotiating table and said “There is no reason why we cannot work out solutions to our problems by acting like responsible adults. That is what people expect us to do and that is why we have entered into public service.” That is the moral high ground.

Read the rest; it is interesting perspective. I am reminded of one of the State of the Union Addresses where the (mostly white) Republicans were standing, smirking, and waving pieces of paper. What assholes.

Partisanship
This New York Times editorial gets the statistics right, but I think draws the wrong conclusion. It is true that many (most?) of us live in partisan districts (e. g., live in neighborhoods that vote the same way; mine went for President O by 70 percent or so). Many of us shop at places were like minded meet (Whole Foods and Indian restaurants vs. Cracker Barrels and Sam’s Clubs). But what the author misses is that an inherent part of liberalism involves pragmatism and compromise; it is the conservatives that get all dewy eyed over the “courage of one’s convictions”:

Watch GPS: Krugman calls for space aliens to fix U.S. economy?

On GPS this week, we explore the most important topic (the economy) with the most important economic voices. Fareed Zakaria talks to Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and Former IMF Chief Economist Ken Rogoff. The show also turns a myth on its head. China’s not doing the U.S.

Watch GPS: Krugman calls for space aliens to fi…, posted with vodpod

Worth its own post: Amateurs

14 August 2011: Ding Dong, the Wicked T-Paw is dead…sort of (and other topics)

Non Political
The lady in this video just got her 10′th degree black belt (10 Dan) at 98 years of age. This clip is about her making it to the 9′th degree; note that the 10′th Dan wears a white belt (albeit a wider one) to symbolize the completing of the cycle.

Evolution/ID debate No, there is no debate in research circles. But the ID/creationist types aren’t shy about taking their “case” to the mostly ill informed, untrained public. And one must remember the Dunning-Kruger effect: people tend to think that they are smart and at least as smart as those egg-headed professors who, while educated, don’t have that there COMMON SENSE that the “real folk” have.

So, at times, the genuine scientists lose their temper at the snake oil salesmen of creationism.

Social I understand that poverty is a large, major problem that has no easy, bumper-sticker solution. Yes, sometimes anti-poverty job measures are thwarted by, well, the behavior of some of the poor who ARE given a chance. That is, some who get job offer don’t show up for work!

But there is another side: once you get stuck in the “poor/unemployed” situation, it is difficult to get out of it.

Here is another person’s take; it is very telling:

Being poor is being fetishized, demonized, and infantilized by teams of “poverty experts” from the middle and upper classes.

Being poor is hoping you and your disabled spouse make it through winter alive without freezing to death, or dying in a house fire from a space heater mishap after your gas got cut off because they raised the rates by 20% and you can’t afford the bill.

Being poor means nothing around your run-down home ever works and everything is in serious disrepair because there’s no money, or way of getting money, to fix what’s in disrepair.

Being poor and white means being an invisible non-person.

Being poor means you have no pictures of your “ancestors” — or even of yourself and your sister — after being evicted where anything you might have had got taken away from you when your roach-infested ghetto apartment got padlocked.

Being poor is a lifetime of everything always getting taken away from you.

Being poor is being wrong even when you’re right.

Being poor is never fitting in.

Being poor is guilty until proven innocent and still getting slapped with unaffordable fines or a criminal conviction regardless.

Being poor means never getting a chance your entire life, and then having some self-centered privileged person tell you how poor they are when they enjoy far more economic opportunity, comfort, and security than you will ever get a chance to have — especially if you’re still poor by the time you’re middle-aged (and therefore unemployable) after an entire lifetime of never getting a chance for a good job, no matter how hard you tried.

Being poor means going hungry at least two or three days out of each month for years.

Being poor is living in a neighborhood where you can’t put chairs or a couch near the window because of the drive-by shootings.

Being poor is dying or becoming permanently disabled from pregnancy and childbirth complications.

Being poor is facing having to go blind from glaucoma because there really isn’t “all this help out there.”

Being poor is losing a leg from diabetes complications because you couldn’t get the help you needed to afford diabetic supplies and the low starch/low carb low MSG diabetic-friendly foods so you could manage your diabetes better in the first place.

Being poor means that your only interactions with middle class “professionals” are through bullet-proof glass windows at government agencies and welfare offices after waiting all day to be “served”, and then being told “sorry, we can’t help you.”

Being poor is everyone who isn’t poor wondering why you went back to the abusive asshole (whom you hope won’t kill you) who gave you that black eye when it’s either that or live on the streets with NO way to get a living wage job and get on your feet and support yourself after your 30 day time limit at the battered women’s shelter is up.

Being poor means you have to choose whether you have electric or gas, or food or a roof over your head.

Being poor means you don’t get the early preventive glaucoma treatment options to save your eyesight, while being told that you don’t deserve your eyesight because you’re just a “loser” who “blames everyone else for your problems” — it’s never the fault of employers who refused to hire you at a good job with health benefits, and it’s never society’s fault for being too selfish and punitive to have a safety net for the economically excluded.

Being poor means access to dental care is a luxury that is as far out of reach for you as a day trip to Sedna.

Being poor is getting denied even a minimum wage job in retail or as a supermarket cashier where you must face the public because of your visibly decayed/broken/missing teeth as a result of never having access to decent dental care — while everybody else who has never been anywhere near as poor as you or for as long as you, tells you that it’s all your own damn fault that you don’t have any teeth and lack the “right image” to be “deserving” of a job because you were “too stupid to brush your teeth properly.”

Being poor means dying a lot younger than those who lived in middle class comfort for most, if not all of their lives.

Being poor means suffering with an untreated UTI until it goes into your kidneys because you couldn’t afford antibiotics.

Being poor means you can’t even get a chance for a minimum wage job at Wal-Mart because your credit is poor due to poverty — which is, by definition, not enough income to afford your basic needs, including utilities, let alone afford an expensive emergency room bill because you didn’t have a good job with health insurance when you got that UTI or that abscessed tooth.

Being poor means that even if you go into unaffordable debt for a Bachelors degree from a state college in order to be “worthy” of a chance for a job, you still won’t get one because your visibly decayed/broken/missing teeth, a big gap in your work history of menial jobs, your lack of the proper clothing and a car, and your address is in the “wrong” side of town — all which serves to alert the employers’ middle class gatekeepers that you’re “not a good fit” for the office culture and that you “lack work ethic.”

Being poor means that nobody cares about you, your problems don’t matter.

Being poor means that no matter how hard you try and whatever you try, you never get a break but you sure get a generous helping of middle/upper class social Darwinist lip service, condescension, and personal value judgments that they call “advice.”

This is just a small part of her post; I recommend that you read ALL of it.

Politics
Yes, the Republican stance on the economy (no stimulus other than tax cuts and no tax increases on the wealthy) is drawing more and more criticism.

But even before that, macroeconomists and private sector forecasters were warning that the direction in which the new House Republican majority had pushed the White House and Congress this year — for immediate spending cuts, no further stimulus measures and no tax increases, ever — was wrong for addressing the nation’s two main ills, a weak economy now and projections of unsustainably high federal debt in coming years.

Instead, these critics say, Washington should be focusing on stimulating the economy in the near term to induce people to spend money and create jobs, while settling on a long-term plan for spending cuts and tax increases to take effect only after the economy recovers.

But Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail refuse to back down.

Economists disagree about the proper balance between spending cuts and tax increases in reducing a government’s debts. Some studies by both liberal and conservative economists suggest that emphasizing spending cuts is better for long-term growth. But there are few if any precedents for paying down such a large debt solely through spending cuts.

Among those calling for a mix of cuts and revenue are onetime standard-bearers of Republican economic philosophy like Martin Feldstein, an adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., Treasury secretary to President George W. Bush, underscoring the deepening divide between party establishment figures and the Tea Party-inspired Republicans in Congress and running for the White House.

“I think the U.S. has every chance of having a good year next year, but the politicians are doing their damnedest to prevent it from happening — the Republicans are — and the Democrats to my eternal bafflement have not stood their ground,” Ian C. Shepherdson, chief United States economist for High Frequency Economics, a research firm, said in an interview.

I hope that the Democrats read this; the Republicans need to be stood up to.

Yes, there is some debate among those in the Obama team:

Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Plouffe, and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress, even if they may not have much economic impact. These include free trade agreements and improved patent protections for inventors.

But others, including Gene Sperling, Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser, say public anger over the debt ceiling debate has weakened Republicans and created an opening for bigger ideas like tax incentives for businesses that hire more workers, according to Congressional Democrats who share that view. Democrats are also pushing the White House to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

Even if the ideas cannot pass Congress, they say, the president would gain a campaign issue by pushing for them.

But as Paul Krugman points out, it might be a debate between the degrees of tepidness:

Calculated Risk says it perfectly: this report in the Times on economic debate within the White House shows a fierce argument between those who want to do very little on jobs and those who want to do nothing at all.[...]

Plouffe and Daley, macroeconomic theorists! (And no, that’s not rank-pulling; it’s not about credentials, it’s whether these men have actually put in the kind of homework that would qualify them to oppose what amounts to standard textbook macro).

And as for the political side, I guess I’m puzzled: you have an obstructionist GOP, and rather than point out that obstruction, you restrict yourself to calling for measures that this obstructionist opposition might actually accept. Doesn’t this mean that voters learn nothing about the extent to which the GOP is in fact blocking job creation? [....]

2012 Republican race
Tim Pawlenty is out. Paul Krugman misses the comedy. But don’t worry; there is plenty of lunacy left. As far as the straw poll goes: it does have good predictive value…for the outcome of the Iowa caucuses. For the outcome of the primary itself, not so much.

14 August 2011: running and sadness…

Workout notes I ran 6 miles (66 minutes); I did 30 out to Springdale (via the goose loop) and turned around at the Newton marker; it was 29 minutes back and then I added a hodge podge of 7 minutes to get to 66.

Injury note: at times, I “lost power” in my operated leg (at the knee); I had to be careful to not overextend my stride. I am going to have to do some stationary cycling; I am not thrilled to add yet MORE PT but if I don’t strengthen the knee, running is out. Note: I never was in any pain at all…that is good.

Walking: again, the piriformis is limiting that. 6-7 miles at a time is fine.

Oh yes, the workout: I lifted weights afterward.
Bench press: 10 x 45, 10 x 135, 10 x 140
Incline press: 5 x 130, 5 x 130
Seated Military press (dumbbell): 3 sets of 12 x 40 lb.
Pull downs: 3 sets of 10 x 137.5
Curls: used the machine; 10 x 50 (too easy), 10 x 70 (too easy), 10 x 80 (ok)
Assisted pull-ups: 2 sets of 5 (20 lbs. assistance; this motion keeps me from “cheating”)
Rows (riverplex machine): 3 sets of 10 x 110
Sit ups: 4 x 25
Rotator cuff, lunges (4 sets of 10)
Abductor: 3 sets of 10 x 70
Adductor: 3 sets of 10 x 70

“Duh” note I had a slight headache; it turns out that one of the coffee bags that we have is mislabeled. I made a pot of decaffeinated coffee instead of regular.

Sadness I thought about yesterday’s race and seeing Art Harris. Mr. Harris is 75 years old and can still knock out a 28 minute 5K; when he was my age he was somewhere in the 17 minute range, I think (he used to win races all of the time when he was younger). THAT isn’t the sad part.

Here is the sad part: back in 1999, I remember running the Zoo Run Run 5K and finishing in about 21 minutes even. During the race, I was caught between three guys fighting it out for the “fastest old coot”; there was Jerry Crump, Dough Braasch and Art Harris, all really taking it to each other. I was with them, but I knew that all of these guys (15 to 23 years my senior) were way better and more accomplished athletes than I. Still, it was a fond memory.

The sad part: Jerry died this year and Doug died a few years ago; only Art is left.

I Might Actually Consider Voting for This Guy…someday