Plus Size Win….

Workout notes I didn’t feel great this morning; it is almost as if I am coming down with something. My throat is sore and my eyes burn a bit and I feel tired. Also I had some mild shoulder ache last night; shoveling snow? Is it from the half marathon plus half-blood donation? Or do I just suck?

Nevertheless the workout went ok:

Weights: rotator cuff (pulley plus dumbbells)
Rows: 2 sets of 10 x 230 with standard grip, 1 set of 7 plus 3 with the narrow grip (Hammer Machine)
pull downs: 3 sets of 10 x 160
curls: 3 sets of 10 x 47.5 (pulley)
sit ups: 5 sets of 30 at the highest incline (made an effort to touch my head the whole way and mostly succeeded)
pull ups: 4 sets of 6 (2 regular grip, 2 shoulder friendly)
bench press: 10 x 135, 2 sets of 4 x 170 (pleased)
incline press: 6 x 135, 5 x 135
military press (seated): 2 sets of 15 x 40 lb. dumbbells.

I stretched a bit and then ran:
3 miles on the track (9:11, 9:05, 9:18 for 27:34), that tired me. Then 1 mile cool down on the treadmill at 10:40.
I have to remember that the 3 mile workout I described is a de-facto tempo run, given my previous 5K running races.

Professional I got a “revise and resubmit; we like your work but you have to fix it up” on a paper that I submitted so I have something to work on. I’d rather work on something new, but this will take priority…and I really want this paper to appear in the journal that I submitted it to.

Plus Size Win
This size 12 lady doesn’t look “plus size” to me, but here we see the contrast between her and a normal sized model

And here we see her “touch your toes” pose:

Click on the thumbnail to see the full size photo at the source. The idea: today’s models are unrealistically skinny. Don’t get me wrong; there is nothing wrong with a sexy “greyhound” if they are naturally that way. But “rounded” can be very sexy and very athletic too.

Example: these two women are very comparable athletically and are in the same age group…and vastly superior to me (low bar, I know)

Very different body types, and very comparable results. The lady in the top photo just walked a judged 50K racewalk in 5:16 (10:10 per mile, WALKING) and the one in the bottom has walked a 1:56:24 20K (12.4 miles of judged racewalking at a 9:24 mpm pace…(equivalent to a 2:04 half marathon…WALKING).

So “accepting one’s body” does NOT mean “accepting athletic/fitness failure”; not at all!
Of course, one might not be as good (or in my case, as bad) in one sport as another sport.

Update I got permission to use a couple of other photos; they are both fun:

Soledad O’Brien, Jodi Kantor Clash Over ‘The Obamas’ (VIDEO)

CNN’s Soledad O’Brien had an extremely tense conversation on Friday’s “Starting Point” with the author of a controversial new book about the Obamas. Jodi Kantor, who wrote “The Obamas,” has had to push back against attacks from the White House and skeptical questions from many in the media ever since the book was published.

Soledad O’Brien, Jodi Kantor Clash Over ‘The Ob…, posted with vodpod

Note: NPR also ran a story on the book and from THAT story, it appears that the book is an honest, fair look.

Yoga, Mormonism and flip-flops

This is my last day of leisure; it is bitterly cold outside. my plan is to lift and run (or walk) inside and to finish course preparation.

Yoga Be careful; you can hurt yourself when you do this. Note: when it comes to the headstand, I try to use my shoulders to take some of the pressure. But I’ll refrain from holding this for too long.

But yes, you can take almost any physical activity to an extreme; I’ll continue to do some modest, gentle yoga stretches as a supplement to my endurance sports.

Mormonism It is no secret that the LDS church started with some racist beliefs; for example “dark skin” was seen as a curse from a deity. Science has shown that humans started with dark skins and some of us evolved lighter ones as we migrated out of Africa. Obrey Hendrick brings this up in an article. More interesting than the article are the comments from the LDS apologists; they don’t realize it but they are making things worse. Sure, many religions have noxious stuff in their holy texts but many have learned to rationalize away the noxious stuff. But the LDS religion is too new for people to use the advantage of time to say “well that was thin; we were primitive and no one believes that now”.

Instead, the apologists say “we don’t know why The Lord wouldn’t let blacks be priests until 1978″; note that almost all males in good standing are considered to be priests. This “we were just following instructions from god” defense won’t fly.

Willard “Mitt” Romney
Paul Krugman has an interesting take on him. Krugman thinks that Romney IS smart (I do too):

Like a lot of people, I was fairly startled by Mitt Romney’s new defense of his work at Bain: it was just like the auto bailout!

“In the general election, I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins of General Motors and Chrysler, closed factories, closed dealerships, laid off thousands and thousands of workers. He did it to try to save the business,” Romney said on “CBS This Morning.” “We … had, on occasion, to do things that are tough to try to save a business.”

The first thought is, didn’t Romney write an op-ed titled Let Detroit Go Bankrupt? Yes, he did. But the title was misleading. What he actually called for was a “managed bankruptcy”, with government support — not too different from what actually happened.

So can Romney claim that he was for this successful policy all along? No, he can’t — because when the actual policy was proposed, he trashed it:

What is proposed is even worse than bankruptcy–it would make GM the living dead.

So what the story of Romney and the auto bailout actually shows is something we already knew from health care: he’s a smart guy who is also a moral coward.

He is also a liar too, as Krugman points out:

I was deeply radicalized by the 2000 election. At first I couldn’t believe that then-candidate George W. Bush was saying so many clearly, provably false things; then I couldn’t believe that nobody in the news media was willing to point out the lies. (At the time, the Times actually told me that I couldn’t use the l-word either). That was when I formulated my “views differ on shape of planet” motto.

Now, however, Mitt Romney seems determined to rehabilitate Bush’s reputation, by running a campaign so dishonest that it makes Bush look like a model of truth-telling.

I mean, is there anything at all in Romney’s stump speech that’s true? It’s all based on attacking Obama for apologizing for America, which he didn’t, on making deep cuts in defense, which he also didn’t, and on being a radical redistributionist who wants equality of outcomes, which he isn’t. When the issue turns to jobs, Romney makes false assertions both about Obama’s record and about his own. I can’t find a single true assertion anywhere.

So what to do: hope the Republicans nominate an idiot who believes the nonsense that they are spouting out or a liar who is smart enough to know that he is lying?

True: all politicians push the envelope. Do you really believe that then Senator Obama gets out his Bible and “prays to Jesus”?

And here, the Obama campaign slammed Senator McCain by a “guilt by association” attack ad:

But Mr. Romney has taken it to a new level entirely.

Speaking of Mr. Romney’s campaign, Nate Silver has an interesting analysis of the carpet bombing attack by Mr. Newt Gingrich.

The attack: preview:

Full version (28 minutes):

Note: the trailer accurately describes the full attack and gives you a good sense of what it is like.

Mr. Silver notes that this attack might actually help Mr. Romney win the nomination; he has already picked up other candidate’s supporters. And let’s face it: no wealthy Republican would be bothered by Mr. Romney’s behavior as described by this ad; in fact they would laud it.

But:
1. There is so much to investigate here that this story could be alive for several months; the investigation could stretch out well into the general election. That is, this story won’t go away soon.

2. This ad could hurt him with independent voters.

3. This ad was made by REPUBLICANS; he can’t dismiss it as something coming from mushy-brained liberal socialists.

Mr. Silver concludes:

What’s unusual about the attacks on Bain Capital is that they might be more compelling to independent voters than to Republican primary voters. Politics ain’t beanbag, and sometimes the front-runner will be attacked by any means necessary, even if it might produce collateral damage. But rarely has there been an attack that had such uncertain potential to harm a candidate in a primary but such clear potential to harm him in the general election. Welcome to the strange world of “super PACs” and the undisciplined messaging that they can facilitate.

Peoria: Ugly in the wintertime.

Well, we got our first snow (4 inches) and it is 14 F (-10 C). The problem: it was in the 50′s yesterday and the ground has not frozen as yet. Hence the snow sort of melted to a very heavy wet snow…but given how cold it was, the snow stuck to your shovel.

Monday it is supposed to get near 50 so this shouldn’t last too long…but given our antiquated sewer and drain system there will be ponds of water on the roads.

What I really dislike: the sidewalks here go to the curb…no green space between the road and the curb. So the “plow to the curb” people end up burying the sidewalks with ugly dirty snow, gravel and ice…and that is right over the sidewalks. There is zero place for people to walk along the main roads…and if you shoveled the walk and didn’t have someone park on the road…well…all that effort has been wasted.

This is really a stupid town.

Why I stay: I like being employed.