human frailty

I've been writing today about fallibility.
about how try as we might (or, sometimes the opposite, with no attempt at all) we often fail to be our best selves.

ok, and by our best selves I suppose I mean as members of the human race, not as intellectuals, as athletes, as scholars, or as whatever we claim to be professionally.
it's scary to be authentic, to dig deep down and come up with what truly matters in any given situation, and then act upon it in a loving way.
it's much easier to acquiesce, to pretend things don't matter, to decline invitations, to turn a blind eye, to withdraw into cocoons of solitude, to play whatever the roles are we've so well learned how to play.

as part of the research I'm doing for the book I'm working on I am reading a book by kay jamison called an unquiet mind. the subject is bipolar disorder, the author, one who suffers from it. she mentions a poem by robert lowell--famous american poet, also afflicted with bipolar disorder--and I share it below for its powerful last line:

Epilogue

But sometimes everything I write
with the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot,
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
All's misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?

(the poem is a reflection on the "confessional" school of poetry, the form of poetry which Lowell is often considered to be the founder of. I know, I ended my sentence with a preposition. bad girl.)


why is it so easy to pretend nothing happened?
why do we struggle with admitting our shortcomings, our faults, our errors?
in counseling school children I often worked to help them understand that by accepting responsibility we are empowered, strengthened, kept whole. this is so very hard for many of us to believe, harder still to understand, often impossible to practice.

we hold expectations of ourselves, of groups, of foundations and organizations that stifle humanity. we try so hard, we box ourselves in, our weaknesses explode, we fail.
not always.
but across our lives we can pinpoint the points of explosion, implosion, failure, and if we're unable, others will help do it for us. these occurances are inevitable, and as leonard cohen said, it's those cracks that let the light shine in.

not a one of us is perfect.
the very fact of being human fills one with frailty and the potential to err.
it isn't until we admit this, speak it out loud, that we can begin to heal, whether its within ourselves, or part of a larger healing, outside ourselves.

lack of inspiration

it's about 41 degrees and just gray enough to keep the sun from shining through. the wind is from the northwest, not crazy, just everpresent and a little cold.

I was not the only one out on a bicycle today, but nobody looked particularly happy.
no great big grins.
but outside is still better than inside.

and because it was a little too cold I stayed flat(ish) in the city. no canyon climb today.
I asked the universe for inspiration. I hoped to see, smell, experience something that would be worth writing about here, and nothing happened. nothing came to me. nothing stirred me, inspired me, made me whoop with joy or frown in disgust. nothing clicked, nothing sparked, nothing jogged a memory cell or made a synapse fire.
nada.
nothing.
blah.

my ride was as boring as today's sky, uninspiring, uneventful.

so I won't belabor the point, I will just, in conclusion, hope that for all our sakes, inspiration returns tomorrow.

quirks

it's friday.
and I've written before about power camp fridays, how they are usually recovery days that involve gerbil leg work.
today's workout:
15 minute warm up, zone 2, 95 rpm
15 minute zone 3A 110-115 rpm
15 minute zone 3A 115-120 rpm
5 minute zone 3A 120-125 rpm
10 minute cool down, zone 2, 95 rpm
then off to the weight room, pump a little iron, stretch a few bands, do some balancing acts on the bosu ball.

blah, blah, blah, my only real point in listing it is to let you know that the cadence requirement kept going up, and that it got ridiculously high.
biking buddy bob suggested that J.R. just made this workout up so that it would appear we were doing something when really it was just about recovery.
recovery that makes me sweat like crazy.

and that was the long segue just to get to the conversation of the morning.
often it's Trivia Fridays, like last week, when we learned the speed records for riding a bike downhill on snow.
today it was about quirks.
leslie is helping us get to know about each other by asking us to reveal a quirk about ourselves.
when she first mentioned the topic and that we would have to share a personal quirk, I laughed. I have so darn many I could probably share one a day for the rest of power camp.
and they are all harmless, just silly things that are probably more revealing than I want to think about.
so for now, I'll share some quirks that belong to others in the class:

• I never let my gas tank go below half full


• I can't stand to be sticky, I shower at least three times a day, more often in summer


• I love stale Peeps, but they have to be yellow, chicks, and exactly three days' stale


• I count everything


• I have to leave an even dollar amount for a tip, can't leave any change


• when I microwave something I never use the number 5


• I have this thing for odd numbers, always choosing them when I can over an even number


• I love stale gummy bears


• I can't stand to have any hair touch my face when I sweat


• my closet is organized by color and sleeve length


• I have to touch the outside of an airplane before I'll get in it


• I have to check twice or even three times to make sure I've locked the door behind me

now the nice thing about this is you see just how normal you really are, that everyone else is full of what we'll nicely call "quirks" too.
and okay, I did slip mine in there, and it doesn't stick out at all, does it?
I'm sure all y'alls would slip neatly inside this list, too.

limitless

power camp has taught me that my body can handle more than I think it can.
again and again.


life has taught me that my heart and soul can handle more than I think they can.
again and again.


of course naps, ugly dolls, chenille blankets, chocolate, coffee, and peanut butter all help.
as does the occasional mountain peak, ray of sunshine, hug, snowfall, full moon, amazing song, fabulous book . . .

creatine phosphate

most of our mondays in power camp are semi-recovery days. j.r.---program designer---arranges them to be either "speed" or "technique" workouts, which usually means higher cadences and lower resistances.
this morning was a speed workout, a lot of just spinning around, peppered with little events he calls CP jumps. creatine phosphate, if you care.

facts:
creatine phosphate shuttles high-energy phosphate from mitochondria to sites of muscle contraction. an energy-rich muscle has lots of creatine phosphate, whereas a fatigued muscle has little creatine phosphate, (mathews/van holde/ahern, 3rd ed.)
and when extra creatine is stored in the muscles, you have that extra energy backup which will help you work harder.


I tried to do some research into creatine phosphate training, and basically what I found is that most people try to increase their creatine with supplements rather than naturally. for those of us who desire a natural solution, I guess we get to do CP jumps.
all they are is a sudden, extremely fast spin-up, like a sprint, for ten seconds.
we do a half dozen of them, one each minute, then do nine more, the latter spaced sporadically throughout the next twenty minutes or so. ( this is an attempt to replicate an actual racing event, where at any moment a competitor can take off, sprinting away, requiring you to react quickly and jump along with him--or her.)

I suppose they're good for me.
but here's what I'm trying to analyze:
I much prefer the first six. during the next--sporadic--segment, all I want is for them to be over.
not sure if this ties into some kind of character flaw, but am thinking it might.
I just want them to be over. give me 15, one a minute, then let me be done.
is it that I don't like the anxiety of anticipation?
or I just don't like the workout and want it to end?
I hope it's the latter, but fear it has more to do with the former.

regardless, this creatine phosphate stuff seems to be a good thing to have, and I certainly hope that all of my CP jumps this power camp season have been helping me increase mine.
then I'll only have to work on my decreasing my resistance to the darn things.

trivia

thursday was a time trial in class, so friday was a recovery day.
our friday coach likes to bring in trivia for us, as to alleviate the boredom of our 40-minute spin in 3A at 120 rpm, prefaced and followed by zone 2 spinning at only 95 rpm.

the subject of all trivia was cycling, and one segment of stats had to do with speed records.
I went to wikipedia this morning to get a copy of these to share here:

Name /Year /Speed /Type of record

Sam Whittingham 2009 133 km/h (83 mph) Flat surface, unpaced
Barbara Buatois 2010 121 km/h (75 mph) Flat surface, unpaced (woman)
Fred Rompelberg 1995 268 km/h (167 mph) Flat surface, motor-paced
Bruce Bursford 1996 334 km/h (208 mph) Riding on a roller
Markus Stöckl 2011 164.95 km/h (102.50 mph)Downhill on a volcano
Eric Barone 2002 172 km/h (107 mph) Downhill on a volcano, on a prototype
Markus Stöckl 2007 210.4 km/h (130.7 mph)Downhill on snow
Eric Barone 2000 222 km/h (138 mph) Downhill on snow, on a prototype

I draw your attention to the last two lines: Downhill on snow.

Downhill on snow.

What are these guys thinking????

I don't think I have anything else to say, except this: do you see a woman's speed record for bicycling downhill on snow?

point made.

endorphins

endorphins:
long chains of amino acids, or polypeptides, that are able to bind to the neuroreceptors in the brain and are capable of relieving pain in a manner similar to that of morphine. There are three major types of endorphins: beta-endorphins are found almost entirely in the pituitary gland, while enkephalins and dynorphins are both distributed throughout the nervous system. Scientists had suspected that analgesic opiates, such as morphine and heroin, worked effectively against pain because the body had receptors that were activated by such drugs. They reasoned that these receptors probably existed because the body itself had natural painkilling compounds that also bonded to those receptors. When scientists in the 1970s isolated a biochemical from a pituitary gland hormone that showed analgesic properties, Choh Li, a chemist from Berkeley, California, named it endorphin, meaning "the morphine within." Besides behaving as a pain reducer, endorphins are also thought to be connected to euphoric feelings, appetite modulation, and the release of sex hormones. Prolonged, continuous exercise contributes to an increased production of endorphins and, in some people, the subsequent "runner's high." (American Heritage Science Dictionary)

hmm.
here's my thought.
the definition above states that the exercise must be prolonged and continuous to increase endorphin production . . . I'm thinking that one of my power camp classes might not be long enough, nor would a simple climb up to the top of emigration . . . yet I often feel this powerful sense of good (not sure if I can get to euphoria!) after a time trial like today's class, and at the top of hills.
so . . . might what I experience simply be a mental woo hoo--a sense of pride, accomplishment, proof of capability--and not a purely physiological event?
when I bike for hours and hours (certainly that qualifies for prolonged and continuous) I don't usually experience a state of euphoria (except, perhaps, for brief moments at the tops of hills).

just thinking.

years ago my sister-in-law asked me if I experienced a "runner's high" when cycling, and I said, no, not really. or if I do, it seems to always coincide nicely with a downhill swoosh . . .

so those are my thoughts about endorphins, sparked by today's time trial, which allowed me to experience--at its completion--a pretty darn great feeling, almost euphoric, mostly because I survived it, and even more so because
it
was
over.