This is about as close to midwest wind as you get when it is out of the NNW here. While this stretch is only a mile or so of hard core unblocked/mediated wind imagine that sort of wind (like it is coming across the water at the causeway) for 20+ miles. That's what riding in the Mid-West can be like. flat flat roads, and endless fields with few trees or big buildings to slow it down, sure there are a few fence rows here and there but they are not doing much to mute the power of the wind for you.
This morning is was NNW and strong. Saturday afternoon is was just about as strong but NNE. I still managed to get a decent 4 hours in on the bike. Met up with the Rhode Island Smack Down ride crew. It was a thin crew. The morning rain and snow must have scared a few people off. But save for a few puddles the roads were pretty dry. We (me and team-mate and climber type Brent) wound up hitting a few decent hills. The first one that cut our teeth and got the HR up was River Road coming off Valley. Not really much of a hill but it got us both breathing hard. Next up was the mellow Woodward, the one ya often hit if you leave from the Branch/146 area to start a ride. It was the first 'hill' on the Team Gumbie/NBW ride last summer. We then wound up riding around Lincoln Park and we cut over to the Blackstone bike path. And ticked away the length of it into that nice headwind. Side by side. Church of the Big Ring style. Heading up Mansville sucked. I managed to hold a pretty steady pace but it wasn't as fast as Brent's pace. That was demoralizing. West Wrentham, now that's my kinda hill. Motor city. I lead up and just kept the power up seated style and gapped brent before we hit tower hill road turn off. I was hurting so bad but it felt good to just beable to hold it to the top. Then it pitched down. Down down down. YES. Big fat ass me likes going down hill. Stupidly I usually attack on down hills in group rides. Punishment I guess. Sure it is dumb to do in a race but well you've just blown your wad going up hill, lets add some pain on the down. So I dropped it into the 12 and got a gap on Brent and took off. Heading down by the right hand turn at the stop light I looked back and uh oh. What happened. Who would have thought you can drop someone with a 50x11 using a 40x12. Don't let ANYONE tell you "you can't spin 180mm cranks" HA. (allow me one big of smugness) I CAN! I think he was just soft pedaling though. But we were going pretty darn quick (I was keeping pace with the cars going down the hill). So we tooled around, past the base of Diamond Hill and turned and went up Tower Hill Road. It is alot like Fire Road (iirc) back in the college days. Except narrower. Up and up, rolling, not steady. Brent dusted me pretty good. After the hill then the downhill and the tempo along the flat section i was pretty well gassed. Maybe it was the fact that i had the fenders with the duckbill tail on the back, or me just being hard ass moron, but I was up front most of the day. And man, i love it up there. Gimme some wind. Some incline. Lemme motor along. And thinking back I don't know if I ever noticed his sustained eighth note on the seat tube. It was a brilliant ride. No metrics. I have no idea how long I rode for. When I left the house at 12:15 i had no idea it would be 4:20 when I got back.
Made a very simple pasta after watching the last few laps of the Nationwide before the rain ended it. Medium shells tossed with bacon garlic black pepper and pecorino romano cheese. All fresh. The bacon, nice natural hippie stuff. REAL bacon. In fact It is impossible to get real bacon any more. Or at least finding bacon that isn't loaded with saltwater and/or nitrites and nitrates and HFCS is a challenge itself. And then thinking about that. I had to hit the regular supermarket. Needed an item that wasn't at the market (lasagna noodles - no i didn't feel like making my own). And so I looked over at the "butter" case. 8 feet long, 4 shelves and a big bottom one. Who knows how many different SKUs were in there. I sort of wanted to count. But I didn't. No organic butter in there. And the regular butter, land-o-lakes, shaws brand, cabot brand and even that fancy Kates stuff from VT, every single one of the unsalted butters have "natural flavor" added. Serious. The butter doesn't taste like butter enough so they have to add butter flavor? What the Fahk! Maybe if the cows actually ate grass instead of corn and soybeans the damn milk would make a butter that tastes like butter. Insane. Really really insane. How many products in that case? Every one technically a spreadable butter like substance. All but about 6-8 products had little or not actual butter in them. The rest pure imitation processed make you die sooner than later crap. Flat out unbelievable. Really flabbergasting. Then couple the whole new wave of TV adds talking about "managing your type 2 diabetes with drugs from this company or help from this pharmacy" um. HELLO. ANYONE HOME. Type 2 is generally and if not in all cases, most of them completely curable. Um. It is a disease that we have a cure for. Holy crap. no way. a cure? Oh, it requires eating differently, getting enough sleep, AND exercising? Forget that. Pfizer help me please because I'd rather dump drugs in my system with god knows what side effects than actually do something as difficult as stop eating my precious margarine and special K.
I was reminded of the reason Tofu is generally the only source of soy protein (outside of eating Edamame - but then those are green and unprocessed and small part of an occasional meal - and only when they are in season) in Japan and such. Well it is pre-digested. Think of it like Milk to Yogurt. Soy to Tofu. Milk = bad. Yogurt = good. Soy = bad. Tofu = good. Damn. Nice and clean. Still don't need much tofu though. Don't need much protein at all. Protein sucks calicum out of your bones. Yogurt and Tofu's proteins are pre-digested by the bacteria that make them. Meaning way easier to break down, less acidification = more absorbable nutrients. Ah what the hell.
I think I had another rant or two stored up. But maybe I'll just leave it out there. Kinda like Tony Jr did to Dale Jr. That woulda been sweet if he'd gone in for new tires. Definitely would have had a shot at the win if he had. Ya gotta love watching the racing at Bristol.
Different topic yet again... (referencing the whole beer thread on the NECX list from post Nats).
CCC has left a new comment on your post "Heaven simply heaven":
Sorry to dig up the dead, but I just finished off a 6'er of the Black Butte Porter here in Seattle and yes, it is just as good as the "$20/bottle trappist stuff." Good call.
The folks at Deschutes Brewery know how to brew a kick ass beer. Rather than raise a glass of fake Irish stout (okay the G stuff ain't fake but it ain't as good here as there - ain't the same), raise a glass of Black Butte Porter here on St Pats day.
But keeping with my deep celtic roots (pronounces Keltic not seltic ya bunch of dimwits) I'm just gonna say...
Heddwch
G
8 comments:
That water looks really, REALLY cold.
i'm pretty sure type 2 is preventable, and manageable, but not curable. once the body becomes resistent to insulin, i don't think that can be reversed, but i could be talking out of my ass here.
my ex-husband was a type 1, not preventable, not curable, and it always bothered him that the focus of the research was on type 2. even his body became resistant to the insulin he was on and he had to switch types in order to maintain control again.
Could be. From what I've come across, with a few references to studies of indigenous populations, or more specifically studies where groups of native people are reverted completely back to traditional foods and ways of gathering and preparing, the type 2 goes away. No more problems with insulin.
it is a big reason why junk food, processed flour and hfcs are so bad.
Not to mention plain old milk causes an insulin spike disproportionate to the sugar in it. It is all bad juju.
Yes, Type 1 is quite often overlooked.
I give huge props to Team Type One, esp my friend Waterboy and the team doc m Greve.
Diabetes is pretty crazy stuff.
But the lack of push towards prevention, and more towards management of symptoms is pretty sad and scary.
well, i would have to read the study on the native-types to really see what they found. not that your summary wasn't helpful. do you have the link?
and frankly, there is a shit ton of work out there on prevention for type 2, but we are a reactionary, knee-jerk peoples and no one gives a shit until it directly impacts them. so they ignore preventative and go for management instead.
I'll dig out the reference in the book for ya. I did a few searches and haven't come up with the specific study. Will try and find the proper one.
O´Dea, K. Marked improvement in
carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in
diabetic Australian Aborigines after
temporary reversion to traditional life
style. Diabetes 1984; 33: 596-603
That is the reference i think.
I can't find the article on line.
I did find it referenced in this review paper
"Temporary reversion to traditional life
style has been shown to greatly
improve or to completely normalise the
metabolic abnormalities of Type 2
diabetes in a group of Australian
aborigines.11"
(page 3 of paper i linked)
So i just read through that review a bit more. Strong stuff there.
But no mention of the type of carbohydrates. Simple break down of fat protein and carbs isn't enough (at least that is how I feel and Pollan seems to as well) to understand why the diet is so messed up.
Abstract of the O'Dea paper:
Diabetes. 1984 Jun;33(6):596-603.
Marked improvement in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in diabetic Australian aborigines after temporary reversion to traditional lifestyle.
O'Dea K.
The rationale for the present study was that temporarily reversing the urbanization process in diabetic Aborigines should improve all aspects of their carbohydrate and lipid metabolism that are linked to insulin resistance. Ten full-blood, diabetic Aborigines from the Mowanjum Community (Derby, Western Australia) agreed to be tested before and after living for 7 wk as hunter-gatherers in their traditional country in north-western Australia. They were middle aged (53.9 +/- 1.8 yr) and overweight (81.9 +/- 3.4 kg), and all lost weight steadily over the 7-wk period (average, 8 kg). A detailed analysis of food intake over 2 wk revealed a low-energy intake (1200 kcal/person/day). Despite the high contribution of animal food to the total energy intake (64%), the diet was low in total fat (13%) due to the very low fat content of wild animals. Oral glucose tolerance tests (75 g glucose) were conducted in the urban setting and repeated at the end of 7 wk of traditional lifestyle. The marked improvement in glucose was due to both a fall in fasting glucose (11.6 +/- 1.2 mM before, 6.6 +/- 0.8 mM after) and an improvement in postprandial glucose clearance (incremental area under the glucose curve: 15.0 +/- 1.2 mmol/L/h before, 11.7 +/- 1.2 mmol/L/h after). Fasting plasma insulin concentration fell (23 +/- 2 mU/L before, 12 +/- 1 mU/L after) and the insulin response to glucose improved (incremental area under the insulin curve: 61 +/- 18 mU/L/h before, 104 +/- 21 mU/L/h after). The marked fall in fasting plasma triglycerides (4.0 +/- 0.5 mM before, 1.2 +/- 0.1 mM after) was due largely to the fall in VLDL triglyceride concentration (2.31 +/- 0.31 mM before, 0.20 +/- 0.03 mM after.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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