First Races

I finished my first two races of the season a little over a week ago. They were supposed to be a 15km individual start classic and a 10km mass start skate race. However, there was very little snow, so we race everything on a single classic track covering 4.2km, so we had two individual start classic races, the first 12.6km and the second 8.4km. The course was very flat, with only a few places per lap where you had to diagonal stride, so my arms and back were very sore. I was decently pleased for my results, seeing as how double pole is my weakest technique.

Snow!!

This is the first day where we've had snow where I haven't trained. It's rather strange to be sitting inside, watching the snow come down, and not going out to ski. What we need is another really big dump of snow, as it the base is now very hard, thanks to a fair amount of skiing and grooming, as well as recent warm temperatures, so the snow has now refrozen into a giant hard block of ice. If we get that then hopefully the rocks, slag and loose gravel that cover much of the trail will be completely buried, and the skiing will be immaculate. And hopefully Lappe gets more snow for the first Ontario Cup (and my first race) of the season.

Laws

I have two points, both of which of are laws of life (and both happen to relate to food).

Evan's First Law: The last person out of a group of people to order at a fast food restaurant will be served in what feels like the most time.

Evan's Second Law: Maple syrup makes all food better, and can make the eating of non-food things that much easier.

If you can find someway of disputing these laws, let me know. First race in just six days, hoping it goes well.

SNOW!!!!

I've skied every day for the past eight days, including some really shitty skiing on about 2mm of snow on Wednesday of this week. It was the first time in my life I was able to claim the first ski of the season of the team I'm training with. And I celebrated the last night without skiing by attending a midnight screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Loads of fun, and I got to wear a dress for the first time in my life, which was interesting. The lack of pockets and any upper body material was bothersome, and rather cold in the theatre. But, there is snow, in the form of a short (about 400m) hamster loop around a pair of soccer fields. Hopefully we will get on the actual trails soon! And I have exams coming up soon, but that doesn't bother me too too much. 13 days till my first race of the season, a 15km individual start classic race at Lappe in Thunder Bay on the 19th, followed by a 10km free mass start on the Sunday. But I have to get through exams first.

A proposal

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. A long while. I know no one ever reads this, but that doesn't matter.

I turned 18 recently, and am thus able to vote, gamble, buy pornography, take possession of a trust account my grandmother started for me, among other things. I can't buy alcohol in Ontario (i can in Quebec and Alberta though), or cigarettes, or go to a casino. It doesn't really bother me, as I can't smoke, don't have any interest in gambling and rarely drink, it's much more the principle that upon hitting a certain age, you SUDDENLY have rights you didn't have before. Which makes little sense to me. So I have a new idea, which has garnered a lot of interest amongst people I have mentioned it to. Raise the age at which you can access these vices to something higher, like 21, even 23 or 25. Then add an exemption for anybody who has graduated high school. Upon achieving a high school diploma, or equivalency, one can vote, gamble, smoke, drink, etc. This provides an extra motivation to complete high school, and bases these rights on achievements, as opposed to something as random as age. Just a thought.

I've also finally found a place to live off campus. Residence is just too noisy, and I don't like living with a roommate, especially a prudish one. I like my privacy, and don't like having to go to the bathroom every time I want to get dressed. Besides, it just feels so much more mature.

Why

I had a critical speed test today. If you don't know what that is, it is a 3000 metre time trial, followed by a 1000 metre time trial, with a short period for recovery in between. It hurts, a lot, and we did it on a 200 metre track, in the rain. 15 times around, I ended up having to ask Dean how many I had left with 5 laps to go, as counting to 15 is enough of a challenge when I'm not in oxygen debt. That, and it was raining. Hard. And I got pretty cold, so I run harder to keep warm, and that ends up not doing a whole lot, as it just makes the wind around the first corner even worse. By the time I was done the 1000 metre, I don't think I had a whole lot of blood flowing in my legs. I felt a bit like I was riding a bike really fast, but couldn't shift into a bigger gear to go faster, I was stuck where I was. Where I was was pretty fast, so if I can get those top gears, I should be quite quick. And I'm home for thanksgiving soon, which should be fun, see friends I haven't seen in what seems like ages. It's all very well and good being away at school, but it is nice to go home once and a while, if only for a few days.

And now for the time where I explain why the title is "why". I've talked before about what exactly motivates me, but truth is I don't really know. It certainly hasn't been easy, living so far away from the people you grew up with, starting over afresh, living in residence. I'm going to see if I can be transferred to a quieter section of the residence, as living in a regular section just plain sucks. They say residence is an important experience, but for me it's been entirely unnecessary. Being thrown in with people you don't know isn't that great, especially when some of them drink a lot, and are noisy drunks. And when they listen to shitty music at far to loud a volume. I realize that everyone has a unique taste in music, but please, take the courtesy of not sharing it with the entire floor. I've got a large plastic container of earplugs on my desk, and they've been a life saver for me. Skiing means waking up in the morning when you don't want to, going out in the rain to train, eating huge amounts of food, and has taken me so far away from home and everything that meant to me. And I don't know why I do it, only that I don't know what I would do without it. If I wasn't a skier I would have something much closer to a normal life, but then I wouldn't be the person I am today. Regardless of whether I like it or not, skiing is a huge part of my identity.

I was told yesterday that the brain of someone in love looks like the brain of someone on cocaine. I wonder what the brain of an athlete looks like, while under the agony and ecstasy that is racing. There probably isn't much there, all the blood and oxygen is elsewhere, the brain cells popping out of existence, the pain receptors screaming. It's like being drunk, except that it's fun and good for your heart and liver. In fact, it's better then being drunk. Everyone gets drunk, but how many people have experienced the amazing high that is racing, that is oxygen debt? Not that many. And that may be why I do it. Because it's the coolest thing in the world.

My ****'s ****** Up

This is why Warren Zevon is the best lyricist of all time.

Everyone knows who the Rolling Stones are right?? Well, look at this. I just think it's quite fascinating.

Also, I don't like flat 5 k races. Espescially when it's at the end of an easy week and you had trouble sleeping the night before and didn't get anywhere near enough, and didn't really focus on it.

Just sayin.

First Week as a Semi-Permanent Sudbury Resident

I'd been dreading the last week since April, not because it involved moving into residence, or leaving home, or going to a school where none of my friends from back home were, but because it was the largest training week of the year. And if you have never tried to balance all the madness that is Frosh Week, with a massive training load, and getting enough sleep and food to make everything worthwhile, I dare you to try it. I just dare you. I did it, cramming almost everything into three utterly brutal days. I never want to have to do that again.
In bad news, I also am down to just two working rollerskis, one skate, one classic. Hopefully a new wheel for my classic skis is on its way, but I now need to find at least one, preferably two skate wheels.
I capped this ridiculous week off with a 5k running race, where I smashed by previous best 5k time by about 4 minutes, crossing the line in 18:50. Seeing as how my last 5k was when I was 13 or so, and raced with a sweat band, soccer shorts and a red bike jersey, it has been a long time coming. The start was interesting, as I completely misjudged the character of the start. Most running and ski races tend to start off with a bang, with the entire field trying to get as close to the front as they can for the all important first corner. This wasn't the case today, and I ended up sprinting around a lot of people, catching up to all the fast, dedicated cross country and track runners, and then passing most of them and finding myself in third. By about 800 metres in, however, I was absorbed and spat out the back of this group, to where I belonged. I still came 12th, 3rd in my category, the fastest LU skier, and won a bike pump and a Frisbee in the draw prizes, so I was pretty happy. However, whoever finished behind me had one hell of a kick, closing about 30 metres on me in the last 80 of the race, which was insane, especially since I was putting up one hell of a fight to hold on. I did, but barely. But, I've learned my lessons over the years, attack early, and make sure that even if they have an insane kick like this guy, make sure the distance is to great so they can't close it. I moved up about 3-4 spots in the last kilometre, which I was really proud of.

Now to decide if I go out for pizza with people from my floor.

E

Summer's End

With only a few days left until I go away to university, I sat down to reflect back not on this summer, but all the summer's I've had before it. This is the first time in my life that I can remember where I did not have some crazy trip or adventure in the middle of nowhere. Last summer I did the Kanaaupscow River, in northern Quebec, before that it was the Kesagami, and in the years before it I did the Coulonge/Noire crossover, sea kayaked on the north shore of Quebec, paddled the Wind and Peel rivers in Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories, as well as the Clearwater, the White, the French, the lower Dumoine, the Spanish, Quetico. I've watched mother bears with 3 cubs wander along the river, seen a wolf cub lost and lonely on a beach, huddled in a ditch under a tarp trying to hide from a thunderstorm, seen the northern lights on a summer's night, watched the sun rise over a mountain, and visited every province and territory in Canada, even Nunavut (barely). But that's all done now. And I haven't left it behind completely, I still miss it, I miss waking up at dawn in a smelly wet tent, with rain pouring down outside and a 12 hour day on the water ahead. I miss portaging, and wet feet that never truly dry out, and cold days where every scrap of clothing you have isn't enough to keep warm. But I've made my decision, and I am pleased with it. If I want to go as far as I can in skiing, I'd have to train year round, and taking July and August off to travel just doesn't help that. But one day, I'll return. I'll return to the world of adventuring, and visit a few more places that most people haven't even heard of. I don't know what I'll do, but whatever it is, it will be awesome.

INTERCOURSE THE PENGUIN!

The above title doesn't have anything to do with the post, it is just a reflection of my love of Monty Python TV skits, in this case "Exploding Penguin on the Telly". Youtube it.

But, in any case, after a rest week, we launch into training, in a big way. 5 hours yesterday, 2 this morning and I think I might through in a couple more this afternoon, just to make things interesting. But yesterday was, as far as I remember, my single biggest day of continuous, organised training. This 5 hour day, more then any other workout I've ever done, really showed me the benefits of training with someone, in this case Pat Monette. When you need to go easy, you feel a lot more comfortable at a very low pace when you're training with someone, as, for whatever reason, it looks like this is part of some crazy high tech training system, and that your low speed is important. When it comes time to go hard, you go just that much harder. No matter how fast you can run on your own, you can run faster when there is someone chasing you. And if you're lifting weights alone, you'd never put on the extra 10 pounds for the last set, but when there is someone watching, you find you can suddenly do it.

And since we have hot and humid weather moving in after a mostly cooler and wet summer, hydration suddenly becomes an issue. In the heat it becomes vital to drink lots before going out, drink as much as you can during the workout, and drink lots later. If you lose any significant amount of weight due to sweat loss, you're in a lot of trouble. You can't focus, which not only decreases the quality of the workout, can be downright dangerous. Dehydration can cause your senses to deaden, so that car coming up from behind is awfully silent. But the trouble becomes carrying water on a long workout. Hydration systems in a backpack hold a fair amount of water, but they tend to get very hot and uncomfortable, and could also affect your ability to move your arms. I can carry up to about 2.5L of fluid with me when I ski, using a bike jersey to hold 3 bottles, plus a drink belt, but that is also uncomfortable, the bottles often fall out, and to top it all off, you look even more crazy then usual when rollerskiing. So I don't really have a solution, besides being smart about it. If worse comes to worse, just swing by someones house and ask for them to fill up your bottle for you. Just don't go inside, or their front hall will stink for weeks, and always show kindness to strangers.

I also had my first really hard workout in months this morning. I haven't had my heartrate over 185 really at all this year, but then all of a sudden I get it up to 196! Gotta love short, hard workouts.

I also feel really fit and motivated for this season. I'm getting better at sprinting, I'm so much stronger then I was last year, and just broke through that magical 60 limit on box jumps. But above all, I'm climbing so quickly. Every workout I do, regardless of how hard it is, I can just fly up the hills. It's always been my strength, but this year, I think that everything else is going to be a strength too. This year, I'll be able to keep up on the double pole sections, stay calm on the flats, and then fly up the hills. I'm so motivated. I'm also really looking forward to school, not only because I'll be living away from home and going to school and all that, but because I'll be able to ski every day. No more running through the neighborhood back in Mississauga when almost everyone else can ski. I can ski too. Snow comes in about 3 months. Can't wait.

EPIC RAIN!!!

There is something incredibly special about the rain. I know I've made mention of this before, but I will again. Today, rollerskiing, we met thunderstorms, which brought along heaps of rain. We had almost no visibility, but oddly enough, no wind. But in honour of all the rainstorms I've trained in, here's The Cult.

A Spanish company released announced a doll recently called the Bebé Glotón, or Baby Glutton. The interesting thing about this doll is what it does. It cries when it's hungry, and wants to be breastfeed. That's right, a doll aimed at little girls wants to suckle. If you want to know more, just Google it. But seeing this made me think, after my initial shock and horror, when should kids start to think about being parents? Some pundits said that the baby teaches young girls that their sole purpose in life is to become mothers, while the makers of the doll claim the support of a national organization promoting breastfeeding. So the debate continues, creepy or educational? Personally, I think it's creepy. I've always found dolls creepy, and this particular one seems more like the thing they hand out in parenting classes in high schools. What self respecting parent would buy something like this for their daughter? Why not buy something plastic and inflatable from an adults only store and give that to the kids while you're at it? Yes, kids have always pretended to be grown up, but there are limits. But then, maybe this is just the next logical step in the hypersexualization of children. We can already dress up little girls in fishnets and miniskirts, why shouldn't we make parenthood as real as possible.

I think this also highlights the major differences between the upbringing of boys and the upbringing of girls. Boys never seem to get told they are going to reproduce, while a disturbingly large number of parents tell their daughters that their most important goal in life should be to settle down and raise a family. Look at organizations like Quiverfull, which hates all forms of birth control and promotes reproduction on as large a scale as possible. And then I have to ask, is our urge to reproduce a natural instinct, or is it taught? As increasing numbers of couples decide to forgo children entirely, and more and more people seem uninterested in having kids, I have to wonder if we actually want kids. Yes, human beings are sexual, but being sexual and wanting to reproduce seem to be increasingly different things. Take a look at Helen Memel, the protagonist of Charlotte Roche's debut novel Wetlands, who is incredibly sexual but has herself serialized once she turns 18. Plus, we have an incredibly over populated planet, we are running out of food, out of space, out of air. Nature kicks in and takes away our natural urge to nurture. So maybe it's taught. Or maybe I'm insane. Either way, it's interesting.

So do we naturally want to have kids? I have no idea. But is a doll that teaches little girls to breastfeed creepy? If it isn't, I don't know what is. Here's hoping it's some elabourate prank.

Solo

Since I've been living alone for most of the summer, I've learned a number of interesting things about life, mainly cooking. I've never had to cook for myself day in day out for any extended period of time. My only experiences with any large amount of cooking have been my old Wanapitei trips, and those were quite different from my current situation. Firstly, a group of 9-14 eats a lot more then just one person, even if that person is me. Hungry trippers will devour massive amounts of food and still want more, so accordingly we had a lot of food. A couple kilograms of pasta per meal, for example. But that cooking was done on a firebox, with only what we had. If we ran out of food, we couldn't saunter over to the local grocery store and stock up. But with Wanapitei, everything was set out beforehand, so all we had to do was make it. But since one person really doesn't eat that much, up here it's a lot harder to tell how much food to make. The meal I'm eating as I write this has enough pasta for two people and vegetables for one and a half. As a result I won't have to make a lunch tomorrow, but it really didn't look like a lot of food when I made it. The meal is spaghetti with canned sauce, two cut up small chicken breasts and an assorted beans/carrot frozen veggie mix. The pot I made the pasta in was small, and there was a lot of room left, I just dumped the remaining carrots and beans into a dish, and the chicken breast looked so small and lonely in the frying pan, so I gave it a friend. I'm compassionate like that, but it means I have the honking plate of pasta in front of me and no real motivation to eat it. And it tastes fantastic, that's the worst part. I've put Parmesan cheese and pepper and hot sauce on it, and everything just looks so tasty, but I can't eat it. That may be because all I did to today was ride to work and back, and that doesn't use a lot of energy. If I had some big distance thing today I'd have eaten this plate of pasta with gusto, then finished off the ice cream in the freezer, then made myself a smoothie to repent for the ice cream. But I guess that's what happens on easy weeks. I eat the way non-racers do.

And so I'll leave you with a quote from a fantastic book by Tim Krabbe, a book called The Rider, a kilometre by kilometre account of an amateur bike race, which covers not only the race, but the history of the rider and of the sport of cycling in general. Krabbe is a cycling and chess enthusiast who based the book on his own experiences. If you're a competitive athlete, you will appreciate this book, and if you know a competitive athlete, and everyone does, The Rider will help you understand why they do it. So, without further ado, the second line of the The Rider:

"Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me."

Racing!

Today I had my first proper race since nationals in March. Almost 5 months without racing is a long time for me, so it was nice to get into this. Nick and I did Crank'd, an 8.5 kilometre trail, which was fairly easy, on a mountain bike. However, Nick and I did the race on cyclocross bikes, and since the course was mostly flowing single track, this was interesting, especially for me, as I have almost no bike handling skills, especially on narrow single track. We had pretty bad starting spots behind a lot of slower people, as we showed up fairly late to the start. As a result, I ended up getting forced off to the side trying to pass people, and had to dismount, and had to chase my way back up. I was as high as 5th or 6th at one point, but ended up losing a lot of time in the technical sections, which was annoying as when we got onto the double track or easier single track, or whenever we climbed, I was far stronger then anyone else around. However, i got more confident as the race moved on and started taking more risks, and got a lot faster. I was feeling really good, but that came to a halt as I hit a tree. As I entered the final section of single track my drop bars hit a small tree, flinging the bike around and I flew off down the trail, sans bike, only to come to an abrupt stop when i hit the ground. I got up, felt my shoulder, which was sore but otherwise undamaged, and ran back up to get my bike. I lost a place in that crash, and rode the final single track section rather gingerly. I won a sprint for 9th, holding off someone coming up from behind, and that is one of the advantages of a cross bike, in that it is so much faster when it's open, as you have bigger gears and drop bars and a stiffer bike is easier to sprint on, since there is no suspension. So I finished ninth, not bad for my first mountain bike race. If only I knew what I was doing, I could have done so well.

The Skinny/Dogs

In 2004, 23.1% of Canadians were obese, and another 36.1% were overweight. That number has surely gone up since then. Which raises the question, WHERE THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE? If nearly 1/4 people in Canada are obese, why doesn't this match up with the people I know? Do fat people just hide out in the basement, or, in a more sinister move, what exactly does being overweight mean? Having a BMI of 25 or more makes you obese, according to Health Canada. I've got a BMI of 21.0, which is considered healthy, but look at this warning from HC:
"Although the BMI is useful for healthy adults (ages 20 to 65 years), it does not apply to infants, children, adolescents, pregnant or breastfeeding women, endurance athletes, highly muscular people and adults over 65 years of age." So people who are Mesomorphs could be considered obese, even though they are just muscular. Mesomorphs easily gain weight, be it muscle or fat. The majority of Mr. Universe winners are mesomorphs, and few people would say that a body builder is obese. A freak of nature, yes, but fat, no way. Body types are in fact very fascinating, and they fall into three basic categories. Ectomorphs, like myself have low body fat percentages, but also have a great deal of difficulty in gaining muscle, espescially superficial muscles. Ectomorphs, interestingly enough, are also more succeptiable to the weather, wearing less when it's hot and more when it's cold. Lower body fat and a greater surface area relative to weight make ectomorphs react more to the cold. Mesomorphs, as mentioned above, gain weight easily and also tan easily, unlike ectomorphs, who typically just burn, espescially if they're of nothern European descent. Lastly, there is the endomorph who typically has underdevelopped muscles and gains body fat easily. It is interesting to note that until about 150 years ago, when industrialized farming made food widely available in the western world, having endomorphic traits was desirable, as you could survive a long period of famine, while ectomorphs couldn't keep going. Weird eh?

Also, dogs are annoying. When you're out rollerskiing, and a large dog runs at you, it doesn't matter if it just wants to play, if you get hit by 80 kilograms of muscle, you go down hard, and you could break a bone, or three. So don't be offended if I scream at your uncontrolled dog. It's nothing personal, I just like my collarbone in one piece, thank you.

Post for Geoffrey/Gear Changing

For the past few weeks, I've been living up in Barrie, sometimes working, but mostly training, eating and sleeping. That and spending way to much time on the internet. But tomorrow night my parents come home from the North West Territories, and I have to give the car back. I'm still up here for three more weeks, two where I work, one at a training camp. And I may be leading a group of mountain bikers next week, depending on what happens (ie, if I actually get a bike). But it's interesting to see how much having a car changes the way you work. Since I'm beyond easy biking distance of any grocery stores, I'll need all my food for the week on the weekends, when my parents are up with the car. There is a corner store, but it has limited selection and I really don't want to have to live off what they sell. I don't have a whole lot to say, so I'll leave you with this picture of Lex Luthor:

Film

I shot some footage today skiing with Nick and Pat, they did intensity, I didn't, so I used the opportunity to do a bit of filming. I'm a terrible cameraman, but it is nice to see how we actually ski. Check it out:

Start of the first interval. It was raining rather heavily, but that didn't dampen our spirits.


I apologize for my inane singing at one point in this, but it's lonely work being the cameraman.



Nick and Pat skiing, towards the end of the first interval.



Yeah, so that's a bit of skiing video.

Weather

Training in bad weather is one of the most wonderful and unique experiences you can ever have. It sucks in many ways, but considering that when the weather gets bad, all the sane people stay indoors unless they really have to, it is very special to look out the window, see the rain pouring down, and go outside, and go for a run, or a ski, or a ride, or anything at all. Workouts in the rain automatically become more epic, the pace gets faster, as you work just a little bit harder to try and keep warm, or because you are so excited by the terrible conditions. I remember a quote I heard somewhere about cyclocross, which went something along the lines of "We don't ride in spite of the mud and the rain and the cold, we ride BECAUSE of the the mud and the rain and the cold".
That isn't to say that skiers are masochists, (although masochistic tendencies manifest in anyone who is willing to train and compete in sports year round), and if it rained every day most people would be rather put out, but there is something nice about training in the rain. It keeps you cool, reducing the amount you sweat, and washes the sweat and grime off your face. Rain can leave you coated in mud, leaves hair matted to your forehead, makes sight impossible, makes once banal descents scary and can even induce hypothermia in extreme cases. And that is what makes it so cool. Because being out in the rain is hard, it's unpleasant, and when it comes down to it, the best part of a wet workout is finishing, and being able to take a nice hot shower and get into some clean dry clothes, eat something warm and then relax. But few people get to experience that feeling. Because if it was easy, everyone would do it. And if skiing was easy, I'd probably try to find another sport.

Optimism

Optimism is such an important thing in everything I've ever done, and I've struggled a lot to shrug off my natural pessimism. I've had a lot of races where I finished far below my potential because I simply didn't believe I could do well, or found myself higher up then expected, and simply failed to believe I was actually supposed to be there, and therefor failed to capitalize on making that lead group.
Negative prophecies always come true. If you think "I'm going to bonk halfway through this" then you will. If you think "I'm going to win by 20 minutes", you won't, but at least it's better then thinking failure. The trick is to be realistically optimistic. Training is not just about trying not only to make yourself faster and stronger through actually doing physical activity, but through training your brain, making yourself believe that the training is working. That is one of the great things about comparing how fast you were previously to now. Because unless you think your training is working, it won't. You can train all you want, but if you don't think, don't say "I'm getting faster, I'm getting stronger, I'll be better this season then I was before", you won't be.

Drivers

I had an awesome ski today. Three hours, nice weather, as opposed to the thunderstorm that is currently brewing overhead. Got some great advice from Mark and Adam, who was down from Thunder Bay, as Nick and I took full advantage of having 2 coaches, as opposed to just one. But this post is not about great workouts, as we have lots of those, but about bad drivers. At the end of the workout, after the coaches had left to go do other things, Nick and I skied around for another hour, and got honked at by a car. This isn't unusual, as the typical driver response to seeing anything strange is to honk and see what happens. What is unusual, and annoying, about this, is that the car that so rudely alerted us had no reason to do so. We were on the far right side of the road, which was very wide, there was no traffic, there was no reason for this driver to be so rude, then give us an angry look and bizarre gesticulations as she passed. But drivers like this are all over the place. They don't know what rollerskiing is, and automatically assume that it's a dangerous activity done by hooligans who run away from home, live under a bridge and smoke crack. It is dangerous, but only to the skiers. A rollerskier is the lowest of the low on the road; no brakes, little balance, easily damaged. In a collision between a small dog and a skier, bet on the dog. So these drivers have no reason to hate us, unless of course we get some blood on the hood when you run us over, while drinking your large double double and chatting on your cell phone. So, come on drivers, show a little courtesy for those who aren't driving. Especially those in ugly SUVs, as the people who buy these things (think orange, copper, white paint) don't seem to understand that other people exist besides them. They tend to be middle aged, full of themselves, who drive everywhere and complain about gas prices. You know who you are. So look around you for once, there are people out there who actually do care about their health.

Also, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76vvqEqOIbE. It's awesome. I wish I could ski that well.

"Sweet abs aren't the goal, but it sure is an added bonus"

Ode To The Magic Bullet

I'm a big eater. I eat probably about 6-10 times a day, depending on how much I did that day. I'm even eating as I write this post. I mostly eat grains, fish, chicken, milk, and fruit. Fruit is the most recent addition to my diet. I've always liked fruit and vegetables, but they always seem to require more work then anything else, as I still can't eat an apple the way most people can. I have to cut it up and eat it piece, by piece. I never really figured out how to cut up fruit either, so unless someone is around to do it for me, I simply go without. Or rather, went without. Recently, I came home from somewhere to discover that my parents bought a Magic Bullet. Suddenly, new horizons in healthy eating opened up to me. I can get 2-3 servings into some smoothies, and do a couple of those a day, plus some fruit source bars, I can get 12 servings of fruit a day, none in conventional forms. Ain't the future grand? But anyways, back to the bullet. There is a lot of fruit in my house right now, bananas and kiwis on the counter, a couple apples in the crisper, and three massive bags of fruit in the freezer, one of strawberries, one of raspberries, one assorted, mainly peaches and honeydew melon. Only the kiwis will be eaten in solid form, and that is only because I don't know any ways to make kiwis blend well with other fruits, and I'm too lazy to find out how.

Nike Can Suck It

This is my rant. If you like my rants, read it, if you don't, then don't read it. This may offend.

I staged an epic walk-out in Economics, because people were incredibly ignorant and stupid. They said that companies like Nike are good for third world countries, as they provide jobs and allow people to eat. However, these countries, which are typically, or at least were, agrarian based, are no longer able to grow food due to the ravages of pesticides, which has created drought resistant bugs and the plants and chemicals can no longer fight back.

But Nike rant time.

Nike pays workers pennies to create clothes, shoes, etc. in squalid conditions in third world countries. These products are then sold to western markets at massive profit margins. Nike laughs all the way to the bank. They have created an image that Nike is the way to go, from the football player in some movie drawing a swoosh on his Adidas shoes to fit in, to Michael Jordan, to Swoosh tattoos. Nike has inundated our culture, and is slowly taking it over. And there stuff is FUCKING UGLY. They lack the flashy "I don't give a fuck about the fact that it is painfully bright to look at" style of Brooks, the conservative, muted, Teutonic sensibility of Adidas, the Italian flair of Fila. There stuff is ugly and American, reminiscent of teachers in bad suits droning on and on and on, of rednecks with shotguns taking potshots at immigrants because they are different, of white supremacy and Neo-Nazism. Nike is ugly and white and suburban and dull.

And it sucks. Nike products are some of the worse designed and manufactured products available on the sportswear market. They do better then North49, but North49 makes no bones about what it is. They provide basic, entry level outdoor gear, at a reasonable price. If you're serious about it, you can drop 200 dollars on river shoes. But North49 has a pair for 60 and if you aren't that into it, you can save a lot of money, with the knowledge they won't last long.

Nike, on the other hand, has cut costs so much it can't hire talented labour. There is a talented labour pool in Asia, high class men's tailors setting up in Savile Row in London are increasingly Asian. But Nike chooses to ignore the talent and focus on cheap labour. Workers are increasingly women, and as part of the contract, Nike takes control of your reproductive system. Maternity leave is not covered, and workers are typically fired just before giving birth, then rehired afterward. Forced abortions are often common. Women have also dropped dead from Toxic Shock Syndrome due to a lack of bathroom breaks while working. These squalid conditions, while being a meat grinder for the local community, also produce really shitty products. Footwear manufacturer, at least outside expensive high heels and dress shoes, is almost non-existent outside Asia, but there are factories that pay the workers fairly, use good equipment and produce high quality products. But Nike, only concerned about the bottom line and secure in its position well above the others, does not care. It hires the cheapest sub-contractors to produce its goods, or rather, considering the quality, "bads".

But it is possible to manufacture in western countries and turn a profit, and become successful. Take, for example, Craft. Craft is Swedish, runs two subsidiaries, Craft Scandinavia and Craft USA. They make clothing for running, cycling, triathlons and skiing, as well as Karhu shoes, a legendary Finnish running company which pioneered modern running shoes, decades before Nike and Adidas. Craft Base Layers are the best in the world, hands down. Want proof? Go to any pro bike race or Nordic ski race. Those sponsored by Craft (Team Saxobank in Cycling, Sweden and Canada in skiing) use Craft base layers. So do those who are sponsored by other companies, and have to buy it, like the rest of us. Craft is used by almost every skier in Canada. It costs between 40 and 100 dollars, depending on the type of product. A lot of it is made in Canada, with other operations in Poland. And they are hugely successful, carried on the weight of their products performance, as well as the proof that a company can be socially responsible, and still make a profit and sell clothing for low prices.

Coldwater has no Hot Water

But any day up here involves a couple hours of training, then a whole lot of nothing. I watch a lot of bad movies, find out things I shouldn't know, listen to podcasts of the Ongoing History of New Music, listen to music that I didn't know I had, or even existed (try an industrial-gothic-metal cover of Black Betty, it's one of the strangest things ever), eat more food, etc etc etc. I spent 2 hours today trying to find a good profile picture but didn't find anything I liked. I'd read, but when I'm tired from training my attention span is about 10 minutes, so I have to read, take a break, read, break, read, break, etc. It gets tiresome. So I make this long winded thread posts. Well, this will be my life for next year, except that I will occasionally go to class, and may come down to visit you peeps some time.

In other news, my room has (finally) its first picture/painting/poster/whatever. One of my teammates has a giant framed print of Kramer, from Seinfeld, in his room.

Man, I should make a blog. It would be so strange. So I made a blog. How's that!!

Oh, and other weird accomplishment for today. I finally found Ivan Babikov's website.