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.