Helloooooooooo anyone listening
I’m still here and for the three people who read the last communique the song alluded to was “San Franciscan nights by Eric Burdon and the animals”. Eric Bourdon had many great songs and one which I have been listening to a bit of late is, “River deep, mountain high” a great dancing song which unfortunately wasn’t played at the EOSP, otherwise I would have been dancing, probably solo!
If you had been at the EOSP (which Les was) you would have heard a great speech at the start of proceedings. Now some of the sentiments expressed by that wonderful orator are echoed in a book I have been reading lately, so I’m going to write a quote from “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Where Atticus Finch is speaking to his son Jem.
“……..I wanted you to see what real courage is…….It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway, and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”
I guess courage and bravery come in many different forms and Les will understand this cause he was at the EOSP and heard that speech, he wasn’t at Lorne though, cause if he had been, he’d have seen true courage in the people that braved the rather frigid waters but still managed to keep a smile on their faces and never complained, and in fact had a blast the whole time they were there. Especially one of the coaches, just couldn’t wipe the smile off his face!
To those who didn’t go to Lorne, do it! I challenge you to find someone who went and didn’t absolutely love it!!!
So here’s another song to guess, this one’s easy!
“Cant seem to face up to the facts, I’m tense and nervous and I cant relax,
I can’t sleep cause my beds on fire, don’t touch me I’m a real live wire”.
I know it aptly describes your scrivener, except at Lorne, he was pretty calm and relaxed there!
So in the last episode of GF I used the words, “Hubris” and “oxymoron”, and not a whisper. Maybe my prize was not sufficient motivation.
What IF I said whoever wins the best answer to the next ones, gets to dance with me at the next social function. (Unless its Greg – cause that’s just weird) (And it won’t be him anyway cause he is still yet to come up with a decent answer to any of my little puzzles)
Once again while I’m interested in factual responses, I’ll probably be more drawn to the more imaginative and creative ones.
Seeing that the judging panel for this contest consists of one person, ie Me, I am feeling pretty safe right now, but I am a very righteous person and if I feel I have been outwitted I will honour the bet! (btw I very rarely get outwitted ) (Ha theres a challenge for you lot)
So here we go, and we are on a really basic level here to start with:
- Why is it that no matter how careful we are, and we can be at the level of surgical precision here, when we eat something in bed (anything) we will end up with crumbs in the bed. I mean it can be something that doesn’t even have crumbs as part of its make up? It’s usually a delayed response too, you lie down get comfy, think everything’s ok, then voila they appear. And not just one, it requires a complete bed strip to find the culprits and eliminate them.
- 2a) How do we get a full moon
Surely if the sun is shining full face directly on the moon and we are looking at the moon from the surface of the earth then the earth should be in the way!
Therefore:
2b) Do we ever really see a full moon
OK smarty pants, and having said that let’s raise another issue I forgot to mention last time in our narrative about swimming.
“Cheating Pants”
You all know what I’m talking about, they have other fancy names, but essentially they improve your flotation and lift you up (Tautology example peeps) and make you more efficient.
Now don’t give me this “I’m a sinker ” kind of stuff. The human body is neutrally buoyant-PERIOD!!!
If you’ve ever scuba dived you’ll understand this!
When you dive, wet suits float, you compensate for this by wearing a weight belt. As you descend the wet suit gets compressed thereby reducing its buoyancy effect, so you sink, but to to compensate for this you put air into your buoyancy vest, thereby maintaining neutral buoyancy. When you ascend the reverse happens, good divers control this to the point where they are neutrally buoyant at all times.
So let’s define neutral buoyancy! You breathe in you float, you breathe out you sink!
Difficult concept to grasp I know, bit like the the, “fast, Medium and Slow” lanes at the pool!
Oh well I’m sure I’ve poked some bears again but look oh I give up……….
give me the burnt stick again!
So heres a swimming tip for you, yes I’m actually going to make some relevant point here. Its pretty secret and I want you to imagine me looking to the left, then to the right, to see if anyones listening. here it is ……. DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH, ie make sure you breathe out, cause when you breathe out you become more horizontal, push your head and chest down. You know the funny thing here is this applies equally to all the sports we partake in.
So often I see cyclists struggling up a hill, taking short shallow and rapid breaths. FFS breathe and breathe deeply, i may even bore you by talking about dead space and snorkels but I’ve lost interest in this bit so I’m going to move on. Look I spose I should say your head goes down your feet come up, you’ll feel them break the water (your feet ) (a good thing btw) so you know your roughly horizontal! (a good thing also)
OK enough of that, we’ve talked about cycling (but only briefly mind you there’s so much more I could talk about), and we’ve touched on swimming and the laughable notion of lap lane etiquette!
Sorry I’m just having a moment here, I mean look , …..ok I’m over it, let’s keep moving!
we entered the sordid atmosphere of the sauna but got out of there real quick cause, well you know, well you would know if you’ve ventured in there. so whats left?
Aha RUNNING of course!
Greg once said to me, “ watch how many competitors will use elastic laces, but stop to put socks on”! I think you see the point here, but i think he’s being a bit harsh, he’s like that. Of course this is in the shorter events and I’m not one to talk here!
In my first IM I aimed to finish in under 12 hours. This was before I was with TA, and my T1 time was 19 ….minutes, and my T2 time was around 16 minutes. OK you can all stop laughing now and I’ll tell you i ended up finishing in a time of 11:59;06. So There!!!
I have this uncanny ability to judge times and am very good at dosing my effort. I hope you all understand that term otherwise here comes another article!!!!
So we use elastic laces and no socks when we hit T2 and therefore are rapidly fast (Tautology -Greg and for all you teachers out there) as we start the run.
Ive already mentioned the “5 people walking abreast scenario”, you know where you are running on a path wide enough for 5 people to walk abreast, and sure enough there are 5 people walking abreast. No further explanation needed here but GEEZ!!!
What about when you are coming up behind people usually walking in a way as to a take up as much of the path as possible but all of a sudden veer in a completely different direction.
For some reason my mind recalls a phenomenon in physics called Brownian motion but I cant be bothered looking it up so I’ll settle for another explanation using Flies.
Flies fascinate me. Do you know they Fly in squares, Bees don’t but I’ll get to them another day!
Flies can hover, move vertically and even fly backwards. most flies flap their wings at 200 cycles per second. A fruit fly beats its wings once every 4 milliseconds, faster than neurones can fire!!!
So do flies have muscles ? Hmmm LCWT people, explain that.
And while you’re at it, is a Fly the only creature whose name is a noun and a verb?
so if i said, “ look at that fly”, you really wouldn’t know what i was talking about, it could be an eagle, a fly or even me on a bike – well not anymore….. cause you know ……, you’d need a bike!
Anyway enough about flies, i’m not really that keen on them, not like fish or ants or bees, (which I will get to another day – so Bee tuned).
Right so we are going running eh, the most basic of sports, put on runners, shorts, a singlet and walk out the door. What could go wrong?
Well sadly , once again, lots really!
We’ve already talked about the random motion of people, let alone children who defy all the laws of physics and move in a totally unpredictable way. Then of course there are dogs, and even worse, people with dogs!
I’d like to stress here ITS NOT THE DOGS FAULT! It never is! I like dogs, and fish and ants and bees (which i will get to another day) and even have some regard for flies, but the people who “walk” dogs , well ………………
What about when there is a bike path right next to a walking path and people are running on the bike path! Now I know this probably should be in the cycling files, but it kind of applies here and anyway I think my brain froze at Lorne (Les – and we will see if you read this far) and so isn’t functioning all that well.
Ok I think i’d better stop here, theres plenty more but You know who will probably be cross with me if I go on for too long.
So for the moment I’m going to go burn some sticks, study some flies, watch some fish and learn from the ants.
The bees will come later, they are my fav!
