Monday, January 26, 2009

Random Stuff

Just some random stuff to keep both of you who regularly read entertained.

January has been an amazing training month so far. If I hit all my workouts this week I should be somewhere around 370-400 miles on the bike, 100 + miles running, and around 30,000 yards in the pool (even though I swim in a meter pool now). For comparison purposes, my peak monthly totals for last year were: 22,000 yds (three months), 428 miles on the bike (March), and 103 miles running (September). This leads me to believe that I haven't been training hard enough in the past. Hopefully I can stay healthy and keep this pace up all year.

In other news....did you know that you can lose weight without dieting or exercise? It's true! I heard it on the radio and read it on the interwebs. WAKE UP AMERICA!!! Write this down...you will NEVER, EVER acheive proper health and lasting weight loss without some form of exercise. There is no magic potion, pill, or wand that is going to magically make you svelte and healthy. All of these fad diets are not going to work, you may lose weight initially, but eventually you will gain the weight back and in most cases more. Exercise people, get moving!! 30 minutes, 3 times a week, make time!!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Miracle on the Hudson


This guy is my new hero! Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and his crew pulled off an amazing emergency landing in the Hudson River. For the "lay person" it was an amazing feat, but for those of us in the aviation industry it is even more impressive. As an Air Traffic Controller and a pilot the danger of a bird strike is something that I am very familiar with. Without going completely "nerd" on you there are several different times when this entire thing could have gone bad, but due to the quick thinking and experience of the crew it did not. First on climb out, the aircraft is in a nose high attitude and at or near full power in order to get to cruise altitude as fast at possible (of course this is all dependent on traffic and departure procedure out of La Guardia) losing one engine during this phase of flight would be bad enough, but losing both is potentially catastrophic. Published reports state that the bird strike occured at 3000 ft, which sounds high up but it really isn't. 3000 ft would give you a very limited glide radius in a Cessna 172, much less an Airbus 320 full of passengers and fuel. To quote one of my professors from college those things glide "like a streamlined brick". The fact that the crew was able to nose the aircraft over and trade some altitude for airspeed and avoid stalling the wings is a testament to many, many hours of training and flight time. Without any power and at a very low altitude the crew basically had one chance to land the plane safely, had they had any indecision at all or made the wrong choice by going back to La Guardia or trying for Teterboro the outcome would have certainly been much worse. Landing an aircraft on water is not an easy feat in and of itself, doing it with no power and limited flight controls makes it almost impossible. The margin for error is practically nil, pitch the nose up too soon and you risk a belly flop and the aircraft breaking apart in the water, pitch the nose up too late and you risk the nose of the aircraft going in first and the rest of the plane following it to the bottom of the river. What the crew did was bleed off every knot of airspeed right over the water and then pitched the nose up at the perfect time so the aircraft settled in and floated on top of the water.




Congratulations Capt. Sully and crew, you are truely heroes in every sense of the word.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Not Much To Report....

The last week hasn't been terribly exciting, nor has it yielded anything that I would consider remotely interesting to anyone else.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

From The Mouths of Babes......

So I am tucking in the Bean (she's 5) and we are having a conversation about how bummed she is her BFF is turning 6 soon and she will be the only one who is still 5 (her birthday is in June). I told her that it isn't such a bad thing being the youngest one, and asked her how old she thought Daddy is....she said "Well, you are taller than Mommy so I think you are 58" (I am really 37). So then I asked her "How old do you think Mommy is then?", she thinks for a minute and then replies "Well Mommy is shorter than you are so she has to be about 39." (she is actually 31 but that was relatively close). Curious as to what she would say I asked her how old she thought Mimi and Pops (wife's parents) and Beba (my mom) are...she didn't even think about it and said "Oh Daddy, they are just OLD!". Needless to say I won't be calling my Mom or MIL to tell them about that one.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Training in the New Year

Training has been really good so far this (short) year. I am able to do things now that I did in season last year which mean that either a) I am still improving or b) I didn't take enough time off after Clearwater and my body didn't de-train enough. I would like to think that it is option A!

I am sure those of you who go to the gym on a regular basis have noticed an increase in traffic since the first of the year (master of the understatement aren't I?). I have to tell you I have really mixed feelings about this. One one hand (and especially as a fitness professional) I hope that some of these people have made a positive change in their life and will continue to workout and become more healthy and happy people. Sadly though this isn't the case for the majority and this is where my snarkier side comes out. It took me 20 minutes to check in the kids the other night (normally takes 2 at most) and then by the time I made it out to the pool, every lane was full of people doing their best pool floaty impression. Fortunately one guy took pity on me and got out so I was able to get some of a workout in, but not the entire thing. The good thing is it will be February soon and most of these folks will be back eating Cheetoes and watching TV instead of floating around in the pool aimlessly.

Happy workouts!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Brain Dump!

Wow I have been a total slacker about updating my blog! (not that anyone noticed I am sure). To recap what has been going on the past few days:
  • Christmas was incredible around here! We had a nice suprise when some out of town family showed up after driving all night on Christmas Eve. I was the only one out of our entire family who knew they were coming so my wife and in-laws reaction was PRICELESS!
  • The Saturday after Christmas provided an EPIC ride in the Gaps. Rain, cold, and challenging terrain made for a sufferfest like no other.
  • I set a new PR at the 5k distance today (19:35) and won my Age Group at our church 5k.

More to follow! Happy New Year!