Day 2

Here it is, Day 2 in Le Tour D'Awesome. Our trek begins in Taylor's Falls, and as we say goodbye to Minnesota and hello to Wisconsin, we see our only real climb of the day. Starting around the 2 mile mark we bottom out on our mini descent (30' of elevation!) and we start climbing. Over the next three miles we put in a ridiculous climb of 235 feet of elevation, topping out at about 1008 feet about sea level! Alpe_d'Huez*, the Tour D'Awesome is not. By the time we get to the cabin destination, we'll have pedaled about 58 miles in a day and over 100 in two days.









* The most famed climb of the Tour de France, it has 21 hairpin switchbacks that kill a riders rhythm as he attempts to climb a mere 3642 feet over 8.6 miles at an average gradient of 8.1%. Knee burner, to say the very least. Lance did it in about 37 mins in 2004. Wow.

Grand Old Party Of Family Values

Family values MY ASS!

Enviro health concerns for urban athletes

The New York Times seems to have a lot of cool articles these days on public health. Maybe all papers do that, but the other two I read a lot (WaPo and Strib) don't really come close to the Times in this type of journalism. Anyhoo, I just read this NYT article on how athletes in urban areas are more adversely affected by an area's air pollution than sedentary urbanites. Not a surprise by any means, but it is becoming confirmed by science and medicine, and is yet another sign that our careless disregard for how our actions impact our environment is causing us harm. So get this, now we can work out in a warmer city AND kills our lungs and hearts in the process! Rad!

Kenneth Rundell, the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood University in Scranton, Pa., said, “Athletes typically take in 10 to 20 times as much air,” and thus pollutants, with every breath as sedentary people do.

Here is the skinny on what is going on:

...Today most experts agree that, as Dr. Lippmann said, the “greatest overall public health impact” of air pollution comes from fine particulates, which can be seen only with an electron microscope.



They are ubiquitous. Cars, trucks, and diesel buses — the main culprits in the creation of particle pollution — spew untold millions of the microscopic pollutants into the air daily. Exercisers should take precautions against particles, experts said, by not exerting themselves near traffic, or, if they must use a path next to a highway, staying a few hundred yards away from vehicles.



Particles can sail past nasal hairs, the body’s first line of defense, and settle deep in athletes’ lungs. Some remain there, causing irritation and inflammation. Others, so tiny they can bypass various bodily defenses, migrate into the bloodstream. “Blood vessels do not like those particulates,” said David Newby, a cardiology professor at the University of Edinburgh.



Dr. Newby has seen, in action, the effects of those particles on active people. In 2005, he and his colleagues had 30 healthy volunteers ride exercise bikes inside a laboratory for 30 minutes, while breathing piped-in diesel exhaust at levels approximately those along a city highway at rush hour.



Afterward, the researchers did a “kind of stress test of the blood vessels” in the participants’ forearms, Dr. Newby said, and found that the vessels were abnormally dilated, meaning blood and oxygen could not flow easily to the muscles. At the same time, levels of tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, a naturally-occurring protein that dissolves blood clots, had fallen.

But of course, my dear Domestiques, the answer is not to stop working out just because you live in a city... the answer is that we should ALL BIKE TO WORK!

In the calculus of health concerns, “Breathing air pollution is not nearly as bad as smoking,” Dr. Lippmann said.



“The bottom line is that running and cycling are healthy and, over all, good for the heart,” Dr. Newby said. With proper care, he said, outdoor exercise does not have to be harmful — and, done en masse, could even ease pollution.



“I ride my bike back and forth to work every day,” he said. “If everyone else did that, too, we wouldn’t be having this problem at all, would we?”

Soaked

F you Slurry Beta. If you woulda gotten off your ass three years ago and actually made biking chaps a reality, I wouldn’t be in the predicament I am now. Had to go home over lunch to sell some shit we don’t want to take across the country. Wouldn’t ya know it, light rain starts as I am helping the lady, who was 15 mins late, put the dresser into her SUV. Go inside, gather my stuff, check again that there is nothing in the fridge to eat, and decide I should hit the road before the rain gets too bad. I grab the goretex shell for the torso, but risk the jeans because it is just too damn hot (88 in the rain, motherfucker) to go slip the pants shell over my jeans. But guess what? Too late, dude. I get two blocks away, still four from work, and it opens up. Torrential. Mother. Fucker. Probably just 15 mins too late, too; thanks a lot lady.



But really, I blame Beta. He talked and talked and talked about biking chaps, how they were gonna revolutionize commuting, how the tops of your jeans would never be wet again. But no. Idle chit chat. Grow a pair, dammit! Make biking chaps happen already! What the else you gonna be doin’ with that fancy law degree?



I am soaking fucking wet right now. My undies are wet, this is gross. My shaved head is dripping. I am surly as hell. And hungry. I have 4 and a half hours left at work. I SAY EFFF YOOUUUUU, man!



In Seattle, I’ll have to be better prepared.

Day 1

Here is what Day 1 of Tour de Awesome has in store.*






Note the flatness, we only ascend 417 feet in total, and descend an equal amount (406 ft). 44 Miles is a lot easier over flat terrain, and over half (more like 2/3 I reckon) is on a bike only path, meaning no worries about cars or what have you.



I've been reading in bike & outdoorsy mags that nutrition plays a huge role in endurance and total output. That shouldn't be too surprising, but there are a few good things to keep in mind.



One popular idea is that you should carboload before a big outing or sporting event. Partially true. Carboloading is good to do, but the way most people do it is wrong. Instead of eating 3 lbs of pasta the night before, you should carboload for the whole week or so leading up to your event. This allows you to do it slowly, a little bit extra per day, so you body can better digest everything. For many, old fashioned means of carboloading can cause sleeplessness and indigestion and other GI issues. And GI issues are not what you want to be worrying about when you spending 45 miles on a bike saddle.



Also, it'll be important for our group to consume lot of calories while on the bike. We'll have to load our pockets with bars and maybe even some gels. And loads of water. Dehydration and bonking (no calories left to burn) can kill a fun group ride, we don't want anyone to be miserable on the bike or feeling like they can't go on. And once those things set in, it's too late to fix them, so we'l lall have to be dilligent about eating and drinking a lot as we go. We've got a long weekend ahead of us!

)

This is gonna be awesome.


*Note: We are not sure if the Tour de Awesome will make it all the way to D-town, we may cut it off at Jame's cabin, do more boating and swimming and partying, and then just pedaling back from there instead of having to get a car ride back from Duluth.. stay tuned, more ride details to come.

Thanks, James

An email I got yesterday from my pal James:

As the owner of a partially soccer based blog, I thought you might enjoy "THE BEST SOCCER CLIP EVER"

EVER,
James

Mormons don't know how to party...

But Angel Moroni does. In fact, here is his telling of the greatest holiday of all times. I got him to write something for the Domestique by saying: my 4th was better. Here is his response.

"Let's see, where is the better place to be in the summer, a crowded city crawling with power hungry deuschebags, or the greatest state in the Union, Minnesota? I'll go with Minnesota. So where is the best place to celebrate America's birthday? At a cabin in Minnesota, of course.

The day began with me being about an hour late to Dan S's apartment to begin our bike ride to Lake Collinwood, about 65 miles due west of Minneapolis. Around 9:30, Dan S, Dan E, and I caught the greenway and began our journey west. James and I had biked nearly all the way to Kraemerica's cabing on the previous Sunday, but enlist Brandon to pick us up about 12 miles away because we thought we were going to miss the boat parade. Because of this, we had a great route and didn't have to spend really any time hovering around a map. Our route included an always fun journey through the bays of Lake Minnetonka, and proceeded on into the glorious countryside of rural MN.

Dan E hit the wall about mile 40, but we after a couple food breaks and chilling out breaks, we made it up to the cabin around 2. It was nearly 95 degrees out, so the first order of
business was to hydrate. Luckly, Dan's girlfriend Kayla drove up the return car with all our camping equipment and 3 gallons of water. We drank and ate fresh cherries for about an hour, then tapped the keg, opened the Rossi, and began to celebrate America's birthday for real.

Something people might not know, a jug of Carlo Rossi floats. We pontooned out to the middle of the lake, put our lifejackets between our legs, and played a little game that became known as Rossi Tossi in perfectly temperatured water. Rossi Tossi consists of drinking some Rossi, then Tossing it into the water in the direction of the next drinker. It goes under water for a second, but then floats back up to the surface. I can't really adequetely explain how fun this was.

We headed back in from the pontoon adventure, did some grilling, then hopped back on a fully loaded pontoon to the park across the lake. Supplied with SoCo, grass, beer, frisbee, and good spirits, we went to the park for a great game of 500. We headed back to the cabin around dark, and enjoyed multiple fireworks shows around the lake as we continued our celebration.

It was amazing, Jake sums it up a little better on his blog.

Good times. T-9 days until hurricane DomestiqueBeta (editors note: a.k.a., "Two of DC's most wanted") hits the cities, the excitement is palpable."

Palpable, indeed. Thanks Moroni.