Ambiguous Anagrams and Atmospheric Anomalies

How’s the weather? It rained overnight – sustained over 48 hours – and now we glimpse a punctuated sigh of arid relief. Funny how we like to wish for opposites when we are racing for we - homiothermic creatures - abhor extreme weather conditions. I moderated my warm-blooded, body temperature today with the ambient cool winds, afforded by the torrential downpours. You have got to be creative when you face variations in the external variables: weather, stock markets, delivery schedules, late showings, people’s moods and reactions, and misplaced parcels.

I was examining my EDGE wheel-set when I realized that its logo was an ambigram. An ambigram is word-picture that reads the same upside-down. If you remember well, the word Illuminati was featured in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. 

Here is an ambigram of my name that was designed by a secondary school student.

Sun Microsystems’s logo is an anagram.

An anagram is a word that can be reconstructed from the same number of letter. Thus, Scrabble is a game of figuring out the highest scoring word for the longest word you can propose while sorting through the ambigram-ic possibilities. Twitter is a derivative, in that you squeeze up to 140 characters in each tweet, within your précis writing ability.

It is always good news when a fellow multi-sport athlete is featured in the newspapers. Here is a winner at last week’s Duathlon.

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I could not attend this evening’s TriFam club swim training, as I was preparing for a new workshop tomorrow. Instead, I did a short, intense session of unshod intervals (4:55-5:20 minute/K) with a short CrossFit Endurance training session. Since it was my second self-prescribed session, I did three sets of [push-ups, chin-ups and step-ups (off a bench)]; I topped it off with core exercises that included the Plank, and proprioceptive work (close-eyed, balancing). That took the wind out of me, and I then walked back as a cool-down. I wolfed down several slices of pizza and a generous helping of raw-fish salad as my post-training, recovery meal. Early to bed should see me fresh tomorrow with a lower heart rate, and better muscle tone.

Leaving On a Huge Jet Plane

This evening, we will fly off for Berlin. It will be our maiden A380 flight to London, so we are looking forward to the interior of the gigantic plane. I suspect I will take a snooze after the first feature film.

The projected weather for Sunday will be about a high of 16 degrees Celcius with light rain. I have packed for a rainy day, with a light raincoat, and warmer clothing. Let’s see if I will do a burlesque run, and chuck clothing aside during the run. I could be shuffling loudly across the finish line with a beanie, gloves, and raincoat.

I wonder how I will respond to the colder conditions. A few trial runs before the race should provide good indicators of what I need to modify for my race strategy: attire, protection from the rain/wind, nutrition, and shoes. There is always a danger of not drinking enough when the weather is cool. The cold would, probably, decrease my heart rate and I might have an advantage in holding a faster pace. I intend to hold an average of 4:45 minute per kilometre, with a negative split on my second 21K leg. Fingers crossed, with happy thoughts.

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Last night’s ride with the Eastern Night Riders (ENR) was useful. I was suffering lack of muscle tone, as it was about 24 hours after my deep-tissue massage. I could tell, as my muscles could not exert maximum power during the sprints, nor hold it long enough. However, the occasional bursts of speed during the two-loop, 30K ride activated my muscles so that they stayed alert. I alternated between aero-position and on the drops, as I did not want to strain my lower back. My comfortable ride affirms my effective bike fit a few months ago. Looking forward to my new carbon tri-bike next month.

Off to my chiropractor for a spinal adjustment now!