21 Oct 2009
Last week, Richard Heene drew lots of attention from the media with his “balloon boy” hoax. It appears Richard’s goal was to gain media attention in hopes of starting his own reality show. We, the people, scoffed his actions, we fined his family, and we’ve it quite clear that if he wants a reality show this isn’t the way to go about it.
Yet here we are, nearly a week later, and his “bad” actions are still making national news. If we don’t want to reinforce his behavior, why are we giving Richard Heene what he wants? It was funny for like a day, maybe two, but all we’re doing is positively reinforcing his actions and teaching others that all they have to do to make TV is act stupid and cause a hoax.
11 Oct 2009
I finally had the chance to go see Tiesto live. Most of the time these venues fall on a weekday and I just can’t make it, but it just so happened that Tiesto’s North American Tour had him coming to Norcross on a Saturday. A friend of mine told me about it and I just had to go. Tickets started out at $35, but I got mine for $40 – pretty good for a 7-hour show if you ask me.
The website said the doors opened at 10pm so we left at 9pm to grab some dinner beforehand, then headed over to the venue to find a parking spot. What a madhouse too. Firstly, the venue’s website said parking was $10, but when we finally got there it turned out to be $20. Then we circled around for probably 10 minutes trying to find a spot. There were literally thousands of people here already.
Finally we found one and proceeded to eat our Burger King (we couldn’t find any sports bars and nothing else was open at 10pm). We brought a few beers from home in a cooler to save some money on the inside so we washed it all down with one of those. Then we headed for the massive line. Actually there were multiple massive lines so we just headed towards the doors and figured someone would tell us where to go.
Had we not cut line we would’ve easily stood in line for close to two hours. And how we cut, I don’t know, we just kinda blended in with a mob of people until we were behind the gate. The doors didn’t open at 10 either, more like 11, so we still waited in line for a decent amount of time. People started pushing and I swear I had my ass groped a few times.
Finally the line started moving and as we neared the door, this kid in front of me dropped a little vial of liquid in his mouth, I’m assuming it was acid, then followed that with a tab of something, my guess was ecstasy. I looked around and he wasn’t the only one either. But that kind of thing is expected at a show like this. Some would call it a rave and I guess that would be correct.
The bouncers checked our IDs and police patted us down checking for weapons and drugs. Much good that did, haha. And finally we were in! The place was massive! We entered the front of the building but the show had its back to us. A DJ was already on, but I don’t know his name. He was pretty good, had the crowd going nuts, had some really nice beats. There was another really long line for the ATM but we decided we weren’t going to drink a lot since we were driving home afterwards.
We meander through the maze of people, glow stick swingers, and columns to take a place in the crowd. About 5-10 minutes after standing there swaying to the music, a girl comes up and asks, “Are you guys rolling?” We replied with “No” and she asked us if we wanted to and told us the price which was $20 a hit. We declined respectfully.
We then headed to the bar to grab a drink. By this time it was close to midnight and Tiesto still hadn’t come on yet. A vodka tonic was $8. A bottle of water was $3. Once we had our drinks we headed into the crowd to get closer to the stage. The closer to the stage we got the crowd got more dense until we really couldn’t get any further. We were about half way.
People were dancing, jumping, rolling, tripping all around us. But everyone was having a good time. Nobody was angry, nobody was aggravated with the bumping and shoving, everyone was unified – and everyone was waiting for Tiesto. Just after 1am Tiesto appeared. The crowd freaking went nuts. The lights were amazing, the bass was heavy, the mood was just perfect.
He played a kickass show for three hours and at 4am, we figured he was finishing up and so we started to head back to the car to head home. It was an unbelievably amazing time! Just to be there with thousands of people who enjoy the same music is nice. Whether the old rave pasttime “PLUR” (Peace Love Unity Respect) comes from the copious amounts of ecstasy and acid or the sheer fact that music brings people together, the level of unification and oneness in the room was inspiring.
Check out some photos from the event
09 Oct 2009
It’s true.
For years I ran in a motion control shoe (Aisics Gel Evolutions) that my dad helped me pick out. Being that he’s an avid runner and marathoner, I trusted his judgement. Since running has grown to become more of a passion with me rather than just a hobby, I’ve been taking more consideration into what I wear and what shoes I purchase.
A few months ago I was fitted by professionals at TrySports for running shoes. As I wrote about previously, they had me run on a treadmill while a video camera recorded my feet, posture, and motion. It was then reviewed to show that I had the wrong shoes that were causing my feet to overcorrect for pronation. I was prescribed a more stability/neutral shoe – the Brooks Adrenaline 9. I love the shoe and it felt great running. But then…
I ran the Blue Ridge Relay – the first long-distance run I had in the Brooks – and ended up having pretty bad IT band problems. I decided to go see a local physical therapist who’s also an avid runner and who works closely with runners. He was a recommendation from a friend who had similar problems.
Today was my second appointment. He had me run in my old Aisics and my new Brooks on the treadmill. Now that I’m without ankle injuries, I run more natural and it turns out I do in fact need a motion control shoe. But I need more motion control than what the Aisics was providing and way more than the new Brooks. I’ve still got some heavy pronation.
Then he asked me to run barefoot. Curious. As I was running on the treadmill he asked, “Do you realize what you’re doing?”
“No,” I replied.
“You’re running on the forefront of your feet.”
And sure enough I was. It felt more natural and comfortable and without the padding of the shoes, running heel-to-toe kinda hurt. Apparently this kind of running is natural. It’s also supposedly more efficient.
He prescribed three pairs of shoes. He said to buy them and bring them in next week and I’ll run in each and I can return the two I don’t like. He prescribed:
Newton Motion
http://www.roadrunnersports.com/rrs/products/NWT100/
Brooks Addiction 8
http://www.roadrunnersports.com/rrs/products/BRK934/
Mizuno Wave Renegade 4
http://www.roadrunnersports.com/rrs/products/MIZ648/
So, after dropping $347 (but I got free shipping and $20 off) I’m anxiously awaiting my new package. I’ve got an appointment set up for next Friday to test them out. I’m very much looking forward to finding the right shoes and getting back out into training without the pain.
And I also learned this little tidbit: When you run heel-to-toe you extend your leg which causes the IT band to snap behind the knee. Then, when you follow through and bend the knee it snaps back beside the knee. Do this a lot and you get friction – thus IT band friction – and pain. Good to know!
07 Oct 2009
While in the waiting room at my physical therapist yesterday I decided to check out Runners World magazine. My friend Melissa and I have been trying to research and start good eating habits for runners. I saw a few good articles that discussed eating, training, and thinking. Here’s some of my rough notes, I’ll try to elaborate a bit:
1. Simply tasting a sports drink over water sends signals to the brain to boost motivation. Energy gels after 60 minutes; body uses up glycogen stores limiting fuel for brain and muscles. Sweet drink or something flavored can ’snap’ the brain back into gear.
When I run, I prefer regular water in my fuel belt. It’s refreshing and for some reason, the sweet stuff makes me even more thirsty. However, after reading this bit it seems the sugars in the Gatorade, or whatever, actually help keep the mind producing energy. I’ll probably start bringing on bottle of water and one with something else.
2. After a long run, the body has a 30-minute window when it’s super receptive to getting carbs back into the muscles. Divide weight by two and eat that number of grams of carbs. Within an hour of eating that, eat a full meal that’s got a 4:1 carb-to-protein ratio.
This one doesn’t need much explanation. Basically, after a good workout you wanna eat as much carbs as half your weight. I weigh 155 lbs so I should eat 77.5 grams of carbohydrates within 30 minutes of that workout. About an hour later I should eat a full meal that has 4-to-1, carbs to protein.
3. Give each run a purpose to improve training. Don’t try and do too much too soon.
I found this one interesting. The article was talking about how to prepare your mind, especially for the longer runs. I tend to get bored after a while, especially since I don’t run with music anymore, so it’s imperative I train myself to think properly. In this case, they’re suggesting devoting each run to something – a thought, a feeling, a personal goal, etc. If you run just to run, you’ll likely get bored.
4. Practice race pace once a week.
My training regimen calls for three weekly runs and one long weekend run. This week, for example, it’s 3-7-3-13 (3 miles, 7 miles, 3 miles, then 13 miles on Saturday). I’ve been running race pace on the short ones to build speed and taking it easy on the longer ones to build endurance, but this article suggests only running race pace once per week.
5. The 90-minute power run: Warm up with a 10 minute easy jog. Then run 90 minutes at an effort just short of race pace. The extended hard run will require as much glycogen as a longer run done at a slower pace.
This run is 100 minutes total. It was saying, if you don’t have the time for the long runs, you can do this method which will equate to a longer run. I wouldn’t do this every time though because you’re not getting the mental benefits from the longer runs.
06 Oct 2009
After running the Blue Ridge Relay, the doctor insisted I not run for 3 weeks to heal some shin/ankle/knee injuries sustained during the event. Who knew 36.4 miles in 32 hours could be so harsh on the body? During the last leg of the race, to make the downhill approach even more difficult, my knees started hurting to the point where I could barely walk. Having never suffered from an IT band injury before this was a different and almost terrifying pain on the outside of my knees. Apparently it’s common among runners.
I reluctantly waited my three weeks to resume running and on my first day back out my knees started giving me problems again. I wondered if it was my new shoes, which were so carefully fitted, or maybe I caused some real damage to my body during that grueling relay. So I made an appointment with a local physical therapist upon recommendation from a fellow runner friend. This physical therapist is an avid runner as well and specializes in running, cycling and other athletic injuries.
I had my first appointment today and I gotta say I am thoroughly impressed. Even without having a referral from a doctor they got me right in and to my surprise had me slip on a pair of shorts. The guy was checking bones, measuring distances, feeling around the joints, looking for all sorts of tiny things, inconsistencies, bumps, you name it. Turns out I do have IT band issues and what’s even more interesting is the common causes for IT band syndome:
1. Improper running equipment (in this case shoes)
I quickly shrugged this one off as not applicable since I was only recently fitted by specialists for the proper shoe. However, after some information from the doctor it turns out my old shoes (Aiscs Evolutions) were 70 out of 100 for motion control – what was said to be the incorrect type of shoe for me – and my new shoe (Brooks Adrenaline) is 60 out of 100, just low enough to escape the ‘motion control’ label but close enough to possibly still be the wrong shoe. We’ll see on Friday when I go back to run.
2. Hip rotation/misalignment
3. Legs aren’t the same length
It turns out, after some measuring, that my left leg is half an inch longer than my right. In addition my left hip is rotated backwards slightly andraised up higher than the right. He’s pretty sure that these last two items are the culprit for the knee/IT band pain during my runs.
Luckily, all three can be corrected with a little physical therapy. He gave me some stretches and exercises to do at home to “reverse” the hip rotation. This should get the legs to be about the same length when we’re all done. I go back this Friday to run in both my old pair of shoes and my new pair to see if my shoes could be part of the problem too.