Recently in sport Category
Now that I'm finally building a wardrobe of technical dork wear, cycling is so much more enjoyable. My absolute favorite things right now are these leg warmers I got from teamestrogen.com. They are fleecy, windproof, and semi-waterproof. Super cozy. Also, since the company is based near Portland (Hillsboro?) they arrived the day after I ordered them.
The sad thing is, I just got these, and a base layer, and a long-sleeved jersey, and I am only like half done with gearing up for winter. I feel like such a yuppie! Good thing I don't have any kids to send to college!
Whole wheat pancakes + hella much syrup + scrambled eggs + tea = ultimate pre-ride breakfast of power. It gave me so much energy, it was insane.
On Skyline, there was this cyclist guy wearing all-black spandex with long sleeves and tights. Right behind him there was another guy, wearing the same outfit but all white. It was totally Spy versus Spy. I wondered how long the spy in front had been leading the other spy up hills, trying to shake him.
Meanwhile, I watched the banana in Brian's back pocket get blacker with every mile.
Then I came home and ate the best burrito ever.
Today I rode a bike in France!
Tonight is the Twilight Crit. The boring old park blocks will be turned into a cycling arena with all the spectators, spandex bike dudes and all that. Should be fun. It isn't every day that an Oregon bike racing event is within biking distance of home. Usually they are in Bend or something. Kevin's biking friend, the Quiet Storm, is moving to Bend.
Ce soir il y aura le "Twilight Crit." Les même park blocks que nous savons transformeront a un stade du cyclisme avec toutes les choses: Les spectateurs, les athletes avec leur spandex, les enfants qui crient... Ca devrait etre amusant. D'habitude, les epreuves de cyclisme en Oregon sont trop loins d'ici pour y aller a velo, pour exemple a Bend, où un ami de Kevin, The Quiet Storm, va s'installer avec sa femme. C'est mal pour nous, mais c'est bon pour eux.
OMG! So, me and Jennifer were going to go on a hike in the gorge today, but it was so yucky out, so instead, we went to Oaks Park and went rollerskating! I can't believe how much fun it was! I'd never been to a roller rink before. When we got there, I could not even go two feet, and had to go around in the beginner pen. But soon I could glide around with Jennifer in the rink. She was very helpful and held my hand and kept me from falling over. I also made a new friend, the wall. It's carpeted and you can give it a big hug. Like, I would lose control and then smack into the wall, but it was nice and soft. We played a skating game and won free soda. Then we played the hoky poky, and then - this is the best part - we got the DJ to play Dancing Queen by Abba!!! It was like, the crowning moment of my whole life. It was so rad. And by then I could actually skate halfway decently, I mean like skate without wrenching Jennifer's arm out of her socket, so gliding around the rink, I really did feel like a dancing queen! We thought it would be pretty cool to take our boyfriends there on a double date, but they will probably never agree to that. Anyway, it was the best ever, and was the perfect way to enjoy the second-to-last day of winter break and the first day of a brand new year. Sweet!!!
P.S. The Dancing Queen thing was subconsciously inspired by Lisa Carver's excellent book of the same name. I think she talks about rollerskating to Dancing Queen in the book, and that's why it's called Dancing Queen.
Miraculously, I finally got myself out on an actual bike ride, instead of just talking about wanting to all the time and never doing it. I made it about ten blocks from my house, and then did something really dumb and totally ate it. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. Or maybe I am just ultra sympathetic to Bianca in a messed up psychic way, because she also totally ate it earlier this week. We're like the awesome twins. Go us!
OK, enough whining. We now return to what's really important: dorking out in shorts.
Now that you have the image down, the other most important part of running, or any other sport, is the soundtrack. Good music is really what makes the difference between enduring running because you know it's good for you and being compulsively addicted to it. Seriously, like Queen will come on the radio and I'll just start sprinting. Generally, when selecting running music, marks of quality include likelihood of being played at a gay club and/or football game, coming from a foreign country, or is just being really stupid. I usually rotate between a couple excellent mix cds of cheesy Japanese and American pop from my dear friend Bianca, Ultimate Dance Party 1997, and the radio.
My main beef with the radio is that in the mornings most commercial stations just have dumb people on the air talking about nothing, but if you can catch them when they're actually playing music, Z 100.5 and 95.5 are really good. 95.5 will play the more scandalous stuff that Z 100 shies away from, they mix it pretty well, and they tend to have less blather and more jams. On the other hand, Z100 has Avril and Jessica, and when I listen to it I pretend to be a blonde with a tan at University of Texas.
My other two favorite stations are KBPS Kid Radio and Radio Disney. KBPS (1450 AM) is KPSU, the college station, but only during nights and weekends. I don't understand how a city like Portland can lack a 24-hour college station, and having grown up in Berkeley, this pains me. That said, the other side of 1450 AM is a pretty good consolation prize. During the day, KBPS is the Portland public schools' radio station, which is sort of a junior version of college radio and pretty cool in its own way. Gems recently heard include "Moving Right Along" from the Muppet Movie, "Yoda" (to the tune of the Kinks' "Lola"), the song that lists all of the countries in the world, the Backstreet Boys, "Prince Ali" from Alladin, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song, and "The Monster Mash," in the middle of November. Then there will be a high school student reading a news report about ten-year-old toast on ebay or crab mating phenomena in Florida. And of course, there are no commercials. A lot of people are sore about the school district trying to fenagle more airtime from PSU, but KBPS Kid Radio's programming is so weird and rad that I don't really care. (For the record, I think the deal is that they now get Friday nights for high school football games, but KPSU gets to start at 4pm instead of 5. Also, you can listen to KPSU any hour of the day on the internet.)
Radio Disney is odd. If KBPS is the little sister of college radio, Radio Disney is Z100 with training wheels. The format mimics typical mainstream pop stations, with annoying DJs and contest giveaways, except that instead of asking about listeners' most scandalous date experiences for free club admission, they have people call in and identify the capitol city of Maryland to win supersoakers. They don't play music from Disney movies, disappointingly. Billed as "Music kids love, not kid music," the station plays the most sterile of the current crop of pop star hits, many from the younger pop stars (who aren't allowed to sing about booty yet) and all presumably from albums produced by Disney-related companies. They leave out the "I Wanna Smoove You" booty jams in favor of the "Let's Party!" bubblegum stuff, which is nice accompaniment for some good, clean, excercising fun. However, Radio Disney also includes a fair portion of saccharin ballads about love and heartbreak, which disturbs me. It's not that I have anything against saccharin ballads, but I'm concerned about young listeners being exposed to such mature themes. The folks at Disney take care to protect children from the dangers of swearing and lewdness, but the stuff about unrealistic romantic ideals, heartbreak, and loneliness is what's really going to screw them up for life. Like there's this song about this girl finding out her BF is cheating on her with another girl because he left her number on his cell-phone. That is just so wrong. But sometimes they also play forgotten club hits from the 90s, which makes up for it.
Lastly, there is always the oldies station. I've been feeling a little miffed ever since I realized that they've dropped the 50s music completely since there are not enough people left to appreciate it, and replaced it with 70s garbage like Creedence Clearwater Revival, which is apparently now oldies. With so much excellent disco to choose from, it seems strange and annoying that KISN (95.5) has weeded out only the decade's worst pseudo-hippie schlock to assault us with over the airwaves. Well, I guess Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" is kind of cool. The good news is that the station also plays alot of really awesome early 60s rock and roll, so if you can make it through "Who'll Stop the Rain," there are some treats in there. It's fun just to be able to say you sweated to the oldies.
That's about it. All the other stations are pretty much poop.
There are many things in life that are really only worth doing for aesthetic reasons, or at least only enjoyable for aesthetic reasons. Good aesthetics can sometimes make even bad things good. Running is good no matter what, but its wonder is exponentially enhanced when unnecessary aesthetic elements are added. There is nothing sadder than seeing people for whom running appears a painful chore, when with the right setup they could be totally in the zone.
First, think about your running look. Dressing up helps you get and stay in the mood, and feel like you're doing something exciting, special and fun, like a moving, one-person party at 7am. There are a few major themes, which can be combined to best express your inner fitness dork. If you're going for the college lady athlete look, it's extremely important to find the shortest shorts possible. Roll them down at the top so the white elastic shows. Little tank tops and miniature hoodies in pastel colors are good too. Wear fashionable hi-tech sneakers with the tiny little socks that barely show above the edge of your shoes. A perky ponytail is a must, and be sure to wear a little jewelry and/or sweat-proof makeup. My other favorite running look is inspired by my role model, Rocky Balboa. Keep the short shorts but add tall sweat socks with the stripes at the top and a ratty sweatshirt. Bonus points for terry headbands and wristbands, and shirts with stupid stuff written in iron-on letters. Another strategy is to just accept that you're going to look ridiculous no matter what, so you might as well try to look like the biggest idiot possible just because it's funny. This look is a natural for me, especially in colder months when clashing layers become necessary. Wearing shorts over leggings instantly brings me back to the prolonged cringe of my pre-teen years. One of these days I am going to go all the way and just do leggings without the shorts. Watch out, world.
Next time, part II: the soundtrack.
