Tagged: healthy living
Could Kenilworth be our Booty Loop?
I live in what I feel could be the neighborhood wielding the most potential in all of Baton Rouge. Potential to influence, potential for transformation, potential for growth, and potential for increasing value. This potential could be tapped without renovating a single house or creating a Kenilworth Renegade School district, though the latter I would support. It could be done with minimal expenditure and the funds spent could be generated by the KCA with my gentle guidance. With a little work we could turn Kenilworth into our own Booty Loop.
The Booty Loop is a 2.8 mile loop in Charlotte, NC that pulls in cyclists, runners, roller bladers, walkers, families and the like who frequent this loop to train and be seen. Every year the host the 24 Hours of Booty which is a 24 hour cycling event used to generate funds for LIVESTRONG. With a blink I can visualize a Pennington Biomedical and BREC co-sponsored event on the Kenilworth parkway that would soon become a must do for the region. With a state sitting at the number 49th least healthy in the nation, surely we could utilize some of the funds raised to push obesity and health related needs in out City?
So what though would this mean for Kenilworth Parkway? As it now stands, the parkway is about 2 lanes wide in each direction. From a cyclists perspective, the “bike lane” is a nice idea, but not executed very well. The expansion seams are bumpy and countless cars park directly in it daily. In addition, it is cluttered with trash, glass etc. My suggestion would be as follows. First, re paint the lanes to have a full lane for traffic on the right hand side and an enlarged bike lane running along the middle of the parkway on the left. This would allow folks to pass pretty freely in cars. Second, control traffic in the right lanes with strategically placed speed humps. Third, let it be known that this area is a no speeding zone through a heavy fines for offenders. Use some of these funds generated from tickets for upkeep and the re-painting efforts. Finally, push my secret agenda of making Kenilworth the healthiest neighborhood in Baton Rouge through events like 5k’s, 24 hours of KDUB, as well as Pennington and BREC sponsored events.
My feeling is that by making Kenilworth THE place to ride and exercise outside of the LSU Lakes system, we give this neighborhood a value which you can’t put a price on.
An Endurance Father’s Day
If you think for a second this list is not self serving, well then you would be wrong. I will be sending a link directly to my wife, family, friends, and hell, anyone looking for an extra father if I think it may get me some killer schwag for Father’s day. While everyone says that it’s the thought that counts, this is like 67% true. 33% is straight up based on coolness factor and how much you spend, the only exception to this being homemade gifts from your kids. So ladies-take heed.
If you have read this blog before, you know that I have to fight the urge to not make lists in every post. But this bad boy is just aching to be, so without further adieu…
1. YOLO Stand up paddleboard-$800-1600- I dig on this so much. Think large surfboard with a paddle. You can use this on a lake, bayou, river, ocean, ditch, or wherever there is 18-24 inches of water. It is so easy my son could paddle by himself at age 5. Great core workout and peaceful way to see lots of sunrises. Click HERE to visit their site. And you can click on this to see my now 7 year old son paddle us along while I film standing behind him.
2. Mercury Race Wheels Specifically the M9 ($2400). Deep dish wheels are fast and new aero studies are proving that 25mm wide rims are both stronger and more aerodynamic in both straight ahead riding and cross winds. I ride a set of 85 mm Mercury Rims with a Power Tap hub all the time. These are bulletproof. Oh and the owner of Mercury, Chris Mogridge is a fine upstanding gentleman.
3. A membership to a beer of the month club (starts @ 36.95 per month)-Here’s one right HERE! Few things are more intertwined than beer and endurance athletics. I like beer, and the thought of having beer delivered to my house is almost as awesome as THIS. My work here is done.
4. Garmin 910xt-($350-$400)-Garmin is the Apple of performance sport watches in my opinion. The damn thing is so intuitive that a history degree holding triathlete can figure it out in like 2 mins. Plus I have seen 3 people jump in the pool with the non waterproof versions of this watch before and come up $350 poorer three seconds later. Consider the waterproofing, tri-guy stupidity insurance. I would go on about all the features on this bad boy, but you are a grown up. Click right HERE and get the skinny
5. Father’s are mostly old. Old endurance guys are all crooked and stove up. First go to Trigger Point Therapy and at the least, buy your old guy a GRID. This thing is the bomb and has kept me knot free when I have the good sense to use it daily. It is also good for a 7 year old to train on for log rolling and inevitable falls during said training. There rest of their trigger point kits are awesome as well and will keep your man from looking like a bent over 90 year old (unless he’s 90 then it’s likely too late.)
6. BETABRAND This is one of my top 10 sites on the web. Seriously. Disco ball pants-I own em. Vagisoft blankets (that’s serious softness). Drinking and Smoking Jackets, bike to work pants and my new favorite SOCK INSURANCE!! This team is so freaking creative and fun, and their products are awesome too. Go for 5 mins, turn around and an hour has passed. It truly is awesomeness.
7. Rudy Project Wingspan Aero Helmet-aero helmets go fast. Faster than non aero helmets. I currently ride with a Specialized and it is truly awesome, but if I am being honest, I want one of these neon green bad boys as well. HERE is a great review from a guy in Chicago. That’s in Illinois for all you rednecks.
8. Steak- Protein aids in making you a better athlete. Steak tastes awesome. If you are in Baton Rouge, you can get a great steak at Sullivan’s and support my boy Leo Verde. While I have not been paid to endorse any product listed so far, I am emailing Leo a link to this blog post exactly 8 seconds after I publish it in order to ensure I get free steak.
So that’s what I’ve got for you. I could go on and on and on, but this should keep you busy for a while. I’ll save some for my first annual “Buy Pat Fellows Something on this List” post for my approaching birthday.
Remember-before you go straight to the online world of shopping (Besides Betabrand) check out a local run/bike specialty or outdoor store for the above items. You’ll be doing a good thing.Hugs to the haters!
PF
This hurts me more than it hurts you-aka training with friends-or the shadenfreude affect
It is not a secret that training is an integral part of my being…what is also known to many of the folks I have trained with over the last decade is that I enjoy pushing them to a place they don’t likely want to be. Let me be very clear though, I am not the fastest guy out there, and I do try to train with those who will push me outside of my comfort zone. Truly, I think that this is something that is inherent to training in general. After awhile, everyone gets a satisfaction from hurting there peers. I’ll call this the shadenfreude effect.
I remember when I first started riding back in 2001 and had a good friend names Warren McDonald (affectionately, Uncle W). He was a stud on the bike and the run, and I would endure countless hours of riding, hanging on for my life. The first spring and summer of 2001, I would meet him at his house at 5:20 and we would ride 20 or so miles completely in the dark with barely any lights. I would get dropped in the first 5 miles and ride to the turn around point on a bike that was two sizes too small. There they would catch me on their way back and I would hang on for another 3 miles or so only to get dropped and limp home. I made it my mission that summer and fall to not get dropped. I am pretty sure it was Uncle W’s mission to try and drop me. FInally some day in 2002, I not only didn’t ever get dropped, but I was beating him in races.
For the next 10 years I have tried to spread this pain evenly out to all my friends. There is a guy I swim with who would get mystery calf cramps whenever a set got hard. It became my goal to push him to those cramps in every single workout from the moment of this discovery until today. Regardless if I was in shape or not. I can grade the success of a workout on this. If he cramps=success!!
On the bike it is the same. If ever someone speeds up, it is my duty to continue this speed, but to also ratchet it up another notch. Even if it is an off day. It is a matter of principal (and likely the worst way to train). It’s like I can’t help myself.
And I’m not alone, my buddy Chuckie G is a closet practitioner of the schadenfreude training affect. On our rides he likes to act like someone else sped up and that he just held the pace, but there are plenty of documented cases of him being the instigator. By plenty, I mean hundreds. Always one to downplay it, Chuckie G blames it on me.
What is also interesting is that I enjoy getting abused nearly as much as abusing. There have been plenty of times when both riding and running,I didn’t think I had another ounce in me and I am cussing whomever it is I am with as I search for another gear. This happens a lot when I am running with my co-workers from Mizuno. We will go out for an easy 30 mins that will turn to them chatting away holding sub 7:00 pace with me 4 strides back about to vomit a lung. I like when they chime in “You are looking strong!” or some other lie. 50 minutes later, the 30 min easy run is over.
The moral of this story, is simply this. If you want to improve your training. Poke a bear every once in awhile. Train outside of your comfort zone. Push someone else outside of theirs. Everyone will hurt and everyone will benefit.
Train safe-
PF
Inside the swimmer mind
I’ve made the explanation numerous times to new triathletes trying to describe the mindset of each specific social group within triathlon. It usually comes up somewhere around the time that new triathletes realize that there is an unnecessarily large amount of drama within their new found healthy lifestyle. After 3-4 years in the sport I came up with a purely stereotypical theorem that I is backed up by just enough dicks in each sport to be proven true time and time again. It is based on my pure genius deduction and backed by zero science, but if you have been in endurance sports long enough, you know its true.
Triathletes think they are smarter than pure cyclists and runners. Cyclists hate triathletes. Runners hate cyclists and sometimes triathletes. Swimmers don’t give a shit about any of the above because they are constantly looking at a black line and have chlorine mushed brains.
What I have also found to be true is that everyone either identifies with one or two of the above. You know the guy, “I do triathlons, but I’m a runner.” or, “I swim because it comes before the bike, which is the only true sport out of the three.” and finally, “I can swim 50 meters without breathing and will win every swim, but cant’ run faster than 9 min miles because I have 48 lb lats, and can’t breath on the run…where’s the beer?”
Personally, I think I am a triathlete trapped in a swimmers mind. Having swum competetivley for +/- 35 years, it is a natural fit for me. I love the pool. Luckily I don’t have to spend to much time in it anymore, which further proves another swimmer conundrum. “I love the pool, can I get away with once a week?”
Having a swimmer’s mind doesn’t jive with the rest of the endurance world very well. You know I loves me some lists so here’s a number of things that all true swimmers do and think, what goes through my head both in the pool and not, along with some things I think you can all learn from a swimmer as well as how to become a better swimmer (no form advice, I promise)
1. Swimmers pee in the pool. Most of us every time we swim. When I was training for a long open water swim, I trained myself to pee in the pool while holding 1:15 100 pace. If you see me swimming under you on my back looking up and waving. I am peeing in your lane now.
2. All swimming is interval based. For you new swimmers out there, swimming the same pace for every swim is like running 10 min miles all the time. You have no second or third gear and will likely swim slow. Mix it up, go fast, go slow, work stroke, and please freaking learn how to kick.
3. I can’t count laps any better than the rest of you so quit asking me “how many was that.” When in doubt swim an extra 50 or 100. You were probably short.
4. Never, ever, listen to Kokomo, Jimmy Buffet, or Pina Colada before you swim. It is going to be there, right in front of your brain for every lap.
5. I know you think fins, paddles and a pull buoy go together, but they don’t. Oh and if you are kicking while you are pulling with a buoy, this is cheating, and I will push the pace on you until you pop.
6. I personally cannot imitate how bad your stroke is to show you “the wrong way”. I’ve tried and my version still looks awesome. Sorry.
7. I like watching runners swim from underwater as their ankles are so stiff it looks like they are dragging 2 anchors.
8. Chlorine is bleach, bleach gets shit super clean, I need not shower after a swim. It counts as bathing for at least a day. Get used to it.
9. Green stiff hair is a right of passage. So is having a female shave you in a speedo (when you are 13 or so. Now that would be considered in poor taste with your spouse).
10. If you are going to shave, please go all or nothing (I make an exception for armpits for some strange reason.)
11. Swimmers wear like 9 tattered, bleached out suits that you can see much more than you’d like. We think that swimming with drag will make us faster when we put on one small suit later. So yes this means you are getting your ass kicked in practice by a guy who has 10% more in the tank from a suit alone. Isn’t that confidence building?
12. Swimmers are known to drink heavily. This is due to years of their lives spent in silence looking at a black line, going in circles, being yelled at incessantly by coaches, and from the boredom of swim meets. I’ve never been in jail (for long) but I imagine there is some sort of mental parallel to the insanity of solitary confinement. When we are through we need beer.
13. We don’t realize it, but all swimmers seem to have a giant threshold for pain. Unfortunately, I can’t summon mine on the run.
14. I still think about 80’s music a lot in the pool, and remember wanting my dad to stand at the end of the pool with a boombox playing “Eye of the Tiger” during the 200 IM. As if I could have heard it.
This is a list that could go on and on and on. Perhaps there are runner’s and cylcist lists as well, but I am a swimming triathlete, so I know not of what those would be.
Hugs to the haters,
PF
patrick fellows 
