I'd Livestrong for that: 24 Hours of Booty

Was out on a ride with some friends last weekend and saw a dude wearing a cycling jersey with "24 Hours of Booty" across the back. You have to stop and ask about that, right? So we flagged him down and got the story. As it turns out, "24 Hours of Booty" is not a euphemism for weekend with Tiger Woods but a 24 hour bike ride to benefit the Livestrong Foundation that takes place in North Carolina.

                                                                This is not how to ride a bike
Ok, so they've got a good (ok, great) cause in raising money for cancer research for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and like Relay for Life 24 hour events are a good time. But booty? Is there a campaign to "drop cancer like it's hot?" Or to include thongs along with those scratchy paper hospital gowns?

The dude filled us in. In Charlotte, North Carolina there is an infamous running circuit for runners and cyclists that circles a local college. College campus = college girls, and college girls usually equally girls in tight clothing for exercising. Hence "Booty Loop." A couple years ago, a local dude (NASCAR attorney Spencer Lueders) got inspired by Armstrong and decided to spend 24 hours riding on the booty loop to see if he could do it. Oddly this guy is married. Oddly spending 24 hours of which at least half is being surrounded by college girls can qualify as "charity." Nearly ten years later, the event is still going strong.

That man is a genius.

Pins and Needles: Acupuncture and cycling, Tucson-style

A friend of mine recently returned (very tan) from Tucson, and the lucky bastard had spent a couple weeks riding around Arizona. Of course he did the famous Tucson Shoot-Out ride and ran into the infamous "Grey Wolf" a couple of times.

From Missing Saddle - and check out their hilarious interviews with the Grey Wolf

Though he returned with stories about how he'd held his own on the Shoot Out, he also had gotten some acupuncture done to treat a nagging back injury from cyclocross at Acupuncture del Sol run by Claudia "Nanie" Carrillo. A few days ago, I had coffee with a friend and mentioned how my tan friend had gone "under the needle," and she said that she regularly sees an acupuncturist to deal with everything from fatigue and stress to muscle and joint pain.

When acupuncture goes wrong

I'm sold on the benefits of massage but I've never seen a professional cyclist post-race on a table with needles stuck all over. Cyclocross and sitting at a desk for long periods of time aren't great for my back. But my two friends (both avid and excellent racers) swore by acupuncture's effectiveness. I decided to try it out, called a recommended place and made an appointment.

Not knowing what to expect, the acupuncturist began by asking me about my bowl movements - had I done the emunctory testing I posted a couple days ago, I might have had more detail to give him. "Why does my poop have anything to do with my back?" And he kind of shook his head. Western medicine, the pill-popping Walgreens version that I so often use, focuses on localized treatment. Have a headache? Pop a pill. In contrast Chinese/Oriental medicine is holistic. In other words, he wanted to know all about my body before addressing my back. We then chatted a bit about how acupuncture can be beneficial for athletes: reducing spasms, swelling and inflammation. He inserted needles not only in my back but all over my body - hands, legs, forhead - and I relaxed for a half hour.

Afterward he gave me some green tea and explained a little more about acupuncture. Each internal organ relates to a different aspect of the body:  heart to blood, the spleen to muscles, kidney to bones, and the liver to tendons. Treating the organ meant was an attempt to fix the my aches and pains before they expand across my body. He also said that another concept of acupuncture is balancing the body which was especially important for athletes. Imbalance led to ineffectiveness. Balance led to better performance. Leaving the clinic, my body felt light, tingly and relaxed. I made a follow-up appointment.

Exit Strategies: Emunctories

I woke up to another odd email yesterday morning. I have a friend who left his job in the corporate suit-and-tie world to become a nutritionist. While I'm not sure how he generates an income, every so often I get little tidbits on health, nutrition and other things that sound hard to do in my inbox. Yesterday's email was about something I had never heard of until Google helped me out: emunctories which my friend defined as "a new word that refers to all the ways stuff exits our bodies." So basically it's a lab report on how well your body's "exit strategy" works. To give a bit detail:

When one’s diet is poor, the ph-balance is off and the system cannot excrete bacteria and viruses and toxins. The environment is ripe for overgrowth of organisms and the inability of the lymph to do its work. A diet of fruit, vegetables, good quality of protein, and low carbohydrates are important. Sugar or coffee or alcohol will create a disease-producing environment. It is said that one teaspoon of sugar will decrease the immune system efficiency by fifty percent.
(from "Detoxification and Homotoxicology")

Ok. The arguement of diet affecting health is sound; however, I wanted to know what would happen after a lab tech poked through my poop. Naturopath clinics recommended tha "drainage" follow the analysis. Though this drainage is described as "gentle," I can't help but question the delight of a high colonic.

Do I want to have this done? Or was this part of some weird detox diet/liquid cleanse where I would have to miserably drink some magic potion that tasted like cat's urine and be within ten feet of a bathroom for two weeks? Purging diets sounds fairly extreme and a life without red wine is not a with worth living, in my opinion. So I went back to see who (or what company) were behind emunctories.

The term was generated by a Germen doctor Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg, who moved to New Mexico with his naturopathic company HEEL after WWII. Most of the articles about Reckeweg and HEEL-BHI are written by fellow alternative medicine sites so I went to Wikipedia for some (hopefully) basic information on the good doctor and his company. Though the entry glazed over Dr. Reckeweg's years in Germany from the mid-1930s until post-WWII, his company HEEL-BHI took off after the war and he moved to New Mexico a few decades later. Though the company labels itself as bridge between homeopathy and conventional medicine, a few articles I found mention issuess that HEEL has had with the FDA and IRS.

While regulartory issues don't mean that emunctories aren't effective, I think I'll hold off between I let my inner content be expelled. Like going through Goodwill, there might still be some gems in there among the all that crap.

Green Thumb of Death

What's the opposite of a green thumb? Death thumb? Black thumb? Anti-life thumb?

As with children, I've never been good with plants. I don't understand them and they seem to despise me. Outside of the water and sunshine requirements, my plants seem to be exceptionally needy and always on a hunger strike. Or maybe they have eating disorders from being around too many cyclists? I should give the Cytomax and sprinkle their soil with some Probar crumbles, since Molly Cameron seems to be all over that stuff. And she's pretty fast.

I planted a small back porch garden last summer. Living in the city, I have minimal access to sunlight and I learned that my north-facing balcony doesn't get enough sun for tomatoes, broccoli and other leafy plants. The plastic pot my spinach was in overheated and fried that crop, so I'll have to switch to clay if I try those again. But root vegetables did very well and I even shifted my onion and garlic plants indoor for the winter. Currently, they are setting a streak for "most days living."

But what I'm really growing this spring are drugs. A couple of weeks ago I heard a radio interview with James Wong, an ethnobotanist. Wong has both put out a short BBC TV series and now a book about turning your garden into a medicine cabinet. But the best part?

''Most herb species live in poor environments with low water and low fertiliser..."

It's the perfect garden for a person like me if the herbs thrive under an ill-educated and harsh gardening regime!

Other links that have been helpful:


Life on the Balcony - a perfect starting point and reference

Inhabitant has a good starter's guide to urban gardening as well (with lots of pictures!)

And of course, before you even get started check out the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone map and USDA Plant Hardiness Indicators. This will give you an idea of what you can plant.

This rosemary plant tried to die but I've coaxed it back from the edge

Rim to the road

Someone in the rubber industry hates me. This is the only logical way to explain the rash of flat tires I've had recently. And like all kind of rashes, this one is driving me a  bit crazy. I spend more time on the side of the road using a pump the size of a tampon and looking like I'm giving a handjob to someone than I do actually on my bike.All this pumping action is going to give me biceps like one of those dudes on "Jersey Shore."

 

Here's the part where most people say things like, "you should try new tubes/tires/not riding through fields of glass," but in truth I've been a rubber-whore. I've tried out Continental, Schwalbe, Vittoria, Specialized, Panaracer, Michelin, chewing gum, etc. I've booted, patched, replaced what at last count I estimated to be about 423 tubes over the past couple years.

Coincidentally some one at this PDX company must have had me in mind when designing the Magic Flute, a stylish bike pump made for those down on on their tire luck. If only they needed someone to product test...

Life on the cheap

Is there anything more satisfying that saving yourself some money? Unless you're the Canadian hockey team and just waking up from your Molson Ice-gold medal hangover, probably not. And I just saved myself some money this weekend. Here's how:

Cheap Car Repair 101:  I live in a place with a lot of rain. I only like to be wet when I'm outside and/or racing cyclocross. I do not like to be wet in my car. So when my car rack started to wear through my weatherstripping (which kind of sounds like the name for a hippy stripper), I was not happy. No one likes to be wet in their car. No one should be wet in their car. And so with a swiftness and decisiveness that would make the Obama administration jealous, I found a quick and cheap fix as opposed to buying and installing new weatherstripping.

Solution: old bike tubes. I might not have created cold fusion but I found a use for my old bike tubes and reinforced/repaired my weatherstripping.

Cheap Coffee 101: I'm new to drinking coffee. It was only in the past couple of years that I discovered the manic wonderfulness of being caffeinated. But there's a recession going on and creamy lattes are only for those getting Goldman Sachs-type of bonuses. A barista filled me in on how to enjoy frothy coffee on the cheap.

Solution: French press lattes. With instant coffee or French press coffee, some flavor (if that's what your into) and milk, you can make a decent latte. Heat up the milk, add it to the French press and froth. So easy. So cheap. Other people might have figured this stuff all about before me but I am pretty darn pleased.

 

Not bad, matey?