Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in John S. Bucy's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
4:57 pm	I'll take what I can get new = USF Valentine's meet 2010 (last weekend) old = Pacific masters SCY champ April 2009 200 free, short course yards for those of you keeping score at home new 31.59 34.11 34.23 33.95 =2:13.88 old 30.64 33.93 35.22 34.84 =2:14.63 = 0.75 faster Commentary: basically I traded a second between the 1st and 3rd 50 and got my 3/4 second on the last one. Much better pacing: this was pretty much negative splits = good. And if I can keep dropping a second per year, I'll be competitive by the time I'm 50! (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
4:29 pm	And I defeated Old La Honda on 39t just shy of 31:00 on Saturday. Long ride: Canada -> OLH -> 84 -> 1 -> 92 ~49 miles. Climbing 92 from the west = not so nice. Swimming the USF Valentine's meet Saturday for the 3rd year in a row Saturday. Just the 200 free again. I think I may try to swim the 500 later this year. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 29th, 2010
4:24 pm	I'm on the edge between "novice" and "intermediate" in my strength training now. I'm trying a variant of the "Texas" method to get stronger on the bench. ( Read more... ) On a related note, I hit one of my goals for the year on the first try last weekend: climb Tunitas Creek Road in the middle chainring (39t) on my bike! Next one is Old La Honda which is less elevation but steeper grade and then maybe do them back-to-back in the same ride. I now accept that I want to get to work even by 10 consistently, I have to set an alarm and I won't really hate it much less if it goes off at 9 than if it goes off at 7:30 provided I go to bed. Plus if I get to the office by 9, I can have second-breakfast! When my lifting levels off, I want to start swimming 3 weekdays (maybe M,Tu,Th) and an occasional sunday instead of the Tues/Thurs+Sun I'm doing now. Getting up at 7:30 every day this week hasn't been too bad though I've had to be super-disciplined to get to bed at 11 every night. And not stay up too late on the weekend. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
4:11 pm	Wow, I'm in the database Entered the USF Valentine's meet for the third year in a row. A week from saturday! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
9:30 pm	New schedule I'm trying to switch from the 7:30pm "slacker" swimming workout to the 6pm one. I'm by a wide margin the fastest person in the later workout most nights which is pretty small too = no fun. Even worse, I don't get done until after 9 which makes it hard to have a social life on weeknights. Gym days aren't a lot better, I rarely get to the gym before 7pm. So basically, I'm trying to timeshift my whole schedule up by an hour and a half. Every weekday: in bed by 11, out of bed by 7:45 (this sounds like a lot but it takes me a long time to fall asleep) M/W/F: eat, gym 8:30-9:30, shower, to work by 10:30. stretch goal: play piano for an hour when I get home and get some real practicing in Tu/Th: get to work by 9, swim 6-7:30 This also gives me 36 hours to recover between lifting and swimming, we'll see how hard it is to get up and go to the gym tomorrow morning though! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
4:15 pm	Installed another seatpost on my bike the other day, taking care to properly tension the bolts. The junk one that came on the bike had some setback. The new one I put on last year didn't so the saddle was at the front of the rails and the corner of the clam shell stuck out from under it just enough to slowly wear a hole in my shorts over time. I don't really deserve to spend any money on my bike having barely ridden it this year but I still want new wheels -- like classy handbuilt 32 spoke, not some crazy crabon r-sys nonsense. And maybe I can find a steel fork while I'm at it. I want an old steel road bike to ride around town. I looked at craigslist and got pretty close so I think if I stick with it for a week or two, I can probably find something pretty sweet. Right now, my top pick would probably be a Bridgestone RB-1 but we'll see what I can come up with. For kind of lame reasons, I ended up not entering the swim meet this weekend so that means I'm back to lifting 3 times a week. My strength-maintenance routine of doing one 5rm per week worked out pretty well -- last night, I was able to do 5 sets of 5 at the old weight. I didn't think I was going to get through it but I did. I'm only tweaking my old program slightly -- doing fast on wed and heavy on fri now so I'm not trashed for swimming on tues/thurs. I'm getting pretty close to most of the "novice" strength standards in Rippetoe for my weight. But he has 274 for the deadlift and 158 for the power clean for 1RM both of which seem kind of zany to me. Honestly, at this point, I don't feel like I need to get that much stronger or bigger for that matter so I may only do this for 6 weeks and then go on strength maintenance indefinitely. It's kind of a drag to spend so much time in the gym anyway. I even went as far as to buy a $16 casio digital watch to time my sets. Aside: I haven't worn a watch in many years, at least as long as I've had a cellphone, and it feels really really weird to wear one now. I still need a dip belt for weighted chins. They actually make shin guards for deadlifting which at times I desire though yesterday, at least, I felt like I had enough control over the bar to keep from bashing it into my shins for once. Other badges of honor: I have bruises on my shoulders right now from "catching" the bar doing cleans. I went running for the first time in years this morning around Mission Creek Park. I did intervals -- 1 minute run, 1 walk, 2 run, 1 walk, up to 5 and back down. It was definitely tiring but not miserable. I wouldn't say I actively want to do a tri right now but it's certainly a true statement that I will never do one if I can't run. (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
2:52 pm	Wrapped up Inherent Vice today. This isn't quite as elaborately setup as "For DeMille, young fur-henchmen can't be rowing," but is still pretty good: It turned out to be a recently opened gourmet health-food joint off Melrose called The Price of Wisdom... It was upstairs from a delapidated bar where Doc remembered hang out during one of his seedier phases, he forgot which. Penny looked up at the flickering red neon sign and frowned. "Ruby's Lounge, uh-huh, I remember it well, it used to be good for at least one felony arrest per week." "Groovy cheeseburgers as I recall." "Voted unanimously by local food critics the Southland's Most Toxic." "Sure, but it kept down the heatlh-code violations, all those mice and roaches every morning with their li'l feet in the air, stone dead next to the burgers that done the deed? "Getting hungrier by the minute." Directed by a hand lettered sign reading, "The Price of Wisdom is Above Ruby's, Job 28:18" Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
2:00 pm	AtD having sucked up all of the reading time budget, Warlock got sidelined but once again is getting some cycles. A marvelous allusion: Gannon saw that Blaisedell was watching him expressionlessly. Above him on the wall hung a mezzotint of a man thrashing at some ocean waves with a large sword. Oakley Hall, Warlock, "Gannon puts down his name." In other words, tak[ing] up arms against a sea of troubles. (Comment on this)
Monday, August 10th, 2009
7:43 pm	Finished Against the Day Saturday after a good two and a half years at it which averages to a bit shy of 10 pages per week. It was marvelous but sort of like eating a 55 gallon drum of ice cream. I think I need a little break from big fat novels for a little while... (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
7:07 pm	Swam today. Back to short course after swimming long course all summer. I can swim my endurance sets *much faster* with short fins+hand paddles.( Read more... ) I'm finally starting to unify my understanding of training. I'd been lifting sets of 5 for months and got really strong doing this but if anything, it made my swimming *slower*. I have now put together a slightly fancier program that I think is working much better to make my swimming faster.( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
1:22 pm	Wow, haven't posted in quite awhile. I got my annual tonsilitis last Sunday night. Doc gave me erythromycin which got rid of the infection and then gave me awful stomach cramps -- like I was bedridden for 24 hours before I quit taking it and they switched me to a z-pack. 2 days of that left. This is probably the 5th year in a row I've gotten this now and plotting a line, I think I'm at the break-even point for having them out. Missed the swim meet yesterday since I've been sick. Got the new edition of Bompa's Periodization in the mail the other day, training cycle restarts on Monday. Next event is probably the short course meters meet in mid-october, 14 weeks away. Got my first issue of Good Magazine the other day. Towards the end of each week, I find myself hoping that the Economist will take a week off but it just keeps coming! <200 pages of Against the Day left, just in time for Inherant Vice to come out next month. Pride came and went. I'm a hater. I had a low-grade anxiety attack that Saturday afternoon and pretty much shut down. It's like Christmas which is also really hard on me: it makes me feel like the odd man out -- that every other person in the world is with someone except me. But then I seem to get SAD around both solstices anyway -- not just in the winter -- which conincides with those events. I guess the long days mess with my brain just as much as short. Anyway, just another bump in the road, life goes on. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
12:10 pm	The evolutionary origin of depression: Mild and bitter | The Economist Dr Nesse’s hypothesis is that, as pain stops you doing damaging physical things, so low mood stops you doing damaging mental ones—in particular, pursuing unreachable goals. Pursuing such goals is a waste of energy and resources. Therefore, he argues, there is likely to be an evolved mechanism that identifies certain goals as unattainable and inhibits their pursuit—and he believes that low mood is at least part of that mechanism. The evolutionary origin of depression: Mild and bitter | The Economist This definitely rings true for me. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 25th, 2009
10:36 pm	Rode with planetboy today: route (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
5:59 pm	Back is slowly getting better. Doing a little heavier lifting ( Read more... ) I was totally shagged out last weekend so I did hardly anything. It was hot enough on Sunday to go to the beach so I did that, basically for the first time since I've lived here. r.e. dating with respect to the previous Woody Allen quote, maybe I need to call up the FAA and see about getting a floating tfr to follow me around. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
10:46 pm	Also: Got piano tuned today :) Following up next month to get clank in pedal fixed, later in the year for resurfacing the hammers. I will have had this piano for 8 years in June! (Comment on this)
10:15 pm	Back is much better but now I think I hurt my shoulder a little on the bench press yesterday -- started hurting during swimming today :/ Having learned that if the bar isn't touching your shins on the deadlift, you're doing it wrong, the next problem you run into is tearing your shins up with the bar. They apparently make shin guards specifically for this. Started playing bioshock on the PS3 last night. Bashing "splicers" with a wrench in the submarine city prompts endless flipmode references. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
6:40 pm	Was in Nashville for a wedding over the weekend. Swam at sportsplex on Friday, lifted at the ymca on sat. Hurt my back deadlifting -- 3rd or so warmup set at 115, got the weight up to about my knees and felt a little twitch in my back and it was all over. I think it's probably just a muscle strain -- it doesn't hurt all that bad -- but I won't be doing any heavy pulling for awhile, for sure :/ Got back Sunday night no thanks to weather in the midwest. Narrowly avoided having to spend the night in denver. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
10:27 pm	Swam ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Friday, April 17th, 2009
6:45 pm	Inch by inch Dropped another second and change at the meet today. I think I need to stop heavy lifting several weeks prior to competition, I lifted last week and my muscles have felt "off" swimming since. Feb 7 Apr 17 31.28 30.64 34.31 33.93 34.95 35.22 35.46 34.84 2:16.00 2:14.63 The next pool meet of note is the long course meters championship in July. (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
12:07 am	lifted ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)