One of our favorite artists is Rufus Wainwright. The last time we saw him in concert was several years ago. I think it might have been 2003 when he performed at Bowdoin College when his album, Want One, was first released.
I’m happy to tell you that Rufus is making a return appearance to Maine on October 1st. We had heard about the concert from a friend the night of the Neko Case concert. The next day we looked it up and bought tickets.
My favorite song he has ever done is Hallelujah. Of course there are a few versions out there but his is one of my favorites. I wonder if he’ll perform it for me next week since it’s my birthday later in the month?
I recently received this as one of those forwarded emails. I can’t verify all these health benefits to eating bananas but it’s definitely food for thought!
Bananas Contain three natural sugars – sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber, a banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy. Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world’s leading athletes. But energy isn’t the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.
Depression:
According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel better.
PMS:
Forget the pills — eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.
Anemia:
High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.
Blood Pressure:
This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it the perfect way to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit’s ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.
Brain Power:
200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex England) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.
Constipation:
High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.
Hangovers:
One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.
Heartburn:
Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.
Morning Sickness:
Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.
Mosquito bites:
Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.
Nerves:
Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.
Overweight and at work?
Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and chips. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.
Ulcers:
The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.
Temperature control:
Many other cultures see bananas as a ‘cooling’ fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD):
Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.
Smoking:
Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6 and B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.
Stress:
Potassium is a vital mineral which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body’s water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.
Strokes:
According to research in ‘The New England Journal of Medicine,’ eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death from strokes by as much as 40%!
So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe it’s time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, ‘A banana a day keeps the doctor away!’
Footnote: If your roses are covered with Aphids, drape banana skins over the branches, It’s amazing, but in a day or less, they are GONE!
But then you have to follow that up with this: they are looking for another sister, Claire Marie. Guess what, she has a blog and writes:
This morning on the Today show, Randy, Gary, and Joanne told their story.
Meredith Viera (sp?) asked about another sister that they have never met and were still looking for, Joanne said yes, her birth name was Claire Marie, she would be about 39 years old.
That’s me.
I’m Claire Marie.
I’m the sister they are searching for, and the Today Show is flying me and my youngest son to New York tonight to meet my sister and brothers, and be on the Today Show tomorrow morning.
You can read the entire posting on her blog HERE. How cool is that? The Today Show just got a two-fer!
Yogave is a donation based yoga studio in Falmouth, Maine. It’s owned an operated by my friends David Clark and Lisa Maxwell. (Both are ex-competitive cyclists.)
Dave informed me of the opening of the studio earlier in the year. At that point I was in the middle of training/cycling and the only classes available were during training hours after work, Monday through Friday at 6pm. Since then they have added more classes and more instructors, including weekend classes.
Today I made a point of getting up early and going to class. Lisa was instructing today so that was a driving factor to attend since I haven’t been able to catch up with her in a while. I also know the benefits to yoga for cyclists to build strength and flexibility. After visiting a massage therapist recently and realizing how tight I am, not to mention my limited flexibility. I used to do that a bit in the off season a couple years back and it made a huge difference. It’s time to focus on yoga again as a way to improve my cycling.
The studio is located at 170 US Route One, Falmouth, in the back of the building. The space is very inviting and relaxing. It’s exactly what you’d expect a yoga studio to be like.
At Yogave, you don’t need to join or pay for a membership. It’s set up on a pay as you go and donation basis. This is quite a different concept from the norm of most fitness studios. Though it must be working because they have been able to add classes and instructors.
Early this spring my husband and I took the class/exam to receive our USA Cycling Class C Officials license. Normally you’d work on shadowing some officials to see how the duties are done and then start working some races as assistant officials. However, my husband and I never got around to doing that.
Recently I was asked by the Southern Maine Cycling Club to work as an official on a volunteer basis at the Saco Bay Criterium to keep the expenses down. Of course they wouldn’t just ask this unless we had offered to do that, which we did earlier in the year. I was happy to oblige!
Unfortunately my husband came down with a bug late in the week and was not able to go but I still attended.
It was fun and definitely a learning experience. I was very nervous at first with the scoring but finally got the hang of it. Luckily the first few races had pretty small fields so scoring was easy.
It was a pretty cool day with some gusty wind. Unfortunately the officials’ table was in the shade all day. A couple cups of coffee helped to warm me up a bit but there were time it was pretty chilly and my hands didn’t want to write much but I managed. Luckily the wind died down toward the end of the day.
Of course being at the race I wasn’t able to take photos but I did snap this at the start of the Pro/1/2 start:
One of the best moments of the race was during the Men’s 4/5 when Chris Esposito was in a break with another guy (sorry, I don’t have the name) after the first two laps. On the final lap we saw Chris come around the last corner completely alone. I thought, “wow, he seriously dropped that other rider.” But it seems that the guy clipped a pedal on the last conner, somehow causing his chain to come off. He was about 200+ meters away when Chris crossed the line. The guy stopped to try to get the chain back on when the announcer yelled to him to make a run for it. (They were so far in front of the rest of the field that he’d still finish 2nd.) So he did as the crowd cheered him on while clip-clopping up the hill in his cycling shoes. He indeed finished second, well ahead of the rest of the field.
I should also tell you that Chris Esposito is a junior racer so by USA Cycling regulations he must race with junior gears. They are much lower than normal gearing. I can only imagine what Chris will do when he is able to race with standard gear ratios. (Chris also won the junior 15-18 race.)
The other rather memorable moment was when the winner of the Cat 3 race lapped the main field with 2 laps to go after riding at least 1/2 the race on the front in a solo break. That’s just something you don’t see very often. As you can imagine he won the race.
Local pro cyclist Dan Vaillancourt also cleaned up on the premes though he lost the race, also to a solo breakaway. There were a lot of those today! Incidentally, the man who won the Pro1/2 race is a young man from the Portsmouth area with aspirations to win that criterium too.
One disappointing part of the race was the women’s field. There were 11 women on the line – 6 for the Cat 1/2/3 field and 5 for the Cat 4. It often looked like a time trial out there instead of a criterium. The men’s 55+ was equally as disappointing with only a handful of guys on the line. I suppose the timing of the race was a little tough, conflicting with a few other races/events happening in the area, including a cyclocross race. Tomorrow’s Portsmouth Criterium should include much larger fields.
It was a great learning experience and I enjoyed working with Paula, Mark and Jim very much. I’m sure I’ll be helping out with this one again next year!
I’ve posted before about my issue with cramping. I’ve tried electrolytes such as Nuun Tabs and Accelerade. Sometimes I don’t cramp with these products and sometimes I do.
Recently I’ve gotten so I digest a Cliff Shot Gel or Cliff Shot Bloks prior to a ride. That habit has served me well to give me the boost of energy I need for the ride. And surprisingly I haven’t had an issue with cramps.
Tonight I went out on a local group ride with no gel or bloks. Upon the first significant climb I started cramping. First it was in my right calf, then the left. Sheesh! Then I realized I missed taking in a gel before the ride because I was rushing to make the ride, which is starting earlier these days due to fading daylight.
It’s funny that I haven’t given much thought to my cramping issue lately because it hasn’t happened. However, tonight when it did happen, I could almost pinpoint the reason. Or at least what I think is the reason. Next time I’ll take the time to grab a gel before I leave for the ride.
I started reading Base Building while on the trainer last season. But why read a book about something you are in the middle of? It was like putting the cart before the horse, or beside it. So I stopped reading it.
My goal was to get through the Paleo Diet book this summer so I could get going on the Base Building book before base building starts up at the beginning of the year. My problem is that I just don’t seem to have the time to read. I like to read at bedtime but by the time I’m in bed I’m so exhausted and after a couple pages I can’t keep my eyes open any more.
I am happy to report I have finally finished the Paleo Diet. It was very good, though not a stretch from my normal eating habits, since I’ve been eating according to my blood type for several years now, and I’m a Type O. However, the book was a reminder that I need to be eating better. So I’m on a misson to do just that.
I still need to make some notes on the Paleo Diet book to keep them handy and accessible for reference going forward. (Yup, I’m a bit anal that way.)
Now on to the Base Buidling book. It’s interesting that this book references good eating habits as well, reinforcing what I just read. It was as if they go hand in hand and I’m glad I am reading them in this order. Of course the off season training is a ways off so this will give me plenty of time to digest the information and make the appropriate notes before I begin working on next season.
While in the store this weekend I was buying a bunch of bananas, which I buy once or twice a week. I actually prefer to buy them in smaller quantities and more freqently because I don’t like them very ripe. I prefer my bananas barely yellow. Anything more tastes like mush to me. (But the upside is that I’ll have bananas for banana bread!)
As I stood in line at the cash register, I started thinking more about bananas. For me it’s the perfect fruit. It’s easily portable, doesn’t require a lot to eat one (no knife needed to peal or cut it), and the “wrapper” can be discarded easily in nature if you have a banana on a ride.
I tend to eat a fair bit of bananas. I often have one for snack at work, or as part of my breakfast, or in a bowl of fruit or in a smoothy following a ride.
Sometimes it’s hard to find some fruits when they are out of season, or at least they are more expensive. But bananas never seem to vary. They are less than a dollar per pound, which is really the best deal going compared to many other fruits. For this reason, I wonder how many pounds of bananas are sold every day/month/year. The banana section of the grocery store seems to always being turned over, which is good to keep the fruit fresh.
To me I think bananas are the perfect fruit. Don’t get me wrong, I love cherries, as I’ve posted before, in addition to fresh figs, pears, cantaloupe, watermelon, apples, and all kinds of berries. I haven’t gotten much into the exotic fruits such as passion fruit and pomegranites. Though I must admit I’ve had persimons before and find them to be very tasty.
So what’s your “perfect fruit” and why do you feel that way?
Today was Robert Anderson’s memorial service on Long Island. 15 of us made the trip to Long Island on the 11:00 am ferry for the service.
(Richard Hutchins, Kris Clark, John Tabb, Spencer Reed, and Don McEwan.)
It was a lovely outside service on a beautiful late summer day. The eulogy was delivered by Robert’s best friend, Joey, who I had the pleasure of meeting on the Trek Across Maine in 2007. His eulogy included a story from that event whereby they brought the bare minimum for the three days, but a necessity item was a small espresso maker from a bunsen burner. Incidentally, Joey, unknowing that Robert has packed the espresso making item, had packed demitasse cups. I laughed during this story because I remembered hearing it during the Trek.
There was an organized bike ride at noon right before the service and they pulled in around 12:30, which was a very fitting tribute.
I don’t think I have cried to much at a funeral as I have since my father’s funeral almost 17 years ago. It just felt like we shouldn’t be having a funeral for such a young guy that was otherwise healthy. Just such a tragic accident.
Instead of waiting around for the ferry to depart at almost 5pm, we had a friend that gave us a ride on his boat that he usually uses for a water taxi.
It was a beautiful ride back to the mainland.
(Spencer Reed and John Tabb.)
(Don McEwan and Richard Hutchins.)
It was a lovely afternoon and a great day to say farewell to a dear friend. However, it made me realize that there will be reminders of our loss for months to come, causing a few more tears to be shed as well.
I found out on August 24th that a good friend of mine had passed away in a cycling accident the previous day in Pennsylvania while visiting with family in the area.
Robert Anderson was a dear friend of mine. He was an avid cyclists in all disciplines: mountain biking, cyclocross, and road cycling.
I met him through our mutual club CCCP but I really got to know him on my first Trek Across Maine in June 2007. We rode a fair bit of the three days together. I remember Robert telling me after the first day that he had changed out his entire drive train the night before. When I asked him why he had done that, he proclaimed, “So I could have a 19 mile per hour average!” (At that point, that was our average for the day, which was quite a bit higher than the day before.)
At that point I hadn’t known Robert long and didn’t know he was an artist with a Masters in Fine Arts. (His talents also funneled into cabinetry and furniture making.) I found this out during the Trek when he and his friend, Joey, gave Tracey and I a tour of the Colby College Museum after the second leg of the tour. It was a great treat for them to point out certain things about the art on the wall and the various artists.
(Me, Patrick, Robert, and Tracey after the completion of the Trek Across Maine 2007)
The following year we formed an official CCCP team for the Trek and were fortunate to have Robert part of that team that year.
(Robert in middle row on the far left.)
From then on we came to know more and more about Robert. Not only did we see him on many club rides and working at Back Bay Bicycle part-time, but we also started seeing him at various races. That was the next step for him. He participated in a few mountain bike races with another BBB employee, Paul, and they even did the 12-Hour Bradbury Challenge in the fall of 2008 as a relay team. (This year they had planned on racing it individually.) Robert also appeared in several cyclocross events in New England last fall, in addition to the Deerfield Dirt Road Randonnee (D2R2), and Tour of the Battenkill and the Scarborough Crit Series in the spring of this year.
(Robert at Pineland Cyclocross)
(Robert in center foreground at the Scarborough Crit series – the first of the season)
Robert was the type of person that people were drawn to. He radiated happiness and enthusiasm for life. He had a great sense of humor and when climbing with some of the best cyclists in our club, he’d look over as ask, “what else ya got?”
Robert died instantly of head and neck injuries when he flew over his handlebars while mountain biking. I take comfort knowing he died doing something he loved. However, he will be greatly missed by me, the entire Portland cycling community, and his wife and young daughter.
Rest in peace my dear friend. I’m glad we had the time together that we did.
"To be a cyclist is to be a student of pain....at cycling's core lies pain, hard and bitter as the pit inside a juicy peach. It doesn't matter if you're sprinting for an Olympic medal, a town sign, a trailhead, or the rest stop with the homemade brownies. If you never confront pain, you're missing the essence of the sport. Without pain, there's no adversity. Without adversity, no challenge. Without challenge, no improvement. No improvement, no sense of accomplishment and no deep-down joy. Might as well be playing Tiddly-Winks." - Scott Martin
