Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!: June 2021

Semi-Wordless Wednesday: Working on my Sore Leg

>> Wednesday, June 30, 2021

I've seen Dr. Folske 3 times in the last 7 days:

Waiting in his lobby with notes about the pain.

Waiting in room #1.

Hooked up to electical current for 12-15 minutes.

He's not worried about my situation, but he's just trying to get me moving in the right direction quickly. For now, I'm doing some heel work every day, keeping my runs shorter and easier, running on the treadmill instead of outside, and using a chunk of PVC to roll out my calves once/day.

I got through 3 miles on the treadmill on Friday, 3.5 miles on Monday (with it getting a little tight near the end), and 4 miles today with it feeling pretty good (but not 100%) throughout.

Stage One Tour de France Crash

>> Tuesday, June 29, 2021

My boys and I have been watching the "recap" coverage on YouTube after each Tour de France stage. It's free (as we don't have cable or any other service to watch the live coverage), and it's a nice 20-30 minute version of all of the most action-packed moments of each 2-4 hour long boring stage. I'm really not into watching cycling, but I'm trying.

On Sunday morning, we watched the recap from day 1, and we saw the TWO big pile-ups. The 2nd one is now becoming a little infamous as someone held up a sign and wasn't paying attention to the race, and she ended up causing a major crash:

Screenshot of the cyclist hitting the sign and causing the pile-up.

The scene a few seconds later. Yikes.

Here's some selected text from this article about the crash:

During the first stage of the race, which spanned 122.9 miles (197.8km) from Brest to Landerneau in France, an unidentified woman wearing a yellow jacket was seen leaning into the road and smiling at cameras with her back to the oncoming cyclists while holding a sign that read “Allez Opi-Omi” (which translates from French and German to “Come on granddad-granny”).

It’s unclear if the woman was purely posing for the television camera, or whether she was also being photographed by someone on the other side of the road.

As the peloton (the main group or pack of riders) arrived at the spot, German cyclist Tony Martin crashed into the woman’s sign, lost his balance, fell sideways into the ground, and caused a chain reaction of crashes that wiped out nearly the entire pack.

Here are 2 funny renderings of the crash:

Someone joked on YouTube that her sign should have said something like "we've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warrenty!"

Back to the article:

Most racers were able to free themselves from the tangled mess of bicycles and athletes and continue racing, while other elite cyclists and spectators had to be treated for injuries — one racer, German rider Jasha Sutterlin, had to immediately pull out of the grueling 21-stage race.

One of France’s two national police forces, the National Gendarmerie, says it’s now looking for the woman, who left the scene before authorities arrived.

In a statement released on Facebook, law enforcement stated that they’re hunting for the person responsible for causing “unintentional injuries […] by manifestly deliberate violation of an obligation of safety or prudence.”

Once she’s identified and located, the woman will face serious legal trouble: Tour de France organizers state that they’re planning to sue her.

“We are suing this woman who behaved so badly,” Tour deputy director Pierre-Yves Thouault tells AFP. “We are doing this so that the tiny minority of people who do this don’t spoil the show for everyone.”

Here's video of the crash, and it's played and re-played a bunch in the opening minute (with a clear replay just before the minute mark):

Direct link: youtu.be/fi7rJfSrW58

Finally, here are a few tweets about the crash:

Lots of Strength Work, and Still TRYING to Run

>> Monday, June 28, 2021

Here's how last week looked in my training log:

Monday's run was where the calf pain came back and bummed me out.

Three things worth noting:

First, that might be a weekly strength training PR of 9 hours and 48 minutes! Lately, "good" weeks have been between 8 and 9 hours. But I spent the previous weekend camping and canoeing with my boys, so I had some "catching up" to do on Monday, so Monday was a bigger day. (Usually I do core on Sunday and legs on Monday, but I didn't do anything on Sunday, so Monday was both.) Wednesday was a big day too, and Friday was even going to be bigger, but I ran out of time. And for upper body on Tu/Th/Sat, I had 18 sets total, which is decent (5, 5, and 8).

Second, I noted starting the week with that sore run, and then I saw my two chiros during the week. They both wanted me to try more, so I hit the treadmill for 3 miles on Friday. It just BARELY started getting tight, but not bad, and nothing that "stuck around" after the run (unlike the pain I had for 2-3 days after Monday's run). So I think I'm moving in the right direction, but I need to keep it slow and steady, and I'll stick to the treadmill for a while (to be able to stop at any given moment if things get too sore, and to avoid hills that will stress my achilles).

And third, I had some decent trainer workouts. I was just shy of a 4 hour week (doing 3:55) because I stopped 10 minutes earlier than I had planned on Saturday because my heel was just starting to get achy. And 4 hours was my biggest week all year (in early April). The big difference between this past week and back in April is that this past week had some effort! Tuesday's ride was 4x (5 mins hard, 2.5 mins easy), Thursday's ride was 6x (3 mins hard, 3 mins easy), and Saturday was mainly a longer effort with a few 2-3 min efforts throw in.

Link Dump from my Other Blogs

>> Sunday, June 27, 2021

Just a note that I've been posting regularly on my other 2 blogs as well.

On my photography blog, I've been posting a lot of photo-related things, along with funny art-related things. I've been posting more over the last 18 months: for 3 years (2017-2019), I averaged about 30 posts a year. But in 2020, I posted over 60 times, and I've already posted 36 times in 2021.

Here are a few recent posts:

- Here's a photo I recently shot that was in a photo center in Seattle (and was sold) during their yearly fundraiser.

- Some funny photo-related t-shirts.

- I got a new iPhone and tested it by taking some pretty photos by the river...

- ... and then I did the same thing during my North Shore trip a few months ago.

- Speaking of my North Shore trip, here are a few Holga film photos from Lake Superior.

And on my root beer blog, I've been posting consistently as well:

- Here's a post about a recent stop at Minnesota's Largest Candy Store last week. I replenished my soda stash!

- I think I posted about this here, but here's a bit about making homemade root beer at my sons' school.

And I'm always posting random reviews on my root beer blog. Check them out!