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Training Plan: Winter 2004 to completion of goal:
Mission: To maximize my athletic potential.
Goal: To qualify for NCAA DIII XC 8K and Outdoor track 5K championships.
Objectives: To make progress every season.
Strategy: To train effectively and stay healthy.
Tactics: To increase aerobic fitness by base training, develop more flexibility by stretching and by doing plyometrics. Increase my top-end speed by doing anaerobic speedwork when the time is right. Develop more strength, flexibility and explosiveness by weight lifting and doing plyometrics weekly (up to several times a week). Develop more aerobic capacity by swimming so I can get more cummulative hours of training without additional pounding of my legs.
Sometimes my mind gets stuck on the dumbest things. Like what makes something right or wrong. Some people will say it's based on religion. Some will say it's based on social-cultural norms and mores. Some will say it's based on ideas. I agree on the latter. But what makes an idea. Do ideas even exist? Do ideas consist of mass? Do they occupy space? Where did matter come from? Are my problems with learning functions of the lack of answers to such basic questions of existence? Why have so many people died because of religious and ideological differences. Who's to say what's wrong and right. Right and wrong are so abstract. Right and wrong are socially, individually, chronologically, and cognitively relative and dynamic.
There was nowhere to park in Camden. Every lot was either closed or they kicked you out of. The transportation center was closed. It was the opening weekend of the rails and the transportation center was closed. That makes sense... I think. 1 Billion dollars and nowhere to park. 1 Billion dollars and all the train stations where outdoors. 1 Billion dollars and the rails weren't continued to Glassboro. They were originally going to run tracks from Trenton to Glassboro, but all these NIMBY people in Gloucester, Mantua and Pitman complained. They thought thugs were going to come from Camden and steal shit. That makes sense. Burglars from Camden are going to PAY for a train ride that has SECURITY on it and CAMERAS's at the stations. Then, they are going to get off the train and rob someone's house. They are then going to go back to the platform and wait up to a half-hour, on a platform with SECURITY CAMERA'S and TRANSIT COPS for a train with their stolen goods. People who used this type of argument are seriously idiots. The other thing was people were worried that their kids where going to run out into the tracks and get hit by a train. There are certain things parents, at least my parents, tell their kids not to do, like play in traffic, play with fire, play with fireworks, put stuff in electrical outlets that don't belong in electric outlets, and screw around on train tracks, etc. If a kid gets hit by a train, there's a name for that. It's called natural selection. I can see some things, like banning cigarettes, assault rifles etc, but if your kid gets hit by a train it means we don't have to worry about future generations of idiots. Maybe I'm really dumb, but I don't see the logic behind people's arguments. Camden has some pretty good people in it, and it has some lousy people in it, just like my town and any other town or city anywhere in the world. They should have built the train all the way. I guess people like sitting in traffic jams. I guess people like air pollution. I guess people don't like public service. The train has it's good points (it carries people) and its bad points (it cost 1 BILLION DOLLARS). Personally, I think that kind of money would have been better spent on reducing the cost of college education, senior planning for the baby-boomer generation, and my personal college tuition. Come on, a billion bucks, I doubt anyone would notice if they slipped me 50,000 dollars for my schooling. I wish my dad was a politician or something. They could at least build a rails-to-trail from Camden to Glassboro. Then again, you never know, someone from Camden might roller blade 10 miles down to Pitman, break in their house in the middle of the night, steal their tv and roller blade back to Camden (that's seriously what these people think, most of them probably have never even been to Camden). I ride my bike to Camden sometimes, no one bothers me. No one ever shot me. I don't recommend this though because, heck, even if you act dumb in my town you could get yourself seriously hurt. Someone might ask if I "need" anything, and I'll say no thanks, because hey, he's just trying to make a living because there are people out there who won't hire a person if they, well, I don't want to be too politically incorrect here, but their definitely could be some improvements made in equality around the US.
I'm not a total waste though. There are those dumber than me, like this guy in gold colored Mercedes Benz that was behind me today as I was trying to merge onto 42. I was on an on-ramp off of Market Street and I was merging onto the on-ramp from 130 which ramps onto 42. Anyway, this idiot in the Mercedes pulled up to my bumper and to my left so when I looked in my mirrors and couldn't see. I even physically turned my body, but all I could see was a waste of sperm driving a waste of money. To respond I crept forward to get a better angle on the traffic which was feet away and moving anywhere from 40 to 60 miles and hour. I needed a whole big enough for my power lacking car to get into. As I crept forward this brainless waste of sperm moved right up to my bumper and at the same time moved even further to my inside-left blocking my view even more. I crept forward and stopped again. This time the idiot almost hit my bumper and he even had the nerve to beep. I wished so badly for a cop car to have been there watching the situation. After he beeped it felt as though every ounce of blood in my body went straight to my head and face. I could feel my hear pounding through the veins on my forehead. I wanted nothing more than to beat the sh*t out of this guy. But then I saw a small whole, so I pressed the gas all the way down and go into the spot. But as I drove away I thought of how it is funny how peoples personality's change when they drive. I'm a pretty small guy and based on that, chances are this guy was bigger than me, for all I know it was a woman who looked like a guy. But I could still probably easily kick this person to another state of reality. I run and lift weights. I'm in crazy shape. My heart beats 55-65 beats a minute. But here he was driving like he was all tough and dominant. If I had the chance I would have driven slowly in front of him once I got on the highway and I would have watched him the rear-view so that every time he would attempt to switch lanes I would block him out. That's probably what I should have done. Then I should have waited for him to pull over so we could settle the issue. At that point I'd punch him unconscious which would give me the chance to get my tire iron out of my trunk to finish him off. See illustration. I also downloaded a satellite map of the area from March 1995. My path is highlighted in a thin white line. The path of the other traffic that I have to merge with is highlighted in yellow. Where we both combine is highlighted in red. Here is the picture. Also notice that where the traffic is heavy on the side of the highway where the onramp lets onto. This is very typical. For some reason everyone likes to stay to the right and only merge left at the last minute to stay on 42 to keep from exiting onto 295 about a mile down the road. These last minute mergers who come from farther north and even PA do not realize the severe congestion they cause. What happens is the far right lane turns into a 295 south exit lane. The next lane over gives you the choice to exit or stay on 42. This lane then ends about a half mile from that point. People ride this lane all the way to the end instead of merging earlier. Not only does this make it hard for people to merge onto the highway coming from the market street/130 onramp, it also bottlenecks that section of highway, which eventually spreads all the way across like 5 lanes of highway causing traffic to completely stop once it gets busy. If I knew anything about fluid dynamics I would mathematically explain the problem. If traffic just merged sooner it would probably be slow, but I doubt it would come to a complete halt like it usually does. There is a lot of merging and bottlenecking in this area and on both the north and south sides. It makes rush hour very fun. It's funny when you think about it... People are always in such a rush yet they wait until the last minute to do everything. I think that is slightly ironic.
Supposedly they're going to fix this thing in some kind of project that will most likely take a decade to complete. I think what happens in situations of this type is that suburban sprawl isn't considered. They only have so much money available to pay for stuff. So they are forced to make do with what they have where they are. They should put the extra money out to build more than what is needed, that way you have what you need for the next 50 years. Look at the Schukyl Expressway (676) in Philadelphia. That thing was out of date before it was even planned. It was out of date before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
Another road story... I was driving home from school going north on Delsea drive the other day and the traffic was very heavy. As I was driving through Washington Township/Pitman I approached a T intersection which was to my right and further in front of me there was a red light with only a few cars waiting. So I figured I'd stop before crossing the T-intersection because I would have to wait for the light to change green anyway. So as I was letting traffic off of the T road that was most likely sitting there for a very long time because most drivers are assholes. Anyway, as I was sitting there waiting and letting the other traffic make their right and left hand turns, this guy in a blue ford Aerostar beeped at me. I ignored it figuring he might be intelligent and look up the road and then look to his right and see that what I was doing. Apparently he didn't notice. He continued to beep more frequently and for longer periods. At first I almost got mad, but as I looked at his sorry excuse for a person in my rear-view mirror I couldn't help but laugh. It was especially funny because he's logic seemed to contain a wealth of intelligence, because it makes perfect sense to hurry up to wait. It makes perfect sense to be like 20 yards from a red light and floor it and go like 60MPH then slam the breaks, because hey, there's nothing more satisfying to getting the that red light so you can just sit there and wait for it turn green instead of doing something productive like letting traffic on an adjacent and extremely congested road. See illustration.
I've been running a lot lately. I'm starting something new. I'm going to try to run faster by running slower with a heart rate monitor. This fall I'm going to try to attempt some breakthrough results by building a huge base. Today is may 11th. I ran 7 miles today and felt like crap. Tomorrow I'm going to use a common formula to calculate my easy run heart rate. I'm going to run easy for 4.7 miles for the next two days (under 70%). On the third day I'm going to try to calculate my max heart rate. I'll run another easy 5 at under 70% after that. I'll then continue my base building. After two weeks I'll try again to calculate my max heart rate. I'll then continue base building. I'm going to try this running easier to get faster thing. In June I'll begine to introduce doubles to my running. In July I want to really kick up my mileage. In August I'll begin to introduce some light speed work. I want to be ready to rumble in September. I think I'll probably try to skip winter track so I can build another base. I think the thing that contributed the most to my fastest 5K time was the base building I ran during the winter. I'm going to try the same this summer.