Midbreak

Taking a quick break from the dreary task of grading…

Monday: 5 miles at the Rock Island trail. 5.27 at 15:32. Slightly sloppy but I should have been faster than that. Still: no knee pain that night.

Tuesday: commuter walk; weights: 4 sets of 5, one of 10 (penalty set of 3 reps afterward), 4 sets of 5. Varied the grip.

Downstairs: 10 x 134, then 4 sets of 4 x 160 (disappointed; wanted sets of 5)
incline: 5 x 134
high incline: 10 x 94, 10 x 94, 5 x 105
curls: 3 sets of 3.

Today (Wednesday) 4.10 in 1:01:23 (lower loop plus median extra; flat parts were 14:57 to the entrance and 14:42 from it. Pavement was wet. Now, to see how the knee feels tonight: I DID stretch after this.

A cheap way to feel better about myself

I admit that I’ve enjoyed following the antics of El Campeon:

Now, I do not know whether he is an expert troll who is doing it for influence and to sell shirts (yes, you can buy his shirts) or a complete moron. But, in a way, that does not matter. I watch (mostly on Instagram) and laugh. But why?

I think there is something in me that says “ok, I might suck, and I might be delusional about how much I suck but I am not this idiot”, whether the idiot is real or just a social media character. It is kind of a cheap high.

Stumbling into spring break

So, this spring has started with some challenges. We had a nice 29’th anniversary dinner at an Indian restaurant. The day before and the day after…kind of rough.

That is one thing about aging. If B were in her 50’s or 60’s, I would not be worried. And the saying “this too shall pass” becomes “this too, is likely to pass” and then “this too, might pass.” Enough said.

Me: I am doing ok.

I had lazy workouts: weights and a short (2 mile) 17:45 mpm paced walk yesterday, and 4 miles today (15:47 pace; 3 laps of my longish “around the arena” to Moss loop, averaging about 21:30 per lap; 1 minute per lap slower than I’d like (1.35-1.40 each). It was 32 F (0 C) and we had some light snow last night.

Yesterday weights:

pull ups: 9 sets of 5, one of 7, mixing the grips up: regular, narrow, chin up, mixed.
Bench: kind of pathetic: 5 x 134, 3 x 154, 1 x 165, BAD miss at 180, 2 x 165, 4 x 160, 3 x 160, 5 x 155, 5 x 155
trap bar dead (4 inch) 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 224, 10 x 244
high incline: 10 x 94, 5 x 105, 5 x 105
curls: 3 sets of 10.
This all took a long time.

Knee pain: none at night for the last several nights. No ice, no “happy pills” (tramadol). But I have been faithful with my hamstring stretches and quad stretches with a yoga belt. I really believe that these are helping. I might try to bring back stationary cycling at some point.

Catching up

Let’s just say that today was a half-wasted day due to, well…negligence.

But as far as working out the past two days:

Thursday: 2 mile commuter walk (and a lunch “walk” with B) and weights in the morning:
pull ups: 10 singles (hard, mix pull ups, chin ups), 6 sets of 5 (chins, pulls), 7 pull ups, 5 pull ups. Not quite as hard as Tuesday
Bench: 10 x 134, 6 x 155, 6 x 155, 5 x 155, 1 x 155 (spite)
incline: 5 x 134
high incline: 5 x 105, 5 x 105, 5 x 105
curls: 3 sets of 10.

Today: great weather: W. Peoria 3.14 in 44:30 and an extra loop (not the circle) to get 4.03 in 58:17. Ok, it was really about 4.1 miles (the large block I did was just under a mile) 14:13 pace.

Some days, it is just hard

First, a bit of social/political commentary: this going in and cancelling NSF grants: I’ll admit to having very mixed feelings.

On one hand: basic scientific research is rarely immediately profitable, and much of it will not pan out in terms of producing something material. But: it is important, not only because expanding human knowledge is good, but also because you never know when having research “on the shelf” will come in handy (e. g. research was already done on RNA type vaccines before covid hit).

So, yes, the NSF should be funding science.

On the other hand, some of what the NSF was funding IS stupid and a waste of time and money. Don’t ask me how I know.

A saying about babies and bathwater comes to mind.

But in the current academic climate, any time you want to fund something, even a STEM project, the wokes will want their cut and cry “bigotry” if they don’t get it.

And here is the rub: the MAGAS are against the wokes, but also against science. The liberals are for science, but also support the wokes. Sigh..

Workout notes

Minimal knee pain last night. Wonder how effective the knee sleeves are.

Workout: pull ups: 10 singles (HARD), then 8 sets of 5 (alternating pull ups, chin ups, two sets of mixed grips) then a set of 4 (penalty reps). It was hard..don’t know exactly why.

Downstairs: bench: 10 x 134, 3 sets of 5 x 160 (best in a while?)

deadlifts: 10 x 134 straight bar, wagon wheel with the straight bar: 10 x 184, 10 x 224 (glutes and lumbar were slightly sore from the last straight bar session)
4 inch trap bar: 10 x 244

high incline: 2 sets of 10 x 94, 5 x 105
curls: 3 sets of 10.
Two 1 mile (plus) commuter walks to and from Walgreens.

The irony of federal grants and DEI

The Republicans are going after wokeness and DEI, especially in federally funded grants (e. g. National Science Foundation).

Here is what I find very ironic: if you actually READ some of these grant proposals..I mean read the substance and not the mere titles, many of the “woke sounding ones” really aren’t that woke at all.

For example: one woke DEI proposal (not on this particular list) was about math teaching, and what it actually contained was good, sound suggestions for pedagogy. Those suggestions are some that I’ve used for some time, and they benefit the vast majority of students, regardless of background, race, creed, sex, etc.

I’ve been attending some of the events created by my university’s grant (which IS on Senator Cruz’s hit list, linked to above). And much of what I’ve seen isn’t particularly woke or DEI related; these suggestions, both the useful and the not-so-useful ones, were really race/sex/category neutral.

So, what is going on?

Here is what I think: up to recently, DEI/woke language increased interest in a grant proposal. Or that was the perception, at least. So, maybe you wanted to study a classroom practice. If you said “I think this would help most differential equations students”, you’d get a reaction. But if you said something about it especially helping “marginalized groups”, that was an extra boost.

Now that same language makes the grant toxic!

Trump did not deserve to win. But the D’s deserved to lose.

Quickly: slight knee pain last night. So: walk on Rock Island trail: 4 miles at 15:10 mpm on a trail that was sloppy in spots. Ice afterward, and stretching much later (usual PT before hand, of course). It takes only 20 minutes to get there so there is no reason I can’t walk there on weekends.

Politics/Social

I want to make myself clear: I voted for Harris and gave her campaign money. I thought her campaign was ok; it was a lot of “red, white and blue” stuff. Nevertheless, I knew that Trump had an excellent shot at winning.

The Democrats, on the whole, have many, many problems. I admit that many of the problems may be my own perception; after all, I am a 65 year old Latino professor of mathematics who served in the Navy and likes traditional male things like football.

Here are some problems, as I see them:

  1. The Democrats want to be the party of the working class. And yet

And that leads to point 2:

2. Democrats appear to take their cues from college educated “activists” who are often completely out of touch. No, student bodies are not especially “woke” but many of the activists ones are, and the key words are “privileged/non-privileged” and “marginalized groups.” Somehow they think that a platform that is focused on the “marginalized” be it racial…ok, non-white, non-Asian, LBGTQ (or whatever letters are used as of the time of this writing), and, oh yes, women and spend your time demonizing and attacking WHITE MEN (a rather large voting block)…

Of course, people tend to respond better when you make the case that THEY are better off when you win. But the D’s cannot stomach that..evidently. They’d rather complain about the “lack of empathy” when they do down in flames.

The Democrats are a women’s (and other non-privileged groups) party.

3. Social wedge issues that make D’s look stupid: take transwomen in women’s sports division. Yes, that is a small number of people, and yes, you can make the argument that competition committees should be doing this. But what you have coming from the Democrats, at least many of them, is complete denial of reality. We have sex divisions for statistical fairness to women. Men ARE better at the conventional sports than women are..a lot better. Remember: we are comparing “outliers to outliers”: the best women to the best men. Yes, women run truly impressive marathon times, but they are not even within a MILE of the men’s winner.

Hanging on to this issue just makes the Democrats look stupid and delusional. Yes, I “get” why: “transwomen are women” is dogma and if you say “except for sports” the dogma is invalidated. And, as the saying goes, “if you can’t trust the Democrats on something so simple, what CAN you trust them on?”

And then you get to the times that liberals have tainted science by ideology. One such case was the outcry over large gatherings (pre-vaccine) during COVID, only to approve of such gatherings if the “cause” was the “right” one. (Yes, outdoor gatherings were not super spreaders but we didn’t know that at the time).

And so, where do the Democrats go from here? Frankly, I am out of ideas.

Workout dump

Thursday: 2 mile walk over lunch. Weights:

pull ups: 10 singles (alternating chins and pull ups), then 7 sets of 5, one of 7. Downstairs: 10 x 134, 10 x 150 bench (best in a while), 3 sets of 5 x 134 incline, 4 inch trap bar: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 234

Friday: 5K walk at 16:48. Bad sleeping night; some knee pain.

Saturday (today) 2 miles at 15:10 per mile. Weights: 10 singles (alternating pull ups and chin ups), 8 sets of 5 alternating pull up sets and chin up sets.

bench: 10 x 134, 6 x 155, 5 x 155, 5 x 155
incline: 5 x 134
High incline: 10 x 94, 10 x 94, 5 x 105
curls: 3 sets of 10
straight bar dead lift: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 225 (exhausting) burn in the hamstrings.

Sort of high

I got an ache in the knee last night and took a tramadol. I felt slightly….”happy” when I woke up. My walk: just under 4.2 in 1:02:27; 14:58 mpm. My watch gave me too much credit for mile 1 and too little credit for mile 4. Knees: they were ok; felt it slightly during the day, but there was a drastic pressure change.

I did ice the knee afterward, and at lunch too, and I did the stretching.