October Earwigs

Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate.

On Sunday, Doug and I paddled north in the kayaks to Richmond Beach where we turned about. After tea and a short leg stretch at North Head Beach, we blasted home with a light northeasterly tail wind – the first of the summer season – barely enough to catch runners, which did not stop us trying and I was happy to see that our return pace was brisk: we covered the 6 to 7 kilometre return journey in about 40 minutes. When we landed on the beach, 21 kilometres down and home in time for lunch, Doug commented that the lactate level sprint did not feel as uncomfortable as usual. He was right, it didn’t, although I could feel my legs the next day.

PC: DB

The day before, Saturday, we had ridden the Mogo trails with a friend and her friends, a nice group of six (in total – and only one e-bike!). I had plotted a route which avoided the closed trails (there was weekend race running) but took us on a tour around the trail network, up and down, as is the nature of the Mogo trail network. It was a great little loop and I admit to some satisfaction in Doug and I being the last men standing.

October I trained a lot more intensity: I went back to my Mountain Athlete (now Mountain Tactical) roots, doing long circuit sessions with slightly lower weights but more explosive exercises. Along with that, I’ve been doing more mountain biking and much less strictly zone 2 level endurance. That’s alright for me as my aerobic threshold is pretty tight against my lactate threshold. If you’re aerobic endurance and lactate threshold are widely separated, better performance and less fatigue comes from a gradual increase in aerobic (zone 2) training with only a smattering of lactate threshold work – the classic polarised training method. Despite many days of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness – although I’m not sure mine was delayed), October was a fun training month. Intensity is both earned and fun.

I read some good books in October. I read so many books I forget what they all are. Certainly, I loved Barry Blanchards memoir: The Calling: A Life Rocked By Mountains, although the book ended too soon and too abruptly because I know Blanchard went on to complete many more audacious climbs after the book ended. An enjoyable part of the book was reading about old friends in Canada who featured in the book and also appreciating Blanchard’s deep and abiding attachment to the mountains that he grew up among and never left. Often overshadowed by the bigger mountain ranges of the world, Blanchard recognised early that world class adventure could be had close at hand in the Canadian Rockies if only a climber could dream big enough.

Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy by Batya Unger-Sargon is a timely book as the vocal woke media continues to progress the victim-oppressor narrative. Before you close this blog in disgust, recognise that Unger-Sargon is on the true left of the political spectrum and very much concerned with “talking truth to power” – that old adage that used to be the mantra of journalists before journalists became propaganda arms of the government.

Liberal/progressive white women are, apparently, afflicted with more mental dysphoria than other groups. Could it be that a world view circumscribed by victims and oppressors is by nature pretty grim? Victims, by definition, are powerless, and, when there are so many different and over-lapping characteristics which classify the victim class, almost everyone becomes a victim. No sensible person can argue that oppressors and victims exist. But that does not make intersectionality theory logical, sensible or even useful, because once you embrace the idea, the oppressed class simply shifts. Ideas, are like ticks, almost impossible to remove.