Swim, Bike, Sauna, Galena and "Bitches Brew"

This is gonna be a stream-of-consciousness post, full of random, fleeting brain hiccups. And those of you out there saying "So what's new...?" can just button it.

Yesterday's 2,350 swim was an oddball. The main set was 4X(3X100 (:10 RI) Moderate effort) with a 1 minute rest between each 300. Karyn wanted me to keep it at "my Galena pace" but I'm not sure what that is yet. Then 6X75 working on reducing my stroke count per 25 through quiet, efficient swimming. Yeah, uh-huh, right.

The post-swim sauna did its trick and burned out whatever was ailing me. Highly recommended and lots cheaper than a trip to the 'ol PCP.

On today's 1:30 bike I gathered more data confirming last week's hypothesis that a suburb's median income and the amount of room its drivers give you is inversely correlated. Boy, did I gather data. One minivan-driving soccer mom, with no oncoming traffic, ran me into the curb AND HONKED BEFORE SHE DID IT, probably so I'd know she was going to run me into the curb. Boy did I say some things to her back bumper. I even used the same word (yes, that one) as a noun, a verb and an adjective all in the same sentence. Quite creative, I thought.

A bricked 20-minute run off the bike felt good; hope it's like that on the 21st. The Galena tri's run is supposed to be 2 miles up and out, 2 miles down and back. Yippee.

The Great Suburban Outback's weather sucked today. It's gonna suck tomorrow too, and probably the day after that, so I'm busy moving scheduled workouts around to take advantage of the few forecasted breaks. On one hand I hate to miss a workout but, on the other hand, I may just consider the "missed" workouts as part of my pre-Galena taper. Presto! Guilt gone!

I finally finished loading the collected works of three favorites onto my iPod: Miles Davis (no relation though we have the same haircut,) Van Morrison (no, NOT Jim Morrison of Doors' fame) and the Rolling Stones (up to about 1985 when they stopped paying attention.)

Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" is one of my all-time favorites, but I'd also nominate it "music most likely to clear a room in a hurry." It's music I put on when I'm anxious for dinner party guests to leave. Works like a charm and when the guests are gone, I sit back and listen to Miles, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Jack DeJohnette and Billy Cobham run the voodoo down. Gripping stuff that rocks for those in the right frame of mind.

A local DJ once told me that a solid jazz education can be had by buying a Miles Davis album from each of his 5 or so career iterations, then buying one album from each of the sidemen playing on those albums and so on. Doing this would cause you to traverse the careers of such greats as John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan and Max Roach, along with all those named above. There would still be lots to learn about jazz but you'd know enough about some great music to amuse yourself and impress all your friends.

According to several biographers, Miles the person was an utter, mean-spirited scoundrel, though his public persona was that of a musical genius. So did his genius thrive in spite of or because of his scabrous behavior? In other words, if he'd been nicer, would his music have been as good? I don't know the answer to that; I just know that people around him paid a high price so that we could call him a genius.

A note to the Glimmer Twins: substituting Ron Wood for Mick Taylor on guitar is like trading Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio. Sorry guys.

Now, excuse me. I've got "Kind of Blue" to listen to and a yoga tape to watch. Tomorrow, early A.M., I'll try to get the track workout in before the little high-school buggers get there and act like they own the place.