We pulled our Wednesday fishing trip ahead due to weather predictions.
The Kid expressed a desire to fish in the Red Cedar River.
I decided to fish where the Red Cedar joins the Grand River.
Walking into our urban fishing spot we smelled raw sewage.
Water levels were low. The submerged gravel bar in the upper-left corner of the image was fully exposed.
Fishing with a kid reminded me of how much I LEARNED and now know. This is not bragging, everybody reading this has vast reservoirs of knowledge that young people simply are unaware of.
Examples:
- The tip of your rod is fragile. Don't drag it on the ground
- Live-bait is tossed down stream to keep tension in the line. Otherwise the current carries them and they get snagged.
- When you jam the butt of the rod into a crack to keep a large fish from swimming off with it, give the line a tug to ensure it really IS secured.
- Artificials are tossed up upstream because predators face upstream and that is the direction they expect their next meal to come from.
- Six inches of slack between the lure and the tip.
- Short, whippy casts to put some spring or snap into the rod
- 10 o'clock-2 o'clock-10 o'clock
- Start your cast with the lure in front of you.
- Don't continue the cast if the lure is fouled in the line
- Straight overhead unless you are rolling the lure underneath low-hanging tree branches
- The line closest to the lure takes a beating when you are casting. Cut off about 8" each time you tie on a new lure.
- Fresh line where it sees the most wear is one of the things you lose with a swivel-snap.
- Virtually anything will bite a #2 Mepps Spinner with a silver blade
- Close the bail when you are still-fishing bait.
- Tighten your drag so it is about 1/4 the breaking strength of the line
- It is stupid to have your drag set so low it slips with you are reeling in your lure. You may be entertained by the sound but you are putting twist into the line.
The list is nearly endless even though fishing is conceptually an easy task.
It is good discipline for the Kid.
It is also good exercise for me, to keep the number of "corrections" I dump on him to a manageable number. He tells me I am a little bit "Bossy" but as long as I keep buying McDonald's McFlurries after fishing he can handle it.
We saw one fish; an 18" long Koi somebody had released into the river. It was swimming about four feet out in 8" deep water. The Kid tried to net it with no success.
Physical Conditioning
My PE program is kicking my butt. I am dragging the next day. Today's sorest muscles are my Tensor Fascia Latae. Old guys don't recover as quickly as young guys.
The program is pretty simple. Run four miles and push-ups.
Due to weather, commitments and so-on, I am running about every third day. I am adding some up-tempo segments to the run to activate additional muscles. Additionally, I am trail-running which uses more muscles than running on-the-flat. It is more interesting, too. I have to pay attention or those roots will reach up and grab my foot.
I added some additional resistance to my push-ups. Mrs ERJ sits on my back.
At this point, I can only manage a set-of-two but I hope to increase that to ten.
Don't be impressed. Mrs ERJ doesn't weigh much more than a puff of thistle-down and she sits on the small of my back.
Hard times calls for hard men. Older men take longer to get hard. Fortunately we have the wisdom to anticipate the need to be hard.
Awesome re the PT!
ReplyDeleteI'm mid-50s and have slowed down a lot. From other info you've mentioned here and there I'm within an inch or so of your height and about the same weight. If I'm pushing hard and doing well that means 10 minute miles.
Re the running, if you haven't looked at it I recommend checking out the "Galloway method". Galloway has sold books on training for running but there's enough on his website to give you what you need. I believe anyone over 30 would benefit from it- the nutshell version is to build up to running longer distances by inserting short walking periods, for instance every half mile walk 100 yards fast. Gives the running muscles rest intermittantly.
Before this method I had worked up to as much as 8 miles in one shot but the Galloway method got me through a number of half-marathons.
Of course it does slow your average pace down by 30-60 seconds per mile. So on a Galloway run I'm coming in something like the 10.30 to 11.00 minute miles I've seen you mention. I'm not trained or educated to say whether his theory of resting the running muscles a little every few minutes is right, but it sure made an improvement in level of felt exertion.
For overall PT, I like things like the MVT "tactical fitness test" (specifics on the MVT website) which is a timed test with burpeees, lunges, etc. Basically getting up and down a lot with some weight. I do a half hour of that on alternating days from the runs.
I agree that walking about a hundred yards every mile greatly increases the distance you can run.
DeleteMy take on the physiology is that the muscle contractions happen too quickly to be very effective at helping move blood flow through the capillaries. Walking-pace is much more effective at this secondary circulatory boost.
Even a hundred yards is a great help at re-oxygenating the muscles and flushing lactic acid.
Regardless of the mechanism, it works.
Regarding pace, I have been avoiding timing myself because I need to pay attention to how my body is responding rather than over-riding the feedback.
I suspect we run at about the same pace although I "feel" like I am in the ten-to-twelve minute per mile range.