KCCC 2010 Swim Meet Highlights

Last one, I promise. Here's a video I did of all the participants from the team.

KCCC Swim Meet 2010

When I first started training for triathlons, I swam with some masters groups, but it was always in the slow lane. With triathlons you focus on swimming long distances, while swimmers focus on swimming short distances quickly. I find a very close parallel between sprinters and marathon runners; while both technically run, how they run is so different that they can't relate to each other. My swimming is all about the long haul, and usually I would never participate in a swim meet.

The one exception is the Kansas City Corporate Challenge, or as I call it, the "nerd-lypics". The corporate challenge is an athletic competition between companies of Kansas City. The events are spread out across a month and include everything from track and field to pool and darts. Companies are split into divisions based on their size, and points from the individual events contribute to your company's total. Individuals also compete against their age groups (grouped by 20-29, 30-39, etc) which evens the playing field as well. You get a broad range of participants, from those who are incredibly good to those who are trying for the first time. The corporate challenge is incredibly inviting. Where I work we often are low on swimmers in my age group and doing triathlon's qualifies me as a swimmer. I end up swimming a lot of events I would never do otherwise.



The swim meet was Monday through Thursday, and I had events Tuesday through Thursday.

• Tuesday - 100 IM
• Wednesday - 50 Freestyle
• Thursday - 50 Backstroke, 50 Butterfly

Since I never focus on sprinting, I'm at a disadvantage in all these events. I'm pretty good at freestyle, surprisingly not bad at backstroke, terrible at breast stroke, and painful to watch in butterfly. Those in the know will notice these distances are pretty short, and they'd be right - this is the nerd-lympics after all, not the Olympics.



The individual medley, or IM, is a combination of four strokes - butterfly, backstroke, breath stroke, and then anything that isn't the previous three. Here is some instruction on how it's done correctly.



For me, it was pretty painful, because two of the four strokes I really struggle with. I had an advantage with butterfly because the dive start meant I didn't have to start swimming until I was halfway down the lane, but on the breath stroke I didn't get nearly enough push off the wall. I was pretty happy with my 50 freestyle. Of the events it is the most competitive, because anyone can swim it. I came in with a personal best of 33 seconds which I was really happy with. I think my 50 backstroke went fairly well, but my 50 butterfly was just painful. If you watch, you'll see that I'm not getting much of anything out of my lower body; it's just my upper body pulling me through the water. I'm less of a racecar than a tow truck pulling a race car.



Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this years meet. As stated before I'm not a swimmer, but I don't mind I'm pretending I am one for the team.

KCCC Triathlon 2010

See GPS results of the swim, bike, and run, or see full results. Many thanks to Josh Eklund for his videography of the event.

Getting into Cycling - Part 1

I have a confession: I don't like cycling. It's a bias that has built up over a few years, but it all roots back to a few years ago when I purchased a road bike because I wanted to get into triathlons and I knew my mountain bike would not cut it. I saw that there was a bike club that met on weekends, and I went on a Saturday morning to see if I could learn some tips. The ride started at Broken Arrow park and went to Lone Star lake. We started and voom!! they were gone. There I was, biking alone on roads I never drive wondering where I was and possessing zero sense of direction. When I got back, I was told "Yeah, sorry, most of these guys only get one day a week to ride and they're not going to waste their time on a newbie."

Of the sports I've done, cycling is the only one that seems to have a class system. Cycling is one of the few sports that you can get massive improvement from equipment upgrades. Running shoes and swimming body suits can be expensive, but you get far more speed from technique than you do from the latest Nike's. However, a carbon fiber bike is much lighter than a aluminum bike, but is also about $1500(!) more expensive. Racing tires can be $500 a tire. A fully equipped racing bike can cost in the $4000 range. With that much money being spent, there are haves and have nots, and in most cases expect to be in the have nots.

It can also be hard to learn the important tips. Runners are all to ready, often to a fault, to tell someone new tips to get started, what works best for them, what their diet is, how many K they ran this week... honestly, if you get a runner talking they'll never shut up, but they want to help new people out. I've swam in morning master swim classes that meet at 5 am and have a lane specifically for new people. Cross country skiers are some of the nicest people you will ever meet, though I suspect that is partially because you cross country ski in Minnesota, Canada and other incredibly nice areas. But cyclists? Assholes. Okay, that's unfair. Cyclists can be very nice; I've just been passed by so many during triathlons that I'm bitter.

All that been said, I am coming around on the sport. Over the winter I used an exerbike to try to get my legs in shape for this year. I had my bike tuned up, and it's made a world of difference. I'm beginning to enjoy longer and longer bike rides, and now that I have a Forerunner I can actually watch myself improve. I'm not great, and when someone on a carbon bike with zipp wheels making that "zzzzz, zzzzz, zzzzz" noise passes me I get frustrated.

So, with all that, where to start? It all depends on what you're looking to do.

1. If you want use a bike to get around town, get some exercise on paved trails, and ride around a city, a hybrid bike might be your best bet. These bikes have wider wheels than road bikes but are less rugged than mountain bikes, making them ideal for city riding. Be prepared to spend in the $600 for a solid, high quality bike.
   
2. If you want to take your bike off road, you'll need a mountain bike. These have fat wheels on front and back, usually have a front shock, and are designed to take a beating. While they're heavier than hybrid or road bikes, they still can handle city riding. My starter mountain bike was in the $400 range, and it still works well.
   
3. If you plan to participate in triathlons or bike races, or plan to ride for more than an hour on a workout, you'll want a road bike. Road bikes are designed to be light and fast. While they're sturdy, you don't want to abuse them as you can easily break or bend components. In this category the sky is the limit, but I got my starter for about $900.

Find the nearest bike shops and shop around, and don't be afraid to ask questions. You might mistake the salesmen at bike stores with hippies, but don't be fooled; they know what they're talking about and they can put a good pitch in for spending $1000. Most bike shops usually only specialize in one or two brands of bicycles, so to really compare your options you'll need to look go to many bike shops. As far as bike vendors, Giant and Trek are great and their websites are good resources to learn what you're looking for. Be sure to talk to the store owners and have them figure out what size of bike you're looking for (as opposed to a "professional fitting" which can cost hundreds of dollars). Usually bike stores have pamphlets of the trails around you. With road bikes the entire street network is your trail, but you'll be riding the roads with cars. Many state parks have off road trails to ride also.

I'm going to follow this up with two more posts - one for getting started in road biking, and another for getting started in mountain biking. They're so different I think they deserve coverage. Until then - happy shopping!

Swim Caps

I was cleaning out some of my gym bags this morning when I stumbled across this



The reason this is special is that I've only ever bought one swim cap which is the one on the right. All of the others are the ones they give you in your packet for triathlons. For those who don't know, swim caps are used in triathlons to mark which wave you are swimming in. When you are all just a bunch of athletes in swim gear, the swim cap is the only identifier you have to know your group.

The first triathlon I did was the KC Corporate Challenge Triathlon in 2005. Having never done one, I worked very hard so I could fill one of my employer's two slots for the 25-30 age group. Since then I've moved into the 30-35 age group, had some good years, and some bad years. This was a nice visual reminder of all the work I've been doing. I hope it's been worth it.

KC Triathlon 2010 Beach Time Lapse

I left a camera on the beach during the KC Tri in an attempt to catch the action. Sadly my camera placement was terrible, and the view of the swimmers was blocked by the crowd. Here's a time lapse of the video I took.

KC Corporate Challenge 2010

The Kansas City Corporate Challenge is a "Engineer-lympics" for the companies in Kansas City. Various companies vie in competitions from track and field to pool and darts. This year I'm signed up to compete in the following events. This year I'm signed up for the following events:

Triathlon
100 IM
50 Backstroke
50 Butterfly

I'll be honest: I'm not going to do well in the swim events. Most of my swim training is focused on Triathlons, which require swimming long distances in open water, not short sprints. However it will give me some variety in my training for the next couple weeks. I've added the dates to my Google Calendar, and you can follow how I'm doing on Twitter.

KC Triathlon 2010

I've been holding out on how I did at the KC Triathlon. Sorry!

Overall Place 294 Olympic
Division Place 54 M3034
Gender Place 229

Swim Time: 34:52:00 2:20 /100 yard
Transition 1: 4:48
Bike Time: 1:30:03 16.5 mph
Transition 2: 3:26 Run: 52:48:00 8:31 min/mile
Finish Time : 3:05:57

Did you think there wouldn't be a video?



I had trouble sleeping the night before, and ended up leaving for the event at 3:45 AM (gates opened at 4:00 AM). As it turns out, one advantage of coming so early was a great parking spot, where I didn't have to worry about hiking my gear a mile to the transition area. Noted for future reference.



The water at Longview lake was 62 degrees - and it was cold. My heart skipped a beat when I first touched the water. The wetsuit helped keep my body warm, but it took me a good five minutes during warm up to be able to stick my face in the water without flinching.

In the video you can hear the wind howling during the the cycling portions. The wind made the bike all that much harder during one leg of the 12 mile loop. During the first loop I felt really slow as bike after bike passed me (edited out of the video 'cause I can), but in the second loop the bike course cleared out, and I realized many of the people passing me were doing the short course. That was a small comfort during my hour and a half on the bike.

I have to say I was happy about my run time. For the past few months I have really struggled with the bike to run transition, as my calf muscle has cramped up almost consistently. I think I held a decent pace considering I had just done a hour and a half bike ride. I also stopped for every water stop, but I heard a number of athletes afterward say they did the same thing.

To be fair about my transition times, I was trying to operate cameras during the triathlon. You don't want to turn on a bike camera with wet hands, so you need to dry things off first. Sadly I didn't break out the running camera because it was looking like it was going to rain and I didn't want to risk the equipment; in the end it didn't and I missed out.

I had my Forerunner on the entire time, and have recordings for the swim, bike, and run. Don't trust the swim distance; GPS accuracy falls quite a bit when it's on your arm going in and out of the water. I think the recordings give a good view of the course, my pace, and heart rate.

Despite my poor overall performance, I'm pretty happy with how I did. It was the first Olympic distance triathlon I've done in years, and it took a lot of work to get to where I could finish. Now I'm transitioning training towards maintaining this level of fitness over the summer, which is somewhat of a relief.



Next up: Corporate Challenge Swim Meet!

Bike Upgrade

The first triathlon of the season, the Heritage Park triathlon, is coming up on Sunday, followed up quickly by the KC Triathlon the following Sunday. One thing that has been worrying me has been my bike, which I haven't taken very good care of since I got it five years ago. Thankfully, all it needed was a tune up, and I have to say Cycle Works in Lawrence did a fantastic job. While I was at it I got aero-bars and a trunk rack (so I don't have to stuff my bike into my car).

If you haven't noticed from the twitter feed, I recently picked up another new toy



I bought a Garmin Forerunner 310 XT from my employer my favorite company ever. This lets me record the position, pace, and heart rate of every workout I do and let me share them online. It's also waterproof, and designed specifically for triathlons (it won't record underwater, but it will record the time spent during a swim).

4 days until the season begins!

Getting Into Strength Training

Let's me make my non-medical opinion clear to start: I don't think there is much health value in lifting weights. I know that weight lifting builds muscle and a pound of muscle burns 10 calories a day just sitting around, but you burn a whole lot more running and you get the cardiovascular benefits. In my mind the main reason people lift weights is vanity, pure and simple.

Of course, what is wrong with vanity? Sure, some people have a problem with it, but that's their loss. Who doesn't want to look good naked? To the women out there who are scared they'd end up looking like Schwarzenegger I have three words: Michelle Obama arms.



He may be the Commander in Chief, but she's the one with the guns.

I first started going to my college gym when I was a freshman because I wanted to shake the "99 lbs weakling" image I had in high school. Fun fact: in 8th grade they had to pair me the other 99 lbs kid for wrestling in gym class. By college I had gained a whole... well, 20 lbs, so I still had an image to shake. I didn't know anything about weights, so I did what all 99 lbs weaklings do - I went to the book store. Thankfully, I found Bill Pearl's book Getting Stronger, a book full of workouts for building muscle.

I find that a big problem when people try weightlifting is that they get a bit over-psyched - they find some picture that will be "their inspiration", they sign up for the 12 month membership at Gold's Gym, and then find it is a lot easier not to go. It is a setup for failure, except it's failure with a gym membership that has a fiscal exit penalty.

For starters, be honest with yourself. Unless you work out 8 hours a day and get into illegal doping, you will not look like that photo, but only because the human body was never meant to look like that. Really there's a much easier program to look like the person in the photo: it's called Photoshop.



Personally I'm happy we're past the 1980's action movies where the heroes were monosyllabic and all looked like they never left the gym.

Second, if you get a gym membership to lift weights, you are basically paying money so you have access to a room full of heavy objects to lift, but for $30 you can get your own heavy objects to lift, so why pay rent on a room you don't need? As you progress you will no longer be able to afford the equipment, but I don't believe in putting in the investment of a membership until you know it will be used. Finally, weight lifting will not help you lose fat, and being heavy will make it harder to see results. Only get started if you know what you want out of it.

I think Bill Pearl's starter workout is a fantastic introduction (for those doing this with home equipment, do push-ups instead of the bench press). Make sure you follow his advice before getting started - you don't want to hurt yourself! Every body is unique and results will vary, but if you keep up a three times a week schedule within a month you will notices differences for the better.

Where to go from there? Depends on how much you enjoy what you're doing. I've had friends who, once they got over their initial skepticism, tried out weight lifting and became engrossed once they began seeing results. For others it never stuck. Your results will vary, but hopefully this has given you some reason to try.

Getting Into Running

Running is somewhat like the GWB presidency - you either love it or you hate it. For those who love it, running is not an activity but a religion. They wake up in the god-fucking-awful hours of the morning just to run. They run races on weekends before you've had coffee. They bring up how many 'K' they've run in casual conversation. For those who hate it, they hate hate hate it. They eat junk food in front of runners out of spite. They build speed bumps on trails to trip morning runners (true story).

This is unfortunate, because of all the activities I do to stay fit I believe running has the highest exercise density:



If you are trying to get into shape running gives you the most results for the time you put into it. Team sports are a lot more fun and biking and swimming have less impact on the body, but nothing gets you into shape like running does.

Running also has one of the lowest cost's of entry of any activity; all you need are shoes. When people think of running shoes, they think of $200 nike shoes with pumps and and levers and magic fairy dust, but it does not need to be that complicated. Be honest about what you are looking for. If you are just getting started, let the salesperson know that you don't necessarily want to spend a lot of money. Let the salesperson about any conditions that may cause complications (fallen arches, etc) and don't let them up sell you on fancy gizmos. A local running store is a better place to shop for shoes than a mall, as the sales people will probably be better informed about what shoes work best with your stride. Finally, be prepared to spend about $50 to $100 on shoes - yes this is a lot of money, but running with insufficient padding can be very bad on your knees.

I think the main reason many people hate running is associative. Specifically, their first experience went something like this:

1. I'm going to start running! I'm going to train for a Marathon! Yeah!


2. Look at me! I'm running!


3. (Rest of the week) Ow! My body!

Many first time runners set their expectations way too high. The beauty of running for fitness is that you can get a lot of benefit just running 20 to 30 minutes a day. If you're just starting, set your goal to run a 5 kilometer (3.1 miles) race. 5K races are very common in the running world, they usually have fairly low entry fees (around $20), and they give you a tee shirt! The important thing is that this gives you a goal. Make sure to sign up for one a few months away to give yourself time to get ready.

Before you begin your workout, it is important to stretch properly, which I learned this the hard way (It involved headaches caused by tight hamstrings). Now comes the difficult part: actual running. Your body will be very against it. The first time you run, your body will ask you the same question over and over - what are you doing? It will ask this question again every time you go running for the next month - get used to it. Your goal your first week is to be able to keep running for 15 minutes at as slow a pace as you want. During this time you may want to run on a high school track so you can use the number of loops you complete as a measure of how far you've traveled (4 loops = 1 mile). If you can run three times in a week (take every other day off) for 15 minutes you're off to a good start. When you're comfortable with your running routine, slowly increase the amount of time you run. Over time your body will respond.

Many people find it easier to run when they have a running partner. With the right partner, you will find the extra motivation to run on days when one of you just isn't feeling it. A bad running partner can be a demotivater - someone who prevents you from improving. It is very important to find a running partner who runs at your pace and is committed to your goals.

So is it worth it? I obviously think so. I find the time I spend running as a good way to bring myself back into focus, and I miss it when I can't run. When done in moderation it has the most health benefits of any physical activity I know of, and all it takes are shoes and patience.

What do you want me to write about?

I'm now on Facebook! Won't you be my friend?

Over the past few days I've been trying to come up with a list of activities that might be fun to write about for Fitnick. Note, to write about them I'll actually have to do them, so this is basically a list of activities you to watch me embarrass myself doing

Which of the following would you want me to fail at?

• Running
• Swimming
• Road Biking
• Trail Biking
• Weight Training
• Racquetball
• Triathlon
• Marathon
• Soccer
• Basketball
• Golf
• Frisbee Golf
• P90 X
• Wii Fit/EA Fit
• Sprinting
• Scuba
• Other?

Leave a comment about what you want from the fitnick blog.

Are We Learning The Wrong Thing In Gym?

I was listening to a NPR show about bullying in schools on my way back from the airport. The show itself was centered about the tragic suicide of a 15 year old in Massachusetts, but it was relevant to anyone who has been through high school.

Listening to the show threw me back to memories of my own high school experience. Like most teenagers I had pretty low self esteem, but the class I dreaded the most was gym class. I was the kid who was always picked last and who couldn't catch a ball if his life depended on it. Every day it served as a reminder that I was a failure. One of the hardest parts of getting into physical activities was I had to unlearn the fear gym glass instilled.

It got me thinking - how many other people went through the same thing? Gym class is supposed to make physical fitness a central component of the education system. It's supposed to teach kids to be fit. What if it is teaching the opposite? What if gym class is teaching our kids that physical fitness is for other people?

Just a thought.

Who Needs A Bike Rack?

Not me I say!

My beef with BMI

I had my yearly checkup today. Overall it went over very well, with the usual problem areas: because I'm hyperglycemic my blood sugar always is borderline high, and according to my BMI I am almost overweight. While I choose to manage the first one through exercise and diet, the second one annoys me to no end because, as anyone who follows @fitnick knows, I work out a lot! So what gives?

The Body Mass Index (BMI) is defined as follows (thanks Wikipedia!)



The table to interpret the result is as follows:

Category	BMI range – kg/m2	BMI Prime	Weight of a 5 ft 11 in person with this BMI
Severely underweight	less than 16.5	less than 0.66	under 53.5 kilograms (8.42 st; 118 lb)
Underweight	16.5 to 18.4	0.66 to 0.73	118 and 130 lb
Normal	18.5 to 24.9	0.74 to 0.99	130 and 180 lb
Overweight	from 25 to 30	from 1.0 to 1.2	180 and 210 lb
Obese Class I	from 30.1 to 34.9	from 1.21 to 1.4	210 and 250 lb
Obese Class II	from 35 to 40	from 1.41 to 1.6	250 and 290 lb
Obese Class III	over 40	over 1.6	over 290 lb

At 5'7'' and 158 lbs I come in at 24.7, which from my engineering perspective barely in the normal range (Wii Fit agrees, always showing me as borderline overweight. It also likes to puff my avatar out like a marshmallow). My friends who do marathons, bike races, and other generally "fit" people also end up in the high-normal to overweight range. Why is that? Reading from the NIH

BMI is a reliable indicator of total body fat, which is
related to the risk of disease and death. The score is valid for both men and
women but it does have some limits. The limits are:

• It may overestimate body fat in athletes and
  others who have a muscular build.
• It may underestimate body fat in older persons and
  others who have lost muscle mass.

BMI assumes that all people have the same distribution of muscle and fat. Because muscle is heavier than fat, having more of it (from, say, exercising) throws the BMI numbers off skew. When I first heard that I thought that you'd have to be a bodybuilder to have any real effect, but even muscle from long distance running can skew your result. The BMI is trying to find a way to make judgments about a large population, but people come in all forms - tall, short, big boned, skinny - and they defy this sort of grouping.

So keep in mind that if you exercise a lot, trust yourself over the BMI (or Wii Fit) if you are overweight or not. The BMI is a metric to help you find health, and that's it.

God's Country Duathlon and Brew To Brew 2010

It was a busy weekend for Kansas City sporting events. First, the God's Country Duathlon took place in Lawrence, KS. Duathlons are races that involve a shorter run, then a bike ride, and finally a longer run. God's Country adds the challenge that much of the run and the bike ride are on the Lawrence river trail. Trail riding and running is trickier because the terrain is so varied, but that's why the racers like it so much.




Also taking place was the annual Brew to Brew, a 44 mile run from Boulevard Brewery in Kansas City to Free State Brewery in Lawrence. While you can run the entire run by yourself, the run is broken up into ten legs between four to five miles that can be split between a team of two to ten people. Plus, at the end, you get beer!




Congratulations to all the racers!

Toys!

Honestly, I was going to take today off. I've worked out a lot in this week and I don't want to overdo things, the weather is terrible, I had a bad day at the office, etc. When I got home, I found a wonderful package on my doorstep that changed my mind.




The latest in the fitnick video arsenal, a waterproof camera case for the Contour HD, arrived in the mail! I was so excited to test it I forgot to bring my goggles and earplugs with me. I took it to the swimming pool to test, and I can already tell this is going to be a good learning aid. No wonder my butterfly feels so terrible - my butt never leaves the water! Thank goodness you never use that stroke in triathlons!

What's all this twitter nonsense?

I'm going to start tweeting my workouts on the @fitnick account, but before I start, I think I should explain a few things. I'm trying to get ready for some triathlons that are two months away. Triathlons come in many categories, but the most popular are olympic and sprint. An olympic distance triathlon has the following components:

• 800 - 1200 meter swim
• 20 mile bike ride
• 10 kilometer run

A sprint distance has the following components:

• 300 - 600 meter swim
• 10 mile bike ride
• 5 kilometer run

The "sprint" is named because the people who do the olympic distance races should be able to do the entire race sprinting. I hate those people. I've almost always signed up for sprint triathlons and have been happy with my "just finishing" philosophy, but this year I've decided to push a little harder and sign up for two olympic distance races: The Kansas City Triathlon on May 23rd and the Shawnee Mission Triathlon on July 11th. Since December I've been trying to do at least two "indoor triathlons" a week, composed of:

• 400 ~ 800 meter swim
• 5 ~ 8 mile bike ride
• 1 ~ 2 mile run.

Obviously I'm not even doing sprint distance, let alone triathlon distance. Now that nice weather has finally come to KC, I'm working on trying to improve my speed and distance in all three categories. Because there are only so many days a week, this means I have to often do two activities a day: swimming and running, swimming and biking, or biking and running.

I've never read too much about the proper way to train for these races. I follow the pyramid method used to train for marathons, where your training week centers around a long run, where the days before build up distance and the days after bring the distance back down. The long run distance is increased every week until you've reached your goal. In my routine my intended long day is Sunday, where I hope to do a triathlon (swimming pool, biking, and running). The days before and the days after pyramid up and down from that. There are probably other good approaches.

So, if you see the twitter feed and think, "what is that guy doing?" Yeah, that's what I'm up to. I hope to post data on the main blog just so I can track my own progress.

Welcome To Fitnick!

Hello! My name is Nick, I'm 32 years old, and I want to blog about fitness.

I'll start out by saying I have no real qualifications. I'm not a personal trainer, a doctor, and the only athletic award I ever won was "most improved bowler" in the company bowling league (I was up for "best attendance" as well). I don't have a book, a program, or a magical way to give you the body you've always wanted in ninety days. If that's what you're looking for, there are many many places on the internet to find that.

What I do have is a real interest in the topic. Growing up I was what is commonly known as a "98 lbs weakling." In fact in junior high gym class wrestling, I actually weighed 97 lbs.



In college and afterward I started trying new activities - running, cycling, weight lifting, racquetball, swimming, soccer, and a few others. Currently I'm focused on triathlons, but I try to work other activities in to maintain balance.



That's me on the right with my work peeps at the 2009 Corporate Challenge. Disclaimer: I do work for a certain GPS company, but not in their fitness division. I'm doing this blog on my own time.

While I don't have explicit qualifications, I do have an interest and a desire to learn more. I'd like to use this blog to explore this in the following ways.

• Getting Started Guides - The first time you start any activity is tough, and a lot of the advice out there is written for people trying to improve their skills, not get started. I'll try to write advice about trying out new sports and activities.
• Be A Guinea Pig - There's a lot I haven't tried, but I've always wanted to. Most people would not be stupid enough to do it while they have a camera running. I am not most people.
• Tweet - I'll try to keep my twitter feed up to date with my workouts, so you can see what I'm up to.
• Report On Local Events - Look for occasional reports from the Kansas City area.
• Cook - Diet and exercise go hand in hand. Trying out healthy recipes goes with being a guinea pig.

I hope this makes for interesting reading, and hopefully you do too.