I’m a coach and an athlete and a human being with all of the successes and failings that go along with each of those. This was supposed to be the year, the season when I was primed to shave 10 years off of my life and return to the level of performance in all three of those categories when times were simpler and bones were stronger. It sure started out that way; all last season I committed to putting in the base training to give my body a fighting chance to compete this year. Aside from still hanging onto a few extra pounds, I was cranking on the bike, improved in the swim and my purest of activities, running, had given me an arguably undeserved second chance with near PR performances in half marathon and 10K distances. I even ran the Knickerbocker 50k to top off the year to complete the over-distance I felt was absolutely necessary to hit 2008 in stride. Big plans were made with registrations at both IMLP and IMOO feeling that I would complete IMLP and compete in IMOO which plays much more to my style and abilities. One last chance at focused athletic performance before the complexities of life take over and demand an altering of priorities.

And then came January 2008 during which I came down sick. Yes, I know everyone gets sick but this consisted of twelve weeks of flu then sinusitis and finally an extended battle with viral pneumonia. Being stubborn, I chose not to take any antibiotics, first because knowing it was viral, I knew they wouldn’t have helped anyway, but also because I felt that all the antibiotics would do is successfully kill off the weakest elements leaving the stronger one’s inside of me waiting to regroup and attack again in a more resilient manner. The affect on my training was astounding - not being able to breath, focus or even walk around the house without falling down in a heap can do that to me. I didn’t lose twelve weeks of training, I lost all of the benefits from last year’s hard work. Gone! Bye-bye! See ya later! Riding to meet JetPack 11 miles away at the White Plains airport left me out of breath and weak as a newborn. At the same time, my work situation became, how does one tactfully put this, tenuous at best, and all of my efforts went into redefining myself into a new role amidst declining company revenue growth and significant lay-offs. Throughout this time, I was being attacked by friends who seem to have adopted this heightened sense of entitlement and loss of gratitude, no, not not even gratitude but a complete lack of acknowledgment or appreciation for the efforts I have put in on their behalf to improve their own experiences. I’ve unfairly written this off as a New York thing because in my over 40 years of life, I’ve never experienced this with people from California, Texas or Ohio, the three other geographies where I have the greatest interactions both professionally and personally. I know that all New York people are not like this but I have come to the conclusion that whatever is in the water that makes great bagels may also contribute to heightened insecurities or self deprecation that leads to less constructive behaviors. By the way, it isn’t just me, I’ve witnessed how these same people have taken other so-called friends’ efforts for granted and treated them as basically refuse to be disposed when it is no longer convenient to have them around.

Lastly, we lost our beloved family member Wally under horrific circumstances and too many of our friends around us began to drop lies flies, or experienced tragedies of their own creating the very odd situation of attending more funerals than dinner parities. In short, it’s been difficult and challenging and every other hackneyed adjective that goes along with life’s sarcasm. As my good friend Rambonie reminds us “Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.” OK so he quoted from Samuel Johnson but often we need a reminder of the basics if nothing else to remind us of our blessings and to give us some sense of clarity or hope in the darkest of times, and let’s be clear as dark as it may seem, it’s a brilliant basket of God’s gifts to people who have so much less.

To be continued…

It turns out that “biological engines” — which is what the muscles in your body are — are pretty amazing in terms of efficiency. To find out how efficient, let’s look at how many calories a person burns while riding a bicycle.

If you look at a page like this calorie chart, you will find that a person riding a bicycle at 15 miles per hour (24 km per hour) burns 0.049 calories per pound per minute. So a 175-pound (77-kg) person burns 515 calories in an hour, or about 34 calories per mile (about 21 calories per km).

A gallon of gasoline (about 4 liters) contains about 31,000 calories. If a person could drink gasoline, then a person could ride about 912 miles on a gallon of gas (about 360 km per liter). Considering that a normal car gets about 30 miles per gallon, that’s pretty impressive!

To be fair, keep in mind that a car generally weighs a ton or more, while a bicycle weighs only 30 pounds. Cars also travel a lot faster than 15 mph. But it is still an interesting comparison. Note also that people cannot drink gasoline. However, people can drink vegetable oil, which contains nearly the same number of calories per gallon (if you look at How Fats Work you can see that fat contains long hydrogen/carbon chains just like gasoline does).

The people riding in a race like the Tour de France are riding more like 25 mph. Because air resistance rises very quickly with speed, they are burning about three times more calories — something like 100 calories per mile. In a 100-mile stage of the tour, a racer might burn something like 8,000 to 10,000 calories in one day! So they are getting only about 300 miles per gallon. The only way to replace those calories is to eat a lot of food

So I’ve arrived at Cunningham Park with the group just about to leave on their 85-mile ride. At about the rubicon of my drive, I decided on a plan of attack. As long as I kept the car moving, the battery wouldn’t die so I’ll continue on to Queens, not stop the car, grab a cue sheet from Dennis our ride leader and then head back up to Westchester to find my wallet and deliver my car to Harstdale Mobil, which is where it should have been fixed the first time. In my imagination I figured that I could turn around and do the ride on my own. By now I’m pretty disturbed, so when I make the left turn into the parking area and the car dies, I realize that my plan isn’t going to work out the way I thought and getting the car jumped is not a viable solution because the car feakn’ died WHILE I WAS DRIVING IT! I’m no auto expert but I’m guessing that this is an alternator problem and I’m a little perturbed that this wasn’t addessed when they had the car for the past 4 days. I try calling Cindy to have her read me both the phone number for AAA and our membership number, but by now Cindy thinks I am the devil incarnate so she’s not even answering her phone. Ben, who in the photo is wearing a NYRR race backpack offers to lend me his AAA card and suggests that we ride and deal with this when I get back. Now maybe that is a viable option as an individual, but I’ve already gotten Cindy up to go hunt through a parking lot for my wallet, so calling her up and telling her, hey I’m just going to ride for six hours and I’ll have you come and get me later in Queens isn’t a viable option, unless I want to be coming home to an empty house. So I do the responsible thing and call AAA from Ben’s card and this is where the technology story really begins.

Adam: Good morning, my name is Adam Krajchir and my truck has broken down and before we go any further I need to let you know that I do not have any identification on me nor do I know my AAA membership number.

ACSC Operator: That’s no problem Mr Kraeycherr we have all of your information right in front of us. You’re calling from 310-991-XXXX and we show that you are a AAA Premier member.

Holy crap, I think to myself. I remember in years past when I’ve locked myself out of my car, I’ve called AAA to let me back in and they wouldn’t come because I didn’t have my AAA Card on my person when I called. I remember vividly trying to persuade them by logically suggesting that if I had access to my car keys or AAA card, which were both inside the car, I wouldn’t need to call them, now would I? After a few similar situations, I simply learned how to pick locks and open car doors with a slimjim - I think this is a prerequisite of any solid youth upbringing in Southern California.

But it wasn’t to be an issue this time, the operator I spoke with was a Southern California operator, which means my own phone was used to route the call to the specific region, even though I dialed a number that was on Ben’s NY-AAA card and then she routed me to a NY operator who took down my information, as my phone began to chirp that it was running out of juice - I usually get about 20 minutes of talk time on a full charge - go figure, it means I saw more with less time.

Voila, a tow truck arrives and The Basher is delicately loaded up onto the flatbed for its trip back home to Hartsdale. Pretty cool.

So as blown away I was at how efficient and effective the technology was at AAA, Cindy calls me back and tells me: “Adam, you’re not going to believe what happened at CVS.” She goes on to explain that she looked around the parking lot and then went inside and talked to the manager and the security guard. The security guard promptly went back into the back and came out saying:

Security guard: “He was in here at about 10:00PM last night?”

Cindy: “Yes”

Security guard: “He was wearing a plaid hunters shirt, over a grey t-shirt and blue jeans?”

Cindy: “Yes”

Security guard: “He bought two bottles of Gatorade and a bottle of water?”

Cindy: “Yes”

Security guard: “Well, I watched him pay for the items. He swiped his credit card and then put it back into his wallet and then put his wallet back into his right hand pocket of his pants. He then picked up the bottles without taking a plastic bag and walked out of the store.”

Holy crap! They saw all of that? Cindy asked him if they knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding. The security guard laughed. Big Brother strikes again, but this time he scores one for the good guys. I felt like Will Smith in a Disney version of Enemy of the State. What’s the tag line in that movie “It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you.”

What this told me is that my wallet had to still be somewhere at the house because I never would have gotten to the car, reached into my pocket with my hands full and placed the wallet on top of the roof. And as we later found out, iot was in my office, only it was in a place I never would have thought to look. Apparently, in my thoroughness to make sure I had everything ready for the next day’s ride, I put my wallet down in the bookcase by my Garmin 205 when I had to reach down and charge it back up.

Riding back to Hartsdale in the tow truck, I was inspired by the productive uses of technology that I had experienced today. The perfect storm of personal technology had revealed a great swell of ridable waves of confidence in the stuff that I often take for granted. At the same time, don’t be surprised if I cover my head with a hoodie any time I go into a CVS, just in case I’m back on camera for the wrong reasons.

Sorry Kai. No Osama, but this one was as close as I could get. My name is Cornholio, I need TP for my bunghole. Because after all, It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you. Oh, and by the way, I never did get the cue sheet. Dennis, I’ll leave that to you.