Posted by mattcrane | Filed under Uncategorized
Greeting From Afar,
I know I’ve been promising lots to write about, and that promise is one I haven’t broken; the problem is that I haven’t actually WRITTEN any of it. Having neglected to sit down and relate any of all that I’ve been doing, the flood of ideas has dried up on the sandy beaches of my lazy ineptitude; leaving me trying to pick out a few surviving morsels of blog suitable life.
Well, the modest sea of ideas in my happy little head has tossed upon the shore a creature found both in this metaphor and in its real life counterpart: the under appreciated and unless properly cooked, otherwise useless prawn. The prawn has featured heavily in my diet here, but not nearly as memorably as in what I have dubbed the “prawn-b-q.”
Abu Dhabi has an impressive fish market, the contents of which make for interesting, if not smelly, viewing. I was going to make a joke involving blind lesbians…but I’ll just leave it at that and let you do the dirty work to finish where I started…
So having braved the smells and flies of the market, my Auntie Barbara, Uncle Marsden, dad, and I were left needing to make a purchase. Prawns. We returned home with a kilo of fresh, potentially delicious creatures, and ones that I might point out would be absolutely terrifying were they to be encountered as land animals. Seriously, I’d rather eat a cockroach. But as this isn’t the case, and as they are instead charming and misunderstood sea creatures, I helped eat a kilo, or 2.2 pounds, or roughly 100 of the crusty little buggers. Dipped in mayo. And washed down with champagne, er…sparkling white wine, pardonne moi Pierre.
Besides this culinary adventure, here are some photos of a few others:
The formidable McArabia. Contains five chickens, a pound of flour, your Grandma’s vegetable garden, and what remains of the tub of mayo from the above picture. In a future entry, be on the lookout for a non too mild dissertation on the overwhelming, and this coming from an American, offensive level of consumption in the UAE.
For AED 25, or USD 6.80, a service will deliver food from any restaurant in the city to your door in an hour. Magic. This sushi is also…magic. A local hip hop artist mentioned something along this lines of “bitches…at the Rotana…gettin me some Benihana. (Rotana=hotel, Benihana=my sushi establishment of choice, food from which pictured here)
Well, thats all I have to say about food for now, although given that my day revolves around what I eat, I could go on for quite some time, were I to have more pictures, and more time. As is, the night is kicking off, which means its time for me to sign off!
Take Care
Crane
Posted by mattcrane | Filed under Uncategorized
Hey-O,
Until I can get videos uploaded from my phone of a ridiculous evening at a Filipino night club, I will focus on some more pedestrian antics. It occurred to me while lounging on the beach during another incredibly strenuous day at “work” that just as in training, all cyclists have a different approach to their duly alloted time off from training.
To this end, I am a fan of periodic separation from the bike and all of its lifestyle trappings. To my mind, the only way to take a step (or two) forward in training and fitness is to take a slight step backwards, to regain some balance from, for the sake of this comparison, the solidly rooted position we place ourselves in during race season. Much as we might plant a foot behind us before making a forward leap, so too, I believe, do athletes need to place some of their energy on “the other foot” before attempting movement from where they left off at the end of racing season.
My prescribed off period is 4-6 weeks, during which time I simply don’t ride my bike. Or worry about how much I’m eating or what, or how late I’m sleeping or not sleeping. However, owing to a foreshortened race schedule, my time off has been protracted this year to be 8 weeks long. This is due to both my insistence on starting structured training on November 1st, and my desire, nay, need, to straighten out affairs, problems, and attempted self improvement that have gone neglected during time spent overly focused on my daily task of turning as near to perfect circles as possible many thousands of times over while strapped to a machine that somehow brings perfect order to my life yet at the same time unhinges it completely.
Hence, time on the beach. After 4 weeks of inactivity, which my body has rewarded me for with increased mental function, happiness, and physical vigor, it is time to get some blood pumping. I don’t think too much of any one thing is healthy or appropriate, so sadly, I will not throw a leg over a top tube for a little while longer. Injuries still need to heal, bad habits fizzle out, and exhausted muscle memory spend a little more time napping. So instead, I’m swimming laps in the NINETY degree waters of the tearfully salty Persian gulf, and hitting the gym for a bit of rowing and some mucking around with free weights. All the same, zero structure is being implemented. For instance, my rowing workout yesterday was based entirely around a playlist of myriad genres of music. Bob Marley, in terms of exertion, would equate to leisurely puttering around the mossy waters of a country estate with a parasol wielding madame in the stern; whereas Led Zeppelin/Pixies et al saw me heaving against the oars fit to power a Viking drakkar single handedly towards the next looting spree. If anyone else in the gym was disturbed by my disharmonious alternation between idle and violent sculling, they gave little indication. Or perhaps they were too terrified by my resemblance to a fierce Norseman to dare look my way. Thats probably it.
Anyway, I’m itching to get back on the C’dale and resume circle turning, but I will wait a little while longer before indulging in a scratch. But when I do get back on the bike, my lats should be a little stronger, my enthusiasm rekindled to a bonfire, and my feet planted in such a way as to push me towards higher levels of fitness than before. In any case, I’m enjoying myself, and I hope the rest of you are as well! And if you aren’t, or specifically aren’t enjoying the bike, then perhaps take a page from the book of Crane and lay it down for awhile. I doubt you’ll be sorry!
“All of the animals except man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.” — Samuel Butler
Get on it people!
Crane
