Iron rails & iron weights

11:04:03 PM EDT
I just couldn't deal with it

The Eighth Avenue (A, C) line, I mean.  After yesterday's annoyingly poor experience on that line I simply could not stand the thought of riding it today.  For some reason, my tolerance for shenanigans on that line is very low, possibly because my daily ride on it is longer than had been the case when I was taking the Seventh Avenue line.  Whatever the psychological and/or geographical explanation may be, I knew right from the start today that I would be taking a different route.  Being a bit unsure about what time I'd be coming home, I decided to drive to Ronkonkoma rather than get the shuttle from Medford.  So no dropped iPods today.  I got to Ronkonkoma early enough to get the 6:56 to Flatbush Avenue, and decided to ride it into Brooklyn rather than change for Penn Station at Jamaica.  It was an M-7 consist, but space wasn't a problem.  A very tall but slim young woman took the seat next to me at Deer Park, and because the horizontal rather than vertical dimension is what counts I had enough room.  She got off at Nostrand Avenue, which is rather unusual.  Nostrand is mainly a reverse-commuter station, normally when I go into Brooklyn I see a number of people waiting on the eastbound platform waiting for trains to Jamaica and points beyond.  I got a 5 train from Atlantic to Fulton, which was a bit on the crowded side but still a vast improvement over what I could have expected on the A or C.

I walked a little farther after work and took a 3 express from Fulton to Penn.  To my mild surprise I actually got a seat for the whole ride.  So quickly did I get to Penn that I was able to catch the 5:22 to Ronkonkoma instead of the 5:41 as I'd been expecting.  It was a wee bit on the cattle-train side, but I was able to get an aisle seat next to a slightly stout but tolerable older woman, and the ride to Ronkonkoma was uneventful.  Yep, sometimes a day away from the Eighth Avenue line is just what you need.


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10:48:55 PM EDT
Seeing it from a different angle

In all my years of taking the train from Medford I've always seen it from pretty much the same perspective.  Today was something new and different, in a decidedly involuntary sense.  When I was about to board the shuttle this morning, my attempts at juggling too much stuff - lunch bag, phone, iPod and book - with too few hands (two, as you might have guessed) caused me to drop the iPod ... not onto the platform, but through the gap between the train and the platform, right onto the tracks.  Oh, no.  Had this happened at Penn Station or Ronkonkoma or Jamaica I would have gotten an LIRR employee to retrieve the iPod for me.  At the unstaffed Medford station, however, retrieval was obviously going to be a strictly DIY affair.  Most station platforms have ladders on either end, to give workers access to the trackbed, but a quick inspection revealed that such items were lacking at Medford.  It's funny, in all my years of commuting from Medford I never noticed the lack of ladders, undoubtedly because I never had reason to look for them.  I had to walk a couple hundred feet onto a freight siding to the east to get access to the trackbed.  Going onto the trackbed would be very dangerous at most stations, but on the lightly traveled, no-third-rail line at Medford it was safe enough.  I was able to retrieve my iPod, which was none the worse for wear.  Of course I had to drive to Ronkonkoma, and while I could have made the 7:17 if I'd hustled a bit, but decided to take the 7:32 instead.  Now, speaking of the 7:32, it was a throwback to Woodstock in a sense, as a hippie sat next to me at Deer Park.  Seriously, he had all the hippie characteristics, long hair, beard, tie-dyed T-shirt, sandals.  The works.  Apparently no one had told him that next summer it'll be 40 years since Woodstock.  One good thing is that while he was relatively large, he did made no attempt whatsoever to push into my space.  Not surprising, really, as the hippie ethos would not permit such selfish behavior.  As opposed to the SCA ethos, if such a thing actually exists.  We got to Penn on time, and to my slight surprise the A train to Broadway-Nassau was very well behaved, with thankfully short dwell times.

The A train's behavior in the afternoon was a whole lot worse, thanks to a ridiculously long dwell time, three minutes at least, at - but ofcourse - Canal Street.  I hate Canal Street.  When I finally got to Penn the message boards were warning of five to 15 minute delays on the Ronkonkoma line due to an earlier brush fire near the Carle Place station.  How there could be a brush fire in that heavily built-up suburban area is another matter.  Whatever the case, I got the 5:22 and we got to Ronkonkoma on time. It was a mildly amusing trip because the young woman who sat next to me spent the entire trip talking on her cell phone without a pause.  She was babbling away when she sat next to me at Penn and was still babbling when she got off at Ronkonkoma.  As far as I could tell it was the same call the whole time.  Fortunately, she wasn't talking too loudly, and after its near-death experience in the morning my trusty iPod came to the rescue.

Gym: I started a new and somewhat odd deadlift routine tonight.  It doesn't sound like it would work, but it was developed by Chad Waterbury, a highly respected trainer, and published on T-Nation, a respected training site.  What it calls for is setting a goal weight, and working up to it over a 5-week period, twice a week.  Instead of using lighter weights, you use the target weight right from the beginning, the twist being that you do the deadlifts in the power rack at a gradually increasing range of motion.  For the first session, the bars in the power rack are set to allow for a 3-inch range of motion, going up by an inch and a half each session.  For some increases it is necessary to stand on 45-pound plates, as most power racks (including the one at Ultimate Fitness) allow for bar adjustments in 3-inch increments.  In any event, after some consideration I set my goal at 365, so I did 2 x 6 x 365 with about a 3-inch range of motion.  Twelve reps doesn't sound like much, but as noted this routine is well regarded, so that's good enough for me.  Once I was done with the sort-of-deadlifts I did neutral-grip pull-ups, 3 x 6; the routine calls for a few sets of upper-back work, and even though I did pull-ups yesterday they're the sort of exercise that can't really be overdone.  I ran one mile on the treadmill at 5.8 mph and then did 20 minutes on the stationary cycle at 18.5 mph.  These weren't much, but after five sessions in five days I was a bit drained.


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7:36:52 PM EDT
If the gym was nearly empty yesterday evening, it more than made up for it today.  Being Labor Day, it was open only until 2 pm, and when I arrived around noon the joint was jumping, so to speak.   I started out with benching, and for the first time in a while tried a 10 x 3 routine: 6 x 135, 4 x 185, 2 x 205, 10 x 3 x 235, 8 x 185.  I had no real trouble getting all the sets at 235.  After doing 20 minutes on the stationary cycle at 19.6 mph, I did neutral grip pull-ups: 1 x 8, 2 x 6, 3 x 4.  I then finished up with some work on the speed bag.


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9:30:05 PM EDT
Quite a lengthy gym session today.  Patronage was definitely low, presumably due to the holiday weekend; when I arrived, around 2:30, there couldn't have been ten people in the whole place.  I decided to get back into doing some running, after having been ellipting and cycling for the past several weeks,  so after spending a while on the speed bag I ran 1.5 miles on the treadmill at 5.7 mph.  Next, I ellipted for 45 minutes, at a pace of 10,600 strides per minutes.  While this wasn't a fast pace, when combined with the 16 minutes running it made a total of just over one hour of aerobic work.  After another session on the speed bag, I did SLDL's, 4 x 8 x 205.  As the platform was in use, I did them off the floor, using 25-pound plates instead of 45's so I could get a full range of motion.


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1:33:27 AM EDT
It was Squat Day today, but in a break from the usual I didn't start right out with squats.  Instead, I worked the heavy bag, throwing 800 punches without a break.  I took something 17 or 18 minutes and was quite exhausting.  After some work on the speed bag, it was time to squat: 4 x 135, 6 x 225, 6 x 255, 6 x 275, 6 x 295, (wraps on) 6 x 315, (wraps off) 6 x 265.  I then did 20 minutes on the stationary cycle at 19 mph, then did calf raises on the 45-degree leg press, 4 x 15 x 410, and finished with yet more work on the speed bag.  I decided to leave the SLDL's until tomorrow, which will be one week for them.


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1:21:34 AM EDT
Attack of the Killer Rump

So today was a Jekyll-and-Hyde sort of day when it came to train crowding.  Not really remarkable, considering it was the day before a long holiday weekend.  I knew I'd be getting out of work at 3 pm, and to give myself the most flexibility in terms of train choice I decided to drive to Ronkonkoma rather than taking the shuttle from Medford.  Arriving in the Ronkonkoma parking lot around 7:10 it was plainly obvious that the morning's ridership would be well below normal.  I was able to park within about 150 feet of the platform's east end, normally it would be at least three times that distance.  The 7:17 to Penn bore out these observations, with the mid-consist train in which I rode never getting more than about half-full.  And this is a train that normally has definite cattle-train tendencies.  No one sat next to me for the whole ride, which went by without any delays and seemed very quick thanks to several games of cell phone Tetris.  The wait for an A train to Broadway-Nassau was better than yesterday's fiasco, but at six or seven minutes still too long for rush hour.

Getting out at 3, I knew there'd be no chance of getting the 3:11 to Ronkonkoma, so it would be the 3:52.  Given that I had some time to kill, I decided to try a different route to Penn, and took an R train from City Hall (only a few minutes' walk from my workplace) to 34th.  The train wasn't crowded, nothing at all like yesterday afternoon's horror show on the 3, and I had a seat the whole way, but all in all the R made a few too many stops for comfort.  Once I arrived at 34th I walked a block west to get to Penn, and as I approached the station it became more and more obvious that there were a huge number of people traveling for the long weekend.  Taking one look at the LIRR main concourse from the top of the escalators confirmed this quite definitively.  Taking an unfamiliar train like the 3:52 of course meant that I wouldn't be able to wait on the platform prior to the track announcement, as I didn't know what track it would be.  There was a huge rush to the stairways when the Track 15 announcement finally came, naturally it didn't come until quite close to departure, but thanks to some quick footwork I was able to make it to near the front of one of the cows-at-the-slaughterhouse-chute half-moons.  It helped that many of the riders were burdened with luggage.  What this haste meant is that I was able to find a seat, an aisle seat next to a 60ish woman, unlike the standees who filled the aisles as well as the vestibules.  Not that I could particularly enjoy the ride, as there were  a group of three or four middle-aged women traveling together who were standing in the aisle right next to me.  Why was this a problem?  Turns out that one of the women was standing so that her posterior was right next to me, and every time the train bumped a bit the posterior in question would squash right into my shoulder - and, once, the side of my head.  This must've happened at least 20 times.  It wasn't really the woman's fault, given the huge level of crowding.  Only on the LIRR.  Oh, another amusing bit is that the older lady sitting next to me was reading some sort of typed essay, and a couple of times I got a look at it ... while it would be an exaggeration to say that the essay was pornographic, it was close, very close.  While there were no delays, the ride to Ronkonkoma nonetheless seemed to take forever, as this being a non-rush-hour train it made all the stops.

Gym: Some very nice benching tonight.  I hadn't benched in a week, and was somewhat concerned that it would be a struggle.  Far from it, my numbers were excellent: 6 x 135, 4 x 185, 2 x 205, 8 x 225, 3 x 6 x 225, 2 x 4 x 225.  Both the single at eight and the triple at six were very good, in fact the total (26 reps in four sets) may be a record.  I followed up the benching with neutral-grip pull-ups, 1 x 8, 2 x 6, 2 x 4.  Next, I did 30 minutes on the stationary cycle at a very nice pace of 20.5 mph, and finished the session with standing military presses, 3 x 8 x 115.


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11:50:29 AM EDT
The most crowded subway in the world

Today was one of those days when my LIRR riding was much superior to my subway riding.  It's pretty rare for things to go that way, not because the subway is so good but because the LIRR is so bad.  But hey, if every day were the same it would get boring, right?  I got the shuttle from Medford in the morning, right on time as it usually as, and once at Ronkonkoma I decided to get the 7:01 to Penn rather than take the Flatbush Avenue train.  What with the upcoming holiday weekend there didn't seem to be as many people in Ronkonkoma as usual, and I figured that the Penn train wouldn't be too crowded. I still probably would have taken the Flatbush train if it had been an M-3 consist.  As I predicted, the 7:01 was much less crowded than usual.  As the stops came and went I began cautiously hoping that no one would take the seat next to me.  It did finally get taken at Bethpage, the last stop before the express run to Penn, but it was no big ordeal because a near-Century took it.  By near-Century I mean a woman who was over the magical 100-pound mark, but not by much.  She also was from the senior division, being close to retirement age. I scarcely noticed her presence and had a very easy ride into Penn.  What was not so easy was waiting for an A train to Broadway-Nassau, it took almost ten minutes before one ambled into the station and then it had the nerve - the nerve! - to dwell for too long at Canal and Chambers.  Completely unacceptable for rush hour.

For a bit of variety after work, I decided to get a 2 or 3 from Fulton Street rather than an A from Broadway-Nassau (Fulton and Broadway-Nassau are both part of the same station complex, connected by endless passageways). After the morning's follies I wasn't in much of an A sort of mood.  Just as I got to the 2/3 platform the station PA announced that the 2 was running on the 5 line (which is also part of the Fulton/Broadway-Nassau station complex) due to "debris on the tracks" in upper Manhattan.  Rather than wait for what undoubtedly would be an overcrowded 3, I decided to get an A, but right at that moment a 3 pulled in.  A door opened up right in front of me, some people got off, and I stepped on - BIG mistake!  The car was absolutely packed, a point I should have checked prior to boarding, and several people crushed in after me.  Each following stop made things all that much worse.  The 2/3 line through most of Manhattan is much too busy to be served by just the 2 or the 3, at least not without causing cattle-train conditions.  I've ridden in some extremely crowded subway trains, but I cannot recall anything like the hideous crushing on this one.  It was impossible to move, and even breathing was a challenge.  The ride to Penn was interminable, or at least it seemed that way.  Fortunately, once at Penn I got the 5:22 to Ronkonkoma, and ridership was so light that no one actually did sit next to me the whole way.  Let me tell you, I really appreciated the space!


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10:41:31 PM EDT
A Century of relief

Today wasn't a bad day, all things considered, and served as an example of how the good can counterbalance the not-so-good.  The morning was in the not-so-good category, alas.  I drove to Ronkonkoma for the 7:32, which to my surprise quickly got packed.  One would think that the week before Labor Day would be a time of relatively light ridership, but so far this week it really hasn't been the case.  Things took a major turn for the worse when a large man took the seat next to me at Central Islip.  I'd say he was an elephantine SCA, but he wasn't quite that large, maybe 225 to 250 pounds.  Wasn't an SCA, either.  It would be an exaggeration to say that it was a miserable ride into Penn, I've experienced much worse crushing, but it wasn't pleasant by any means.  About the only saving grace is that he didn't try to infringe on my space.  If he had, it would have been much, much worse.  We got to Penn on time, and I had only a short wait for an A train to Broadway-Nassau.  The dwell time at Canal was a bit longer than it should have been, but the ride otherwise was tolerable.  Not so for people coming from Brooklyn, as when I got to Broadway-Nassau there were announcements that service in that direction had been stopped due to a track fire.  Several subway employees were trying to direct riders, though there aren't too many Manhattan-bound boardings in the morning.

No troubles with the subway after work, as I got an A in less than a minute and its dwell times were all reasonably short.  I got the 5:22 to Ronkonkoma, and like the morning's train it began to fill quickly.  Unlike the morning's train, squeezing was no trouble because a Century took the seat next to me. Yay.  The young woman really was a century, unless I'm sorely mistaken she didn't weigh more than 100 pounds.  It was a very easy, quick ride to Ronkonkoma, and almost made up for the morning's discomfort.  Almost.

Gym: A short session tonight.  I worked the speed bag for a while, and then did some neutral grip pull-ups: 1 x 8, 2 x 6, 2 x 4.  That's 28 total reps, not bad.  I then did 30 minutes on the stationary cycle at 20 mph.


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11:02:44 PM EDT
It's the squirmyness, not the size

In yesterday's entry I noted how being seated next to a woman of only moderately than average size turned into a miserable experience on account of her incessant squirming and space-infringing. Today I had quite the opposite experience in the afternoon.  Not in the morning, namely because I was able to snag an M-3 single seat on the Flatbush Avenue train after arriving in Ronkonkoma on the shuttle from Medford and therefore didn't have to worry about anyone next to me.  I didn't go into Brooklyn, no particular reason, so I changed at Jamaica for the 8:01 dual mode into Penn.  More like the 8:10, actually, because all trains were being delayed just east of Jamaica due to "switch problems."  Figures.  It was the first time in a couple of weeks that I've taken the dual mode.  Despite the slightly late arrival into Penn I actually got to work on time because - miracle of miracles! - the A train to Broadway-Nassau was very well-behaved, with gloriously short dwell times. 

Another A after work, this one was almost well-behaved, a longish dwell at Canal (as usual) keeping it from equaling the morning train's performance.  I got the 5:41 to Ronkonkoma, which was your classic cattle train.  Within moments of taking my seat, several minutes before departure a rather large woman in her 30's sat next to me. Now, she was a good 20 to 25 pounds heavier than the annoying woman yesterday morning, and this train was an M-7 consist with the hideously small seats.  Yet it was a vastly better ride, because this woman was non-squirmy and did not try at all to infringe on my space.  Proof that size isn't necessarily what counts.  We got to Ronkonkoma and the shuttle on time, and with my mind (reasonably) intact. 

Gym: Some decent enough deadlifting, like with the other day's squats I did fewer reps on the lower sets to get more on the top end.  4 x 225, 4 x 255, 4 x 275, 2 x 4 x 295, 4 x 275, 4 x 255, 4 x 225.  I'm not sure this entirely counts as progress over the last session, when I did 4 x 295 and then 2 x 305, but at least it's not regression.  I then ellipted for 30 minutes at a pace of 11,150 strides per hour.


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11:00:47 PM EDT
Obnoxious behavior, it's not just a man thing

Rude and annoying SCA's are of course a standard feature of my LIRR riding.  They're like the tides, or the rising of the Sun, or the changing of the seasons, something which occurs on a regular basis as if compelled by a law of Nature.  What is substantially less common, sort of like snow in October or a lunar eclipse, is a woman who displays SCA-like obnoxious behavior.  Today was one of those days, as you've probably guessed.  I was able to go in a little later, and instead of taking the shuttle from Medford I drove to Ronkonkoma for the 7:32 to Penn.  It was an M-3 consist, though no single seats were available.  No big deal, I think to myself, the M-3 seats are slightly larger than the hideous M-7 torture seats and I'm unlikely to get squashed by an SCA.  What I wasn't counting on was that the 30ish woman who took the seat next to me at Deer Park pulled off a squeeze play that would make most authentic SCA's green with envy. She was a little chubby but not fat by any means, and while she was quite tall (my height, 5'10", or maybe an inch taller) she wasn't wide, and of course it's the horizontal dimension that counts. She probably weighed no more than 170 pounds, 175 tops, which is positively skeletal by SCA standards.  So it should have been a decent fit.  What confounded that expectation was the way she pushed into my space in an aggressive manner that would earn the admiration of even the most testosterone-dripping SCA's.  She crossed her arms and pushed her left elbow against me and spread her legs like she was giving birth. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I didn't begin to push back until after she'd infringed deeply on my space and become largely immovable.  Because she was a woman, and of course not an SCA, I wasn't on my guard and allowed myself to be taken by surprise.  In contrast, when an SCA starts to sit next to me I brace my muscles and prepare to defend by turf (so to speak) prior to any actual infringement.  It's much easier to stop a space infringement before it begins than to reverse one that's already begun.  It should go without saying that it was not a pleasant ride into Penn.  The train came to a sudden stop on several occasions, and each time I thought it had become immobilized and long delays would result.  It turns out it was just the engineer's way of stopping, and we got to Penn on time.  About the only good thing about the morning's trip is that I got an A train after about three or four minutes and it got to Broadway-Nassau without any long dwell times.  The three- or four-minute wait was actually beneficial, as it allowed me to walk to the north end of the platform, which is close to my workplace when we get to Broadway-Nassau.

I got yet another railfan window on a C train to Penn after work.  Compared to the one last week, the window was actually somewhat sort of clean-ish, allowing for a better view.  We got to Penn without any excessive dwell times, and I got the 5:41 to Ronkonkoma with plenty of time to spare.  It was a much better ride than in the morning, with an average-sized non-SCA man sitting next to me ... and behaving much better than the woman in the morning.  Not that he could have been any, you know, worse.  I spent much of the ride playing cell phone Tetris, though for some reason I just couldn't manage a decent game.

Gym: More neutral-grip pullups, and this time I increased the set and rep count.  3 x 6, 3 x 4, 3 x 3, 3 x 2.  Pullups are in many ways a better back developer than rows, and doing 45 of them in a session is a very decent accomplishment.  Next, it dawned on me that I haven't done shoulder (military) presses in a while, so I tried to rectify the situation by doing some: 5 x 8 x 105.  Due to some lingering calf soreness I decided against ellipting or using the stationary cycle.


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