Saturday Awesome Quotes

Gliding down the bike path on a Saturday morning, you whip by somebody peddling in the opposite direction and give each other a nod. For a moment it's like "Hey, we're both doing the same thing. Let's be friends for a second.

As it 'appens, I am Arthur's right-hand man," said Suzy. "Or left-hand girl, I can't remember where I stood last time. Anyhow, me and Arthur is like two fingers of a gauntlet. Or at least the thumb and the little finger. I mean, I'm his top General, and all. So if I say you're in, you're in.

Godzilla lovers to this day still wonder precisely what attracts them. Part of the appeal is the surprising sophistication in what seems at first glance to be simple-minded Saturday matinee fare. In the wreckage left in the wake of this awesome beast lies the tattered remains of human hubris, a moral lesson left smoldering in the ruins. As series producer Tomoyuki Tanaka put it, “As long as the arrogance of human beings exists, Godzilla will survive.

Really?' Shep scoffed and rolled his eyes. 'You can't be serious! Whitey, you come from the streets of North Philly, and you're scared of a bunch of backwoods butt-monkeys that thinks that an awesome Saturday night consists of drinking the cheapest beer they can steal from their daddy's huntin' coolers, tippin' some cows, stealin' a tracter, takin' it for a joy ride then leaving it on the 9th green of the golf course, and getting a knobber from one of the skankleaders. Seriously, Whitey, you have issues that I can't even begin to imagine.

So training smart, training effectively, involves cycling through the three zones in any given week or training block: 75 percent easy running, 5 to 10 percent running at target race paces, and 15 to 20 percent fast running or hill training in the third zone to spike the heart and breathing rates. In my 5-days-a-week running schedule, that cycle looks like this: On Monday, I cross-train. Tuesday, I do an easy run in zone one, then speed up to a target race pace for a mile or two of zone-two work. On Wednesday, it’s an easy zone-one run. Thursday is an intense third-zone workout with hills, speed intervals, or a combination of the two. Friday is a recovery day to give my body time to adapt. On Saturday, I do a relaxed run with perhaps another mile or two of zone-two race pace or zone-three speed. Sunday is a long, slow run. That constant cycling through the three zones—a hard day followed by an easy or rest day—gradually improves my performance in each zone and my overall fitness. But today is not about training. It’s about cranking up that treadmill yet again, pushing me to run ever faster in the third zone, so Vescovi can measure my max HR and my max VO2, the greatest amount of oxygen my heart and lungs can pump to muscles working at their peak. When I pass into this third zone, Vescovi and his team start cheering: “Great job!” “Awesome!” “Nice work.” They sound impressed. And when I am in the moment of running rather than watching myself later on film, I really think I am impressing them, that I am lighting up the computer screen with numbers they have rarely seen from a middle-aged marathoner, maybe even from an Olympian in her prime. It’s not impossible: A test of male endurance athletes in Sweden, all over the age of 80 and having 50 years of consistent training for cross-country skiing, found they had relative max VO2 values (“relative” because the person’s weight was included in the calculation) comparable to those of men half their age and 80 percent higher than their sedentary cohorts. And I am going for a high max VO2. I am hauling in air. I am running well over what should be my max HR of 170 (according to that oft-used mathematical formula, 220 − age) and way over the 162 calculated using the Gulati formula, which is considered to be more accurate for women (0.88 × age, the result of which is then subtracted from 206). Those mathematical formulas simply can’t account for individual variables and fitness levels. A more accurate way to measure max HR, other than the test I’m in the middle of, is to strap on a heart rate monitor and run four laps at a 400-meter track, starting out at a moderate pace and running faster on each lap, then running the last one full out. That should spike your heart into its maximum range. My high max HR is not surprising, since endurance runners usually develop both a higher maximum rate at peak effort and a lower rate at rest than unconditioned people. What is surprising is that as the treadmill

might sit down and make a plan to change those triggers. For example, if the trigger is: Boring: I go to my favorite café for an afternoon on Saturday to do my taxes over a fancy drink while doing some people watching. Frustrating: I bring a book to the same café, and set a timer on my phone to limit myself to working on my taxes for thirty minutes—and only work for longer if I’m on a roll and feel like going on. Difficult: I research the tax process to see what steps I need to follow, and what paperwork I need to gather. And I visit the café during my Biological Prime Time,

Grubbs didn’t enjoy dealing with creeps any more than Julia did, but she was awesome at it. Unlike Julia, Grubbs had actually become hot, but to her credit, Grubbs used her looks as cover to defend her friends and offend strangers.