Fitness

It is springtime, which means that it is finally time to get outside, get some exercise, and work off all of those wonderful winter fondues. The last couple of weeks have been beautiful here (high 50s!), so it has not been hard to motivate myself to get outside and go running. Further, I am motivated by the fact that on the 24th of April, I will again be competing in the 20km de Lausanne. Now, given that I would like to do much better this year than last year, I have come up with a two-part strategy for success.

1. Crosstrain!
2. Do not have fondue (and wine) with Serge in Geneva the night before the race.

With this plan, I cannot go wrong. Undoubtedly, some of you out there are asking, how do you intend to crosstrain? The answer is, of course, step aerobics.

A few weeks ago, Jens, my officemate, and I went down to the Centre Sportif to sign up for gym passes for the semester. Now, the EPFL/UNIL gym is not particularly impressive -- even though there are ten times as many students, it's not much bigger than the Harvey Mudd gym -- but I figured that if I signed up for a pass, maybe I would find the time to drag myself down to play some pickup basketball. Unfortunately, there really is no translation in French for "pickup basketball" and when I tried to ask about it, I was not able to get any real solid information. Sure, there are times where the gym is reserved for basketball, but these are for basketball classes which have organized games. If I wanted to play in those, I would have to sign up for a course and attend every week. As far as I could tell, after asking a few people who worked at the gym, there were no unorganized hours for basketball so my dream of whooping some Swiss butt at pickup ball was not to be. So, what could I do with my gym membership? I was on the point of despair when I saw this schedule up on the wall:

Fig. 1: Aerobics at EPFL. Sorry about the quality of the pic (I took it with my cellphone), but unfortunately this schedule is not available anywhere online. Seriously, it's like 1995 here sometimes. Coming soon to the Swiss Internet: Hamster Dance!

Pictured above is the Discofit schedule for the spring semester. If you are like me, your attention was immediately drawn to the two little step icons on Mardi (Tuesday) and Jeudi (Thursday) at 12:15. As anyone who is anyone knows, Step aerobics is where it's at.

I should take a moment to explain here. I started doing Step aerobics back at Stanford and since I've been in Switzerland I have been looking high and low for classes so that I could keep up the habit. I started taking classes at Stanford sort of on a dare and when I realized how much fun and how good exercise they were, I was hooked. In fact, for those of you lucky enough to be at Stanford, you should immediately go to the Stanford Aerobics and Yoga webpage and get your butt to the next possible class. Especially if it is taught by Bridgette, you will not be disappointed.

Now that I have been to three classes, I think I can make some general statements about differences between American and Swiss Step aerobics. First, French is not an ideal language for aerobics. As the instructor must be almost continuously calling out the next moves to be done, it helps if the names and words are short. French, never a language for brevity, does not do well in this regard. For example, the verb to kick in French is donner un coup de pied. As you can imagine, this multi-syllabic monstrosity is generally avoided in Step aerobics, and the instructor just says kick instead. So, the commands tend to have an awful lot of English mixed in, which on the one hand makes things easier, but can occasionally be quite confusing. The simplest action that one can take in Step is called a basic step. For a while, I was confused because I kept thinking that the instructor was saying vas-y -- which means "go!" -- for a basic step, but actually she was just saying bazeeec with a really frenchy accent. I was similarly confused by the veuh-step (actually a V-step) and the bébémombo (actually a baby or six-step mambo). After the first week, though, I pretty much had the lingo figured out.

Second, I have to say that the overall difficulty level here just isn't that high. For starters, the choreography is not tapless. For those of you not familiar with the minutiae of Step aerobics choreography, tapless step is a faster pace version wherein there are no pauses or "taps" in between different moves. In order to work, the choreography must be well planned and the end result is fast-paced and exciting as you are constantly moving. Opinions differ on the physiological merits of tapless versus tap step (see Gin Miller, the inventor of Step aerobics, on this top here), but as far as enjoyment goes, tapless step is oodles more fun and challenging. That question aside, I think so far the choreography has been pretty darn simple and I am hoping that it will increase in difficulty as the semester goes on.

All in all, though, it has been a pretty good experience and I think my Step training will give me that extra edge I'll need for the 20km. Now, if only I had started training more than a month in advance ...

In French, there is no word for "high five"

Last Saturday, I competed in the annual 20 km de Lausanne. As you might have guessed from the name, it is a 20km race (nearly a half marathon) through the streets of downtown Lausanne. As Lausanne is built on a fairly steep hill, the course involves multiple thigh-burning climbs designed to crush both mind and body. Fortunately for me, though, I'd been training for a couple of weeks, so I was not entirely out of shape for the race. Unfortunately for me, though, I spent Friday night in Geneva with a bunch of moral degenerates and thus was not entirely recovered for the afternoon race.

Fig. 1: The course layout. By my estimate, it passes within one block of 15 different apartments that I applied for and was denied.

Loren was kind enough to take the train from Grenoble to run the race as well, so I was not all alone (at least at the start of the race). He had not trained at all for the race, but on the other hand, he was smart enough not to have too much fun Friday night -- sort of the anti-Paul strategy. As we had been talking trash back and for for a couple of weeks, there was a lot riding on the outcome of the race and we were both tense with anticipation.

Fig. 2: Oh, snap! That is a stylish shirt on the man on the left. Where could I possibly order one online?

Of course, the competition did not last long. After a couple of miles, Loren was pulling away and by the halfway point he was well out of my sight. As I faded hard toward the end (Elf needs food, badly!), the whole thing ended up being my worst half marathon by a long shot. Loren stayed strong through the end and finished with a time he could be proud of whereas I was just happy to make it to the end. Still, the weather was fantastic and the views from the top were really nice. Had I been feeling a little bit better, I think it would have been a truly enjoyable experience.

One interesting thing: there were not that many people cheering along the sides of the course, but those present did a pretty awesome job. First, there must have been about 10 different musicians set up along the way. Not professional bands like in a Rock-and-Roll Marathon, but just small groups with no amplification or, more commonly, one dude with a Casio and a speaker. At many other places, people had just parked their cars and blasted their stereos as loud as they could. I went by one big truck that was blasting trashy Euro techno for a while, only to switch to "Take my breath away" after I passed. I'd like to think that the timing was more than coincidental.

Most impressive of all, though, was the level of enthusiasm of the little kids (and assorted drunk adults). Nearly every time you saw a little kid on the side of the course, they would have their arm outstretched eagerly awaiting a high five! As noted in the title, there is no direct French translation for a high five, but you could tell that these kids spoke the universal language of the high five. They knew deep down in their blood how awesome a high five can be for an exhausted runner (see my shirt, above) and they didn't let a silly thing like the failure of the French language get in their way. Without a doubt, I got more high fives in this race than in every single other race I have ever ran put together. It was a great experience and something I look forward to at future events here in Switzerland.

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As you might have been able to glean from one of the above photos, I decided to grow a beard a few weeks ago. The reasons for this are unimportant now (let us just say that it had to do with a certain chronically underachieving hockey team that shall not be named here), but once it was time to shave it off, I figured that it would be a good time to try out different styles and see whether they worked. As for the beard itself, when I finally got rid of it not a single one of my labmates even noticed, so it probably wasn't that great a look in the first place. Maybe one of these intermediate styles will be more successful. I leave it to my vast readership to let me know if one of these looks is a keeper.

Style 1: The Relief Pitcher. All I need is a jaw full of chaw and I'm ready to shut down the side in the eighth inning.

Style 2: The Hipster. This isn't facial hair so much as it is an ironic post-proto-punk affectation.

Style 3: The Renaissance Man. A plumed hat and a frilly shirt completes the look.

Style 4: The Freddie Mercury. Classic.

That is all for now. I actually have lots more stuff to write about but have been extremely busy of late. Many more updates to come.