(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best sports & outdoors books

(1) Read, bruh. I can't vouch for it personally, but I've heard the book Watching Baseball Smarter recommended with high regard. And it's almost literally the exact thing you asked for. Here are some other good book recommendations:

• Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Hard to believe that the book is sort of old hat at this point, but it still serves as a very readable introduction to advanced statistics.
  
  
• The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James (mostly). This book is good toilet reading, if you have a massive toilet on which to perch it, and your bowel movements are glacially paced. James ranks the best players at each position, and goes on a witty, decade-by-decade jog through the history of the game.
  
  
• The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball by Tom Tango. Are you a "math person"? Read this book, you'll like it. It's an introduction to sabermetrics that explains the important first principles of statistical analysis, builds an important statistic (wOBA) from the ground up, and then applies all of that knowledge to answer specific questions about baseball strategies and to debunk, verify, or qualify some of baseball's hoary "conventional wisdom."
  
  
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. This book is not about baseball, but it's still great and you should read it.
  
  (2) You'll want to start watching the game more, if you can. Find a method (like MLB.tv or, you know, your television) to do so. Massive exposure does help you learn, and it's a fun, if inefficient, method. Osmosis. That's just science.
  
  (2b) Depending on the broadcast crew, it's sometimes addition-by-subtraction to mute the television.
  
  (2c) If you have MLB.tv Premium and intend to follow your favorite team, I recommend watching the other team's broadcast. You know enough about [TEAM X] already. Learn something new about [TEAM Y], instead. Unless, of course, (2b) applies, in which case maybe your best bet is MLB.tv's option to overlay the radio broadcast on the TV video. Barring that, the liberal application of the DOWN VOLUME button is always an option, and then, like, listen to Chopin's Preludes. Don't be That Guy and lean too heavily on No. 15, though. There are 23 others. Expand your horizons.
  
  (3) When you go to games, keep score. Sure, there's a guy a few seats over in a striped button-down and pre-faded jeans (Chad or something) who will mock you mercilessly for it. Sad for you, you've lost Chad's respect. But, oh, the things you'll gain. A free souvenir. A better grasp on the flow of the game. The priceless power to answer the "what did I miss" and "what the fuck just happened" questions that litter the air at ballgames, tragically disregarded and forgotten like the syllabi from Chad's last semester at Bromaha State. You can learn how to score ballgames here. Fuck Chad.
  
  (3b) Go to games alone now and then. Did I mention that, in some company, it's rightly considered rude to score a ballgame like a trainspotting anorak? Not in all company, mind you. But I like going to some games alone to avoid the messy politics of divided attention altogether.
  
  (4) Bookmark a few websites. Quick stat references include FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference, and Brooks Baseball. Grantland, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America, and the Hardball Times are all good. FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference both have subscription options that allow you to access enhanced content for a small fee, which is worth it if only to support the yeoman's work that they do compiling and sorting our beloved numbers.
  
  (5) German chess great Emanuel Lasker is believed (incorrectly) to have said that "if you see a good move, look for a better one." Good advice. Too much of the history of baseball analysis is the history of people getting stuck in comfortable places and refusing to interrogate their own ideas about the game. Sabermetricians have made careers out of just pointing this out, and even some of them do it from time to time. Also, on the level of pure self-interest, baseball ignorance and bad teeth have this much in common: Keeping your mouth shut hides them both. If you have a good opinion about a baseball topic, look for a better one.
  
  (6) Watch a some decent movies about baseball. Sugar is excellent and disturbing. Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns is available on Netflix and worth watching. You drink his nostalgic Flavor-Aid at your own peril: At times, Baseball is about as edifying as having a good, 19-hour stare at a Norman Rockwell painting. It's still in a class all its own as a baseball documentary. You should also watch Ed, starring Matt LeBlanc, because it'll teach you not to take strangers on the internet seriously when they give you advice.
  
  (7) When you go to games, wear whatever the hell you want. This has nothing to do with understanding baseball, but it annoys me when people make a big deal out of policing the clothing that others wear to sporting events. Sitting front-row at a Yankees-Tigers game in your best Steelers jersey and a pink Houston Astros BP cap? Whatever. You be you. You be you. I once watched as a perfectly innocent college student was denied a free t-shirt from a Nats Park employee because he (the student) was wearing a Red Sox shirt with his Washington cap. That was pretty fucked.
  
  (8) Take the EdX Sabermetrics course. Others have recommended this, with good reason. It's a wonderful introduction to advanced analytics, and you get a taste of programming in R and MySQL as well. You don't need a CompSci background. I sure didn't.
  
  Hope this helped.
  
  Footnote: Chad-hating is actually too easy. Truth is, I've never really been mocked for scoring games. Once, I even bonded with a Chad-esque guy sitting next to me at a Braves-Nats game here in Washington. He was pretty drunk, but we talked Braves baseball while he drank and I drank and I scored the game and he drank more. He seemed utterly engaged by the scoring process in that guileless, doe-eyed way that only the drunk have mastered. That's the Chad I loved.

>##Why Joey Votto should bat second

>April, 30, 2013

>10:39 AM ET

>By Keith Law | ESPN.com


>The Los Angeles Angels have been batting Mike Trout, their best all-around hitter, second for most of this season. The Cincinnati Reds could learn a thing or two from that.

>The idea of putting your best hitter second, rather than third, is still a novel one within baseball and has yet to gain widespread acceptance, even though the evidence in favor of such an arrangement is pretty strong. Using metrics such as batting runs, estimating the runs gained or lost through changing a lineup, shifting to an optimal lineup is only worth about 10-15 runs, or just over a win, in the course of a full season. That said, the marginal gain in getting your best hitter another handful of at-bats, including extra at-bats at the end of games, makes it worth trying to capture value that otherwise would be squandered.

>The Reds are the best example this year of a team that is giving away offense by putting their worst hitter, Zack Cozart, ahead of their best hitter, Joey Votto, an example of archaic thinking that still persists within the game because that's how we've always done it.

>Same as it ever was

>Traditionally, the No. 2 hitter is supposed to be a table-setter who can put the ball in play, drop a bunt, hit behind a runner, and so on. This is all hogwash, of course: The No. 2 hitter has the same basic job as all of the other guys in the lineup -- to get his posterior to first base any way he can.

>To put it another way, his job is to avoid making an out. As an industry, we spend too much time praising players for doing "little things" -- every round of applause a player gets for grounding out and getting a guy from second to third makes me die a little inside -- and that glorification has led to this piffle about the two-hole hitter being a certain type of player, rather than just a really good hitter, period.

>Each lineup spot gets about 2.5 percent more appearances than the one after it over the course of a season, or roughly another plate appearance every 8-9 games. (That stat, and much of the information in this article, comes from the very useful "The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball," by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin, which has a whole chapter examining lineup construction that goes well beyond what I'm discussing here.)

>The obvious implication is that you want to load your best hitters up at the top of the lineup, and to put your worst hitters near the bottom of it. Even flipping Cozart and Votto (not that you'd hit Cozart third, but just hypothetically) would convert about 10 outs per year into times on base, assuming 150 games played for each player and using their OBPs of the past few years.

>Of course, you don't want to put your best overall hitter, someone who gets on base but also hits for power, in the leadoff spot, because his first plate appearances come with the bases empty and the remainder will come with fewer men on base because he's hitting behind the No. 8 and 9 hitters. Tango et al, showed that historically the leadoff spot has far fewer PAs with men on base (36 percent, with no other spot below 44 percent) than any other lineup position, making it an ideal spot for a high-OBP but low-power hitter.

>For the Angels, that's not Trout, who slugged .564 last season with 30 homers and belongs in a position where he can deploy that power to knock some guys in, while also getting on base for the hitters behind him. (Sadly, the Angels don't really have a high-OBP guy for the leadoff spot; Peter Bourjos' .370 mark this season is way out of line with his career OBP of .307.)

>Conventional wisdom says you put your best overall hitter third, and to this day most teams still do just that. Tango et al, point out, again with historical data, that when you consider the plate appearances each lineup spot receives, as well as the frequency with which each lineup spot gets each base-out situation*, a team's best hitter belongs in the No. 2 spot: It comes up about 2.5 percent more often over the course of a year, and generates more value with almost every way of reaching base due to who's typically on base and with how many outs. That is, a single or a double or a walk from the No. 2 hitter is worth more in run-scoring potential than the same event from a No. 3 hitter. The numbers are all very close, but the No. 2 hitter gets those extra 15 or so plate appearances a year, and the No. 3 hitter, on average, leads off the fewest number of innings, which is another reason not to put your highest OBP guy there.

>*There are 24 base-out situations: 0, 1, or 2 outs, as well as eight configurations of runners on base from bases empty to bases loaded. These are the 24 base-out scenarios found in a run expectancy table, that tells you how many runs you can expect to score given a number of outs and a configuration of men on base. It also tells you that giving up an out via a sacrifice bunt is generally stupid.

>Free runs!

>These gains are small but real, and freely available to any team. What's a little less evident immediately from these studies -- again, I refer you to "The Book" for the data itself -- is the very real, almost binary benefit a team may get once or twice a year in the ninth inning from batting, say, Joey Votto second instead of Zack Cozart.

>According to Dan Szymborski, in nine-inning games the past 10 years, the last out was made by the No. 2 batter 11.7 percent of the time, about what you'd expect given nine lineup spots with a slight skew toward spots near the top. (A straight 1-in-9 shot would be 11.1 percent.)

>In other words, in about 19 games a year, the No. 3 hitter was left standing in the on-deck circle, forever alone. With one-run games accounting for about a quarter of each team's schedule last year -- the Reds were 31-21 in such games, so nearly a third of their games were decided by a run -- that would mean on average about five games a year where the team's best hitter doesn't get a last chance to bat. It might be only one or two such games, and it could be more than five, but the point is that there is never a game where you should be comfortable losing by a run while your best hitter stands on deck watching a clearly inferior two-hole hitter make the final out.

>And a win coming from that situation isn't a hypothetical win from 10 runs produced on aggregate over a season -- it's a binary variable, a loss turned into a win, the kind that shows up in the standings and that people who work with baseball statistics are often absurdly accused of ignoring.

>If you can get one more win a year from optimizing your lineup this way, with no downside whatsoever, shouldn't you do it? And shouldn't any manager who hits a guy with a career .283 OBP second (Cozart), ahead of a guy (Votto) with a career .417 OBP (.445 this year, .474 last year), be held accountable for that decision? Put your best hitter second, your next-best hitter fourth, your high-OBP/low-power guy first, and you get, in effect, free runs, maybe just a handful over the course of a season, but maybe that one marginal at-bat in the ninth inning turns into a very real, tangible win, the kind that teams are supposed to be pursuing anyway.

>The conventional wisdom here is wrong, and all it took was a few guys to question it and look at the data to explain to us why.

Video from the article at the bottom

Edit: I made a hypothetical Giants line-up based on this evidence, Giants players' 2013 stats, and today's line-up, just for fun:

Marco Scutaro 2B

Buster Posey C

Brandon Belt 1B

Hunter Pence RF

Brandon Crawford SS

Pablo Sandoval 3B

Gregor Blanco CF

Roger Kieschnick LF (No offense to Keesh, there's just not enough big league stats on him yet to see what he's really made of at this level)

Pitcher's spot

After staring at and thinking about this lineup for a while, I actually like it a lot. Someone text Boch, stat!

Not a Saint, just visiting this sub but I'll throw in my two cents as well:

Play the game - Get involved as much as you can. Doesn't matter the level, just get playing. And, importantly, try to take up different positions when you play. Even though the game is the same, the role of a lone striker is very different to that of the right back, the playmaker is very different from the holding midfield, the left winger is different from the 'keeper and so on. It'll help build your understanding of the different roles at play on the pitch.

Computer games - Personally not sure about games like FIFA (if it works for you, go nuts) but I'd recommend some of the older manager games. Not because they were necessarily better than the ones around now but because they were a bit simpler. Not trying to be patronising but if I were trying to learn to play the guitar, I'd probably want to start with the rudimentary stuff before moving on to more complex issues, and that's kinda the case here. You can download Championship Manager 01/02 free and legally from their own website, something I recommend because of the clear and very intriguing insights into some of the game's inner workings like basic formations, player types and a rough idea of individual skill sets.

YouTube - Although I haven't gone too far into it myself, I'm absolutely certain there are a myriad very handy videos online explaining tactics on different levels. This is a nice introduction, and uMAXIT have some decent videos on basic tactical principles explained at a pleasant speed and with good visuals. When you've got the basics down (or maybe you already have), throw a quick butcher's at their videos on things like false 9's, gegenpressing and zonal/man marking.

Literature - Plenty, and I do mean plenty, of really good books out there. "Inverting the Pyramid" is interesting reading but will probably not provide you with too many insights into the modern game. I'd recommend reading that a little later.

For the history of the game, there is really only one bible - David Goldplatt's "The Ball is Round". It's a right monolith but it's well-written and very, very interesting reading. Once you get into the game, you might want to read up on a few of its greats' autobiographies - but all that in due course.

Online reading - At the risk of upsetting the reddit intelligentsia, I'd recommend you find some of the best personal blogs about your team and start reading them. Maybe even pop by the most popular message boards that aren't driven by points. The points made there are also more likely to be made by locals and so can give you an idea of what they think of it all (particularly with a club like Southampton which probably has a fairly modest global following compared to the so-called big clubs). By this I'm not saying you should stay away from here or not engage, not by any means. Just that it's a different world on the old message/discussion boards.

For news, I recommend this sub and NewsNow. Just be very aware that it's a link aggregator so there can be a lot of shit in among the good bits. You'll soon learn to avoid sites such as 101greatgoals, talkSPORT, TEAMtalk and the usual array of hacks but it's a good place to get an idea of what's moving around the club nonetheless.

Hope it helps.

Programming is a tool. I suggest finding another interest that you can apply it to. Robots, graphics, music, animation, sports, economics -- the possibilities are endless. Pick your favorite area, look at what kind of problems there are in that area that people use programs to solve, figure out how those sorts of programs work, and try to solve some of those problems yourself.

A few interesting examples:

• Project Euler has a set of challenges relating to both math and computer science that will stretch you to learn more about both.
  
• Python Challenge is basically a series of puzzles that challenge you to do new and interesting things with Python. Granted, several of the puzzles are quite similar and some of the libraries they reference are deprecated, but it's a place to start for programming challenges.
  
• Programming Computer Vision With Python talks all about using programs to do things like find objects in pictures and track them even at different sizes and angles. Lots of great examples.
  
• Programming Collective Intelligence talks about putting together data from different sources (primarily websites) and finding patterns. It deals with many machine learning concepts in ways that are practical and interesting. Things like modelling and predicting, optimizing, clustering (finding similarities), searching and ranking, and pattern recognition.
  
• Arduino Robotics describes many robots you can build with relatively common parts that can be programmed using the inexpensive, C-based Arduino microcontroller platform. I've made several of these myself.
  
• Digital Signal Processing is all about writing software that takes advantage of advanced math to manipulate signals in many ways. It's invaluable for audio, but you see it used with graphics, digital communications, and many other areas.
  
• There is a subset of sports fans that really enjoy statistics and software can be very valuable for them. Things like comparing players across eras, predicting future performance, and helping to find high-value players. The general field is called Sabremetrics. I looked deep into it in relation to major league baseball. Two books that I found valuable are The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball and Baseball Between the Numbers.
  
• Programmable games are cool too. Things like CROBOTS, CoreWar, RoboWar, and Robot Game. It's just as fun building the simulation environment as it is building the bots that compete within them.
  
• Pick up any book on algorithms. Learn to apply the basics like binary search, insertion sort, radix sort, memoization and linear programming, Dijkstra's algorithm, and Newton's method for root finding.
  
• Grab another book on data structures. Make sure you understand the differences between arrays, linked lists, hash tables, and trees. Learn about unique and useful things like binary trees, radix trees, heaps, and queues.
  
• Learn how to write better code. I recommend books like Code Complete and The Pragmatic Programmer.
  
  Whatever you do, as you clearly pointed out, you have to be interested in it or you'll grow bored and give up. Find something that is interesting to you and pursue it as wide and deep as you can.

Websites (Most are not active):

• Inside the Pylon - Videos may not load embedded, but you can copy the url. Pretty good look at base plays, position responsibilities, and other terms you run into.
  
• Breakdown Sports another place for looking at the above, less available though covered deeply. See article on Cover 1 for example.
  
• Football Study Hall More on the statistics side of football (old stomping ground of Bill Connelly), a bit more all over the place.
  
• Dan Casey's Twitter If you want to see clips of fun and interesting plays past and present, he's a good'un.
  
• Playbooks - Historic coaches' playbooks. You can get a pretty good understanding of things like read progression and play goals from these, as well as what the purpose of each player on the field for each play by reading through some of these.
  
  ---
  Books: These are the books most people recommend starting from.
  
  

1. David Seigerman's Take Your Eye Off the Ball This is a really good book for understanding the game holistically. From positions to managing a season to how you can pay attention to a play, a drive, and a game.
   
2. Chris B. Brown's The Essential Smart Football and The Art of Smart Football (read in order of printing) Fantastic book set for anyone ready to dive a deeper into how the game has and could develop. Seeing everyone raving about the wildcat is always a chuckle though.
   

• Tim Layden's Blood, Sweat & Chalk. Definitely worth the the purchase. Would recommend the above first, but this is a great go for the stories behind the plays. How they came to be and why.

Here are the best resources I've found. I will say this though: Find a solid climbing mentor to teach you all the safety basics (belaying, knots, anchors, etc.). I've only been climbing a little over a year, and I've seen some of the dumbest/craziest stuff outside already. It's good to read books and watch videos, but always have someone who knows that they're doing to check and double check that you're safe. Ask lots of questions--you only have one life and you don't want to die (or kill/hurt someone) from a dumb mistake that could be prevented.

• The Self-Coached Climber - This is a great book on movement. It comes with a DVD that shows you drills to improve your footwork and technique. (Here's a link to some of the drills.)
  
• 9 Out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes - This book I read and re-read constantly in the bathroom. There are no pictures, but he has little advice and thoughts about training and climbing that really help. I've found it more helpful the longer I've climbed.
  
• How to Climb 5.12 - Excellent training advice for climbing. How can you argue when this guy's ten year old son put up a first ascent of a 5.14a in Maple Canyon?
  
• Rock Warrior's Way - This is a great book for mental training for climbing. It will help more if you ever get into lead climbing/trad.
  
• Freedom of the Hills - This is the Bible of climbing/mountaineering.
  
• Climbing Anchors - John Long's book is one of the best. Make sure you have a good mentor though to help you and check your systems.
  
• Improve Your Climbing with Neil Gresham - Great video for technique on overhangs. The full version is worth watching too if you can find it online.
  
• Mountain Project's School of Rock - Lots of general info and videos.
  
  Stay safe, find a mentor, and ask lots of questions.

Sounds like you did a very strenuous move at one point. Do you ever throw for a move with your arm completely extended and jerk at the shoulder/upper arm as you catch it? Do you climb with bent arms often? Either of those may be to culprit.

First and foremost - focus on your footwork. Think of relaxing your grip and climbing with relaxed, straight arms whenever possible. You should constantly be engaging, and pushing with your feet first (to take pressure off your arms); then rotating, and pulling with your lats diagonally across your chest to maximize reach while using a larger muscle group.

Work on as many easy problems as possible in your next training session while making sure every movement you do is static and based on technique, rather than power. No jerking; just relaxed, comfortable movements. Every movement you do should be as efficient as possible. To get a sense of what I'm talking about, watch strong female climbers - they typically have far better technique than most men.

Work on Antagonistic muscle exercises, specifically the extensor muscles in you arms; this will help prevent injury.

Do Reverse Wrist curls religiously before each workout and Wrist Pronators after - these work the forearm and elbow to help prevent tendinitis in the elbow.

Alternatively, you can do rice bucket exercises. These are excellent exercises to prevent injury and increase overall stability in the wrists, elbows, and forearms. Some gyms use large buckets of sand - same deal.

You're working a lot of pull muscles in climbing -always be sure to work the opposing muscles to round-out this increased volume. Try to do 2 sets of dips or push ups every other day to even this out.

Also, if you REALLY want to get better then watch some climbing videos. You'll start to subconsciously soak up the techniques top-level climbers use and then you'll say to yourself, "Hey, this move's kinda like that one I saw in the video!" Watch the great movers and shakers. Also, consider getting the book 9 out of 0 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes

To get inspired, watch this.

Hope some of this helped

EDIT: Also, this is Lynn Hill - the first PERSON to ever free climb The Nose on El Cap. She's truly incredible. Listen to what she has to say - it's something climbers will go for years before realizing.

EDIT2: You likely shouldn't be Hang-boarding if you're a beginner - you're going to get injured. Climbing on the holds themselves are the best training for finger strength right now. As you progress, hang boarding will have more of a return on your time spent.

Also, you shouldn't be doing multiple sessions in a row. Your body needs time to rest, and if you're constantly stressing it, it'll never improve.

Again - training does not make you stronger, it only initiates the growth process. REST is where that growth is made. You'll come back stronger after a periodic rest between sessions.

You will want to make sure you are doing a body weight routine that includes more difficult movements and not just ricidulous volume on basic exercises.

/r/bodyweightfitness is a good starting point to get you rolling but if you already have great lifts their routine might not be advanced enough for you. Overcoming Gravity is a great resource with writeups and progressions for exercises although through some extremely advanced gymnastics exercises such as planche pushups.

It should be very easy to keep your size for your upper body with BW exercises. Lower body is a bit harder, especially if you have a very big squat/deadlift. Still doable, but for the most part you still will want to add weight, and will be doing things like weighted pistols and weighted shrimp squats.

Dominik Sky and FitnessFAQs both have youtube channels with a good bit of information.

A place to do pullups is all you really need for bodyweight exercises. I would recommend picking up a set of Gymnastics Rings at some point or another though as they are extremely useful for bodyweight training.

I would increasing your flexibility training a bit. A lot of bodyweight stuff benefits hugely from increased flexibility.

Also lastly, I don't know how advanced of a lifter you are, but if you are a very advanced lifter be a little with some of the very advanced straight arm body weight exercises. They require a lot of tendon strength in addition to muscle. Even if you have a 2x body weight bench for example you will want to still do some tendon conditioning before jumping straight to an iron cross to avoid injury.

From Page 436 of Overcoming Gravity:

> There are some interesting correlations among the pulling exercises. The back lever, front lever, one-arm
chin-up/pull-up, iron cross, and many other pulling exercises have similar levels of strength that carry over
between each of the strength progressions. Here are some estimates on the translation of one to the other:

> Straddle Front Lever = ~50% Bodyweight Pull-up = ~ Full Back Lever
> Front Lever = ~70-80% Bodyweight Pull-up
> One-Arm Chin-up = ~80-90% Bodyweight Pull-up
> 3 One-Arm Chin-ups = +15 lbs. One-Arm Chin-up = 3-4s Iron Cross Hold
> * 5 One-Arm Chin-ups = +25 lbs. One-Arm Chin-up = ~10s Iron Cross Hold

> Referring back to the progression charts, some of these associations are on the same level on the skill and
strength charts. This is what makes the skill and strength progressions charts useful; they allow identification
of skills that are at a similar level of ability

> Regarding the translation to the full back lever, it is a bit more variable. The full back lever can be achieved
more or less around the straddle FL progression. The straight-arm pulling variations build the shoulder
strength to execute the one-arm chin-up, but the front lever does not build bent-arm pulling strength due to
the high level of biceps stress, whereas the back lever does.

> Of course, there is still some level of specificity needed to achieve each of these skills, even when they are
ranked at similar levels of strength. Practice what you want to achieve, but in doing so know that supplemental exercises from all of these categories have some carryover to each other.

In general, there's definitely carryover from pulling strength to straight arm pulling exercises... but you also have to practice the movements as well. If you've never tried straight arm work then it's going to be more awkward and less efficient.

Also, note that even IF you have the strength for a movement, you may not have the tendon and connective tissue strength for a movement. I've seen people get injured trying back lever and iron cross because they have the strength but they don't have the elbow/shoulder connective tissue strength to support the straight arm movement. Be wary, and build up gradually for straight arm movements.

For shoes, you need to go to a real running shoe store. They will analyze your gait, and show you the type of shoes you need. They should give you a handful of the "right" (for you) shoes to try on, and let you spend some time on a treadmill in each pair, allowing you to ask plenty of questions. The shoes should be pretty big, since over a long run your feet will swell. You should at least be able to press your thumb (width) between your toes and the end of the shoes.

Regarding stretching, there ARE a lot of schools of thought out there. I am sort of lazy about stretching beforehand, but I recommend doing dynamic stretches (not the static kind) ... marching in place, jumping jacks, body twists, things like that.

I also recommend (strongly) stretching afterwards ~ these can be static.

For your first marathon, I can't recommend strongly enough this book. I used it, and know at least 5 others who did, as well. Every single person finished their first marathon injury-free.

If you DON'T get the book, the rules I consider to be unbreakable are:

• good shoes
  
  
• excellent hydration
  
  
• good nutrition
  
  
• good recovery (rest or do light cross-training the day after a long run. Refuel. Rehydrate. Start getting a good night's sleep if you don't already.)
  
  
• FLEXIBILITY (in terms of your schedule. If you are "supposed" to run, but sick or more sore than just achy, then wait a day. No point in setting yourself up for injury. Also, if you are supposed to run, say, 12 miles, and you start, and then halfway through you are out of water and it's 90 degrees out, then STOP. Don't be an idiot in your training.)
  
  Breakable rules, but still good to follow:
  
  
• train your brain. Mantras, positive thinking, etc., are great
  
  
• learn what works for your GI system. Don't change anything on race day, and only make small tweaks throughout your training.
  
  
• practice hydrating with whatever they will provide on the course.
  
  
• try to find a friend or group to run with, at least sometimes.
  
  
  Good luck and have fun :)

How much reading do you want to do? If you want to just get caught up on every team/player for next season in a long but fun to read book format, I'd suggest putting in your order now for this years Baseball Prospectus. It's more thorough than any sane person would ever need it to be, but I can't recommend it enough if you're looking for detail. For more current news, Fangraphs and Baseball Reference are solid for stats and info, while the various SB Nation sites have more team based stuff.

If you want more history, the Ken Burns Baseball series is on Netflix, and is a ton of fun to watch. If you're more of a reader, the Bill James Historical Abstract doubles as a nice doorstop, but has a nice, fun look at the past.

Other than that, lurk around here to catch up on big news and general public opinion, and maybe try to get yourself into a fantasy league.

Edit: Almost forgot podcasts (I love podcasts, but I'm new to baseball podcasts, so grain of salt and all). Productive Out's PRODcast is pretty fun, it's two guys from Thrice and Kowloon Walled City (if you're into music at all) basically shooting the shit. Effectively Wild is more baseball-centric, but updates more frequently. I've heard mixed reviews on the Fangraphs podcast, both rave positives and really negative, but haven't given it a listen yet myself.

Here's what I know are facts:

1. Frazier's regularly noted for his steals & pickpocket skills on defense ... in fact that's predominantly what he's noted for, not his general defensive abilities.
   
   
2. Tied directly to #1, a ton of interviews with players/coaches/fans of the time note him as a gambler on defense. Not a solid defender, but a gambler. This word (or words like it) come up A LOT.
   
   
3. There are a ton of highlights of his steals, and most of them are him reaching/gambling in a way that if he misses it, his teammates are left out to dry. Assuming he reached more than 2 times a game (2 steals/game), he probably forced his teammates to clean up for his misses a lot.
   
   
4. Tied directly to #3, those Knick teams are noted for their depth of defensive talent, notably Dave DeBusschere who had the energy/hustle to be everywhere all the time, and would have been the perfect versatile defender to clean up what I described above & still keep the team defense high (especially with an awesome defensive center like Reed behind all of them), which it was.
   
   
5. Steals were tracked for several years of Frazier's career, and he was top-10 twice (never 1st). Jerry West was better at them when he was old as hell and injured and on his way out (2.6 spg in his final NBA season, Frazier was 7 years younger & playing 9 more min/gm but averaged 2.0 that season), which is when they finally started counting steals, and he's far more noted for good overall & fundamental defense than steals, which is supposed to be Frazier's thing.
   
   
6. The years that Frazier peaked were in a diluted league noted for slow/old guards (so much so, some teams ran their half-court offenses through centers like Walton, Adams, Boerwinkle), and the time was noted for the majority of fast/athletic players playing over in the other league. His gambling was done in a slower, diluted league.
   
   
7. The one fast/athletic PG who played at the same time as Frazier (Tiny) lit him up regularly. Frazier's team was much better, but Tiny definitely "got his" when facing Frazier & the Knicks.
   
   
8. One of the most famous & respected hoops journalists ever said Frazier's defense was overrated. That statement was agreed with ("There is some truth to Bob Ryan's point that...") by the author of the book I referenced above, who is a bit of a basketball historian himself, seeing as he's the author/editor of the 1000+ page "Total Basketball: The Ultimate Basketball Encyclopedia" (link).
   
   8b) Is the "Best 50 Players" book respected or any good? I found out about in the bibliography of Bill Simmons' book. No matter what you think of BS's homer-ism, his depth of research on the history of the game is very impressive, and he placed this book in the "Extremely Useful" section of his bibliography (he grouped books by usefulness). You can confirm this for yourself by clicking on "Look Inside" at this link and scrolling down about 2/3 of the way to the Bibliography (just before the Index).
   
   EDIT: It turns out the Knicks had 33-year-old Dick Barnett guarding Jerry West for most of the 1970 Finals instead of 24-year-old Walt Frazier .... kinda weird considering the reputation of Frazier. LINK

Holy moly, 30 pounds since February is awesome!! That is absolutely awesome and I look forward to hearing about your continued success!

I hear you on meditation. Perhaps not meditation per say, but a few months ago my girlfriend convinced me to go to bikram yoga and I found it to be tremendously helpful for all the fitness stuff. Not really because of anything physical as much as the mental fortitude and discipline it requires. I actually REALLY enjoyed how the meditation/introspection of those sessions trickled into my every day.

Honestly, my view on running is that it is 80% mental. I remember training for my first half marathon, someone told me "if you can run 6 miles, you can do a half marathon" which sounded insane to me. But I think they were absolutely right-- those remaining miles are a mental hurdle far more than a physical one. Right now I am training for the NYC marathon and honestly most of my training is on regulating my attitude while working out. I know you're doing the 5k program, but you may enjoy the meditative aspects of the book I am using to train-- The Non Runners Marathon Trainer. It's ALL about how to approach running from a meditative, psychological standpoint. While the physical program is for a marathon, the mental training program is (I think) 100% applicable to anyone who slips on their sneakers and hits the pavement :)

Bloody Confused!: A Clueless American Sportswriter Seeks Solace in English Soccer -- The book for the novice soccer fan. It explains how one can get caught up in the sport even if they deride it or have no history with it. Amazon: After covering the American sports scene for fifteen years, Chuck Culpepper suffered from a profound case of Common Sportswriter Malaise. He was fed up with self-righteous proclamations, steroid scandals, and the deluge of in-your-face PR that saturated the NFL, the NBA, and MLB. Then in 2006, he moved to London and discovered a new and baffling world—the renowned Premiership soccer league. Culpepper pledged his loyalty to Portsmouth, a gutsy, small-market team at the bottom of the standings. As he puts it, “It was like childhood, with beer.”

The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer -- Be warned this book can be mistaken as a blunt object. One of the most global histories I've ever read. If you like information about how world soccer got to where it is now, I highly recommend this book. Amazon: In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of soccer's rise from chaotic folk ritual to the world's most popular sport-now poised to fully establish itself in the USA. Already celebrated internationally, The Ball Is Round illuminates soccer's role in the political and social histories of modern societies, but never loses sight of the beauty, joy, and excitement of the game itself.

Long-Range Goals: The Success Story of Major League Soccer -- Amazon: From the league’s formation in 1993 to the David Beckham era, this book reveals all the action on and off the pitch: the politics, the lawsuits, the management of its teams, and the savvy business deals that helped MLS rebound. It also revels in the big personalities of its stars, the grace of its utility players, and the obstacles the league faces in meeting its long-range goals.

Corner Offices & Corner Kicks -- Amazon: The Bethlehem Steel soccer team of 1907-30 and the New York Cosmos of 1971-85 were very much alike in a number of ways beyond their status as the two greatest soccer teams the United States has ever produced. The most important way that they are alike is that both were owned by major corporations, which is the exception in professional sports, and both experienced the benefits and the pitfalls of corporate ownership. Here are the stories of these two teams, and in particular the roller-coaster rides that their ownership situations sent them on.

The best advice I ever received: "Experiment." A lot of people start with price as their initial consideration but then end up overpaying or getting gear pieces that don't suit their needs. Many outfitters do gear rentals, so that's a great way to start. As you experiment, you'll begin to see what your preferences are. For example, I could have a pack that's a half pound lighter if I switched to a frameless pack, but I find them too uncomfortable to be of any use to me.

Here are some things you'll want to consider before making purchases (in the order that I usually look at them):

• Backpack: internal frame vs external frame vs frameless, max carrying weight, max carrying volume, compatible with a hydration system, comfort, price
  
  
• Tent: size, single wall vs double wall, completely enclosed vs open floor, weight, ease of setup, price
  
  
• Footwear: hiking boot vs hiking shoe vs trail runner vs other, comfort and fit, tread, material, price, design (I like a bit of a toe cap when possible)
  
  Everyone has their own favorite items and manufacturers. I've tried enough shoes and packs that there are very few I would ever refuse to buy, so go with whatever seems to fit your needs. With tents, I'm only familiar with my own MSR, and I would recommend them.
  
  Once you've narrowed down your selection to a few items in each category, wait til one of them goes on sale or shows up on a discount website. You can save literally hundreds of dollars if you're patient. You can save even more by buying used.
  
  The best book I ever read regarding choices in gear was Andrew Skurka's and the Appalachian Trail Hiker. They still favor their own preferences and brands, but still give you enough information to make decisions regarding other products.

The first thing you should do is brush up on the rules. Baseball isn't as complicated as something like American Football, but compared to something like soccer or tennis it's pretty complex. You know those card games where you try to tell someone how it's played and they get so confused and you end up saying "Just watch us play for five minutes and you'll get it." That's about how complicated baseball is. This website looks like it's a decent introduction. Although nothing beats just sitting and watching a game.

You should absolutely subscribe to MLB.TV when the season starts. It's a bit expensive, but it's worth it. You will be able to watch every single game live, or later on if the time difference is an issue. Watch as many games as you can to figure out which team and players you like the best. And be aware that the two leagues have different rules. The National League plays pure, unadulterated baseball the way it was always intended. The American League is an abomination upon all that is holy to the game and features an old fat guy called the DH batting in lieu of the pitcher, this has tainted the game like a homeless man blasting malt-liquor fueled diarrhea on freshly fallen snow. There's a total of 2,430 games a year, so the cost is about a nickel per game...or at least that's how I justify the price to my wife every April.

For a history of the game check out the documentary series "Baseball" by Ken Burns. All of them are available on YouTube. I've seen the whole thing quite a few times, but still watch it all the way through every January or February while I'm waiting for Spring Training to start.

And if I could give one gift to every baseball fan on earth it would be the The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. Think of it an a more in depth companion to Burns' documentary series. It's a MASSIVE book, but one I pick up every few months to skim through or to reference something. The first section (roughly 300 pages) covers the game, decade by decade from the 1870's through the 1990's, covering historical events, the construction and destruction of stadiums, the negro leagues, how the equipment and tactics changed etc. The second section gives bios of a ton of different players throughout history and then ranks the top 100 by position. It may not be THE book for a complete baseball novice, but its something every fan should have. It helps me get through the off season every year.

Kirwan's book is an excellent introduction to the finer details of the game, but for broader strokes about scheme and particularly their history and how they came into fashion I have a pair of other recommendations -

Sports Illustrated's Blood, Sweat & Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook: How the Great Coaches Built Today's Game

and

Chris B Brown's The Essential Smart Football, and really everything on his website http://smartfootball.com/

I thoroughly enjoyed both, they were as much entertaining as educational and easy reads. I've been waiting for Brown's new book to come out on the e-readers, and if doesn't soon I'll probably buy a hard copy.

Also a shout out to /r/footballstrategy - there are some smart cats on that sub who are always happy to answer questions

edit: If you're interested in web articles instead also check out Matt Bowen's Football 101 series that he wrote for Bleacher Report (I wish he'd come back, most of his content is behind ESPN's paywall now...), he broke down a lot of broad principles with some nice diagrams http://bleacherreport.com/users/2822152-matt-bowen/archives/newest?rel=nofollow

If you're the reading type, The Book of Basketball is a good, fun read that covers a lot of ground.

As a Canadian, the Raptors are a fun team to watch (for now), and since you grew up in the country you won't be considered a bandwagon fan at all. Since Vancouver is so close to Seattle, that would work too, but unfortunately that team moved to Oklahoma a decade ago or so. If you think you'll watch basketball for a while, it may be fun to choose one of the young (promising??) teams like Philadelphia, Minnesota, the Lakers (don't choose the Lakers), or Milwaukee cause you can watch them grow and mature over the next couple years.

Honestly, the game is SUPER fun to watch right now, but it's a little weird because Golden State and Cleveland are so much better than everyone else in their conferences. I thought GS would have to break up for $$ reasons, but players (Durant) took a paycut to keep the core together, so they'll be absolutely dominant for a couple more years at least.

All that to say, it's an exciting time to jump into the NBA! The game has changed a TON in the last few years (faster pace, blending of positions) and looks to continue evolving quickly in the next couple years. Welcome!

this will give you a good idea of where you want to start learning about the game. Be warned, the more you learn the more you're going to want to learn. All of these posts are about a specific scenario but I've been coaching for 6 years now and every scenario is different. You might not want to run screen against the blitz if you have the perfect run play for this team, this front, this time of the game. No two plays will ever be the same in the game of football and your script walking into the game is lucky to make it to it's 15 plays. You want to understand the system you've built and the one you're up against. This book will lay out some of the systems in football and the rest is up to you.

Nothing would make me happier than a sub reddit where we would all argue strategy instead of fantasy value or who's better than who. I hope you enjoy this book, it's a great read!

Sports writing has a long, rich tradition and it's probably worth tapping into some of the older stuff.

The New Yorker has printed some great sports writing, and this collection has articles going back almost 100 years. The most famous is John Updike's description of Ted Williams' final at bat at Fenway.

Dr. Z has some great stuff. His book "The New Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football", published in 1984, blends statistics and subjective insight in a way that anticipates modern sports writing. The chapter on Marion Motley is wonderful.

You've heard of Bill James. I like this abstract but he has a lot of good work.

Boxing has a long tradition of being elevated by great writing. My favorite boxing writer is AJ Liebling, some of his best work is collect in The Sweet Science.

There's a ton of great stuff out there I didn't mention. I think it would be a mistake to draw mostly from writing from the last 10 years.

> as opposed to 700 watts for a few seconds

Sprint training is difficult to plan and hard to improve, so it's more valuable to get to the finish fresh than to train your sprint. Sprint power is very dependent on genetics. /u/carpediemracing has written about this in a comment recently. Ultimately if you want to be a better sprinter then timing and positioning will benefit you more than raw Watts.

> I hear the weight room is the best place for developing that.

To an extent yes, but remember that the force production during a sprint and the force production during your 10rep max are leagues apart. If you're sprinting at full tilt then at best you'll produce the equivalent force of an equivalent 1 rep/sec (rounded and assuming 120rpm). For this reason it's generally recommended to do plyometrics off the bike and focus on technique when on the bike. Weight training can help with your initial jump if it's low speed, on a gradient or from a standing start, but the nature of power production means you'll never attain huge force production like you would off the bike. You'll never actually attain your best possible force production unless pedal velocity (cadence) is 0. Coggan has written about this with regards to quandrant analysis of the pedal stroke.

If you haven't picked up a copy of Training and Racing with a Power Meter I'd recommend it, even if you do not own a power meter. In fact I'd say he should change the title at this point since it's a better general training utility than it is a power meter handbook (although power is important to understanding your ability).

Finally, I get to participate!

The best source for information on this is Mike Sowell's book The Pitch that Killed, which covers both the context of Chapman's death and the pennant race of 1920. Statistical information is generally taken from Baseball-Reference.com.

Baseball was in a transitional period already when Chapman died. The game, which had been nominally professional since 1867 and truly professional a few years after that, had only recently consolidated around the National and American Leagues as the true, major leagues. The game had been dominated by pitchers for much of its 20th century history; huge bats, fast players, improving fielding technology, and a variety of other factors had combined to pull down what had been very high scores in the 19th century. The game had been growing rapidly in popularity for a couple of decades, and was seen as a fast-paced, rowdy alternative to other, more gentlemanly pursuits such as cricket.

But in 1920, baseball was undergoing a true, existential crisis unlike any that it has seen since. Though emblematized in the Black Sox scandal of 1919, which was unfolding through the 1920 season, gambling had become a plague on the game, as many players openly took bribes and few were punished for it -- Hal Chase, who was about as big a star as baseball had in the 1910s, was famous for it, and may have been a go-between for Arnold Rothstein and the Black Sox conspirators, and he wasn't alone in doing this sort of thing.

Though star players were well-paid (Ty Cobb made $20,000 in 1919, or about $275,000 in today's dollars), most players in this period were working class guys who went home and worked in the offseason. For many men, including most of the Black Sox, the hint of real riches that came from game-fixing and side-betting was more than just greed: it could materially change their financial situation, and all for a modicum of effort (though a fair amount of risk). With its credibility shot and its finances vastly more precarious than they are today, MLB faced ruin.

Meanwhile, the way the game was played was being revolutionized by Babe Ruth. I won't wax too poetic about Ruth, but it's important to understand some bullet points about him, because what happened after Chapman plays into how Ruth changed the game:

1. It's not just that Ruth had those seasons in which he was hitting as many home runs as the rest of the league combined; to some degree, it was almost inevitable that someone would start swinging for the fences and discover that it worked. It's that Ruth's descendants and contemporaries explored the area near, and under, his records, but almost never surpassed them.
   
   
2. The way Ruth played the game was not only incredibly successful, but it was hugely profitable. Why do the Yankees have the highest payroll in baseball, while the Giants play in San Francisco? The Giants had been a vastly more successful and profitable team to that point -- but Ruth revolutionized the game, and along the way, revolutionized the Yankees' finances.
   
   
3. For more than 40 years after Ruth's advent, baseball was played in a slow, station-to-station manner that emphasized home runs, a state of affairs that did not begin to change until massive integration and westward expansion changed the environment in the 1960s.
   
   Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, Chapman, Mays, and the pitch that killed. Mays was Ruth's teammate, a submariner, the Yankees' ace, and not a popular man within the game. He was a hard man, a bit of a loner, and he threw pitches that took full advantage of batters' fears of being hit to get his outs. This was in the days before night baseball, remember, and one of the jobs of a pitcher was to dirty up a ball, using dirt, spit, tobacco, shoe black, and any number of other things that might obscure the ball; too, umpires were not nearly so quick to replace balls, and so, as the game wore on, the ball came to take on a gray-brown color, and was often misshapen and prone to flying in unpredictable ways when pitched or hit. Mays, as a right-handed submariner, used this (and was not alone in using this) as a way of disguising his pitches and keeping batters off guard: especially in early- and late-season games, later innings were often played in semi-crepuscular conditions, meaning that any batter digging in against Mays and his brown ball was literally gambling his life on his ability to pick a speck of brown out of the darkling skies.
   
   Now, is this actually why Chapman was hit? It was the middle innings of an August game in New York, a game that only lasted a couple of hours and would have been started in mid-afternoon -- in other words, probably not, at least the weather conditions part of it. But Mays was famous for dirtying the balls, and it's probably true that a brown ball would be harder to see in almost any conditions than a shiny white one. And a lot of people assumed it was. The death of Chapman, coming at the same time as the Black Sox scandal, put a real fright into people. It contributed to the culture of reform that brought forth increasing professionalism, the hiring of a commissioner (the vastly overrated Kenesaw Mountain Landis), and similar things.
   
   The main thing that happened to the culture of the game is that the practice of scuffing the ball became much less common, as rules that were already on the books started to be enforced. Also, though it's hard to find hard data on the matter, umpires were instructed to constantly cycle in new, white balls, so even those that were doctored never became brown and flat. These two changes, along with Ruth's teaching the world to play baseball, fed into the game changing massively -- the game changing, basically, into what it is now.
   
   Mays was left bitter after the incident, if later interviews he gave were any indication. He'd always been a rough-and-tumble pitcher with a reputation for throwing at people, including a notorious incident with Ty Cobb several years earlier. He felt he became a pariah within the game, though he'd never been popular, and there is evidence to contradict him (a substantial raise over the offseason, for instance). Some were shocked that he, unlike some Yankees teammates, never went to Chapman's assistance; he also pitched several more innings that day. It's true that, despite a fairly illustrious career that continued for several more years, he received only passing support for the Hall of Fame -- though he, like Chance and the Black Sox, was dogged by gambling rumors that he denied but couldn't shake.
   
   Were guys scared of Mays? Well, yeah. But they'd always been scared of him. It was how he got outs. Baseball was a tough man's game in those days, and though I'm sure it gave guys pause, there wasn't a wave of people refusing to play when Mays pitched. I can't imagine there were a lot of illusions about what was possible when playing baseball for those guys. Chapman wasn't the first guy to get beaned. He was just the first one (that we know of) who died.
   
   Interestingly, the Indians -- who won on the day Chapman was hit -- would overtake the Yankees in September to win the pennant even without their star shortstop, and eventually beat Brooklyn in the World Series. (Chapman was a good hitter and known to be a good fielder, though there's no statistical data to give us any accurate reading on the latter statement.) This may have been because the man who took over for Chapman was a 21-year-old former football star named Joe Sewell, who would end up in the Hall of Fame himself eventually.
   
   EDIT: Additional sources: The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, retrosheet.org
   
   FURTHER EDIT: I noticed two minor errors in rereading this. They are:
   
   
4. Though there were rules about ball conditions that were generally not enforced, I left a clause off that sentence -- after the Chapman incident, and almost directly as a result of it, the spitball per se was disallowed, with a small list of pitchers grandfathered in. Mays was not on that list, but still had his best season in 1921.
   
   
5. The 1920 pennant race was tight straight through, but I implied that the Indians were behind the Yankees in the standings on 16 August, the day Chapman was hit. They were, in fact, tied with the White Sox, half a game ahead of New York, on that date. Both the Indians and Yankees fell behind Chicago after the Chapman game, and Cleveland would be behind New York and Chicago both as late as 30 August.

• The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract This book will give you a great overview of the game from 1870 to 1999. Breaks the game down by decades and what the game was like and how it changed. Also ranks the top 100 players at each position. Really anything by James is an entertaining read, but this is the must have for baseball conversation.
  
• Baseball Prospectus - Baseball Between the Numbers A good introductory course into the newer sabrmetrics. It will answer many questions in depth about what was going on as far as player evaluation in Moneyball.
  
• Tom Tango - The Book Much more advanced sabrmetrics but very current and groundbreaking. The author started on the internet, and last offseason secured a job working for the Seattle Mariners.
  
  The next three are to give you a better view of the game from the players/owners perspective.
  
  
• Veeck as in Wreck Bill Veeck was one hell of a guy. His father was president of the Cubs in the 30's, and Bill would go on to own his fair share of teams. Always an individual, he stood against the baseball ownership cabal on many occasions. Spent the last years of his life watching the Cubs from the center field bleachers. His autobiography is humorous and insightful. A must read for any baseball fan.
  
• Buck O'Neil - I was Right on Time Called the soul of negro league baseball, Buck O'Neil recounts his playing days in the negro leagues, and covers many of the legends in a very matter of fact way.
  
• Jim Bouton - Ball Four Last but not least is former Yankee star, now washed up knuckleballer Jim Bouton recalling the inaugural season of the short lived Seattle Pilots. Baseball players in all their vulgar glory. Also will teach you the fine art of "shooting beaver".

Power2Max. I was holding out for the Garmin Vector but gave up waiting. They ended up shipping 6 months after I got my Power2Max. Still, I'm very happy with it. The other bonus for me with the Power2Max is that I was already running a Rotor crank and just needed to replace the spider which kept the power meter to about $1,000 taxes and shipping in. However, replacing the spider on the crank was a feat in and of itself. Brutal. Turns out its something Rotor does not support. - i.e., if you screw up your crank while taking the factory spider off, they won't support you. In the end, it turned out OK. (key: Use a hair dryer to heat the spider up)

It is completely justified. Just for the ability to use it indoors using TrainerRoad makes it worth it by itself (for me). Also, after upgrading my Strava account to premium, all of the additional training features that require a power meter are great.

I've just started reading/following the Training & racing with a power meter as well which I hope brings positive results...

*edit: spelling

I think discussions on power meters fit right into the purposes of /r/Velo. Why don't you tell us a little about your riding and training background? How long have you been training, and what sort of goals do you have? Have you read Friel's Training Bible or Allen and Coggan's Training and Racing with a Power Meter?

As far as power meters go, there are a few different types on the market right now (and others will chip in here if i'm forgetting anything, because reasons). Here I'm sorting them from closest to power generation down the driveline:

• Pedal-based meters measure at the foot, and can measure left and right separately (not a useful measurement...yet.). Examples here include Garmin's Vector pedal system and Look/Polar's Keos. PowerTap will be releasing their P1 pedals this summer as well.
  
• Crankarm power meters are newcomers at a lower pricepoint. Stages Power is a left-only power meter that pulled prices down with their introduction of power for $749. Additionally, 4iiiis has released a power meter that is just hitting the market — this is priced insanely competitively, like $350 or something, and it'll be interesting to see if it's a useful player.
  
• Next up is crank-based power, and there are a lot of players here. SRM has been considered the gold standard of power, with a price to match, but that is changing. Quarq (from SRAM) is also well known, Power2Max seems to be highly regarded and is very competitively priced, Rotor has a system, and Pioneer Electronics has a new model that's a little pricier but also quite advanced. PowerTap is also releasing a chainring power system this summer.
  
• Finishing up is hub-based power with the venerable PowerTap hub, which has been around for about forever and is a known quantity and still a solid value proposition.
  
  Head on over to DC Rainmaker and check out his reviews, because his is the gold standard on incredibly detailed information on all things electronics. His reviews are excellent, and he's getting a 4iiii unit to review so we'll know how it fairs. That'd be the best option if you're really price sensitive because their pricing promises to massively undercut all the other players on the market.
  
  So this should be a start.

I wouldn't say that it is something to be taken lightly (you are making cartridges, after all, and if you make a mistake you could lose a body part or worse), but it's not rocket science, and I would argue that if you take it slowly, educate yourself, don't get distracted while reloading, and don't push the boundaries of the stated load data it is fairly safe, much like shooting and driving a car are fairly safe if you are smart about them.


As for reloading manuals... I am the wrong person to ask. I've done some shotgun reloading in my apartment and will be buying a turret press to load .357 Magnum and .38 Special rounds shortly. I've been reading the ABCs of Reloading and Reloading for Handgunners in preparation for my coming foray into handgun reloading, and they have been helpful. I'll also be getting manuals from the major powder manufacturers before I begin, as well as probably the Lyman and/or Hornady manuals as well. I'm sure others will chime in with their favorite books, and if not, check out /r/reloading.


I'll probably be getting a Lee Turret Press to start. Given that I already have a good scale for shotshell reloading (which I can do for $3/box, loading for low cost), which saves me $70, I figure I can get into handgun reloading for another $200 or less, plus the cost of consumables, and load light .357s for a ~$6-7 per 50 with plated bullets, vs ~$20 a box for commercially loaded .357 ammo and $14 or so for cheap commercially made .38 Special ammo.

First, look on YouTube for basic info. You can find videos about positions and plays and even schemes like the spread pretty easily.

Second, I recommend looking up some film breakdowns. Bill Belichick does them weekly (I think it's weekly) on a local Boston channel, but you can find some of them on YouTube by searching for Belichick Breakdown.

Third, try to find some guides for how to watch football and how to breakdown a game. Articles like this can provide you with a greater understanding of what everyone is doing during a play.

Fourth, do some reading.

I highly recommend Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look to help you while watching the game, but be sure to get the paperback version so you get all the diagrams. It will teach you the progression of the reads, the route running, the blocking and everything that happens on defense as well.

To help you cut through some of the jargon announcers use, I recomment Blood, Sweat and Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook.

If you want to learn more about strategies, try The Essential Smart Football.

To learn more about evaluating players, Football Scouting Methods is a must read. It will take you to the football of another era, but with the foundation from all the other info I've provided you will be able to start putting the pyramid together and learn how the game became what it was today.

Bill James is considered the grandfather of baseball analytics and just retired from his gig working for the Red Sox after 17 years. His book, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is a great starting point in your journey because it really does a nice job of melding the historical with the analytical. Certainly, his seminal work isn't as math-focused or cutting-edge as a lot of the newer stuff involving things like spin rates and launch angles. But as a resource, it lends context to the development of sabermetrics and gives insight into the thinking involved.He also produces the Bill James Handbook prior to each season. He's written a number of other great books regarding baseball, all with an analytics bent.

His writing is lively and opinionated. A few years ago he took issue with Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as the one-stop arbiter of player value. He believed that that just like his win-shares system, there is folly in believing that any stat is truly capable of painting the entire picture of a player's contribution. This elicited quite a bit of discussion among statheads, including a reasoned response from Dave Cameron of Fangraphs.

He also maintains a website with free and paid content, billjamesonline.com.

You're probably going to be disappointed in the responses you get to this question. "Best Gear" is sort of like asking for best ice cream flavor, or best color - you're going to get a lot of opinions based on personal preference, but very few hard-and-fast "best" verdicts.

Best Gear will be whatever works for your needs and hiking style. Take sleeping pads for example: my "best" might be a luxurious thick, heavy pad so I can sleep really well and rest my sore back, but your "best" might be a super thin and light pad to reduce your pack weight. Both are right answers, just for different reasons.

But the good news is you've got time. You can start researching, and doing little test trips to try out different things to see what works for you. If you want to get started learning about gear, and the philosophy behind it, Andrew Skurka's book is a pretty good read.

Have you heard of the Hansons Marathon Method?

Hansons First Marathon: Step Up to 26.2 the Hansons Way https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937715795/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_F-b2CbYJDP0PT

Hansons Half-Marathon Method: Run Your Best Half-Marathon the Hansons Way https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937715191/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_w1b2CbF4SNEZR

Hansons Marathon Method: Run Your Fastest Marathon the Hansons Way https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937715485/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_nSb2CbR4V7518

Once you get into the longer distances, it's worth buying a book on the program you will use. You can find the plan online for free but it's best to understand the ins and outs of a program so you are following it correctly. The hansons marathon method is amazing. The book is structured to help you understand what running does to your body, how to adapt your body through the various workouts (how to do the workouts and which paces) and the concept of cumulative fatigue. It goes over goal selection, the workouts, schedule modifications, diet, rest, cross training, etc.


Luke Humphrey has online community forums (Facebook and elsewhere) as well as blogs and podcasts that help to reinforce the content of the book.


I was amazed at the quality of the program and I'm a full believer in the program. I used this program for my first marathon and I'm starting it again in July for the Philly marathon.

Congrats on taking the plunge to Marathoning! I am new too, but I wanted to suggest this book, The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer (used, loved, and suggested to me by a 5x marathoner) it's pretty much a 5K to marathon 16 week starters guide with excellent tips on nutrition and hydration, stretching and cross training, mental strength for the long runs, and of course the mileage plan, goal to finish without injury. It suggests 4-day per week running (Mon, Wed ,Thurs, Sat for me) starting at 15 miles (3,4,3,5) and increasing 1-2 miles a week until week 13 where you start to taper. Week 12 and 13 are 5,8,5,18.

It is not a 4 hour plan but is pretty much guaranteed to get you to the finish

Just bought this today:

How to Climb Harder.

Seems like it has a pretty nice package of information.

I also checked out Dave MacLeod's book and Self-Coached Climber at the store, but I found this one most interesting, because it seems to have clear instructions on a lot of lead climbing stuff too (should be starting course soon).

Might get the Self-Coached Climber later (it has a DVD too), but it looked a bit text heavy. Dave McLeod's book is about fixing mistakes, but I don't feel that I have gotten to a level yet where this might be of interest (still progressing decently, imo).

Also, see if there are technique lessons available at your gym or see if you can start climbing with someone you feel is (much) better than you. Advice from some one analyzing your climbing specifically might net you faster results. I did a course to get to 5.10 level and it was a lot of fun and very helpful. It also helps me a lot in explaining new climbers what they should be looking for or trying in a structured manner.

Run a marathon:

http://www.amazon.com/Non-Runners-Marathon-Trainer-David-Whitsett/dp/1570281823/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

(Just to be clear: I am in no way affiliated with the authors.)

It's one of those things that you think that you can't do, but this book shows you that you CAN do it. It teaches you to think positively. It teaches you to keep your goals realistic - yes, they make running a marathon realistic. I just ran my first 10 mile run today and I feel that I can do ANYTHING. Doing this course has helped me with work, with my personal life, you name it. I've started eating better, sleeping better... I know I'm sounding like an informercial, but an endorphin rush does that to you.

It sounds to me like you need an experience of persevering and succeeding. So run a marathon :)

Tim Layden's Blood, Sweat, and Chalk does a fantastic job of marrying scheme innovations with the stories behind them.

Same goes for Chris Brown's The Essential Smart Football and The Art of Smart Football. I really like his writing.

If you're into the college game, Mark Schofield's 17 Drives does a great job recounting pivotal drives from the last season. He does a great job describing the plays and you can basically imagine it playing out in your head.

I've also read Steve Belichick's Football Scouting Methods. It's pretty straightforward and dry but there's a lot of good information in there if you're looking to scout opponents. It's pretty amazing how much of the process from 60 years ago translates to today.

As far as I know there are two programs that you should really consider. Overcoming Gravity by Steven Low and the Gymnastics Bodies series by Coach Sommers.

https://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Gravity-Systematic-Gymnastics-Bodyweight/dp/0990873854

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/

I'm doing the program by Coach Sommers currently but I have experience with Steven's program as well since I have the first edition of his book.

I like Coach's program because you don't have to mess around with details, you can just buy the program (or borrow it from a friend) and get to work. Also, the mobility sections are absolutely amazing! The bad parts are that Coach himself isn't very friendly in my opinion and most of his experience is working with children. This is potentially not good because training children and training adults is totally different.

Steven's book is fine too and I believe the new edition tackles things not in Coach's program such as the Human Flag and some other cool skills. In my opinion, the first edition isn't really put together that well compared to Coach's product in terms of content and design. But the 2nd edition may have fixed these issues. He doesn't have as much experience as Coach but he is a much more friendly character and helps people out on many different forums.

Hard choice since both will get you to a planche but choose wisely! Have fun!

For a complete beginner I usually recommend you pick up a book. There's so much information that it's hard to get anything from Reddit replies.
The top 3
The Ultimate Hikers Guide

The Backpackers Field Manual

The Complete Walker IV

The first one is probably the most easily digestible. The 3rd is my favorite but that's just because I enjoy the writing style.
I'd suggest grab one or more of those books and start getting an understanding of all the gear. You could start with some easy overnight trip. A quick overnight on the PCT is easily accomplished from Portland.

Also if you're in Portland, head over to the REI in the Pearl district. The have all the Portland Green Trails maps. They are the greatest maps around IMO.

Exactly what I came to say. In one of the early sections of the book you're taught to chart a game; quick notes on formations and results that you can do in short hand between snaps. It's like keeping a score sheet at a baseball game and one of the things coaches do on the sidelines. If you do it yourself you'll very quickly learn to recognize whats about to happen on both sides of the ball and then start to learn where you need to watch to see what is really determining the outcome of the play.

It can get pretty dry and since it's almost entirely focused on the modern game it doesn't give a lot of context to go with it's technicality. If you're stalling out on some parts this might help, it's a more friendly initiation into the technical aspects. It's more a history of the major innovations (reinventions?) on each side of the ball and how each built on the last. It's a pretty good road map for what a scheme is all about and how each individual position has turned into what it is today. It will give you a pretty solid grasp on what be going on on the field so that Take Your Eye off the Ball makes more sense when it tries to tell you how to actually see it in the moment

I would start with the Lyman 49th Edition and The ABCs of Reloading manuals. They give you a detailed break down of the reloading process and talk about different types of equipment. After you've read the manuals I recommend really thinking about if you are a good fit for reloading. While reloading can be a very rewarding hobby, it is a very serious hobby. You can end up severely hurt or even killed if you make a mistake. Being able to concentrate for long periods and be very exacting in the details are important. Not trying to scare you off, just reminding you that bullets are little explosions going off in your hands/near your face. Mistakes can turn a little explosion into a big one.

I also made a post about equipment here, but it isn't a replacement for a good manual.

Why are you interested in reloading? Looking to save money? Increase accuracy? Just because it looks interesting? Either way I recommend you read this post on the economics of reloading.

What are you looking to reload? Rifle? Pistol? Shotgun? What are your time, space, and budget constraints? Knowing this we can help you pick equipment to fit your needs. Overall the basics are:

Manual
Scale
Calipers
Press
Dies(Sizing/Decap, Expanding, Seating)
Shell Plate
and probably a chamfer/deburr tool

There are different levels of each of these so knowing what your requirements are will help determine which level you should be looking at.

9 mm isn't really cost effective to reload, but it is a lot more forgiving than 7.62x54r to learn on and you can basically get started reloading for 9mm with just a $30 hand press, a set of dies, and some basic components. Maybe start simple and then move on to rifle cartridges as skills and budget grow? I learned on .44 mag and branched out from there. I think straight wall revolver cartridges are the ideal "beginner" cartridge, but you already own a 9mm so that's probably the next best thing.

Highly recommend reading this book if nothing else. It'll help you figure out what you need to get started and covers most of the basic essentials.

It is important to note how they explain the paces for each of the runs. There are mixes of easy/hard runs for a purpose and you should make sure your easy runs are actually easy. Use a recent race to determine your training paces using a calculator like VDOT or McMillian Running.

• Higdon (I would advise on selecting one of these for a beginner, probably novice 2)
  
• Hanson
  
• Pfitz (probably too advanced for you right now since it is designed for people that have finished a marathon)
  
  Another option is to join a running group. Many running stores such as Fleet Feet or Jack Rabbit offer marathon training programs. They will provide you with their own plan, running routes for the plan, and coaches and more experienced runners to gain advice from which is valuable for things like knowing your paces and learning about fueling. Plus it is much easier to run 20-milers when you are talking to others.

The best way to think of it is this, you can judge your fitness based on a few things: Speed, Heart rate, or watts.
Speed is the simpliest(I'm getting faster! I'm not getting faster.) but it can be effected by a lot; wind, terrain, drafting, aerodynamics, ect.
Heart rate is the next when used with speed(I'm getting faster and my heart rate isn't exploding!) but like speed it can be effected by alot too. Are you sick today, not rested, to much caffeine, along with all the things effecting speed. There is also a lag between effort and heart rate(If you do a 30sec or less effort your heartrate will only see a change near the end or after.
A power meter or watts is the most effective. In short if you are producing more watts, you will be going faster, longer or both. And the things that effect speed does not effect watts. And unlike Heartrate there is little to no lag since it is measuring the effort you are doing.

I'd suggest reading Joel Friel has some great books about using power meters: Training and Racing with a power meter or Powermeter Handbook

1: If we dont trade Love we are going to try to compete for the 8th spot in the west. If we do trade Love its back to rebuilding for the next few years.

2: He played his heart out here for us with his time here and we did everything in out power to unsuccessfully rebuild for the next decade.

3: I havent seen one in particular for the Wolves but I would suggest the Book of Basketball which does a great job of covering the NBA in a whole with fun back stories.

4: Best game in Wolves history

5: I am not a big beer drinker but I am sure there are alot of others here that could suggest some great ones.

It's a question that will have widely varying answers depending upon the specific 50k.

1. Train for the course you will run. Easy road one? Great. Do marathon training plus a bit more, call it a day. On trails? You better run some trails (ideally on the course in question or ones that are similarly difficult in hilliness and technicality), get used to spending more time on your feet.
   
   
2. Assuming trail: figure out what fueling you need for something like 1.5 * marathon worth of running (gels, solid food, water, etc.). Some people are fine with just more of the same, some people will want to avail themselves of the goodies at the aid stations. Just practice and see what works for you.
   
   
3. Training...just find a plan that works for you. Many will have people start doing back-to-back runs on the weekend to boost mileage, harden your will, and get you familiar with running even when tired and cranky.
   
   Best single item of advice I can give someone taking that leap is go buy Relentless Forward Progress. RFP is a rock solid book with lots of great information on most every facet of ultra-running, including solid training plans.

Fantastic post, in-depth but not baggy, nicely written.

Have you read Lion's Pride? It's a great book, very easy to read but with a wealth of information about the history of NJPW and it's quirks. I'd recommend it to anyone who's interested in the history of the company or Japanese wrestling in general.

Think of it as if your kid was playing on the field. Would you boo them off, or keep cheering them on, even if they were having a bad day. Cheering as reward vs cheering as incentive.

Besides that, if you "get slapped around like a little girl on the field" you actually get rewarded for your failure with higher draft picks. In Europe, failure is punished by dismissal from the top leagues and the corresponding loss of money. No Club has the absolute right to play anywhere, unlike the franchise system with its closed leagues and exclusive markets.

At least we agree that there are cultural differences: Centuries of conflict and strife in the old world are represented in the political, religious, and social identities attached to different soccer clubs.

A club like Barcelona represents a centuries-old ideal of Catalan freedom from the oppressive monarchists of Real Madrid. Celtic are Republican Catholics vs the Loyalist Protestant Rangers, and in Eastern Europe you get communist vs anti-communists, vs militarists vs secret police etc. Your club represents and validates your identity and belief system. This is one of the reasons why there is so much passion for the game.

If you want to learn more about it, I suggest you read "How soccer explains the world"

http://www.amazon.com/How-Soccer-Explains-World-Globalization/dp/0061978051

Which is what I should have done before we went into this argument.

Try rollers instead of a spinning bike or stationary trainer. They're a lot more interesting to ride, and like any indoor trainer, is great for structured training sessions with a power meter because you can hold a certain power level very consistently (compared to being outside on a real bike).

But yeah, it sounds like you are itching really hard to jump into the deep end. In that case, the power meter will be the best thing you'll ever buy for your bike :) And the FTP test will be one of, if not THE most miserable things you will do on your bike, so learn to embrace the suffering.

EDIT: Here is one of the authoritative books on the subject, and is what I used to learn about all of this stuff: https://www.amazon.com/Training-Racing-Power-Meter-2nd/dp/1934030554/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467250018&sr=1-1&keywords=training+and+racing+with+a+power+meter

Its not like football- there is one big important cup (trophy, here) and this is the NBA championship. The FIBA and Olympics are there, and its something to watch, but its not as interesting/fun as the NBA season. Mostly because US is usually very dominant.

Do you have a favorite player? Favorite team? Bill Simmons has a great book on the NBA- its definately HIS opinion, but entertaining nonetheless. http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Basketball-According-Sports/dp/0345520106

I've collected a few guides and stuff over the years and bookmarked them, here they are if you want them...

Guide to different Japanese styles - https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/2xzbgx/guide_to_japanse_wrestling_styles/

A really great video on the rise of Puro in Japan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLyqDSXgYQI. I'd say this is honestly the best direct answer to your question.

Another great video on how puro fits into Japan nowadays, another great watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7fZTuR5bgU

How to sign up for New Japan World (Puro's biggest promotion's streaming service - https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/2nxb1q/how_to_sign_up_for_njpw_world_compliments_of/

Recommended viewing for NJ World - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZsZCBTpKjHzdbCpKZ1No1KAdpmOd2OcgSMfC1-oa7pI/edit?pli=1#gid=0

A book on the history of NJPW - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lions-Pride-Turbulent-History-Wrestling/dp/4990865812

A couple of podcasts on puro/New Japan...

• http://lawradio.proboards.com/thread/2187/japanese-audio-wrestling - Japanese Audio Wrestling, two westerners living in Japan, talking about puro (and one of them wrote the aforementioned book!)
  
• http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/phoenix-plex-review - Another good 'cast
  
• http://newjapanpurocast.com/
  
• http://wrestlingwithwords.com/podcast/puro-in-the-rough-2716/ - a podcast on more indie style puro.
  
  Both Wrestling With Words and Voices of Wrestling are great sites who do reviews and occasional features on puro. In particular, check out Voices Of Wrestling's features on how to understand Dragon Gate(Dragon Gate is the no.2 promotion in Japan right now.)
  
  A guide on four of Japan's biggest wrestlers ever, from the All Japan Pro Wrestling promotion - https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/4ebhia/the_four_pillars_of_heaven_mitsuharu_misawa/
  
  And another legend from puro/AJPW, Jumbo Tsuruta - https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/3iqsgy/jumbo_tsuruta_an_introduction/
  
  I could go on longer, but lastly, the r/NJPW and r/PuroresuRevolution are great subs for more info.
  
  

Pfitzinger Advanced Marathoning is what I base most of my training on. The first time I did one of his plans is the major turning point from me being "meh" to actually kind of decent at marathons.

Daniels' Running Formula is a staple, with a wider focus. I tend to lift specific workouts/weeks from his plans.

Hansons also has a great reputation, but I haven't used it personally. They mainly approach it as trying to train you to run the last part of the marathon.

Hal Higdon has good plans if your goal is to just finish and not die.

Most of these guys have plans for various levels of runner. The "easiest" Pfitz plan peaks at about 55 miles per week. Daniels is more "you pick your peak mileage, and then adjust according to a % for each week". It is pretty important to not bite off more than you can chew. As you learned, the most important thing is to get to the start line healthy.

No worries man, I have loved watching the documentaries over the last month. Also, if you like reading you should check out The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy. Really big, but good to read book, so you need to enjoy reading to slug though that haha. I'm about 3/4 of the way through it and loving it.

If you haven't noticed yet, you'll see this reference mentioned everywhere. Because it really is that good. It's exactly how I got started with my first build, and I know at least two others that started the same way. You need to know nothing more, and nothing less than what this man has written. I found that even the parts I didn't understand at first, later made sense after building a bicycle. It's wonderful. Next, check and see if there are any community bike shop cooperatives near you. They're bicycle goldmines, and nearly anyone involved will be happy to give you a hand. Most of them are ran by volunteers. If they didn't want to help you, they wouldn't be there. If you have access to a cooperative shop, and read through some Sheldon Brown, building your first bike is going to be awesome.

If you prefer paper references, I would also suggest this. Another very well written, knowledgeable guide for first time builders/tinkerers.

There are some plans in the following two books:

1. Relentless Forward Progress
   
   
2. Hal Koerner's Field Guide to Ultrarunning
   
   I personally didn't follow any plan but made sure for the training to be specific - on trails similar to what I expected in the race and with similar elevation gain per mile. I focused on back to back long runs on weekends, a lot of climbing, and less on the distance. I don't think I ever did more than may be 45-50 miles per week for any of my 50 milers or 100K races but made sure to hit close to 8,000-10,000 ft of gain per week on my peak weeks.

I am a pretty big fan of the analysts on MLB TV. I have no idea if you have access to it, but they are great.

As far as a strategy guide, I really have no idea. I mean, there must be one (or a thousand), but I have never heard of it. (For instance, I would have no problems recommending The Art of War by Sun Tsu, if you asked about tactics and strategy in battle... I can't think of a baseball book like that. It might be because strategy and tactics in a baseball game are so fluid, even pitch to pitch, not to mention season to season.)

I can recommend the Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James. He is one of the statistician guys that started the "Money Ball" school of thought, and the Abstract is a great read. Large and LARGE, but great.

And, of course, watch the games. If you are in the Los Angeles area, the Dodgers broadcasts with Vin Scully are nothing short of the best, ever.

Of course! If you're interested in this sort of thing, I really recommend checking out The Book that I keep referencing. The author used to work for the Mariners, and has recently been working for the Cubs quite a bit as a statistical analyst. He also has a pretty interesting blog.

It has a bunch of analysis on stuff like this, and it's made me think about different aspects of the sport differently. I base a lot of my baseball comments on it now as well. I'm just finishing the last few chapters of it right now, and I love it

Moneyball helped me enter the world, but actually reading fangraphs has been really good. There's a glossary that's pretty good whenever I see someone commenting on some stat I don't know about.

I'm reading The Book. It's a bit less prose and a bit more...baseball research essay-feeling, but it's interesting. It does get mentioned kind of often when people start asking about advanced stats.

Here's some recommended reading:

• The Book - That's literally the name of the book. It's full of one-off chapters covering a variety of topics.
  
• Baseball Between the Numbers - This one is also a bunch of one-off type stuff
  
• Moneyball - Talks about how the 2002 Oakland A's capitalized on some offensive statistics that were being recorded but not heavily utilized to determine player values, and thus built a playoff team from undervalued hitters
  
• Big Data Baseball - Talks about the 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates and their use of big data strategies to find defensive value where other teams didn't (primarily in pitch framing, ground-ball pitching, defensive range, and shifting)
  
  The first two of those are heavily focused on the numbers and will probably teach you more about the whys and hows, while the second two are more about the narrative but still give you some insight into hard numbers.
  
  Also, I'd recommend just joining SABR. It's $60/year for most people, but if you're under 30 it drops down to $45/year. There are a lot of local chapters out there that have regular meetings. For example, the Twin Cities have the Halsey Hall chapter. There's a book club meeting on Saturday (to talk about Big Data Baseball), a hot stove breakfast in a few weeks (informal meeting to just hang out and talk baseball), a regular chapter meeting in April for people to actually present research, and the chapter occasionally has organized outings to minor league games.
  
  SABR also has a national conference and a specific national analytics conference, as well. Membership also includes a subscription to Baseball Research Journal, which comes out twice per year and contains a lot of really good stuff that members have been written both from a statistics and a history standpoint.

In Bill James' New Historical Baseball Abstract, he talks about being part of George Bell's arbitration team one off-season. One of the things he did was compile a list of all the errors that George Bell made the previous season and show that NONE of them actually accounted for a run in a game the Jays lost that year.

This could very well be one of them.

Side note: If you haven't had a chance to read that book, I HIGHLY recommend it. It's VERY out of date now (it came out in 2001), and his "Win Shares" method of determine player value has been picked apart (and replaced by WAR), but it is probably the single best book ever written for learning about the history of baseball and the players. He has entries for the top 100 players at each position, and lengthy stories/explanations about every decade of baseball. One of my favourite from the 1980s section:

> Most Aggressive Baserunner: Alfredo Griffin

> One thing I have always wanted to do was to document Alfredo's baserunning exploits. He really was phenomenal. I personally saw him score from second on a ground ball to second, scoring the lead run in the top of the ninth. I have heard about Alfredo doing things like going first-to-third on infield outs, moving second to third on a pop up to short, scoring on a pop out to the catcher, and taking second after grounding into a forceout. Alfredo figured that if you left the base ahead of him unguarded, it was his. Somebody ought to make a documented list of those basepath heroics, with dates and specifics, before it gets away from us.

I'm pretty sure most people will be reticent to give advice over t'internet about setting up anchors because when you teach someone you want to be sure that they've got the hang of it before they try it in the wild. Try and go out with an experienced friend and set up some dummy anchors and then go through your first proper anchor with experienced friend(much cheaper than paying instruction)

In the mean time this is a cheap good book full of diagrams. Good luck with your outside climbing, totally different experience from the(slightly sterile) indoor climbing world

Get this book Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer. It will take you from couch to marathon in 16 weeks (I believe) and I used it to complete my first marathon- granted I probably started off in better shape than you but I recommend it highly.

Cheers for wanting to do a marathon- and good luck.

Not just padding, but a LOT of rule changes. Players were getting crushed because the old strategy was to line up behind the ball carrier and push him forward while the other team pushed him back. That's why the Bush Push from the USC-ND a few years back was so illegal even though it never gets called.

It's really interesting to read about the new plays and strategies they developed after all the rule changes. Think about how crazy it would be to take a popular sport, then re-write the rule book. What if you could make multiple forward passes during one play and from beyond the line of scrimmage? What if they changed the number of yards you needed to get for a first down? You'd have to come up with whole new plays and formations.

The evolution of formations from the 1920s to the 60s to now is pretty wild. Check out this book for a good lesson on that

I've never done a course inside, but I've done a couple of winter climbing courses outside (notes: course 1, course 2), and they were totally worth it. I had a great time and have used lots of the stuff I learned. A friend of mine did an "advanced movement" course at her local gym and claims it helped her technique a lot, particularly on steep terrain.

You might find the books The Self-Coached Climber and 9 out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes helpful. The first covers the nuts and bolts of technique and training; the second is more about how best to make use of the limited climbing time you have, and how to avoid getting stuck in a rut.

Buy this book - Zinn & the Art of Road Bike Maintenance. it's under $20 on Amazon. Couple of points:

1. Amazingly comprehensive. Includes old stuff and new stuff.
   
   
2. A book is great for having when actually wrenching. Way better than trying to scroll on your phone with greasy hands.
   
   
3. All tasks are broken into three levels of difficulty. The first level is for people like you, and you'll be pleasantly surprised how much that covers. Has tool recommendations for each level.
   
   
4. Most tools don't need to be bike specific. A set of Allen keys, needlenose pliers, and an adjustable wrench will get you further than you think.
   
   Good luck!

Look into it. I do know some people that learned to lead trad from friends. If so, make sure you do the following:

1. Follow a friend and inspect his placements as you clean them.
   
2. Practice placing pieces while standing on solid ground, and have an experienced friend check out and critique your placements.
   
3. If you can get two other people, try a "mock lead" on TR, with one person on TR belay and another person on lead belay. Make sure the TR belay is nice and loose and try hanging on a piece on your lead rope. Maybe even try a bit of a fall. If you can only get one other person, still do the mock lead, but trail the rope with no belay. You won't get the experience of weighting or falling on gear, but placing a piece while on the rock is still way, way different from placing a piece on solid ground.
   
4. Read Traditional Lead Climbing by Heidi Pesterfield. Cover to cover. http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Lead-Climbing-Climbers-Taking/dp/0899974422/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1309779139&sr=8-2
   
5. Only after you have done all of the above, try a lead climb on something stupid easy. Have an experienced friend inspect your placement. Ask him if any cams walked or tipped out; if cams were undercammed; if nuts or hexes were too close to the edge and liable to blow; etc.
   
6. Read Climbing Anchors, by John Long. http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Anchors-2nd-How-Climb/dp/0762723262/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309779148&sr=8-1 This is must-know stuff; without a bolt line to follow, you could go off-route and need to build an anchor to bail off.
   
7. Read up on rock rescue; this is a good book: http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Self-Rescue-Improvising-Mountaineers/dp/089886772X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1309779184&sr=8-5
   
   Good luck, and climb on.

I'll be going to graduate school in Statistics, so as an avid baseball fan, I'm also fascinated with Sabermetrics.

Here are some books I recommend

For a good first book, I recommend either Beyond Batting Average or Understanding Sabermetrics: An Introduction to the Science of Baseball Statistics or Baseball Between the Numbers.... All of those books provide good introductions to the subject

My favorite book would have to be, The Book: Playing Percentages in Baseball. Compared to the first three I mentioned, this book is a bit more complex, but I think it's the best because it's the most thorough.

If you're looking into the more advanced stats I'd recommend the following:

A good place to get started is the Fangraphs resource pages. Just follow the tabs below the search bar/"follow us" section of the page. For my money, Fangraphs offers the most complete and well-rounded advanced stats out there and they don't use black box proprietary stats like Baseball Prospectus.

If you want to dive in a little more deeply, "The Book" by Tom Tango lays things out really well.

"Baseball Between the Numbers" by Jonah Keri is a solid read too.

Have fun getting started!

I've got a feeling you may already know of this, but I would highly recommend "The Book" to you, maybe check it out the from the library or something:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Playing-Percentages-Baseball/dp/1597971294/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314312408&sr=8-1

It's a statistical look at baseball and specifically focuses on quantifying the value of a lot of these ideas - e.g. how much benefit do you get from batting the pitcher 8th vs 9th (to give you an "extra" leadoff hitter), or something similar to your idea, a 6 or 7 man rotation where the 4th and 5th starter positions are actually a committee of relievers working ~3 inning "starts". Like you already know, it's an idea that really has legs because oftentimes non-elite starting pitchers are actually decent on their first go, but get bombed the 2nd and 3rd times through the batting order after the hitters have gotten a look or two on them.

check out baseballprospectus.com

Baseball Between the Numbers is good:
http://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Between-Numbers-Everything-About/dp/0465005470/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278466320&sr=8-4

Bill James Historical Abstract is an awesome read. Ranks players throughout history, by position. Needs updating, but still a great read
http://www.amazon.com/Bill-James-Historical-Baseball-Abstract/dp/0743227220/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Also, Fangraphs.com is a good, up and coming site as well.

I've used different methods: (1) find a patient belayer willing to belay you on top rope while you climb and set gear. I have one good buddy who had done a lot of trad back in the day but wasn't interested in leading any more so this approach was great because he was experienced enough to check my gear and give advice. (2) set a bunch of gear and build anchors while on the ground. (3) bring along some trad pro while sport climbing and try to find somewhere to place it even if it's unnecessary. (4) while seconding and cleaning look closely at the gear you're taking out and understand why it was placed however it was. (5) a lot of reading - the books on anchor building by John Long and Craig Luebben are great. I prefer Luebben's because he tends to be more descriptive of why certain placements are better/worse.

Skurka's book is good (likely the best way to get up to speed on gear), and his blog is excellent as well.

Other books I like:

• Lighten Up!: A Complete Handbook For Light And Ultralight Backpacking (Falcon Guide) (A bit old, but still a classic and the other "Allen and Mike's" books are also good.
  
• Lyle Brotherton's Ultimate Navigation Manual
  
• NOLS Wilderness Medicine (Be careful; the Kindle instance is actually an old version.)
  
  For current information, these subreddits and sites like BackpackingLight will get you up to speed.
  

I personally feel that visualization and a positive attitude go a long way. If you dread it to begin with...it's going to suck. Sounds silly and simple but it works for me. Other than that, I totally agree with increasing your mileage. Not only will you hit your stride later on, but you will enjoy once you do and that will make you look forward to your next run. I recommend a fabulous training book (even if you're not training for a marathon). It got me past the initial "this sucks" period.

http://www.amazon.com/Non-Runners-Marathon-Trainer-David-Whitsett/dp/1570281823/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314227232&sr=8-1

Whether or not you hit the wall not only is a matter of training but also having and carrying out a solid in-race nutrition plan. The wall hits people because their lower bodies run out of glycogen, and they haven't sufficiently re-fueled those stores with carbohydrate during the race.

Matt Fitzgerald and the Hanson brothers are among the few experienced running writers who seriously get into fueling during races, and they may be worth a read for finer points.

But in general you need to work on fueling during long runs. Thankfully, Chicago's drink stations use Gatorade (which contains carbs; low-cal drinks like Ultima do not), and if you prefer to fuel that way you can practice hitting the Gatorade every 1.3 miles during training runs. You could also practice with gels or gummy-style fuel like Shot Bloks, but that gets a lot more pricey than Gatorade, and Gatorade has the added benefit of also rehydrating you.

Again, others get into the finer points of marathon fueling much better than I just did, but that's a place to start if you want to avoid the wall.

I've found Backpackinglight's forum very helpful. In the gearlist section, people post their lists and get comments on them. Lighten Up is a short and simple book on the topic if you are completely new to lightweight backpacking. Also, "ultralight" is a loaded term. It implies a base weight (all the gear without food and what you're wearing) in the single digits. If this is what you really want, check out Ultralight Backpackin' Tips Otherwise, a baseweight in the teens are usually considered "lightweight" backpacking.

Also, don't just stick with stuff from REI. There are a lot of cottage industry stores that sell quality backpacking products. A few that I can think of off the top of my head are: Tarptent, Gossamer Gear, Six Moon Designs, Jacks R Better, ULA, Feathered Friends, Nunatak, Tenkara, and Bushbuddy. Of course, they are a bit more expensive, however, they are all well tested and trusted by a lot of backpackers.

Get your backpack last.

As controversial as he is around these parts, Bill Simmons wrote a great book for beginners called "The Book of Basketball"

It's a history of the game from the beginning and a survey of the game's history. Now, it is biased, as almost any history of anything will be biased. But the nice thing is that you can easily spot the bias with Simmons. First off, he usually admits it upfront. But also he tends to overrate Celtics players and underrate Lakers. He also tends to overrate individual player achievement, while paying less attention to the luck of team construction and coaching... unless it suits him to do so.

Overall it's a great survey book for someone just jumping into the sport.

• The Last Shot - one of the best books i have ever read.
  
• Unfinished Business - same author as
  
• :07 Seconds or Less
  
• The Breaks of the Game - i have never read it, but all i hear is good things.
  
• and of course, The Book of Basketball - good book, a bit hefty.
  
  i tried to pick things that you could easily find online and off.

I find that my new coach's look like a deer in headlights when I ask them to scale simple moves. You'd be shocked at hard this for some people (in least I am shocked.) You are referring to this book http://amzn.to/2kJBxy2 right? Do you (or anyone else that would like to chime in, please do) think it's better than Free+style http://amzn.to/2lgZ39l. I've taken crossfit gymnastics cert, but I like to have good references available for my coaches.

Speaking of which, here's a link to list of our favorite books.
https://www.sandandsteelfitness.com/top-personal-training-books-crossfit-nutrition/

If you're a fan of Bill Simmons and are an NBA fan, The Book of Basketball is a great. It's like a 700pg Simmons article.

I only read books in school, never outside of school. I picked this up when I was 21 probably, and read it in about a week. Great book

I like your approach but "comprehensive" may be difficult. The game is old and a lot's happened. That being said, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is excellent. From there, you may want to read up on certain teams/players that you're interested in. Welcome to baseball.

Yeah double weekend days should be like 3-4 hours and 1.5-2 hours, not 5+ and 3-4. Maybe you do like one harder weekend a month to push things, but you take an easy week afterwards to recover. Buy a book like Relentless Forward Progress for more on how ultra training works. $5 used https://www.amazon.com/dp/1891369903/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=

There is no best routine for everyone. It all depends on your goals.

The RR is not the best routine for everyone. It's just a pretty balanced good routine for a lot of people.

But honestly, you already sound intermediate/advanced. You can look at the RR as a good structure (paired exercises, push-pull, vertical-horizontal) and try to borrow it's structure but modify for your strengths and goals.

If you really want to learn, I would recommend you read Overcoming Gravity 2nd Edition. https://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Gravity-Systematic-Gymnastics-Bodyweight/dp/0990873854 That will teach you how to make your own body weight routine.

I'd recommend either Andrew Skurka's book or Dan Ladigan's book.

Andrew Skurka's website is also a good resource.

The Backpacking Light forums are excellent.

Ten Pound Backpack is pretty helpful for gear comparisons, once you know roughly what you're you're looking for.

I agree with FastFreire being successful in bike racing is much more than power to weight ratio at FTP. (Although yours is a good start) You may want check out this post on power profiles.

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/power-profiling

Also I'd recommend checking out a few other resources on bike racing and power.

https://www.trainerroad.com/podcast


https://www.velopress.com/books/reading-the-race/


https://www.amazon.com/Training-Racing-Power-Meter-2nd/dp/1934030554



If you have the funds you may also want to look into getting a coach to help you interpret your power data and lay out a training plan.

Hal Koerner's Field Guide to Ultrarunning is a really useful reference. Hal won Western States and Hardrock despite never having "elite" athletic ability. His race day execution is legendary.

Relentless Forward Progress by Bryon Powell is another good one. Bryon is a front-of-the-mid-pack runner and editor of irunfar (which is another good reference). His knowledge of ultrarunning is encyclopedic.

Well here are two great places to start. The first is all free online stuff and if you really get into it and want to learn more OG2 is an awesome resource you can ask someone to buy you for Christmas.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine/

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0990873854/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

I forgot to add, there are some great books out there that are super inspiring and useful.

Climbing Anchors, 2nd Edition, by John Long

Self-Rescue, by David Fasulo, Mike Clelland

Big Walls, Paul Piana

Another not-specific-to-Arsenal but great read is The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer by David Goldblatt. Love it.

> sorry but best hitter in the #4 slot is a filthy lie fed to us by cotchety old baseball managers who talk about grit and sac bunt way too often

The Book says your best hitter goes in #2 or #4 spot:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Playing-Percentages-Baseball/dp/1597971294

David Halberstam is probably the most well-known NBA author in long-form content. "The Breaks of the Game" is an incredible account of the Blazers 79-80 season. "Playing for Keeps" is a narrative about MJ's career and impact. These are older works though.

As far as newer stuff, the Bill Simmons "Book of Basketball" is a monstrosity that has amazing in-depth content, provided you like Simmons.

The "FreeDarko Presents: The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History" is from 2010 and has amazing artwork and a unique perspective. I would highly recommend it.

Grey if you want to read a non fiction book that you would never pick yourself I can reccomend this one:

How soccer explains the world. An unlikely theory of globalisation.

Don't get fooled by the title. This is a soccer book, but it's not really about soccer. It's a collection of weird and interesting stories connected to the game.

I think the Newsweek review on the back of the book give you the best idea of what I am trying to explain: "A riveting analysis of soccer struggle to come to term with the forces of free trade, multinational brands, and cultural imperialism"

Its available on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Soccer-Explains-World-Globalization/dp/0061978051

Only you can be the judge if you’re being overzealous or not. Running a 50K Ultra is only ~5 mi longer than a marathon. If you’re going longer you need to be both mentally and physically prepared. I picked up Bryon Powell’s book Relentless Forward Progress to help me get prepared for my Ultras. Good luck.

Edit: Progress

Maybe something like this?

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sweat-Chalk-Ultimate-Football/dp/1603200614/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479237754&sr=1-5&keywords=football

Really depends what your budget is for a gift - a book is always good, but if you're wanting to spend more maybe you could get him tickets to a game and go with him? Getting him out of the house would probably be a good thing to encourage.

That is a hell of a thing to go through, and I don't meant to do that "OH, you're depressed? Have you tried having fun?" thing... But I'm sure you get the idea. Sometimes it is helpful to do things with family/friends even if you won't exactly be footloose and fancy free, it's a step in the right direction.

Ordinarily I wouldn't recommend a progressive as a first kit, since there's quite a bit of reloading that I prefer to do on a single stage: Fine-tuning rifle loads for accuracy being one of them. Starting out on a single stage gives you the opportunity to see in detail what each die is actually doing and how to adjust them. But I'm sure you can still learn on a LnL AP. I use a Dillon, but in the end it's the same general idea.

This is what I always recommend to people who start out reloading:

1. Get this book and read it cover to cover.
   
2. Interested in reloading for semiautomatic rifles? Understand that you will need to be extra careful about what kind of primers you buy, and about the headspace of your cartridges. Read On Reloading for Gas Guns. Still interested? Buy the RCBS precision mic or similar type of cartridge headspace gauge, a wilson gauge, and start slowly and deliberately. Most of what I reload is for semiautomatic rifle.
   
3. Buy a reloading manual. If you ended up getting one with your press, buy another reloading manual from a different manufacturer. Reloading is an "engineering and science" activity. You don't want to trust data from just one source. You want different, corroborating sets of data that came out of different testing facilities.
   
   If you take the metallic reloading class, a lot of that stuff will be covered. But if you learn how to reload in the benchrest environment and then start reloading for some kind of autoloading rifle like an AR15, G3, M1A/M14, M1 etc then you are playing with fire unless you approach it from a different angle.
   
   

Rather than claiming to know the answers to your personal problems, I'll point you to two resources that have helped me greatly:

• The Rock Warriors Way: This book deems it self as "Mental training for climbers", but it is so much more than that. As you mention, "climbing forces these sorts of lessons upon us all" and this book acknowledges that, walking you through the borderline spiritual journey of the author and providing great lessons for the reader
  
• 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes: This is a training book that avoids quantitive goals (like, 3 sets of X followed by a 4 minute break) and talks instead of a number of the physical/technique/psychological problems we all commonly face in improving as climbers. It opened my mind to new approaches to escaping self-carved ruts in my training.
  
  Hope these help.

Seconded for sure. Watch some soccer and, if you like books, go read up on the game. There’s a fairly short but really high-quality list of books that you can hit to get a varied taste of soccer, from history to tactics to biographies to silly books about English soccer clichés.

But there is no substitute for watching the game, and even playing around in your back yard a bit. Enjoy!

(Edit: there are other books on the shortlist out there too. Also, there are plenty of fun and informative podcasts related to the sport if you’re into that sort of thing)

Another book I recommend to people is Blood, Sweat, and Chalk by Tim Layden. It is a compilation of his personal research into offenses and defenses, some of which were featured in Sports Illustrated articles. If you're interested in the evolution of the game and the why of certain schemes, this is one of the best reads out there. It also makes for terrific off-season reading.

I'd say it's a perfectly serviceable set if you're just getting into the handloading game. What it comes down to is what you're hoping to achieve by handloading, and buying equipment that supports that need.

Personal opinion time: I'd steer clear of using the factory crimp die. If you have your dies set up properly, you'll never need to use it. It can be used to coerce out of spec handloads back into shape if you've messed them up, but don't expect to see any repeatable results in accuracy after using it.

The Hornady and Sierra reloading handbooks are the two I go to most often, with the Lyman following close behind. I would highly recommend you get a copy of the The ABCs of Reloading by C. Rodney James and read that cover to cover just to see if there's any tidbits of info that you might not already know. It's a worthwhile read.

EDIT: I was corrected by /u/flange2016 on how the Lee FCD works on rifles. Please see his reply to me below.

Thanks! It’s in my Amazon cart now. Really appreciate the tip, especially as a newer fan.

Any other suggestions for a newer work? The analytics side is really interesting to me as someone who has a background in baseball.

For anyone else looking for the Simmons book:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0345520106/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdo_t1_tZZBCbWHQCWSF

the book of basketball by Bill Simmons is a good book that puts how good certain players were in context at the time it was written.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Basketball-According-Sports/dp/0345520106

Bballbreakdown http://www.youtube.com/user/bballbreakdown

on youtube is a cool channel that explains how certain offensives work and what is actually happening on the court.

basketball on paper by dean oliver is a good start to a statistical analysis of basketball.

http://www.amazon.com/Basketball-Paper-Rules-Performance-Analysis/dp/1574886886/ref=pd_sim_b_14?ie=UTF8&refRID=1ZM4AQKYZC4K42KYFDME

Okay, good luck with that. I’d be amazed if you read them.

Mondo Lucha A Go Go

Lion’s Pride

Those will give you some history of Lucha and Puroresu respectively.

Lots of great information in this thread about training with power so far.

Training with power is much more than generating big numbers and showing off to your friends. It's a great tool for tracking your fitness and fatigue over time to make sure you don't over train and peak at the right times. Look into Performance Management Charts and how they are used for training.

Even if you have a coach, you should get this book and read through it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1934030554/

Also, sign up for TrainingPeaks or learn how to use golden cheetah. TP costs money, is super nice and automated. Strava is a fun toy, but it sucks compared to a real tool like TP.

The FAQ on /r/reloading has good info. I'd also get The ABCs of Reloading and read it through before buying any equipment.

I just got started a few weeks ago loading for .38 Special and it's a surprising amount of fun. I'm already planning to expand to include 9mm and .223.

They started out as a ultralight backpacking company. They were successful at that and had some of the best gear out there.

They abandoned the designs that they started with, and replaced them with gear that I really didn't even consider ultralight. I'm not sure if they got rid of the breeze, and cave because Jardine owned the designs or because they didn't fit their new business model.

Even after the Jardine era some of their gear was quite nice, and still pretty light. But over the next few years they seemingly decided to compete with companies like The North Face, started selling 'lifestyle clothing' and things like that.

If you need proof that they completely abandoned their original mission check out their history page. http://www.golite.com/Info/Values/History.aspx
They go out of their way to not mention Ray Jardine, or Beyond Backpacking/the pct hikers handbook. In fact they use the phrase "lighten up" which IMO is a cheap way to plug this book http://www.amazon.com/Lighten-Up-Complete-Ultralight-Backpacking/dp/0762737344 as opposed to anything Jardine may have in publication.

And besides how can a company called Golite have a founder who is overweight?

The Rock Warrior's Way describes a great technique for getting over a fear of lead falls that you can apply to this.

Basically, clip into an autobelay, Climb 5 feet up, and fall. Then climb 7 feet up and fall. Then climb 10 feet up and fall. etc etc.

It's all about building trust in the mechanical system. You don't trust it now because you're not used to it. Once you build up familiarity with the feeling of the system working perfectly as intended, you won't have that feat of the unknown when you're high up and feeling like you're gonna fall.

A book you night be able to use is "How Soccer Explains The World: An Unlikely theory on Globalization" by Franklin Foer. Its all about the development of clubs and the historical and political impact that they've had on their home countries, as well as how the sport has grown. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061978051?pc_redir=1398414187&robot_redir=1. If thats too much into the actual history of clubs try "Soccernomics" by Simon Kuper and Stefan Symanski. Its a more mathmatical look into the sport and how and why certain countries win while others dont. Amazon Link http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1568584253?pc_redir=1398426773&robot_redir=1.
As a fan of soccer im obliged to say that you should give the sport a chance.

Well funny you would say that, because Bryon has written a fantastic book on how to train for an ultra called "Relentless Forward Progress". You can go out and spend all you free time running and training, but that is not the only way to be a successful runner.

I loved Blood, Sweat, and Chalk. It goes into the history of things like the Air Raid, the 46 defense, Single Wing, etc.

It is a great read in one sitting or as a coffee table/bathroom book.

Welcome to the journey! Have you considered Hanson’s? It’s an absolutely fabulous plan. Very solid theory and science, a great community on FB, and once people try it they’re raving fans. It’s based on the concept of cumulative fatigue during training. As a result the longest long run is only 16 miles.

Hansons Marathon Method: Run Your Fastest Marathon the Hansons Way https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937715485/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_OFPcBb30SPJ11

I would recommend this book instead: Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength (Second Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0990873854/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_vbYCDbH4ZNXQD

Good luck!

If you'd like a good idea of how New Japan was formed, the Inoki/Baba booking styles and a general guide to boom and bust periods for Japanese wrestling, I'd highly recommend reading Chris Charlton's Lion's Pride; I think it's $5 on Amazon (Kindle). Was a good three day read.

I've observed these self-defeating behaviors from all kinds of people who climb a very wide variety of grades... notably an almost-5.12-climbing friend of mine. The frustration threshold at which a negative attitude emerges varies for different people, and can totally shut down anyone's progress.

Unfortunately, my experience has been that you can't help these people much. I don't know if there is a way to convince someone to keep climbing, improve and overcome... they have to want it for themselves. I think part of the motivation comes from confidence - a conviction that they could become really good if they kept trying, but a genuine form of that only comes from within.

If you push her to do specific exercises, she will likely have a negative reaction to it. So I'd say only be her coach if she specifically seeks out coaching. Maybe the best thing for you to do is have fun with this person and try to make climbing enjoyable to her. Sadly, no shortcuts. Essentially she will take steps to improve on her own when she wants to.

Check out arno ilgner's rock warrior's way, though it might not be that useful to an early beginner.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Rock-Warriors-Way-Training/dp/0974011215

I just recently read How Soccer Explains the World. It's less about tactics and more about the global impact of the game, but it's very interesting and contains a lot of very helpful and important info.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Soccer-Explains-World-Globalization/dp/0061978051

Focus on yourself. If she doesn't want to be with you, it's probably (whether she can see it or not) something about you. Most likely it's your own insecurity that she can sense; women don't want to be with someone who isn't OK without them. You need to learn to stop thinking about whether you are good enough for her or not and learn to think about your own value and about what skills you have in your skillset that will help you be a better, stronger, happier lover in the future. If you do that, something amazing will happen; you will stop needing her to come back in order to be OK. Then she will either come back or she won't and you'll be able to step forward in your life regardless of what she does. Remember: the only thing you can control is yourself.

I highly recommend the book "The Rock Warriors Way" by Arno Ilgner ( http://www.amazon.com/Rock-Warriors-Way-Training-Climbers/dp/0974011215/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262293194&sr=8-1 ) --
it's somewhat oriented toward those who climb rocks, but I think that the philosophical principles within apply universally.

Huh, interesting. Have you read many other nonfiction books about soccer? I've been thinking about picking up The Ball is Round. Looks like some interesting books.

I started Cod today and it's very good.

For maintenance guide, I really like the Zinn guides. There's one for road bikes and one for mountain bikes, but a lot of the content is the same.

https://www.amazon.com/Zinn-Art-Road-Bike-Maintenance/dp/193771537X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

I would also suggest attending a "bike maintenance 101" class. You can often find them through your friendly local bike shop or cycling collective, or sometimes your county DOT will offer them. I took one through the county and learned how to change a flat, adjust brakes and shifters, and clean/lube all the bike parts. It was really helpful!

Zinn and the art of Bike Maintenance

Pretty good reference book to have on hand as well.

Here’s a good starting point...

Takaaki Kidani's New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW): A brief history, sort of

And you can check out Chris Charlton’s book on the subject... pretty good read. And it’s on Kindle Unlimited, if you have that service.

Lion's Pride: The Turbulent History of New Japan Pro Wrestling

You might start with Bill Simmons' The Book of Basketball. Simmons is opinionated and says lots of things with which I disagree strongly, but he's always entertaining and the book is a great overview of the history of professional basketball. Once you are done with that, you can turn to books about specific players or eras -- just look at the list in that link marked "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought."

Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski has been an interesting read so far, if you're interested in the business side of the game. Another good one was How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, which was comprised of case studies that looked at all sorts of different trends in the game, not just globalization.

Both of those books are well-written and -researched and offer good insights, and give historical contexts for, trends in the game.

My recommendation: 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes

While not a book on technique, it will act as a great roadmap to improvement. It's short but full of tons of great info.

Gear is expensive so I'll give you a range, from cheapest you may find to very expensive but awesome.

Pack - get one that fits or face the back pain consequence - $50 for an ASolo UL to $500+ for Custom bag.

Sleeping bag - consider a quilt instead - All depends on where you live. I have a $35 dollar bag and a $450 bag I use one in the tropics on one in the alpine or arctic.

Tent - If you're camping alone, in a treed area, get a henessey hammock. They're $150 or so. You can also get a tarp ($50) and bivy ($100 used) combo. Don't lug a 4 person tent around for 1 or 2 people.

Next purchase - Stove. Make (check r/myog or cat food camp stove for info) or buy. You can also get a bomb proof msr stove for $35 + fuel.

Getting a pack that fits is the most important thing. A sleeping bag will fit in any pack because it's just fabric and fuzz.

Tent basics:
Big Agnes, TarpTent are the reasonably priced and best performing UL tents.
If you are 1 person get a 1 person tent. If you are 2 people, get a 2 person tent.
Look into hammock, bivy/tarp, and tent options and pick the one that suits where you'll be camping.

You'll want a 50-70L pack for trips longer than a weekend.

Mike Clelland has a really cheap and great tip book, he was a NOLS leader forever and knows his shit, and explains it with cartoons.

>pretty puzzling that your mechanic hasn’t dialed it in.

The mechanic I'm usually talking to is a right sweetheart, but he's not been in the job for long. I've seen them checking YouTube-videos for guidance on how to fix everyday tasks on common parts, like the Shimano Tiagra handle assembly. When I think about that, I'm not too surprised over the situation, to be honest.

I never cross chain. I always have the chain on the big ring and small gear, or vice versa. Despite this, the chain rubs. I've bought this book, and will try to see if I can't fix it myself before I turn it in.

Yep! If you do end up reading it I hope you enjoy it. It's such a fascinating work

Um. no. It's really not. It's a fantastic book, written by arguably one of THE best hikers in the world. Andrew Skurka. The book answers the types of questions many people come here and ask like: 'hey, I'm going X, what type of gear is best for this trip'. Take a look inside at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Hikers-Gear-Guide-Techniques/dp/1426209207#reader_1426209207 Sure, he names some specific product names...but there is far more information on just general gear selection in there.

Guidebooks to the climber's local crags would be a great gift if they don't already have them.

If they already have those, then Climbing Anchors is definitely one every climber should read.

If you like Football, read "Blood, Sweat, and Chalk." It's a great book with the history of various formations, how they're used, why they're used, their strengths and weaknesses, all kinds of good stuff.

http://smile.amazon.com/Blood-Sweat-Chalk-Ultimate-Football/dp/1603200614?ie=UTF8&sa-no-redirect=1

Hansons Marathon Method: Run Your Fastest Marathon the Hansons Way https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937715485/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_MC1QzbJFVENZQ

This is easy to follow and myself and some friends have had success with it.

How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization

"Foer, a New Republic editor, scores a game-winning goal with this analysis of the interchange between soccer and the new global economy. The subtitle is a bit misleading, though: he doesn't really use soccer to develop a theory; instead, he focuses on how examining soccer in different countries allows us to understand how international forces affect politics and life around the globe. The book is full of colorful reporting, strong characters and insightful analysis: In one of the most compelling chapters, Foer shows how a soccer thug in Serbia helped to organize troops who committed atrocities in the Balkan War—by the end of the war, the thug's men, with the acquiescence of Serbian leaders, had killed at least 2,000 Croats and Bosnians. Then he bought his own soccer club and, before he was gunned down in 2000, intimidated other teams into losing. Most of the stories aren't as gruesome, but they're equally fascinating. The crude hatred, racism and anti-Semitism on display in many soccer stadiums is simply amazing, and Foer offers context for them, including how current economic conditions are affecting these manifestations. In Scotland, the management of some teams have kept religious hatreds alive in order to sell tickets and team merchandise. But Foer, a diehard soccer enthusiast, is no anti-globalist. In Iran, for example, he depicts how soccer works as a modernizing force: thousands of women forced police to allow them into a men's-only stadium to celebrate the national team's triumph in an international match. One doesn't have to be a soccer fan to truly appreciate this absorbing book."

The Ball is Round: A global history of football (soccer if you get the US edition) by David Goldblatt

It's a very good book if you want a book detailing the spread of the history of the game. It cover it's roots, how it spread, how the major leagues came about, a general history of every continent, the world cup, etc. It's kind of a brick, but covers a lot of ground and is a good cornerstone if you are interested in the history of the game.

It depends on your goal. You have plenty of time to train properly for a December Marathon, if you desire the challenge of moving up in distance. On the other hand, some people prefer to work on their speed at shorter races before moving up in distance. That's less common these days, but it's a legitimate strategy.

Higdon, Pfitzinger, and Hanson have good books that offer training plans. You could do well with any of them.

You're actually better off getting a pack that's 'too small' - It forces you to be a little more disciplined in what you pack. I would suggest nothing larger than 50 Litres. I highly recommend reading 'The Ultimate Hikers Gear Guide by Andrew Skurka' - Your body will be thankful. It's seriously worth the investment. Guaranteed your backpack will be more than 10lbs lighter after reading it.

This is a great read. [Amazon Link] (http://www.amazon.com/How-Soccer-Explains-World-Globalization/dp/0061978051/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370887298&sr=1-1&keywords=how+football+explains+the+world&tag=chromeext-20). I have given it to many people here in the US as it really gives them a great insight into the history and rivalries of football in the rest of the world.

The industry has really moved toward this as a way away from custom bikes. Once they had a lot of fit data statistics, some of the bigger companies actually adjusted their sizing philosophies, too. There's more to it than height and inseam. CompetitiveCyclist.com has a fit calculator that will have you do the measurements of each joint, etc. That's close but it's not a substitute for a pro fit.

I just (last week) bought a new bike by mail order. Know that if you do this you will have to have some (but honestly not a lot) mechanical ability to put it together and get it running and adjusted.

Check out http://www.amazon.com/Zinn-Art-Road-Bike-Maintenance/dp/193771537X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk There's probably a copy at your local public library.

9 Out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes by Dave MacLeod gives a good overview of common bad habits/practices a lot of climbers make, and how to avoid them.

It's a good book for gaining a bit more overall awareness of how best to approach getting better at climbing, rather than just throwing yourself at harder and harder climbs until you can do them.

He also has a second book called Make or Break, which is centred around common climbing related injuries and how to avoid them (or recover from them).

To improve in climbing you need sport specific training and weight loss.

The loss of ten pounds even when I am out of shape can drastically improve my climbing.

I highly recommend:
Training for Climbing

How to Climb 5.12
The Rock Warriors Way

I have heard that Dave Macleod's book
and Self Coached Climber
are also really good.

read The Rock Warrior's Way. It's really important to work on your internal dialogue that runs in your head while you climb. Instead of think things like "don't fall," you need to be thinking only of your next move. The thing that has helped me a lot is warming up a lot on easier leads and focusing on doing every move really efficiently. This has helped me plan and execute moves on harder climbs without wasting movement and energy.

with that being said, getting over the fear of falling also requires that you do it. Keep at it and keep going!

For those interested, The Book that dbeeaitch referenced is top notch. Even if you're not great at math, the authors do a pretty good job of explaining the "take-home" value of the statistics, e.g. if you've got a good OPS but tend to hit in a lot of double plays, you should bat first.

Check out http://bandofbackpackers.com/ for a gear list. It has some ultralight ideas with pack weights on one of the pages. It's divided by ounce so you can get a feel for utility vs. weight. You may want to buy lighten up the book with cartoons to understand where you'll need to invest and what's really important. It's easily readable in a night or two and really fun too!

I own one and it's great. I strongly advise you to reload only one bullet at a time for at least a good 500 rounds before you make use of the progressive reloading capability of the press. Normally I would tell people to go with a single stage first, but I think choosing to reload only one round at a time in a progressive is a safe enough practice.

For rifle rounds, I never use the LNL and prefer single stage since the shell holder disk is only going to get in the way if you are resizing / removing the shell / wiping off case lube / trimming / chamferring / deburring / knocking the brass filings out of the case / putting it back in the shell holder for priming / powdering / bullet loading.

Finally, if you haven't already read this book, go read it before reloading anything.

I'm not sure, but I'm waiting for my Amazon purchase of Chris Charlton's book on the history of NJPW. It's supposed to be awesome, and I know it does into your question in depth.

Here! https://www.amazon.ca/Lions-Pride-Turbulent-History-Wrestling/dp/4990865812

If you’re a fan of sweat elite, I could also recommend you look to the NOP (I know, unpopular opinion) training logs, it’s quite the opposite. Their sample week is something like . Additionally, training for a marathon, and training more specifically for 10-mi and down are two different things.

Also, the easy pace isn’t an indicator of race performance, obviously. It’s an indicator of ability to handle work volume (see Daniels , Hansons , Heinonen & Heinonen , Fixx , and especially Noakes ), which actually supports your statement about the intersection between speed and endurance (threshold runs, tempo-oriented intervals, etc - is at least what I’m assuming you’re talking about).

Furthermore, as I stated in an above comment, this is casual pace. I could tape a one-person podcast at these paces. Granted, because I’m running the audio quality wouldn’t be that great; but these paces feel like a trot. I’m painfully bored, and barely exerting. I’m never above an 11RPE on the 6-20 scale.

Thank you for the notes and article recommendation, though.

EDIT: All About Road Racing link addition.

Once you can run for 30 mins straight you are ready to start a 15 week program to run a marathon, (26.2 miles) for reals!

This book is a great next step.

I strongly endorse The Book from Tom. It's a really great read.

All the answers you need are here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-Bikers-Training-Bible/dp/1884737714

As /u/milliken says, having a structured training plan is definitely beneficial. I'm just now starting to develop my plan as I get back into racing after a long layoff, and I've found this book indispensable.

FWIW, I also recommend:

• http://www.amazon.com/Lactate-Threshold-Training-Peter-Janssen/dp/0736037551
  
• http://www.amazon.com/The-Cyclists-Training-Bible-Friel/dp/1934030201/ref=pd_sim_b_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=1BHJ1VR61WPGYDBP8TAC
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Training-Racing-Power-Meter-Hunter/dp/1934030554/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y
  
• http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Meter-Handbook-Triathletes/dp/1934030953/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Precision-Heart-Training-Edmund-Burke/dp/0880117702/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427498205&sr=1-1
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Serious-Training-Endurance-Athletes-2nd/dp/0873226445/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427498205&sr=1-5
  

Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength (Second Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0990873854/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_m.4HybHH9F2P2

Edit: Sorry, I guess I glossed over the part where you said street workout related. This isn't so much street workout, but still such great info.

Start with a good book or two. I recommend Beyond Backpacking, Lighten Up!, and The Ultimate Hiker’s Gear Guide. Any of these books will give a good 50,000-foot view of the world of things you should be thinking about when introducing yourself to backpacking.

I don't know of any training programs geared toward just women. If you're really into a detailed training program, the Rock Climber's Training Manual is about as detailed as it could be. I've also used training techniques from How to Climb 5.12 and Rock Warrior's Way, which is more mental training than physical.

Slopers also tend to be hard for me. The key is really to pull directionally, so use your core to get your body close to the wall, then pull on the sloper toward your center of gravity. Don't try to grab it or crimp it with your fingers--you want as much skin on the hold as you can get.

As far as the shoes go, if you have a good amount of rubber left on the toes, keep using them! New shoes can give you a real mental boost if you want to get a new pair--maybe don't go too aggressive--maybe something like 5.10 anasazis or la sportiva miura lace ups.

I definitely recommend reading their book . Even if you end up going with a different plan, the book has very valuable information on the different types of workout and the science behind each of them.

I can recommend several books.

Baseball Between the Numbers by the BP folks.
It's old, and some parts of it are outdated, but I cut my saber teeth on that thing. There's also another book in the same vein by the same group called Extra Innings.
https://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Between-Numbers-Everything-About/dp/0465005470/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501900503&sr=8-1&keywords=baseball+between+the+numbers

The Book by Tango and MGL.
It's very nerdy, so it's not for everyone.
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Playing-Percentages-Baseball/dp/1494260174/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1501900528&sr=8-3&keywords=baseball+between+the+numbers

The newer(ish) Keith Law and Brian Kenny books are pretty good too. I'm too lazy to link to those and they are easy to find.

I would spend a lot of time looking at K/BB rates on both pitchers and hitters. Also, keep in mind The Book says there's a 30 point platoon advantage on lefty/righty match-ups, and the amount of ABs needed to see for sure something different is closer to 1,000 than 50. There's a chance you might not want to change too much as you won't see enough ABs to see a statistical significant difference. I would recommend buying The Book to answer a lot of the questions you have.

Book 1 is good.
Try these as well

Book3

Book 4

Book 5 - I have not read this book but I trust the author

This is my first reloading press, and it’s setup for 9mm.

Here’s what I bought:

• Hornady Lock-N-Load AP Progressive Press
  
  
• Hornady Custom Grade New Dimension Nitride 3-Die Set 9mm Luger
  
  
• Hornady Lock-N-Load AP Progressive Press Shellplate #8 (30 Luger, 38 Super, 9mm Luger)
  
  
• RCBS Lock-Out Die
  
  
• Frankford Arsenal Reloading Scale
  
  
• Frankford Arsenal Electronic Caliper 6" Stainless Steel
  
  
• Hornady Primer Turning Tray
  
  
• Frankford Arsenal Impact Bullet Puller
  
  
• Frankford Arsenal Quick-n-Ez Case Tumbler
  
  
• Lee Primer Pocket Cleaner
  
  
• Shell Sorter Brass Sorter 9mm Luger, 40 Smith & Wesson, 45 ACP 3 Bowl Set
  
  And this is what I’m loading:
  
  9mm Luger
  
  
• Bullet: 124gr Montana Gold Bullet CMJ
  
  
• Powder: 3.8gr Titegroup (working up to 4.0 grains)
  
  
• Winchester Small Pistol Primers
  
  
• Mixed Brass
  
  
• OAL: 1.135-1.140"
  
  I fired my first 25 round last Saturday. They were soft recoiling, and from my novice reloader’s perspective, indistinguishable from 115 Grain Federal Champion I was comparing them to. I didn’t notice any smoke, and I had zero issues with my M&P9mm FS. Right after I got home from the range I loaded 300 more.
  
  All in all, I love the press and haven’t had any major issues with any of the equipment I purchased. The DVD that came with the press was excellent and made setup simple. The only issues I had came from using the large primer tube with small primers (inconsistent priming), using the rifle metering insert (gave me inconsistent powder throws), and static giving me sticky powder (grounding the press seems to have fixed that).
  
  Taking it slow, looking at every step, and confirming that I am moving in the right direction has made this pretty easy and so far successful.
  
  Edit: Here's my cost breakdown.
  
  Edit2: The reason I felt comfortable going this route is I did my homework, and I check my powder, and over all length constantly (every time for my first 100 cartridges or so, and now about every 10th round). Going the progressive route first take tons of concentration, and you need to be in a zero distraction environment. You need to triple check everything, makes some rounds, and then check everything again. You have to be aware that if you mess up, you will hurt yourself and destroy expensive equipment.
  
  I started /r/Reloading over a year ago to learn about reloading. I've read tons online, watched many video on the subject, and read a couple of books. Before you start reloading, make sure you know exactly what you are doing and make sure you are doing every step correctly.