Energy Management

I’m sucking wind with a stressful start to 2009. It’s so much more than just “the economy.” I probably know too much about the energy industry for my own mental well being. I’m seeing the glass as half empty. We’re (i.e. pretty much the entire global economy) living in a state of denial and it is going to bite us very, very hard. The recession, which is very real, is artificially pushing down the cost of energy commodities right now. Don’t get used to less than $2.00 gas unless we have a very protracted and deep recession.

Another stressor this week was learning that our company’s cost for health insurance will climb another 27% this year. It’s been doing that for a long time now… When will it stop?

Professionally I’m going a little radical and intend on focusing almost all of my division’s efforts toward the energy industry. Our local market is in desperate need of real leadership in the form of soap box preaching. I’m in danger of digressing way off the intent of this blog, so I’ll just stop now.

By the way, we finally launched a new website www.mcclureco.com. It’s not easy explaining in just a couple words what I do for a living. The site says it all. From the main page, click the orange “Design Build” section. Also from the main page click “Energy Solutions” to find the sub domain for that piece of our business. I run both of them (I say "both" but it's actually the same group of folks). The site I about 95% complete. I still need to do some editing.

OK, enough on that. I recently shared my triathlon-related New Years’ resolutions with the Endurance Nation forum. Here’s what I said:
• Deliberately plan recovery.
• Self-reliance on bike maintenance.
• Two epic weeks.

Recovery: Easy to say, hard to do. You gain fitness while resting after hard work. Rest is an essential component of peak fitness. At 41 with an inclination toward atrial fibrillation, I need to take recovery more seriously than I have in the past. Self-coached athletes generally work too hard and recover too little. Patrick was very good at opening my eyes to that reality, but it is still hard to convince yourself that less can be more. I vow to do it this year. I exhausted myself last year… Not good.

Bike maintenance: I’m lazy. I take the bike to the shop without investigating very deeply on my own. I only get good service at the shop 50% of the time. It’s annoying. I need to be more self sufficient. Going to happen in ’09.

Two epic weeks: I’ve seen huge gains from my epic weeks in past years. My fitness increases dramatically. My mind also gets very, very strong. I enjoy using vacation time to challenge myself physically and mentally. I’ll do two weeks this year instead of one. Details will follow some day on this blog. If anyone out there has any interest in some big riding this year, drop me a line.