Espresso Delivery

by Derek Morrison

CoffeeCupThumbnailTYou have two shots in the morning to set up your day
With two more mid-morning so that on the pace you stay
In between are the energy gels which are not much to your taste
But they have become essential because they’re also caffeine laced.

After one hour the alertness washes over you as the caffeine comes into play
Your thinking is so much faster as out in front you stay
Your endurance has increased, your stamina is high
So you sink another gel as down the road you fly.

At lunch you try to control the slight tremor and restlessness you feel
Just one more coffee will soon bring that to heel
You are really buzzing now as on your bike you get
No one can catch you as back on the road you set.

But you don’t feel so good as your system feels the effect
Your pulse is now accelerating as the heart starts to object
Where now is all the strength and stamina you earlier so enjoyed
Perhaps time to reflect on the health with which you’ve toyed.

That night you cannot sleep because the drive remains too high
So you toss and you turn on the bed where you lie
More time for reflection on the value of what was done
As the dawn light creeps through the curtains, another day begun.

So on your next ride the caffeine fixes have been cropped
Withdrawal headaches were guaranteed as suddenly you stopped
Performance tails right off with fatigue for many weeks
Until your system adjusted to the absence of caffeine tweaks.

Now caffeine is a legal drug and endurance it certainly enhances
But it has diminishing returns for those who choose to take such chances
And like any drug with overdose it can hit an unexpected spot
Particularly when you don’t know how much caffeine is in a shot. Continue reading →

Caffeine

by Derek Morrison

N.B. Read in conjunction with ‘Espresso Delivery‘
(VeloScience, 5 February 2015).

CoffeeCupThumbnailTIn every coffee bean
Lies a variable dose of caffeine
Which blocks your adenosine
Thus raising your catecholamine.

With adenosine you can’t tell
But it’s present in every cell
It chills things down, makes you less aroused
You feel its effects whenever you’ve drowsed.

Catecholamines are for fight or flight
But they can make you feel real uptight
Adrenaline is one, that makes you act
From every day frights we know this fact.

With caffeine our cerebral vessels constrict
But you will still feel that you have it licked
In fact you may feel deceptively fitter
It affects more than one neurotransmitter.

Time to exhaustion can improve by a large amount
Nearly 15 percent by the last count
Sprinters and weightlifters need not apply
Slow twitchers is where the advantages lie.

As potassium falls within the cell
It rises in the blood which rings the bell
That muscle fatigue has just got pending
And lest you stop it will force an ending.

But caffeine improves the cell pump
So your electrolytes don’t get the hump
Thus blood potassium it decreases
And all muscle cell activity it increases.

Heart muscle should always respond to action
But caffeine ups its  force of contraction
And when it comes to your heart’s rate
Like blood pressure, caffeine can it elevate.

There’s debate about caffeine’s role with fat
Stimulating energy expenditure from that
But fat oxidation is more likely with endurance
Fast twitch muscle activity provides no such assurance.

And your need to pee may make you strained
Because sodium and water are less retained
But with time your body may adjust
So that this becomes much less of a must.

In theory caffeine could your airways dilate
So that your lungs can better inflate
But for that the dose would need to be high
And so for that effect let’s not try

So caffeine is a powerful drug
That you put daily into your coffee mug
It’s a psychoactive in a common bean
With some of the effects of amphetamine.

[To listen to this verse select below]

Fake News

by Derek Morrison

Fake News comes the Trumpet call
The faithful hear, they are in thrall
Wield Fake News to smite them down
For He now wears the media crown
Apprentice star emits searing light
Troublesome truths now burning bright
Only He could fix all that was wrong
For His people need a leader strong
So Russian Bear now declared no thug
Ursine brothers now embrace and hug.

And it’s Id and Ego who must be hired
While the unbelievers must be fired
Let ‘Art of the Deal’ the people inspire
By spectral author not the artful liar
Fake News press ‘enemy number one’
For they frustrate what must be done
Fake News is what His people hears
So filter messages and close their ears
No briefings here for the media club
He will forge his own fortress hub.

Like like some dark lord in his Tower
From stormy skies He builds his power
Summons lightning bolts to make a hit
On all those ‘others’ who just don’t fit
But yet it was He that took the prize
As mainstream media cast their eyes
On the actors playing by older rules
Rejecting He from different schools
And so Fake News plays useful part
A fearsome weapon for spinner’s art.

So ‘wrong’ truths to false become recast
Impervious armour against enemy blast
For He knows how to ‘drain the swamp’
Assault their truths, proclaim His pomp
Globalisation’s losers new Lords seek
For the ‘deplorables’ see a future bleak
And an ‘elite’ class sneering in contempt
Until ‘deplorables’ let their anger vent
Only their Apprentice star felt their pain
From declining futures of excluded gain.

So new narratives found receptive ears
Post-truth prescriptions to allay all fears
The Fox now shaping the Trumpet notes
Sound Spicy tweets to reach His votes
By claiming conspiracies by the score
That need rooting out from the core
Defining new enemies of the State
Let Him remake the country great
Fake News comes the Trumpet call
The faithful heard, He has the ball.

[To listen to this verse select below]

Continue reading →