Severe Injury

There was a painting I saw at a garage sale a long time ago that I can't get out of my mind. The guy in the folding lawn chair wearing the Hawaii shirt and holding the Colt 45 beer can wanted two hundred dollars for it, which seemed like a good deal since it was signed by the artist, or at least it was signed by somebody, and besides, it came with a frame made out of real wood. But, I didn't buy it because it wasn't painted by anybody famous and if I remember correctly, it wasn't really very good. And I didn't have any money. Anyway, the painting looked sort of cartoonish, but even so, that image on that painting stuck with me for years and years.

The painting was of a fifty-ish year old guy working in a forge or maybe he was working in a blacksmith shop, and now that I think about it, I can't tell you the difference between the two. A forge and a blacksmith shop look the same in movies and paintings. The edges of the shop were cast in such poor light it was hard to see anything more than dark gray shadows, but the middle of the shop was brightly lit by an orange-red forge fire. In the man's meaty right paw was a big hammer raised high and ready to strike, and in his left was a big pair of long-handled pliers holding a hot piece of metal that was pressed against an anvil. I don't know what he was suppose to be making out of that white-hot hunk of metal, but it seemed to be giving him trouble because he was sweating and had an ugly grimace on his face. Sparks and red hot smoke wafted up from the forge and cast a hell-fire glow on the anvil and on the man's face and arms.

I didn't think about it at the time, but now I wonder if the hair on the guy's arms was burned off by the heat from the forge. I do that sometimes. Yesterday for instance, I was trying to solder a piece of copper pipe so I fired up my propane torch to heat the pipe and melt the solder. I was holding the pipe in my left hand and the torch in my right and, for some reason I didn't consider how far that torch can throw a flame before I did my Bob Vila impression with the torch.  I was sweating, just like the guy in the painting, and I had an evil grimace on my face, just like the guy in the paining.  Unlike the guy in the painting, my left forearm wandered in between the pipe and the torch and I burned all the hair off my arm with that %$#@ing torch. Twice.

That was yesterday. Today, I am comparing my left arm with my right and trying to decide which is best. The left one still smells funny and is nearly hair free from wrist to armpit. The right one is hairy but it isn't heat blistered.

I ran 6 miles today, it felt great. Best run in a year. Great run. Super run. To be fair, it wasn't a fast run. A guy with a limp wearing a “I just turned 70” t-shirt passed me, which I thought was pretty rude, since it's obvious to anybody with half a brain that my left arm was recently injured in an industrial forge and/or propane torch accident. I tried to pace the guy, but he dropped me after a hundred yards or so. Those septuagenarian runners are so arrogant.

IM Whistler 29 weeks, 5 days, 12 hours, 50 minutes, 55 seconds to go. Plus or minus.

Revamped Lodging

I am currently extending my mortgage by the cost of one remodel. It's a pretty big remodel and I think it would have been cheaper to just buy Bill Gate's house and donate my current domicile to mortgagemasters.com. It would cost about half as much to go that route I think. I called NASA for help in calculating of how many more months I have to pay on my mortgage after I add the remodel mortgage to the first three mortgages that I own and they said as soon as they hire some more math guys, they will spin up another super computer to figure it out. In the meantime, I stumbled on a new diet plan. It's called the “remodel diet.” Put all the food you like in a pile and stack the paint and hammers and new kitchen sink on top of it. You get to eat the food when the work is done. It's working pretty well but it stinks like a hog trough full of rotten dairy products in the basement.

We are tearing out rooms and walls, replacing what we can with better materials, better floors and doors and prettier things. We bought new wall paper and complementary pastel wall paint. That's great and I am thinking it's going pretty well, but I was looking through the receipts for the kitchen cabinets and I see we bought a special cabinet to store the tupperware. Yup. A dedicated tupperware storage cabinet is what we have chosen for our personal magnum opus. It goes next to the sink. I wanted to put a gun rack there, but the better half explained how it would more efficient to have a tupperware organizer since the favorite shotgun and deer rifle were pawned while I was on a five hour bike ride last June.

I like tupperware as a concept, but giving it a home of it's own just doesn't make sense now. It seems a wee bit over the top.   However, the kitchen sales gal was really persuasive and I was conveniently sent to look at the nail guns when that decision was made.

The remodel is great and we are happy that we are doing it but, its just stuff. Should we pick this lamp shade or that? How many place settings at the dining table, eight or ten? Do we paint the walls tan or taupe? It really doesn't matter.  These things are small things.

Money is easily won if you are willing to sacrifice all.  Possessions are gathered up against some perceived need, some temporary want or desire; In the end, things wear out and fall away.  If you think about it, the only things we can't live without are  a good toothbrush and a comfortable bike seat.

The skeleton of our lives is in truth not adjoining bones but adjoining choices. We follow what path we will. We choose wrongly only if we choose to stop, to cease, to end.

Post #99

Six months ago, completely without warning or consultation with the author, my overpaid, unqualified management group broke faith with my loyal quintet of readers and moved the blog to a large sports conglomerate network that shall go nameless here.  That unidentified group said if I mentioned their name, they would sue me senseless and I think they might.  Ruthless corporate shills.  For the purposes of this article, I shall refer to them as greedy corporation E.

As an enticement to my management group, stock options were promised by greedy corporation E but didn't materialize, truckloads of cash were loaded up by greedy corporation E but got lost en-route.  Or so I was told.  I know somebody got paid and you can rest assured, it wasn't me.  If I don't get the money, I hope Ashley Fox got it.  She lost her job too.

While the blog languished under corporate oppression, very little content of worth was published.  I tried but I couldn't deal with the tiny, gray cubicle and piped in Barry Manilow music.  Freakin' Barry music.

Anyway, after unsuccessfully chasing the pot of corporate gold, I return the blog to these environs like a North Korean dissident crossing the DMZ.  The blog is once again free of corporate oppression, but no promises are made or implied regarding the creative inspiration.  You get what you get.  

When I was a kid, perhaps ten or twelve years old, my family sometimes shopped in an old, rundown country store. As I think back on that store now, I remember wandering the isles, walking on the worn-through linoleum tiles, looking at the different packages and boxes and things for sale, reading the magazines and waiting for my parents to finish their shopping. I picked items off of  racks just to touch, turning each over to look at what was written on the back, then put it back on the hook backwards, for no reason other than I just had to do it. I didn't break anything, but I must have touched everything. I think I was the inspiration for the original 'No Loitering' sign.

I loved that store because you could get lost in there for hours. If you got hungry, the candy was in the center isle between the comic books and the cigarettes and I have to admit, I borrowed the odd candy bar over the years. Camping supplies, jeans and t-shirts were in the back, next to the beer and the ammunition. Christmas gifts and toys were available twelve months a year on a rack in the front. It was the only store in the world where you could buy a Santa hat in July.

On the wall behind the cash register was a stuffed deer head that I swear looked right at me no matter where I was in the store. If I stood by the fried chicken rack, that deer stared right at me. It was like he was daring me to reach around the glass display case and snag a chicken wing. If I stood over by the O-Boy-Oberto sausage rack, the deer watched me there, waiting for me to graduate from misdemeanor chicken-wing borrowing to full blown O-Boy-Oberto felony.  That deer head was supernatural.  Watching.  Waiting.  Judging.  

Next to the deer was a dusty, stuffed buffalo head. The buffalo head was so old it looked like it came west with the original pioneers. Or, maybe they found a dead buffalo and built the store around it.  That thing was huge.  I guess I am not sure how that buffalo got there and I don't remember much more about it other than it was old and I always wanted to get one of those feather dusters and a ladder to give it a good scrubbing.

Perched by the dusty buff was a nasty looking stuffed jack-a-lope.  Even though he had a sour expression, I really liked that little jack-a-lope.  It was only a quarter as large as the deer head and the deer head was half the size of the buff head but I imagined that he was the leader of the three, if such a leadership role existed.  The jack-a-lope just looked like he had seen a thing or two.  He looked capable, and maybe if you got locked in the store at night and were alone and scared, you would go straight to the jack-a-lope for help. 

In case you don't know, a jack-a-lope is an extremely elusive and rare creature that looks remarkably like a really big jackrabbit with a pair of antelope horns strapped onto it's head. How they shot a live jack-a-lope is beyond me and the question haunts me still, “How does one kill a jack-a-lope?” I wondered if they used the ammunition from the rack in the back of the store or did they need to order some special jack-a-lope bullets. No idea.

The store was rebuilt shortly after the arson investigation and subsequent insurance claim and as luck would have it, the jack-a-lope didn't survive. The fire and gasoline fumes must have been too much for his aged pelt and he succumbed. So sad.

We all hold something back to protect ourselves. It's not a big deal like Spiderman wearing a mask to protect his true identity.  I mean really, everybody gets that, right?  Spiderman can't just wear a Peter Parker nametag around and expect to go home to a safe apartment at night. 

I am not talking about Spiderman here, I am talking about the difference between the person we are and who we want the world to know.  That difference between those two identities might be something big or small, and maybe you think you are completely honest with how you deal with the world but I am saying you aren't.  We show the world a face, and in truth, we hide who we are and we all wear a mask.

So I thought about that for a while and figured out that there are three masks that we show the world. Here are our human masks, described in stages.

1. Stage One – This is what we show the general public. We all put a bunch of BS into this one. It's stuff you tell your co-workers like “You should meet my Mother-in-Law. She's great!” and “I would love to help you move. Oh, wait, did you say Saturday?  Saturday is the day I work at the food bank. Sorry.” Basically, this mask is where we are all liars.
2. Stage Two – This stuff has substantially more truth in it, but is generally disseminated on a limited distribution list. We only reveal this crap after we have known and trusted someone for a long time. This is what you tell your spouse after fifteen years of marriage and five glasses of wine. It generally goes like this; “Darling, do you remember when the police came by the house last spring and asked if I owned a .38 magnum and I told them no? Well...”. You have to trust a lot to let this stuff out of the bag. 
3. Stage Three – Do you remember in second grade where every second Tuesday was sharing day? You could bring a toy and tell the class about your toy, or if you had lice in your hair, you could bring your half used bottle of industrial delousing toxin and show the class that. It was sharing day and you were encouraged to share. Well, Stage Three is the opposite of that. Stage Three is stuff we should never tell anybody. Just shut up and bury it away.  Bury it deep.  This is the way-weird things you do when nobody is looking. Of course, I don't do any of that, but for you other folks that do indulge those weird, freaky, fantasy events, this is where you should keep your mouth shut. No good will ever come of it. Confession might be good for the soul, but only your dog should hear this stuff and even then, you tell him after he is at the end of his travels and you pre-dig the hole in the back yard.

I have a Stage Three confession. I don't want to talk about it, I just feel I must. I know I shouldn't say anything, but nobody reads this blog anyway so what the heck.  Here it is. Last night, I dreamed. I dreamed about...It's hard to write down. I dreamed about...please don't tell...I dreamed about... about...Idreamedaboutwinningmyagegroup. There, its out. I feel a lot better, but I don't want anybody to know. I am pretty sure my dog is the only one who reads this, so my secret is safe and I already dug the hole in the back yard.   

I sent in my money for Whistler, or I should say, I sent in somebody's money. My roommate's Christmas present is half of a Whistler slot.  It's the gift that just keeps on giving.

The Rebirth of Enron

Encyclopedia Britannica describes the events of Monday, April 17, 1961 as the "unlikely, simultaneous occurrence of two unrelated but equally significant events in American history". Both events started small but soon snowballed into catastrophes that took on lives of their own, seemingly rolling downhill, faster and faster, extracting the requisite pound of flesh from those unlucky enough to be standing too close, laying waste to friend and foe alike, pitting brother against brother, family against family and country against country.

The first event, and the better known of those two events started when the US backed Cuban Exile Brigade invaded Cuba to promote a revolution against Castro and his revolutionary government. Today, we call it 'The Bay of Pigs'. That aptly named day started a chain of events that culminated in a standoff between superpowers and nearly ended in thermonuclear war. It didn't, but not because we didn't try. Basically, we got lucky.

The other event of note that happened on that day is they began construction of my house. It started small, but snowballed into a cataclysmic disaster for all owners of my house, past and present. This house is a nightmare from a safety point of view, a fecal pile from an aesthetic point of view and Enron reborn, from a financial point of view. Nobody who lives in this house emerges unscathed.  An entire banking conglomerate was put out of business just by reading over my loan application.

Last July fourth, the deck stairs finally buckled, the rotten supports giving way, the only injury was to my son, who found himself freefalling to doom, only saving his own life by an act of superhuman strength and agility. Well, not really.  Basically, he got lucky.

A friend of a friend came to my house yesterday to give us a bid on a remodel job. We showed him around, we told him we want this done, we want that done, don't fix this thing but we have to get that thing fixed etc. It took two hours and ten minutes from the time he pulled his car into the driveway until he left.  I timed him. It took ten minutes to show him what we wanted fixed, and then he stole two hours of my life telling stories about other remodel jobs he did over the years.  I had to listen to inane stories about his childhood, which was bad enough, but then he amped up the pain with an un-amusing anecdote about his ex-wife and her strange affinity for Robert Goulet music and baby oil. I was at the end of my rope. How  long do I have to listen to this yap yap garbage? It went on forever. I finally showed him to the door and told him we didn't have any money to pay him. He left pretty quickly after that. That's how I get rid of salesmen. I admit I have no money. You know what they say; “And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Speaking of the truth, it's time I faced my own truth. My foot isn't getting any better. In fact, its worse. Everyday, from the time I get up until about noon, I limp like a leper, then from noon to three, I limp a bit less, then after three I limp like an actor on 'The Walking Dead'. The pain wanders up and down the Richter scale like an oil well pumping up and down in the drylands of West Texas. I think I need to pull the plug and participate in the Lake Stevens Ironman from the bleachers. If I don't, I think I might have my own Bay of Pigs right here. My house can't take any more trouble.

Lost

Ironman participants or triathlon participants have been observed to be an odd group. By odd, I don't mean the opposite of even, as in “I was riding on an even number of tires, then I ran over a broken beer bottle and got a flat and then I was on an odd number of tires.” What I mean by odd is “He is so odd. If he keeps doing that, I think he will break at least one leg.” That is what I mean by odd. Triathletes are odd. Another description of triathletes is that we are Flagellants. Wikipedia describes Flagellants as:

Flagellants  Flagellants are practitioners of an extreme form of mortification of their own flesh by whipping it with various instruments.

So there.  That's good to know.

I am not going to bore you with a ride report from yesterday, although I could. Lots of stuff happened. And, I am not going to give you a blow by blow of the truck and twenty four foot boat combo that tried to run my daughter and I off the road, although I could. It was pretty exciting. What I am going to tell you about is getting lost. I got lost at least three times yesterday. My daughter was riding with me so technically she was lost too, but if you asked her at the time, she would have said “I'm not lost, I'm with Dad.” It's hard to find a flaw in that logic train.

Anyway, I had a map and I got lost and I sort of feel bad about it. What kind of an idiot gets lost with a map? Guilty. 

In case you didn't know, getting lost isn't a binary solution set, with the 'lost' or 'not lost' attribute potentially applied accurately based on your location. It isn't that at all. Getting lost or being lost is really just a shade of gray in how we perceive ourselves. Getting lost is an emotion. Getting lost is a state of mind.

One end of the getting lost gray-scale goes like this: You are in the middle of a bad dream where a talking bear asks you where you are and you say “I don't know” because you are trapped in a windowless box and you don't know where you are or how you got there. That happens to me a lot and trust me, that is as lost as you can get. I hate bears.

The other end of the lost gray-scale is this: The realization that getting lost is a state of mind. Everybody has been lost, or claims they have been lost, but I submit for your consideration that if you are reading this, then at some point after you declared yourself 'lost' you must have become 'unlost', thereby proving that your claim of being 'lost' was a temporary state of mind. Becoming 'unlost' proves you weren't really 'lost' at all, you just thought you were.

Yesterday, I think I was dead-smack in the middle of the lost gray-scale. Three times. One time, I had to ride up and down a two mile long climb to become unlost.

I want to thank the young lady who ran the SAG wagon for yesterdays ride. She is a true angel of mercy, offering sustenance to those in need. Hey, what does SAG stand for?  I asked a couple people yesterday, nobody knew.   

I was going to run a couple miles after yesterdays ride, but my foot has abandoned my triathlon dream of victory, so I went to the “Chicken Drive-Inn” and got a milkshake after the ride. I swear, I didn't make that name up. The Chicken Drive-Inn has good milkshakes, although their pricing structure is baffling.

I asked the gal at the Chicken Drive-Inn ordering counter what SAG stands for.  She stared at me, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and asked what I wanted. I said “I want a plain strawberry milkshake please” and I handed over some money. She took my money, counted it and held her hand out for more money.  “Do you want real strawberries in your strawberry milkshake?” 

I thought it was sort of understood that when you order a six dollar strawberry milkshake, you get some ice cream, milk and strawberries all mixed up, and I said so.  “For six bucks, I want real strawberries.”

Apparently, she didn't like my counter-productive attitude. “Real strawberries make it a premium. You want a premium milkshake. Those are two dollars extra.” I was going to argue with her, but I really wanted that milkshake, so I dug through my loose change and gave her the money while I mumbled that this was still America and real strawberries should be part of the price of milkshake.

Then she hit me with the zinger. “You are so odd. Are you a triathlete?”

How do you spell Podiater, Podriatrist, Podiatrcianer ...Foot Doctor?

History books have entire chapters filled with nothing but lists of noteworthy men and women, each line defining in short summary the contributions of those individuals, some small or large thing they had done, each event leading the human race to a brighter future, each act blazing a path for rest of us to follow. Some were scientists, some were artists and some wrote works of literature. As a small gesture to honor a true American, a poet, a leader among leaders, a tremendous individual, here is a quote from the towering visionary himself;

Lookit here son, I say son, did ya see that hawk after those hens? He scared 'em! That Rhode Island Red turned white. Then blue. Rhode Island. Red, white, and blue. That's a joke, son. A flag waver. You're built too low. The fast ones go over your head. Ya got a hole in your glove. I keep pitchin' 'em and you keep missin' 'em. Ya gotta keep your eye on the ball. Eye. Ball. I almost had a gag, son. Joke, that is. 

Of course, you recognize those famous words, spoken over a half century ago by the great Foghorn Leghorn. I think a moment of silence is in order.

…

…

...

Last week, I was trying to get a bit of training in that didn't involve running, so I decided to knock out some core work. I really need core work, but its kind of uncomfortable so I generally skip the core workout in favor of a couple cookies. Unfortunately, I was out of cookies because I ate them all the day before, so I was stuck with the core workout.

Instead of crunches and planks and the other crap that hurts, I got the standup paddleboard out for my core workout. I put the paddleboard in the lake, stood on the edge of the bulkhead, then I made a poor decision. I make few decisions in my life. If you don't make a decision, then you can't be wrong; That's my motto. I think Foghorn Leghorn would like that. Refuse to decide. I am pretty sure he would agree with that logic. Anyway, I made a decision and it almost worked out.

The thing is, when you go paddleboarding, you have to get on the thing, so you follow the mounting process, as agreed to and published by the International Association of Standup Paddleboard Association. This process should be your first choice and is in fact the most common choice to mount a Paddleboard. Basically, you get in the water next to the paddleboard, flop your belly up on the paddleboard, grunt out loud, wiggle up until you have your weight balanced in the middle of the paddleboard, grunt again, then you get on your knees, then stand up. That's what most people do and it involves a minimum of two grunts. If the aesthetic of that procedure eludes you, know this; You are not alone. I find that method dissatisfying from both a visual perspective and from an efficiency perspective.  And, I find it repugnant due to the severe lack of originality. So, I engineered the 'new and improved' method.

This new and improved method, now referred to by most professional paddleboarders as the 'Terminator' is quite simple. You position the paddleboard in the lake, six inches from the bulkhead, hold your paddle in one hand, then jump aboard. The lure of 'The Terminator' is the simplicity, the elegance, the massively improved athletic grace involved in getting on a paddleboard. Admittedly, it's just a shade more difficult to pull off.

My dog must have moved the paddleboard between the time I jumped and when I landed. I think that is the case because right after I deployed my 'Terminator', my left shoulder hit the dog when I fell. He must have been a bit groggy from when I landed on him because he didn't recognize me for about ten seconds. I mean, why else would he bite me? That dog loves me. My shoulder where I landed on the dog only hurt for a while. Maybe a couple days, tops. Not a big deal. The bleeding from the dog bite stopped right away, so that worked out too.

See, when you are training for a triathlon, something always hurts. Some of the pain is superficial and you need to ignore it. It's not a big deal. It's the other stuff that causes the most trouble. The real injuries are a concern and need a little attention. In this case, the bigger problem was my left foot. Its been four days and the foot is a dark blue color, sort of the same color as the LA Lakers away jerseys. The Lakers home jerseys are yellow. My foot is definitely an away jersey color.

Now, I can barely walk without whining like a schoolgirl. I don't know what happened, but the left foot must have been caught under a rock or something between the time when I fell on the dog and he bit me. I don't want to go to a doctor because that would lead to a full leg cast, which might slow me down in Ironman Lake Stevens, fifteen days hence.

If the human imperative is the first and best purpose of our lives, what ancillary function do our our other pursuits serve? What value do we realize by training for a triathlon? Notice, I didn't say 'competing' in a triathlon. The numerical probability of me participating in Lake Stevens is in the single digits right now. Yesterday, I think I was somewhere around a six percent chance of hearing the starters cannon. Today, maybe eight percent, but that extra two percent isn't due to a great improvement in my podiatrianic health. I watched an Ironman training video so I will feel guilty if I don't show up.

It sucks. It Sucks Bigtime. I don't face my troubles. I never have. Ignore them and half of them just fade away. I am hoping I can walk sometime in the next two weeks.

Lemon Drops

The Discovery Channel narrator with the Australian accent said something like 'the hapless seal tried in vain to flee from the great white shark.' It isn't an accurate quote, but it's close. It got me thinking that great white sharks must be a recent invention since you never used to hear about great white sharks, but now you hear about them every day. You hear about great white sharks at work, you hear about great white sharks on the radio, you read about great white sharks in vacation brochures, those toothy fish are in the news everywhere. But think about this; Did you ever hear about some sixteenth century explorer mixing it up with a great white? No. We have an extensive written history of the oceans compiled by very detailed note takers over the past five hundred years and nowhere in there do they mention great whites. The first mention of great whites is in about 1980. It's like they just appeared when Carter jacked up interest rates. Coincidence? You be the judge.

When I was in third grade, we had to learn about the different explorers and what they discovered and how their discoveries changed history and impacted our lives. I don't remember all the details, there were a lot of guys in leaky boats wandering around, sans great whites, and who actually did what got pretty confusing. Somebody tried to find the Northwest passage (and got lost), somebody drove from France to China (and got lost), somebody else found Atlantis or Atlanta or something (and lost it); Like I said, it's pretty confusing.

I was running today and after thirty minutes, I got pretty bored so I started to sort out which explorer did what and I thought I better put it down in electronic format, lest I forget again. Here is all I can remember about who discovered what:

name                    discovery                                     when

Magellan               Circumnavigated the earth           A long time ago

de Soto                 Mississippi River                          A long time ago

Ponce de Leon      Puerto Rico                                 A long time ago

Raine                    Apathy                                         1974

Capt. Cook           Pretty much everything else         No idea, probably A long time ago

I think its a pretty good list. Its pretty complete.

Like I said, I was running today with my daughter, we knocked out nine miles. I was thinking about reporting a pace of between five-thirty or maybe six minute miles, but that would be inaccurate and I would feel bad falsifying run times here in the cauldron of truth Ironman blog. I think it would be more accurate, and I would feel quite comfortable to report a six-thirty pace. That's pretty accurate. Six minutes, thirty seconds per mile. The guy with fur hanging out of his nose like a walrus ran past us doing six-thirty miles. He was flying. His nose toupee was flapping.

I wasn't going quite that fast, I limp at a more leisurely pace, and because of it, my knee can now be qualified as a carbuncle. Most people don't know what a carbuncle is, but if you show up at my house and give me a dollar, I will show you a carbuncle.

Saturday, I rode with my old gang of riders, chatting while we rode along. We discussed the various charities we support, healthy recipes we might try out and books we liked on Oprah's book list. I think it was a wholesome ride. We didn't use foul language or shoot snot rockets at each other or generally do any of the disgusting stuff that other triathletes do.  It's beneath us.  

Then at some point, my saintly gang felt the pace I was setting wasn't sufficient and peeled off. It was fun while we were together, but I haven't seen them since and I am a bit worried.  If you see some older gentlemen wearing spandex, looking lost and shooting snot rockets, let me know and I will cancel the missing persons report.

Today, I ran. Tomorrow, assuming my knee unlocks, I go to an early spin class at O'dark thirty, followed by a trip to starbucks for a recovery smoothie. Speaking of a recovery drink, try this out the next time you run in ninety degree heat.

Lemon Drop

½ cup freshly squozed lemon juice

1 cup freshly poured vodka

add simple syrup to taste (sugar mixed with water)

Pour it over ice in four glasses.  Drink each in turn.  Whatever pain you are feeling will just melt away.  Promise.

Stinkenstein

A couple days ago, I was walking from one end to the house to the other looking for a finger nail clipper when this tsunami wave of nasty gag-reflex inducing smell hit me in the face. It smelled like old diapers. My chest locked up tight and I couldn't breath. My first thought was that the dog found another dead critter and brought it in for show-and-tell. He does that once in a while. Come to think of it, the dog isn't the only treasure hunter living with me. Sometimes a sparrow with a broken wing falls into the cat's jaws then gets tucked in between the top sheet and the bedspread. Once in a while, a newly hatched duckling decides to play russian roulette with the cat.

The dog brings in bigger stuff. He brings in deer or elk bones, bags of food he pilfers out of the garbage can or whatever forest animal slow enough for him to kill.  Once in a while we find squirrels without their heads in the living room and figure the dog had another busy afternoon thinning the local squirrel herd. If he tucks his treasure in under the couch, we don't see it right away and after a few days it gets to smelling like holy hell.

The smell that hit me this time was different. This one smelled like an ammonia factory explosion, so I got down on my hands and knees and started to crawl around with my nose to the carpet, looking for where the cat pee was. I spent forty five minutes on all fours smelling the carpet. Nothin.

I tried again the next day. Same deal, hands and knees, sniffing the carpet. Nothin. I gave up. Then about three days go by and the smell hits me again. It made my eyes water. I wandered around doing the hotter/colder thing until I was able to triangulate the smell down to the laundry room.

My running shoes live in the laundry room between runs. They get wet and muddy and I don't want to track mud into the living room so I jamb them under the leaky sink in the laundry room when they aren't in use. My yard shoes go in there too. After my recent bout of aroma sleuthing, I realized that both pairs of shoes could have been launched as primary weapons in the WWI mustard gas attacks. The garbage guy comes on Monday, but I don't think I can wait that long, so I might make a special shoe disposal trip to the dump tomorrow.

My dog stinks too. He gets in the lake twenty to thirty times a day, so he never dries out. He is wet twenty four hours a day. I think he has a yeast infection. I called and booked an appointment this afternoon with an OBGYN to get my dog the right meds.

Since my race is less than thirty days away, I need to order up my shoes today. I have to plan my shoe purchases a couple weeks ahead because my size thirteen double E can only be found online or at the local feed store between the shovels and the garden gnomes.

I took a farewell run today in my smelly shoes, four miles with the dog. Felt good, no knee pain. Tomorrow I bike to the stump. The new shoes should be here next week.

Superfund Clean Up

My daughter and I have been training together for the half-iron at Lake Stevens over the past months and I have no complaints, so far, so good. We lake-swim together, we occasionally run together and we ride together every weekend. Its a pretty good training partnership, all things considered. We don't yell, we don't bicker and we try to stay positive. No screaming aloud. All of that makes for a happy ride and a happy me.

I admit, once in a while I do the wrong thing. A couple weeks ago, we were riding and some semi-human troll with a garden hose and a big mouth assaulted us from behind a garden fence with his hydro-verbal double barreled weaponry. I responded with some foul language of my own, which didn't produce any desirable result. I should have just ignored the troll. Someday I will grow up, but not just yet.

Last Saturday, we rode from Black Diamond to Orting and back, 54.6 miles with just one hill, sort of a chit-chat ride, everybody had a good time. One difference I did notice about riding with young ladies instead of my usual band of misfits is that you need to mind your P's and Q's in a mixed gender ride. I can't utter my usual disgusting oratory in a mixed company ride. It's like the great Charlie Allnut said; "It's a great thing to have a lady aboard with clean habits. It sets the man a good example. A man alone, he gets to living like a hog.” True words, Charlie, true words.

Anyway, once we got to Orting, we pulled over to check a possible mechanical issue, which turned out to be nothing, then we looked up and found ourselves queued up in the line to get into the doughnut shop. Understand this, I had no idea they had a doughnut shop in Orting and if I had, I would have complied with the restraining order and stayed a least one hundred yards away. The existence of that doughnut shop was news to me, but once we were there, standing in line, I didn't want to not order doughnuts. That would be rude. So we went in.

They had a marvelous selection of doughnuts and brownies and cakes and all manner of good treats for road weary travelers. They had the cake type doughnuts that were sugar dusted (192 calories), Bavarian Kreme (210 calories), standard chocolate frosted cake doughnuts (270 calories), maple bars (220 calories) and a bunch of other, lesser doughnuts. I was zeroing in on the puff pastry with big sugar crystals sprinkled on top but I couldn't choose between the strawberry filled one or the apple pie filled one. I went back and forth, back and forth, eeny meeny miney mo, I just couldn't noodle out a tie breaker. Then, perched just inches away from the chocolate glazed eclair, I spotted an apricot and cream cheese filled puff pastry with sugar crystals sprinkled on top. A winner. The angel of mercy behind the counter with the facial tic and the "My child is an honor student at Hogwarts" tattoo on her wrist handed my treasure over and pointed me to the cash register.

I don't know what my daughter chose because I was ever so gently holding my apricot  and cream cheese puff pastry up to my cheek, feeling it's still oven-warm sugary goodness. I could only concentrate on my apricot and cream cheese puff pastry. I yearned for that puffy pastry. I was drooling like the dog when I fire up the bar-b-que.

We got up to the register and they asked me what I wanted to drink. I said water. Somehow, my water order wasn't communicated correctly to the coffee girl and I ended up with a twelve ounce mocha with a really big thwack of whip cream and a double portion of chocolate sauce drizzle over the top. Then I started to eyeball a tower of elephant size self-serve cookies that were dipped in chocolate. I tried to wrap my lips around one, but I ran out of money and they made me put the cookie back. I didn't mind, I had enough cash for the mocha and the apricot and cream cheese filled puff pastry, so I handed over my seven dollars and I sat down at the counter to eat my treasures. I sort of lost track of the next thirty minutes. My apricot and cream cheese filled puff pastry and extra choco-mocha bounced me into a pre-diabetic sugar coma. I think now its a good thing that they took away my cookie. That cookie could have been terminal.

I came out of my sugar coma and found we were riding back up the trail, heading home, burning as much sugar off as quickly as we could. I was high on sugar and life, riding as fast as the wind, singing something from "Les Mis" when I saw in the middle of the trail three distinct piles of moose poop,  each larger and more formidable than the last.  I veered right, ducked left and cut hard to the right, slalom skiing through the poop ski-gates.  To be honest, I am not sure where it came from or what it came from, it might have been moose poop from a live moose, I just know it was the right size to be moose poop if the contributing moose was an overly large moose. Or a medium sized giraffe, maybe. Whatever, I had to go around it, riding through it was not an option.

A hundred yards later, I saw this guy being dragged down the trail by a huge black Hellhound with lasers on his forehead and iron caps on his teeth. I felt sorry for the guy. That dog was lunging at the end of an industrial strength chain, snapping at everything in eyesight: trees, babies in baby carriages, me. I got scared and tried to hide behind the baby carriage. I thought there was a good 50/50 chance the Hellhound might not eat the baby in the baby carriage before he ate me.

Today, as I recall that ride, it occurs to me that the poop in question might not have been moose poop at all, it could have been from the Hellhound. No matter who deposited it there, its a navigation hazard. The NTSB should get out there with the EPA and get that trail listed as a Superfund clean up site. Its going to take years before you can ride to get doughnuts in Orting again.

Tour

A common human trait is that we qualify our lives wrongly. We all do it. When I look back at my life, at the good memories that make me smile and the bad memories that refuse to die, I count my life in days. That is, I recall the day this happened or the day that happened, then I count those memorable days up and that numerical tally of those days is the mathematical expression of my life. Depending on how old you are, your total might be ten thousand or twenty thousand or thirty thousand days. It depends on your age multiplied by the probability that you will do something worthwhile on a daily basis. It's not complex, but it is difficult to calculate with accuracy.

Then I look forward. I pull up the actuarial table that my life insurance agent uses to predict my demise and I count my remaining time I have left in years. I think about the days to come and I assume they will be too numerous to count. I'm an optimist.

That's backwards. It isn't about math. Euclid was wrong. The time already passed is meaningless. It doesn't matter how many good or bad memories you have had up to this point. The time left to each of us may be one day or ten thousand, in the end, it matters naught. If we try to derive some mathematical formula to categorize it, we miss the value, we miss the gift of life we were given at birth. It isn't the number of days left that matters, its the quality of those days that counts.

Last Saturday, I ran 6. It was a good run, my knee wasn't paying attention and it forgot to fire a pain salvo until about an hour after the run. That might sound bad, but its good, really. See, it's like this; Knee pain and taxes are really the same thing. You know your knee is going to revolt and you know you have to pay taxes. Delay them both. Don't let your knee revolt until after you finish your workout and don't pay your taxes until next year. Or the year after.  Delay delay delay.

Sunday, my daughter and I rode 56 miles, including a quick jaunt up Mud Mountain. My daughter isn't used to the longer rides yet, so it was sort of a surprise she finished so strong. I didn't expect that, I thought she was going to blow up but she did great. For me that ride wasn't that big of a deal. I can knock out 56 as easily as I can snap-hook a #2 Titleist into the fat lady on the next fairway. I am not bragging. Cycling is a function of money. If you have the funds to go to spin class all year long, if you swim or run or bike or lift or go to yoga six to eight times a week, you can ride 56 without popping a head gasket. I pay big money so that I can ride 56.

As I was thinking about my workouts over the past weekend, I was comparing them and trying to decide which one was the better, which offered the highest return on my investment of time and effort. The run was harder, and therefore was the better workout. The more I run, the better off I will be in Lake Stevens, but the ride was by far a better day. I spent the day with family, I rode to the top of Mud Mountain and spent a few minutes taking in the view and I got to ride without a jacket, which is a huge plus if you ride in the cold nine months of the year like I do. And I got to ride with the view highlighted by the majestic Rainier. It was a good day.

I am watching the Tour.  Those guys are amazing.  They can pull a big gear for hours on end and they weigh 150 tops.  Freaks.  See the link  for a few fun stats.

pro cyclist vs the rest of us

Casablanca

This post is about two real miracles that I have personally witnessed in the last two days.  Since these are the first real live miracles I have  ever seen, I thought it was worth a mention.

Miracle #1

Today I witnessed a miracle. It wasn't a major miracle, like raising the dead or turning wine into water, nor was it a minor miracle, like the '69 Mets. What I saw, what I participated in, what I caused to happen was a middle miracle. It was an unexplainable event. It was a once in a lifetime, never gonna happen again miracle. As I type this, I still can't believe it, but its true.

Here is what happened. Last night, I was working on my bike in the garage, cleaning this and fiddling with that, just passing time doing something that I like doing. I hadn't cleaned my bike since the half iron in Hawaii, so it was kind of a mess. There were race stickers on it, tri bike transport stickers on it, dried up spit and sweat and chocolate goo gel on it and some black chain grease. Typical bike mess after a race, so I cleaned and washed and adjusted and generally fiddled with it for two hours. I had the radio playing seventy's hair-band music and a half full glass of wine on the work bench.  I was in the zone.

I had thirty to forty tools at the ready, two of which saw action.  Some were in my pocket, a couple of screwdrivers were on the floor, I think the big hammer was on the workbench.   Speaking of the workbench, since it is usually cluttered with partially repaired projects from last year, I use the rear bumper of my truck as a tool bench. I set my tools on it when they are between use and sometimes I forget to gather them all up when I am done. That's what happened last night; I left my twenty five dollar super-neat hex wrench set sitting on the bumper when I finished with the bike. I forgot about it and went to bed.

Today, I got up, showered, shaved and shined, jumped in the truck and drove forty two highway miles, stop and go, over potholes and speed bumps, parked and went in the office. At lunch time, I drove to get a salad at a bad restaurant with a history of health code violations about three miles from my office, then I saw it; My super-neat hex wrench set was sitting on the bumper. That's it. That's the miracle.  That wrench set just stayed there, defying Newton's law of inertia.  How did that wrench set stay on the bumper and not fall off? I don't know but the phone is ringing and I think it is MGM calling about a movie deal. If I get to name the movie, I might call it “Miracle Hex Wrench Set”. Or “Casablanca” maybe.

Miracle #2

I have several friends that just finished Ironman Coeur d'Alene yesterday, which is a really big deal, but that isn't the miracle. My friends are all really good athletes, very fit, carrying at most ten percent body fat and a large portion of type A personality traits and they all have a good training program with oodles of time to get ready for the event. It isn't a surprise that they finished. I don't mean to demean their efforts. Ironman is hard. Its really hard. Finishing an Ironman requires incredible endurance, both mental and physical. It requires commitment. And money. When you are in an Ironman, if you have an hour of feeling good, I guarantee you will have an hour of feeling bad right after. All my friends were able to overcome their personal demons and emerge victorious. Congrats. It's a big deal, but a miracle? No.

The miracle I am talking about is that other group of participants. You know who I am talking about. They are a little heavy. A few are a lot heavy. They didn't prepare, or they didn't prepare enough. They didn't have a contingency plan, or if they did, it wasn't good enough to get them through unscathed. My bride and I were watching the live video feed direct from the swim finish in CDA.  The first 90% of the athletes that finished the swim came out of the water in good shape.  They had a good finish time, they looked fresh and ready to attack the rest of the day.  The other 10% didn't look good.  They came out of the water disoriented and physically beaten, and that was just the start of their day.  That's the miracle.  That last 10%.

Remember, its a process, not a destination. It's a process.  This whole Ironman thing is a process.

I have the Lake Stevens half iron in forty seven days. Last Saturday I was trying to home bake an Olympic as a training day.  The plan called for my daughter and I to swim a mile, ride thirty and run six.  Sounds good, right?  It seemed like a good workout, not too hard, but still challenging enough to count as a real bric.  The swim was fine, we had fun.  We got on our bikes in the sunshine and started heading west.  West towards the storm   Five minutes later, it was like we were in the Amazon in the rainy season.  I saw a pair of raccoons trying to get in a boat.   We cut the ride short and started our run.  

It's amazing how few miles you can go in a four hour workout when you set your mind to it.

Doctor Lisa at Kona - A Race Report

We are renting a house on a hill with a vast view of the ocean.  From our viewpoint, we can see the cruise ships and fishing boats come and go, we can see the parasailers take flight, and most importantly, we can see the slow, majestic sunsets of the Pacific.  It is almost as though the view was built just for my small group of traveling companions and is ours for the keeping. 

A palm tree sits center court, and the question of the tree's impact on the view, whether it blocks or enhances our view is a matter of opinion.  I tend to think the tree is a boon, offering some small piece of shade to those who are lucky enough to sit underneath it and framing and enhancing the view of those who look through it.  A busy bird flits from one palm flower to the next, gathering his nectar, working in the cool of the morning and the heat of the evening.  That bird works like a miner in a coal mine while my travelling companions and I eat and drink and talk of things both Ironman and non-Ironman.  The palm just waves at us, it's leaves riding the cool breeze that never stops.

Inspiration, a smattering of training and five thousand dollars brought us to this place where we find what we will. Some travelers find a life here and refuse to leave, others stay for a short time and leave only under duress, but we all find something.  What I find here hasn't been decided yet, but I feel it is only fair to relate that I am perusing the real estate ads.

Our image of ourselves isn't the same as how the world views us. Others may not see me this way, but I always thought I should try to be a poor man's version of Craig Alexander. I swim, Craig swims, I bike, so does Craig, I cramp when I run, Craig cramped on TV when he won the world championship in 2011. I finished the 2014 half in Hawaii in 8:03, Craig won 2011 world championship in Hawaii in ….drum roll....8:03. Look it up. We are two peas in a pod. Oh, one more little facet to our relationship. I beat Craig in the half yesterday (sort of). Again, look it up.

Swimming in Hawaii and swimming in Lake Sawyer have a lot in common. Both are wet. And both are..., well, that's about it. After the last few days, I think I am spoiled for swimming for the rest of my life. I just cant see pulling on my cruddy torn up wetsuit, jumping in the cruddy cold lake and swimming in Lake Sawyer any more. The swim fun-o-meter is now skewed beyond repair and all non-Kona swims will pale in comparison.

I would have had a better swim in yesterday's half except I slowed down to take a look at some pretty coral. I was clipping along, hitting a guy in the back of the head who seemed to like the place I was swimming more than he liked his own when I saw the coral. It was mostly brown and gray but had a lot of rainbow pink and yellow in it so I had to spend a few seconds gazing. I didn't stop, but I slowed to a crawl to view the view. There were 1600 swimmers beating the surface of the sea so we scared most of the fish away, but the coral was pretty. It only cost me thirty seconds and if you do the Hawaii half, I strongly suggest it. It was the high point of my day.

I had one cramp on the swim which I muscled through, came out of the water feeling great but I cramped a bit while trying to stand up in the surf, I ran to the hoses that hang down and rinsed off by sticking the hose over my head then down my pants, I rushed to put on almost all my bike gear in T1, and hit the Queen K. The Queen K is to tri bike riding what Wrigley field is to baseball. Wrigley and the Queen K are the cat's meow. Wrigley and the Queen K are the Alpha and the Omega. Yankee Stadium be dammed. Tour of France can stick it.

I can hear the complaints now. Half of you are yelling “Blasphemer” and the other half “Infidel”, but just calm down and be zen for a second. You need to ride the Queen K to get it. The wind gusts front, back and sideways simultaneously. You can't ride it on a road bike, or maybe more accurately, you need to ride it on a tri bike to really get properly afraid. Your bike jumps left and right under you like an African gazelle right before the lion eats it. I spent the first twenty minutes of the ride looking at my tires to see if they were flat.

The Queen K has wide shoulders and is super smooth, lots of room to safely pass or be passed, very little road garbage and nobody ever wins there. If you want to go watch your favorite baseball team blow up just three games short of the playoffs, go to Wrigley. If you want to watch a bunch of triathletes wither in the sun, go watch a bike race on the Queen K. They all start strong. They all put in a good effort in the first half. But then, just as world domination seems to be within reach, they fade. The Cubs and the triathletes - they fade in the home stretch at Wrigley and the Queen K.

One minute, I found myself going 28 mph uphill without peddling. Divine intervention and a stout tailwind helped. I was thinking course record. Thirty seconds later, I saw 8 mph and a 95% heart rate. My divine intervention abandoned me and was intervening on behalf of a more worthy recipient.

There is a small hill called Hawi or the climb to Hawi that needed to be assaulted and mastered. As hills go, it's a just hump in the road. We train on bigger hills on our Tuesday rides. So what was wrong with me that I was so freakin' tired? Maybe the gusting 90 degree side wind had a little bit to do with it. Maybe the 102 degrees was sucking the life right out of me.

I usually drink one water bottle per hour.  On the Queen K I was going through two to three per hour and two salt tabs per bottle.  It wasn't enough.  I was sloshing water around in my stomach like a washing machine and it wasn't near enough.  

We turned around somewhere short of Hawi and started downhill. I turned up the go-fast knob and saw 42mph while the lesser beings fell before me like wheat to the scythe. I was invincible. Then I got tired and had to pull over because I got a cramp. All of those lesser beings that I flew by passed me back. I think one guy flipped me off.  I limped into T2 tired but happy.

I really have no comment about the run because I am not a runner. I can run, I just choose not to. I don't do anything that I am the worst at. When I was in gradeschool, some kids would play football at recess, some would play basketball. I played football because I was the worst basketball player in school.

I do have comments about the walk. The walk was hot and really hard. I cramped every time a runner passed me. Some of the runners were limping and I would feel guilty as they passed me so I tried to run and it made me cramp so I walked again. I was cramping everywhere and didn't know how long I could fake my way through the event. I wanted to cry but no liquid was available for tears. I had only sand and some cartilage that wore off of my kneecaps.

I was still drinking a lot of water, but I wanted to throw up so I didn't get as much as I needed.  I knew what was happening to me but I couldn't do anything to stop it.  It was like watching the proverbial car wreck that you can't look away from.  My countdown clock was ticking.  I had three miles to go, so I made a deal with my stomach.  I promised to limit my drinking to three cups of water per water stop if my stomach promised to keep moving the water in one direction only.  No backwards plumbing allowed.  Then I had two miles to go, two cups of water per water stop.  One mile to go, one cup of water per stop.  I gagged at the thought of drinking more water.  I could barely get that last cup down.  I started to get chilled and sweaty at the same time.  

My favorite author of all time is Mitchener. If you haven't had the pleasure, you should know that when you read Mitchener, you get it all. You get a little bit of history, a good mix of fact and fiction, an interesting discussion of political and economic influences into how and why things are the way they are. Mostly, with Mitchener, you get a guy who perfected his craft. He described the world around him from a higher viewpoint that most of us have and we are all the richer for it. One of his literary devices was to insert seemingly innocuous characters into his story, slowly building the parts they played until they become interesting and in fact central to the theme. So, with that in mind, I have decided that the only recurring character in my blog, other than myself, would be the medical tent. For most triathletes, the medical tent is the thing you have to detour around to get to your car after the event. For me, it is my best friend.  As soon as I figure out how to put the medical tent on my Christmas card list, I am going to do it. 

I found myself in the medical tent being attended to by a young lady who was new to her profession. I saw that her handwritten name tag said 'Lisa' with a smiley face to dot the 'I', so to be polite and strike up a conversation, I asked her how long she had been a nurse, she smiled and nodded vigorously and said 'Not yet'. Then she told me her school project was to help old people as they transitioned to their final resting place while she was poking me in the arm with the wrong end of a needle. The first couple jabs were bunts that didn't bring the runner home so she just kept stabbing until she hit bone. Somewhere in there Lisa must have hit paydirt and got an IV in my arm fairly close to the vein. Good enough. Both Lisa and I opened our eyes at the same time.  Oh, and one more thing I learned, Lisa is going to Junior prom with Derek and has a new dress and Derek promised he will be released on good behavior a week before prom.

It was the strangest thing ever to see all the leg muscles I own contract and release as fast as they could. I think the right leg won, but honestly it was close. Both left and right legs put on a show. The various doctors, nurses and veterinary personnel in the medical tent were all were looking at me and pointing. They shook their collective heads and whispered under their breath. “Stupid bastard, he's not smart enough to stay home where he can't hurt himself. And think how his poor wife must feel, being married to ...that. Tsk tsk. I'll bet she has to hide the sharp knives.  It's so sad.”

About five minutes after young Eva Braun attached a second bag of brake fluid to my arm, a real nurse came by and asked how I was, I said all was well except the muscles in my neck were cramping now. She asked if I was having a heart attack. I said 'No, but Lisa is my doctor, you should ask her.' They did and Lisa pronounced me well enough to leave the medical tent.  All the nurses offered condolences to my wife and wished her well.

All kidding aside, if you find yourself in need of a quick tune up after the race, the volunteers do great work in the medical tent. Ask for Lisa as long as it isn't prom night.

The distance between the medical tent and the shuttle bus is accurately measured at six hundred thirty seven steps, each one less painful than the one before it.  The pain fades away with each step.  

Now, the day after the event, all that was wrong is now right.  I am sitting upright without assistance. Lisa is still writing "Derek loves Lisa" on admittance forms but now she dots the 'I' with a heart instead of a smiley face.  The busy bird still tends his flock of flowers in the palm tree that hinders my view.  

The many-fingered leaves of the palm wave just for me, riding the easy evening breeze, telling me all is well.   

The sun repeats its inevitable fall to the sea, yielding the sky to stars and moon and flying creatures of the night. It is my hope and belief that, no matter where we find ourselves, we should all experience the Kona breeze that cools bodies, soothes frayed nerves and makes me forget my blistered feet.

Cupcakes

From the first battle ever waged on planet Earth, in which a man's wealth and family were stolen shortly after a shard of obsidian was lodged in his head by his brother, to modern smart bombs that simultaneously place a lot of small rocks in a lot of heads, the goal has been the same, the only thing that has changed is the date and the distance between combatants. Right and wrong are still the emotional baggage we incorrectly ascribe to battle contestants. We justify the deed. Battles have been fought and won, or fought and lost, then heros and villains created out of the residue. The rightness of the battle is opened up for debate as we claim the title of hero for ourselves.

The great legions of Rome fought for many reasons; They fought for the glory of the city/state, they fought to feed themselves and protect their families, they fought to preserve a way of life. The fact that entire societies lost their collective lives in the process isn't really the point. The Romans fought for their own reasons and as long as they maintained the preeminence of the empire, they didn’t need to justify their reasons. History tells us that they succeeded for thousands of years, only failing in the end as a result of internal strife. Failure came from an unexpected direction, but it did come.

The Aztecs, the Incas and other less well known societies of the Americas achieved similar status by virtue of committing battle upon their neighbors and they achieved a similar fate, failing in the end. In their time, they were masters of their domain, inflicting their will upon all. When failure came, it was as unexpected as it was complete.

Such is the plight of man; To rise up, to fight and in the end to fail. The narrative is the same, a lack of originality being the only valid criticism of the human drive to conduct battle and dominate our competitors and our surroundings. The glory of the struggle is no less grand because another's battle predated our own.

Is it fair to ascribe a similar view to the pursuit of Ironman? I must honestly admit to the possibility that it's a little overblown to do so, but now, as we wing towards Kona, I feel the same sense of anticipation that the perhaps the Greek Hoplite felt before he took up spear and shield to defend his home and behead his neighbor. I feel a sense of purpose that comes only to those who achieve, or try to. While there isn't a long history of Ironman events ending in doom for the participants, we find ourselves waging war of a kind. We fight our personal fight for our own reasons and we justify the reasons for it only to ourselves. Our weapons are now a fast bike and a good pair of running shoes, but make no mistake, they are the weapons we use in the war we chose.

History is full of stories of battles fought and won, while little was written of battles lost. As the saying goes, the vanquished do not write history. Never was this more true than today in the airport. A fellow Kona half participant told me her story of perseverance in the face of certain doom two years ago at Ironman Coeur d' Alene. She barely escaped with her life, or so went her story that she related to me. It was inspirational. And long. And I wanted her to stop. I know the swim was hard. I was there. You don't have to tell me how hard it was, I know how hard it was, I had a really nasty rash where my wetsuit rubbed against my neck for crying out loud.

For her, the battle was the swim. She said that since she is a 'skinny girl', she had no body fat to protect her core temperature, and she was therefore disadvantaged in the swim. Boo Hoo. Eat some cupcakes. I was prepared for the cold swim. I spent the better part of my life eating plenty of cupcakes so that I could maintain a decent core temperature. Of course, she rallied and was able to push her bulimic one hundred seven pound frame to a four hour run and kicked my Ironman Coeur d'Alene finish time to the curb. What a whiner.

This brings me to my free advice that I offer to all interested: Don’t believe all the IM stories you hear. If triathletes have one thing in common its that they are all liars. Big. Fat. Liars. Except me. I blog and if its in a blog, its true. It must be. They wouldn't allow me to put it on the internet if it wasn’t true. Every word I write is a true and honest recitation of events just as they happened. Trust me.

Like the Romans, the Incas and the Aztecs, we find Ironman victory, or in my case, Ironman participation, to be glorious. Glorious and fleeting. In the end, we all fail. In the end, failure follows victory like night follows day. Knowing the difference between the two is where real heros find their true worth.

Sanctuarium

The books say you should taper a week or two before your event, but this is ridiculous.  I am taking the taper thing to heart and essentially stopped training a week ago.  Today I swam my last lake swim before Kona.  I went a little over a mile.  The closest I have come to a bike in the past two weeks has been a spin bike.  I don't run anymore.  I am going to try to run in Kona, but if that doesn't work out, my professional triathlon career might be over.  So that you don't think I am a complete fraud, I have to admit that I did go to yoga last week.  Twice.

If you haven't done it before, here is some free advice: Swimming alone in a big lake is more of a mental challenge than a physical one. You have lots of time to think about work, or mowing the lawn or getting your oil changed.  Sometimes when I am close enough to shore to see the bottom, I look for treasure or dead bodies. Staying focused is tough to do.  Today I was trying to fix my rather poor technique while I swam.  I usually think about one or two things to fix, like keeping my head down, pull all the way through, yadda yadda yadda, I have so many holes in my technique, its hard to choose just one thing to work on.  I considered working on my dog paddle technique, but I am a little too close to Kona to downshift that far.

When I swim, I usually keep an eye on who else is out there so that I don't get run over a speedboat, but today the lake traffic was pretty slow.  There were a couple guys in an old leaky rowboat down in the corner of the lake doing a poor imitation of fishermen and that was about it.  The lake was calm and flat and I was in my own little world swimming along minding my own business when out of nowhere a lady in a bright yellow kayak almost hit me with her paddle.  There is the rowboat and me and the lady in the bright yellow kayak on a lake seven square miles big and she attacks me with her paddle. How is this my fault?  I was there first.

I wanted to say something witty and several snarky remarks presented themselves for consideration, but she must have realized how wrong she was because she looked at me and smiled a big, perfect Pepsodent smile and said 'Nice stroke'.  Hmmm, this is now a completely different situation that it first seemed.  Hot girl, bright yellow kayak, recognizes a superior swimmer when she sees one, friendly with bright white incisors.  Now I get it.  The situation is completely obvious.  I said 'Sorry, I'm married' and swam home.

I am a list maker by avocation. Some people make bread, others knit, some people make chairs and tables. I make lists. If I could be so bold, I don't know anybody as good as I am at list making. My lists are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. My lists are near perfect.

The Kona Half Iron is just days away, which means it is time to start going through my checklists and making sure I have all my stuff ready to go. The first checklist I use is the equipment list, which in my case is a color-coded list with headings and indentation, an index and footnotes, broken into five parts. The titles of the five sections are Swim, Bike, Run, Nutrition and Hydration, and Other. I would be willing to share my equipment list with interested parties, for a nominal fee. The second appendix alone is worth the price, it's that good.

Here is the Cliffs Notes version.

Swim – goggles, tri suit and my lucky ankle strap. I don't need my wetsuit and I get a swim cap in Kona.

Bike – bike, shoes, helmet, gloves, glasses, socks.

Run – race belt and shoes and fresh socks.

Nutrition – salt tabs and I like a pbj in my special needs bag and I am going to pick up some Boost in Kona.

Other – bag balm. I use lots of bag balm. I put that stuff everywhere.

I have another list, my 'Get Your Head Right' list that I read just before race time. Strictly speaking it isn't a list at all, but a two page dissertation meant to inspire me as well as serve as a reminder to use lots of bag balm. You can't forget the bag balm.

I was trying to augment my Get Your Head Right list with a little more detail so I was searching around for some inspirational quotes when I sort of stumbled onto this sanctuary thing. To start with, I read that the word sanctuary is derived from the Latin 'sanctuarium'. So that's good.

According to legend, sanctuary was a place of safety that was available centuries ago, sometimes in churches, to travelers and those in need. I don't know if that's myth or fact, but I was noodling that around and I think I have a new race plan for Ironman events. I am going to do the best I can and then if I hit the wall, or more accurately, when I hit the wall, I am going to head to a nearby church for some R and R. Instead of finishing the run, I am going to have my feet up somewhere watching SportsCenter. I might catch a few Z's. Anyway, that's my race plan from here on out.

Five days seventeen hours before the gun.  Kona here I come.

John Wayne

About twenty years ago a friend and I were having a beer and talking about sports or politics or whatever and somehow the conversation drifted into the different foods that we grew up with. My family was middle America white bread and mayo, which means I can still get the same crappy food I grew up with if I just dash down to the Safeway, but my buddy grew up on the south side of Chicago and I guess they do things a little differently there. One of the foods that he had tried when he was a kid was haggis, which he said was a real treat if you hate good food. To make haggis, he told me you take a sheep liver, sheep heart and a sheep tongue and chop them up, mix in some suet and some oats, then put it in a sheep stomach and boil the whole thing for six hours. Yummy.

I don't want to make too big a deal out of it, but that conversation and the idea of eating some freshly made haggis has stayed with me all these years and it comes down to this; I need to eat some haggis. I cant stop thinking about it. My buddy said its hard to find good haggis unless you have a friend who's Grandma makes it fresh, and since I don't know anybody who has haggis for Sunday dinner, I am in sort of a bind. So I looked around and called a couple of the local restaurants and was surprised to find that haggis is something that you can't get in my zip code, so I am working on a plan to travel to Scotland to get some fresh yummy haggis. While I am there, I might wander around and see if a triathon pops up.

That whole thought process is sort of how I ended up committing to do the Kona half. They don't have haggis there, but still, a buddy and I were having a glass of wine and talking about sports or politics or whatever and somehow the conversation wandered into the best vacation places in the world. After talking it over, we agreed that the best thing we could do would be to go lay on the beach in Hawaii and drink a bunch of icy cold fruity drinks with the little umbrellas in them that were delivered by a saucy cocktail waitress on the beach in Hawaii. While we are there, if a triathlon wandered across our path, we might join in.

That is how I make the major decisions in my life. I find some small, inconsequential thing I want, like haggis, or laying on the beach and drinking icy drinks brought by a saucy cocktail waitress, then I spend five thousand dollars to make it happen. It's my haggis method.

For the past ten days, I have been having an emotional strikeout. It went like this –

Strike One - This one is job related.  Every six weeks, my employer requires I be 'oncall', which means I cant go anywhere without my phone, and that means I can't swim for a week.  I don't have a waterproof phone.

Strike Two -  I had to ship my bike to Kona, so I can't ride. No bike, no ride.

Strike Three - This was when I tried to run, I didn't make it ten feet. I had knee issues. My knee hates me and I hate it. I hate it so very,very much. My knee hurt so bad I was considering my triathlon future, or lack thereof. I know other people have a tougher road to travel than I do, but still, I was depressed. I honestly stared at the wall for an entire day. I wasn't suicidal, but you could have tempted me to go there with a twinkie.

All of that is behind me. Today I ran and I made it two miles before I had to sit and rub my knee and sniffle. Yaaaaa for me! It might seem like a junior varsity effort to you, but to me it's the world.  The swelling should go down tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.

My wife took my dog to the vet and got some pills because he is limping.  I don't know what is wrong with him, other than he is a little overweight and he runs too much and his knee hurts.  Wait,do dogs have knees?  I don't know but he is limping for the past few weeks.  His knee hurts so bad he can barely rustle up the energy to tip the garbage can over on the kitchen floor to sort the coffee grounds out from the meat scraps.  My wife took pity on the poor creature and took him to the vet and now he gets some doggy knee pills.  I get to sweep up the coffee grounds. 

I used to think John Wayne and I traveled the same path and were metaphysically bound together for eternity.  He made movies, I like movies.  I wanted to be a cowboy, he was a cowboy.  He was rich, I like money too.  We were exactly the same person.  But now he is dead so I don't want to be metaphysically bound to him any more.  As I write this, it occurs to me that my dog and I are more closely suited to each other than John Wayne and I.  And that is Strike Four.