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?”