Carmels

There are few things in life sweeter than a well deserved caramel. I think we can all agree on that, men and women alike. Eating caramels is orgasmic. So, taking the scenic tour to the end of this vignette, last Tuesday, Duane and I went to Pons' Studio to spin class. Francisco Pons is a great spin instructor, and we left after 90 minutes feeling tired, but not satisfied. So, usually after going to spin on Tuesday, we end up at this bar eating bar food and drinking three - 20 ounce glasses of some sport recovery drink that they have on tap there. Its a great place that has six different channels of ESPN. There is ESPN, ESPND, ESPN2, ESPN2D and ESPN8, 'the ocho'.

The problem is that the bar we like is run by a self proclaimed virgin with an under performing thyroid who camps at our table and discusses her personal life ad nauseum. She has no verbal filter; whatever is on her mind is immediately barfed forth by her magnificently efficient vocal cords. Apparently, her boyfriend can't close the deal.  When she told that story, I was interested, but now, after hearing it and a dozen others, I just don't care.  It makes my sports drink taste like old socks as soon as she drops by our table with a new story.  We gotta find a new hangout.

So last Tuesday we wander down the street looking for a new place. We almost went into Ray's BBQ. That could have been good. I mean, who doesn't like BBQ? They had an Olympia beer sign in the window. I am thinking that they stopped making Oly in 1979 and this place either stocked up or the bartender is too lazy to take down the Oly sign and put up the Buckhorn sign. Either way, it was really tempting, but then we saw a mexican place right across the street. We went in there.

The mexican place was redecorated during the Reagan administration. They had shag carpet. The walls were painted a pastel pink that had attracted enough dust to qualify for a farm subsidy.

Then, the topper was there was a plastic donkey pulling a plastic wagon with a plastic Corona bottle in the wagon on the wall next to the 48 inch HD flat screen. You could watch the game on the tv, then you glanced to the left just a bit and there was the donkey, pulling the wagon. The donkey was smiling, I kid you not. Perfect, my kind of place. This is way better than the fat virgin bartender at the other place.

So, we are drinking our sports drinks, eating the triathlon training recovery chips, which are free by the way, and the bartender is switching the tv back and forth between the SEC basketball tourney and a rerun of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel are working in the chocolate factory and the chocolates keep coming faster and faster. That kills me. You need to watch Lucy and Ethel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI

So everytime he switches the channel, the tv takes a second to switch and I keep looking at that smiling donkey pulling the wagon. Is this a great place or what? Anyway, we order dinner, the guy suggests the street tacos. For six bucks on the happy hour menu, you get three tacos. We ask how long happy hour runs, because it is getting close to 10pm and he says it runs all night.  Seriously?  I ask if they rent rooms in the back.  I am thinking of moving in. I mean really, happy hour runs all night?

So we get our tacos. They are good. They taste like caramels. Caramel tacos.

Yesterday I ran 4 miles.  That was good.  Today I swam.  I cramped.  Everywhere.  I had cramps in new places.

Does anybody else think Gillette razors are overpriced? Do I need a seven blade razor with a vibrating head?   

The Reaper

Everybody thinks they will live forever, or at least it seems that way. We ignore the fact that God didn't issue a warranty when we left the factory. We are all going to die. It's the one truth in this life and we all try to ignore it, just like we try to ignore the hillybilly neighbor who's kid attends the same school as our kids because, unlike his unwed parents, that lucky kid hit the genetic lottery by having an IQ high enough to be the first in his family to finish grammar school.

I went to a wake recently. There were maybe sixty or seventy people in attendance and even though 50% of the attendees were statistically unlikely to see more that three or four more good years, the one valuable lesson we could have learned was missed.  I know death is painful for the survivors. The family of the decedent was upset and needed to share something profound. I understand. Just by being together at the wake we shared something valuable, but we missed the hard lesson.  We were looking in the wrong direction. It's like the guy with the coin that disappears from his left hand and shows up in his right. We were looking at the wrong thing at the wrong time.

The wake was in a nice room with a good view of some grass and and some trees, the carpet didn't have any gum in it and that is about the best you can expect at a wake. There was a microphone passed around and people talked about the guy who died. They talked about his life, or more accurately they talked about some of the highlights of his life. I listened.  Nobody mentioned the bad stuff, then we had some hors d'oeuvres. That just seems to be what you do at these things. I don't know why.

Here is my idea; Keep the microphone thing, but change the topic. We could have spent the time talking about those who are still standing and what we can do with the rest of the day.  I am not being disrespectful, or at least I am not trying to be. I know it sounds unconventional or wrong or somehow seems to be not a very Christian thing to do, but before you dismiss it, just consider it. The guy who passed is gone. It's over for him. At this point, he doesn't care one way or the other.  It matters for the rest of us who are still here.  We are are all going to get on the same bus someday, with the prepaid fare and no refunds. So why not improve things before we are done? Why not do it better? Or try to? Why not take the chance and start our lives now, right from this point in time?   Live like there is no tomorrow? Save a kitten if that is what you want to do. Save a soul. Do whatever it is that makes you live a better life, given what time you have left.  The opportunity is now.  Choose to live with purpose.

I want to do this because it makes sense to me. I wasn't close with the guy who passed, so I don't know if he would have liked my idea or not, but I don't care. I like it. I am going to do it. I am going to try to live as Thoreau suggested.  Its a bold step for me.

And if I can quote that great philosopher/poet/author

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Your chance of dying is the same no matter what you do. There are no death alternatives. The undeniable scythe of the Reaper gleans a daily harvest of human wheat with quarter given to none. Go forth deliberately.  

The Kindness of Strangers

I swam this morning in the pool with Duane at the 24 hour pool.  We did a warm up, followed by five 200's with negative splits, followed by five 150's with negative splits, followed by five 50's with negative splits, but that isn't what I am writing about.  I am writing about the lady in lane one that was seemingly overcome with rage when we entered her space and moved her cheese.  See, here's the deal; we all pay the same 25 bucks a month or whatever it is to the 24 hour adult day care corporate money laundering scheme.  For that overpriced purchase, I get the privilege of using the facilities, just like everybody else.  Some of the machines at 24 hour are single use machines, like the stairmaster.  If the psycho neurotic pussycat in lane one was on the stairmaster, I wouldn't have asked to share it.  Or, if there were already six people swimming in lane one, I wouldn't have asked to share it.  But since she was alone and the other lanes were busy too, we jumped in with her and politely asked her if we could share the lane.  She snarled like a panther about to garrote an antelope on the African Savanna.  I think she said something like "I do NOT want to share this lane" or whatever it was, I wasn't listening closely since I was staring at the fire coming out her left nostril.  Honestly, she sort of scared me so I said "Thank You" and followed Duane, who had already grabbed a chunk of the pool in her majesty's lane.  She moved to another lane as we weren't 'her kind of people'.

When I was growing up, I had a dog that bit my cousin. That dog was a great dog, and I loved her dearly.   She was a protector, a companion, a best friend.  One day, the dog bit my cousin.  Five stitches later, my cousin was fine. So my Mom had my Dad shoot the dog in the head with a 7mm semi-automatic Browning.  My Mom told me when I came home from school that the dog had to go live on a farm.  I was ten.  I didn't figure it out for like six or eight years that the dog may have gone on to live on a farm, but the farm was only a farm in the spiritual sense.  Anyway, that dog was a great dog and I loved her, but she had that one small bad habit.  The lady in the pool this morning had no redeeming value.  It begs the question:  What would my Mom have told my Dad to do?

So an hour and a half later, we go to Starbucks for some overpriced hot water in a cup and who should be there?  The Wicked Witch of the West.  Go figure.  She was ahead of us in line.  I wanted to ask if it was ok if I went in front of her in line, just to see if the right nostril could spew fire like the left one, but I was afraid she had a gun.  Some days are like that.

I just got back from a week in Phoenix.  I was working so its not a big deal, since I was inside all day, every day but it snowed while I was there.  In Phoenix.  Snow.

A big "congrats" to Nurse Joanie.

Venture Capital

I met a guy who has something to do with venture capital. When I met him, we were in a loud room full of overdressed loud talkers, so I couldn't really understand everything he said, but it doesn't matter much for this story. As far as I know, he is a scam artist or steals little kids milk money, but it really doesn't matter. It is just that I thought of a business idea about 20 minutes ago and I was wondering where I was going to get the 500 grand to get my business off the ground. He is the only venture capitalist I know. Well, I only know his first name so the chances of getting a quick half mil out of him are not great. I can't get fifty cents out of my best friends. Tightwads.

Anyway, I was at the gym working out on the stair climber. I suffered there for twenty minutes, spraying sweat over the girl who was looking in her makeup mirror two rows in front of me on the treadmill, then I went home, then I thought of an idea. Its this; go around the country to every health club in America, hook up a generator to every spin bike, tread mill and stair climber, then wire them all into a big battery in my garage. I can then sell the energy to the power company. So the math is pretty good, if I can get the scam artist guy to front the cost of the generators and the wire.

Anyway, that stair climber is a monster. I do not like it, Sam I Am. I am working out about six hours a week right now. Maybe seven. I need to push that up to nine or ten pretty soon. If I add the stair climber to my routine, I will maybe cut back to three hours.

How much chocolate should I incorporate into my diet?

Join the Training Revolution

I am drinking coffee out of an Ironman branded coffee mug while I type this. I should get up and go run, but the coffee is pretty good and 'Law and Order' is on, so maybe I will just wait a bit and see what happens. Every time I drink out of my Ironman cup, I feel just a little closer to being ready for IM AZ. I am doing a lot of research on this topic, drinking coffee out of the cup, putting my feet up, storing gylocogen for future Ironman event use. I have read all the Ironman training books and I swear, the coffee cup training tip isn't in any of them. I share this with all my readers in the hope that someday, sanity and scientific methods are used in training, instead of fairy tales.  Running sucks and I think it does more damage than good.  The right coffee cup, used judiciously, can get you to Kona.

I look at it like Copernicus looked at the solar system. Every training expert claims that you need to run or swim or whatever to get ready for Ironman. I say no.  The earth is not the center of the solar system!  Running makes your knees hurt!  Am I the only one who sees the truth?  Get yourself a proper Ironman cup and drink your way to fitness. You don't need to run yourself to death to train for Ironman, you just need an Ironman coffee cup. Join the revolution!

I ran thursday morning. I was going to run four miles, but due to events beyond my control, I ended up running about five. I was running and as usual I got hot, so I took my sweatshirt off and left it on a rock by the side of the trail, planning on picking it up on the way back. My four mile training route isn't a loop, it's an out and back thing, so on the way back, I was hurting and I forgot to pick up my sweatshirt.  I ran past it. I was half way home before I remembered my sweatshirt.  I had to go back.  See!  It just proves my point.  If I had gone the coffee cup route, I wouldn't have forgotten the sweatshirt.  It all fits.  Copernicus and I see further, where others are blind.

So later that afternoon, my training buddies decide they want to swim. I didn't want to go because I know what happens when I run before I swim. I cramp. Everybody cramps when they swim after they run. It just happens. But I want to support my training buddies so I go swim. Big mistake. I am 15 minutes into an hour workout and my cramps start. My second toe on my right foot is the canary in the crampy coal mine. When it fires, I know the rest of my leg muscles are going to run straight to cramptown any minute. Sure enough, I lock up like a bank vault below the waist. I can barely get to the end of the 25 yard pool without crying like a school girl. I tried to elicit some sympathy from my training partners, explaining how bad my cramps are, they tell me to suck it up. My hands are under water so I flip them off. My middle finger isn't cramped yet so that is really the only thing I can do. It's a defense mechanism.

This Year

316 days to go until Ironman AZ. It sounds like a long time and I guess it is. That is like 25 generations of houseflies.  I read that adult female houseflies lay about 120-150 eggs at a whack, so, if a housefly flew into my house and layed eggs and all those eggs grew up and made more houseflies, by the time IM AZ rolls around, we would have like a zillion houseflies in my house. I don't know what that has to do with Ironman, but I just thought of it so I figured I better write it down before I forgot. I do that more and more. Forget. Wait. What? What was I talking about?

It's a new year and that makes me think I had better be a traditionalist and reflect on the past year, for good or ill. So let's get started; I had a good 2012. I finished an Ironman. I started to change my wardrobe from an all-Cougar thing to an all-Ironman thing. My coug gear was getting a little threadbare and honestly, although I know I look good in crimson and gray, it is rather limiting. I mean, you can't wear it everywhere. I have one Husky friend and I can only wear my coug gear to his house on game day or weekends. Anyway, I now am the proud owner of four Ironman t-shirts, two Ironman coffee cups, one Ironman trailer hitch ornament and a couple of Ironman fleece pullovers. I plan on acquiring another dozen or so shirts/coats and maybe some socks. My wallet is so old the money I put in it falls out the bottom and I saw that you can get an Ironman wallet so I asked for one for Christmas but my family decided I needed an espresso machine instead. I guess they know best.

Another thing I like to do at the beginning of a year is to try to do some honest self-critical analysis. Self-critical analysis is what I do when I look in the mirror and be truthful. It's hard to do.  If I had a drug habit or sold my body to lusty middle aged women for cash, I might stop taking drugs.   Most years, I look in the mirror and say 'perfect, don't change a thing.' But yesterday when I looked in the mirror, I spotted a few gray hairs. That surprised me.  I don't know where they came from.  At first, I thought I just needed to clean the mirror. Nope. Crap.

I was just trying to post this blog and I hit the wrong button and I stumbled into the configuration section for my blog.  I didn't know I had a config section until just now.   It looks like I can change the color or the background or post pictures of my dog.  Maybe there is more there, I sort of skimmed through it.  Anyway, I guess I can monitize this blog.  I am not sure, but I think for every thousand views, I get a quarter.  Right now I have 1700 views in the past year so that works out to small fortune.  I wonder what that will do to my tax bracket?  Maybe they will pay me in cash.

So the plan is to train for 316 days, then go to Arizona, knock out a quick Ironman, buy some more overpriced clothes with Ironman stamped on them, then fly to Hawaii for 2 weeks. At least, that is my plan. The rest of the world will just have to take care of itself.

Volunteer

A couple months ago, my group of training buddies and I had just finished IM Coeur d'Alene and had entered the 'recovery' phase of the training cycle. That means we were either drinking wine or eating ice cream while watching preseason football with our feet up on the couch. At least, that was my interpretation of 'recovery'. I mixed it up one time and poured red wine over vanilla ice cream. It's pretty good. I let the ice cream melt a little then stirred it up and drank it like a milkshake. Don't knock it until you try it.

So one day, we were trying to figure out how long we could extend the recovery thing before we clogged up some of the important arteries when somebody decided that we should sign up for Ironman Arizona 2013. At the time, it sounded like it might be sort of fun and it was so far in the future, it didn't really seem like a big deal, so I said sure, let's do it. In retrospect, it's like Archduke Ferdinand deciding to take a couple days off in Sarajevo. He probably asked himself, “What's the worst that could happen?”

So a few weeks ago, we are making plans to sign up for the event. All I want to do is pay 700 bucks for the T-shirt. It really is that simple. I could save myself a lot of pain and trouble if they just asked people if they wanted to pay the 700 and compete, or pay the 700 and get the shirt. I bet a lot of folks would go the easy route. I could save a lot of people a lot of pain and injury if they would just listen to my good ideas.

The problem with IM AZ is that it sells out within a few minutes. If you don't get in, you don't get in. There isn't a waiting list. So what you have to do is volunteer for the event the year before you want to compete. You fly down to Tempe, get a place to stay, show up the day of the event and hand out water or whatever it is they need help with. Volunteers get first shot at signing up. Duane and Jim and I did that. John followed a more circuitous route, but he is getting to the same end.

So we are getting on the airplane to go to Phoenix and there in the seat next to me is my buddy Tim and his wife Carin. Tim works for WSU. Tim and Carin and I went to school together. I think Tim is a president of this or that for WSU, I can't really figure out what he does. I think universities are like corporations, they hand out titles like Halloween candy. Whoever comes to the door gets a title.

Brrrinnnnggg! Brrrinnnngggg! “Trick or Treat!”

“Here you go, Mr vice-president in charge of watercooler consumption monitoring. Here you go Ms vice-president in charge of self validation and attitude optimization.” I think that is how it works, but I am not the vice-president of anything so what do I know?

I asked Tim and he told me what his title is but I immediately forgot because it was like seven words long. So I asked him what he actually does, but it doesn't make sense. He said he has to go to all the Cougar games and talk to people. That is his job. I call bullshit. Nobody has a job going to football games. Maybe if he held the yard marker sticks on the side of the field, I would buy it, but he said no, he goes to the games and talks to people. He doesn't announce the players as they run on the field, he doesn't hand out the football or flip the coin or hand out a face towel. He goes to the game and talks to people. And they pay him for this. Like I said, I call bullshit.

I don't know if it's me or what, but I think the Hindu's nailed it with the whole karma thing. It seems like for everything under the sun, there is balance. Remember that point, we will get back to it.

So while we are on the plane, I am talking to Tim and Carin and they ask if I am flying down Phoenix to go to the game. I had no idea it was an option. Apparently, the WSU athletic department heard I was going to volunteer for IM AZ, so they scheduled a football game in Phoenix so I could go to the game and volunteer too. Isn't that nice? Going to the game all the sudden seemed like a great idea. It was like I was walking through a parking lot and found a nickel and two pennies on the ground. All I had to do was pick up the money. It's free. That made my day. This trip was perfect and nothing bad could happen. I should have known better.

All is well. We were living off the fat of the land. With no effort or forethought, we fell into the perfect 78 degree, sunshine blessed perfect day. We left the rainy deluge that is Seattle and found ourselves in that dry, sun of the southland, you can be outside if you want to kind of day. We were all smiling and didn't know why. We laughed just because we were happy to be alive. So then, we pay 35 bucks to sit in the stands at ASU and watch the Cougs put the hurt on the Sun Devils. Some young ladies, beautiful in body and spirit, sit in front of us and giggle. All is well. Then, without warning, the sky opened up and doom descended and cast it's foul hand upon me. The game started and the smell of death passed my nostrils. I had to watch a bunch of thugs kick the living crap out of my Cougs. It was a disaster. On the first play, they sack our quarterback. On the second play, they sack our coach. On the third play, our coach's dog is pregnant. It wasn't good. So that was karma event #1.

We left at halftime crying like school girls. Speaking of school girls, there is a bar somewhere in Phoenix called “The Tilted Kilt” When I heard we were going there, I asked why it was called that. Somebody, I don't remember who, it might have been Duane, said he heard it was a pub with a tartan plaid interior decoration scheme. I think he said that there were bibles on all the tables and the servers were elderly snobirders looking to augment their fixed income. If we were lucky, we might get one of the servers to sing a Scottish folk song. Some of those octogenarians can really belt out a melody. Sounds perfect, I felt like I could drink a beer there and find solace in those peaceful surroundings. I was misled. They don't have a plaid color scheme at all. The walls are plain and if truth be told, not very clean. Well over half of the servers are not octogenarians at all. Anyway, we get there and whatever happened there is a mystery. I have no memory at all except it was about 4pm when we got there and we walked out five hours later and I couldn't see very well. It was dark and cold and I threw up a little bit in my mouth. I smelled like ladies perfume and chicken wings. So that is karma event #2.

We get up the next morning at o'dark thirty and drive to our assigned station to volunteer. We put in 5 hours of volunteer time. That gives us the right to sign up for IM AZ. So we thought. It actually isn't that clear cut. What it really does is it gives you the right to get in line to sign up. The logic goes like this; there are only so many spots available in any race. I don't think they publish that number, but I am guessing that it is around 2500 – 2800 racers in any race. The racers from the current race get first shot at the next race. That sort of makes sense. If a guy races 10 years in a row, and the race gets more popular, he should get first shot at the next race. It isn't his fault the race got more popular. So lets say there are 2600 slots and the race is full. Half of this years racers are going to sign up for next year. So there are 1300 slots open for next year. Now, there are 4000 volunteers and almost all of them I met were volunteering so that they could sign up for next year. Somehow, the math isn't working out. Anyway, we get in line and we estimate there are 1200 -1500 people ahead of us. It's hard to know for sure. It was a big line. We did eventually get to sign up and that's good, but I tell you all of that because while we are standing in line, we were talking to the people around us and mostly to three gals who were also volunteering so they could sign up. They were nice and seemed friendly. That is sort of the thing about Ironman. Nice people.

Anyway, as a wrap up, I am shooting for IM AZ 1 year from now.  I gotta start training.  Maybe tomorrow. After all, what't the worst that could happen?