Live the Dream, Darn It!

So I must have behaved somewhat over the weekend having dropped four pounds when I weighed in on Monday. I'm still not happy with myself but so what? There are a lot of people not happy with Bill probably.

I've been on the stairclimber, on the spinner on a real bike (not so much) and after commuting home on one yesterday in the heat of the day decided to drive in today. Gosh that was awful and they're (yes 'they') doing all sorts of unnanounced to Bill work on the local rec center forcing me into a goFast type cyclocross event. This was unwanted and made me grumpy but probably not as grumpy as this dude (hmmmm, did you know if you drop the 'e' from dude you get dud? What's it mean? What's it meeeaaaaannnnn???) who was riding my butt in his car during my cranky ride home. I finally pull over since I was going to have to go wide to pass these parked cars and began motioning him with my head to pass my slow, sweaty ass.

He guns it, swings around me and literally pulls into the driveway three feet in front of me. I laugh, take a swig from the water bottle and wait for him to get out of the car so I could apologize for slowing him down. He sits in his car, idling waiting for me to leave figuring I was going to scream at him or something.

The ride home had that kind of vibe.

Sunday (the Lord's day) I'm out on some death march with the dog and my wife. We're in a park near my daughter's middle school and I come across something that forced me to take a snapshot with my crappy first generation iPhone camera:

Can't quite make that out huh? Well let's zoom in a bit - you'll thank me that the camera is so low rez it actually turns reality into some Monet view of the world. Your puny mind can't handle the high rez version.

mmhmm. Here in Ohio there are bikini clad girls willing to let middle aged men take their picture with a dog on Sunday. I don't think this was for the high school yearbook but who knows? Anyway I tip my morning Starbucks in salute to this young lady. Live the dream and I truly hope to see you on the cover of Sports Illustrated one day having come from such a humble beginning!

I hope you're living your dream too!

Reflections

I look back on this week through a haze of I don't know what. It just sits back there with little glimmers of memory blinking back in some fog.

I'm in Cincy, baking at the woman's ATP tennis tournament. I'm watching Ivanovic retiring from her semifinal match against Clijsters after stubbing her toe or something. If it wasn't so incredibly hot I'd probably be irritated but I just don't care, the heat sapping my interest.

Ivanovic Watching A Ball Sail By Before Defaulting

My wife and I are staggering around looking at various matches and booths. We go over to court 2 and watch some dudes trying to qualify for the men's tourny next week. Everyone is crammed under the only shade you can find except this maniac.

Mr. Lonely Enjoys Some Tennis

Then we come across Clijsters giving some post match interview which I couldn't hear but imagine had a lot of insightful questions on how she got Ivanovic to stub her toe.

Clijsters Refuses to Reveal Her Toe Stubbing Secret

After enduring that heat I got so grumpy I had the dog spayed.

 The Cone of Shame

I do a 22 mile bike ride over the weekend, continuing exploring Plain City. I think I'm reconciling myself to a life of mediocrity on the bike. I don't think that century is gonna happen this year. I also started a 'reset' at the gym. I'm going back to brutal honesty and frankly I don't like what I see but this approach works better than lying to myself.

So I'm inward bound and hitting the gym again with something approaching stonewashed enthusiasm. I'm trying to get past the way this girl feels. I took this picture on the way out of a local water park.

 Great job on hiding the hangover, thumbs up!

Offensively Inoffensive

My son and I have been on a bit of a movie binge of late. I finally saw Watchmen which was a great rendition of the - what's the pretentious word for comic book? - oh yeah, graphic novel. It's a dark story that lacks a 'typical' (e.g. Superman saves the day at the last second) happy ending. The guy who played Rorschach was awesome. Check it out. It's dark, moody and thoughtful if you're in the mood for that.

It took me an hour and a half to 'size' the spinner today, and I'm taking all sorts of static for it. A needs a name is asking if all I plan to do is set something, get off the bike and set something else. ponyTail asks if I'm ever going to get on the thing and start working out. Her comment startles me, she just seemed to appear out of no where.

You can't help but like ponyTail if you're fortunate enough to get to kinda know her. She has a sarcastic view of some things that make you grin in agreement. She tells me that she was hiding behind the pillar of shame when I walked in. The 'pillar of shame' is this one corner of the gym that has some exercise equipment in front of it that forms a pillar. You can position yourself in that area in such a way that you don't feel like you're on display to the cardio crowd. I like to hide there myself when doing crunches or some Bubbles invented abomination on a BOSU.

I'm starting work on the spinner getting as into it as I can given my mindset, letting The Pogues drift into my head, "So be easy and free when you're drinking with me..."

awesomeGirl is over to my right looking like she's enjoying her time on the recumbent about as much as she would serious time with the dentist. I don't know what to say to her but I fully understand her expression.

J-TOSRV comes in followed by her hubby D-TOSRV and I grin over to her while Irish despair wails in my ears, "And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore. The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war..." She beelines for the spinner next to me and I point out that it's seat is currently broke. She frowns, "When will you be off the bike?"

I look down at 27 minutes remaining and reply, "In about a minute." I'm feeling like gabbing with ponyTail at the moment anyway since I haven't seen her in forever. As I'm wiping down the bike J-TOSRV begins offering it to her hubby. I'm having none of that noise! Her hubby can wait and I tell her so. If she's not gonna use the bike then I'll wrap up my workout. D-TOSRV is cracking up and heads towards an elliptical.

I stroll over to ponyTail who's doing something awful to herself on a floor mat. I mention that she is just getting prettier and prettier while I'm grabbing a exercise ball to do crunches on. This flusters her so much that she loses count, gets up and glares/grins at me.

Upon reflection I think we all need to hear that from time to time. You work your butt off in the gym and you want third parties to notice you're dropping pounds, firming up, whatever. That doesn't mean you want to be hit on or get married or any of that you just want noticeable results. ponyTail gets that, even from an apostate gym rat such as myself, she knows that I recognize the effort going into her workout so I'm mystified on exactly how we ended up on the subject of the anti-harassment course we all have to take at work.

I plan to take that course in a few minutes and get it out of the way. It's an online course and ponyTail is giving me some of the skinny like how the course carefully skates around offensive language/topics while simultaneously trying to instruct you on offensive language and topics. Apparently "rear end" is used as opposed to butt, like our kids do before bursting into giggles.

I can't wait to witness this exercise in delicate instruction for the easily offended. I'll probably find it offensively inoffensive.

I head out to start my busy day hoping it's going to be as great as the morning was. My family and I might be heading to a jazz concert at the gym this evening. I hope so but we'll have to lie to my daughter most likely telling her they'll be playing hits from Sweeny Todd - actually that might not be a lie since there were no hits from Sweeny Todd.

Have a superior weekend!

Laurie Juspeczyk: Do you remember that crazy guy? What did he call himself... Captain Carnage. The one who used to pretend he was a super villain just so he could get beaten up all the time?

Dan Dreiberg: Yeah, he tried that on me once. I just walked away. He starts following me down the street in broad daylight, yelling 'Punish me! Punish me!' I'm just saying 'No! Get lost.'
 
Laurie Juspeczyk: God. Whatever happened to him?
 
Dan Dreiberg: Well, he pulled that on Rorschach, and Rorschach dropped him down an elevator shaft.
 
[pause, then both laugh]
 
Laurie Juspeczyk: Oh my god. That isn't even funny.
 
Dan Dreiberg: [laughing] It is a *little* funny.

Watchmen

Rum, Sodomy and the Lash

McBeal looks inquisitively at me, "You like Rihanna?"

I don't know. Crap er music appears on my iPod all the time that mystifies me. I reply, "My daughter probably put that on..." I'll have to listen to Disturbia at some point, it may provide insight on where her head's at, though I doubt it.

I'm kinda doing this Getting Reacquainted Tour in the gym although I don't know if that's what it will be or not. A lot of the regulars are there and they seemed glad to see me. goodMood bought me a bottle of water while I was hurting myself on a spinner since I forgot mine. That was GREAT! goodMood was glaring down at me from his StairClimber throne when I entered the gym. As I was futzing with the spinner he was asking all sorts of questions about it. He's 'spinner curious' the poor baby. I'll probably be shoving him off the darned thing after awhile but the boy needs a break from that stair climber.

Diablo is by me pointing out that the other spinner is broke with parts on order. My cynical side fires up and I mentally think, "That didn't take long." He's also got a few emails out on my Heart Rate monitor problem, trying to figure out how the machine can read ANT+ devices. He's also asking if there's anything he can do about my current malaise. I don't know but I appreciate the offer.

awesomeGirl also greeted me in the morning saying it was good to see me.

My wife and I went to the Dublin Irish Festival on Friday and listening to some of the Irish folk songs brought to mind The Pogues' album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. I went looking for it on the iPod but alas it had been replaced with Rihanna I guess. I'm fixing that situations right now...

It was nice to be back, even if only for a bit, though I hope longer :-)

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town - Dirty Old Town

Addict, Burnout, Bitterness

I'm pondering a mess-o-stuff at the moment trying to figure out my next moves as I stumble on this whole exercise thing.

I have an addictive personality plain and simple. So I came roaring out of the gates on this exercise in futility and now I'm just plain tired and bored. It's tough (for me anyway) to keep up the interest in going into the gym, working out and seeing no measurable results what-so-ever for the last month or so. Just fatigue, soreness and despair.

Despair? As I babble this into the blog it sounds both right and wrong. From what I've read (which is increasingly little) I'm on a 'plateau' and I can't seem to find the right alchemy to break through that.

I took the bike out yesterday for the first time since my sixty miler. I pressed myself a bit and got my overall average up ti 15.5mph for 17.5 miles on the bike. It was OK but in casual conversation others are doing better.

I don't think I'll be doing a 'event' type of century this year, I'm in a far more self destructive mood and am considering taking the bike out fifty miles and having to return to get the century in. TomS tells me I have to let go of this century thing but I don't wanna.

I have this mental image of me coming back from the century looking a lot like Keith Richards rasping, "Weigh me, WEIGH ME!" I wonder if I can do it...

On a far cooler note, bikerBabe has crossed 3,000 miles on her bike this year. She eats centuries like a fistful of granola. Way to go bikerBabe!