Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I am not going to the gym on Christmas day or Christmas Eve or the day before Christmas Eve and probably not on the day after Christmas, either. Ha!

I am talking to various people I know about triathlons, though, people who have competed in them before in the past. I suppose I'm looking for a general consensus as to whether or not they are fun or just a goal that you suffer through and once done, never want to do again. This is probably the wrong way to look at it, but that's how I'm currently viewing it. I guess it's because I look at marathons that way. So many people just want to do one to say they did it and I'm like, "I had 2 knee surgeries. Why don't you have a knee surgery just to say you did it?" And yes, this is totally the wrong attitude.

I'm pretty sure if triathlons involved leaping through fire, like the Warrior Dash did, and climbing obstacles and steep hills and swimming far out to grab some brass ring and mountain biking through a motorcross trail instead of racing street bicycles and all that then I would look at it as a challenge that I really thought was worthwhile. And mostly this would be because to me that sort of race sounds like fun.




I know I'll never set a new Personal Record in any race, whether running or cycling or swimming ... Well, that's not entirely true. I've never competed in a bicycle race or swim meet, so any time I set is my new PR. Still, I'll always know that whatever time that is won't be as good or as fast as I could've done back when I was young and skinny and strong like some teenaged vampire.

I guess I'm being a jerk about it, but I want a race as long as a triathlon to entertain me. I saw a film of an Australian triathlon where the entire group of participants ended up swimming through a nasty group of blue bottles, a horrible jellyfish that can send you screaming to the hospital. Not that I'm wishing for something like that, but certainly all those racers will say "that's a race I'll never forget." I'm looking for something novel and unique. You'd think that an ordinary triathlon would already do that for me as I've never competed in one before. But somehow, no.




One good thing is that I've only recently learned that there are different types of triathlons, different distances that you have to complete depending on which type of triathlon it is. Naturally I'm inclined to feel drawn towards the shortest ones, or 'Sprint Distance' triathlons, which involve a 750 meter swim, 20 km bike, and 5 km run. Hell, I could complete one of these with minimal training even now.

After the 'Sprint Distance' triathlon, there is the 'Standard Distance' or 'Olympic Distance' triathlon, which is a 1.5 km swim, 40 km ride, and a 10 km run. I think with this the only thing I'd be worried about is the 1.5 km swim. I haven't trained for swimming in a very long time. I have no idea how I'd do in that part of the race, but if it were in choppy waters or there were any sort of undertow I think I'd most likely drown. So, before I try anything like this I believe I'd better make some time to get into the pool and do some laps. A lot of laps, actually. I might even want to hire a coach to watch me do those laps and tell me how awful my form is before helping me correct it in order to maximize my efficiency and speed and minimize my chances of dying.

Dying in a triathlon means you don't get to finish. Actually, this is true of most races.

After the 'Standard Distance' triathlon, there is the 'Long Course' or 'Half Ironman.' Yes, only a HALF Ironman, which involves a 1.9 km swim, 90 km ride, and a 21.1 km run. If I do somehow 'get into' this whole triathlon thing, I suspect this will be the longest race I ever do. And afterwards I'd be bitching about it for months. So fair warning.




Finally, there is the real deal, the 'men from the boys', the 'Ultra Distance', the 'Ironman' itself, which involves a 3.8 km swim, 180 km ride, and a marathon: 42.2 km run. Yeah, fat chance of me attempting one of these. I don't like running that far and I'd be the most surprised person in the room if I ever managed to swim that distance. As for the biking part, I think I'd have me a big fat spring-loaded comfy seat and a whole lot of gears. My bike would look nothing like everyone else's racer. I'd look more like Mary Poppins out of a long ride and a picnic with all the water bottles and accessories I'd be sporting on that thing, especially after that long swim. Hell, I might even try to slip a moped in there and see if anyone noticed.




So, this was supposed to be about Christmas, the day of Christ's birth, except it isn't the day of Christ's birth because at some point they say the Catholic Church moved it for various reasons and that Jesus was actually born in April or thereabouts. I don't know all the details. I don't know if God gets upset about it or just wants us to recognize without getting uptight about the exact date. But I know that Christmas is important. Wikipedia seems to indicate that December 25th actually could be the correct day. But then how much faith do you place in something like Wikipedia? In years past I've made edits to various incorrect Wikipedia entries, only to have all my edits be disallowed. Apparently political correctness is the goal there rather than factual accuracy. So the amount of faith I place in Wikipedia is inversely proportional to the extent to which I believe it adheres to a PC dogma.

Having said all this, I want to finally just say, MERRY CHRISTMAS and I hope you all have a Happy New Year!

I Am Not Dead Yet

I realize it has been over a week since I last posted. Things have really gotten out of control the past few weeks. My workouts are a bit chaotic lately. I've been seriously considering trying to prepare for a triathlon. My job is on the line here at end-of-year and nothing is certain as far as next year is concerned. My home situation is a bit tentative. I'm not getting enough sleep. And my subscriptions to about a million publications apparently all run out at the exact same time, Christmastime, when I am flat broke. Yay me and FML.

Anyway, I'm not going to bitch about all of this in any detail. Right now I'm watching a Led Zeppelin concert on the TV from about 1973. It's a bit strange. This is from an age when people went up onstage and just played and did whatever they thought of at the time, as opposed to the later years when bands hired choreographers to script and rehearse every onstage movement to assure no one looked foolish. I'm not sure, but I think Jimmy Page and Robert Plant may both be stoned while up there. It's hard to tell because Jimmy Page has eyes that always look sort of stoned.

I Am Not Ironman

Iron Man

I haven't been able to get to the gym all week long. Things aren't going well at work. I worked all week and Saturday, too.

I read a quote the other day, and I can't remember how it went exactly, but it was from a big successful CEO, I think it was Steve Jobs. He said that he considered the ability to encourage employees to be the most important management skill of all, and would pay top price for those who had it because it is so very important. Judging from my experience I must be the only person who ever heard of this.

Encouragement? What a novel concept.

I am exhausted. Even so, I plan to try to hit the gym tomorrow. I met with a group of triathletes and ironman competitors again this weekend. They always encourage me to compete. And encouragement, as I said above, motivates me.

I feel encouraged

I was reading up on what constitutes a full-on Ironman triathlon. There is no way I am doing this. Perhaps a half Ironman. Perhaps. But never a full Ironman. I just can't see ever wanting to do this, especially at this point in my life.

I am in pain

I also can't see my knee, which has endured 2 surgeries already, surviving a full Ironman. It's just the marathon part. I used to have the ability to run 26 miles and even try to go a reasonably good pace while doing it. But not now. My knee talks to me after 8 or 9 miles and lets me know that I should not go much further than that. I think a half-marathon would be about my limit before I had some serious swelling and possibly damage in that knee. Add to this the fact that I have never felt the desire to actually run a full marathon and you have a good understanding of why I don't plan to.

If I fart, they all suffer!

Still, they tell me that once you've done a half-Ironman you always find yourself planning to do a full one. It's a bit like tattoos that way. Once you get one you find yourself already planning the next. That's what they say, anyway.

Friday Fun Weekly Wrap Up

Well, the week is over and I did one whole workout the entire week. At least it was a leg workout. But my lack of soreness suggests that I didn't push it hard enough. I've had a bit of a crisis-filled week and that interfered with workout time.

Seems simple enough

I took my car in for an oil change. I have spent years underneath my own cars, as well as family-members and hot girls' cars, and I'm a bit tired of changing my own oil. So I took it to a quick-change shop to do it for me. I pulled with with my car doing fine, but in need of fresh oil and maybe a filter. I left with my "Check Engine" lot gleaming at me.

Yay, so excited.

I shot a quick U-turn and went back to the shop. I asked them about the "Check Engine" light, seeing as this light had never before turned on that I ever saw and certainly wasn't on when I arrived for my oil change.

"Huh, I dunno" the mechanic said, as he poked his head into my car to look at the dash. Then he indicated that he assumed it was on when I arrived. No, it wasn't.

They have no idea what they could have done to cause this very alarming and disturbing light to come on, and they have no idea what needs to be done to turn it off. I'm thinking I'm going to go home this weekend and disconnect my battery and then see if the light comes back again. If it does, I've got a problem. If it doesn't, I'll be doing my own oil changes in the future.

Git'er done!

Aside from this, there hasn't been much excitement. I mean, politically there has. I swear, some days I think the news media is going to drag Herman Cain out into the street and nail him to a cross as a crowd of prostitutes all chant "that's him! That's the man he deflowered me!" But aside from that, nothing of significance has been reported in our news this week.

Is that him? Get him! Oh wait, wrong guy. Sorry.

In the UK news, though, it was reported that Britain very nearly collapsed and only a quick infusion of American cash saved them. I don't know about you, but to me that is an important enough story that we here in America should have been told about it. Instead we're hearing about fashion faux paus at the latest celebrity award shows that no one watched.

What???

Oh, I did watch the 1-hour long Victoria's Secret fashion show on television. Where else can you see so many beautiful women walking around in fancy underwear for a solid hour while reclining in the comfort of your own home? It was awesome.

Yay underwear!

So, how was your week? Any excitement?

See me? I am important!

I have this old friend that I've known since we were both about 9 or 10 years old. I remember when we were little, he didn't care much for me, but I thought he was OK. We sort of got along, but we weren't the best of friends.

3 years later, in high school, we were reunited. It started off slow. He still didn't care much for me. I thought he was OK. But we gradually became good friends and for 2 years he was one of the best friends I ever had.

And then he started to change. Weird things began to show up in him. He'd show me a drawing and say "I created this. I made it up." I'd look at it and immediately recognize it as a copy of something I'd seen before. I'd say "I've seen that. You copied that from ..." whatever he copied it from. Then he'd confess. Yeah, he'd copied it and claimed it as his own creation. He did it with songs, too, trying to impress girls by singing songs and saying "I wrote that." They always busted him. They always knew the song and that he didn't write it. It was obvious.

He was highly intelligent in a memorization sort of way. He could remember anything he'd ever read. His brain was like a vault for memory. But I began to realize that as far as creativity went, he had absolutely none. I also began to realize that he resented the living hell out of my creative abilities.

He destroyed an original drawing I had spent hours on and then rather glibly apologized. "Oh, I'm sorry. You worked hard on that. And it was pretty good, too." It was more of an I'm-sorry-that-you-have-the-ability-to-do-that-and-I-don't than a real apology.

A few years later, he and I both had taken up the guitar. I was trying desperately to learn to play like Jimmy Page, a super lead guitar soloist, and he was trying to master classical guitar. I never understood why. But he did learn all the rules of music far better than I. As I said, anything he could read, he could remember. A few more years later and he asked me to come jam with this local band he was in. I told him I'd be glad to, but that I only knew the songs that I knew and he'd have to show me the rest if he wanted me to join in. He assured me he would.

And then I said, "I don't know how to play in key, like E or A, right, I just know how to play a song after I hear it and pick out all the chords and stuff." He said that was fine. No problem.

I arrived with my guitar and amp and sat down with him and the band. The first thing he did was say "let's play 'LA Woman' in A. And they began to play. He was looking at me and playing and singing, knowing full well that I didn't know that song and didn't know anything about what he was doing, so I couldn't join in. I blew it off, figuring he'd have his laugh and then I'd join in the next one. But it kept on, song after song, he showed me nothing, never asked what songs I knew or I wanted to play, simply stuck to what he and the rest of the guys had rehearsed and left me hanging there. So I got up and left.

Years later, I'm writing things on the internet. I acquire a small following, nothing much. I tell him and the rest of our mutual friends at a reunion of sorts with him and a circle of friends that we both hung with back in school. So our friends get on the computer and look up my writing. They tell me they are impressed. And then they all begin their own webpages, too.

A few of them were as popular as I was. And by popular I mean they had more than 10 people who followed them. The rest were only followed by the group itself.

And then there was my old friend. He began writing in 2005. The things he wrote were dry, to say the least. It was not what you'd call creative or entertaining. He's been writing non-stop ever since, and most of his writing consists of something along these lines:

"Here is a picture of me in Paris. See me? I am there because I am important at my job and they sent me there."

I'd say that's about 90 percent of what he has written over the years - 'here is me in some city. See me? I am important.'

Another 5 percent would be a quote from someone else, some deep thinker or creative person. He'll quote someone else's thoughts and then say "this makes me think. What does it make you think of?" And no one leaves any comments. After 6 years you'd think he'd stop asking "what does it make you think of" because no one is responding, but it doesn't seem to register with him that no one is there. Or perhaps it doesn't matter?

The remaining writing is about his family. He is proud of his family. I can't blame him for that. He has a nice family and they seem very happy as far as I can tell. It's certainly something to be proud of.

His then-wife set up a forum for all of us in this group of old high school friends to talk to each other. We'd talk about this and that, joke around. It was fun. And then he'd post something, and it would be totally inappropriate. It would go something like this:

ANN: I am really struggling these days, but thank God I have all my friends around me. :-)

KAREN: We all love you. We'll be here for you.

HIM: You probably wouldn't struggle so much if you weren't such a slut.

THEN-WIFE: My God, what the hell is wrong with you that you say things like that?! Stop being such an asshole!

I'm not joking. He would make comments like that, cutting comments that were obviously intended to carve his closest and oldest friends into pieces. And he would say it to all of us. Everything that came out of him was either a direct or back-handed insult.

I know his ex-wife or used to. She began the forum, after all. We talked after their divorce, after I tried to reach out to him and received what I'd have to say was the oddest responses you can imagine. She told me there were problems, not the marital kind but the kind that related specifically to him. I had suspected as much. Beginning when we were about 17 I began to notice him transforming from the greatest guy I knew into a strange petty, untrustworthy person that I didn't recognize. It was worse in college. I didn't know who the hell he was anymore.

I'm just rambling here. I don't have a deeper point. I just ran across him, just now. He was posting about where he'd just been again and reminding whomever happened to pass by that he is important. It made me think about all the oddities. I think it's odd to have absolutely no original thoughts, no creativity whatsoever. But then again, I know another guy, a great guitar player, who once told me that he was impressed by my ability to write what I considered stupid but original songs. He said he could play anything anyone could write, but he could not write his own music. So maybe it's not that uncommon? I don't know. To me it is odd. Zero original thought. Zero creative ability.

I should take a step back. Before my old friend began to change, he WAS creative to some degree. We once sat down together and wrote a story just off the top of our heads, winging it and laughing at the stupid things we were creating with no plot and no clear ending in mind. It was fun. I still have that ability. But I don't think he could do that again if his life depended on it. And I don't understand that.

I also don't understand the constant need to say "see me? I am important." It's not just his personal webpage that he does this on. It's everything. It's Facebook and professional links between us which I know his employer sees. If he's updating his status on anything it is generally to say "here I am in Helsinki. I am important." I realize that he is more successful than I am. He makes twice my salary, or did before they laid him off. But he found another job, once again working at a high level of management and making something similar to what he made before. So it isn't as if he has suffered for having no creative talents. But why the constant need to say "See me? I am important!"

Do you see me? Hardly anyone reads this blog, yet I really like the handful of people I've met here. I am not important, but I am creative. You might not know it from the posts I write here. They're mostly about my workouts, but that's not all I write. It's just most of what I write here. And I don't need to tell people what I do, how much I make doing it, or demand that they acknowledge that I am important. I guess I don't understand people who do. I guess my old friend transformed into my polar opposite, and I don't know what to do with that.

Thanksgiving

I went to the gym on Monday and did a chest and triceps workout. It wasn't much, but I'm just getting back into it. I think this is only the 2nd time I've done this workout in about a year. I guess I didn't push it hard enough because I haven't been sore from it like I was the last time I did this.

I think I must be frowning while I'm working out. People keep getting out of my way. Except this one black kid who seemed to want to be the alpha dog in the gym. He's too young and too skinny to be the alpha anything, but that's the thing about youth, along with the abundant energy and pride comes an abundant stupidity. Anyway, I didn't clash with him, but it was close. I'll just say I considered it.

And that's the thing about maturity. You think about whether or not a fight is worth the trouble and weigh all the factors. It has to be worth it to go to that much trouble.

I'm about to head home for Thanksgiving. We have no special plans except to try and relax. We don't plan to see anyone or do anything or go anywhere.

What are your plans for Thanksgiving this year?

Gray Leg Day

Monday

Yesterday was a Monday in every sense of the cursed word. It was gray and rainy and dreary. I was tired and depressed and not feeling at all like going to the gym or working out. I knew I needed to go anyway. Exercise actually makes your brain and body release chemicals and hormones that make you feel better. And oh how I needed them!

Over the weekend I went to a meeting of FCA people. That's Fellowship of Christian Athletes, if you didn't know. It doesn't really matter. Anyway, almost everyone there is either a triathlete, an iron man or iron woman competitor, or some sort of rock climber. And then there's me, the former track competitor who now just sort of does odd athletic events for the hell of it (can you say 'for the hell of it' at an FCA meeting?)

The other athletes

Everyone looked like a fitness instructor or model. Some were still in their fitness clothes after having worked a half-marathon event earlier that day. Some ran it, others ran it in the sense that they organized and helped put the event on, even handing out water at stations, etc.  One of the women, the wife of a guy I went to school with years ago, looks like a movie star.

And again, then there's me.

Then there's me

I definitely don't look like any fitness model or marathoner. I look more like the guy you call when you can't get your computer to work (Don't call me, that's not what I do.)

The great American mystery

I'm currently reading a book, I can't remember the title exactly but its something like "why we get fat" or something. It details how certain events can trigger a slight change in the way your body handles calories, shifting things slightly towards fat cells so that the proteins, carbs, fats and sugars you take in which normally would go to your muscles to replenish them and then to your fat cells when your muscles don't need them, now move just a bit more into your fat cells even though your muscles need them and are trying to get them. This causes weight gain which no amount of dieting can do much about. This was my exact experience following knee surgery. Every year, 5 more pounds appeared even though I was stricter with my diet and kicked up my exercising to try to stop the gain. 20 pounds of useless fat cells later, it stopped and held firm. Again, no amount of exercising or dieting made any difference. It wasn't going anywhere.

Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a dietitian!

I went to a doctor. He told me what I described was impossible. I went to a trainer. He told me I needed to pay him for more workouts and just come in more often. I talked to a dietitian. She told me that perhaps I needed to take in MORE calories because my regular diet was too low for my height according to her charts and diet doesn't always work the way people think it does.

You're fired!

I fired my doctor and my trainer.

You aren't baffled by my totally incorrect explanation of thermodynamics?!

To be fair, my doctor was a cranky old ass whom I probably would have eventually fired anyway even if not for the screaming argument we had in his office in which he told me that the laws of thermodynamics state that what I was experiencing is simply impossible. I informed him that my field of expertise gives me greater understanding of thermodynamics than a family doctor and tells me that thermodynamics has absolutely nothing to do with the problem.

Stop calling me Fonzie

My trainer is another story. He was ... how can I put this ... crazy. No, no, not crazy. But he was having some sort of crisis and it seemed to cause him to say things which a person not having a similar crisis might interpret as being crazy. Or at the very least, annoying as all hell. I'll just say this, most of the insane crap the "Occupy Wall Street" communists were shouting about Zionist Jews controlling the big international corporate banking institution and capitalism being the devil and all that stuff coincided exactly with the training advice he was giving me and I was paying him for. Needless to say, or perhaps not needless if you are a communist, this advice about Jews and bankers and conspiracy theories was unhelpful to my efforts to build muscle and burn fat. I saw little reason to pay for it. So we parted ways.

Leg day

So yesterday I went to the gym and did my leg day workout. I'm dropping Bodypump Class for now because I did it for over 6 months and I felt like I needed to change things up. Technically, you're supposed to change things up every 6 weeks, but I am a stubborn man and I waited all this time before switching to a strength-focused free-weight routine for awhile. I did my legs. I was not in a happy mood. I don't know what the expression on my face was, but I think people in the gym could tell that I was not in a happy mood because they got out of my way a lot. Overall I did a good workout. I stayed focused. If there were any good-looking girls there working out alongside me I did not notice them. I kept my eyes on the weights and my mind on the workout and tried to clear my head. And then I ran a mile as a cool-down and showered.

And I forgot to stretch.

I am drowning in work at my job. Apparently at the end of the year there is some sort of big push to get everything finished and out of the way so that we can do it all again next year. I'm not sure the reasons, but I'm guessing it makes sense to people in accounting and not so much where I am. Whatever the case, my stress levels are up and my need for good workouts is up with it.

Oh, and I haven't played my guitar in nearly a week. But the last time I had it out I learned half of a cool AC/DC song that I like, which was fun. Except that I currently play it like you might hear if you had the song on vinyl and could set your record player speed to 16 instead of 45. Do you know what I mean?