A lot of sound and fury........

Well today is just one of those days I'm glad I took up long distance running instead of boxing. After a well chaotic onslaught of retirees stampeeding into the bank to cash their social security checks. I decided to go off to Central to watch a video my Anth. Professor put on reserve. Only to find out the reserve room didn't get the memo. I hate it when people don't get the memo! Anyway now realizing I've wasted only an hour of the day. I'm heading back to the home town to crank out either a brick or just lace up my New Balances and putting some miles on the pavement. In either case the weather is supposed to be relatively warm so tomorrow I will probably attempt a long ride, maybe even a long ride with hills...no less. Next weekend is the last go hard or go home weekend before taper so tomorrow's ride will be at least 70 miles, hopefully some of that sand they threw down will wash away. Team Zoot GU has confirmed I'm a member so expect alot of posts of me glorifying my Zoot T-2 wetzoot. Also the guys at GU really need to make an energy bar....preferably one low in fiber.....I'd be happy to crash test it.

Well in a recap I wasted gas and time going to Central...although I was able to get this post in up there so I guess it's not a total loss.

Racing the setting Sun.
R.D.

This weeks poll: Should I shave for the Ironman?

Alright this post / poll is months in the making: Should I shave my legs for the Ironman?
Now in endurance/olympic sports, "the shave" is a topic of much debate. "Does it really give an advantage?" "Is it a psycological thing?" " Do you know how bad it itches when it grows back?" So the question in this week's poll
Should I shave for the Ironman?

Reasons pro shave:
Any one who knows me knows I'm a hairy beast, so by shaving I would drop about 10 pounds.
Get to show off my defined calves of steel.
Haven't shaved for a competitive event since State Swimming trials in High school, and it used to give me a good 10 second time drop.
I can say with confidence that I have done everything to try to earn a Kona Slot.

Reasons against Shvaing:
You're coming back to New England in March you furless freak!
Supposedly it's "un-manly" to have smooth legs.
The itching, the burning, the chafing.
Two words: Razor Burn.

So those are the arguments vote wisely.

The Jake Voskul of the Polls.
R.D.

Ken Glah, I love You!

Today I recieved an email at EST that they had my flight intinerary ( ok I completely killed that spelling but WTH). Now my Student loan was disburst today so I should be getting checkage within the next 5 days. Problem is to reserve my flight I would have to book tomorrow...i called Ken to try to see If I could stall giving payment until I have my "moderately sized" Check in Hand. " Sure you already paid for the ground package and if you can get me the stuff Monday or Tuesday so I can send it to ticketing." Thank you Ken. The price from his group is about $400 less than it would cost me to book on my own at this point. So hopefully the State won't be the State and actually mail my stuff out on time..and I will have my ass a nice plush seat for a 12 hour flight, on the 23rd. Ken Glah you are the Ben Gordon of ticket prices!......

Ok to recap my day

State dragging its ass = bad
OPEC gouging gas prices= bad
my dogs trashing my house= bad
8 mile run =good
Ken giving me extension to pay =good
Loan getting disburst = good
Getting my loan check and a W-2 would make this day priceless....

Ekeema Okafor eat your heart out!
R.D.

Alright I know I know now I have to mention Jake Voskul and other UConn players.

Edit: Last night I figured out the reason I haven't gotten my W-2 and backed check from the State. Apparently the guys in payroll missed spelt the 3 at the begining of my address aparently they thought I put B5 instead of 35 so that can explain why my stuff hasn't come in. I've gotten in touch with them to correct this.

Curse You OPEC Bastards!

Ok Today despite lack of a check from the State of Connecticut for my hours of lounging by the pool....my gas gauge did not want to help my currently "delicate" fiscal situation...when I dropped my sister off at school and looked at the lovely little red arrow pointing at E....with at least 4 round trips to Central and other various running around before my guaranteed pay day next Thursday I decided that I was left with no choice (unless I wanted to run the 25+ miles to CCUS) but to put my account in the red ( unless of course that overdue check shows up today!) and fill up with that lovely over priced crude oil...( somewhere in Saudi Arabia a member of the Royal Family is smiling and considering buying another Mercedes.) Money Rant almost over....to collect the $250 for IM NZ from the Tri club I have to sumbit a funds request form and a reciept for either
a) my race entry
b) my air fare
c) my hotel

Well the only reciept I have is for my IM entry (Haven't "paid" for my airfare and I paid Ken Via phone for my hotel)....bad news its in NZ $ so this could be interesting......I'll submit that seeing if anything can come of it other wise I should have my plane ticket in about a week.

so now officially money rant over.

Last night I went running with Bjoern in the nice part of the New Britain Ghetto...about 6-7 miles in under an hour so it wasn't bad, granted I missed masters, so my lungs will repay me when I hit the pool tomorrow night.
I went running this morning before work...my usual 8 miler. I needed to get the monetary stress/ and the fact that our four dogs are driving me over the edge in some diabolical plot, to turn or house into a litter box, or me into a pooper scooper, out of my head before it drove me "insane in the membrane." quoting Cypress Hill now that's old school. So yeah my mental condition is typical of a month out of the 1st Ironman, and also of that after Christmas paying for all the stuff you spent way too much on and your income tax check is weeks away period. up and down and mostly neurotic
Like I said things are getting better, they just take time....which is a luxury that I don't have at the moment.

In the mean time would anyone like a kidney....I can give you a good deal.

The Ben Gordon of going insane.
R.D.

I miss running......

This morning I had the great idea of going for a 5AM run and I would have done one too..except for my good friend the snooze button. 5 turned to 5:30 to 6 to 6:30 to 6:45 and by that time it was just crawl out of bed and drive my sister to school before going to the office. So sadly my New Balance 720's are collecting a fine layer of dust. Last night my crappy mood/ trying to rebuild my immune system resulted in me by- passing my trainer work out. So tonight I have class and a Cen-Tri meeting ( in which I will get Bjorn's bike case and a lovely $250 from the school for food and travel expenses for New Zealand. So I won't be living off ramen pre- Ironman. ) after that masters and a nice 5 mile jog in the well lit parts of my sub-urban hood. ( man that little headlamp is paying off, thank you for the gift card Simona.) Tomorrow I'm not due into the office until 11:00AM so a morning run, in daylight by god, is an actual possibility. Friday the apocolyptic weather mongers are predicting the mother of all snow storms as they always do and like always we will most likely end up with a flurry. So I might be reduced to just a trainer/ treadmill session other wise ...no wait they just changed it to Monday....gotta love that kind of accuracy. Saturday I will hopefully have decent road conditions to get in a nice 50-100 miles on the bike...or I will have gas cash for a trip up to the lake. Sunday I figure a nice town ride and a run brick is in order. So that's the game plan as of now, as always its a "read and react" winter training plan . so yes my mood is starting to improve a little bit. My loan gets disburst tomorrow so I can pay down one of my annoying credit cards so I can buy gas, books, and oh yeah a nice plane ticket to New Zealand. My lifeguarding W-2 should be in any day now which means I can fire up ye old turbo tax or call up my brother's godfather, file for 2 to the 007 and get a hefty refund direct deposit, which will then pay down a credit card and Bob-o's magical mystery tour. (That $600 "economy booster" is going directly into a high yield savings if there still such a thing as a high yield savings in mid-May.) so things are coming together.....I just wish they'd move a little faster.

Trying to rebound Ray Allen Style
R.D.

Ok I know I'm going to get shit about that ending

Ironman NZ Update.

Well there's a month left to go before the rumble down under....man that sounds like crap.

My mood as expressed by this morning's post is well in the toilet, between loss of training time , financial shit at the homestead, and an all together shitty day at the office has left me wanting to just drop of the face of the earth. I have class and a few hours of time on the trainer. They just released a list of the pros and that field is stacked. As for me I'm sitting here in a bad mood wondering as I said earlier if this whole ordeal is worth it. As mentioned Financially things haven't been really great. Three times in the past 4 months I have told my parents that I was willing to drop out get my $350 refund and put that money to better use. Only to get the "No, live your life " speech. Seriously it's hard to try and be happy and "live your life" if you constantly feel like you're stealing shit from the rest of your family. So that explains most of my bad mood. Now it's too late for a refund and if I was to drop out it would be an even more selfish waste of $500, and 4 months of training all for nothing. So that's where I stand 30 days before the big event ...at rock bottom emotionally, recooperating physically, and drained mentally, suffering from "Guilty Catholic Boy syndrome".

Last night Stef was out so I loafed myself through a 3600 yard recovery workout main set
5x 100 on 1:25
5x200 on 2:45
5x100 on 1:25

I haven't run since Thursday so Tomorrow morning before descending into Hell ...I mean going to work I have decided to try to get at least a 5 miler in Hopefully my usual 7 miler but anything at this point would be a help.

I've got two weeks until taper so if I get a guarding check in this weekend it will spent on gas and a trip to the lake for loops. I figure I've got two weeks before taper so I've got to get my last long and hard crap in now.
So like I saidI've got a bad attitude I need to get a grip on, and a shit load of mileage to put in...and of course classes and and job to juggle in there, throw in some chain saws and a unicycle and I could be some psycho carny act.

So that's about it.

"That guy" at the back of the room
R.D.

Just take me out back and shoot me.

That phrase pretty much sums up how've I've felt for most of my 22 years. I could go on and on like I did in one draft about how I feel I suck, and how I just want to end this litany of suckage...not even a word but I'm a blithering idiot anyway. from my last post I know I'm not a football pundit, the post was meant to fire up one Boston sports fan and regally back fired as it fired up the true football pundits to show me justifiably that I don't know crap about anything regarding pigskin. ..except how to misinterpret shit and that my being a Giants fan is a sign of mental retardation ( which any Giants fan knows being a Giants fan is a slow depressive mental illness resulting in much anguish and "maybe next year syndrome".) So they will be no more "sports" posts from me.
Finances are not going well. I'm waiting on that damn loan check although my W-2's came in so I can file for my federal crap and financial aid so I can hopefully finish college within the next year, and buy my airfare within the next two weeks, and have enough to spend on books for my classes and food and miscellaneous crap in New Zealand.
Part of me is thinking this could be a huge let down....most crap in my life has been...to get so close but no futher...and miracles don't happen to me .. Part of me is thinking this whole ordeal has been one crazy selfish expediture, especially with all the financial crap going on in my home life, and now I'm being made to pay for it. I know life is supposed to be a cold cruel bitch, but aren't there supposed to be some momments of respite, where good shit actually happens, only to be destroyed later. The past two months have been a major tailspin. And this is it coming to a nasty ugly head. So yeah I'm down and out at the moment......the illness took a toll physically (although I did get some pool time yesterday) and life and the shit I bring upon myself has taken a toll mentally.
Also no "poor you comments" unless you're giving me a good and well deserved ass chewing , a twack across the perverbal head, a "man up moron" or a "get off your ass and do something about it." comment please keep them to yourself, because that pity crap is a waste of time, emotion, and effort, the only way I rebound is to get pissed off ( granted 90% of the time it is at myself.) or have some one shake me back to reality.

Life's a bitch, buy it a muzzle.
R.D.

Top 10 reasons if you live in Connecticut Why You should root for the Giants instead of the Patriots.

10. Unlike the Pats the Giants played two season in the State ( Yale Bowl 75-77, rented it out while they finished Giant Stadium and Steinbrenner kicked them out of Yankee Stadium.)

9. Unlike the "96" Patriots, Parcells actually won a superbowl with the Giants.

8. Remember when Bob Krafts said he was going to move the Patriots to East Hartford so the State spent all that money to research and begin building a stadium for the Pats/Uconn football and then suddenly Krafts said thanks but Massachusetts and Gillette are building us a better stadium in Foxboro so really we were just using you guys as a bargaining chip......remember CT Pats fans you could have been celebrating an almost perfect season in Hartford...instead of having to drive an hour North into "New England."

7. The Giants are on fire...I mean come on anyone can win 3 playoff games at home it takes skill to win 4 in a row on the Road.

6. Do we really want to hear Terry Bradshaw, John Madden and all these other NFL Pundits go on and on about how Tom "overrated" Brady is the Best QB of all time?

5. The Mannings have a perfect 1 for 1 record in the Super bowl.

4. His name is Strahan....Michael Strahan and his job is making Brady eat Turf.

3. The Giants only Lost by a Field Goal when they played them at the end of the regular season....revenge?

2. They are a psyched up underdog going into the final game just like the 1999 Uconn men's basketball team and we all know how that ended.....( apologies to any Duke fans reading this.)

1. This whole Eli Manning ( NY Giants ) vs. Tom Brady ( NE Patriots) match up seems reminiscent of the whole Phil Simms (NY Giants) vs. John Elway (Denver Broncos) match up in 1988. The Giants won that year as well.

ok that's my football rant for the year.

GO BIG BLUE !!!

R.D.

De plague boss...de plague de plague

Sadly no training to talk about from this weekend. Saturday was spent gathering books, taking and picking up my little sister to/from Oxford ( the Connecticut town with 15 people and 500 cows not the world's most prestigeous university.), and succumbing to a rather violent stomach virus. Sunday was spent recovering from said stomach virus, so pretty much I was lying in bed all day watching my dvd collection, cursing the germ that had plagued me the night before and took away valuable hours of training. Don't you just love those 24 hour bugs. so I really don't have a lot to talk about, I'll hit the pool tonight after class. Maybe get on the trainer for an hour, but I don't want to over do it. So yes this is my weekend recap:

Sold some old silver coins I had for book and gas $.
Bought 3 book$
Hauled Chrissy to and from Oxford
my stomach entered Normann Stadler / Faris Al-Sultan mode.
Ironman Dvd, Monty Python, and Steve Mc Queen in that order
Stomach entered a more tolerable working mode.

like I said not much to recap.

On the Rebound.
R.D.