7 miles to sanity.....

Well more of like 7.5-8 miles but irregardless. As hinted by my last few posts, I have lived to do 3 things, eat food in mass quantities, study and work, somewhere in there I managed to eek out some pool time. Today, I managed to accomplish a little, I got my paper topic formula thingy done, filed for financial aid, passed out for an hour because I have been running on little sleep. It was after my hour of nap time that I decided I needed to run damn it. Now normally, this would result in me throwing on long sleeves and shorts and going for a quick 4 miler then back to the grind, but I decided to commit academic blasphemy and devote an hour to getting back some clarity. 60 min. of not reading on how Victorian Men were bi-polar, Mr. Liston treated surgery like it was playtime with power tools, or what my hope learning credits were for 2007.

In essence 60 min to let my mind wander while I dodged traffic.

I threw on long pants and went on my 7.5 -8 mile loop of the Wolcott Rd. Side of Wolcott. Now for those unfamilar with this route, it begins flat with me running down the main road, then down some rink-a-dink side street, then past Scovil's damn then up Boundline road which is rolling. It starts out flat and ends with a Tour de France esque climb to the Center of town, then back on to some smaller rollers past the high school, a semi- flat to down hill back to Route 69 then back the way I came with some nice rollers before a slight false flat down hill to the homestead.

Now this has been the longest run I have done since a little race about a month ago, so when I started I was a little nerveous , but the thought of having to chain myself to the computer on a beautiful day , drove me forward, I wanted to enjoy an hour of decent weather. So I took off on my route, zoning into my usual wandering, ramblings and day dreams. One of them being the typical being the favorite in Hawaii and having a minute lead in the last 2 miles of the marathon with Macca, Cam Brown, and Craig Alexander all chasing me down, that is a fantasy that reocurrs often, maybe one day it will come to fruition. Anyhoo, after purging this daydream out of my system, my thoughts turned back to classwork, how would I formulize my paper, the fact if I had to read another article on amputation I might as well just send my 3 shillings to Dr. John T. Ripper 34 Miller's Court Whitechapel, London for my portable surgical kit, complete with Liston Knife, bone saw, and Opium. ( for those of you who don't get this joke, watch the movie From Hell, or think of some event in 1888 London and it will come to you.)Any way after I got my Kona fantasy and sick jokes of how I could have fun with Victorian Medicine, I just began to appreciate the sheer joy of being out an running again. My New Balance 720s were feeling negelcted just being used for daily walks or household errands, so getting back on the road was a welcome release. Also my knees weren't as tight as they were on my IM+14 day 4 miler, so the 7 miles actually felt good. I noticed the Robins coming back, nearly had a Pheasant give me a heart attack, and just relished the fact that it was 5:30PM and I was not racing the setting sun. I was also surprised that despite my hiatus I still had about the same speed and base strength. I managed to get the run in in a not too shabby 1:03 so it was right on par with my normal training run. So all in all it was a pretty good day.

So there it was in essence I got some of what I needed to done, and took some time to clear my burdened head, all in all I'm feeling decent, not as good as I did post Ironman, but better than I did Monday Afternoon.

Hopefully switching to the B train

R.D.

2 Days without exercise make Bob ....

FAT and LAZY!

yes that's right the unthinkable has happened I have spent the last two days with late nights on the web and in the library, and no yards in the pool or miles on the road. This weekend a book review will be taking up most of my time along with some BS questions for my 200 level Europe class. Today I file for Financial Aid so the Feds can continue to pay for my suffering/education/ hopefully earning that sheet of paper, that says I'm worth more than $15,000 a year. ( the degree is worth it.. has become my mantra, especially on those days where I want to toss my laptop out a window, curl into the fetal postion and cry because its all becoming too much. I have four professors trying to compete for my limited time and resources, I am only one man damn it!) as well as more research, some pool time may eek itself out somewhere, somehow.

Tomorrow, continues my quest for sources, that damned book review ( hint the author is not getting many props.) and (gasp) a run .....



What I have found out from my research so far....I'm glad I live in the 21st century, because the 19th century idea of surgery was just plain brutal. Seriously, our butchers today, are more sanitary than the doctors were then....even Lord Joseph Lister didn't wash his hands between operations until 1868, and Liston, one of surgery's pioneers actually held a knife between his teeth when he was sawing a femur during an amputation...it was no small shock that the patient died of gangrene. Seriously I'm not making this crap up, going for an operation in the 1800's was like entering the little shop of horrors....and recovery well, that let just say docs could've of had a profitable business betting on if you were going to make it.

ok random crap done. Since I was on the note of medical progress Please Donate to Claire's AIDS ride....

Ok post Done
R.D.

Help a sister help others.....

A few months ago Speed Racer helpped me out by putting up a link to My War on ALS fundraising page and I decided to return the favor.
Speed Racer is raising funds for the San Francisco AIDS foundation to partcipate in the 5 day LA to SanFrancisco AIDS ride. Now I know what everyones is saying, " Damn it Bob you're making me reach into my wallet again!" but seriously, unlike the War on ALS where I was already entered into the event and my fundraising just went to the cause, Speedy has to raise $2500 or she can't ride. So far she has raised over $1600 but still needs about $900 to be able to ride. I'm not asking that anyone go crazy and donate $1000 ( if you want to I'm sure she' d appreciate it) but if you could throw a buck or two her way it would help her ride also it would help buy life saving drugs for AIDS patients, as well as fund awareness and prevention programs.

The US drug companies manufacture several of the anti- retrovirals that help combat HIV/AIDS yet Pifzer isn't really putting these treatments in the bargin bin. For third World countries especially sub-sharan Africa this is a major hinderance to combating the pandemic. Despite demands from the WHO (World Health Organization) to make these drugs generically, The US government has decided protecting drug company patents and profits take priority ( I could get into a whole rant on this but won't.) In any case it is non-profit groups such as the San Francisco AIDS foundation that provide testing, care, information and advocacy for lower income AIDS patients. Every donation no matter how small helps.
To make a donation to Speedy's fundraising site click on the link I have posted at the top of the website or click here.

Saying I'm going to stop training means what exactly....

Well 48 Hours after stressing out, flipping out and vowing I was going to become a fat, researching, library troll, not letting the words swim, bike, or run permeate my vocabulary. Not let any thoughts other than what was currently being discussed in class or what I will be throwing on the printed page. I had the fat pants ready, my nook picked out, and was stressing out over all the research and papers that need to be done. I was going to cut myself off from the world and become a hermit with books under my arm and a long scraggily white beard. So last night after my last class what did I do? Although knowing I should be devoting my whole being to academics, I jumped in the pool and cranked out 3100 yds, and shot the shit with Bjoern and company, and proceeded to get home and collapse. I just can't seem to help myself, My name is Bob and I addcited to exercise. Try as I might I just cannot rid myself of the fact that I am an athlete. That training and racing for me are part of my being, alright maybe not that far, but then again if I were paralyzed or lost a leg I could see myself racing as a PC guy ( hopefully (knock on wood) that won't happen.) It just seems for me that I stress out about everything, except when I train. At work: I stress. At School: I stress, mainly because I committed the 12th deadly sin of academa I didn't do work when I had a break from classes ( both NZ and Spring Break), and the sort of old school guilty Catholic guy in me constantly plays the record of " you have to suffer and pay 10 fold for every mistake you make." or " not do work, you had a golden opportunity to get ahead and what did you do, you de-stressed, slept, and trained, how dare you." Maybe it comes from growng up believing "life is not supposed to be enjoyable", and then over the past 5 years trying to purge that idea from my system, that it's ok to accel at something other than school work, that I'm a descent athlete, not everything wrong with the world is my fault, a lousy grade does not mean you are a lousy student, and above all it's alright to be stress free and happy....it's still a work in progress and occasionally I sprial into the old attitude, that my job, my salary, my GPA, my major, my splits, my income to debt ratio, my credit score, my professors' lesson plans, my customer's opinons define me, that everyone's else's goal for me should be my goal for myself, that I should be hard on myself and forget about what makes me happy and devote myself solely to what needs to be done. I realized that to live like that quite frakly makes life tedious, robs the individual of passion, and quite frankly is not how I want to live.

All right, that was way too deep, but I needed to say it.
R.D.

I think I need to give up my sport and day job and devote myself to school.

Well the results from the first quiz of the semester came back in my history 301 course and the results were not good. a "D" the first D of my collegiate career at Central. Knowing that New Zealand has put me behind the eight ball and that I have a lot of research to to get done to pass this course I am debating on stopping all outside activity that does not involve me sitting fingering through a stack of 19th century medical literarture. Right now these are the sounds of a panic stricken student, my other classes seem to be going ok. I have a midterm to type tonight, and other items (I have to email of my thesis statement and intensions to my History professor) on the agenda. Right now the idea of me even enjoying exercise seems impossible, I feel I have to chain myself to the desk for my professors and employers ( and in the process gain 300lbs.) It just seems in my current state there aren't enough hours in the day for me to please everyone. I get up at 6AM and collaspe at 1AM to get up and do it all over again. Last week was break and I was so exhausted and stressed out that I didn't get shit done ( my own damn fault but regardless.) I'm hanging up the speedo, deflating my tires, and putting my running shoes on ice until May ( doesn't give me a hell of alot of time to train) I need to get work done because other wise this degree ain't happening.

The Stressed out Scholastic.
RD

Easter...and the 57 mile bike ride.

" Why do you search for the living among the dead, He has been risen and has gone to Galilee before you just as he said."

or in a more frank term

" I'm baaaack!" - Jesus of Nazareth.

Like I said I don't know the exact Gospel ( either Luke or Mark's) but pretty much Last night and Today the Church celbrates JC rising from the dead and giving all the guys who were responsible for nailing him to a cross a giant middle finger ....( ok so it was JC he didn't have a vindictive bone in his body, and technically he was the forgiving merciful sort that didn't hold a grudge ( man this guy is light years above me.) but hey I know if I was savagely put to death and came back I might show my self in public to freak the my asslaints out....but that's just me....) and supposedly saving us from eternal death, and the weight of our sins and all that happy good stuff.(So smart alec smucks like me don't end up roasting over a spit for eternity, when we embark on the big sleep.) But anyway the whole resurrection story shows us this JC dude was in shape. I mean seriously what would his workout log say:

Friday:

6am-3pm Give Blood

11:00am-12:00 PM Carry 100lbs. Beam on a hill workout,

12:00PM Get Piercings

12:00-3:00pm Hang around

3:00 lie down for awhile.

Saturday:

Absolutely Dead

About mid-night Got up got dressed Rolled 250-500lbs. boulder a few feet. Also some dudes from way up north came down to chill and tell the homies I'll be going North to meet them.

Sunday:

6Am Bump into Mary on morning run to Galilee

12pm bump into 2 homies on road to Emaus slow down talk, chill eat dinner, run back to Jerusalem

7pm Chill with mama and the crew, except for Thomas, apparently he's still a little upset over the pirecings.

ok so maybe the JC workout log is a little sacreligious but I hope trying to break down the tridum into athletic terms might get a few laughs as well as give a little more understanding. ( Suffered, died, was buried, rose from the dead, went on a long run doing the whole I'm back from the dead tour of Judea, chilled with the crew.) Also I would really like to find a priest who would play ACDC's Back in Black for Easter mass ( that could probably get me excommunicated) because seriously that's the sentiment of the whole Easter thing. Anyhoo all the religious stuff aside.This is my last Religious post until Christmas so don't worry about me doing anything crazy like joining the Roman Collar Club ( there are two big reasons for this one of them is a girl.), or showing up on a Saturday morning saying " Have you found Jesus yet?"...trust me If God was willing to raise someone from the dead, I don't believe he/she's going to condemn anybody who is trying to be a descent human being, regardless of religious affliation or lack thereof. ... ( in Gregorian chant) Bob-o's Holy rant is over......AMEN!

In spite of my getting in touch with my inner good Catholic-boy self over the past few days, I managed to jump in on Speed Racer's personal Half Iron. On Saturday afternoon after an insane rush at the Bank ( made even more insane because only 3 of us were working, and only 2 of us were tellers.) I hauled out to Woodbury to Help give Speedy a good Butt whipping workout Connecticut Style. Our route was pretty hill. There were a couple of little ring climbs and a few descents but for the most part, it was a good day. The only major problems : The freaking 25mph Crosswinds. At times on the bike I felt like I was going to be thrown to the asphalt. But the route we took was pretty quiet except for some traffic on 202. We rode up into the ( Washington)Depot (,CT) and did 3 loops of the lake. We shot the shit most of the way up there, Speed's main concern was on the type of bike she should get Option A speed uber amount of money on pimped out road bike and throw aero bars on for tris.

Option B Get 2 moderate priced/equipped bikes one Tri decked out in full aero and one road.

My answer it depends on what you're going to be using the bike for. I believe she'll most likely go with option A main for the following reasons.

WSD ( Women's Specific Design) bikes have steeper seat angles than Men's/ Unisex bikes.

She's doing a lot more of the pure roadie stuff, including one major 5 day AIDS tour.

New England tri circut = hilly so unless you ride pure aero on climbs a road bike might be a safer option. irregardless I'm of the two bike school but its her cash and decision, and it will be what's right for her competitive sprit and checkbook.

The other discussion was about my decision to try and return to NZ next March/ Disney.

Right now Disney is on the back burner until I have fundage for marathon entry, ( IMNZ opens registration in April so I'm putting $500 aside to get in. It's the 25th Anniversary so I'm going to commit early. also I'll have a whole year to train.....) granted it will probably be sold out by then so I might go down just for moral support and bandit the last 10 miles .....yeah.....that's a plan....I can do that, despite rapid Disney security dogs ( down Pluto, Down Goofy.)

The reason I'm returning to Taupo in March ( in addition to my Schawrtzeneger-esque statement of " I'll be back!", The wonderful people of Taupo, the atmosphere and course that suits my strengths, as well as I want to get into cut, rapid dog shape to compete with the big guys, and qualify knowing I am damn worthy of that Kona slot. ) Is quite frankly to see mystery girl again. ...I'm not going to lie on that one.

Anyway we manged to get the ride done in about 3:28 averaging about 16.9 mph. Not bad for staying aerobic and the endless amount of climbing involved. Speedy will have a more indepth report as well as how her run went. (My intial plan was to atleast get 10k on the run with her but a call to pick up groceries ended that.) She looked strong when I left but like I said she'll finish that story.

Yeah so that was my weekend. A lot of time at Church and a lot of time on the Bitch Stomper.

Happy Easter everybody ( for those of you in the Orthodox faiths Happy Easter a few weeks early.)

R.D.

Good Friday/Looks like I'm getting publicity up here too....

Warning This is a long one. Also Graphic Image below.





"Father forgive them, they know not what they do......"


I believe those words are from Luke's Gospel but I'm not really sure. Sorry for the graphic image but since today is Good Friday I though it was appropriate to show the reason why most of us got the day off from work or classes. For those of you that are Western Chrisitains ( shout outs to my peeps in the Eastern Orthodox faiths who are just going into Lent.)Today was the day the party essentially ended. JC the hippie carpenter of Nazareth just got killed in the most dreadful fashion. (Crucifixion was considered so horrifying that Roman Citizens could not be subjected to it under Roman law.) I could go into theories of who's really to blame (The Romans or the High Priests although I think Pontius Pilate is the real bad guy in the story....at least from the research I've done on him...and after all if I'm Caphias the high priest I'm not going to want my butt nailed to a cross, so I'm going to crack down on any dissidents even if they are peaceful and if they been pissing me off for the last 3 years it's an added bonus.Caphias and the high priests condemning Christ could be the one of several examples of a religious group trying to CTA (cover their ass)with the government.) I could go into the whole Judas thing, Possessed, ignorant, wanting to rebel rouse take your pick although I don't really think that he knew they were going to Crucify the guy, he proceeded to hang himself after the fact....needless to say alot of things happended to get to the gory spectacle above, and it holds alot of truth to Today's society. Are we any less selfish or violent then we were 2000 years ago? Are we really in a better situation? Was the crucifixion just one of another spectacles in a sad history of human violence, when innocent blood was shed because of irrational hatred, greed or a trival show of political strength? Do we continue to witness several smaller scale crucifixions as people are enslaved in sweat shops, slaughtered like cattle in Dufour, kept from life saving drugs and treatments because of corporate greed, repressed when they demonstrate for human and civil rights, emotionally and physically destroyed fighting in senseless war, struggle to make ends meet because some CEO somewhere might make less than a $300 million bonus or might have to reduce the company profit margin to do the right thing.
Do we continue to drive nails into the hands and feet of humanity, when courrpted servants of God desecrate a sacred office by harming innocent children, when we care too much over the "fluff" in religious doctrine and forget the main message to "love one another" without qualifiers, without terms, without conditions. Do we scourge humanity when we argue a gay person should be deprived civil rights yet claim to value seperation of church and state and equality for all, or condemn women who get abortions yet we expect everyone to follow some 1950's esque status quo and provide no saftey net for single parents, when 200 years ago we oursleves were fleeing religious and civil persecution, yet now feel that we can persecute others?
Is indeed The crucified Christ not only a symbol of God's love and selfless compassion, or human suffering in one man
but for the AIDS patient, the single mother, the Palestinian Arab, The Israeli Jew, The Sweatshop worker, the Tibetian Monk, The Burmese civilian, the victim of genocide and/or domestic violence, the harassed altar boy, the Lab researcher searching tirelessly for a cure fo Cancer, ALS, AIDS, and the other ills of humanity, The innocent man on death row, the Iraqi civilian, the US soldier, The reformer, the peace keeper, the homosexual, the orphan, the widow, indeed all of us......

On a lighter note:

This morning I noticed my picture once again on the Front page of the Waterbury Paper, this time in my whole Eucharistic Minister garb ( well it was during the whole washing of the feet thing, no caption and I was the dude taking all the dirty towels.)...that aside , nothing really on tap. Tomorrow is a busy day for me. I'm in the branch until 12:30 then out to Woodbury for a ride with Speed Racer, then Mass at 8Pm at the Shrine, then home to help clean up and hide little plastic eggs filled with cavity giving treats, for my siblings. Then Sunday dinner with the fam and trying desperately to do the work I procrastinated doing all week. have started job searching for positions on the West Coast, because Ideally I'd like to move out there after graduation. My Parents have mixed feelings on this. While they have stated that "hey do what you have to do" I believe that is their secret intention that I get a real estate license, become part of the family conglomerate, and live at home until I marry a nice local girl and move next door. While I admire the plans for a family commune, I feel that Connecticut is not the place I want to live out the rest of my life....granted I know I would be missed if I moved....regardless it is at least a year before I have to start worrying about that.

Sorry if this seems to be an ADD-esque distraction, I started typing this before the deep reflection posted above so if this seems trival in comparision I aplolgize deeply.

The World famous overglorified Altar Boy.

R.D.

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