De Plauge boss De plauge!

Well the seasons are changing hence that means my semi annual sinus draining is in effect. This year it's a little annoying in that it caused me to lose my voice...yet I somehow manage to make it to the office every day go figure. Today not much on tap... Work, a pool session, maybe a run ,work on my thesis before meeting up with a newbie tri geek in New Haven. The stuffy sinues killed my training yesterday as I pretty much napped,popped some pharmacy brand cough drops...man Halls lemon flavor is better... got the last minute items for commencement ball, came back home, ate and slept some more...between my thesis and this crap the training's really in the crapper....after graduation that will hopefully change....along with better nutrition.

Also in the news Tom Boonen got busted for coke... again Needless to say he won't be going to the TDF...there goes my Green Jersey pick...Looks like I'll be rooting for Mark Cavendish or Robbie McEwen.

That's all for me hopefully I'll have a positive training post later this week...after the papers get done of course.

Cough cough..wheeze...
R.D.

I just saw my USAT Rankings...

and no sir...I don't like them. I was the lowest I've been in a while 386th out of 900 something young guns...not really where I was hoping to be on the totem pole but still in the middle..to upper half...I need to fly this season...end of story.

20 miles in 2 days...now if I could just turn that into 20 pages...

Well ok it's probably closer to 18.
This Saturday was supposed to be devoted to my thesis...I was supposed to be a good little scholastic and chain myself to my desk...I...took a nap and went running...then went to my sister's play and then out for dinner...by the time I got back nothing got done.

Sunday...this was it I actually got some work...like a page and a half done...then the phone rang...my buddy Tony was looking for a running partner for a 5-10 mile run. I figure what could an hour or two hurt...it wasn't like I was going for a 4 hour bike tour of Litchfield County. Well Tony and I went out for a loop of Southington holding 7:24/mile pace....for 9 miles...needless to say when I got home the compression socks went on and I curled up on the couch and fell asleep...sat at the computer from 9PM on and I just couldn't focus.

A lot has hit me in the past week so I'm just trying to carry on and get through...hopefully tonight will yield some better paper writing. It's just I've had a lot to think about regarding my future. I think the other issue with my paper is I know what I want to write and who to quote, it's just the tedium of writing it. I'm hoping that by writing first and citing later it won't come back to haunt me, knowing my luck I'd forget to cite one sentence and all of a sudden be caught in the mother of all academic dishonesty crimes.

Well that's it for me...back to the grind.
R.D.

I think the guys in St. Croix need to lay off the rum...

The race results cut and pasted from Ironman.com
Women
NAME
RACE TIME
1.
CATRIONA MORRISON
04:32:38
2.
MIRINDA CARFRAE
04:35:21
3.
KEN GLAH
04:38:00

Well I know Ken Glah and I can say without a doubt he is not a chick...granted maybe the long hair might have confused the race directors. I think it's time for his porn star mustache to make a return...although if I were him I would be taking the women's prize money as "repirations "On another note Bree Wee finished 8th ( if you consider Ken a pro-"woman") for the pro women in 4:46.24 beating Joanne Lawn ( I'm not sure if this is Jo Lawn as she's stated as being from Australia) by about 3 minutes. Well that's my random observation of the day. Back to the Thesis.

R.D.
.

Crash and Burn 100k: Or a Tale of Two Crashes

Well Yesterday I pre rode my normal 100k loop through Bethlehem and Morris, just to see what I was in for. Well, for all the talk of climate change and mountains collapsing that wasn't the case out here. I managed to average 16.8mph yesterday before heading home and working a little on my paper, the sad thing is I really didn't eat alot that would prove to be the key today.

Crash # 1 Welcome to Bonksville Population Bob.

I met up with Bjoern and Josie at 11:00am and we started out on our 62 mile odyssey. The first 5 miles were mostly down hill but as we started to climb, something didn't feel quite right...Bjoern got around which was normal I held pace with Josie for about a mile and then got dropped....I sipped some more sports drink hoping it was only electrolytes, I had a small headache and was fighting hard to to keep the other two riders in sight. As we hit Nettlehollow Rd. it became apparent that I had no gas in the tank, my lack of eating any substantial meals in the past 48 hours ( I ate but little things, like cereal, some bananas, pop corn...all simple carbs.) definitely wrecked havoc on my body. We arrived at Lake Waramaug to find out that today was the day of the annual 50k/100k running festival so as we looped around we keeping left to allow the ultra runner types to battle through the 90F heat. We got to the State Park and I immediately raided my Bento Box 3 of the 4 power bars I brought with me were wolfed down in seconds along with a bottle of sports drink .

After getting our bearings set we decided to Press On I gave Bjoern and Josie the Warning that despite the food was helping that I was still going to be about 5 minutes back. And so we did our second loop of the lake and made our way out to the hills. As expected it didn't take long for me to go "off the back " and Bjoern and Josie to go out of sight. I sat in my own level of Dantes Inferno, literally the Heat was opressive, especially considering early this week I was walking around in long pants and a hoodie. Needless to Say Bjoern and Josie were holding good pace. They waited for me at the top of CT 61. After a quick regroup...and the comments "those hills are no joke." We began the descent back.

Crash# 2 Josie joins the "club."

This morning Josie made the comment that she had never been in a crash, well sadly that changed today, as we made our way down 61, she and Bjoern hit a small pot hole, Bjoern stood up right and I saw Josie eat pavement, luckily the car between us slowed to stop and help. Thankfully Josie was just a little cut up ( I'm always afraid that when anyone goes down they break something.) and bent the rear wheel of her P2C, the driver called for the Volunteer firefighters to take a look at her, figure clean out her scrapes a little better. Now I was figuring that just a small fly car would come out with a medic with a first aid kit...nope we got a whole 10 man rescue crew, an ambulance, rescue unit, and one volly who happended to be listening to his scanner. So after the whole shabang the good samaritan motorist drove Josie back to her car as Bjoern and I pressed on. I could go into the bloody gory details but I got smoked...

For me it was probably one of my worst days in the saddle in a long time, I just had nothing, but at least I learned one thing, you can't go 60 miles with nothing in the tank.

Counting his calories

R.D.

I have a paper due Wednesday..

and can you guess the weather forecast: Sunny, warm, with an incredibly light wind....
Alright papers haven't prevented me from training before so I just have to HTFU and get it done.

This week my training has been crap....I haven't swum in a week and my only activity has been a 10k I ran on an indoor track...on Tuesday. I guess I can chalk this up to being a rest week. Sadly my lack of exercise is taking itself out on my personality...I seem to be lacking testosterone, hopelessly crushing on some chick, just emotionally a mess, lacking all rationality, having the sudden urge to drink diet soda with a little umbrella in it...damn it I need to do something manly...and quick...before I start watching Sex and the City reruns and ordering Cosmos..oh wait I'm going to have to do that Saturday night ( have to visit a gay bar for a law class project and then write about what it's like to be a minority for a night.).

So in order to save my manly worth I'm going to do some decent training this weekend.

Tonight: an 8 miler followed by a 3000-4000 yard swim, followed by paper writing.

Saturday Morning Swim, Afternoon: a 70 miler and a 5-10k run brick followed by my night at a minority establishment, and paper writing.

Sunday: I'm going to be a heathen and skip mass and go for a Long ride then a long writing session.

My training mileage should start going up in a couple weeks as things start winding down at school...then begins the job hunt for a better paying gig or at least a couple of side gigs I've got debts to pay and dreams to plan for. Otherwise I may be auctioning a kidney on ebay...but we'll see what happens.

Juan Valdez is still my homeboy.
R.D.

It's On!

Well Bjoern and I are signed up to do battle at the Griskus Sprint this July. Right now I'm hoping that he doesn't dust me like he did on Saturday's ride...alla Lance Armstrong. Then again on Saturday's ride it was first time I had touched in almost 2 weeks. Josie nearly got around me as we summited the hill... after I had beaten her up it by nearly 5 minutes a little less than a month ago. I was really suffering. But anyway back to the Griskus Bjoern has me on the bike no doubt about it, but I know I still have the advantage on the swim and a slight advantage on the run ( granted that advantage is mostly due to his injury...in a 5k when he's healthy we're about dead even.) I could take the cowards way out, use the race as a warm up and qualify his win that "I was resting for Providence...blah blah yadda yadda..."excuse. But such a lack of effort would cheapen our mutual competitiveness..I'm going in with my A-game because to beat him I'm going to need it.

So Bjoern it's on...