boji tri team

2012

2012-01-01T11:07:00.002-06:00

Well, I officially stunk for blogging in 2011. I had one post...though I'm pretty sure it was rad. In any event, 2012 starts today and for those Mayan conspirators, ends around Dec. 21st. In other news, I'm rougly the one billionth person to reference the Mayan calendar today. In even other news, I managed to get decisively better looking while gaining a few pounds of holiday beer in my belly. Throw in some candy/desserts, etc. as well.

For the Boji Tri Team, this year might be the best ever. We've lost a little focus the past year. Well, I did anyways. Hammerhead and his wife are going to welcome the newest addition, a little girl sometime in May. She will surplant the current newest addition, DSM911 and his wife's sweet Baby Ray. My much better half and I will get married in May and then take a week off to an undisclosed location (hint, not Curlew).

For Tri news, four of us have signed up for Ironman Arizona. Boji Hawk, Nacho Libre, (Lovely lady who needs a new blog name) and myself. For the guys, it will be Ironman #2. The first for the future Mrs. I've told myself I will start some sort of exercise tomorrow. How many times have I said that? I'm guessing 1,984.5

For the past Ironman, I had a coach, who I thought did a fantastic job. Now, I'm leaning towards going at it alone. This could be awesome or bad. I'm going to try a little less time consuming workouts and substitute some higher threshold work. I'm also going to try and run a little more, since that's my weakness. I think it may help if I can get down from my current 195+ pounds to about 178. That would be nice. I'll also try and blog a little more and put some more pictures up. I really, really need and I'm sure the audience wants, some more speedo pics. I mean, who doesn't. And with that, here's two a good 2012.

Hiatus

2011-04-26T10:49:00.002-05:00

Well, I figured since it's been roughly forever since I've blogged (Cubs still haven't won a world series, though Hawkeye basketball has me more excited than ever) that I'd give an update. It is almost Summer (though pretty much raining daily).

I'm slowly starting to get back into shape. I've only swum once since August, but I'm not terribly concerned about that. I figure a few hard sessions in the pool should get me back to a respectable point.

With regard to biking and running, I had started to get some form back, but then pretty much demolished my ankle playing basketball, so was out of commission completely in February and most of March. I've been running with dsm911 about once a week and doing some running on my own. I haven't been out on the bike as much as I would like.

My last two runs have been pretty good though. Dsm911 and I went for a 3 miler before basketball last Thursday and went 8:30; 8:08 and I believe 7:20 for the 3 miles. Then, on Sunday I went for a 9.5 mile run and averaged 8:05 per mile. I started to get a little labored for the last mile or so, but overall it was a good run. I think I've discovered the secret. Go to Nut Pob for thai food the night before and then have a couple drinks at Kung Fu Tap & Taco.

Hammerhead and I went on a ride the other day. We were planning on going for an hour, but he decided he needed an aero helmet, so we went to the bike shop. By this point, I was getting hungry, so we rode for 40 minutes and then went and ate wings and burgers.

As far as the race schedule goes, I am going to do the following for sure:

1. Emmetsburg
2. Okoboji
3. Point to Point Swim

Other possibilities are:
1. Hyvee
2. Big Creek
3. Cornman
4. Pigman
5. Bluff Creek

The last one, Bluff Creek is May 22. If I do this, I might want to head to the pool at least once.

Season wrap up,aka...work, beer, and general awesomeness do not equal good triathlon races

2010-09-23T09:32:00.003-05:00

Well, it's been roughly forever since I've written on this thing. Partly because I forgot a little about it, mostly though, because I had nothing really exciting to post about as far as stellar race results...cause I really didn't have any. That being said, I guess some of the races have a little entertainment value.

Before I dive into a short recap, I'm currently out of shape and overweight, at least in the sense of where I've been previously. I'm currently hovering around the 200 pound mark. Yikes. I bet my bro (who's currently below 150...though I'm taller...and about ready to race for a 2:55 marathon at Chicago) that I'd be 180 by xmas. If I'm not, I'm giving him $3 for every pound above. He's not betting against me or anything, it's just some motivation for me. But I digress.

1. O'Round the Loch Run. My time this year was around 20 minutes slower than the year before. We had a ridiculous head wind and for the first time in my life, I honestly thought I was going to have major damage to (insert name for my anatomy). It was unbelievably cold. I seriously hated every moment of this race. dsm911 warmed up in the kaybo sp???. I thought about it, but there was one, and I didn't want to be in the same place rubbing shoulder's with him and warming our... up. Also, I really wanted to be done.

2. Dam to Dam. I should note, that after Ironman Cozumel, I didn't really train, at all. I kind of just showed up to run a couple of races, which happened to be half marathon's. Stupid. My achilles still hurts and I think it's from doing these two races early on, with no training. I've never had any stomach issues racing...until this. Hammerhead and I were jogging this race, when I had to stop and walk, or else... There were no restrooms anywhere, and every step seemed like a gamble. Finally, I found one a little ways away, and did what I had to do. Exciting stuff, but whatever. My time was also awful for this.

3. Emmetsburg Sprint Tri. This was the first tri of the season. I took my bike to transition, flat tire. Pumped it up...leak. New tire...blew that one while pumping it up. Race is starting in like 2 minutes. Get tire fixed, run to swim start. The swim and bike actually went really well. I came into T-2 in first place and then had the longest 5k of my life. I went from the lead to losing about 6 minutes on the leaders. I ran with these guys last year...this year...not. at. all.

4. Okoboji Tri. I was about 18 minutes slower this year than last year. I was probably 18 pounds heavier as well. Coincidence? To summarize this race. Swim was awful, never got into a rhythm. Bike, threw up in my mouth. Run. See Emmetsburg tri run. Last year, I ran 6:53/mile. This year, it was about 8:43. Good news, I know I can get back there, possibly even better.

5. Point to Point Swim. I was really looking forward to this one. But, the weather wasn't going to allow it. So, dsm911 and I swam the first annual (yes, we'll do this every year...along with Pt 2 Pt), dock to dock swim. It was approximately 1.5 miles.

6. Pigman Tri Relay. I did the swim, 1.2 miles. I pretty much couldn't see anything due to the fog. There was a delay, and I still couldn't see anything until halfway through the swim. I ended up being directed back on course by a boat. I actually thought I was swiming well, and then saw my time. It was around 38 minutes or something. I swam 1 hour at Cozumel. Hammerhead was true to his name and hammering the bike...until some lady who couldn't handle her bike made him crash. He rode 28 miles with skinned hands, legs and a missing lens in his shades, of which he didn't know. Dogman then ran a fast half.

Those were basically my races. I'm vowing to get back into the shape I was in last year. I'm shooting for a great Okoboji, that'll be my key. Also, I'd like to take the top spot at Emmetsburg and not have my junk almost fall off at the O'Round the Loch Run.

Finally, I'll post more on the blog, since I've been very lame previously.

Happy Birthday!

2010-05-06T08:41:00.002-05:00

Happy Birthday to the cyclist that absolutely destroyed me on our workout last Sunday...Hammerhead. He turns 31 this year and is only getting faster. After our workout, he also managed to eat 4 brats (I think). Unfortunately, there was no banana split for us this time.

Actually got some decent workouts done this week (yes, it's only Thursday). Tuesday, I did an hour of fairly hard riding...though last year at this time, my pace wouldn't have felt that hard, but I'm not in very good shape right now. I followed that ride with a one mile run. The run was slow and painful. Yesterday, I swam over lunch. 200 warm-up, then did 5 x 100; 2 x 200 and 1 x 100.

The first 100 was at 1:20 and I think the rest were around 1:27. 15 seconds rest each. The 200's came in at 3:00, with about 45 seconds rest in between. Slowly coming back. I also ran about 4 miles, but my garmin battery died, so I have no idea what the pace was. Thought about getting up early to workout, but was really tired. Going out to lunch for Hammerhead's bday, then I'm balling tonight.

Sunday night at the office

2010-05-02T18:02:00.000-05:00

Yep, the title's true. Nothing like Sunday night at the office! At least there's Pandora and the Zach Brown Band station. Decent weekend of working out. Ok, not really that great. Grand plans to get a solid run in finally on Saturday. Nope, didn't happen. But, Hammerhead, Nacho Libre and I did manage to get in a 28 mile ride this morning. The average pace was fairly slow, but we had some killer sprints, especially up some hills. Early verdict. I've got a long way to go. Hammerhead...is in good shape on the bike right now. The dude can ride. Nacho Libre can also ride, though I did manage to catch up and get him on a couple of the hills. He dominated me the rest of the way. Right now, my speed/stamina isn't there yet...and I don't think it should be. I've been on the bike a total of 3 times since Cozumel in November. Not good. At. All. This was my longest ride.

On an actually good note, Dogman had a long run yesterday, 18 miles. I got back right when he finished and checked out his pace on his watch. 6:55 per mile average. Solid split for 18 miles. He's gonna rock it this year I think.

This afternoon, I did manage to make it over to the ICubs game and the one and only dsm911 sang the 7th inning stretch. Yep, there's video. Check back (not sure if I'll post the video, cause my terrible voice is sort of loud on it), but I'll start blogging more now that the season is starting to gear up. I've got a long ways to go, but my bigger races aren't till July, so I'm down with that.

@%#@))_($*#&_@_($)(

2010-04-25T13:35:00.002-05:00

Yep, it's Sunday and I'm getting ready to dominate a brief. At least the weather's kind of crappy, so it doesn't make me feel that bad about being stuck at the office. I like top 10 lists. Here's one. There's no rhyme or reason to any of it.

10. I'm seriously out of shape...for me. I've put on way too many pounds and been eating like crap. It's about speedo season :) and I need to get in shape, lose the pounds and become sort of fast again. I went to the store and bought good food, that's step 1. The bike's put together...another step in the right direction.

9. Arizona...seriously. Not to get too political, because this isn't the time/place for it, but I think the law you just passed is incredibly ridiculous. Please get a clue (this is my own opinion and not the opinion of the Boji Tri Team).

8. I'm currently drinking a big gulp. The stuff in number 10 is referencing tomorrow. Drink on Big Gulp, drink on.

7. Dogman ran sub 6's for his 8k. This was solid.

6. dsm911 is on the missing person's list I think. I would like him to at least come back and play Thursday night basketball...and do some swimming with me in the mornings.

5. Burrito and I went to Peggy's tent party last night. Nothing like $5 beers.

4. I've got a feeling Hammerhead is gonna do some dominating this year. He's been in the pool quite a bit. I need that extra time prior to getting on the bike.

3. Pandora is great. I mean the free music thing, not the Avatar land, or whatever it's called.

2. I think the Emmetsburg tri may be my first tri of the year. It's the end of June. I was going to do one in May, but I'm so out of shape right now. I guess sometimes the best way to get back into shape is race though...we'll see.

1. The following people are awesome. Kevin Durant, Flea, Andre Dawson, Richard Dawson, The Warrior, Pat Green and Ignatius J. Reilly.

In the words of Ini Kamoze

2010-03-30T09:01:00.002-05:00

Here Comes the Hotstepper. What, you may ask, does that have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing. It's just the first group/song that came in my head this morning. I noticed that I haven't posted in approximately 37 fortnights, not gonna do the actual math, but sounds good to me. What have I been up to, since everyone's dying to know...work. And eating cheeseburgers.

Ironman Cozumel was at the end of November. Since that time, I've swum a few laps, ran around 35 miles (this includes a half marathon about 10 days ago) and have yet to put my bike back together. Working a lot and getting a little burnt out from training allowed me to gain a few pounds, which made those 35 miles running shall we say, a little more difficult. But I digress. I'm ready to get back on the (whatever it is that I need to get back on to get my butt in gear).

Dogman, dsm911 and I decided to run the half marathon for St. Paddy's weekend. Brutal. Dogman did well, dsm911 and I were glad to survive with all of our body parts. It was brutally cold and about half the race was into a 30+ mile wind. It was the least fun I've ever had exercising, and that includes the mile we had to run in high school PE.

Dogman's started training for the Okoboji Marathon yesterday. Saw his Garmin from his 7 mile run...something like 6:45-50 pace. I took a visit to the pool last night for 1500 straight. It was a little struggle. About two weeks ago I tried to do a 10 x 100 workout to see how much time I've lost swimming due to my absence. Gave myself 15 seconds rest between sets and came in right at 1:30 for the majority, a little faster for the first couple. It'll be interesting once I actually get back on the bike, which will hopefully be soon given the weather, supposed to hit 80 this week.

Since the season's starting to come into view and I think I'm over the funk I was in, I'll start to post more incredibly witty material. I may also attempt a sit-up this week.

Recap:

2010-01-18T13:41:00.002-06:00

Was supposed to swim on Wed. after New Years...did not...Hawkeyes totally dominated Georgia Tech.

That Sun...pretended NBA scouts were in the crowd during my Urbandale city league bball game (note...there wasn't actually a single person in the crowd). Tried to do something awesome and turned my ankle.

Fast forward this past Sunday. Went on a 3 mile snowshoe run. It. Was. Hard. Basically, my motions felt like I was running at about a 9 minute pace (actual = 10:30) and my heart felt like it was going to explode. This is what happens when you run in snowshoes and are roughly a baker's dozen pounds overweight from your Ironman a month and a half earlier.

This morning I swam with dsm911 at 5:30 a.m...Pool was packed with the New Years resolution people...who mostly swam circles around me.

Need to start kicking it in gear.

This may be the worst post in the history of all the land.

Training started today

2010-01-04T20:11:00.002-06:00

dsm911 and I decided to hit the Walnut Creek Y at 5:30 a.m. sharp this morning to rock a swim workout. I woke up early...3 a.m. cause I started thinking about sweet ideas for my hearing on Wednesday. Couldn't get back to sleep. Met dsm911 and we decided to swim 1200 straight. Nothing too crazy, but the last time I swam was in an ocean in November.

It went ok...didn't wear a watch. I was sore the rest of the day in my arms. Dogman also rocked a workout this morning. No idea what he did, but it was probably an easy half marathon at sub 7 pace. Word on the street is that burrito is currently dominating the scene in Miami. Go Hawks.

I think I've found my first race of the year. Got a sweet pair of snowshoes for xmas from a hot lady and am going to do a snowshoe race in February. It'll probably be ridiculously hard...so we'll see.

I need to get back to watching the Bachelor... I mean bowl game...dsm911 is watching the Bachelor.

2010 Race Goals

2009-12-16T10:55:00.003-06:00

As I sit here after finishing my fourth cookie before 11 a.m., I thought I'd write a quick post on my race goals for the 2010 season. Feel free to add yours in the comments below and I'll post them on the main page. If you don't, I'll make them up for you and this will be awesome.

1. Have fun: This sort of goes without saying, especially if you read anything on this blog or the comments. We like to have a good time. While I love good results and am very comptetive. I don't do this for a living. I'll leave that part up to TJ. As I've said numerous times on this blog and during our meetings...with beer, I do these more so because it's a good time with my friends. Also, Hammerhead will be back in the area hopefully soon, so that gives us another training partner.

2. Emmetsburg Tri: I've gotten 2nd and 3rd in this race the last two years. This year, I would like to win. It'll be tough, as the guy that won it last year beat me fairly easily. I'll have to get faster...or I guess he and every other fast person could take a vacation?

3. Okoboji Tri: I got in the top 10 (8th) last year. This year I'd like to get in the top 5.

4. Olympic Distance: Time goals are so course dependent. For example, there's some halfs were a 4:30 on one course is closer to 5 hours on many others. Anyways, I didn't do an Olympic distance race last year. The year before, I went 2 hours and 20 minutes. I'd like to go 2 hours and 15 minutes. I haven't done speedwork in a while, so we'll see.

5. Health: This should be up higher, but I guess there's no particular order. Stay healthy for everyone on the team.

6. Must-do races: I would for sure like to do... Dam to Dam, Emmetsburg Tri, Okoboji Tri, Point to Point.

7. Running: In most races (except for Ironman Cozumel), my run splits are nowhere near as good fieldwise, as my swim/bike. It's not because I go out too hard on the bike...my open run times and tri-run times aren't that far off...it's just that I need to improve running.

8. Aqua Skipper: dsm911 and the warrior...be warned, I'm coming after you two to take the crown as best aqua skipper on the team.

9. Road Race: I'd like to enter one road race this year...bike that is.

10. GET DSM911 TO DO POINT TO POINT

11. Edited to add (Race Okoboji at 175 pounds). Raced Cozumel at around 183...just weighed in after a big dinner last night at 190.

Ironman Cozumel Race Report

2009-12-13T17:25:00.013-06:00

My feet were killing me and I couldn't stand it any more. It was hot and humid and I wanted, no needed to get my feet out of my shoes for some relief. Finally, I did it and it felt great. It was at this point I knew...I was 109 miles into my 112 mile ride and still had to run the marathon.

PRE: RACE: Nacho Libre and I arrived in Cozumel on Thurs

day of race week. The race was Sunday. While sitting on the plane waiting to take off from Dallas, we heard some rumblings from the 85% plane full of triathletes (other 15% were probably wondering what was going on) that a few of the bike boxes didn't make it onto the plane. Well, that sucked, but nothing we could do about it then. Upon arrival, we waited for the boxes to come off the plane...Nothing. This was a concern.

We had to have our bikes checked in on Saturday. Planes came from Dallas once a day, so basically it had to come Friday or things would get really interesting. Hammerhead, Dogman and Princess had already arrived and Hammerhead had his bike.

On Friday, Dana (needs a name) arrived. She had a smile on her face (one reason, she'd arrived in Cozumel, secondly because she saw my bike box had made it!). Good to go.

Saturday night, we ate at the hotel (I was eating like a mad man the days leading up, figuring I'd need the calories). Went to be fairly early.

Race Morning: Woke up at 4 and had a bagel with peanut butter, two bananas and some water with electrolytes. Also had a cup of coffee to, well, you know what purpose that serves on race morning. And I don't mean to wake me up. But I digress.

Took a cab at 5 with Nacho Libre and Dana to the transition area. It was still dark and playing disco music. I had a dance off with myself. Obviously no one wanted to challenge me with my moves. Ran into Hammerhead, got the bodyglide applied and transition set up.

The picture on the left shows the room set-up with the bike and all sorts of race gear. I started out with my aero bottle filled with water, one water bottle with electrolytes and one water bottle. I had an extra tube and some tools in case of a flat. Pro triathlete TJ Tollakson let me use one of his wheels, his bike case and some other stuff. He didn't want to let me borrow the stuff, but I won a walk-off against him earlier. He couldn't turn left. (Please say you've seen Zoolander).

Above, one of the keys when you've got to run a long distance. Bandaids. On. Nipples. Great fun at 4 a.m.

Hammerhead and I posed for a quick picture. Thanks to Dana for coming early with us and taking video. I'll try to get that up later. Hammerhead wanted to do the the race in sweatpants and no shirt, but I thought this might not be that good. Obviously you don't want to get our nipples sunburnt. (I noticed he didn't have bandaids. Sweats would do well in the water as well. Some more pictures prior to the swim. Nacho Libre was too busy trying to tell the race director he needed a nap so the race couldn't start until noon, or else he'd be in these pictures.

SWIM (2.4 miles): The pro's started fifteen minutes before us. Hammerhead and I got in the water the same time. We quickly got separated. I wanted to get towards the middle/right (buoy's on the left) and about 2 rows deep. My goal time coming in was around 1hr 5 min. I figured if I had a good swim it'd be around 1:02, bad around 1:08. There was some nervous energy waiting for the mass swim start. I've heard anywhere from 1800 to 2000 people started the race. The gun went off and I took off strong. I got a decent amount of getting kicked in the face, etc. Luckily for us, race morning gave us some fairly calm waters. Previously, it would've been tough with all the waves and current. They canceled the practice swim for two days.

The first 500 meters were into a current. I had previously done a swim into the current the day before (one day swim practice wasn't canceled) and it took me over 13 minutes to get to this buoy and less than 8 to get back. The first buoy on race day was crowded as everyone was fighting to take the quickest route. I got hammered a bunch, but oh well. The water was clear and you could see the bottom easily. Starfish everywhere and a sting ray. Also, the scuba divers were watching people to make sure everyone was ok...First time I saw one, scared the hell out of me. Had no idea what it was.

Back on track...We then had a long straight swim with the current at our backs. Nothing too crazy except one of my goggles leaked and the salt water stung my eye. I swam probably half the swim with one eye closed, but it wasn't that bad and I was enjoying myself. The final turn was around a submarine, which was pretty cool.

Exiting the water, I glanced at my watch and saw 1:01. Perfect.

I saw Hammerhead's brother, sister-in-law and wife. I also saw Dana, Princess and Dogman. The picture above I was yelling when I saw them. What a great feeling. I still had a long day ahead of me, but I was pumped. Had a fairly long run to grab my Swim to bike bag that contained my bike shoes, helmet, etc. They had changing tents, but it was full, so I dropped my bag outside and got my stuff out. Many people change completely into biking shorts, jersey, etc. I wore the same stuff for the bike. I did have a camera in my face for a while (no idea why, probably will get a modeling gig from it though). It was funny at first, cause I was applying body glide everywhere (down there), when the camera guy finally figured out what I was doing, he filmed something else. I also had a french dude ask me to borrow my sunscreen. It took me about a minute to figure out what he wanted.

Bike (112 miles): The bike course was 3 loops (112 miles) around the island. I started out cruising, low heart rate without too much effort and was around 22-23 miles per hour. Great I thought. Then, we hit a little headwind and I dropped to about 19 mph. THEN, the 13 mile stretch of exposed cross/head winds. I saw my speed slow to around 14, 15 and 16 mph on this stretch. It was hard. People were struggling and straining, as if they were riding up steep hills. One guy passed me with way too much effort. I knew I'd see him again and passed him on the second loop as if he was standing still. I wasn't even going that fast. Once we got out of the crosswinds, it was great relief. I was taking about 280 calories per hour on the bike and 4-6 salt tabs per hour. The salt tabs were to avoid cramps in the heat/humidity.

Around mile 70 was bike special needs. What happens here is it's like a mini-transition area. People put all sorts of stuff in these bags in case they drop supplies or just need something new. I had to stop to get more salt tabs. Well, the one negative about the race (other than winds/heat, etc. but I digress), was that this was completely disorganized. It took me 10 minutes to find my bag. I think it took Hammerhead took like 15 or so. Hammerhead said one guy got so pissed off he just started throwing bags. Basically, there were like 6 tables with bags just messed up everywhere.

It really, really sucked starting the 3rd loop knowing I still had to go through that 13 mile windy stretch again. Each loop it got even windier. For those doing this race, treat it like a hilly course. I talked to a guy afterward that had done Lake Placid, Wisconsin, Florida and Canada and he said this course took him 30-40 minutes longer than the other bike courses he's done. That's just one person though. It definitely took me longer than I thought it would.

As mentioned at the beginning, my feet started hurting me at mile 60. At mile 90, it got bad. I'm not sure what it was? Heat/humidity? I also was hoping I had some bodyglide in my special needs bag as my "nether" regions were starting to chafe. No such luck. The people of Cozumel were awesome cheering. I think everyone on the island came out for it. Again, it was great to have our cheering section out there. Believe me...I knew exactly where they were located and it kept me going. You all have no idea how much it meant having everyone there.

The picture above was just after I'd seen Hammerhead's family members. They were about 10 miles from Dogman, Princess and Dana, so that worked great as we had two different groups to look forward to seeing. Thanks again!

I pulled into T2 and saw Nacho Libre, who had an amazing swim and bike. He passed me about 85 or so miles in I think? Not really sure. Also, Hammerhead had an amazing swim as well. We all had similar bikes, but Hammerhead's bike special needs was even more of an adventure than mine.

In bike to run transition, a volunteer takes your bike and racks it for you. Mine was great. He was yelling at me in Spanish and I couldn't figure what he was saying. I was hoping I didn't get a penalty my shorts had a hole in them or something. I stood there for about 30 seconds and finally realized he was cheering "Go!!!." Again, the people and volunteers are great.

This next part is kind of gross...I really needed body glide as my "downtown" was feeling raw from the 112 mile bike and I'm not sure if I got all the saltwater off from the swim (they had outside showers). Anyways, I got some bodyglide and put it everywhere. Problem...it was warming bodyglide. I thought it'd be good for my legs, etc...kind of like icy hot. Well, it burned the absolute hell out of me when I applied it under my shorts. I took a bottle of water, went into the porta-pottie and dumped in down my shorts. Still no relief. I pretty much wanted to quit right there from the burning (don't believe what dsm911 says). Eventually, after about a mile in, it subsided. I averaged 18 mph. for the bike. I thought it'd be higher, but my placing was solid for the race.

Run (26.2 miles):

I was nervous for the run. Since my marathon in March 2008, I'd run longer than 13.1 miles one time. That was about three weeks before race day. I had planned on going out at about 8:50-9 min/pace and see how that felt. It felt great. I hit the first mile at 8:45. The run was three loops. The first loop I averaged 9 min pace. Great. The one down side was the loop turnaround was near the finish line. I didn't know where it was exactly, and the volunteer had to point me to turn around instead of running into the finish. The crowd was great again and they held one finger up for one more loop. I smiled and held 2. At this point, I still was feeling good...obviously looking better.

The second loop I walked the aid stations. I had planned to take Gu's every 30 minutes, but I couldn't stomach the stuff. Or Gatorade. At the aid stations, there were powerbar stuff, oranges, bananas, crackers, gatorade, water, ice and coke. I was taking a couple oranges and banana (or some crackers) every mile at the aid stations. I'd also take two chunks of ice and put one down my shirt in front and one in back. I'd take some water and pour the rest on my face. I was hot. I'd also take about 8 ounces of coke each aid station. The second loop I was closer to 10 minute miles.

The third loop I slowed closer to 11 minute miles. It was still hot and getting dark. I was walking just pass the aid stations. Our cheering section was AWESOME! With about two miles left, my shoes sloshing from water/sweat/coke, my body wanting to quit, I somehow found energy. I started running. The Garmin was telling me I was below 8:30/mile, sometimes at 8. I was running past a ton of people. No one passed me the last two miles. When I saw the crowd, finish line/family and friends, nothing hurt. I was euphoric. It's hard to describe the feeling. I was loving it. I had the finish line to myself. I ended up running around 4 hours and 25 minutes, which was faster than my debut and only marathon in March 08. Total finish time was 11 hours and 53 minutes and some change. I've got some great pictures and will post more of them along with video. I am an Ironman. Nacho Libre is an Ironman. Hammerhead is an Ironman.

What started over a year ago was complete. I couldn't ask for two better guys to do this race with.

The reward is shown in the pictures to the left. What an amazing time. I know I've left out a ton of stuff, but I have to go ball.

Race Report Soon

2009-12-09T17:00:00.000-06:00

Sorry, been busy at work and I want to get some good pictures up. Hopefully this weekend. Short recap, everyone did awesome. Three members of the Boji Tri Team are Ironmen...and we all obviously looked good the entire process. Our feet, that's another story. Mine still look like a battle zone.

What Nacho Libre has been doing for about a year now...

2009-11-20T10:26:00.004-06:00

Got this from the website below...pretty funny.

How to brag about doing an Ironman
Before I started to train an Ironman, I bought a training plan, I read books on hydration and fuel replacement, I listened to endless hours of advice from elite and pro triathletes. This information did help me finish, but it did not teach me how to correctly brag about being an Ironman. My friends and I came up with a six phase program which will aid you in bragging about your Ironman. Use this plan from the moment you register until well after the race is complete for the most bang for your bragging buck.

Sign Up Phase: For most Ironman events, you have to register up to one year in advance. This gives you plenty of time to brag about doing an Ironman. During this phase, you must let all of your non-Ironman friends know you can’t hang out with them anymore, because you just signed up for an Ironman. If you don’t have any Ironman friends, then go to a place where runners or bikers hang out. Look for the Ironman symbol (M Dot) on their training clothes. An Ironman would never be caught running or biking without their Ironman stuff.

Training Phase: Training for an Ironman can be compared to having a part time job. You must let everyone you meet know this. This can be accomplished by sighing loudly at work, mumbling how tired you are because you just biked 100 miles, because you are in training for an Ironman. You can also skillfully steer the conversation with your neighbors and co-workers to your Ironman training. Here is an example:

Neighbor: “Did you hear what President Bush said this week?”
Lee: “Were you aware that President Bush is a biker? I just biked 100 miles today. I am training for an Ironman.”

Co worker: Lee, are you working late tonight?
Lee: No, I have to get up early to do a 20 mile run.

I even once rang my neighbor’s door and when he answered, I said “Sorry Bob, can’t talk to you now, I am training for an Ironman.”

One Week before the Race Phase: You need to let your neighbors and co-workers know you will be gone for a little while, competing in an Ironman. Once again, you can steer the conversation to your Ironman race.

Neighbor: “Wow Lee your lawn looks great!”
Lee: “My lawn is going to look bad this next week; I will be competing in an Ironman.”

Race Expo Phase: You must buy as much Ironman merchandise as possible. For years we saved our money to send both of my boys to private college, but sacrifices must be made. Both Derick and Ty will be going to junior college now. You must buy enough Ironman clothes to cover every day at work and training. You must also buy plenty of shirts for your spouse and children. They will also spread the word that you just finished an Ironman.

The Race Phase: At http://www.ironmanlive.com/ you can setup automatic emails and cell phone message notifications of your Ironman timing splits. You can use all of the entries in your email and cell phone address book. Include everyone regardless of whether they remember you are or not. It just does not matter, because you are an Ironman.

Post Race Phase: The finisher medal can be worn for one day per the number of miles raced and everyone knows that an Ironman is 140.6 miles. So wear that medal for 141 days (always round up as opposed to rounding down your finishing time). Your children must be trained to say, “My daddy is an Ironman. He gave me this shirt. He’s an Ironman.” This must be emphasized over and over with your children. I did not do this after I ran the Boston marathon, and Derick, my oldest boy, told everyone at his day care that his grandma ran the marathon.
Your spouse must memorize all of your splits (swim, bike and run). You must also include both transition splits as well. Instead of wearing a shirt which states, “I am with Dummy”, your spouse will wear a shirt which says, “I am with a stud Ironman”. All conversations must be steered to your Ironman race.

Co-Worker: “Did you hear about the new work policy?”
Lee: “Nope, I did not; I was racing in an Ironman.”

For at least one month you can say, “Well, I ‘m only going to run easy today, I just did an Ironman.”

When someone brings up a subject of hardships suffered, you need to remind them that you also have suffered through hardships while training and racing in your Ironman.
You can also use these ideas to brag about other races, but please only brag about races which are longer than 13.1 miles.

Pretty funny. Now, if Hammerhead would update his blog that would be swell.

Why I will have a good race at IM Cozumel

2009-11-18T17:06:00.003-06:00

I have just realized and come across some information that points to me having a fantastic race at Ironman Cozumel in roughly 12 days. No, not any power numbers from my long rides. No, not any mile splits from my 19 mile run. Nope, nothing to do with my latest swim splits from my 2000 yard straight or 10 x 100 workouts I've recently done. None of this has anything to do with why I am going to totally dominate this race (dominate by my terms, not overall placing, etc.)

I am going to have a great race because I just realized that at 5:00 pm to 5:45 pm at the new Y that I work out at, there is the once in a lifetime chance to go to "Wedding Dance Exercise!". How can I not have a good race knowing that when I get back, I can get ready to prepare for Jeffy Madness' or the Accelerade Warrior's wedding by taking part in this epic class. The description states..."this class will get you moving with all of the popular dances traditionally done at weddings, plus a few more".

Holy Piss! Not only can I perfect (again, by my standards, my dancing is already perfect by most other's standards, but I digress) the chicken dance and whatever that song is where everyone gets in a line and goes "to the left, to the left, now slide" but I'm going to "get ...moving" to a "few more" songs. What could these possibly be? Souljah Boy? Lady Gaga? I mean, when I get to mile 18 of the marathon portion of the event, I know that if I just push through, dig deep and finish, that soon enough, I will be able to "get moving" to "Twist and Shout" and "Sweet Caroline." Though I always thought the latter song just involved a beer in one hand and the closed fist move to the "bamp bamp bamp" sp????? portion of the song?

Anyways, with this newfound knowledge, I am no longer worried about the race. Thank you new Y and Wedding dance instructor.

On a side note, I have to be related to this guy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2SSZA0CjdQ

Less than 3 weeks to go!

2009-11-09T12:47:00.002-06:00

Well, as the title indicates, we are less than 3 weeks to go until race time. It's going to come quick. I just finished my biggest week of workouts. Was supposed to do 17 hours. Had time for 15. On Saturday, I had a long run of 18 miles scheduled. I was really nervous about this one, as the last time I had run over 13.1 miles was March 2008...the Atlanta Marathon. Nacho Libre was going to join me and see how far he could make it, given he hasn't been able to run much since his injury. Dogman was also going to do the run with us, though he had a birthday part to celebrate the night before, so he was iffy.

I got to Raccoon River Park right about 9:15. Nacho Libre was a couple minutes late, as he has Nacho Libre time. Raccoon River Park has a 5k loop, some of it on pavement, most on trails. We loaded Nacho Libre's car with gatorade, water and nutrition and stopped for a quick bit at the "aid stations" in between loops. The run had 3 x 1 mile pick-ups. All in all, the run went great. Dogman showed up on time, and it ended up being an easy 19 mile run for him. Yep, we ended up actually going 19.2 miles. Dogman and I pushed the last mile, check that, I pushed the last mile, he was still jogging, at 7:52 pace. Overall, my average time was 8:43 per mile. I'll take it. Nacho Libre also finished the run at around 8:47 per mile.

The next day saw a 100 mile ride/5 mile brick run on the schedule. Also on the schedule were 20+ mile an hour constant winds with 30+ gusts. The ride was not that fun. With the wind at our backs we were easily hitting around 30 mph in zone2 while barely going 12 mph back into the wind. After the ride, the run was kind of a struggle, but got it done. Then, right as we finished, the pizza delivery man showed up and we downed some pizzas. Now, it's 3 weeks of tapering until race day.

Awesome news!

2009-11-06T09:24:00.002-06:00

http://www.kcci.com/video/21221210/index.html

This should be pretty cool. 13 stories high, 6th highest bike trail in the world, lights at night. I dig it.

Well, I'm lame

2009-11-05T10:25:00.002-06:00

I suck. At blogging. Lately. Empty promises about updating more frequently, great pictures that haven't been uploaded, etc. etc. etc. Well, I still don't have the pictures uploaded. I went to Best Buy to buy the magical device to do this, since I'd lost mine, but bought one that is compatible with my old camera...and basically every other camera as well...except mine. Sweetness.

I will try to post more, since the race is coming up. A little update on the three individuals partaking in this journey.

Me: Still quite attractive, need to stay away from the champagne cake, turning 30 was fantastic, and the Hawkeyes are 9-0. Wait, we're talking about triathlon's here. Training is going ok. Not bad, not great. A couple of weeks ago, I was losing so much motivation. I'm one of those people that doesn't mind training, at least shorter/harder workouts, but I need to race. Let me repeat...I need to race. I haven't raced since September and was getting passive with training. That and football season, etc. was making me lose motivation. Oh yeah, I also work a lot. Anyways, a couple weeks ago, I was out on what was supposed to be a 15 mile run. I hadn't gone longer than 13 miles, which scares the hell out of me right now. A solid combination of darkness, leaves and holes in sidewalks provided a nice black/blue swollen ankle. Luckily, I only missed a week of workouts. I did have a workout with TJ Tollakson and Brad Bach prior to this where we rode 90 miles and some hills. Worst ride ever. Don't ride with a Pro triathlate and a very solid roadie hung over from your birthday the night before. Doesn't end well. I'm in the middle of a 17 hour workout week and I've got a 100 mile ride/50 min. brick run and an 18 mile run planned for the weekend. The ankle is coming along. Let's roll.

Hammerhead: Hammerhead has his own blog now since mine hasn't been updated forever. It actually prompted me to update. I'll try to post a link http://bojitriteam-stonecold.blogspot.com/2009/11/next-step.html

He's been working on his running, has always been a solid biker and his swim was coming along. Not sure how much pool time he's been getting, but we're gonna finish. He's also still quite good looking as well, which is a requirement for our team.

Nacho Libre: Nacho just got cleared by the doctor. He did 450 yards in the pool and it wasn't pleasant. I hope he tries to give it a go, and it would be amazing if he did. For those that don't know, he tried playing chicken with Hammerhead on their bikes and lost. Ok, that's a lie. Bike accident that fratured clavicle and nose. He's still good looking though.

Anyways, I promise to start blogging more and getting the right thing for my camera. Then there will be awesome pictures, possibly the greatest in all the land.

Big Weekend

2009-09-25T08:40:00.003-05:00

1. Friday: Dave Matthews show. It's outside at Principle Park. It's probably going to rain. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be fantastic since the Warrior and (dear everyone, Kim needs an awesome name and I'm currently limiting my caffeine intake so I can't think of anything) Kim are coming. I'm upset I didn't start this sentence with "it's".

2. Friday: Burrito is going out to dinner at a fancy restaurant tonight (Friday). He's probably going to drink expensive tequila and we will try to meet up with him after. Last time he did this he was doing the humpty dance on the dance floor. It was 2pm and people were finishing Sunday brunch. (this is a lie, but it would have been sweet).

3. Saturday: Work...not awesome. 4.5 hour bike ride. Not awesome, especially since Nacho Libre tried to fight the pavement during our last ride and lost. But, he'll be back, hopefully soon. Then, the Hawkeyes will kick the snot? crap? pants? out of/off of Penn State. I may go to Burrito's to watch this, depending on if he's doing the humpty dance.

4. Sunday: Run for 2 hours, swim for 1 hour. I will probably try to go to Smashburger one of these days.

Square Lake Triathlon Race Report

2009-09-16T20:20:00.005-05:00

We'll start this off Thursday before the race. The Flaming Bonobo kickball team, commonly known as the greatest and best looking kickball team ever, basically made another team cry to the tune of the mercy rule. After this butt kicking, the team went to Legends, where I was to meet up with Jeffy Madness, my college roommate of 37 years. Too many beers later, I was home.

Friday, one of my other college buddies, Clausen, was in town and we went to the Flying Mango, awesome food and a few beers. Slept in a little bit on Sat. a.m. and watched the Hawkeyes destroy the lame Cyclones. Picked Princess up and we were shortly off to Minneapolis for the race. She was going to see Mary Poppins Sat. night. I was going to meet up with the Warrior and his better half for dinner and a couple beers. We ended up going to what we thought was a bar/restaurant. This place had great food...and a little pricey. Oh well, I finished off with some solid dessert.

Race Morning: 5 a.m. wake up call to Bone Thugs & Harmony on the cell phone alarm. Great way to start the day. The few days leading up to the race, was nothing like my first half earlier in the year. I was pretty nervous for Kansas. For this one, it

was kind of like another training day.

We got to the race start, eventually (british garmin lady kept going off course and really, really foggy). Sort of got my transition set up and needed to use the restroom. Lines were too long, but luckily I made it. My stomach was feeling full (after restroom usage, yes, some of this stuff is gross, but I'm really good looking, just remember that). Not really sure how the swim would pan out.

The pic below is the walk back to my bike after realizing that I may not have time to use the restroom. Obviously, I'm keeping my cool and looking fly.

Swim: The swim ended up really well for me. My goal was to take an easy pace and try to stay smooth. I wanted to go at a pace that I may try to rock for the Ironman. I ended swimming 30 minutes, which was at least three minutes faster than Kansas. Side note, the lake reminded me of Okoboji, so I had good karma going in. Below is a picture of me exiting the swim. You can see those less good looking still in the water.

Next up was the bike. I wanted to stay smooth and strong as well. I needed to not go out too fast. Took off at the pace I wanted and it was really, really foggy. Went into the small chain ring up a huge hill and as I was cresting the hill, I transferred to the big ring, so I could keep pedaling on the downhill. Well, that was the plan. My chain came off and got wrapped around my pedal. I stopped and got off the bike to fix it, and it cost me some momentum. I quickly got back on the bike and was feeling good, but obviously looking better.

About mile 35 a pack of cheating drafters went by me. I saw the first few, stood up on the bike to let them pass, so I wouldn't be in the draft zone and they kept coming. Including about 10 people that I had already passed. Pretty much pissed me off. Then, after a few of them dropped off the pack, I re-passed them. Including a couple that I easily passed. For those that don't know, you gain a huge benefit in speed with much less energy sucking someone's wheel. The pictures below are me getting ready to head out on the bike. Take note of the guitar hero stickers on the helmet. Hammerhead and Nacho Libre also rock this look. It makes us fast. The other pick is me finishing up the bike.

Now onto the run. Usually my nemesis. Today it wasn't...until mile 8. Then it sucked. I wanted to take it easy early on, shoot for about an 8:30 pace, give or take depending on the crappy hills. Also, it was getting hot. I'd guess mid to high 80's, but the kicker was no wind and no shade...at all. I was roasting, as were most of the other competitors. Anyways, by mile 8, I slowed way down, walked the aid stations, took a cup of gatorade, a cup of water, another 1/2 cup of water and dumped the rest on my head to try and cool down. I also yelled at the Warrior as I took off on the run to see if he saw the $@$@$@#% drafters. The pic. below is me yelling this.

Above...the end is in sight. Thankfully. Thanks to the Warrior; The Thundering Herd and Princess for coming to spectate. That helped a ton, especially on the run.

I finished in just under 5 hours and 15 minutes. My swim was 30 minutes, bike pace was 21.2 miles per hour and my run pace was 9:27/mile. The run pissed me off. Oh well. It was a decent race and I'm glad to get it out of the way. I need to figure out hydration and nutrition. After the race, I went and layed in the lake. I also urinated what looked like ecto cooler. Yes, it really did. The water was clear and this is what it looked like. Can you say dehydrated? Yep.

I kind of threw this together, so it may be lame. More training posts/pics and my general thoughts of awesomeness will follow. Less than three months away!

Race Report soon...with pics

2009-09-14T14:55:00.002-05:00

No time right now for a long, detailed race report.

Short version.

Good dinner Sat. night with the team members from the state where people don't know how to drive, i.e., fast lane vs. slow lane

Race Morning...thank the lord I had time for the bathroom. Was worried about this.

Swim: Reminded me of Okoboji, so obviously it was going to be good.

Bike: Drafter's suck...bad. My ride was good. Drafter's suck...bad

Run: If this was a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 6 mile run, I would have done really well.

Post race: My car on the way home smelled like an offensive lineman's locker after a long season and not washing practice uniform.

Apologies and thoughts

2009-09-08T20:17:00.002-05:00

First off, I'm sorry that this thing has been neglected for a couple of weeks now. Normally, I wouldn't need to apologize, but my readers are obviously the best, brightest, most attractive and rad readers out there and quite frankly, they deserve better. Between the magical world of facebook, twitter, cell phones, Baskin Robbins and Corona's, where's all the time go? Oh yeah, work and Ironman training.

I'll try to get better at the blog, especially since it's starting to get to crunch time for Ironman Cozumel. I do enjoy writing, but I'd also like to look back on this down the road as part of the overall experience that this year, both good and bad, has been, mostly due to the Ironman. So far though, most of it is good. The bad comes with some of the sacrifices that come with being out on a bike for five hours, not only is it five hours of actual bike time, but there's the time to get to the ride, prepare for the ride, go home from the bar earlier because of the ride (note, I still do manage to push the limits on the last one). Then there's what gets accomplished after a hard ride, i.e., not a whole hell of a lot.

This past weekend was Labor Day weekend, for my readers in Botswana. I had a great run on Sunday, 12.41 miles. I usually do my long runs based on heart rate, but couldn't find my heart rate monitor for a week (with swim stuff...note to self...need to swim more), so I went on feel. It was supposed to be an easy run, and for the most part, it was pretty easy. Ended up averaging 8:52/mile. Most importantly, it felt good. I also swam 2000 yards later that day, but made the mistake of eating a huge meal an hour and a half before. You all know that rule about waiting an hour after eating to swim...well, let's just say I don't think they took into account eating a huge meal and then swimming 2000 yards...more like eat a sandwhich and float on a raft.

Monday absolutely kicked my ass. I went to a friend's bbq and was only gonna have a few beers. I ended up having around 8. Woke up and went to Starbucks for an iced coffee and lemon pound cake. I love lemon pound cake from Starbucks. I also had a glass of water. Got started on the ride at 11...mistake no. 1. Not hydrated...at all. Mistake no.2. Did not eat much, and I was going to be gone for 4.5 hours. About 3 hours in, I was feeling ok. Then, I was not. Energy was low, calories were low, salt was low. I was hungry and thirsty and crawling along. I ended up cutting the ride short by 20 minutes. Overall, it was a 4 hour and 10 minute ride covering just under 74 miles. And I was spent. I shouldn't have been that spent, but I was. I went to the gas station, bought a chocolate milk (best recover drink...period), a lemonade, a large powerade, a huge hunk of cheese (it looked and was good) and a piece of strawberry taffy. I also bought a bag of ice. I then sat in the tub with ice and cold water and tried to rehydrate and get some more calories in.

Today, I was still spent. I probably should have taken the day off, but I've decided to race a half Ironman in Minnesota on Sunday. I took my wetsuit, which I hadn't worn since July to the lake and was going to swim 2000 yards. The water was warm. I swam 400 yards and called it good. I then was supposed to run for 20 minutes. I ran for one minute and 30 seconds...then walked back to my car. I grabbed some food and topped it off with Baskin Robbins. I tried to call Its Mister to You! to see if he wanted any ice cream (moreso to rub in his face that there's no Baskin Robbins where he lives). Couldn't get a hold of him.

Basically, I've got a half this Sunday and I'm not tapering at all. I'm better off than Kansas 70.3 though, since I was coming off of a shoulder injury. The shoulder's better, but still goofy looking. Adds to my charm though...but I digress.

Also, I've got a new pair of sweet KSwiss shoes that I'm gonna be wearing (well not new, I wore them for Okoboji), but didn't wear them for Kansas. I will run faster than at Kansas, that is a promise.

Last Wednesday dsm911 and I were having some Corona's at Jimmy's. Great time. We were talking about why we do triathlon's. There's other things we could be doing that wouldn't be as "hard." I'm putting aside the fact it makes us chiseled...ok, makes dsm911 chiseled. But, I/we don't do these so we can have conversations such as..."Hi I'm FGLB, you didn't ask, but I do triathlons. I'm probably going to carb load tonight and try to hit some good watts on the bike. Oh, you run? Maybe we should run sometime...my easy pace is 6 minutes a mile. I also do flip turns in my sleep. I'm so psyched Miller came out with that 64 calorie beer. I can now have half of it and only have to do 17 lunges to make up for it."

I love to race. I love to go fast, but I'm not going to sacrifice friends/family/work to go a little bit faster. Well, I have sacrificed some time with friends to train, but this may be my only run at an Ironman. Who knows. I guess my point is, it's drinking beer at Jimmy's after a swim, or Hyvee breakfast after a Sat. swim at Raccoon. It's eating Mexican food with Nacho Libre and Hammerhead after a hard ride. It's telling stories on the way to races, or hitting Captain's after the Okoboji Tri. I love to compete, but I'd rather have a good time with some good friends. If I happen to have a good race, even better. If not, the beers still cold and good luck finding a better group of friends than on the deck at the cabin in Okoboji on a Saturday afternoon.

As far as Ironman training is going. It's coming...I think. I'm not worried about the swim other than I'm giving the odds 50/50 a barracuda bites my thigh. The bike. I've went over a 100 miles twice. I'm not scared of that distance. I need to take it steady and not push myself. The marathon...holy hell. This is where it'll get interesting, where I'll "find out something about myself", where it'll be pure guts. It's gonna hurt, but I'll enjoy it...and then I'll have a few Corona's.

So, that being said, I'll keep this thing up to date a little better. I've probably lost all of my readers, but oh well. Here's to the next couple of months of some training hell and good laughs. Maybe a Corona or two.

Things that I think are dumb and a few awesome

2009-08-23T21:58:00.002-05:00

Dumb

1. Trucks that speed ahead to pass me while I'm biking only to pull into a gas station or turn 10 yards in front of me. Seriously?

2. dsm911's absence from Earth. I was going to say that I think it's dumb when dsm911 doesn't have a mic in his hand and busting out tunes, because he should, but since he possibly went to Turkmenistan, his absence from team functions bothers me. In addition, his lack of absence at Pat Green.

3. mustard

4. The fact that hard workout weekends make me not want to go out and drink beer. (side note...this weekend I rocked a 100 mile bike followed by 5 mile run on Sat. and 2000 yard swim and 11.3 mile run on Sun). I did not go out at all, but had a great weekend of workouts.

Awesome:

1. On a long trail run when my IPOD shuffle goes from Peace Train by Cat Stevens to Green Light by John Legend to Ice Ice Baby.

2. Homemade buffalo chicken pizza.

3. Burrito's fantasty football drafting ability.

4. Baskin Robbins.

On a more personal note, if anyone has seen dsm911, I'm a bit concerned. Basically, if he's disappeared, can I have his road bike?

dsm911

2009-08-14T14:00:00.001-05:00

If anyone's heard fromt his man, please let the team know, we're getting worried. He was supposed to comment about his recent music selection, but as you can see, that never happened. Maybe he no longer wants to be a part of the team. To be honest, I'm not really sure what to think. Never has someone disappeared like this. Please mail me donations so I can put a pic. on the back of a milk carton. If the donations end up being more than the cost of the pic. on the milk carton, I'll buy hot fudge sundae's for myself.

dsm911's top 10 songs to pump him before and during a triathlon (and reasons why)

2009-08-07T13:09:00.007-05:00

This week, the reader is extremely lucky, as dsm911 has provided what was previously very secretive, his list of his top 10 songs to get him pumped up and ready to rock a triathlon. He's also provided some insight into why each of these songs made the top 10 list. I can't believe I don't charge for this stuff.

10. Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benetar

Well, the reason (remember, this is dsm911's reasons and his list, not mine, nothing to do with me writing the list for him, carry on) this song made it on the list is quite obvious. I love triathlons, and each event is a mini-battle. I sort of feel like Mel Gibson in Braveheart as soon as that gun goes off. My hands are like swords thrashing through the water. I'm not afraid to swim over, hell, right through people. I usually win this first battle, but hey, I'm a chiseled dude, what do you expect. Next, is the bike. Just look at some of the pictures from the Okoboji Tri, semis draft off of me. I think Lincoln Hawk was driving one of them. Next is the run. Skinny running punks, good luck trying to run past me. How's my forearm taste?

9. Poker Face by Lady Gaga

Don't even try talking to me before a race. I'm serious and in the zone.

8. Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell.

This is my cellphone alarm. Gets me in the right mood from the get-go.

7. Blame it on the Rain by Milli Vanilli

Morvan and Pilatus were wrongly denied of their greatness. This sort of injustice gets me fired up and ready to race. Sometimes when I'm passing someone on the bike I'll bark at them.

6. Love Game by Lady Gaga (or whatever it's called when she sings about riding a disco stick)

After I get out of the water, I like to pretend my bike's a disco stick and I sing "let's have some fun, this beat is sick I wanna take a ride on your disco stick don't think too much, just bust that kick I wanna take a ride on your disco stick." Then I hop on and take a ride on my disco stick and pass people. Again, sometimes I'll bark at them when I pass.

5. Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners

Everyone comes to that point in a race when they need to dig deep and put forth every ounce of energy to carry on. Whenever that happens, I always start busting out this song. At Okoboji this year, I actually had this moment twice. The first was at breakfast and burrito and I had a lovely duet just before I finished my eggs benedict.

4. Pony by Ginuwine

To be honest, these lyrics are in my head from the moment I enter the water to when I get on my bike. Of course, then I have to sing about my disco stick.

3. The Sign by Ace of Base

Obviously, when you're getting your transition set up, there's time to chat with your fellow competitors. I usually ignore and despise this goodwill (see song no. 9), but every once in a while there's a fellow Basehead in the group. I will make an exception and talk about life as a roadie for one of the greatest bands since Milli Vanilli.

2. Another Saturday Night by Sam Cooke

Well, the Okoboji Tri is on a saturday, so what better way than to think of the evening at Captains? Ok, the truth will come out. This one is FGLB's choice. I haven't even heard of this Sam Cooke guy. I only listen to real artists such as Ace of Base.

1. Your so Vain by Carly Simon

Not sure there's anything greater than being honored as the subject of a tune. Thanks Carly, and what better way to finish of a tri than with this tune?

Well, thanks for that list dsm911. Proud to have you as a member of the team, especially since you're the only one who mastered the Aquaskipper. I actually am a bit surprised by your choices, and the Carly Simon one is kind of lame, but then again, you did insist on only going out to eat at places where you were allowed to take your shirt off.

The Man of the Week

2009-08-02T13:19:00.005-05:00

Since I've recently decided I have the greatest ideas in the history of Earth, I'm going to randomly have "The Man (or Woman) of the week. This won't happen every week, because that would be so cliche, and the Boji Tri Team is not cliche. But I digress.

The man of the week is Hammerhead. Hammerhead recently got married to his beautiful bride Amy. The celebration was great. I also managed to somewhat ruin my political aspirations by singing, with the usher, and possibly newest member of our team, Jake (he did a couple tri's with Hammerhead and I last year), Hammerhead's brother Matt, and

brother-in-law Aaron. Yep, we did have a great time and I was a dancing machine, or I'm telling myself that.

A little background on how Hammerhead and I became such good friends. We started hanging out a lot our freshman year, mostly listening to really awesome music such as Shaggy and Bop Gun by Ice Cube. I also had a master plan, which was if I was hanging out with the star football player and wrestler, we'd basically have the ladies all over us. But then, I also started thinking, hmm, let's see, the guy with muscles everywhere and the not-so-muscular basketball/baseball player. Who are they going to talk to? Oh well. Since I like to throw in pictures, here's one taken by Nacho Libre of Hammerhead getting out of the swim. He's the second guy (as the pictures small) trying to find out where the hot sauce stand is.

Another great characteristic in a friend is they're willingness to support activities that they may not like, but you do. Such as basketball. One of our other buddies, Huey was with Hammerhead when we decided that we were going to go cruising and listening to more awesome music, such as Prince and Bone Thugs. Well, I wasn't quite done with my basketball game. So, Huey and Hammerhead, rather than sticking around, decided to take my ride, the sweet, sweet Ford Bronco, and listen to some tunes. Well, after a while, they came back and brought me a present, a chocolate rabbit filled with nerds. Not quite sure yet why they did this, I happily obliged, as anyone that knows me knows that I have a sweet tooth. Well, there's also a reason they most likely no longer make these things...oh was it bad. Back to why they bought it for me. I initially thought it was because they were gone for so long. Nope, well, at least not the main reason. They went to eat at A & W...on my dime...and felt sorry for doing that so they bought the rabbit. Oh yeah, also on my dime!

Below is another picture of Hammerhead taken by Nacho Libre. He's on the bike, obviously getting ready to hammer, hence the nickname. But, he also had time to give the thumbs up. Hopefully you can see it on the picture.
Hammerhead and I decided to be roommates at the University of Iowa. One of our first decisions was that we weren't giving into "the Man" and we weren't gonna get cable for our dorm room. This would be fine, because we had a dvd player and Cheech & Chong's "Up in Smoke." We ended up watching this every day for over a month, decided it was crazy and got cable. We did think we were awesome so. In addition, Hammerhead's dad used to call us a 7 a.m. quite a bit. We eventually turned off our ringer on the dorm phone, would forget that we did this, and couldn't figure out why no one was calling such awesomeness as ourselves.

Anyways, Hammerhead and I have been through a lot, had some great times and some rough ones, but the great one's have been an incredible majority. I'm incredibly honored to have been a part of his wedding and that he found such a great girl in his wife Amy. Hammerhead and I have an interesting next four months, as we along with Nacho Libre get ready to rock Cozumel. I hope that some of you will be able to make it down to watch, as it should be a hell of a week. So, to Hammerhead, thanks buddy and I look forward to continuing our path of awesomeness. Amy, if you read this (not sure why anyone wouldn't read the greatest blog ever), but as you know, you've got an awesome husband and our team's got an awesome guy (sappy, but true).

I will now raise my venti iced coffee with non-fat milk, negated by the sweetner and my lemon pound cake, and have a drink to the "Man of the Week." It's gonna be a great rest of the year.

What. A. Weekend!

2009-07-23T21:51:00.013-05:00

Progression of the day. Really attractive guy with Speedo competing in the triathlon. I think "Da Bomb" is an appropriate article of clothing and I feel the dude in the yellow had does as well. The second picture is easily the best looking tri team ever assembled. I mean, we just happen to wake up and are more attractive than you, the reader. The third picture, yep, even though we wake up and are attractive, we clean up pretty fantastically. And like beer. (EDIT...I just realized there is no thirde picture. It appears the interwebs have confiscated a couple pictures as punishment for our awesomeness. In situations such as this, I turn to the lyrcists Puff Daddy and Mase, who coincidentally took the following from Matthew Wilder... "ain't nobody gonna break my stride, ain't nobody gonna hold me down..." End of night, following Euchre game, this is what happens, even when you're the Warrior.

I'm not sure there's a better way to start this blog post than with a picture of "Da Bomb" up above. Yes, i forgot to go to the tanner, get the spray-on stuff or walk around the office/outside in my speedo. The sweet, sweet nectar of tan lines were on full display Saturday morning for roughly 1 hour and 38 minutes. But I digress. I decided to head up to Okoboji on Thursday night, so I could have a day off work and hopefully enjoy a nice afternoon on the dock Friday before the crew rolled in and I was forced to spend the rest of the time with people that I do not like, especially dsm911's abs (see pic down below). Lord I need to do some sit-ups. Or maybe a sit-up.

I rolled into Emmetsburg and It's Mister to You and I quickly examined the Aqua Skipper. Little did we know this machine would give us hours of entertainment, frustration and general awesomeness. The video below is one of the first takes and dsm911 would later rock the Aqua Skipper. Also, smooth water helps. We didn't have smooth water on Saturday.

I got to sleep in for a change, then went with Sue Money to get some breakfast. It was very windy out and the waves had some whitecaps. I didn't want the waves/wind to last all weekend but gotta admit, it would be an advantage for me if there were some whitecaps for the swim tomorrow. About two, made the pilgrimmage to the Taco House and got a burrito. Pretty solid. A few hours later, the rest of the crew, including Burrito, The Warrior and his l

ady (Forgot her blog name/or if she had one, so we'll call her the Thundering Herd and Nacho Libre. Dsm911 and his wife (also need a name) came after dinner. Had some appetizers, salmon and 3 beers...and of course dessert.

Race morning, I was up at about 5:30 to get a banana, bagel with PB, and some water. I also wanted to watch Dogman run by as the marathon started at 6, an hour before the tri. Dogman ended up coming in third. He almost caught the second place guy. He rocked a sub 3 hour marathon on a very difficult course.

As for my race, I decided to start off at the front of the pack for the swim, but off to the left/middle. The buoy's were on the right. I took off fairly quick, but not all-out. After about 300 yards, I had moved into the top 10. At the turnaround of the .6 mile swim, I found some feet and hung on for a bit. In hindsight, I probably could have pushed ahead a bit, but I was comfortable where I was at. I ended up with the 6th best swim time. From there, I hopped on my bike and took off hard. The bike was 18 miles long and I ended up averaging just over 24 mph, which I was pretty happy with. As usual however, I had the run left, which is generally my demise. Not this time and not when rocking the speedo. I felt solid the whole run and could have pushed a little more. Hopefully no one was eating breakfast in the window, as they may have not been hungry after seeing this flash of awesomeness run by their home. I cruised it in 7th overall averaging 6:53 per mile. My fastest run.

Towards the right and up a bit, dsm911 is discussing the perfect length for cheese hotdogs. Ms. Badger (Yes, I'm totally unoriginal with the names for those that don't have them), is giving us a little preview of her dance moves that will be utilized later in the evening.

To the left, Burrito rocking the Aqua Skipper. This beast (Aqua Skipper, not Burrito) was a great form of entertainment. Ok, Burrito was also a great form of entertainment.

Below and a little towards the right, Burrito and Dogman during the Brown family domination of

Euchre.

The picture left, princess (we need a tougher name) rocked her first tri. Also, if Calvin Klein would like to contact dsm911 and his abs for modeling, please let me know and I'll pass on the word. Not only is he incredibly chiseled, but he can also tow semi's during a race, as shown above. The picture below is at Captains. No one really knows who these people are, but they kept wanting to hang out with us, but I guess I'm used to it, as is the Boji Tri Team. The Warrior quickly changed his drink to a Bud Light for the picture. I think he was having a Sex on the Beach previously, but if there's a non-manly drink that the Boji Tri Team will have, it's a Pina Colada. So, for those keeping count. Team Drink = Bud Select (pre-race). Team Drink = Goose on the rocks and apparently Jager Bombs (post-race). Team Drink = Pina Colada (non-manly). Also, I fully understand my computer skills lack and the formatting is lame. I'll have some more pictures as well, as they're some good ones, but I need to go to sleep. Overall, It was a great time, great race with great friends. The only thing that could've been better was if Kevin Stokes was in our company, though there was a rumor he was out on the party boat. I welcome the comments about events I didn't include, thoughts on the weekend, etc.

Before the recap part deux

2009-07-22T22:04:00.000-05:00

I was going to write a recap tonight, but on a scale of 1 to 17 billion, I am 17 billion times tired. And I just ate chinese food. That is all.

Before the recap...

2009-07-20T21:43:00.001-05:00

I need a certain transition photo emailed to me...

Okoboji Triathlon Preview

2009-07-06T19:59:00.003-05:00

It's just under two weeks away, much of the midwest and parts of Eurasia are on the edge of their seats. I keep getting bombarded by emails, calls, and cupcakes regarding who's gonna do what at the race. I never can let down all my fans, so here goes:

Hammerhead: Recently competed in Cornman and had a solid swim. Previously a weakness, but watch out if this improves. He's going to hammer it on the bike and beware if him and Nacho Libre get out of the water near each other, as they can draft off the bike and totally dominate. I'm picturing a solid race well below two hours.

Dogman: He's gonna rock the marathon. Kind of a wild card as a good race and he's got the win. Just this past weekend he did a 20 miler at 7:12/mile pace. Hopefully he'll have time to taper, but I think he's gonna be ready to roll.

Nacho Libre: As with Hammerhead, his swim is the question mark. Either him or Hammerhead will have the best bike split and he'll put together a solid run. Top 15 is in his future.

dsm911: He's got a race this weekend, the Iowa Games. I think his swim's coming along and his run should be solid. How will the bike go? I'm thinking well. Should be interesting between him and Hammerhead possibly?

Accelerade Warrior: Gonna rock the 10k. He's going to have to make up for missing the tri with both his performance during the race and at Captains. I think he'll do fine at both.

Yours truly: My training is starting to come along, but with the end goal of Ironman, my legs will be pretty dead. I've got a huge training week this week. No excuses though. I'm going to blast the swim, drill the bike and see what my pansy-a$$ running legs have in store. I'm looking to improve on last years time.

Burrito: We're just hoping for a team victory that would allow him to attend this year's festivities. We'll know tomorrow afternoon.

Princess: I think she's messing with our minds and not letting anyone know what event she'll be doing. Heard she's been in the pool recently.

Japanese Pancakes: JP is doing the 10k. He got the name because at my birthday a couple years ago, we were eating at one of those teppanayki grills and without missing a beat, ordered the flapjacks. Pure gold.

It's gonna be a great weekend of racing, eating, drinking, euchre and of course, Dogman's dance moves, if he can move after the marathon. I think Mister to You! is gonna run the marathon as well. Word is he's been rocking the workouts down in God's country.

Emmetsburg Tri Race Report

2009-07-02T08:53:00.004-05:00

Little late on this one, but kind of swamped at the moment. Last Friday, Nacho Libre, Dogman and I yours truly headed to Emmetsburg for the Bob McCarten Sprint Triathlon. Since Nacho Libre has his own timezone, we got a bit of a late start. I kid because I care.

We arrived in Emmetsburg about 8 or so and went to the restaurant at the Casino. Ordered some food and tried to order my pre-race Bud Select, but they didn't have that. So, Irish town, Irish bar, obviously I have to have a Guinness. After we ate, which was about 9:15 or so, we brought our bikes up and I went to the blackjack table with Dogman. Nacho hadn't slept since Easter, so I think he went to sleep. As soon as I got near the tables, I found my high school buddy Bruce Nelson, who in his first year of the NFL, played in the Super Bowl. At least I think it was his first year...maybe second. We had a great time playing, even though I lost every conceivable double down possible. Something like this...double down and my cards equal 12-14. Not solid, especially when the dealer doesn't do his part.

Off to sleep and up at about 5:30. We stayed at the Casino and my room was a smoking room, so I woke up and felt like I went out to the bar (pre-cig law) days. On an aside, I love post-cig law days. Headed to transition, got registered and my stomach felt like the inside of a wood chipper. Not great, but whatever. Also, my front tire was flat and the back one sort of flat. I've got these 2002 Hed tri-spoke wheels, which mean nothing to a lot of people, but regular pumps don't work on them. Also, my little contraption that was previously jimmy-rigged (sp????) was busted. No one had a pump that would work and the race was like 20 minutes away. Luckily, Nacho Libre turned into McGuyver and concocted something awesome that enabled me to have my tires pumped up.

Bad news, basically no warm-up at all, as by the time we finally put our wetsuits on, it was go time. Although I did get a 48 yard warm-up. Nacho Libre didn't mostly because of me, and a small part because he initially had his shorts on when he put his wetsuit on.

There were about 120 people in the race, including relays, so about 100 individuals. I lined up about in the middle/front, thinking I would be one of the faster swimmers here. Gun went off and some kid took off and cut me off. Yep, sweet idea on his part...if the race was 22 yards. He quickly died and I moved towards the front, in third place. Some guy to my left also cut right into me, so I swam over his legs and kept going. About 200 yards in, I started to hyperventilate a bit. I could not take a deep breathe at all and I tried to stay relaxed. I was having a good swim, in third place, but had to slow down just a bit and stay relaxed. I could have drafted off the guy in second (first place guy was a good chunk ahead), but with the breathing episode, didn't . I exited the water in third and hopped on El Guapo. The swim was 500 yards and I'm not sure what my time was, but I'm thinking in the 6:45-50 range?

The bike was an out and back 12 miles. Out was with the wind at our back and I felt like I was going pretty well. About 2 miles in I passed the guy that was in second place pretty easily, but the guy in first was slowly pulling further away. Ok, he was flying. At the turn-around, I was still in second with a pretty decent gap from third. I saw Nacho Libre and Dogman and Nacho was gaining on the people ahead of him pretty quickly. I think this was the third time this year Dogman had been on his bike, though he did have a solid swim.

I pulled into T2, took the feet out of the shoes on the bike prior to getting off and quickly transitioned. I was still in second. There was the hometown crowd there, so I took off in a sprint and as soon as I was out of sight, toned it down, or I would have passed out. Just a little leg cramping here, but not awful. I need to figure this out and Nacho said it might be due to my pedal stroke, which it could be. The run was a 5k out and back and at the turn, I was still in second. Nacho Libre had entered T2 in third (great bike), but had been passed by one guy by the time I saw him. This guy was flying. I tried to dig in, could have gone faster, but I'm a pansy on the run. No other way around it. With about 400 yards, the guy went by me. I tried to stay with him for a bit, but didn't have it. I looked back and didn't see anyone, so I put it on cruise control for third place. I was about a minute and a half faster than last year. Nacho Libre came in in 5th place, about 2 minutes back of me and Dogman, who absolutely destroyed the 5k came in about 7 minutes back from me. Nice work.

After the race, we stuffed ourselves with McNally's bakery donuts. CHEAP and AWESOME. No joke, there were five of us, we weren't shy on the donuts at all (I think Dogman had like 5), plus drinks and the total was like 10 bucks. Easily 20 bucks or more in Des Moines and like six hundred bucks in Vegas. We then headed back to Des Moines and watched a bit of the HyVee Pro race and Dogman had to run the 10k for a relay the next day. He ended up averaging 6:20 per mile for that. Really solid given his first full tri in a while was the day before.

Next up, I believe, is the Okoboji Triathlon. I'm obviously pretty pumped up about it. I believe that myself, Nacho, Hammerhead, dsm911, beRock and possibly the American Bad Ass (see Triathlete Magazine cover) are in for the tri. The American Bad Ass is iffy, since he'll be heading to Indianapolis and beRock just wins bike races. There's a few others that may be doing the tri or some run event. The only other one for sure in a specific event is Dogman, who will be rocking the marathon.

The thing I love about the Okoboji Triathlon is it's pretty old school. Don't believe they give swim caps, I racked my bike next to a tree one year, etc. The marathon is also the same way. Mostly self sufficient...and it's going to be HOT. Dogman will have his work cut out for him. He just did Boston in April, so we'll see if he's prepared for it.

Bob McCartan Sprint Triathlon

2009-06-25T21:31:00.002-05:00

So, there's a pretty big triathlon in West Des Moines this weekend, the HyVee Triathlon. I"m not participating in it. I'm heading back to Emmetsburg to do a sprint triathlon, mainly for three reasons, to see my folks, to head back to the hometown, but most importantly, to honor the man the events named after.

I've touched on this before, but figure it's worth a shout again. Unfortunately, the triathlon is the Bob McCartan Memorial sprint. I say unfortunately because Bob passed away during the event a few years ago, it was his first one, I believe. I didn't know Bob real well, but then again, no one really needed to, to realize that he was a really great guy. You know those people that you can just start a conversation with and the next thing you know, a couple of hours have passed and you can just tell the person's a really good person. To me, this fit Bob in a nutshell. I got to know Bob one summer while I played in the Emmetsburg Wednesday night golf league. I had a great time that Summer playing golf, laughed quite a bit, and a good portion of it was at the behest of Bob.

Bob knew that I had done a couple of triathlon's and on a Thursday night, my Dad, Bob and I talked for what seemed hours about the upcoming sprint triathlon in Emmetsburg. It was to be his first. Bob had been putting plenty of time in the pool and had been working pretty hard for the upcoming race. He wasn't going to win, but he was having fun preparing for it. Sadly, it would be the last triathlon that Bob got to do, as he unfortunately had passed during the swim portion. His funeral was incredibly sad. Another great thing about Bob was he was a Hawkeye fan...his body was carried out to the Iowa Hawkeye Fight Song. It was fitting. Hopefully, in the future, I'll be able to get more of my friends to attend this event in honor of Bob. We'll go hard, but more importantly, we'll have fun. Nacho Libre, Dogman and It's Mister to You! are going to be participating from the team. According to ESPN's bottomline, Mister to You! is the early favorite to come out of the water first.

I guess I'm kind of tying this into why I like to do triathlon's as well. Obviously, I want to do well and have put in some time to try and do well. This is only a very small part, however, and is not what keeps me dragging my butt out of bed into the pool or out along the highways on my bike. Don't even get me started on this running business.

Mainly I do these tri's because of the people that I get to do it with. Dsm911 and I used to swim at Raccoon River and either go to Jimmy's or HyVee for breakfast, depending on the day/place. Captain's wouldn't be the same if the team hadn't just done the tri that morning. Suffering on the bike is a lot more fun when I'm laughing at something Hammerhead or Nacho Libre said. Then, there's beRock getting me to fly down steep gravel roads at insane speeds.

What's better than swimming at Okoboji with Mister to You! and Ironman? Running in the heat of Okoboji with Dogman...ok, trying to go fast when Dogman starts pushing away from me. Initially, I like to know my times for the events, and I still know some of them, but these aren't the memories I'll take away. It's the people at them, the people I train with and share beers with afterwards. To me, this is the "tri lifestyle." This year, I've had two tri's. The results haven't been incredible and I messed my shoulder up pretty well. But...it's been a great year so far. Great times with even better people...and it's just getting started.

Burrito actually tried this same thing once.

2009-06-22T15:22:00.001-05:00

This is hilarious.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=665847

Tough weekend of workouts

2009-06-21T22:09:00.002-05:00

Title says it all. On Saturday, I had on the schedule a 15 minute warm up on the bike followed by 15 minutes of hard riding and then a fast mile. Repeat two more times. Backtracking a second. On Friday, met Burrito out for a Hello Dave show in random parking ramp. Weather went from crappy to awesome, so they took the safe, albeit lame play of moving the show inside the ramp. Perfect outside. After the show, I planned to have another beer or two and ended up having about 4 more and taco pizza at about midnight. Good stuff. I think the decision to have a couple more drinks was made when this dude said he'd buy anyone a drink if they could name the song that was playing. Let's see...Duke's of Hazzard theme song = Wayland Jennings. Yeah, free drink for this guy.

So, Sat. came along and I met up with Nacho Libre in the lovely town of Truro. Successfully made it to the high school parking lot by avoiding the hoodlums in Truro (there's gotta be a bunch there, the town's similar to the Bronx). After the first 15 min. ride we hit the first mile at 6:48. Hurt a bit. 15 minute hard ride again followed by 6:46 mile. 15 minute hard ride followed by 6:35 mile (Nacho Libre rocked 6:27). Those hurt and I was about as dehydrated as you can be, as it was hot and humid. Think orange juice colored whiz. Yep, nice visual there.

On Sunday, I had a 2000 yard swim, so I went to the lovely Blue Heron Lake and went back and forth a few times. Followed that up with a 2 hour zone 2 ride, but it was pretty hard, given the heat/humidity again and that my legs were still a little sore from Kansas on Sun. and I was finishing about 9 hours of workouts this week.

Just over 5 months until Cozumel. Wow. Gonna do some huge training blocks soon I'm thinking.

Kansas 70.3 Race Report

2009-06-20T09:02:00.003-05:00

Only about a week late but better than never, right? Anyways, early Sat. a.m. Nacho Libre picked me up and we made the jaunt down to Lawrence for the 70.3 half ironman triathlon. We met up with Hammerhead about noon, did the whole packet pickup thing and got lunch. Later we got the tents set up (Nacho Libre) decided to sleep in his car so he could watch Paul Blart Mall Cop.

About 6 we went into Lawrence (race site was just on the outskirts). Went to a brewpub style place and I got some hawaiian chicken sandwich. Hammerhead got an initial entree and then opted for some hot wings. I chose a Bud Select. Only had one though.

On race morning, the alarm went off at about 4:30. I probably slept for about two hours as I'd bet money there was a raccoon doing hot laps around my tent. It was odd. It also started raining a bit. Nail on the coffin was that I also forgot my pillow. I think Hammerhead had 10 pillows but he is royalty so he needs them.

In this race, there were two transition areas. They were about a mile apart, so we went to the bike/run transition first to set up our running shoes. We also put our stuff in a big ziplock bag as the forecast called for rain. The whole time, the announcer was saying we had plenty of time to go to T1 to set up there as well. Well, that was about the opposite of true. I got to T1 and was going to place my nutrition in order and have a relaxed set up. As soon as I got there, the race people were yelling that if we didn't get out of transition now, we would be DQ'd. That changed things. I threw everything in a pile, grabbed my wetsuit and took off outta there. No pre-race gel for fuel or water. I did have time to fill my aero bottle on my bike with water and I had a bottle of Infinit (about 300 calories) on my downtube.

There were about 220 people in my swim wave and it was almost an out and back swim, except for a couple hundred yards across before we turned back in. Some people who wanted to be towards the front started in the water, others on the ramp. I got in the water and talked to Hammerhead for a bit and then left him to go up towards the front, far right. Buoy's were on the left, and I figured I'd sacrifice a little distance for some clear water.

The gun went off and I got into a groove pretty easily. The plan was to take the swim pretty easy. I wanted to stay smooth and strong, possibly find a draft and control my breathing. My swimming's been coming along nicely since my injury, so I figured I could have a decent swim here without using too much energy. Overall, the swim was pretty uneventful, other than the random running into other swimmers and getting sandwiched a couple of times. It was kind of funny when a guy would suddenly veer straight left into me. This happened more as I started to catch the waves in front of me. I figured if I had a solid swim and didn't stray off course too much, I would be around 30 minutes. I ended up just over 33 minutes I think. Not stellar, but ok for where I'm at now and the fact that I didn't exit the water breathing too heavily.

As soon as I got out of the water, I got a huge cramp in my left hamstring. I stood up and sort of pirate wobbled to my bike. I was worried about it but thought it might work itself out on the bike. It did. The transition area had a bunch of small rocks, which was awesome to run over barefoot. The other crappy thing about the transition area is that it was packed. I tried to run out with my bike but got stuck behind a lady walking. There was nowhere to move. Finally, about 15 yards into a 150 yard run, she moved off to the side.

I settled into my bike and went to take a drink of water from my aero bottle as I was very thirsty. Nothing! I think my bike my have gotten knocked over. All the bikes were on top of each other, and no water was not what I wanted. I wanted to drink about 1/3 of my Infinit per hour to manage my calories for the race, but the next aid station wasn't for 15 miles and I was thirsty, so by that point, I had drunk about half of it. Not according to plan, but you go with what you've got. I settled into a really smooth pace on the bike and felt great.

Finally the aid station arrived and I slammed a water and poured the rest of the bottle into my aero bottle. I was thirsty to say the least. The Kansas bike course was very hilly and I had trained on some hills with Nacho Libre, so I was prepared fairly well. The missed riding time would have been nice to get back, but I had a good ride. I ended up covering the hilly 56 mile course in about 2 hours and 40 minutes, or about 21 mph. I got off the bike feeling great. Usually, in a race of any distance, I'm ready to get off the bike. I could have rode longer this day, which was nice.

I arrived in T2 and tried to unzip the plastic bag. I shouldn't have zipped it in the first place, because the zipper was stuck. Using my amazing strength, I ripped open the bag, put my shoes on and took off running. My plan was to go out around 8:15/mile and see how that felt. I went out conservatively, or so I thought. I looked at my watch and I was on a sub 7:30 pace the first mile, but it felt so easy. The second mile was a bit downhill, and I crossed two miles at exactly 15 min. This too quick pace and the lack of nutrition on the bike (I took about 2-3 gu's when I should have taken about 5) would bite me very soon. It was starting to get hot. No rain at all and mile 3 was an almost mile long hill. I was halfway up when it felt like my body was shutting down. I stopped to walk for a bit, until the top of the hill. I think I walked one more time during the first loop of the two loop run, but my time for that loop was about 51-52 minutes. The second loop was awful. I had to walk quite a bit, that big hill, I walked the whole way. I just had nothing it seemed. I walked through the aid station, put a cold sponge down my back, wrung one over my head, grabbed a gatorade, took a water and splashed it in my face and then another water. I took cola whenever it was offered, as it helped, but they ran out before my mile 6. I was the second to last wave, so it was later in the day and getting hotter. Still, no excuse that I was a pansy on the run.

I ended the run in 2hours and 3 min. About a 9:27 pace and a hell of a lot slower than I wanted. Good news, unless something dumb/crazy happens, I won't run that slow at this distance again...at least I hope. I think the missed training because of my injury hurt me the worst on the run. I wasn't able to get a lot of run workouts in, including longer runs.

Don't get this report wrong, I'm proud of my race, proud that I finished and finished running with a smile on my face. It was a great feeling to finish. Going in, I would be ok with around 5 hours, most likely sub-5, but I ended up going 5:24. Not an awful time, but for me, there's a LOT of room for improvement! I'm excited for the rest of race season.

Next up, the Bob McCarten Sprint Tri in Emmetsburg a week from today (Saturday). I believe Hammerhead is coming up and we should have a battle. The first race this year was a sprint and he got me by 20 seconds.

Cheers!

About to take off

2009-06-13T06:39:00.002-05:00

It's 6:39 a.m. and I'm probably going to eat a bagel. Yes, you all wanted to know that. Anyhow, Nacho Libre is gonna pick me up in about an hour and we're gonna take off for Lawrence to meet Droid. I'm not sure if you can follow our race numbers online or not. Thanks to technology, I'll try and provide some updates to Twitter. Obviously they won't be during the race, I'm not that guy. You can see that to the right just under the picture of West Lake Okoboji.

I rule.

More random pics

2009-06-09T20:48:00.009-05:00

Pic with my Grandpa. I think we gave him a blanket and pillow. Dogman tried taking it from him and my Grandpa made me ward Dogman off with the cane. Yes, I'm wearing a scarf indoors. Sorry for being stylish.

Jinglecross 08. Awesome time, won't be there this year cause I'll be racing Ironman Cozumel. As if the world didn't already know this.

No, Dogman, no one wanted to know what you were doing over there for the past few minutes.

Mom and I at one of the points on Diamondhead. We're strategizing about our gangsta rap debut coming up at the top. She wanted to freestyle to Regulator's, but we couldn't agree on who got to be Nate Dogg.

Mister to You! trying to throw that flower to land. Um, you don't have that good of an arm. Also, I think overhand might have gotten you at least 8 inches further.

Pretty much the greatest group of college roommates ever. Luke is on the left. He sells whiskey and firecrackers in New Mexico. I'm next and grace magazine covers worldwide. It was Matt's wedding. He's still trying to make his pond fishing guide business work. Johnny Blaze is next in line. He competes with the grade school kids during the Summer selling golf balls on the third hole on men's league night. Finally is Jeff. Jeff sells Nintendo's in the Amana Colonies.

Yes, I actually posed for this picture. Looks like the tickets to the gun show were half price.

Seriously, they let you two in law school. Yes, can't you tell by our serious faces. Burrito just got done winning an argument over riparian rights and I didn't know the answer so obviously went straight into cross arms/tilt head pose a.k.a. I mean business.

When you're as big time as this guy, the spotlight always shines on you.

Pictures!

2009-06-06T19:43:00.021-05:00

If I were in a gang, I would probably be in one of the gangs whose artistry is represented on this beautiful bridge on the River Charles.

Above. Burrito and I rocking out at dsm911's wedding. I'm anticipating "Kung Fu Fighting" will come on while Burrito is thinking we're gonna hear something by Quiet Riot.

Great picture here. Too bad the legend aka Mister to You! couldn't make this pic.

Dogman just after he finished the local 3k. Ok fine, the Boston Marathon...like that's a big deal.

Dogman about a quarter mile left in the Boston Marathon. He's giving the Bash Brother's arm wave. Either that or he's bidding on an auction item. Not really sure.

This was incredibly inspirational to see this guy come roaring down by us. Absolutely flying.

Picture of me the night before the Boston Marathon. I just described how much I ate at the buffet earlier. This was different than my Hawaii vacation where I purposefully decided to see how much weight I could gain.

Sue Money and Dogman...also the legs of Mister to You! I'm sure I just said something awesome and they're contemplating a response. Good luck with that.

Mister to You! and Princess. Again, the Bash Brother's/auction bid arm wave. I need this for my arsenal.

View from our hotel balcony. The River Charles.

Another view of the River Charles.

The hotel bar. You order a large beer, you get a large glass as well as an accompanying jug. Yep, pretty sure I was a big fan.

Seats from the Red Sox game. Solid game/solid seats.

Droid wearing the infamous hot dog costume. Not very many people get to don this bad boy. He should feel honored and blessed.

Dogman. Yes, he is real.

I have no idea, but I already have a picture here so I can't put that one of a bunny with a pancake on his head. I should have at least flexed to make my arms look somewhat semi large.

Droid. Rolling Stones bike jersey and medal. He's also Living Strong.

Dogman relaxing before his 3 hour flat Boston Marathon.

Kansas pre-race

2009-06-04T22:16:00.003-05:00

In just over a week, Droid, Nacho Libre and I are gonna smile, put on our spandex and hop in the water for my first, Droid's first and Nacho Libre's second half ironman. Right now, I'm not that nervous. Probably because it's still over a week away and also because I have absolutely no expectations for it. This is either good or bad. I don't know yet. Strike that, I've got some expectations, but I'm going to use my same old shoulder injury excuse. If I hadn't gotten hurt, I'd have some real expectations and this would be a great test for me to see where I'm at. Now, it'll be a good test to see how much further I need to go.

Droid and I are planning on camping for this baby. Nacho Libre is still undecided. I've reserved a camp spot near transition. It'll be interesting to see how much sleep I get the night before. I'm guessing not very much, so I'll have to get a good night's rest the night before, aka Friday.

Yesterday I had a pretty tough workout day. After a short warm-up, I had a 15 x 100 on the 2 min. These weren't supposed to be anything too crazy hard, but a sold, strong effort. I did the first on at 1:26 and decided to do the duration at 1:30. For the whole, I kept everything between 1:30 and 1:32. Pretty good swim. That night, I had a 1hr. 30 min bike, with two 20 minute sessions above race pace, followed by a 15 minute transition run. Today, I had a short open water swim, and a 45 minute run, with 3 x 1 mile at 7:30 pace. Legs felt a whole lot better than on Tuesday, when I seemed to struggle with an easy 30 minute run.

Rumor on the street is dsm911 is back from his honeymoon. Hope he remembered the sunscreen.

After Kansas, I'm doing the Emmetsburg Bob McCartan Sprint Tri. It's June 28th (or 27th), whatever that Saturday is. Who's all in for this? I'm pretty sure Nacho Libre is in. I can't remember if dsm911 is in or not. Burrito? Warrior?

Bluff Creek Race Report

2009-06-02T08:25:00.002-05:00

I'd have to say that the Boji Tri Team had a pretty successful first tri of the year. It must have been the sexy t-shirts we've got. I need to get them out in the mail for the rest of you, so you can ensure domination. Nacho Libre and I were blessed with Droid's presence (I'm giving him a new name, since that was his high school name. So, everyone help me out with his new name.

Droid arrived into town on Friday and we met up with Nacho Libre for what else, Jethro's BBQ. It was quite tasty, but probably didn't need to eat as much as I did, but whatever. Saturday morning Droid and I went to watch Dogman compete in Dam to Dam, a 20k race in Des Moines. We saw Dogman and it looked like he was just cruising along. Once he saw us, he picked up the pace and apparently kept picking up the pace. I believe his first mile was around 7:19 or so. There were 7,000 people running, so he had to maneuver around quite a few people to get some running space. His last mile was 6 flat I believe. When all was said and done his average pace was somewhere around 6:40.

From there, Droid, Nacho Libre and I went and did a quick swim (I managed to tear my wetsuit...again) and then a 15 minute bike ride. Check that, it was supposed to be a 15 minute bike ride, but I flatted for the second time to cut the ride short. After that we went and got some food at Boston's followed by some ice cream at Snookies. After that, Droid and I cruised around in Big Sexy (my jeep) and then we hit up Goodson's where I had my obligatory Bud Select.

Race day came really early, as we were up around 5. The race site was about an 50 minutes away and we still had to pick up our packets. The race didn't start until 9, so we could have probably left a little later, but oh well. We got to the race start and my stomach was feeling the effects of the pizza/ice cream/beer/bbq and whatever I ate for breakfast. Not really a great sign. We set up transition and I talked to T.J. He was doing the Olympic race (we were doing the sprint). T.J. would end up destroying everyone in the Olympic race.

At about 8:20, we hopped on the bus to take a short ride to the other side of the beach. For the Sprint race, we basically swam across the lake. The distance was supposed to be 500 meters, but if you check the results, the times were way off. I think this was a combination of a longer swim and a really long, uphill run to the transition area. We all got in the water for a short warm-up. The water was about 67 degrees and after the initial shock, was actually quite nice. I did whiz in my wetsuit though, which provided some warmth. I'm pretty sure Droid did as well. It's just how we roll. This would also come back to haunt me, but I slammed a gatorade shortly before the swim.

Anyways, I lined up at the front of the pack towards the far left. The buoy's were on the right. I would sacrifice a little distance for some clear water. The gun went off and I took off pretty fast. I was going along pretty well when I basically almost swam over a guy in front of me. I looked up and he was doing the breaststroke. I'm pretty sure he started out way too fast (or he just got done with the Olympic Games). Anyways, I made the only slight turn to head to the boat ramp feeling pretty decent about my swim. I swam until my hands touched bottom and stoop up. The boat ramp was covered in moss so I slipped about 4 times trying to get a grip on the ground. I ran up the ramp and could not for the life of me unzip or unvelcroe (sp?) my wetsuit. I also managed to break my goggles in half. Like I said, the times were way off. I was expecting a swim in the 7 min. range, but with the long run as well as the timing being really goofy, my time ended up being in the high 11's. The fastest swim was in the low 10's, and on a normal 500 meter course, this would be in the 6's.

Nacho Libre said he saw me leaving the swim transition, which meant he had a pretty good swim for himself. The bike was 15 miles and I started cruising as soon as I got on my bike. I felt pretty decent and was going pretty fast. It was basically an out and back. I got to the turnaround and I was in the top 10 overall. As soon as turned around, WHAM, the wind hit me like a rocket. No wonder I was going so fast. I couldn't even tell the wind was helping me going out, which made this pleasant surprise simply fantastic. Also, shortly after I turned around I saw Nacho Libre and he was flying. My legs didn't seem to want to go once I turned around, but I looked ahead and didn't see the guys in front gaining too much on me. At one point I looked at my wheels to see if I had a flat, as I seemed to be going so slow. About the 9-10 mile mark, Nacho Libre came flying by me like I wasn't even moving. He was having a solid bike. I ended up with a bike time of 40:50 and change. Nacho Libre had 39:03, so he put quite a bit of time on me. Droid also had a great bike ride going over 30 seconds faster than I did.

Back to the gatorade I slammed before the swim. Two or three times on the bike, going into the wind, I sort-of threw up in my mouth a little bit. Nothing like regurgitated red gatorade. That's gross, but it happens.

Got off the bike and as I was pulling into transition, Nacho Libre was taking off, about 20 seconds ahead of me. Throughout the entire 5k, I could see him and it seemed like I couldn't gain on him and he wasn't pulling ahead of me. After the race, I told him I'd like to see our run splits as I bet they were pretty close. Well, he outsplit me on the run...by 7/10ths of a second. The run times were way off as well, as Nach Libre's watch showed around 22 minutes for the run while the "official times" gave us a 19:30 run. No way in hell I ran around a 6:30 pace.

I did manage to hold off some guy charging at me towards the end. My left hamstring started to seize up on me with about a half mile left, but it held off. I didn't want to be that guy at the finish, and I wasn't.

Overall, Nacho Libre got 13th. I came in 20 seconds behind for 14th. Nacho Libre was 3rd in his age group. I was first in my age group and Droid was 3rd in his age group. Those "old" guys are fast.

For me, I'm satisfied with my race. I would have liked to bike faster, but it happens. I'm starting to get back into the swing of things and my shoulder didn't really bother me on the swim. We've got the Kansas half ironman in two weeks and I'm really not ready for it. I'm gonna try to enjoy it the best I can and see how it goes.

Overall, great weekend for the Dogman, myself, Nacho Libre and Droid. Help me out with a new name for him. Oh yeah, I'd also like to thank the camper for basically running into me at the run turnaround. I gave him a little love tap with my hand for that maneuver.

Well...

2009-05-27T14:03:00.002-05:00

that last post and challenge went fantasic. Pretty much as I had planned. So, that being said, I thought I'd update how the team has been doing...

Me: Other than saving the world one memo at a time, I've got my first tri. this season on Sunday. It's a sprint and I'm hoping that I'll be able to inflate my tires properly. I know this is a big goal of mine, so we'll see. It's the same distance as the Hickory Grove Tri. last year, at least I think it is. It'll be interesting to see how my times compare, since that was one of, if not my last tri of last year and this will be my first. Also, the t-shirts are now in. I would say they're sitting in the back of the sweetest Honda Element ever, but that would be giving away the location and ensuring numerous attempted break-in's to Captain Awesome.

Berock: Nothing really going on with him other than winning Cat 5 races around the state.

Dogman: Thinking about rocking the Boji Marathon. Last year's winner went 2:58. Dogman at Boston this year went 3:00. Harder course at Boston, though the Boji Marathon is old-school, basically a self-supportive race. Hopefully not too much fiber for him the night before if he decides to run it. Seriously, who types this stuff.

Dsm911: Recently became Mr. Dsm911. Pretty sure he's on a beach somewhere, either that or modeling in a J Crew catalog. Next time you see him, ask him how the first pitch went at the Cubs game...or Burrito will gladly tell you as well.

Burrito: I owe him 50 bucks, so I'm hoping I don't see him for a while.

Accellerade Warrior: I think I spell accellerade different every time I type it. He recently had a solid time in a mile race. That had to suck. The only time I've ever "run" a mile was in PE. This was also known as my worst day of high school.

Nacho Libre: I've done a few rides with him and he's been a heart rate machine. High speeds plus low heart rate = future solid Ironman bike splits. Though he had two tire blow outs recently. One of which occurred while his bike was in the car. That's what you'll get for pumping pop rocks in there. He's joining me for the Bluff Creek Tri this Sunday. The only thing I don't like about going to races with Nacho Libre is that he insists on listening to Jesse McCartney and Godsmack, back to back. Totally throws me out of the zone.

Droid: Just had his bachelor party last weekend in Colorado. I'm debating changing his name to "hammerhead" due to his recently discovered prowess on his girl bike. We're trying to get him to do the Bluff Creek Tri this Sunday, but he's making apple butter or something.

It's Mister to You!: Des Moines was graced with his presence this weekend. The AP is waiting for the word on his debut this season, possibly the E'burg tri. I'm waiting to hear his report on the ipod swim goggle (or whatever they're called)...if he'd ever use them.

K-Mo: Burrito and I are starting to feel like K-Mo doesn't like us anymore. We hung out a lot more during law school than we do now-a-days.

Guess the team member

2009-05-25T20:42:00.003-05:00

Here it is folks. The next installment of guess who the teammate is. He was one of two of my boys in high school that didn't want to play ball at the rec center. So, I allowed him and Huey to take my car and cruise around. This was obviously because the Ford Bronco was a bad, bad car with a kick ass sound system. Later on, they came back with a present for me. A chocolate rabbit filled with nerds. Now, there's a reason that they don't make these any more. They are terrible. I did find out later the real reason that I got the rabbit. Huey and the teammate went out to lunch on my dime (my wallet was in my car). So, it was A & W on me. Oh wait, I forgot to mention that the chocolate rabbit was also paid for by me.

I'll post some pics that were taken this weekend as soon as I find the thing that allows me to transfer this from my camera to the computer. There will be an epic pic. of me and burrito. A hint...even though it was dsm911's wedding, this was no reason to not let our inner ninja out a little. Just how we and the team as a whole rolls. On a side note, I just saw a commercial for the movie "Drag Me to Hell." Nice originality points on that title. I guess it is better for a scary movie to be called that than "skip to my lou to hell" or "high tea in hell" if you're more British.

Also, dsm911's gonna be on his honeymoon, but if he happens to read this...I'm still trying to decide if my 2 a.m. convo. with your uncle was a "sort of" heart to heart talk about life...or he was completely messing with me. I honestly have no idea.

Picture of awesomeness

2009-05-21T13:26:00.002-05:00

T-Shirts

2009-05-21T07:33:00.001-05:00

Just saw the design of the team's t-shirts. All I've got to say about this is hot damn.

Swimming

2009-05-19T08:21:00.002-05:00

Most of the time, whenever I talk to someone that hasn't done a triathlon, they'll ask what the distances are, etc. It seems that no matter what distance we're discussing, whether it's a .9 mile Olympic swim, 1.2 mile half swim, or 2.4 mile Ironman swim (don't get me started on how lame it is that the run and bike portions of the half are basically double that of the Olympic but the swim isn't even close, but I digress), the response is something along the lines of I could handle the bike and run, but the swim is what would get me." Ok, I"ll back up a second. When discussing the Ironman, most people just think you're crazy. I'll get back to them at the end of November on this one.

Even those that have done some swimming and feel comfortable in the water can still get a rude awakening for the tri swim. For one thing, open water swimming is much different than a pool. It's harder. Sighting and waves for instance. Then you have the whole people running into you, swimming over you, punching you in the face, etc. Most of the time it's not on purpose, but there's always going to be some person that thinks their local sprint is the world series, since they never got past Glass Joe in Mike Tyson's Punchout.

Not that anyone wants my advice on how to practice for an open water swim, so I took it upon myself to seek the advice of my buddy TJ Tollakson. TJ's a professional triathlete. http://www.tollakson.com/

This morning after a couple emails with TJ about websites that are interesting/time killers (this one you're currently reading will make you more intelligent and attractive to the opposite sex. Similar to Sex Panther cologne (See Anchorman.)), TJ showed me what he does to practice getting ready for open water swims. Since he rocks the swims, I suggest you take note.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3S0wu4Zbfk

No wonder I haven't been winning the swim primes at any triathlon's this year. I haven't been doing these swim sessions. So team, I think we should implement this into our next team training session, which coincidentally will be our first. I suggest that dsm911 will be the swimmer and I will be the guy with the start gun that unloads on him before the start.

It looks like it's gonna be another nice day today. I've got a one hour run later. Did a swim workout this morning. After a 500 yard warm-up, I did 20 x 100 on the 1:50. Yeah, that was "fun." This was my obligatory workout paragraph, because I know everyone, even those that wander onto this site from the wide world of google, are dying to know what I'm doing for workouts. Hopefully the team's training is going well. Also, if anyone can find dsm911's instruction manual for his cell phone alarm, yours truly would be much obliged, so I wouldn't have to do swim workouts in the same lane as the random lady that keeps running into me.

And I'm out.

Big Week for team

2009-05-18T20:28:00.002-05:00

Well, Droid caught a bug (Not H1N1) so he couldn't dominate the Effingham sprint tri. My law school classmate, we'll call him G-Ride, did his first tri. of the year in Phoenix. Went pretty well, but the swim, as expected, was pretty rough. He's a good swimmer, but when it's your first open water tri swim, everyone else is rocking the wetsuit and you're not...than it's a rough swim.

Tuesday I've got a 20 x 100 swim on 1:50. If this was pre-injury, it'd be tough, but manageable. Post-injury, I may cry. I've also got some tough bike and runs this week. Should be interesting. The big news is the upcoming nuptials of dsm911. Sorry ladies, officially off the market. Friday, got the I-Cubs game. I'll probably have a few beers. Sat. is the wedding. I'll probably have a few more beers and mixed drinks.

I've also sat here for the past five minutes trying to think of something witty to say or an awesome story. But, I'm too tired and I'll probably start a live blog about the bachelorette.

On the lighter side

2009-05-16T14:52:00.003-05:00

Well, as dsm911 indicated to me prior to our pilgrimmage to what we thought was going to be a super awesome martini-fest last night, that my previous post (not the t-shirt one) was a little depressing. I agree. I'm glad it didn't turn into a death penalty debate, not the intention. With that being said, this post will be a little more light-hearted.

As aforementioned, dsm911 and I were going to head to martini-fest at Graze in West Des Moines. In our minds, there were going to be a bunch of tents in a fairly confined space with different types of martini's being served by scantily clad gorgeous women. Ok, we weren't planning on that, but I digress. We got there and were handed our gift bag filled with a martini glass, airplane size vodka (you know, the little tiny things they give you when you want to get drunk on the flight...not that I would know), some other crap and mardi gra beads. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad? We dropped all the stuff in my car, save for the martini glass, since we needed that to be filled with manly pink colored martinis. We soon find out that the martini samples you get are in pint sized martini glasses (our glasses were rendered useless...back to the car). Think of our martini glasses as Doberman's and the pint size one's as akin to Droid's 7 pound cat-dog.

We also come to find out that a few of the stores in West Glen also have stops, as there was only one tent at Graze. Lame. There was no way we were going to get even a buzz going by taking a shot of the martini sample and then walking a 100 yards to get another one. So, we settled into another bar and I decided to have a beer for various countries. Red Stripe, Dos Equis and Sapporo. Soon burrito showed up and starting doing jello shots. I ended up going home fairly early as I had a 1500 yard swim and 8+ mile run the next morning. And by early I mean about midnight.

By the way, judging by my yard, I think Dogman found the real good martini party and then decided to mow it. Seriously dude, thanks for mowing, but lay off the sauce. I kid I kid, it wasn't that bad.

Up at about 7 and decided to watch the 13th Warrior this morning with Antonio Banderas. I may change my name to Antonio Banderas...say it, with the accent. Sounds cooler than my name. I can answer the phone at work. "Antonio Banderas."

Decent swim. 1500 yards and I was going to do it "easy" since I haven't had much pool time as I've tried to control the alien bone from sticking out of my shoulder. Averaged about 1:41 per 100 or so. Then off for an 8.04 mile run. It was only going to be about an 8 mile run or just under, but right as I was about to turn around, "Wanna Be a Baller" by Lil Troy came on. No turning around while mid-song. Gotta show respect to Lil Troy.

I must say, the highlight of my weekend thus far was after the Y, I was putting my towel in the bin on the way out, still in the locker room. Towards my left, a rather William Perryesque dude was standing naked. For those who haven't been blessed to leave the Scientology building the last 30 years, his nickname was "The Fridge." Just as I turned to walk out, William (obviously not his real name) decided to make a beeline for the bathroom. Maybe too much fiber for him this morning. (Too much info. for ya?) Try being me as I turned and came dangerously close to leaving an imprint on the guys stomach. Glad I didn't run into him, who knows what kind of timeline he was on. I may be walking a fine/thin line between light hearted and gross, but that's how the Boji Tri Team rolls.

First tri for a Boji Tri Team member this week. Droid's heading up to Effingham (real name), Illinois for a sprint. Word is the water may still have ice over top. (Side note. Just saw a spam email come in...The title was "Respond. Don't piss me off). Well, don't hold your breath spambot. Back on track. Good luck Droid. I'll get an update from him, but I'm guessing it'll go something like this. Froze in the swim but am getting better. Hammered the bike. Run was ok. Most of Droid's training has been concentrating on the swim and judging from my latest bike ride with him a few weeks ago, the bike is gonna be just fine.

Team T-Shirts

2009-05-15T14:01:00.002-05:00

Ordered finally. They will be around 16 bucks and will make everyone better looking.

Random thoughts

2009-05-15T09:47:00.005-05:00

Imagine being 27 years old (most of us can, since we're well past that age, but still young at heart). You've got your whole life ahead of you, filled with most likely many good times, as well as bad. Around this age is when a lot of people start to begin their freedom. College has wrapped up for some, many are settling into their jobs, or just moving on to something else, something new, etc. So many possibilities for what you can do. Marriage? Meeting new friends, experiencing new things, traveling to new places. Adventure. The options seem limitless. Fast forward 22 years later. You're now 49 years old. Looking back at all of these things you've been able to do. But wait, what if you never got the chance to experience any of these things. What if...you were Paul House.

Mr. House was recently taken off Death Row in Tennessee...after 22 years. He's now 49 years old. New DNA evidence came to light, suggesting it was someone else. Initially, when the evidence came to light, Mr. House was put on house arrest, where someone needed to be at home with him at every moment. He was scheduled to be re-tried. However, the Prosecutor dropped all charges against Mr. House. I'm not speaking for the Prosecutor, but it seems that the Prosecutor still felt that he could get a conviction at the re-trial, but with light of the new evidence, that it could creat a reasonable doubt. Again, I'm not speaking for the Prosecutor, but in my opinion, if there was still a chance, why not try? Maybe he's just trying to cover the State for a possible civil suit. Again, I have no idea.

Obviously, I couldn't imagine what it's like to have years 27-49 taken away from you, spent in death row. What if Mr. House would have been put to death? One of the basic arguments of the death penalty issue, would something like this, even one case (it happens more than once...DNA evidence free's those in death row) be enough to not have the death penalty? I'm not trying to start a death penalty discussion per se, but it's got to make you think. I've visited the Anamosa State Pen...not due to any act of my own, other than signing up for a class at the U of I, but we started to take a tour down the hallway where the worst of the worst were kept. I say "started" because the guards quickly realized this wasn't a good idea. Verbal insults as well as objects could get tossed at us. Ok, no other way around it, but by objects, I mean the amount of time it would take last night's meal to go through the system. Not a pretty picture, but this area is worse than you'd likely imagine. If memory serves me correct, they and by they I mean the prisoners in this area, would get a half hour...maybe an hour, of "exercise time." Exercise was in a short cage outside where they could walk around. I'd imagine death row isn't countryclubesque.

Another hot topic, especially in Des Moines, is the whole cyclist vs. car discussion. Obviously, I'm all for cyclist rights, etc., since I'm out on the roads with my bike. That being said, I'll readily acknowledge that for the most part, the cars and cyclists are respectful of each other. However, last night was a different example. I was leaving my Thursday night basketball game near downtown Des Moines. The crosswalk is located towards the bottom of a hill. There were four of us walking to our cars. We had the walk single and there were four cars to our left, two in each lane waiting at the red light. It was round 8:30, so fairly dark. All of a sudden, some dumbass cyclist whizzed right by us running the red light going over 30 mph. I'd also like to note he went right in between the four cars. I highly doubt he even saw us but even if he did, he had exactly no reason to a) run the red light; b) go in between the cars. It's stupid stuff like this that gets a lot of vehicle drivers pissed at cyclists, just as much as cyclists get pissed at drivers.

Final hot topic, as this is getting fairly wordy. My prediction for the I-Cubs first pitch is that our star flame thrower will come with a little chin music. High and tight to the imaginary right handed hitter. I also predict I will have had at least two beers pre-game at the stadium. No word yet on the beers pre, pre-game. I'm guessing that weekend will be a crappy training one. Oh well, gotta roll with it.

Run workout

2009-05-12T20:30:00.002-05:00

I had a pretty decent (for me) run workout this evening. Hit the Y treadmill since it was raining. I haven't been doing any faster runs, especially since my injury. I had a 10 minute warm up, which was right around 9:15 pace. From there, I did 4 minutes at 7 min pace. Then, 4 minutes back at 9:15 pace. The next 4 minutes were around 6:56 pace. Back to 9:15 pace. 4 more minutes at 6:50 pace. Back to 9:15 pace. Then, 4 minutes at 6:40 pace. The last 12 minutes, (50 min total workout) were back at 9:15 pace.

This isn't fast for a lot of people, but I"ll take it...especially at this point.

Thought of the day

2009-05-12T16:40:00.001-05:00

Would it be easier for a White Russian to drink a White Russian or a Colorado Bulldog to drink a Colorado Bulldog?

Even more reasons why I'm awesome

2009-05-11T18:00:00.002-05:00

1. I signed up for the Okoboji Triathlon today.
2. dsm911 signed up for the Okoboji Triathlon today. As a member of the Boji Tri Team, this contributes to my awesomeness.
3. I ate lunch today at a local joint (more street cred phrasing it this way) where the owner's dad was the only recognized Iowa member of the mafia during his time (even more street cred).
4. On the way home from the aforementioned lunch, I saw a lady wearing what appeared to be a red cape. No word yet on if this lady is connected to the mafia or hiding from the mafia, which I guess would make her connected to the mafia. On another note, when someone is wearing something like a red cape (it was about 70 and sunny), or for that matter, any ridiculous outfit, at what point do you look in the mirror before you go out and think, "hey, this isn't a bad choice?"
5. I signed up for the Bob McCarten Memorial Triathlon today.
6. I've decided that the Boji Tri Team has 4 meeting spots in Iowa:
1. Okoboji, the Cabin
2. Okoboji, Captain's.
3. Des Moines (my sweet pad)
4. Des Moines (Jimmy's...but only Wed. in the Summer)
7. K-MO is from Virginia and Virginia is for hustlers. I know K-MO.
8. I've decided, via communication between Burrito and I that my expert witness fees in court cases consists of 3 Corona's or 3 Old Milwaukee's and 3 cheddarwursts. This is per day.
9. I just got a spam email that said "being wealthy is about being wealthy." I am awesome because I am not this dumb.
10. It's nice out and I'll be calling myself the grillmaster this evening.

Elkhart Time Trial and mile race

2009-05-08T14:09:00.003-05:00

A few members of the team raced Thursday night. The Accelerade Warrior dusted off the running shoes for a mile race in Minneapolis. Although he didn't win (some guy ran like 3:59 and change), he put a solid time together. I think part of this was heeded by Mister To You's! proclamation that Mister to You! could run under a 9 minute mile. Solid first effort of the season for the Warrior as he put a 7:42 time on the board. Nicely done!

Nacho Libre and I also took part in a race, the Elkhart Time Trial. This is a 12k or just barely under 7.5 miles of pretty flat course. We signed up and got our numbers. I was no. 32 and Nacho Libre was 33. Riders would usually go off every minute (not a mass start), but since so many people signed up (weather was beautiful), you went every 30 seconds. We were both Cat 5 riders, since we hadn't actually done this before. There are really good Cat 5 riders, like berock, who won the Iowa City Cat 5 road race a couple weeks ago. Basically, you can be a sweet rider, but if you haven't done enough events, you'd still be a Cat 5.

Shortly before we went to line up in our place, I noticed that Nacho Libre had shaved his legs. He tried to blame it on boredom, but I really think he wanted to fit in with everyone else. A lot of people had their team kits, as did I....Boji Tri Team baby. Fortunately, I wasn't penalized for being the best looking guy racing. No word yet if the Warrior was penalized for being the best looking at his race. Unfortunately, my stuff was sitting in my car for most of the day and my water bottle slowly leaked over my race gear. Nothing like putting on wet stuff to ride in.

Off to the line we went. What happens is a volunteer holds your bike and you up, while you are clipped in. They count down from 10 seconds and let you go. From there, you're out of the saddle trying to get the legs moving as fast as possible for the duration. Pretty much all out the entire time. There is a turnaround halfway through. My tire was fishtailing a little bit. Need to work on my bike handling skills.

Anyways, the person ahead of me missed the start, so the next race had a minute lead on me. I passed him just before the turn. There are different categories besides Cat 1-5. There's one for no aero equipment as well. The first guy I caught didn't have aero stuff, so I had an advantage. I think I passed three more people. I was spent by the time it was over.

I ended up finishing in 18 minutes and 3 seconds. This averages out to 24.7859 miles per hour. I'm pretty happy with it given my limited time on the bike since the injury as well as exactly no speed work on the bike. In the cat 5 category, I think I ended up 14th out of like 40. Nacho Libre also had a great showing, clocking in at 18 minutes and 24 seconds. After this, we went and ate huge Calzones at Old Chicago. I was a little disappointed that Snookies was closed when I drove home. For those that don't know, Snookies is an old school ice cream/malt/shake, etc. shop that's about a block and a half or so from my house.

Ain't no buddy dope as me...

2009-05-05T17:08:00.003-05:00

Got a new haircut today. Obviously I'm looking handsome. Anyways, at the place I got my haircut, I had the option of putting my hands in semi-hot wax. It's supposed to make your hands soft. At first I thought it was a joke, but the stylist said guys were 50/50 on it. What the hell. Within reason, I'll try pretty much anything. So, I did it. Then they put plastic over your hands and these mitten things on. I informed the stylist how manly I looked and she said I was free to put my mittens under the robe/cover thing, so I obliged. I'm not really sure this did anything at all, but to combat the events that transpired, I went and got a sandwhich loaded with bacon. I feel that this is a tie for the day. 1 non manly event; 1 manly event. Even keel.

As commented in the post below re: status for the Bob McCarten Sprint Triathlon on June 27, 2009, who's in? Last year we had myself, Mister to You!, Dogman, Burrito, berock, and Nacho Libre participate. I'm planning on rocking the event, if my shoulder will ever allow me to re-learn how to swim.

A little bit about the event. It's in honor of Bob McCarten. Bob was a great guy, who passed away from a heart attack during the event a few years ago. A couple nights before he passed, was Thursday Night Golf League. After league, Bob, Mister to You! and I were talking for an hour or two about triathlon's and how Bob was getting back into shape and looking forward to this event. It seemed like every time I saw him, he was always in a good mood, and boy was he ready to talk. I didn't know him extremely well, but you'd never guess that with his personality. As the casket was being carried out of the church, the music was the Iowa Fight Song. So, if you can make it, more the better. (Even if you're faster than me). It's a great event and of course, it's in God's country, aka Emmetsburg, Iowa. Okoboji is also obviously God's Country.

Who's in this bad boy?!

Workout 1; Me (-)5

2009-05-04T08:06:00.002-05:00

I got my ass handed to me on Saturday by my first brick workout of the season. I have no idea why the call it a "brick" workout, maybe because your legs feel like they have bricks tied to them, maybe some insane guy/girl that started doing these had "Brick" as a last name, or maybe because it sounded better than bacon. Check that, nothing sounds better than bacon right now. If you don't know, I'm on a personal mission to not let the swine flu take over my indulging of pig products.

Saturday afternoon at about 1, I met up with Nacho Libre in Truro to go for a 4 hour bike ride followed by a 20 minute run. Both of these were supposed to be in zone 2 (conversational pace ride). Yeah, that didn't really happen so much since it felt like we were riding up rollercoaster's. I think I said the F word 38 times on this ride. There were roughly 38 huge hills...and wind. We stopped in Cumming (real name of a town for my International readers) for some water and Gatorade. This was approximately 37 miles into the ride. Always eager to chat up random people, I made small talk with a dude next to me while filling up some water. We agreed that it was a beautiful day and disagreed about the lack of wind. In fact, I would have liked to kick him in the shin with Doc Marten's if I had them, at this point. We had pretty much been going into the wind for about 26 miles, far from calm.

I felt pretty decent, but couldn't keep the heart rate down climbing these hills. Also, we only had a couple of idiots driving on the road by us. It seems like 98% of the people realize that it doesn't take much to obey rules and drive safely. Then there's a very small number of people that are either pissed off they are too out of shape to ride a bike, pissed off that we are in there way and "don't" belong on the road or pissed off that we may make them 38 seconds late for them to buy a pack of Skoal. For every person that is like this though, there's more than enough that almost take it too far and are incredibly considerate. Great relief.

By the last 20 minutes, I was ready to be done. We ended up with 67 miles and I was spent. Put the bikes away, grabbed the shoes and started to run. From the start I couldn't keep my heart rate down. No way. I was shuffling my feet. In my defense with the feet shuffling, I played ball for the first time since my injury two days earlier and got kneed in the thigh pretty badly, so it sort of hurt to lift my left leg too high. But, at this point, the legs were too tired. I had to stop and walk twice to try and get my heart rate down. Again, I was supposed to stay in zone two, so it wasn't like my heart rate was racing out of control. Though, I was still out of zone two going slower than cake. Assuming cake can't run very fast. I think I'm safe here.

After the ride, Nacho Libre and I got a slice of Kum & Go grease, I mean pizza. I also got a Coke, since I was as wiped out as I've been in a long time after a workout or race. Made it back to the place, laid on the couch and waited for my Mom, bro. and sis. to go to Old Chicago. I had grand intentions of hitting the town and meeting up with dsm911, but I couldn't really function. Lame, I know.

I've got a long way to go and two races coming up. Sweetness.

Dogman's Boston Race

2009-04-28T21:21:00.004-05:00

As everyone who's anyone knows Dogman ran the Boston Marathon about a little over a week ago. On the Friday before the race, we arrived in Boston about 10 p.m. and flagged down a cab. I'm not sure how this started or why I keep it up, but I like to ride shotgun whenever I ride in cab, and this was going to be no exception...or so I thought. I glanced at the front seat and it was full of junk, including a book titled something to the effect of the "World's Worst Dictator's." Actually, I think the title was more dreadful than that. Pictured on the cover were Hitler, Milosevic (sp?) and other delightful gents. No shotgun for me, this cabby was not having it.

On Saturday, Dogman and I went for an easy (for him) 3 mile run. We were staying along the River Charles and ran alongside it. As is true in Des Moines, I was the best looking person I saw on this run. After the run, we went to the expo. It was pretty huge, lots of people that made me feel extremely out of shape and heavy...though I'm pretty sure I could kick 99% of their a$$es in a fight...if I could catch them. Lot's of nice looking ladies as well. In typical It's Mister To You fashion, he decided to bypass the hour+ long line to buy authentic race gear and while pretending to look for something, he found what he was looking for, the front of the line.

I almost forgot, at the hotel bar, if you order a large beer, they give you a large beer in a glass plus your own jug of beer. Sort of similar to when you order one of those chocolate malts and they give you the remainder in the big silver cup. Yep, a large beer equals about four beers. Good times.

Back on track. It's Mister to You and I went to the Sox game while the rest of the fam. went out to eat. Weather was pretty cold and it was supposed to rain, so Dogman stayed out of it, and smartly so. I froze my butt off but countered this with the 9 pounds of peanuts I ate. It didn't work and I caught a small cold, albeit on a full stomach.

Sunday was pretty low key, brunch where I ate my weight in bacon (swine flu be damned), dinner and then the Freedom Trail and cemetary tour. Pretty cool. Also ate a huge meal at a Boston pub for lunch. I've got pictures somewhere, but between work, moving out/in to a new place, not sure where they're at.

Race morning: I got up at 5 with Dogman and It's Mister to You! to eat brunch. Again ate my weight in bacon (I'm showing you who's boss, swine flu). Dogman went off to board the bus with other fast people, and I watched cartoons. First time in a long time I've watched a cartoon.

We positioned ourselves near the start line and got the first update at 10k. On pace for right around a 3 hour race. Then, we started getting texts from dsm911 and burrito, who got splits each 5k rather than 10k that I was getting, since they could check the computer and I was getting texts from the race. At the halfway point, Dogman was at 1:29 something, I believe. Pretty good, but the hard hills were coming up. Around the 35k mark, his overall avg. pace rose from 6:52 a mile to 6:55 a mile and a 3 hour marathon seemed very unlikely. Then, we saw this:

He was looking awesome! Still not sure if he was going to make it or not, because I didn't get anymore updates. Then, a short while later (we were about 800 yards from the finish line), I got a text that showed 3 hours 11 minutes, a 6:52 pace. What an awesome race, 3rd marathon ever, first Boston! Great job buddy!!!!!!

We caught up with Dogman, well, I luckily saw him heading into the massage tent after we were scrambling trying to find him. It was freezing that day and he ran his 3 hour marathon into a stiff headwind, the entire way. The picture above shows that the race festivities, from the expo, to the marathon, to the massage did indeed have a happy ending.

I'll try to get some more pics and video up, yes, I took some video later.

Cheers

Drake Half...gonna be dumb

2009-04-24T23:06:00.001-05:00

Signed up today (Fri) for a half tomorrow. Not in shape. Gonna Hurt. May cry. Will allow me to drink more beer tomorrow. Thus, the point of training anyways.

Story on Dogman's dominance at Boston shortly. Short recap. He's faster than me, but I'm better looking than Derek Zoolander.

Boston

2009-04-16T11:39:00.003-05:00

Sorry everybody, haven't posted in a bit. Been pretty hectic with moving to the new place and then I had a hearing in Washington Co. At least this one didn't end up with the other side praying for me out in the hallway and asking God's forgiveness and that I really didn't know what I was doing. (Well, I guess from a legal standpoint I apparently knew what I was doing, but from their viewpoint in the grand scheme of their world, I didn't.) But, I digress.

Anyways, last Saturday Nacho Libre, Droid and I rode about 43 miles from Cumming Tap to Winterset and back. We then stopped at Cumming Tap for a beer and some pizza. Droid's new ride (forgot it's name...mine's Jeffy (pronounced Heffy...go watch Three Amigo's). Anyway's, Droid's riding sick strong right now. I got him in the bike splits last year, but not sure if this will be happening this year. Nacho Libre had the fastest speed of the ride bombing down a hill. I'm still a pansy going fast down the hills right now, since I hadn't been out since my sweet crash. I've got a couple pre and post game pic's that I'll upload once I get the Internet at my place.

There's some great trails pretty close to my place, so that's pretty exciting.

Back to the topic of the post. This coming Monday, Dogman will participate in the Boston Marathon. I on the other hand will watch and try and charm various co-eds and good-looking lady runner's, at least the one's that look like they've at least had a cheeseburger at some point in their life. I'd even settle for a Bud heavy.

You're able to follow Dogman if you want, he has forwarded the following:

"If you are wanting to follow along with me on the day of the race, then please look at the section with the heading AT&T Alert Program. My BIB number is 3527. My race starts at 10:00 a.m. in Boston on Monday April 20th. Later on that day if you go to the boston marathon website www.baa.org, you should be able to see what my overall time was when I finished. My overall goal is to finish in good health and have a good time as well. My other goal is to beat my time from Minneapolis which was 3 hours and 4 minutes, I would really like to try and finish under 3 hours. If you have any questions please feel free to email me. Thanks."

So, go to the website above and you should be able to track him. Under 3 hours is pretty admirable goal and will take a great race. I could probably get this time...and then continue on past the aide station at mile 14.

I need to get back in the swing of training, with Kansas in about two months, since I haven't been in a pool in about a month and a half.

Cheers.

Solid

2009-04-09T19:21:00.002-05:00

Well, pretty decent week thus far, other than a ton of work to do, but in this day and age, not a bad thing.

On Wednesday, had the doctor's appointment. After getting complimented on my looks (par for the course for this guy), I did some range of motion stuff and got the ok to do whatever I can tolerate. Exactly the news that I was looking for. Pretty excited about that.

Today (Thursday), I closed on my new and first home! That's pretty exciting. I also had to wait a couple hours at the bank regarding some funds, but got that sorted out. I became great friends with the ladies up front, which is nice. Also, while waiting, I ate 15 dum dum's. They were free, real and spectacular, for those Seinfeld fans.

I also went for a run today. Been doing a couple nice and easy 3-4 mile runs lately. Today I decided to go for 5 miles. Started out the first mile at about an 8 minute pace and ended up averaging 7:42 per mile. Pretty good run and got the heart rate going. I'll take it after the layoff I've had.

Hope everyone's training is going well. Gonna order the t-shirts soon as well.

Lame

2009-04-07T22:22:00.002-05:00

I've been pretty lame lately. Working and trying to get healthy. So basically, nothing too crazy. Dominated the town a couple nights, tried to run and that wasn't that great, but at least I got outside.

Though, I did have the following things happen to me this past week that are all much better than being injured:

1. A 7 year old boy told me that I was ugly after getting my sandwhich at Quizno's.

2. I ate a brownie at work and the guy next to me wasn't eating his, so he offered me his.

3. Fast and Furious isn't actually a bad movie, but be prepared to not think about anything for the hour and a half. Was somewhat entertaining though.

4. Packing my apartment in preparation for moving.

Good Lord this is an incredibly lame post. I actually was never really bored the past week, so I'm not sure why I can't think of anything else to write about. I'm really anxious to get back to working out and playing ball. I haven't sniffed the pool in a month, been on the bike for about 50 minutes in the past month and run a total of about 8 miles. I think I've got some catching up to do.

Some pretty decent news is that Ben Harper and Public Enemy are headlining the 80/35 festival in Des Moines. Big fan of both acts. No word on if the Bonobos are going to perform.

The Drake Half Marathon is in about three weeks. It's the week after Dogman runs the Boston Marathon. I would go into detail about that, but c'mon, this is all about me and my thoughts regarding whether or not I should attempt to "run" the Drake Half. Like Boston's a big accomplishment. More on that later.

Almost forgot to mention this. If anyone's in Des Moines this weekend, dsm911 said he'd treat to Dairy Queen.

Answer's to Trivia

2009-04-01T08:05:00.003-05:00

Since so many people have chimed in to guess (only looks like a couple, but I think the server imploded, that combined with the conficker outrage), that I thought I'd post the answers.

1. Best bball player not in the HOF: Of course, and this is wrong on so many levels that he's not in the hall of fame (so wrong that I'm not giving the hall the respect to use cap's), but it's the Hawk, Andre Dawson.

2. Team Dancing Machine: Dogman. If you're ever in a place serving a tasty, frothy beverage or seven, than chances are a circle's formed around Dogman showing off his skillz.

3. Least likely to rock karaoke: This is the one that everyone missed. I'm sure Mister to You! would rock any song when The Boss came on. That being said, I'm giving this category to dsm911. Not because he can't sing (very good chance he's the best singer on the team, unless someone's hiding something...I know I'm not), but because he's above the karaoke level, plain and simple. Teetering with stardom numerous times throughout his fabled career, dsm911 still hinders hope that American Idol will come calling. This, karaoke will not help my young padoin. I have no idea if I spelled padoin right, but there's gotta be a list somewhere that you can check off a task if you talk like Yoda.

4. Waverunner destroyer: I had originally pegged K-Mo for this one. But, dsm911, one of the many member's of Mensa on our team, utilized profound voraciousness once again and pointed out that K-Mo may likely refuse this fine piece of machinery. Therefore, Burrito takes the cake.

5. Mustard: Mustard should not be put on anything at anytime or anyplace. Why this substance isn't more heavily taxed, I have no idea. There's got to be loads of carcinogen's in there somewhere. (note, if you are the maker of mustard, this is the author's opinion/joke. He is not stating a fact. Take your libel claims elsewhere).

6. Hotdogs: Hotdog's are tasty in numerous occassions, including but not limited to grilling out, baseball games, campfires, and at Kum & Go after a night of enjoying refreshments and watching Dogman bust out moves to "Hey Ya" or whatever that's called. On a side note, I've heard not less than 4 random local bands play cover's of "Hey Ya." Interesting to say the least.

7. Fight: The Warrior and Maya Angelou would take this down. I'm not sure, but I think the phrase "I'll come at you like a spider monkey" was either spoken by Ms. Angelou...or Chuck Norris. Best of luck Burrito.

Thanks for playing. Both the Warrior and dsm911 will receive a prize. This prize is tbd.

Cheers.

Trivia: Win a prize

2009-03-30T22:10:00.002-05:00

First person to get all the answers right on these trivia questions wins a special prize.

1. Best baseball player ever according to me that is not in the HOF.

2. Member of the team most likely to put on a dancing display.

3. Member of the team least likely to sing karaoke.

4. Member of the team most likely to sink a waverunner (I will accept two different answers).

5. Should mustard be put on anything?

6. Are hotdogs tasty?

7. Who would win in a fight. Burrito and Flavor Flav or the Warrior and Maya Angelou?

Things that are not cool

2009-03-28T10:50:00.006-05:00

1. You're extremely hungry, need something quick and the only thing around is fast food, ala McDonald's or Burger King. It's about 9:45 at night. Right when you pull in, the neighboring town's school bus is just letting out the entire football team and they're running into the door. (I think you need to have grown up in a small town for this to happen, since I doubt that Des Moines Roosevelt would take a bus that stops at McDonald's from their game against West Des Moines Valley).

2. You get introduced to a girl at a party, pretty cute, and she informs you that she isn't exciting and doesn't like dessert. She does like cheese though. I should change this to things that are not cool to me, since some people may like this. I actually like cheese as well.

3. You've found a cool new spot, in this case Crawfish, and gotten to be friends with the owners and a few other people that work there. You decide to take a couple friends there, telling how awesome it is, how sweet you are that you're in with the owners...and none of them are there this particular night.

4. It's your 21st birthday, you're ready to rock and your friend's girlfriend buys you the first shot to start the night off right. You're tough, don't need to even look at it, smell it or ask what it is. Just down it. For the rest of the night, you taste the tabasco sauce that accompanied the Wild Turkey.

5. An amazing musician, performer, etc...Pat Green is playing in Omaha. There's a ridiculous winter storm. Omaha is about 90 miles away. You and Dsm911 decide not to go...this eats at you throughout the day as the storm gets worse. About 2 hours before the show, Dsm911 calls right as you're about to call him. 15 minutes later, it's go time. You see 8 other cars, actually only semi's, the entire way and Dsm911 has to stick his hand out the window to scrape. The sun roof is frozen shut, so you can't go that route. OK, actually, this was an awesome show and I just wanted all the attractive, single women to know how daring and adventurous I am. Dsm911 as well, but sorry ladies, taken.

6. Training's going well, the weight's going down and you injure your shoulder. Enter pain pills. Apparently these pain pills make your appetite ridiculous, even more so than normal. Afraid to look at a scale. March Madness doesn't help this either.

7. You decide to go for a nice easy run with your brother. Thinking about 12 miles. Your brother hasn't run since a marathon a few weeks ago, he's faster, but again, you're going to run WITH him to make the time go by more quickly. Before the first block, he's half a block ahead of you and the only contact you have with him is him looking back to see which way you want to turn. Of course, you have to point because you forgot to bring your megaphone with you...that and you can't breathe just trying to keep him in sight.

8. This one's not me, because I'm awesome on the dance floor. For many (not me, cough), a beer or drink in one's hand is a necessary crutch to enable one to feel like they are dancing well. The floor's rocking, great music and your crown & coke (diet for dsm911 because he has better abs than me...wait, this is not about me) is tasting awesome. After about three songs, midway through the 4th we'll say, the drink is gone. Now what do you do? Even though you don't need the drink, because you're actually a great dancer, it's like you lost the big brother when going to fight, you've suddenly become clueless and a wimp. You're reverted to a simple bend in the knee's and head nod.

9. You have quite possibly the greatest old school hip hop CD ever made (way pre-Itunes) and the last three songs are scratched. Since you've just found this one, you have no idea what the songs are, but based on the prior 15, they would be amazing.

10. You rock the Speedo to a race and the hot triathlete ladies think you do it because you're vain, not because you actually think it's pretty hilarious.

Cheers and thank you Tom Izzo and the Spartans for beating Kansas.

Things we know

2009-03-25T20:04:00.003-05:00

1. Me: I have what feels like an alien trying to protrude from my shoulder (stemming from my wipeout). I'm using this as an explanation of why I'm more hungry than usual. Either that or a tapeworm.

2. DSM911: He's mad at my shoulder as well. We were rocking some swim workouts prior to the wipeout. He also can't stop talking about Britney Spears' comeback tour.

3. Warrior: He's still hibernating, ice fishing and making snow cones, suicide flavors.

4. Burrito: Trying to be Gerry Spence and Dave Scott at the same time.

5. Mister to You: Hasn't come off the podium from his recent AG win in the 5k.

6. Droid: Got a new bike and is moving to St. Louis

7. Dogman: Keeps pointing to how well my new diet, or lack thereof is working after he busts out 6:20 miles for about 14 of them.

8. Nacho Libre: Deciding the post-Cozumel drink list. Goose anyone?

9. BeRock: Nothing too exceptional. Just dominating the bike, riding in Utah and setting records in Arcade shootout at Johnny's Hall of Fame. Typical week for him.

PT and Music

2009-03-24T19:22:00.002-05:00

Had my first PT appointment today. Was looking forward to this to see what an early prognosis was. The therapist was pleasantly surprised with how much range of motion I had, considering the x-rays and degree of separation. Didn't do any strength exercises, just basic passive range of motion. No swimming for a while. I can sit on a stationary bike, not put any weight on the arms or get into the aero position. I can run a short amount, but need to take it easy.

Also, I thought it would be fun to take my Ipod and put it on shuffle...and take the first ten songs and see how incredibly lame or awesome I am based on this. It's easily a tell-all about someone. The Ipod shuffle method.

1. Greenlight (John Legend and Andre 3000)

2. Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna)

3. Little Red Corvette (Prince)

4. What Light (Wilco)

5. Walk It Out (Unk)

6. Wild World (Cat Stevens)

7. Good Lovin' (Grateful Dead)

8. Collie Man (Slightly Stoopid)

9. Butterfly Kisses (Bob Carlisle)

10. Beautiful Goodbye (Josh Kelly)

So, I like how it started out with the John Legend and Andree 3000 jam. The Rihanna song is a good one to run to or have a hard bike effort. Good rhythm. Little Red Corvette. Prince is one bad dude, and bad in a good way. Wilco is a great Chicago band, can't go wrong. I've seen them live and it's a great show. Unk. Yeah, this is one of those songs when it comes on, hopefully you're alone so you can pretend you have great dance moves. And then you try and execute said dance moves. I love Wild World by Cat Stevens. I think it's a great song and hopefully everyone's heard it. Grateful Dead. Some people love them, some people hate their music and some people only listen to them because it's what you're supposed to do if you're a hippy and smoke weed. I'm pretty glad Slightly Stoopid showed up. This has been my latest kick. I have no idea where to begin on Butterfly Kisses. Not really sure about that one. I'll come back to it after I eat the ol 96'er. Even the grizzle and then wash it down with a Budweiser and grow a beard. Beautiful Goodbye...it's a pretty decent folk song and I'm a huge fan of folk music. I'll still probably need a couple Bud's for this one as well, to help keep my manhood.

Random picture and discuss people's thoughts

2009-03-23T21:02:00.003-05:00

Since I'm incredibly cutting edge, always coming up with ways to keep the people entertained, because this is what the people want, I've decided that every once in a while I'll take a random picture and decide to let everyone know what all the people in the picture were thinking.

Starting from left to right and ending with the fine gentleman in the middle bottom:

1. Blue shirt guy: "I'm gonna fake a smile, but I'm really sick of this place. No Busch Light, No Mad Dog, no Hawkeye Vodka. These jokers drag me to these classy joints, make me put on my best blue collared shirt and make me stand in a picture next to a 'wannabe' wearing a fedora. I'm out."

2. Crest shirt guy: "I drive all the way from VA and these clueless hokies still let me drive the waverunner. Funny, they thought it was bad last time when I sunk that thing. At least they got indoor plumbing this time around. I'm off to drink a dry martini and check on my stocks."

3. Male model guy: "Lord, hurry up and get me done with this pic. Good thing I'm getting paid for this. Bad enough I have to hang with the fedora guy. Dude ruins everyone's game."

4. Fedora guy: "Jager Bombs. I've got my sweet fedora on. Jager Bombs. I've got my sweet funky, hot t-shirt on. Jager Bombs. Splashed myself with Armani Cologne. Jager Bombs. Gonna do some shots, dance with the ladies. Jager Bombs. I just did a triathlon. All the people should know this. It makes me sweet. Jager Bombs."

5. Sit-up guy: "Good thing they have vodka and diet. My sweet abs don't need no carbs. I do crunches all day long. Damn right I work my abs. I can't believe I'm not doing a sit-up right now. Pictures, I hate pictures unless I'm doing sit-ups. Chicks dig my abs. Abs."

6. That guy: "Suckers. Looks like I timed this one right to ruin the picture. Who's wearing that cologne, my eyes are watering. Good think that tall guy has an xl shirt, must not miss too many buffets. Time to hit the dance floor, no liquid courage needed for these moves. Didn't that one guy sink a waverunner?"

Ok. I admit this was probably pretty lame. I thought it'd be a great idea, because I'm usually a walking Red Skelton. Oh well. If anyone would like to one-up me with the comments, I say bring it on! Also, if anyone would like to tee off my shoulder, the bone sticking out can make a mighty good tee!

Message board discussion about my injury

2009-03-22T20:33:00.003-05:00

Two posts in about a matter of five minutes, not bad! Anyways, my Aunt sent me an email about a message board discussion regarding my injury. Thanks Linda! It was interesting to read and talked about how long it took people to regain strength, especially pertaining to weightlifting. I'm linking a different discussion, from a triathlon board, and it includes a picture. You can see where the gap is in the x-ray. Mine was similar. I had about an inch or so gap where my bone should have been. Anyways, here's the link. It's from slowtwitch.com

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=1992016;search_string=ac%20joint%20tear;guest=5755228&t=search_engine#1992016

My evolution of Hawkeye Sports

2009-03-22T19:52:00.002-05:00

Ever since I can remember, I've loved the Hawkeyes, we'll keep it to basketball and football, since those were the main one's that I followed. I remember growing up and my whole night would center around the Hawkeye games on t.v. I would get so worked up if the Hawks won or lost that it would seriously effect me. Yeah, I think I was about 8. Early on, it was Acie Earl's haircut and Jeff Moe's socks. In my basement, following the games, I would be Jeff Moe and shoot bombs at my 6 foot tall hoop. No one else got to be Jeff Moe.

My first football game I went with my Dad. Nick Bell completely destroyed the Cincinnati Bearcats. At the time, I think he ran for 200+ yards, but that didn't matter. What did matter was I got to be Nick Bell in my neighborhood football games. I loved the Hawkeyes.

In high school, my Freshman year I got a Chris Kingsbury jersey. I'm not sure if this had anything to do with him peeing in the hotel lobby of Iowa City, but I didn't care. He could shoot from anywhere on the court, and I would proudly wear that #14 jersey to school. At night, I would shoot baskets in my driveway and would every once in a while sneak a peak behind me, at the bushes of my neighbors house, because Tom Davis was watching and was going to give me a scholarship. He must have seen me in my Kingsbury jersey shortly after the peeing incident and decided I had "character issues." Thus, no scholarship for this guy.

At this time, I still loved the Hawks and never missed a game on TV. Enter College. And Steve Alford. Well, I was extremely excited at first about the prospect of Steve Alford, but we had our tough moments, much like any relationship of coach and random kid that goes to games... and this started after his first Midnight Madness practice. You see, they wanted to get student involvement, so they had games where the champion students could face the coaches. One was a knockout style contest, where you basically shoot free throws quickly and see how many you can make. My buddy Luke and I beat all the other students at Iowa and got to compete against the coaches in front of all the students for Midnight Madness, the first practice of the season. To make a long story short, Luke and I beat Alford and another coach...Luke's dad later called into a call in show and Alford denied it. He quickly made up for this though by letting me (well, not me, but my buddy Jason, who was actually really good and played on the team), be a sub in a league held at his home (he had a court in his home).

I still went to all the games with my roommate Jeff. After 6 years of going to games (me undergrad and law, Jeff undergrad and pharmacy), they stopped giving seniority for ticket holders and it was whoever got to the games the earliest. Well, after putting in the time and having front row seats, I wasn't going to renew my tickets after the rule change and go over an hour early to the games. I still loved the Hawks though and would watch them all the time. It helps that I got to know some of the players and became friends with them (especially Jason, who I just owned in fantasy basketball. boo yah Jason).

In football, I got to be friends with more of the players and a couple of them are still really good friends. The games were a struggle at first, but since I was there for about 7 years, we had the ups and downs. I made some trips to a few bowl games, Alamo, Outback, Orange. Great times and I was in attendance for the Drew Tate to Warren Holloway play, that most football fans know about.

I know this is really lame, but I wanted to mix it up, since I'm not really training at the moment and I don't want to talk about why I think it's dumb that most triathletes shave their legs. I also could go on and on, but this isn't a book and dsm911 has the attention span of a crockpot.

Unfortunately, my attention to the Hawks has wavered a bit. I try to watch most of the football games but have missed a few and only made it to two games the last two years. In basketball, I like Todd Lickliter, but am not sure about his style. I like the players as well and understand his system, but worry that we won't be able to get top calibur players when the team scores around 50 points a game. Time will tell though and I do like the Kelly kid and the Gatens kid.

I'm trying to figure out if this is my dumbest post to date, but most likely not, I've had some doozies.

Shoulder update: Still hurts and am slowly gaining more range of motion. I say more only because initially, I had zero, so it's not that much of an improvement, but alas, an improvement. I start physical therapy on Tuesday and am going to go as hard as I can, regardless of the pain. Being inactive is not easy at all for me. I think I've gained 7 pounds the last five days. Partly because the pain pills wanted to make me a 24 hour/day buffet eater. Thankfully, I'm not on the pain pills anymore.

Hopefully everyone else's training is going well.

Figures

2009-03-21T14:27:00.004-05:00

Well, it's incredibly nice out, has been the past few days, and right now, I can sort of extend my arm even with my shoulder, but not without pain. Figures that it's great outside and I can't be on my bike and even, run...wow, never thought I'd actually really want to go running. But alas, neither's in the cards for me right now. Swimming, I can't even imagine trying to swim freestyle at the moment.

It's especially painful, but great at the same time to see everyone else out riding, running, etc. I got a message from Nacho Libre who had a killer bike workout this morning with some good running as well. I got up and went to Starbucks, quite the workout myself. I did manage to walk a few blocks to take one of my suits to the dry cleaner. Great to be outside, though I wish I could have been doing something a little more faster.

If anyone's wondering what exactly happened, it's kind of ironic, depending on your definition of irony. I've never been afraid to cut a workout a little short if it involves meeting up with some buddies for food/beer, etc. Well, this past Tuesday, I was set for a 2 hour ride. The ride was going great and I was able to push a higher speed at an easier level than last year, even mid-season. It felt great. Anyways, I was scheduled to meet up with Burrito for some beer to celebrate St. Paddy's after the ride. With about 3 minutes left, I was right by my apartment door. Instead of calling it a good ride, I decided to take the trail behind my apartment to get exactly 2 hours. Seriously, what's wrong with me? So, I take a sidewalk to the trail, which would require crossing about 10 yards of grass. No big deal I thought. Well, as soon as I got onto the grass, my front wheel sunk right in. See the pic. below, which was taken three days later.

Needless to say, my front wheel basically stuck into the ground/mud and I came unclipped from my pedals and flipped over the front of my handlebars. Luckily, I landed right on my right shoulder blade rather than my head. It could have been a lot worse. As soon as it happened, I thought my collarbone snapped in half. I could just feel the right side of my shoulder area move. Painful as all get out. So basically, if I would have been lazy, ended my ride early for beer, I'd be pain free and able to continue to train. Put in the extra effort and my shoulder feels like it's gonna pop out of my skin. Lesson out of this kids...moisturize, it helps the members of our team look better than you.

I don't think anyone saw it, but I pushed my bike with my left arm to the 40 yards to my apartment. I passed a couple of people, didn't say anything because I needed to act tough. The plan was to go to the apartment and call dogman to give me a ride to the E.R. I looked down to the holder where my cell phone was...not there. It came out when I wiped out. I walked back to the area, since I could not run and grabbed the holder. Called dogman and off we went. The first stop was a hospital about a mile or so away from the apartment...no E.R. So we went downtown and finally got to the E.R. about 45-1hr. after the initial crash.

Not sure how long I'll be out, but I'm gonna try to get back as soon as I can. I start physical therapy on Tuesday, so hopefully I'll get some idea.

This sort of reminds me a few years ago when I basically destroyed my foot (golfing in flip flops, foot outside of the cart and crashed into a brick wall surrounding the tee box). Hadn't moved hardly at all in the next two weeks, but the night before the Boji Tri, I decided to ride my bike 20 yards up my driveway and run 10 yards. Didn't hurt a ridiculous amount, so I figured, I'd tape the broken toes up and take some Advil, or whatever it was. Well, the race hurt. Also, my great tape job came off as soon as I walked into the water. Brilliant idea.

I'm hoping that I'm not out too long, especially if the weather's this nice out. Though, I am thankful that it wasn't worse and that I even have the ability to do these triathlons, etc. I don't think this post would be appropriate if I didn't comment on my looks, as well as the team's. Dogman, dsm911, burrito and I were out watching bball the other day. All I can say is you get fine looking specimens like this in one place, watch out!

Hopefully everyone's out enjoying the nice weather!

Injured

2009-03-18T20:45:00.003-05:00

Long story short...cause typing's hard.

Flipped over handlebars, landed on right shoulder...third degree separation of ac joint. Degree's go 1-3 with 3 being worse. Not sure how long I'll be out, but pretty painful and thankful for the pain med's at the moment. Still incredibly attractive though.

St. Paddy's weekend and Race Report

2009-03-16T20:36:00.007-05:00

Great weekend in Emmetsburg. I headed to my hometown on Friday after work and got in about 8:30. Stuffed myself with crabcakes and hung out with the parents. I knew there was a half marathon the next morning and I was planning on giving it a go, but using it as more of a training run. Dogman was going to run it as well. He was sick early in the week so he wasn't going to go all out either. Big difference between his going about 85% or so and mine. Anyways, woke up at about 7:45 and made it to the registration at about 8:15. Yep, the race started at 8:30. Not that surprising that I was late, since I've pulled up to a race when everyone else was at the starting line. There was also a guy who realized about 2 miles in that this wasn't the 5k. I saw him after the race, he was hurting pretty bad. Gotta give him props for running the whole half when thinking it was the 5k.

Above is a sweet pic of me getting ready race morning. Decided to take the pic in front of the Brown family crest. Obviously rocking the Hawkeye shirt, tights and bball shorts, cause that's how I roll. Added a wind breaker jacket, even though it was about 45-50, wind was ridiculous...was blowing about 20mph.

Here were my mile splits.

Mile 1: 7:52

Mile 2: 7:52

Mile 3: 7:53

Mile 4: 7:51

Mile 5: 7:57

Mile 6: 8:03

Mile 7: 8:09

Mile 8: 8:17

Mile 9: 8:29

Mile 10: 8:33

Mile 11: 8:20

Mile 12: 8:29

Mile 13: 8:18

Nowhere near a negative split, but miles 8-12 were basically into a 20+mph headwind. Felt like I wasn't even moving. I didn't got all out either, but it did hurt at the end. This was my second half marathon and I came in at about 1hr. 46min. 58 sec. My other one was in the fall of 2007 and I got 1hr. 58 min. and change, so basically 10 minutes better this time with less effort.

For the first 9-10 miles, I held a pretty good conversation with Bruce from Britt. Never met him before, but good to run with and made the miles go by a bit faster. There were also about two miles of gravel. The water was in bottles, which made it a bit harder to drink and you only drank a couple sips and then tossed the bottles to the side of the road. Bruce started to slow about mile 10, so I went at it alone from then on out. With about two miles left, my high school buddy Bruce Nelson of Hawkeye and Carolina Panther fame was pulling a float into town (we were out in the country at this point). I tried to a) get a ride or (b) draft off the float, but this didn't work so well.

Also, at about mile 4, I noticed a Chicago Bears stocking cap on the road. Recognized it as Dogman's, so I grabbed it. Dogman, by the way, ended up getting 5th overall at 1 hour and 30 minutes. Nice work for him.

Below are a couple pics from after the race. I'm obviously kissing one of my guns. This is what you're supposed to do when you're as chiseled as I am. I guess I'm also trying to seduce the camera. This same move tends to work well when I go clubbing.

After the race, I had a solid nap, took in about 2 thousand calories and met up with my friends for a night on the town. I also got to enjoy some tunes from these guys.

Random Friday Thoughts

2009-03-13T09:24:00.003-05:00

Not to get all sentimental on everybody, but dsm911 and I have talked a few times about what we really want to get out of doing these triathlons. Of course, it's nice to set a new best time (I refuse to say "pr" because that's what everybody else says and I think it's dumb...let's just say I dominated), but that's not necessarily what's so great about triathlons. Yes, I'd like to do the best I can, but if that means sacrificing all sorts of time and missing out on other things important to me and, what's arguably even more important, thing's that are important to my friends/family. That doesn't mean I'm going to train an hour a week for the Ironman, trust me, I'm going to give it a go and yes, I will sacrifice quite a bit along this "journey." But, what do I want to get out of this. I think dsm911 and I agree, it's to be able to keep doing them. Yes, our times may get slower, hopefully the fun, camraderie and the beers at Jimmy's on Wednesday's won't dwindle years from know, assuming we're still in the same place. Maybe in the near future the Warrior will find his Visa and move back to Des Moines.

Sometimes when I'm doing a long ride or run and I think it hurts and I want to stop, something keeps me going. This varies, whether its the thought of finishing in Cozumel, dominating Okoboji or looking good in my Speedo (contrary to popular belief, I can look better in it than I already do), but I digress. Sometimes it's something completely different...it's knowing that I've been blessed with the ability to be able to get on my bike for 3 hours, or run 10 miles. Even though there's tons of people that go faster, it's the fact that we can do this, irregardless of the time it takes. We're lucky. Many people, for whatever reason, never got the opportunity, or the obstacles in front of them are a bit different than simply waking up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning. Here's a great short article by Rick Reilly that I really enjoyed.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3967807

Yes, we joke around and have fun, as we should. We also realize that even if our times are not the best, or we didn't do this well or we had a crappy run, swim, bike, etc., in the grand scheme of things, it may not be the biggest deal. Most of the time it takes a few days, weeks, etc. to realize this, but I think we do. That being said, the Okoboji Tri Team is going to have it's best season yet. The times are going to go down and the events are going to go up. I'm looking forward to this Summer, now if the weather could just cooperate a bit, that'd be nice.

It'll be interesting to see how my shorter course racing will be this year. I've never attempted a half ironman, and this year I've got two of those along with the Ironman. Suffice to say, I haven't been training for short races, so I'll be in better shape, but maybe not "better" shape for Olympic/Sprint races. Though, I'm planning on going faster at those than I did last year. I may do a half marathon tomorrow, haven't decided yet. If I do it, I'm going to make it a long training run and not try to "race" it. As if I could "race" a half marathon at the moment. It's been a long training week and the legs are a little drained.

Cheers.

I like to eat.

2009-03-10T17:04:00.002-05:00

Yes, this is not a surprise to anyone. I'm trying to cut back a bit, since I want to see how this whole Ironman stuff goes. On the one hand however, with all this training, I'm gonna need the calories. One of my friends is giving up ice cream for lent. Instead of ice cream, she said she's been eating some pudding. Ok, I thought I'd give it a try (though I'm not giving up ice cream). I got some soy chocolate pudding. I actually like soy milk better than regular milk, so not a big deal that I have soy pudding. It was actually pretty good. Therein lies the problem. I got a four pack. Last night for dinner, since I dropped my cup of fruit I got from Hy-Vee in the parking lot, I figured I'd have one. Well, I was going to have one anyhow. After one, I figured, what's another one? So I had that. Next thing I knew, I was still hungry. My other food was coconut crusted tilapia and carrots. So, I grabbed a cup of applesauce. Next thing I know, I was back at the refrigerator grabbing the 3rd cup of pudding. I ate 3/4 of it and then thought, well maybe, if I don't eat it all that won't be too bad. Who am I kidding, did I seriously think I'd waste chocolate anything? Finished that off. I still have one more of these bad boys left.

At least I had good intentions. dsm911 and I had a good swim workout this morning and I got a 7.6 mile run in over lunch. I need a beer for that effort.

One of the new band's I'm digging is Slightly Stoopid. I hate the name, but the music is right up my alley. Worth checking out. I need this weather to change.

Training Week

2009-03-08T18:06:00.003-05:00

One of the gripes people have about blogs, at least from what I've heard, is that people who have them are self-centered and actually believe that people want to read about them, their lives, etc. I've heard..."who care's about someone's workout," etc... This in no way, shape or form applies to myself or the team. First of all, everyone knows how incredibly awesome we are. It's not our fault we're leaps and bounds a better looking bunch of people than everyone else. If there was only one fault we may have, it's that not one of us has "model" type calves. Well, I think we may have found an answer for that, at least that's what the word is. Also, even though we are the smartest, wittyest (not sure if I spelled that right, but don't want to look it up) and best looking team around, let's face it, we don't have a ton of experience in the triathlon world, save for Ironman.

So, I'm sure a few of you are wondering what a training week looks like for an Ironman. I've just finished one of my longer ones thus far...they will get longer, and thought I'd share.

Monday: This is my usual day off. I can't even remember what I did Monday, oh wait, I got roped in to watching the finale of the Bachelor. I don't watch too much tv, except for Monday's when "How I Met Your Mother" and "The Big Bang Theory" are on and this past week they were reruns. Both fantastic shows. Anyhow, the Bachlor had a controversial ending where the guy that proposed to his "fiance" changed his mind six whole weeks later because he kept thinking about the "other" lady. The break-up appeared on live tv (classy). AND, the other chick took him back without even thinking about it. Lame, yet I watched. We're not just about triathlon's and looking good here on the Boji Tri Team. We're also up on current events and important happenings, often times intertwined, such as The Bachelor.

Tuesday: Tuesday, dsm911 and I met for a swim at 5:50 a.m. at the Walnut Creek Y. This is the perfect time, because the early 5:00 a.m. risers are finishing up and it's before the 6 a.m. crowd arrives. The swim workout was a bunch of drills mixed in with a 500 yard pull bouy and 6 x 200's. Totaled 2,950 yards. That evening, I had a zone 2 (conversational pace) for those without heart rate monitor's run. The total time for the run was 1hr. 10 min. I'm not training by miles right now, but time. The run was cold and windy. Actually pretty hard and I dipped into zone 3 a decent amount.

Wednesday: Wednesday was 45 minutes of weight lifting and 1hr. 15 minutes on the bike. The bike workout was kept mainly in zone 2 as well. I'm doing a lot of zone 2 work, since I'm going to stay around zone 2 for the Ironman. From what I've read, many people take the bike too fast in the Ironman and it later costs them on the run. That'll be hard, because zone 2 for the most part feels really, really easy.

Thursday: dsm911 and I again met at 5:50 a.m. for a swim. This time it was a bit shorter distance, 2,350 yards, drills mixed in with 500 pull bouy and 6 x 200's. I also had a 45 minute run. It was 60+ degrees today, so I ran over lunch. Felt awesome.

Friday: I had a 1 hour yoga class today. I've been to three yoga classes on Friday's and love them. The instructor is awesome and provides a decent amount of help, especially since I'm not that flexible. I'd like to continue with yoga. It's different than my one class I went to in college. I got talked into going with two ladies (wasn't hard), but it was like 110 degrees in there. This class is geared more towards triathletes, which is nice.

Saturday: I had a 2hr. 50 minute bike ride today. It was going to be 3 hours, but we did a 15 minute run after the bike. The bike was done on a trainer and was pretty hard. Great workout but wiped me out. I had a nice nap while watching the first half of the Hawks game following the ride.

Sunday: The weather was really crappy today, so I had to do my run on the treadmill, which I'm not a big fan of. I ended up doing a 1hr. 35 minute run. To sort of keep me entertained, every 3rd song I'd push the incline on the treadmill, started at 1.0, then 1.5, then 2.0, then 2.5 and back down. After this I allowed myself a drink.

So, not sure if anyone cared about reading this stuff, or if it was interesting. The total time for the week, including yoga and weights, was 11 hours and 20 minutes. I actually hit ever workout this week, which was a nice surprise. I'm debating whether or not to go to E'burg for St. Patty's weekend and maybe run either the 10k or jog the half marathon. Anyone interested? They also have a relay for the half, with up to four people. We could all do that a little hung over if need be? Only a bit over 3 miles and I'm not looking to win. Dogman is going to do the half on his own. Let me know if anyone is interested in heading there for the weekend. It's always a great time, and It's Mister to You will probably buy lunch, or at least a beer.

Cheers.

New Sponsors!!

2009-03-05T13:30:00.003-06:00

I don't have any pics or links up yet of my new sponsor's, but I'll give a quick summation. Now, most triathletes have sponsor's such as Powerbar, Red Bull, Cervelo, Trek, Kuota, etc. Not me, I don't give in to pressure and conform. I want and desire unique sponsors. I've agreed to sponsor the following:

1. 4th of July: Yes, the Holiday. What better to exemplify myself and the team but a holiday where you don't work (duh), you're supposed to drink beer and gorge yourself with good food, your with friends (for me, friends include, but are not limited to beautiful women in two-pieces) and fireworks. In the past, this has been accomplished at Okoboji. This year, it's still an option, though dsm911 and I have in the past, had a 4th swim at Raccoon River followed by Hy-Vee breakfast. There is also a mud volleyball tourney, but I digress. Welcome aboard 4th of July.

2. Bud Select: They don't know this yet, but they've been providing me with pre-night carbs for nearly 95% of my races. Sometimes though, a couple too many can lead to dry-heaving at Turtleman after the swim. I blame standing in 90 degree weather in my wetsuit for an hour though...and dsm911 kept me out too late.

3. Okoboji: Thank you captain obvious. Though, Okoboji does not contribute any money, they do contribute one of two natural blue water lakes in the existence of our planet. That and they allow Dogman to showcase his dance moves at their fine establishments.

4. Andre and Richard Dawson: No, they're not related and I guess they don't really sponsor us, but they should. One used to hammer out home runs for the Cubs, the other used to kiss all the female contestans on the Family Fued. And you know what, the Boji Tri Team is down with that.

5. Damon Dotson: Local singer/songwriter that rocks the house. Plays in Des Moines a decent amount, including tomorrow, March 6 at AK's downtown.

6. Jimmy's: Only in the Summer though. We used to have a Wednesday night swim at Raccoon followed by Jimmy's. Then dsm911 went on a hiatus and threatened to ruin my Summer. He redeemed himself though.

7. Snookies: I'm going to be living near this place soon (ice cream shop in Beaverdale), so they will likely be a great sponsor.

*Before I get contacted by Richard Dawson's agent, etc., none of these people are actually our sponsor's...yet.

Anyone else we should target? I think we should use Sugarmomma's calves as a negotiating piece.

Status of the team...because you care

2009-03-03T15:42:00.003-06:00

Me: I think training's coming along fairly well. I haven't been able to hit all of my workouts, but only have had a couple weeks where I missed the majority of them. Last week, I did a total of one. Work had me at the office day/night. As for my swim, I don't necessarily think I'm getting much faster as opposed to being able to maintain speed for a longer time and without getting as tired. I guess this is the goal for Ironman stuff, but going fast is fun. I have no idea how my biking's coming along. Other than a gravel road ride on my cross bike, I've been on a trainer. Running, well, it's running.

dsm911: Contrary to popular belief, dsm911 did not go off searching for the next R Kelly party. He's alive and well and we got in a swim workout today. I can say that his swimming stroke's gotten much better. He was also the second best looking one in the pool today, and it was a crowded pool.

droid: I'm not sure droid even remembers that this site exists, but he does rock the jersey. He's going to be a wild card this year, but will be able to lift the most on the team.

dogman: dogman had a busy week last week, so got behind a little on his miles. He was supposed to run 20 on Sat., none on Sunday and 12 on Monday. He ran 8, I think, on Saturday, 17 on Sunday and 14 on Monday. The 17 on Sunday was at 7:07 pace. Boston's in 6 weeks and I think he'll have a good race.

burrito: Burrito made a long awaited comeback to posting recently. His tri-status is still up in the air, but I'm thinking Emmetsburg would be a good place to start!

K-MO: AKA the Virginia Slim...I just made that up. I have no idea how K-MO's training is going, but word on the street is the VA government is making him work 147 days in a row. As everyone should recall, K-MO made the trek to Okoboji last year and basically made the weekend...except for his phone kept ringing all through the night. Easily the most popular member of the team.

Accelerade Warrior: Last I heard, he was going to start kicking training in the rear. We'll need an update from him. I imagine he's been fielding modeling offers. I know I have.

Its Mister to You! Word on the street is that he had to buy two Ipods to fit all of his Bruce Springsteen songs on them. He's also got those underwater earphone whatever they're called. Waiting for an update. With regard to the ongoing debate between Its Mister to You! and dsm911, Its Mister to You! currently holds a 97-3 lead.

Nacho Libre: I would say his training's coming along well but he owes me dinner.

beRock: I'm guessing he's out riding his bike somewhere.

There is also word on the street that a couple ladies are trying to find glory and become members of the Boji Tri Team. Ladies, this is a select group. We focus on results and have a strict membership criteria.

Insanity

2009-02-22T19:20:00.002-06:00

One of the definitions of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." I think I came pretty close on Saturday. I actually slept in until about 8:45, which was nice...fed my addiction to Starbucks and then hit the office. After a long day at the office, for a Saturday, at least, I hit the Walnut Creek YMCA at about 4:45 p.m. All of the treadmills were full, including a couple of people methodically walking. I'm not going to blame them one bit, because you have to give them props for getting out there and doing it...though, if it's 75 degrees out and they're walking on a treadmill, not cool. But, if I'm waiting to use a treadmill when it's that nice out, each one of you can become pugilists and start training on me. I digress.

Anyhow, the Walnut Creek Y has a track, 19 laps for a mile. I was supposed to run for an hour and a half. I have no idea how many laps I did, but I managed to run for an hour and a half. I'm guessing at least over 200. Sounds insane doesn't it?

Sunday, 3 hour trainer ride on the bike, well for me, 2:45 because my tire kept going flat. I made up for this with lots of HY-Vee breakfast.

Reason why I'm awesome. I went to Boston's (restaurant, not city) on both Friday and Saturday night. I think I may have even worn the same thing. I even drank Guinness both nights, but my food order was different. I can't believe I just typed this, as if anyone actually cares what I drank at Boston's. Next blog will contain the amount of pulp in my orange juice and whether or not I went for the Caramel or Vanilla Latte.

Cheers.

Bike's, burrito's and Motley Crue

2009-02-18T19:16:00.003-06:00

Huge sigh of relief. As berock, droid and I were in Dos Rios eating some mexican food and drinking Dos Equis in preparation for Motley Crue Tuesday night, we ran into dsm911, so he is alive, hasn't been kidnapped nor drank the kool-aid.

Sunday berock and I decided to head out on the gravel roads on the cross bikes. I wanted to go for 2 hours, him 3, so we compromised on 2.5. Started out from my place and headed past Booneville. Yes, maybe two people reading this will know where this is. Anyways, we decided to try a new route and found a great area, Badger Creek. Pretty decent sized lake, wild life area. I checked it out and the water quality had some recent problems with soil runoff. After checking out this area, one I'll have to go back to once

the snow is gone, we continued on our way. Eventually, we headed east and every road north, the direction we needed to go, was a dead end. Long story short, the ride ended up being 3 hours. Totaled 41 miles, just over 13.5 mph, which wasn't too bad for a zone 2 gravel ride. Oh, by the way, ridiculous hills. The only flat part on this route was after we took a wrong turn. I was starving, so about 4 miles from my place, we stopped and got some food. It took me roughly 3 minutes, literally, to devour this bad boy.

Suffice to say the 4 mile ride home was not very fast.

Tuesday was a big day for me. Motley Crue baby. Droid, berock, and I hit up Dos Rios for some beers and food before the show, pretty good stuff. Got a ride to the show and berock lost a bet so he had to ride in the trunk. Hinder was the second act and they were actually better than I thought. I've only heard their "top 40" songs that play on the radio. They can actually rock pretty well. Also, their lead singer spits more often than anyone, save for maybe Lenny Dykstra.

Then came Motley Crue. Unfortunately for one guy with a Motley Crue shirt, who could barely see and walk (he was not physically handicapped), he got escorted out before the show even started. Nice work, missed an awesome show buddy. Motley Crue opened with Kick Start My Heart and closed with Dr. Feel Good. Encore was Without You. Awesome show. Morning...not so awesome. Missed spin class with dsm911 at 6.

In tri news, since everyone is incredibly interested, I did an 80 minute trainer ride. Was supposed to be 90, but I got a flat. I'm attributing this to the fact that I'm a machine, and really good looking. Had the IPOD on shuffle, a little sampling

1. Flo Ridda

2. Eddie Money "Walk on Water"

3. Crosby Stills & Nash, "Southern Cross"

4. Puff Daddy and Faith Evans

5. Damon Dotson

6. Jason Brown - county dude from Des Moines

7. Rocky soundtrack...obviously

Those are all I can recall now, but it's a pretty good example of my random taste in music.

Cheers.

Red Flannel Race Report

2009-02-14T15:28:00.002-06:00

Well, the first "race" is in the books, the five mile Red Flannel Run. This was my third year in a row doing the race and although I didn't hit my arbitrary goal time, I have improved each year.

The first year I ran, I had to walk after like 2 miles. My average pace was something like 9:40/mile. The next year, I improved to 7:44/mile. This year, I ended up averaging right around 7:13/mile. I'll take a 30 second per mile improvement, especially since I haven't done any speedwork, mostly just long, slow zone 2 runs to help me get ready to completely dominate Cozumel!

Anyhow, Nacho Libre picked me up just after 8 (race started at 9). We made our way to the downtown Y, got our numbers and I had to fight off numerous advancements from incredibly attractive females, it being Valentines Day and all. Huge props to Sue Money for sending me lots of Candy, which I had already eaten it all. Actually, I took a couple breaks from work to run to the apartment because I needed some sugary and chocolate goodness. I digress.

The race started and the first mile felt pretty easy, and my time was 7:10 or so. The second mile I was still feeling good and was just under 7:10. Right about the 2.5 mile marker, I was running with a buddy and he started to pull away. He wasn't going that much faster than our previous pace, but I started to hit the wall. Not sure what my time was for my third mile, but it was slower. My 4, I felt like crap and this mile was probably close to 7:30. The final mile was actually pretty good and may have been my fastest. It had to have been around 7 flat or so.

I wish I had some pictures but sorry. Just imagine a really hot dude running in red flannel sweatpants, three long sleeve shirts and a t-shirt with Droids face on it. (The weather said 16 degrees, but I was sweating like crazy). On a side note, there was a couple guys rocking the speedo. Props to them.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my time. I wanted to run it right at around 7/mile, but running's my weakness and I'll take a 30 second per mile improvement from last year.

On another side note, Nacho Libre grabbed the wrong keys, so we were locked out for a bit. However, this allowed me to get a muscle tension test at the two booth expo. Results, I have extreme tension pretty much everywhere. I think I need another massage from the lovely Kelly. Yep, that settles it.

I'm gonna try to do a two hour gravel ride on my cross bike tomorrow. Might see if Berock is up for it, but he's been dominating the bike scene, so I might not be able to keep up, if he's game. Also, if anyone wants to send a jedi-mind trick to get the owners of a certain house to lower their asking price, that'd help.

Cheers.

Make fun of dsm911 until he posts a comment

2009-02-11T14:01:00.003-06:00

I'll start.

1. dsm911 did suprisingly well at last years Point to Point. Oh wait, he was getting his hair colored and chest hair waxed so he actually didn't make the swim. This after organizing the details for the event on two separate occasions.

2. dsm911 left the party at Captain's early following the Boji Tri so he could, actually, I have no idea why he left the party early.

I could go on and on, but I'm sure other's would like to chime in as well.

Pretty good read

2009-02-10T09:17:00.003-06:00

I really liked this article. On the one hand, you've got quite a few NBA players that seem like they can barely read, take all their cash and buy fancy cars, ice, etc... than there's this guy, who although he's now starting to "evolve" into the lifestyle just a bit more, got there in a pretty awesome way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/sports/othersports/08cycling.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=othersports

By the way, dsm911 has been ragging on me for lack of posts...where are his comments? He's still getting owned, which I guess is not suprising.

I am not the runner in the family

2009-02-07T18:43:00.002-06:00

Well, I ended up meeting with Dogman for part of his 20 miler today. I say part, because I ended up going for about 2.5 miles, as I had some plans going on. Well, needless to say, here are the stats from his 20 mile run:

20.18 miles

2,394 calories

2hrs 26 min. 47 sec.

avg: 7 min. 17 sec. per mile.

Yeah, I can't do that.

52 degrees today

2009-02-07T14:20:00.003-06:00

What a beautiful day today, but burrito and I are both stuck in the office for most of the afternoon. burrito for the morning as well. I think I've found my first race of the season, for anyone that's interested. It's two weeks before my half-Ironman in Lawrence, Kansas. I didn't want the half to be my first race of the season, so I'm pretty sure I've decided on this.

http://bluffcreektri.com/

I'm going to do the sprint race. It'll be interesting to see how much speed I've lost (note, this is assuming I had any to begin with) while doing the slow, long distance training. I really don't think it'll be that much...again, have to have some to lose some :)

If anyone wants to join me for the race, I thik Nacho Libre is going to, let me know. It'd be a good goal to get in shape for and have something to look forward to.

I'm hoping to finish up my work soon and try and join Dogman on 4-5 miles of his run today. He's got a 20 miler. Not sure the legs are gonna like it, I had a two hour pretty hard trainer ride today. I can't wait until Spring/Summer when the roads get a little better. I think tomorrow I may take the cross bike out and tackle some gravel roads. Nothing too crazy, but should be a good time. I've also got a slow, 1hr, 25 min. run tomorrow, then check out some houses, and depending on what time I get done, a little bball. Sounds pretty ambitious.

Finally, for those of you (everyone) that have yet to comment on the post below, I'm taking Manute Bol over dsm911 in 4 rounds. Hopefully everyone's enjoying the weather, it's awesome!

Debate

2009-02-06T15:23:00.004-06:00

I recently received a text message from a certain someone inquiring into my lack of blog posts. I informed him that I had just posted one that day and that he should comment. He hasn't yet and will likely blame it on the fact that he's on a plane from South Carolina or something.

Anyhow, I was thinking about this.... dsm911 used to be a pugilist. I guess he used to be pretty decent before he moved to the heartland, because in a certain beer tent celebrating St. Paddy's day, he threw a couple haymakers cutting nicely throught he crisp evening air, falling about 6 feet short of a group of guys standing around. He'll likely try to turn this around, but will be to no avail.

So, here's my question. Note, I'm not condoning fighting, or shall I say pugilism, but who would win in a fight, our very own dsm911 or Manute Bol. Here's the tale of the tape (note the small guy, at least we don't think, is not dsm911):

Height dsm911: 6'2'' Bol: 7'7''

Weight dsm911: 185 Bol: 185 *this is just a guess

Diet dsm911: Costco Blueberries...frozen Bol: fish sticks?

Status dsm911: Engaged Bol: Tall

Posse dsm911: Public Television Bol: Carlton, Fresh Prince of Bel Air

Intangible dsm911: In with the noon Y swim crowd Bol: That skinny, most likely no tapeworm.

So, ladies and gentlemen, who would win in a throwdown, dsm911 or Manute Bol?

Why do we do this?

2009-02-05T15:28:00.002-06:00

I've probably made a post or two about this somewhere in my journey that is the Boji Tri Team blog, but I was thinking about this the other day, in the midst of an "easy" 9 hour training week. At the time, I was really not looking forward to my hour and a half trainer ride by myself. I don't like the trainer in general, but don't mind it as much if I'm with one or more people, which brings me to one of the reasons why I do this, i.e., compete in triathlons...comraderie.

I love to race, but really enjoy racing with other people and to a lesser extent training with other people. Just as vivid in my mind as some of the races are the early a.m. swims at Raccoon River followed by HyVee breakfast with dsm911, the 100+ degree runs with Ironman, Okoboji swims with It's Mister to You! and the five mile time trial run with Droid that took us around the softball fields at Raccoon River Park, all the while a charity walk was going on. We were pushing it and going in circles while these people were leisurely walking by us, wondering what was going on?

A little background...prior to getting into triathlons, if I was on a bike, chances were it had a baseball card in the spokes (yes, I actually did this a couple of time), but one thing for sure, I was either riding no hands or one hand. Now, if I've only got one hand on the handlebars, I'm either eating something or taking a drink of water. If I had to swim prior to entering tri's, it was because I was going back and forth between the docks, trying to catch a raft that had blown away during a storm (I was going after it while it was still storming), or swimming to the boat after a wipeout on the ski's...or, swimming to the boat to get another beer. As far as running goes, the worst day of all high school was when we had to "run" a mile. Four laps around the track, are you kidding me?

I compete in tri's because it isn't easy for me to dominate. I could go out and finish one on a few hours of training a week, which is what I did last year, some good results, some not so good. But it's really the people, places, etc that make me enjoy this. From Turtleman to Okoboji to Big Creek, and coming up this year, Lawrence, Kansas, Cozumel, possibly Boulder...all with friends.

Some people compete because they still have that competitive edge. I'm as competitive as they come, or maybe I should say I used to be as competitive as they come. I used to get so mad at the most minute things, such as if I missed a 3, missed a putt, etc. Don't get me wrong, I still want to do really well, but does having the best time doing tri's mean having the best time? For an Olympic, is it better to sacrifice some good times with friends and get a 2:10, or have that time with friends and get a 2:20? Well, part of my answer used to be, have the good times and get the 2:20. Luckily for me, I think I can still have the good times and get the 2:10. What the hell does this mean? Believe me, I'm not sure that I really know. I think it means, leaving the bar maybe an hour and couple beers earlier to get up an hour earlier for a great workout, with friends and then breakfast, with friends. I'm lucky that I have friends that enjoy doing this sometimes crazyness that I do. I also think that part of me owes it to myself to go "all out" and see what I can accomplish. I'm never going to dominate the run, but think I can have great swim and bike times, if I put in the effort.

This, like most of my posts, starts in one direction and takes off down an entirely different path. One thing I know for sure is that this year, with the Ironman, is going to be a journey. I'll have to sacrifice some things, but I have a feeling I'll gain so much more from it. I don't do tri's so I can tell people that I do them, as if it's really that awesome anyhow. I don't do it because otherwise I'd have nothing else to talk about. I do it because I get a sense of accomplishment. I'm not a runner, not a biker, not a swimmer. When you combine all 3, I'm still not great at them, but I think I can be pretty decent.

I guess the bottom line regarding why I love these things is showcased by this website and the comments. If you randomly made it to this page and don't know me, or maybe know me but no one else, just take a second and read some of the comments. Incredibly goofy and sometimes they don't make sense. Dig deeper, and chances are you couldn't find a group of people that are more educated, witty, and of course... good looking. I do tri's because of the people, my friends and a little bit because I still like to test myself, to see what I'm made of. Oh, almost forgot, they also allow me to wear speedo's and a headband.

I've got a few running races coming up, the red flannel run and the Drake Half that I'm planning on doing. Hopefully there will be some pic's of those. Dogman's still rocking in his Boston training as well.

I really don't want to re-read this, because I think it's so incoherent and bumpy, that I'd probably erase it all. There's nothing greater than friends and family and I'm lucky to share this little thing we call triathlon with them all, whether participating, watching, cheering, etc. It's great to get out and do these things. Last year we had Mister to You in the 3.5 mile swim and Dogman qualify for Boston. We'll have some good things from some new people this year. I'm excited. Feb. 17th, dsm911 and I have decided to stop eating a bunch of crap all the time. For me, this is the 4th part of this triathlon journey, and possibly the hardest.

Training; Burrito and Coffee snobs, not necessarily in that order

2009-01-27T13:18:00.002-06:00

Since this is sort of a blog about triathlon, i.e, the Boji Tri Team, I figured I should get on track somewhat, even though race season is still a few months and about 60 degrees away. Anyhow, I had a swim workout today. Went a little like this,

Easy warm-up, than 3 x 300 with 100 free, 100 kick, 100 free. For the first 400 free's, I was finishing right at 1:20/1:21. For the last 2, I was slacking and finished at about 1:23. Those 2 seconds could potentially cause some hot lady to miss me coming out of the water in my speedo. Not good. Burrito knows what I'm talking about. Then I had a 500 pull followed by 6 x 25 and some cool down action.

Speaking of Burrito, does anyone have any idea where he's been lately? He hasn't commented in a while and thought I don't drink enough milk, I haven't seen him on a carton, so he must be around. Possibly he's been hitting up the Y stealth style ready to rock the 09 season? The Boji Tri Team sure hopes so.

I know that dsm911's been rocking some training and "coaching" a couple ladies. Jury's still out whether or not they've actually taken his input to actual use in the pool/pavement? Dogman's been, with my constant inquiries, readying up for the Boston Marathon. Tomorrow he's got 6 miles at like 6:30 or something and then a couple miles of cool down after that. I will not be taking part. But dsm911 and I will be rocking some spin baby! Not sure how the Warrior's training's been going. Need an update from him?

Two milestone workouts from last week. Droid decided to jump right into the pool after a little drought and swim 3000. Last Saturday, Nacho Libre and I hit up a 3 hour trainer ride followed by six pounds of bacon, french toast and syrup, with a side of eggs and hashbrowns.

I also wanted to touch on coffee snobs. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and a couple of my friends readily admit to being coffee snobs. What is a coffee snob? Well, in my opinion, a couple things tend to cause on to be among this group. The other day, some dude's coffee was at x-1 degree and he had to have it at x degree. Like I said, this isn't necessarily bad, you pay for it, you should get it how you want it. But, that being said, some law of science (dsm911 would know), would seem to indicate that coffee decreases in heat the longer it sits there. Seriously, I'm just rambling here, on of those topics that I thought would be interesting but actually really isn't. Another snob is the one that needs 2.7909090 inches for cream, not 2.7. Ok, this is really lame and I'm done talking about coffee snobs.

I probably should have talked about chafing or nipple bleeding during long runs.

Lose-Lose Situation at the Y

2009-01-23T13:12:00.002-06:00

First of all, I'm a big fan of the Y. Good facility, nice pool and I guess they have some pretty sweet spin bikes. But, once you are done with your workout, is when the lose-lose situation occurs at the Y.

This usually happens when you have either "sort of" gotten to know someone at the Y or happen to be next to someone with no shame. Pretty much the majority of those at the Y have no shame. I'm talking about the time when you are showering after the workout. You don't really know the person, but everyone's completely naked and they start talking to you. What do you do? You try to hold eye contact to be polite, but still, it can be a bit uncomfortable when you're talking to someone you don't really know. It's different when you're in high school, college, etc., after sports, because you know the other people pretty well. Back on track...do you just talk without looking at them? Maybe this is the answer, but is this unpolite, can you feel them staring at you trying to get you to be polite? Do you start with eye contact and than look away? I did this the other day, but you want to avoid that uncomfortable situation, so you look away at an angle, or pretend your checking out your watch. Who knows what to do. This is a little better know that the showers aren't three feet from each other.

One other situation that always happens, is when you're done showering, there can be 100's of lockers, but your stuff is in locker 10. Guess what, Locker 9 and Locker 11 are both standing there after their showers, with no shame at all. No other locker is occupied except for these three.

All in all, this isn't a really big deal, actually, it's quite humorous. Maybe I'm slowly becoming one of those no shame guys, but I'm definitely not gonna parade around the locker room break dancing, at least now without my M.C. Hammer windpants on.

So...when I started writing this post, I thought it was gonna be funny, intriguing, etc...Epic failure on my part. In fact, I'm not even going to re-read it, it's most likely that terrible. What can save this is some comments about the goofiest, craziest, strangest or most hilarious instances at the Y. This can range from the person that swims doggie paddle, taking up the middle lane and giving you the death stare if you try to share the lane, to the "naked guy" at the Y, who does parade around. He dried off an hour ago, but he hasn't talked to locker's 58 and 64 naked yet, so he's on his way.

2009 Athlete of the Year

2009-01-22T09:27:00.002-06:00

Suffice it to say the 2008 Boji Tri Team Athlete of the Year was one of the easiest decisions to make...the publicity keeps coming.

http://www.emmetsburgnews.com/page/content.detail/id/501008.html?nav=5003

Who's it going to be for 2009?

New member: Nacho Libre. Nacho is a Boji Tri veteran of one year. Nacho has approximately two weeks to submit a new name for the team.

In other news, does anyone want to go on a no pop and candy diet (excluding cake, ice cream, typical dessert's) challenge with me? I need some accountability.

Design for team's speedo

2009-01-15T16:05:00.002-06:00

Anyone want a piece of this hot action that I just designed?

http://www.splishcustom.com/designs/show/91809

Edit:

Ok, so apparently this link didn't work. Essentially, it's a carolina blue speedo with black stripes going across. There's a big picture of a unicorn on the front. The unicorn in purple. This is front and center. We can call the Unicorn Kevin, since Kevin doesn't comment anymore. If he comment's than the Unicorn can be called dsm911. On the top right, just above the unicorn is a picture of an orange smiley face.

On the back, front and center is a hamburger. I wish it could be a cheeseburger, but alas, life's not always fair. Above the burger is "Boji Tri Team," also in purple.

Anyone want some of this hot action? I haven't ordered any of these, though I do have a couple other designs at my residence. Up for any other ideas on designs as well. I think we should make it a rule that the Boji Tri Team races in Speedo's for 2009. Thoughts?

Random Thought

2009-01-14T14:58:00.002-06:00

Cell phones while driving...should they be banned.

This would be a tough sell (no pun intended), basically because ever since cell phones, other than the Zac Morris Save by the Bell years phone, people have driven while talking on them. It's simply become a way of life for many. However, lately it has gotten even worse. Possibly with the advent of teenage drivers, who have grown up using cell phones all their life and don't really have the driving experience. I will point out though, that even people who have driven forever, still become absent minded when driving while talking. I drive while on the cell phone a lot, so I am by no means on my high horse. I'm not a big phone-talker, so sometimes when I'm on a long trip, this is when I'll call people. Texting while driving, even worse...and yes, I've been guilty of this as well.

I guess my point is, lately, when I've been driving and someone's either came close to getting into an accident with me (their fault, of course), or just done something incredibly stupid, like going 35 mph on a 60mph road, they're 99% of the time on a cell phone. The other percent, they're over 110 years old. It seems to never fail when I pull around these people, they don't notice me, have no idea what they had done, and continue to yap away. Again, texting is a whole nother story. It'd be hard to police and I guess, I should really stop texting while driving. It's becoming ingrained though and I think it'd be really, really hard to stop talking while driving. That being said, I've ridden my bike enough on the roads and had a few close encounters with cars, that maybe something should be done.

How do you police it though, what would be the penalty. Like I said, I still don't know how I feel and don't necessarily think banning cell phones in their entirety while talking is a good idea. Obviously, emergency situations are a different story. Age limits? Not sure that would really fly, legally or under a public policy standpoint. Or, are we almost past the time when cell phone usage has become the norm and the public policy would flow towards disallowing cell phone use while driving? It's an interesting topic. Thoughts?

Also, I must address an issue. A few posts down, when the team awards were posted, burrito took issue with myself and the Warrior being voted the best looking on the team. Sugarmomma chimed in and indicated that Warrior was most likely the best looking, but obviously, I countered that I am incredibly irrestible with my three-day no shave look. However, burrito came back to life and thought that if Sugarmomma would have the opportunity to see burrito in person (this is assuming she hasn't), that I may be the odd-man out.

Things I like

2009-01-12T21:31:00.003-06:00

1. Caribou iced vanilla coffee in the can. These things are tasty.

2. Running without a watch, heart rate monitor, etc. I have to admit that I like running more than I used to, but this isn't saying much. I was talking to someone the other day about my running history. I can remember when I was in high school, the worst thing ever was to have to run the mile for PE. I dreaded it, four times around the track...are you kidding me? When I first moved to Des Moines, the grind of work got to me and I got out of shape quickly, with my only exercise being Thursday night basketball. A friend of burrito's was going to run the Red Flannel Run, I think it was like 5 miles. burrito told her that I used to do triathlons and that I'd be great to run with...so I signed up. I made it about 2 miles before I had to stop and walk a bit. I slowly made it to the finish line. A couple months later, I'd heard about a great race, the 20k Dam to Dam. Never having run more than 5.5 miles (the Okoboji tri run), I drove my car to the corner of E.P. True and Grand...7 miles. I figured if I could run the 7 miles, the next 5.8 would be ok. This was on Monday...the race...Saturday. So, I ran the 7 miles, ok, jogged and then signed up. Fun run, but painful. To make matters worse, right after the run I had to get in my car and drive 3 hours to a wedding.

3. Going out to eat. I love to eat, yes, not a big surprise.

4. Happy hour with friends. I'd much rather do this than hit some club until 3 a..m., or totally get hammered. Keep in mind that the latter does have its place though.

5. Mountain Biking. I got to do this a bit towards the end of the year and really enjoyed it. I won't be able to do as much next year with Ironman training. I also love taking the cross bike out and riding gravel roads. Really great scenery (yes, I know it's not the Pacific Coast Highway), but it is really great.

6. The deck/dock at Okoboji. Enough said.

7. Open water swimming. There's just something that's amazing about water, and not the indoor pool kind. My whole life, I've been infatuated with water. When I was working road construction, on breaks, I'd always check out the streams, creeks, etc. The infatuation carries onto lakes, the Ocean. I love it. When you're swimming in it, there's something so exhilarating, peaceful, tranquil, free but at the same time a little danger of the unknown. You're body's free, gliding above life below.

8. Ahi Tuna. If I had to choose between a great steak, chicken, pork, etc., I would go for Ahi Tuna in a heartbeat.

9. Water skiing.

10. Telling stories. Sort of similar to why I love happy hour. I love kicking back and telling stories. It helps if Droid or my buddy Jeff is along, because then I guarantee even if you weren't there to witness the events when they happened, you'll be laughing the whole time.

Gym favorites

2009-01-07T15:43:00.002-06:00

Just got back from a quick excursion into the world of weightlifting at the gym, and wanted to make a post about the select group of my favorite typ of gym rats.

1. Tank top guy: Tank top guy is the guy that no matter what workout he's doing, he's got a tank top on. He doesn't own any other workout clothes besides tank tops and short shorts. Check that, he's got his hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants that he wears over his tank top. Boy does he want you to see his guns. Also, the short shorts is a requirment. You won't see tank top guy wearing basketball shorts. No. A lot of the time, tank top guy is either under 5' 7" or weights over 245 pounds. Sometimes both. Tank top guy always takes advantage of the mirrors provided.

2. Event shirt guy: Event shirt guy does not step outside the house to go to the gym without one of his race shirts. Be it the 5k from 1995 or the most recent festival race. Event shirt guy usually doesn't spend too much time in the weight room, but opts for the treadmill. Unless said event was his high school level lifting shirt. Side note, today, I was event shirt guy. However, I was also basketball short guy, since that's all I own for "running" shorts. Event shirt guy also usually has short shorts.

3. Triathlon/Cyclist guy: Triathlon or cyclist guy is usually seen wearing spandex, because everyone wants to know he only eats lettuce sandwiches and does triathlon/cycling events. Body hair is no where to be seen on these studs. If your within ear shot, these guys will usually be talking about their upcoming event, or the race they completed last year. Don't worry, if you were to forgot about their upcoming event, be sure to come back the next day, they'll be glad to remind anyone and everyone about it. In the pool, I alternate between tri guy with a speedo/tri shorts and board shorts look. However, triathlon guy will never be caught in the pool with boardshorts.

4. I own the weightroom guy: This guy is pretty great. I think he sort of sucks at every other sport, but boy, did he get really good at lifting weights. This guy will smirk if you have improper form or if you ask him if you can work in a set with him, because you'd have to alter his timing and lift with much less weight. Stay the course I own the weightroom guy.

5. Hot runner chick: This girl knows exactly what she's doing when she hits the treadmill, stair climber, squat rack. She didn't just randomly throw together this outift, oh no.

6. Glory days guy: Valley High Class of 95 shirt. Rock on buddy.

7. Dumbass basketball shorts guy that can't lift very much: This is me. Yes, I can bench my own weight, but no where near what anyone else can do. I probably spend too much time being cynical about all the other aforementioned guys...or chatting up hot runner chick.

8. Meticulous workout guy: Always carries around a piece of paper or card outlining his workouts. Let's see, 3 x 10 bench...check...3.5 ounces of water...check...blast ACDC....check...grunt really loud in front of the mirror...check.

Let's hear it. Any other "guys" you all can think of. There's got to be a lot more that I missed. I also completely understand that some of these guys are probably making a list about dumb baller guy in his basektball shorts, etc.

My 100

2009-01-06T09:32:00.002-06:00

I saw this on someone else's blog and figured that obviously, people would like to know more information about me.

1. I'm going to turn 30 this year and no, this does not bother me at all.
2. Actually, the only thing that really changes with me turning 30 (other than the typical...you're not married yet talk...which though annoying, doesn't bother me either), is that I'm aging up for my triathlon age group.
3. I wish I liked tomato's but can't stand them, unless they're in salsa. I love pizza sauce though.
4. I hate mustard and have no desire to every enjoy this disaster. My Mom somehow managed to mix mustard in her baked beans without me knowing. After I found this out, I was certain that I could now taste said mustard.
5. Extremely excited about Ironman Cozumel, but no idea how I'm going to be able to fit the necessary training hours in...there are so many more things I enjoy doing, which is why I like the Olympic/Sprint distance where I can train for 3, maybe 4 hours a week and still be competitive.
6. I love to eat and have a ridiculous sweet tooth. This will also be one of my biggest challenges building up towards Cozumel.
7. You will not convince me that I don't have the greatest friends and family, don't even try. Also, the best looking tri team.
8. I love living in Iowa. Yes, I know there are amazing places elsewhere, but I am also able to drive up to one of the most amazing places on Earth in a couple hours, swim in an amazing lake, drink beer on a deck with an incredible view of the sunset over the lake...all with the people referenced in no. 7. It doesn't hurt that it's fairly cheap to live here and this allows me to take a few vacations to some amazing places.
9. Yes, some day's it's below zero where I live...this doesn't really bother me that much, they make clothes for this stuff and I have a cross bike...gravel roads in cold weather are a great time, trust me
10. To this day, I truly believe that if I would have enjoyed/practiced baseball, it could be my current job.
11. I get way too annoyed with people that, even though they may be good at triathlons, cannot talk about anything else.
12. There was an article in the Des Moines Register about a group of guys in Des Moines that qualified for the Hawaii Triathlon, regular age-groupers, like my Ironman. This is a pretty big accomplisment...none of them came within an hour of Ironman's time, done without all this fancy equipment.
13. Shaving one's leg's for a triathlon is a sign of vanity, get over yourself and quit using the excuse that it's going to make you faster.
14. I graduated from College in 3.5 years, did very well, but stayed an extra semester so I could win an intramural basketball championship...mission accomplished.
15. These are getting a little too long, and I'm only at 15.
16. I have a love-hate relationship with running, and I've only been running for about 2-3 years.
17. We had really hard high school football practices, but I hated the 10 minutes of stretching at the beginning more than anything.
18. Still hate stretching.
19. Love to travel, but still feel a little guilty about missing work.
20. Favorite travel places so far, Cinqua Terra, Italy and Costa Rica. Will go back to both.
21. One of the best things about relationships is that they happen when you least expect it...
22. This is also one of the worst things.
23. I'm extremely lucky.
24. I'm pretty sure that I have the most random group of friends, defintely quite a few different personalities.
25. I've made some great friends this past year, kept in touch with many of my old one's and need to keep in touch with many more, something I'm admittedly not good at.
26. Facebook has helped with the latter of 25.
27. I'm going to really try and take more pictures...everyone should.
28. I have an amazing couch, but it is way, way too big for my apartment. It's actually bigger than my bed as well.
29. I am incredibly happy in the water.
30. Give me some water skii's over snow skii's any day...and I love to snow skii.
31. I've been saying I was going to swim from my dock across the lake and back in Okoboji for a few years now. Still haven't. It's not the distance (under two miles), as I've swum part of the long way across Okoboji (3.5 miles). Maybe this year.
32. I once quit drinking soda (pop) on a bet with my friend Kate (her's was Hot Tamale's). I lasted around two years and finally had a Sprite at a Hawkeye football game. They ran out of water and it was about 100 degrees.
33. Droid and I used to drink about 8-10 cans of Surge a day in high school.
34. One of my two best friends in high school, Huey (Dan), once shotgunned 12, or 15 Dr. Pepper's at my house on a Thursday night in high school. It was an amazing feet.
35. In high school, I was pretty cocky/confident in my athletic abilities. I wore one sock pulled up to my knees in basketball and the other one all the way down. Two other friends did this, except they rarely got in the game, so their warm-ups covered this up.
36. My buddy Matt and I in high school would take out the Eastbay magazine and pick out the ugliest shoes for the upcoming basketball season. We never saw anyone else with the same pair. One year they were ungodly low tops...another year they were Keyshawn Johnson turf football shoes...we got those to play in the State Title Football Game in the Dome...
37. Which we absolutlely destroyed the other team.
38. 65 was my best 18 hole golf score at Emmetsburg's course. I used a Top Flight Hot XL.
39. I was the No.1 golfer at Emmetsburg for all 4 years of High School, but always choked in the meets to go to State.
40. I was too competitive and had too much of a temper back then.
41. Prior to games, I listened to Bone Thugs & Harmony.
42. Now, I'm becoming a big fan of Folk Music, but still dig Lil Wayne. Cant' beat Blues Traveler though.
43. Ben Harper in concert is amazing...when he plays for about 3 hours.
44. I got my first penalty in a tri even this past year, at Turtleman.
45. The reason, I moved my transition area so a late arrival could squeeze in.
46. At this same race, I had a great time, both literally and figuratively, especially once I quit dry heaving after the swim.
47. There's a great picture of me running with my speedo, headband and boji jersey. I ordered it and it is the only race picture I've ever ordered.
48. I have a brother who's an amazing runner.
49. and I've come to terms with the fact that I don't have his talent in running.
50. Sometimes I spend too much time in a relationship, without looking at the big picture..or numerous little things as well.
51. Other times, I don't even allow one to really develop, maybe, or maybe not unfairly.
52. Random and spontaneous are two of my favorite words, and I feel accurately describe me.
53. I need to quit staying out so late.
54. Happy hour with friends beats this anyhow, plus I can wake up earlier feeling better about myself.
55. Though sometimes, happy hour needs to be extended and the next morning is worth it.
56. One of the greatest trivia questions involves "The Band" and "The Weight." A song that everyone knows the words to, but no one knows the name of the song or who sings it.
57. dsm911 would beat me in a music knowledge contest, and there aren't many who could do this.
58. Droid could beat me in a music and movie knowledge contest and there aren't many who could do this.
59. Both of these two people, as well as It's Mister to You! and my mom would be my lifelines if I was ever on that Who Want's to be a Millionaire show.
60. Cyclocross and mountain biking are awesome, but they'll "sort of" get put on hold for a year.
61. The greatest co-ed recrational sport is kickball.
62. One of the things that bothers me is keyboard warriors. Those people that can type a mean or nasty letter behind a keyboard, but can't say the same thing in person or over the phone.
63. I always have the best ideas right before I go to bed, but never right any of them down.
64. A good friend of mine has won a Super Bowl Championship...and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
65. Weddings are a great time, and I've got a couple I'm really looking forward to this year.
66. I have a tough decision coming up over the 4th of July. Head to Okoboji, or get an early swim at Racoon River followed by Hy-Vee breakfast and some mud volleyball. Right now, and even though I love Boji, I'm thinking about that Hy-Vee breakfast.
67. I'm going to try to eat better this year, and it starts with less stops for pastries at Amici and no desserts over lunch.
68. Although I mentioned above that maybe I should've given some more potential relationships a chance, do not tell me that you are "boring" and "don't like dessert." These are pretty much deal breakers.
69. It's totally cool to admit that you're a dork though. Most likely this is not in the truest sense of the word anyhow, but rather shows that someone doesn't always take themselves seriously and can be goofy.
70. I have no idea what time to shoot for in my Ironman...but it's early.
71. I'm not editing this for spelling, grammer, etc.
72. In 2nd grade, I won the school's Connect 4 tournament by employing a strategy of putting the first piece off to the side, rather than the middle. Everyone (well, 2nd graders) always played from the middle.
73. In Elementary and partway through Middle School, I always wore sweatpants. As you can imagine, I hated picture day.
74. The best basketball shoes ever are the black Jordan's with the two holes in the tongue.
75. My buddy Luke and I beat Steve Alford and another coach in a freethrow shooting contest at Midnight Madness when Alford was the Coach at Iowa. Luke's dad later called in to ask Alford about it and he denied it.
76. I'd like to write a book.
77. I get way too mad when the Bears and Cubs lose.
78. I can't stand Pepperoni or olives. My favorite pizza is Canadian Bacon and Mandarin Orange.
79. If I had to choose right now what to eat for the rest of my life, I'd probably go with Ahi Tuna.
80. I boycotted cheesecake for years because I thought it sounded dumb. My mom finally convinced me to try it and guess what, I love it.
81. I'll try almost any food out there and ate a seafood salad in Italy of the Coast of the Mediterrean that I think was still 95% alive.
82. My mom makes the best cupcakes ever.
83. On those Senior Spotlight things you fill out in high school, my favorite food was watermelon and drink was blue kool-aide.
84. I wish I could find Marshmallow Rice Krispies.
85. And Ecto Cooler.
86. I love movies, all types, even some chick flicks. Gotta love Predator, Three Amigo's and City of God. Told you I'm random.
87. I've went to restaurants before solely to order dessert.
88. I've run a marathon, injured, while running about 3 miles in the month leading up to it. Was a great and terrible experience at the same time.
89. My time was around 4 hours and 26 minutes. If I don't run my Ironman marathon under 4 hours, there's a good chance I'll be disappointed.
90. I have a feeling that this year will be great.
91. I really enjoy running the Living History Farms offroad race in a hotdog suit.
92. I love the Hawkeyes, but am not near as interested as I was when my friends played.
93. In college, I got to live with one of my best friends for five years. We once had a streak of going out 27 nights in a row where we had at least one drink. This was the summer though.
94. I had a guardian angel at my marathon in Atlanta. It was some random guy with a bottle of Bengay. He saw my trying to stretch out my cramped everything in my lower extremties and gave me the bottle. Thank you good sir.
95. I'd like to organize a beer mile.
96. I saw a picture of the High School Homecoming Parade (shameless plug, I was King), but man, why didn't anyone tell me I looked like an alien with those huge Oakley's.
97. The picture was part of a dvd slideshow that one of my sister's friends made for a Christmas present for my mom. This was amazing and I can't thank the guy enough for it.
98. I'd like to get a dog, but not sure that I should, because of time/travel constraints.
99. If I can control my diet and hit most of my workouts, I think I have the potential to be pretty decent in these tri's.
100. Life is pretty incredible with the friends and family I've got. Here's to some great times with old and new friends in 2009.

Hopefully this wasn't too boring, I wrote it without any preconceived thoughts, just ramblings inside my head.

2008 Team Awards

2009-01-01T21:35:00.003-06:00

Shortly, at least relatively shortly, I will provide one of the greatest year in review reports in the history of Earth. For now, I'm announcing our 2008 Team Awards.

Best Comments: This one was fairly close between the back and forth of Mister to You! and dsm911. However, the overall winner is Mister to You! His witty and timely comments brought him above and beyond dsm911. In last place would be a tie between Stokes and burrito. Burrito started strong but fell off the face of the Earth. Stokes posted once.

2nd Best Looking: Possibly the most important category (obviously we know who no.1 is). But this award goes to the Warrior. A key ingredient to making the Boji Tri Team the best looking tri team.

Best Performance: Dogman...both for his 3:04 marathon, down from a 3:55 debut...and his dance moves after the Okoboji Tri. 2nd place goes to Mister to You!'s great Point to Point performance.

Dumbest Move: dsm 911 and I staying out a bit too late before Turtleman. I ended up having a great race, after I finished dry heaving after the swim. Did have a great time the night before though.

Moment of what in the world am I doing: Droid and I (in a hot dog suit), going off course in the Living History Farms race and running through a frozen creek. The ice shards cut your legs pretty well.

Best Race: Probably the easiest category. The Okoboji Triathlon. 2nd best would be Point to Point.

Team Effort: Dogman and burrito in the Emmetsburg Tri. Great swim by burrito followed by stellar bike and runs by Dogman.

Best Haircut: 2nd easiest category and goes to our cycling expert, berock. Expecting big things out of him this year in the road races/cross races.

Best Quote: Our new friend bought that we met at Captain's after the Okoboji Tri. Dave bought us shots after telling us how sweet of a lawyer he was. But, he said "if any you guys calls me a db I'm leaving." Fantastic work, he was cool.

Best Outfit: I'm taking runner up in this for my speedo/headband combo., but Ironman gets the award for his ripped speedo at Okoboji. Brilliant.

If anyone has any ideas for more categories, please let me know and I can announce the winner.

Big things are going to happen for 2009. Also, if anyone's interested in gear, I can give a look to see about jersey's etc.

Thoughts

2008-12-29T22:48:00.002-06:00

Cute, issues, funny, problems with society, completely innocent, or WTF...thoughts on this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysqh1uzqGrc

Solid weekend

2008-12-21T19:46:00.003-06:00

Here's a pretty sweet pic. of the family (I was deemed not good looking enough to be in this photo by 3-1. Thanks Mom).

Had a pretty good weekend, notwithstanding the negative 8 billion temp, but wasn't really that bad. Met up with my Urbandale bball team for happy "hour" Friday at Wellman's. After a few hours there, we migrated to People's to meet up with burrito, beRock and a couple other buddies for the Hello Dave show. Ended up being a great night, but may have been over served.

Woke up fairly early on Sat. Was going to go to a group spin, but had to hit the office for a couple hours. After that, I met up with my friend Abby for some Mexican food for lunch. Abby was in from Hotlanta. Her and her husband are moving back to Des Moines soon and had a little house hunting to do. Great to see her and eat my weight in burrito's and taco's. Went back and took a solid nap for about an hour. Then beRock came over and we did a sick bike workout on the trainer. Two hours of complete insanity and sweat. Legs were gone. After the workout, we, including Scotty went to Nick's for some beers and food. There, we had the fantastic opportunity to be told by the bartender how sweet he was in numerous aspects of life. I think I got in nine words during dinner, two of which were "another beer." Called it a night fairly early, which was nice.

Sunday, slept in really late, especially for me. Did some cleaning, a little work and got in an 8.16 mile run on the treadmill. I would've run outside, except for the ridiculous wind and -1 temp. Not a big fan of treadmills, but oh well, thank the lord for Ipods. Two great workouts this weekend.

In addition, I downloaded "Heaven" by Warrant and "Southern Cross" by Crosby, Stills and Nash. Pretty solid. Looking forward to heading home for a couple days to celebrate Christmas.

My answers to unexplained questions

2008-12-19T08:39:00.003-06:00

To the Warrior, ask and you shall receive. This was taken from http://www.slate.com/id/2206835/?GT1=38001

The Explainer's Unanswered Questions From 2008

• What is the most disloyal dog breed?
The Labradoodle. How can you be loyal when you can't figure out what kind of dog you're supposed to be on your own. The Labradoodle will spend entirely too much time going back and forth between a completely awesome and adventurous lab to a weenie, milk saucer drinking cat-dog. The poor thing will be so messed up that there will be no loyalty at all involved. The moment where the loyalty would come in (with the lab half, of course) will soon be taken away by the need to find a litter box.

• Why does some music make you want to shake your butt?
Two reasons. First of all, is women like to dance. Regardless of how terrible the song is, as long as there's music, they will shake their butt. This is especially true if it's the new hit song. The drinks will be put down, arms raised with a loud squeaky shriek of "I love this song" (even though said song will soon be disliked because of overplayment on the radio). Now, men will know for the most part, they have no chance if they don't go try and dance with said ladies. So, they in turn have to go shake their butt. The difference is, the men will take their drinks, because they know they can't dance therefore, they have to utilize the "I'm dancing, but can't really bust out all my moves because I have to take a drink know." I've been there (even though I've got sweet moves), where you simply start bending the knees, dropping the shoulders and come up, not realizing what the next move is, so what the hell, I'm thirsty, I need a drink of my beer.

The second reason is simple, who likes to sit still when there's something else to do. When Fantastic Voyage by Coolio comes on (or you have it on repeat), how many of you can avoid sliding back and forth..."slide, slide, slippity slide don't you say sh** just get inside."

• Could you please explain why it is that squirrels are capable of such amazing athletic feats? What is it about their brains and, to a lesser degree, their bodies that allows it? I watch them at my house and have seen some amazing things.
I have not looked this up, but my sesne is that squirrels either have no brains or very small brains not allowing them to decipher the situation at hand. We would all be capable of much more incredible feats if we had no apprehension to the perils that lie ahead. Instead of thinking, hmmm, should I jump off this roof or climb down the ladder and eat a piece of cake and watch The Jefferson's. Most of us will go eat cake. This leads me to point 2. Nuts are good for you and we are encouraged to eat them, i.e., legumes. Squirrels eat plenty of these and have to fight for them, sort of squirrel Darwinism. On the other hand, there is plenty of cake to go around for us. If we had to fight for each lettuce sandwich (note not cake), we would be capable of much more amazing athletic feats. Also, I think it's easier to "fly" when your'e not carrying around 200 pounds.

• Why do women like soup? Is it for perceived health benefits? Is it because it's a quasi-comfort food?
I think they like soup because it warms them up. Women like this feeling, whereas men can be cold-hearted bastards that don't care for warmth. Not that no one on the Boji Tri Team is lumped into this generalization. Also, I like cheeseburger soup and chicken tortilla soup.

• Is it just me, or do all national anthems the world over, no matter how rich and exotic the culture, seem to sound like European marching-band music? Wouldn't one expect China's national anthem be more "plinky"? Shouldn't Iraq's national anthem sound a little more "Arab-y"?
Yes, this is just "you." What a dumb question and I have already wasted too much time on it. Maybe try watching "I'm smarter than a fifth grader" or whatever it's called. This should make you not want to ask anymore questions, put down Us Weekly and read a newspaper.

• I am an 11-year-old boy and girls in my class harass me constantly and I want to file a restraining order against one of them. Is that possible?
Yes, you can try. Whether or not it's successful, not sure. Could it be an 18 year old girl pretending she's an 11 year old? Even if you could, are you willing to be "that guy?" Are you willing to be the social outcast in high school? Also, ever thought it may, just may be possible that these girls actually like you? Good Lord, I'm answering these questions as well as giving life advice. Seriously dude, buy them some of those candy shaped hearts that say "will you be mine?" They will still keep harassing you, however, you will actually realize that you really like this.

• It is a common baseball prank to give someone a cream pie in the face during a TV interview. Where do these cream pies come from? Do baseball teams keep cream pies in the dugout?
Yes, this is totally common. This derived from the early stages of the game when Babe Ruth played. Both before and after each game, the Babe had a buffet of every good imaginable at his disposal. This included cream pies. Prior to a game against the Red Sox, one of his teammates tried to take a cream pie. This infuriated the Babe, he took it back and mashed it in his teammates face. Everyone laughed and had a smoke (couture back then). Since everyone wanted to be like the Babe, word spread quickly.

More on point, cream pies come from various kitchens and bakery's throughout the world. I can't recall the rule, but teams are required to carry two cream pies in the dugout for every player over 250 pounds. This was thought to be a hold-up in the CC Sabathia trade, but ended up being ok.

• Why don't humans have a mating season?
Because you don't call life a season.

• When and why did the Communist Chinese change the name of their capital "PEKING" to Bazging? Sorry, I don't know how it is spelled. Thank you.
I'm not sure the exact date, but I think it has to do with those posionous frogs.

• My toaster identifies which of the two slots should be used for making a single slice of toast. Why does it make a difference which slot I use?
It doesn't. This is just a simple ploy to begin programming everyone's minds. This relates to the squirrel question, do you think a squirrel would follow this...no way. I suppose you don't drink milk past the freshness date or swim in the water when it's colder than 75 degrees. Stop being such a pansy.

• If one gets a personal e-mail from a very famous or important person, such as the president, or the queen of England, or the Pope, or Paul McCartney, can that e-mail have monetary value? I guess not. It's just an electronic transmission on a screen. There's no original. There's no way to buy or sell it. Seems a shame tho.
Yes, this can have monetary value, depending on if someone buys it from you. What a dumb question. If I give someone 50 cents to drink a beer, does drinking that beer have monetary value? Of course it does. If your question would have been, "does, this have monetary value" it would have been more difficult to answer. Not for me though, I'm a genious. But by asking "can" it have monetary value, of course it can.

• Does indoor tanning hurt your t--- if you have had a breast silicone implant put in for over 30 years?
I'm assuming the rest of the letters are "its." Could be teeth, taint, tush, tongue, but we'll assume for now. Yes, indoor tanning does hurt these. Unless your are extremely attractive, then, nothing could in no way shape or form harm those badboys. Carry on.

• Why do all of the deli guys and food cart guys call me "Boss" (well, me and everyone else)?
In all likelihood, it's because you are the boss of something. When you can't get the tv turned on, you probably say, "turn on you son of a ...." In this instance, you are the boss and are showing or at least trying to show the tv who's boss. When you order your sandwhich, you are telling the deli or food cart guy what to do, i.e., you are bossing them around.

• I live in Washington, D.C., and we have very long escalators coming out of the Metro. If I grabbed the handrail when I first step onto the escalator and did not let go until I was at the top, my body would be almost prostrate across the steps. As I go higher on the escalator, I have to readjust the hand that is grabbing the rubber handrail. Why can't the companies that make escalators sync the steps and the handrails so that they go the same speed?
Cost. If no one really cares, why should they spend more money on something. Check that, one person care and the company doesn't care about that person, you. In addition, some people might not like the change. I suggest you quit being such an arrogant and selfish a-hole and realize there's other people in the world besides yourself.

• If you were on a boat, what signs do sharks give if they are hungry and will attack versus if they just want to swim around the boat?
One answer, take a bunch of baitfish, cut it up, add extra blood, tie the sack of baitfish around your ankle. If the shars aren't hungry and/or don't want to attack, they will just swim around the boat. If they are hungry and/or want to attack, you will also find out. Also, for this test, I would suggest having the individual with the best health insurance coverage be the "go to guy."

• How did early man deal with growing toe and fingernails?
They cut them. Hard to believe it, but yes, there were things at their disposal that had capabilities of cutting toe and fingernails. At the very least, they could bite their fingernails and possibly toenails if they were a. flexible and b. gross, however, something tells me hygiene wasn't priority no. 1.

• If someone with DNA from the Stone Age were born today, would they be normal?
Well let's see, are people that spend all day playing computer games normal? Are people that dress in all black and cover their faces in white make-up, every day normal? Are people that put steriods in their rear end with needles normal? Are people that won't vote for a President because of his skin color normal? Are people that won't vote for a Presidential candidate because of her gender normal? How can you possibly answer this question when there's no definition of normal, at least one that's workable. I would note that the Geico cavemen have made it into the realm of Halloween costumes where everyone (at least most people), know what they are. Maybe this should be the definition of normal, do you recognize what the person is supposed to be in a Halloween costume. If using this definition, yes, someone with DNA from the Stone Age is normal.

• I have been accused of assault in Ohio. The woman fell over a box in the hall backward, and my brother opened the door, saw her lying there, and started hitting me. I got him down and held him down. It was all over a fight concerning my niece. What do you think will happen?
Where were you when the women fell and what did you do, i.e., did you push the women down and she fell over the box? Did the women accuse you of assault or your brother. If you were at Casey's buying a slice of pizza and the building with the hallway was next door and you heard a women scream, came to help her and then your brother opened the door...after your brother opened the door, he starting punching you and you reacted in self defense, then I would say you will be fine, as long as you don't have the stuttering lawyer in "My Cousin Vinny." If you pushed the women over, stepped on her face and then as soon as your brother opened the door, you kicked him in the eye, then you are screwed.

• I wonder what's going on with Obama's eyes. When he made his keynote address to the Democratic Convention in 2004, I noticed his eyes had a bit of a pretty eyes makeup look. I concluded that it was just the makeup they put on him for the TV cameras. But then yesterday on TV I saw some older footage of Obama and again his eyes had that same pretty look. This was before he was nationally known. I looked carefully and I think that look comes from having long eyelashes. I mentioned this to some other people and they noticed it too. But so then where did those long eyelashes go? Maybe eyelashes get shorter with age. Do they? BUT also I'm wondering if Obama has had his eyelashes shortened. If he has had them shortened, I think that's an excellent idea. Because that long lashes pretty eyes look actually doesn't look so good on a man. At least not if he's running for president.
He has not changed his eyelashes. When you saw the long eyelashes, you were sober and watching HD. The other times, you were drinking the sauce and watching a tv with rabbit ears.

• During this weekend's football playoff game in Green Bay, the temperature at kickoff was 0 degrees, and by the end of the game was -4 degrees. When players get injured in such weather, do they bother putting ice on the injury? Wouldn't that warm up the injury to 32 degrees?
No, the temperature of ice is not 32 degrees, especially in weather that cold. I'm guessing you've never actually played football or went to school.

• Burma's dictator has a chestful of b------- medals. What's up with that, Explainer?
The dictator has the ability to give himself medals, whether they be military, connect4 or the local 5k participant medals. Who's going to question the dictator. If I was dictator of Burma, I would probably have 9 girlfriends, 7 medals and a plethora of pinatas.

• If there is so much oil in the Middle East, could one missile (such as the ones used to penetrate bunkers and caves) explode deep underground and hypothetically blow up a few countries?
No.

• How can personal coaches justify coaching athletes who are much better than they ever were?
If they know so much about how to win, why aren't they competing?
First of all, see the squirrel question. Amazing how that one question reveals so many of life's answers. Some people are just inherently more athletic than others, yet they know how to get to the end result. If I had a team of myself (genious) and Stephen Hawking, admittedly more of a genious and our goal was to answer a question but we had to run 500 yards to answer the question (note, it would take Mr. Hawking 5 minutes to get 500 yards while 10 seconds to answer the question...me, 1 minute to run 500 yards and 1 minute to answer the question) I am admittedly better at this than Mr. Hawking. However, he could coach me how to answer the question better. That was a big time ramble, but you get the point.

• Can men eat the Activia yogurt that is advertised exclusively to the modern woman in khakis? Will it have the same internal regulatory effects on the male system that are promised for the female bowels? If not, why not?
dsm911 tried this exact experiment and it was inconclusive, because he has part female bowels, which have enable him to make a swim workout with me in the last two months. Yes, anything advertised to the modern woman in khakis is going to have negative effects on one's manhood. Leave this alone.

• Can an average person not in politics get a pardon from the president of the United States? (Possession of forged instrument, October of 1989.)
Yes, as long as by average, you mean you somehow contributed singificant financial gifts to said president or organization supporting said president. In addition, if you are really good looking (again, if average means really good looking), this enhances your chance. Thus, the average person can, but not likely.

• Is the stomach normally full of air like a balloon, or is it squeezed flat by the other organs, like a balloon with no air that spreads open as food and water come in? Are the other organs squeezed and compressed like a squeezed sponge, or are they like a sponge not being squeezed? What about the intestines? Are they squeezed flat normally, or are they open like one of those long balloons that magicians make animals out of? I'm trying to get a picture in my mind what the inside of the body normally looks like.
Way, way too many questions. Watch that high school video, "Joe's stomach" or whatever it's called.

• Please explain the method of formation and origin of black holes. Are they located at the Bermuda Triangle area and why there?
Black holes are not located at the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle is where the Somalian Pirates have their hideout and where they take their booty after looting cruise ships. Black holes are formed in outer space. The cause of these are not exactly known, but gravitation and nuclear fusion of massive stars are a good place to start.

• Who made up the rule that if you wore a shirt all day, went home, and washed it, you can't wear it the next day?
Samantha from "Who's the Boss."

• I live in Chicago, where taxi drivers are constantly talking on their phones. To whom are they talking?
They are talking to their bookies and Wayne Newton.

• Why do cockroaches flip over on their backsides when they die? I sprayed RAID into a hole in my wall the other day, and by the next morning I found six cockroaches laid out on my floor, all flipped over and all very dead!
They are trying to get one last piece of action.

• Why do the women gymnasts walk around between events with that goofy arm-swing gait?
Intimidation. If you were a 8 year old Chinese Olympian gymnast, you do not look very tough. It's all about getting in the other team's mind.

• I am 79 years old. I bring this up first to help explain my question. In the late 1930s or early 1940s, I was looking through an old stack of Life magazines, and there was a picture of an old couple sitting on the porch of a cabin (or shack) up in the mountains somewhere in Appalachia, with the notation: "The King and Queen of America?" The small article with the picture stated that if George Washington had become king of the U.S., these two would (under the usual custom) be our king and queen. I have thought of this from time to time, even doubted it. (It might have been part of the propaganda of the time, the Depression years, that we were all equal, etc.) I am dimly aware that George Washington had brothers, and that it is possible that the descent is known. As I remember, it was a lovely picture, the old couple looking out over a valley, with mist, and smoking their corncob pipes. Can you find the picture? Can you tell me whether there was truth in the assertion?
I could, if it existed but I have no interest in trying. Thanks for wasting 39 seconds of my life.

• Why are pandas names doubled? Ling Ling, Tuan Tuan, Yuan Yuan.
It makes for a better rap song. Would a Lil Wayne song be interesting if it went "Everytime I come around here Ling" instead of "Everytimg I come around her Ling Ling?"

• Are the frequently used "jaws of life" really necessary or just big-boy toys for rescuers?
Extremely necessary. What else would you use to tear apart car doors.

• How long can humans live when they are caught on fire? For example, when a car crashes and explodes turns into a gulf of flames, but humans are alive.
13 minutes 48 seconds. I have no idea, since each person is different. Someone who just celebrated their 103rd birthday will succumb more quickly than Lebron James.

• Hi, I am Anna. I am only 11 years old! My friend told me about this black hole, and I have gotten really scared. I don't want to die! I thought if it didn't happen today, it wasn't going to happen. I did not know nothing about it happening in Spring! I find it unfair that scientists are making a machine that could possibly destroy the entire human race. Me and my friends have cried about the black hole, and I find it really upsetting. There has been barely nothing about it on the news. I am so nervous. I just think I am too young to die—is there any way we could stop it happening?
Hi Anna, thanks for your question. I would recommend staying in your house, never going outside and constantly text LOL to your friends. Every once in a while, mix it up with ROTFLMAO.

*This took quite a while and the views of the author are not to be taken seriously, especially the shark test above. Also, I am not proofreading this, so I apologize for any spelling errors.

5 things that are completely messed up in today's world

2008-12-18T15:35:00.004-06:00

1. Andre Dawson is not in the Hall of Fame. This is completely messed up.

2. I cannot find either of the following...Marshmallow Rice Krispies and Blue Kool-Aide. I pretty much lived on these growing up.

3. The economy is in the total crapper and CC Sabathia is getting roughly $750,000 to pitch each game, with his new contract with the Yankees. God forbid he has a crappy outing and get's yanked after the first inning, not a bad payday for 15 minutes of work.

4. My brother can eat pretty much anything and not gain any weight...and run under 7 minute miles for an entire marathon. I can eat an Oreo Cakester that weight 4 ounces and gain 2 pounds...and get passed by the ladies leaving church, that have been attending since 1921.

5. That I can get on the phone, dial a buddy over in Europe, and have a crystal clear conversation with him. As soon as I say something, he hears it. Seriously, this simply amazes me.
http://heresabunnywithapancakeonitshead.com/

Tagged

2008-12-15T15:57:00.002-06:00

So, I got tagged by my friend Abby, and I went to see what I had to do, but I couldn't find it on her blog. I think I'm supposed to write 7 things that people may not know about me, so I'll go with that. I note that these are not going to be fantastic, I don't want to divulge too much.

1. Whenver I'm working or studying, I like to have food (this isn't the part that most people won't know, everyone knows I like to eat). But, I can't stand to eat whatever I have throughout the studying process. I need to eat it all right away and then I can proceed to study. For example, in college, I would always buy packages of Swedish Fish (the big bags). I'd tell myself, this time, I'm going to make the fish last a while. Never happened, I'd start to read, get about 10 words and start to go to town. By the time the package was finished, I'd make it to about page three.

2. I think a perfect job for me would be something similar to what Stephen Colbert does. I think I could do this well, as I've got a pretty dry sense of humor at times and can deadpan pretty well.

3. When I was learning to waterskii, the following people were at fault when I couldn't get up on one skii...my Dad was number one (he didn't give it enough gas, he gave it too much gas, he picked the wrong side of the lake, he let too many people sit in the back of the boat, he let me eat too many sandwhiches for lunch); next would be God or Jesus, since after I blamed my Dad, I'd blame God or Jesus. Next were my friends in the boat, since they didn't distribute their weight properly. After that, the hot ladies that weren't in the boat were at fault, I like to show-off and not for my friends that aren't hot ladies, well them too. Finally was me, but this was only a small percentage.

4. My Mom makes pretty much the best cupcakes ever. I've tried to make these once and failed miserably. In high school, the Thursday before every home football game we went to eat at someone's house. When this was at my house, we watched Predator and amongst other food, there was a ton of cupcakes. We told a couple people that one of the cupcakes had mayo instead of frosting (ala Hostess cupcakes)...and if you found the mayo cupcake you'd win a prize. Idiots ate like ten cupcakes. Note...I eat this many and am not an idiot because I'm not trying to find one with mayo.

5. Many people have problems doing things by themselves, such as eating a meal. I have no problem with this and sometimes enjoy it. This can be whether or not I'm out of town where I don't know anybody, or whether I'm in town. Simply because no one is around is not a reason why I won't do something. That being said, I have yet to go to go somewhere in Iowa and drink by myself (unless you count dsm911 being habitually 7 hours late:) ). I went to a law school visit in North Carolina...by myself. I left my hotel room, found a place to grab a steak and then went to a bar that had a fantastic 80's cover band. I had 3 or 4 beers and it was a great time.

6. A lot of my friends know this, but I'll eat pretty much everything and try anything, as long as it's not mustard, olives, pepperoni, cole slaw or potato salad. There might be a couple more, but I'll eat octopus before I'd eat a tomato and I have. I'll gladly eat snail (I have) before I'd eat a piece of pepperoni. Sometimes, my thoughts with food are way off though. I held off for years from eating cheesecake because I thought it sounded stupid. Seriously, why would something called cheese-cake taste good. My mom kept telling me I'd love it and as usual, she's right.

7. If you're a guy and someone buys you a shot, you should not do any of the following:
a. smell it
b. ask what it is
c. whine about it
-these rules apply if the person that bought the shot is drinking the same thing. Do not apply if you're too drunk to take the shot.

8. (one extra one, because no.7 isn't really about me) When I was a freshman/sophomore in high school, I hung out with Droid a lot (something I continue to do this day). I had a master plan. Hit the town with Droid and the chicks would flock to us. Then I started thinking, wait, if I'm standing next to the guy with muscles everywhere, are chicks going to want to talk to me, at least the hot ones? Good thing I have amazing wit and charm :)

Interview with the one and only dsm911

2008-12-12T10:33:00.002-06:00

Ladies and Gentleman, I only have 9 minutes to interview dsm911, since he has to go sing Karaoke in a leopard print skinsuit, so I'll try and get as many things covered as I can.

Me: dsm911, what's up man, why are you wearing that and singing karaoke, it's not even noon yet?
dsm911: Just living the dream baby, whether it's in front of three people at Billly Joe's Picture Show or my high school graduation, I come to play.

Me: Whatever.
Me: What do you feel was your greatest accomplishment this past tri season?
dsm911: It's sort of a tie between the Emmetsburg Tri and the Okoboji Tri.
Me: Wow, what such great detail and vivid imagry you provide.
dsm911: Well, if you'd quit interrupting me, I'd be more apt to profess my profound recollection of said events.

dms911: In Emmetsburg, I avoided the blinding scene of the sun-deprived burrito exiting Five-Island Lake. This was key. In Okoboji, I was able to have a five minute conversation on the run with my fellow man about the hypocrisy of the United Nations beliefs towards the anarchy currently imposed on various Third World Countries. You know what I'm talking about.

Me: Good Lord, give me a beer. Who do you think is going to make the biggest impact on the team next year?
dsm911: Wow, great question.
Me: No need to state the obvious. Carry-on.
dsm911: I really feel that it's going to be a tie between Dogman and Burrito. Rumor has it that Dogman's been getting some swimming and spin classes in prior to his Boston training.
Me: Either that or trying to hit on the lifeguard.
dsm911: and Burrito is going to make his long awaited debut, not sure what event, I'm thinking Emmetsburg for him.

Me: Thanks for that I guess. Which of these do you think is more fantastic, prison shanking or cannibalism?
dsm911: Seriously, which is more fantastic? I'd have to say cannibalism. Throughough historical times, cannibalism, in it's purest form, has saved lives and captivated the minds and hearts of many. Whether it be in the Jungles of Papa New Guinea, plane crashes in the Andes or the female praying mantis devouring the male after acts of reproduction, I could go on?
Me: Please don't.

Me: Switching gears, how do you feel about being the second best looking person in this interview.
dsm911: Story of my life man.

Me: Ouch, at least you completed Point to Point...oh wait, that was me, It's Mister to You! and Ironman. Even the Warrior and Burrito where there in spirit.

Me: What do you think you need to improve on for next year?
dsm911: I think my swimming is coming along pretty well but feel that I can still make some improvements to it.

Me: Agree, Virginia is for hustlers. Should Texas be it's own country?
dsm911: Seriously?
Me: What's your favorite movie? Documentaries and shows on public television don't count.
dsm911: Basically anything with Tom Cruise in it. Aside from that, I've been really digging Spice World...Scary Spice in those tight outfit's, dayum.
Me: Did we really just have a "dayum?"
dsm911: Another great flick is P.S. I Love You. Since I'm getting married and all, I've been leaving copies of this movie all over the house. I figure since I'm so good at romancing, this would be golden. In addition, a couple guys in that movie were in a band. I've been in a few bands, lead singer and guitar player, so I feel I've got a real connection with those guys. Also, they're Irish and I'm Irish. Sometimes, when I watch the movie, ok, all the time, I just feel like I'm the same person. I'll sing in my Irish voice and drink pints of Guiness. It's like for one moment, even if just briefly, the problems of the the Irish Catholics and Protestants just drift away, ala Dobie Gray. In a small way, I feel like I'm doing my part for the greater good of humanity.

Me: Yeah, I cooked spaghetti last night, had a baguette, a gyro, a bratwurst and some Sangria, I'm such a supporter of the melting pot that is America. It's like I'm one with Ellis Island.
dsm911: So you know exactly how I feel.

Me: No kidding, whoosh.
dsm911: What was that sound?
Me: Not sure, thought I saw something go right over your head.

Well, I've had enough fun for the morning ladies and gentleman. Nothing like an interview with one of our own to make you want to start drinking early. I'd like to close with a link of dsm911 in action from one of his events this year. Thanks for your time dsm911.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-tCUnhp2bo

Jinglecross

2008-12-08T21:59:00.005-06:00

Recently went to Jingle Cross with berock in Iowa City. Stayed with his buddy Ethan. Great time. Friday night, berock and I went to the pedmall and tried to get some pizza at the Airliner. This was about 9 and they were gonna charge us $5 cover to order pizza. I'm pretty sure the pizza would have cost about 7 bucks, so we decided to leave. Went to the Atlas to grab a beer and check out the menu. Normally, I like the Atlas, but nothing looked too appealing. Not picky, but when you see what we ended up eating, you'll see why the Atlas did not suffice. Now it's about 10:30 and I wandered into Pizza on Dubuque. They have huge slices of pizza. I grabbed two and noticed this was the first time I've ever been in this place before 2 a.m. It's one of the great post-bar joints.

While debating whether or not to go back to Ethan's (it was about midnight), we felt the need to hit up Panchero's. Always a good decision. Settled in about 1 a.m. or so and got up about 7:30 to race. The Sat. race was sick hard. Of course, berock and I were out pre-riding the course and ended up starting in dead last. Our seeding would have had us in the middle of 57 people, not dead last. In cross racing, this is a huge disadvantage. The race started and we tried to move through people, but it was tough. There was a wipeout on a uphill muddy section that berock's bike skills allowed him to avoid. Me, not so much.

The course was very hard with a huge hill run up, called Mt. Krumpit. There was also an area through a cattlebarn that was filled with sand. Pretty tough to ride through. I did a great job riding through it, except for one time where I flipped over my handlebars. Luckily, I wasn't hurt. When I was asked by a couple observers if I was ok, I inquired into my score for the wipeout. I was given an 8.9. I'll take it. Basically, this whole ride hurt and was tough.

After the race, I went to Fin & Feather and got some knee high wool socks with skulls on them. Pretty badass. Grabbed some food and ended up at Sam's (great Calzone's) for a party. I ended up having a few too many, but made it up bright and early for the race the next morning. Woke up to epic conditions. The course was packed with snow, mud, and awesomeness. Youtube "Jinglecross 2008 crash" and check it out. I'll try and get a few links, but the computer isn't cooperating right now. Anyhow, berock rocked out a top 10 and I improved quite a few places as well. We also started in the middle instead of at the end. Great, great time. I would do this for sure next year, but I'll be getting some exercise in Cozumel!