Shit storm, 315, Tri-ing

So when I got home yesterday it was obvious that a storm blew through, stuff was knocked over everywhere.  It was obvious that someone was nice enough to pick up our trash cans.  I found out later it was our neighbor across the street.  Evidently the wind was so strong it actually launched one of our cans across the road and into their fence.

The dogs saw me dragging the cans around, they were out on the lanai.  Instead of going in the garage I went in the back yard and let them out.   Of course as always, they were thrilled to see me.

I left them in the yard and went back around the front of the house to go inside and turn off the alarm.  When I stepped inside I immediately noticed a smell.  After a few sniffs I thought “Hmmm that almost smells like shit”  I thought it was odd but didn’t give it much thought.  We haven’t had Nicki shit in the house in at least 2 years.

Well as I walked towards the office the smell intensified.  When I turned the corner the disgusting reality was upon me, a sizable pile of soft serve style dog shit by the dining room table.  WTF.

I knew right away it was Nicki since Sadie is not a soft serve shitter.  The dogs were still outside, eagerly awaiting me to let them in.  I waited till we got inside to say something.  As soon as Nicki saw me walk towards the dining room she immediately slinked back to the bedroom with her head down, she knew I found her handiwork.

I went back to the bedroom and told her she was naughty in a stern but not yelling voice as she looked at me pathetically from her dog bed.  As I went through the disgusting process of poo removal I theorized that the storm that blew through literally scared the shit out of her.  Neither of our dogs react well to storms.  Incidents like this make me very glad I have a SpotBot.

I also realized I was incredibly lucky in another way.  I have not gotten around to updating the clocks on the Roomba’s yet since the time change.  As a result they are starting at 6pm instead of their normal 5pm kick off.  If the robots would have started at their normal time it is very likely one if not both of them would have plowed into and over the excrement road block which would have been a disgusting disaster.  For once, procrastination paid off for me.

Yesterday late in the day I told Jeremy out of the blue I was going to try to dead lift 315 pounds.  Jeremy has been working his power lifting numbers up.  He currently is maxing his DL at 235 pounds.  I hadn’t dead lifted anything more than 135 pounds since last summer.  For whatever reason I thought it would be cool to break my previous personal dead lift best of 310 pounds with absolutely not training the movement at all.

You ask what the point of this was?  Just to one up Jeremy I suppose.

So I loaded up the bar with all of my plate weights which added up to 310 pounds with the weight of the bar.  To get the last 5 pounds I wrapped two 2.5 lb ankle weights on the ends of the bar.

I didn’t do any warm up sets, I just stretched out my lower body for a minute or so.  I walked over to the bar, grabbed tight and was able to yank it up without any major issue.  As I lifted, my body became a small symphony of snaps, crackles and pops as my connective tissue protested holding that much weight.

After setting the weight down I did a quick physical inventory, no major pain detected.  The lift was a success.  If you want to see the attempt go here.

Following my dead lift I made my first attempt at this month’s Bar-barian challenge, continuous straight bar dips.  The video of the attempt is kind of funny because I failed even getting on top of the bar 3 or 4 times.

Ali and I have been talking about her next bike.  Currently Ali has an entry level road bike (same model I have) which is fine for basic stuff but not ideal for extensive riding.  Ali has been talking with a local bike shop about what she should get a few times.  Well the most recent discussion was this week.  Ali collected a lot of info about bike geometry and her measurements, the shop was happy to provide her with the info. She also decided she wanted a triathlon bike (different geometry, more expensive) versus a road bike.

When Ali was telling me the technical info I knew the punchline was coming, the price.  When Ali told me how much the prospective bike was going to be I instinctively flinched.

It was a tough subject to navigate.  Ali obviously has done a lot of research about bikes and likes the idea of getting a brand new bike that will supposedly fit her like a glove.  I however had what I thought were some very logical objections/questions about the perspective bike.

My first thought was Ali has done very little biking, she has told me many times she dislikes it and it is her least favorite of the three triathlon events by far.  Jumping in and spending a lot of cash on a bike designed to be ridden long and hard just didn’t make much sense to me based on her track record of biking.

I also suggested that she could get a very nice used bike for considerably less money if we kept an eye out on Craigslist, Ebay etc..  Hell we might even get a lead from one of our many local triathlete contacts.  As people progress up the competitive chain it is common for them to sell their bike to help pay for the newer one.

My final thought was just a reminder that the bike shop’s goal is to sell you a bike, preferably a more expensive one.

But overall, my general feeling was that based on Ali’s current commitment to biking, it made sense to move to an intermediate cost bike instead of jumping several rungs higher.  If Ali winds up doing a lot of longer tri’s I would totally understand the need to step further up in equipment level.

Of course Ali was frustrated by my objection.  She was adamant that only a few models of bikes would fit her correctly based on the bike shop’s recommendations.  She also didn’t see my point about the merit of spending that much money on a bike when she thus far has done very minimal biking as holding much water.

I can understand what Ali is feeling.  I am sure it was exciting to have the merits of a certain bike sold to her and then being told that they had a prior year model that they could give her a deal on.  Like I said, she has made a lot of effort going into the minutia of bike sizing/fitting.  She also thinks I am acting like I know more about bikes than the bike shop owners which I certainly do not.

Ali also feels somewhat committed to buying a bike from this shop since she has had numerous interactions with them.  It would be awkward for her if she brought in a bike she bought used or somewhere else to have it serviced. I can understand that to a degree.

I am just applying what seems like a logical plan of progression upgrading your equipment based on your present and near term level of competitiveness.  When I first started playing baseball I had a $5 wood bat.  When I was playing  Legion ball I invested in a light weight, top end Easton model.  There were a lot of bats in between those two points.

Of course it is very easy to pull out the Camaro card in this discussion.  Ali is willing to support my buying a very expensive car for little more than my personal enjoyment.  For me to raise a red flag on her buying a particular bike would seem inequitable.

We will work something out.  If Ali was able to pay for the bike totally out of “her” money that is split off her checks every month then I would have absolutely nothing to say about it, the problem is it would take some time to accumulate the money.  Maybe we can “loan” money out of our main account for her to pay back out of her funds.  Maybe a great deal will pop up elsewhere, who knows?