Gassed, Memorial Day, Kindle

I decided to skip the group run on Saturday morning.  I had decided that instead I was going to attempt a monster brick on Sunday.  Not running at 6am allowed me to actually relax a bit on a Saturday morning, something I don’t seem to do much anymore.

Saturday in general was used to knock out chores.  I weed whacked the property and Ali followed with mowing with our freshly repaired mower deck.  She reported the tractor performed quite well.  I also knocked out pretty much all of the regular weekend chores on Saturday.

Sunday was brick day.  My plan was to ride my bike to the water park, a roughly 16 mile ride, then run the 7 mile monster square and wrap it up with 1600 meters in the pool.  It was a pretty ambitious plan.

I left our house a little after 8am for the ride.  I had favorable wind conditions for a good portion of the ride.  I averaged 20-21 mph on the long Immokalee Road segment of the trip.  I pushed hard for the entire ride and as a result put in probably my best 16 miles on two wheels, averaging 19.6 mph.  Yes, it was on my $300 Dawes road bike.

I pulled into the parking lot and met Ali who drove there.  Her plan was to to do some practice bike drills while I run.

So I changed into my running gear, sucked down a chocolate Goo and a bunch of water and took off.  By the time I started running it was a little after 9.  It felt  quite warm and getting warmer all the time.

I didn’t try to go out super fast since I knew I had a long hot run ahead AFTER doing a strenuous bike ride.  The battery on my GPS was almost dead so I used Ali’s newer Garmin.  I found her watch annoying.  Not only  does it beep at every 1/4 mile (which my older model does) it also vibrates.  I found this vibration to be like a little pinching reminder of how far I had to run yet.  The beeps I tend to ignore.

Physically I didn’t feel too bad for maybe the first 2.5 miles of the run.  I was keeping a decent low 9’s pace.  However after that things started to go downhill.  Even though my breathing was calm and regulated, my legs just didn’t feel good.  Then mentally I started to lose it.

Because of the dumb vibrating watch I knew at all times how far I had to go yet.  I started having those evil internal conversations that want you to just stop.  I argued back, reminding them that I never, ever stop if I have a set distance in mind, especially if it is a distance I have run previously.

I was approaching the end of the Oakes Blvd section of the run, one of the last bastions of shade on the route.  All of a sudden I stopped.  It was like the evil quitters in my head seized control of my body and made me stop without a vote.  I was pissed.  I never stop.

I gave myself a mulligan, figuring that during the club run we always stop halfway for water.  I’ll just count this as my water break, sans water.  I looked at my watch and saw I was almost exactly halfway, 3.55 miles.

After stretching for a few seconds I started running again.  I felt awful.  It felt uncomfortable to try to start moving.  I felt like stopping again after only a couple hundred yards at the Vanderbilt Road intersection.  I didn’t stop there but I did relent farther down the road.

Now I was really pissed.  I knew exactly why I didn’t want to stop in the first place, it makes each subsequent stop even easier to allow yourself.  Once I stopped a second time, all legitimacy was gone from the run.  In total I stopped 4 times during the run and I didn’t even bother to go the full 7 miles I originally intended, stopping after 6.19 miles.

Ali tried to encourage me back at the park but I told her I didn’t need any “rah rah” sessions.  I was both angry for stopping and exhausted at the same time.  In retrospect I think I just basically gassed.  It was very warm and humid, by the time I got back my eyes were burning from the salts I was sweating out.  My legs just ran out of go juice.  I still shouldn’t have stopped.

I hopped in the pool and trudged through my 4×400 meter swims.  The one encouraging part of that session was my first 400 was my slowest.  I emerged from the pool as a very tired individual.

After eating lunch we headed out in the parking lot to pack up.  I ran into one of my least favorite people in the world, the parking spot monger.  We had a lot of stuff to do before we were ready to leave including loading up both bikes.  This lazy ass just sat there with their turn signal on for at least 5 or 6 minutes while we loaded everything up.  She could have easily parked farther away, walked some of the cottage cheese off her ass and been inside the water park with as long as she waited.  I despise mongers.

We headed over to mom’s place to pick her up for her Memorial Day visit.  She agreed to stay over so she could watch the dogs while we timed a race Monday morning.

When Mom got to her house she didn’t notice the box I had on the dresser in her bedroom.  It was a Kindle.  I bought mom the Kindle a few days prior via a good deal on Woot.

I had already anticipated mom being very negative about the gift.  I had suggested it to her at Christmas and she dissed it.  Despite knowing what I would be facing I got her one anyway for a couple reasons.

Mom reads constantly, it is her main hobby in life if you don’t count cigarettes as a hobby.  She has literally read thousands of books in her lifetime.  The Kindle brings an infinite amount of reading material to your lap.

I have always thought the Kindle was kind of cool but what really tipped me over the edge was when I found just how many books you can get for it for free.  Just Google Free Kindle Books to see a sampling.  Zero cost books is a good thing for someone on a limited, fixed budget such as mom.

The other cool thing is the Kindle includes 3G wireless service for FREE.  Yes, no monthly data plan costs, that is extremely awesome.  Mom can be almost anywhere and be able to grab a new book if she wants to over the airwaves.

I had played around with the Kindle a bunch before giving it to mom so I could get the hang of how it works.  Doing so made me even more confident that Mom would like the device after her initial grexxing, it’s extremely simple to use.

I took the time to familiarize mom with the Kindle.  She realized it wasn’t complicated or scary to use.  She said she would give it a try, we downloaded 5 or 6 free books onto it from the Amazon web site.  I told my mom that my boss’s 85 year old mother has and loves her Kindle.  If she can handle it, mom can handle it.

After my dinner plans to go on the Naples Princess were foiled, we decided to go to the Snook Inn at Marco Island, a place we hadn’t been to for quite awhile.  We weren’t sure what to expect crowd wise but were pleasantly surprised by the ample parking spaces at 5:45.  Eating early seemed to pay off, we were able to sit right down.

We had a small high top table under one of the TV sets.  At first we were worried it was too small to accommodate the three of us  but it worked out ok.  We were also right in front of the live musical entertainment, some middle aged guy singing covers.

He was actually quite a good singer, at least to me.  I was annoyed that nobody else was clapping for him after each song besides Ali and I.

We loaded up at the salad bar as part of our meals.  The salad bar was as I remembered it, some parts of the experience were not.

One of the things missing was many of the myriad of funny signs and license plates that used to be hung around the bar, including my favorite , “Only Morons Stand Here” sign.

The menu changed as well, it seemed much larger than I recall.  Ironically the food portions have become smaller.  Mom ordered a grouper sandwich that I had gotten before.  I warned her how large it was in the past.  My warning turned out to be false as her sandwich was totally normal size.

I ordered grouper fingers.  I again was underwhelmed with what I got, three or four fingers and a tiny container of tartar sauce. The food tasted fine, it just seemed like they were skimping on you a bit.

We enjoyed looking out over the water while enjoying our open air meal.  It felt nice to get out to the Snook again, it had been too long.

By the time we got home it wasn’t very long until we hit bed, everyone was tired and we had to get up at 4:15 the next morning.

We took two vehicles to the race since my truck was loaded down with the four new shelters.  The registration area looked great with the new tents up, it helps make the event look more professional.

The race went very smoothly all the way around.  We were cleaned up and back on the road at 9:00 am.

When we got home I went right into my post race duties.  Ali took a little nap that lasted until I started the food prep for lunch.

I made burgers on the grill.  It was sort of a big deal.  The last two times I had burgers off our grill I suffered through some pretty brutal side effects that seemed like food poisoning.  As a result I haven’t made burgers on the grill since, at least 2-3 months.  Just to be safe I bought a pack of new burgers to make sure it wasn’t tainted meat.  I’m happy to report I survived the meal with no complications this time.

After lunch we packed mom up and piled her and the dogs in the van to take her home.  On the way back I grabbed my second Dunkin Donuts coffee of the day to help combat some severe drowsiness.  You see we were supposed to still go to the running club cookout.

Ali had to rush to get a pineapple upside down cake baked.  We wound up not even leaving the house until 4:15 for a party that was starting at 4.  I had Ali drive because I was so damn tired.  I really didn’t feel like going but I knew it was the right thing to do. We wound up parking about a block away form the the beautiful party location, a small beach park for the affluent residents of Port Royale.

A few minutes after we arrived it started to pour down rain which lasted for a good 15 minutes.  Everyone huddled under the tiki hut.  There were a lot of familiar faces at the picnic and a lot of food to chow down on which I washed down with four Miller Lites.

I latched on to  a few different conversations, I generally function pretty poorly in these type of situations.  The beers went through me pretty quickly and I had to take a leak.  Evidently the port o potty that was supposed to be there for the event was not for some reason.  This left people on their own to find creative ways to relieve themselves.  I wound up walking across the street and hiding behind a large banyan tree.  It felt sort of bizarre to be doing so in the middle of Port Royale where people flip out if your grass is a 1/4 inch too high.

Late in the picnic I was given a bag of left over onions as a “prize”.  I made the best of it by putting on a brief onion juggling exhibition which the crowd seemed to enjoy.  I never regret teaching myself to juggle, it comes in handy.

We left the picnic a little before 7. I actually felt more awake for the drive back.  I was glad Ali drug my sleepy ass along, I had a decent time.

Once we got home the two days totally caught up to me, I was out cold by 9pm, no lie.

Today is the last day of May so it means it is the last day I can do an official Bender attempt.  My goal is to get 10 reps on normal mode.  I will hang on that bar as long as it takes to get there.