2 hour nap at 8pm, married to a triathlete, live wire
It was yet another jam packed, tiring weekend as you can tell by the headline above. Friday night we tried to get to bed at a decent hour since Saturday was a 4:30 wake up call. This time it wasn’t because we were timing a race. Instead Ali was participating in a race, her first ever sprint triathlon.
Triathlons comes in various sizes (distance). This sprint tri is a 400 meter swim followed by a 10 mile bike ride and wrapped up with a 5K run. Ali was nervous about the event. She had trained for all facets of the event but putting them together while trying to perform as well as possible was a bit daunting.
We immediately were not impressed with some of the prep for the race. When we entered the FGCU campus there was absolutely zero signage telling you where to go. We wound up doing three loops around the campus before we finally followed a vehicle that knew where to go.
We parked, unloaded her bike and walked up to the check in tables. A couple more things struck me as odd. They sorted people based on their FIRST name. I have never seen a race use first name instead of last name to sort participants. They also had no electronic timing device. Instead each triathlete had their number written on 4 different parts of their body so it would be easily visible to write down at the finish. After we checked in we walked down and met Michelle who arrived a few minutes after us.
A tri is different than a running race in terms of prep. You need to stage all of your stuff ahead of time so you can quickly transition from swim to bike to run. We hung Ali’s bike on a rack and she got her stuff all organized and ready to go. Once her equipment was in order we had a lot of time to just sort of hang out. We arrived on site around 6:15, the race didn’t start until 7:30.
We saw a lot of familiar faces from the running events we time. We talked to various people for awhile and then moved inside to the pool area for the pre-race instructions. Once again a lack of forethought was displayed when the event organizer resorted to talking loudly to the group of 300 athletes since no bullhorn or speaker system was available. I thought it was pretty lame, especially since this was a beginner tri where there could be a lot of first timers. Being able to hear the instructions is kind of important.
Doing the swim portion of a tri in a pool is unusual. Normally the swim occurs in an open body of water. They came up with a decent system to reduce the amount of chaos. The pool was an olympic sized 50 meter with 8 lanes. They set the athletes off in waves of three, every 20 seconds. They had people in order of projected swim time, fastest people went first. You would go up and down the pool in a snake-like pattern, going to the far end, crossing over into the next lane and then repeating until the entire pool was covered which adds up to 400 meters.
Ali was very conservative in her projected swim time so she was at the rear of the pack. She didn’t get into the water until a half hour into the race. Ali took off and did well, however it didn’t take long until yet another example of poor planning came to light. This race allowed day of race sign ups. They automatically threw all these people at the end of the line. Well the problem was some of these procrastinators were solid triathletes that were quickly swimming over, through and up the backside of the slower swimmers ahead of them. It was a bit of a mess. Some of these people were being assholes, complaining about getting slowed down by the people in front of them. Hey, tough shit, don’t sign up the day of the race buddy.
I forgot to take notice of Ali’s start and finish times in the pool. The race did not offer any split times so if you weren’t tracking it yourself you had no idea how you did in the individual events. We are guessing the 400 meters took Ali somewhere around 15 minutes. Ali popped out of the pool tired but she immediately took off, jogging to the transition area to get into her bike gear.
I cheered Ali on as the left for the ride. I then just hung out watching other people come back in until Ali returned. Michelle started earlier than Ali so I encouraged her as well while I was waiting for Ali to get back in. I was out there with my camcorder trying to get footage. I would keep looking off in the distance trying to determine if Ali was approaching. Wouldn’t you know the one time I was looking somewhere else Ali rounded the corner without me seeing. By the time I got the camcorder running she was already past me.
As soon as Ali got her bike on the rack she was off and running. By this time it was very warm and humid outside, I knew she would be roasting her ass off. Again I only saw her going out and coming back in. I was able to catch Michelle finishing the race on the camcorder before Ali got back. When Ali came into view she was obviously tired but you could tell she was in good spirits and excited that she was about to finish her first triathlon. She crossed the line right around 9:30 am. If you figure her delayed swim start her total time was right under 90 minutes, a great first time effort.
Ali was tired and sweaty but all smiles. She felt very proud to have put another feather in her cap. I was proud of her and immediately walked with her to the food and beverage area so she could get something to eat/drink. Ali and Michelle traded stories of their experience. Michelle said she really enjoyed the event and actually felt that she could have pushed a bit harder, she was worried she would run out of gas if she went too hard. Ali said it was very tough, especially transitioning from the bike to the run. The bottom line is they both did it, congrats were in order.
After we got home it didn’t take long until Ali was passed out cold. Before I headed outside I quickly ripped my footage from the event off the camcorder and threw it on to YouTube. Click here if you want to check it out. I also put on my tri bathing suit and had Ali take some joke pictures for Jeremy, he loves me in spandex. I later jumped in and did 20 laps of our pool which added up to less than half the distance Ali swam. I was beat just doing that.
Once Ali retired for a most of the afternoon nap I headed outside for my own personal marathon of yard work. My primary goal was to get the entire 1000 feet (x2 for both sides) of fence line weed whacked. By this time it was hellishly hot and muggy outside. In no time I was sweated through my shirt.
About half way into the job the weed whacker shut off and smelled hot. It resisted my attempts to restart it. I figured I would let it cool off while I went and got those last 10-12 bags of mulch I needed to finish the remulch project. While I was at Home Depot I also picked up an “action hoe” similar to what I have seen Paul James use in Gardening by the Yard. (which is off the air now sadly) It is an excellent tool to weed a garden. You basically scrape the hoe back and forth over the soil to cut weeds off below the surface. I have been basically doing the same thing with a hand held tool which took forever. The action hoe will dramatically speed up that job.
So I got back, spread the bags of mulch and then resumed the weed whacking duties. Thankfully the cool down period seemed to be all the weed whacker needed. Thank goodness for my pipe insulation padding on the handles of the whacker. I was out there for well over two hours just weed whacking. Without that padding my forearms would have been screaming. Today my forearms are just mildly sore instead.
While I was weed whacking I stumbled across another kildere nesting on the ground. Every year we seem to have one that picks the bare ground in our back yard as a nest. As I approached, the momma bird got off her eggs and acted like she was hurt, trying to lead me away from the eggs. I assured the bird I meant it no harm and continued on my way.
Ali came out from her nap late in the afternoon to see me still hard at work, despite the early wake up call. I assured her I was ok although the large iced coffee I scored from DD on the way home from Home Depot certainly helped.
After I weed whacked I briefly took the tractor out and mowed along the fence line and some other areas to make it easier for Ali when she was out mowing. In the process I managed to stupidly drive over the live extension cord that is used to power the pond pumps. Luckily the GFCI outlet it is connected to prevented me from getting electrocuted in the process.
I suggested to Ali that for dinner we could do another Steak and Shake run since I wanted to go BACK to Home Depot to get another extension cord. Ali was totally into any plan that didn’t involve her cooking. So the dogs and Ali piled into the van for the quick trip. I ordered the same meals as we did last time at S&S except I bumped the shakes up the LARGE size. I was a bit disappointed this time around. I again requested a thin shake but it seemed like that part of the order was missed, the shake seemed to be the same consistency as Ali’s. I didn’t feel like walking the damn thing back inside and risk having someone add a little saliva to the shake to thin it out.
When we got home I still had more to do. First I worked on the one tail light in the van. The left one did not work correctly when the lights were on. To fix it I needed to strip and redo the splices in the wire harness for the bulb. It was one of several things I want to get done on the van before we embark on our road trip next month.
While I was out there I heard some loud voices across the street. I had the van running during my testing so I couldn’t really make out what was being said. However once I turned it off I quickly determined there was an argument going on. There was a screamfest going on over across the fence line. One of the neighbors thought it would be fun to weed whack, trim hedges and race their ATV back and forth the property line at 8:30 at night. The neighbor next door did not appreciate the racket and told them so. Well it sounded pretty damn ugly. It sucks to have neighbors you don’t like. Both Ali and I are praying the vacant house next to us is not purchased by a bunch of a-holes.
Sunday was Mother’s Day. I set Ali up with breakfast in bed that included two pieces of peanut butter toast, orange juice, a card from the pets and some carnations from our garden in a small vase. Ali appreciated the effort. We were picking mom up for lunch at Carrabba’s later in the day. I wanted to get some stuff done before leaving. One of the to do items was to put the new battery into the Moto Guzzi and get it running.
I expected the process to go smoothly, after all how hard is it to connect a battery? Of course it didn’t. I unboxed the battery and attached the terminals. When I turned the key to the start position I had no lights. Hmm, odd, I cranked on the battery terminal a bit to make sure it was tight, again dead. I take the battery out and hook up my charger to it to get a voltage reading, 12.49, perfect. I hook the battery up to the bike again and still, it’s dead. “F’ing thing” I mutter to myself as I ripped the battery out. I had to get ready to go to lunch with mom.
When we arrived at mom’s condo we were surprised when we looked at her floor. One section of her wood floor had a bad warp in it since she moved in. The warp was gone and 9 sections of the floor had been replaced. Evidently she used some of her connections at work to get it fixed at a reasonable number. The blemish was annoying mom in a big way so I know she was glad to have it fixed.
We got to Carrabas a few minutes before noon. We were happy to see the place was not full at all. Mom and I enjoyed our meals, Ali wasn’t thrilled with her veggie lasagna. During the meal we did some recollection about growing up. It is always interesting for me to hear mom detail all of the stuff she did was she younger. I couldn’t help to contrast it with the pretty limited list of things she allows herself to do now.
After our meal we talked mom into going to Home Depot once again. She mentioned she was looking for a few plants to decorate the condo. Ali also picked up some additional plants for our place while we were there. We dropped mom and her new plants off. She planned to get busy with some planting.
When we got back I still had a lot of shit to do. Ali went out on the tractor and mowed the back yard as I finished up the inside chores. I told her I felt guilty for having her do anything much on Mothers Day. She said she was fine with it. Well as soon as I was done inside I went out and finished up mowing around the immediate house area so she could go in and relax.
I decided that I did not want to ever have to worry about mowing the extension cord again so I used an old edger tool I got from my Uncle Bud (the thing has to be at least 40 years old) to create a small slit in the grass that I could shove the cord into. I cut a nice little line that lead from the rock border around the house down to the pond area. It didn’t take very long to do and looks a lot better as well. I’m not sure why I never buried the line before.
My work on the Tacoma MAF last week proved to be a failure. The check engine light came back on Friday afternoon. So now my plan is to run a couple of bottles of injector cleaner through the motor and then reset the light again. If it comes on once again replacing the MAF would be my next logical step.
Ali made a delicious quiche last night for dinner. I didn’t come back inside from mowing until 6:30. After dinner I was feeling just wiped out from all the bust ass work in the heat and the early morning, no nap, Saturday. Unannounced I went back to the bedroom around 8pm and crawled into bed. Ali was surprised to find me back there when she came inside.
I told her I was tired and just wanted to lay down for a bit. Before I knew it I was out cold. I woke up at 10pm when Ali was trying to fumble with my alarm clock to see if it was set right. I was startled that I was asleep that long. I told her I had to get up anyway to take a shower, brush my teeth and all that jazz. It was bit odd to wake up from a two hour “nap” only to try to go back to sleep a half hour later. I laid in bed for awhile until I managed to fall back asleep. I had another long, involved dream that seemed to go on most of the night. I don’t remember a single detail about it.
I have had a lot of these long dreams lately. They seem to have the side effect of making my sleep less than restful. I wake up those mornings feeling pretty rotten.
I have some interesting excerpts from a Men’s Health article regarding our health care system and a comparison to what is generally regarded as the bests system in the world, France. Even you health care haters may take pause. It deserves it’s own post.