The Storks on the way

I want to announce that Carol (aka Mistress) and I are expecting a baby. She is over three months along. We will not know the sex until late September. She has been getting every test and ultrasound possible and so far its a completely healthy child inside her.

We have not told Mighty Mo yet and probably will not until the last few months. He will be terribly excited and it will torture him to have to wait six more months. He has a hard enough time just waiting to do something next weekend and don't want to blow his mind waiting till sometime late in February.

RTB

Return To Base (RTB)

After another good run in the woods, on clearly marked trails this time mind you, and a late breakfast with my company, we start the process of heading back to Arizona. I should get back around 7pm. Mo is excited I am coming home, though probably not so much, when he doesn't get to watch his programs on tv at his beck and call.

This has been a wonderful experience up here at Suncadia resort in Washington. I was blown away by some of the presentations that our district managers gave. The end state of this trip was to get everyone wrapped around our (the partners) five year plan for the business. I think this was accomplished.

I feel that my batteries were recharged in the woods, which I have always found solace in. Woods and rivers are something that I miss terribly in my life and every opportunity to engage my outdoor senses in that type of environment is a blessing.

So back to the grind on Monday. More nutrition work needs to be done. I need to review my training progress. Work needs to be sorted out.

Have Fun

Time Out

Thursday after the meeting broke I intended to go for bike ride or stop over at the fitness center. I needed to let lunch digest a bit and felt a bit tired so went to the condo for respite. I never left.

This what I tried to write about yesterday and reminding myself I am not invincible. I am not even ordinary still. I was physically and neuro-muscularly whipped. I am not a napper but I tried.

The run I had earlier in the day Thursday was great. Ran out on a well paved asphalt trail that led to an overlook. That connected to a crushed gravel trail which turned into a dirt trail that led down a steep hill. Eventually it petered out and I was stuck. I didn't want to turn around, that would be boring so I tore off down a game trail until that too eventually played out.

Time to start bushwhacking. I bushwhacked, while jogging, another ten minutes or so and came across an overgrown back road, most likely used when the lodge area was being constructed. The growth was high but there was no trees on it so I picked up my pace and pushed aside branches as I went.

Finally I came to a clearing which abutted several mounds of short dead grass about forty feet high. That was really weird. I decided I would reach the top and I could get my bearings. When I reached the top I looked down directly onto a golf green and about fifty yards away a cart path.

Saved. From there it only took ten minutes to work my way to the main road and back to the lodge. It was exactly what I needed, an adventurous run in the woods. You can't get that in the Sonoran Desert.

Reminders

My life seems a constant reminder of things to not do. I have affirmations and prayers that I use to create a vision for my life the way I want it to be, but the rest of the day seems to be a liteny of thoughts telling myself, "too fast, be patient, your not cleared yet" and so forth.

I am heading out right how and going to push my HR a little bit on a short 30 minute run and perhaps a bit on a mountain bike later in the day. Nothing extreme, like say, oh 165 bmp. But nevertheless.

When I have thoughts like this I think, "Just push it a little. Don't get emotional about it and start charging up hills, its a treat to run in the woods at sunrise, not a punishment."

I had no clue that one year after not finishing Arizona that I would not finish again. I certainly had no clue what was going on with my body to that extreme, what I had been doing to it. But it showed me that, its always still there inside of me. It can lie mostly dormant for a year or years and then when I need it the least, a race, my system shuts down and I need a gallon of IV fluid.

But I apprecaite the object lesson. The whole year between those races I trained without a clue to the damage inside me. Blaming it on a virus and not realizing that I was burning my kidneys up from the inside, not only with my training but with my nutrition.

So with every workout that leads to my recovery I remind myself that I have to stay in control of every workout. I have to be adult, or mature, or wise about the choices I make when I see a short climb or pancake flat with with some prize at the end. And with that, the trees await.

My Olympic record (set straight)

For the record, I am not a big fan of the Olympics. Don't get me wrong, I have watched quite a bit of it. Last weekend while I was at home, it was on non-stop, as we educated Mighty Mo on different athletic events. Some of the things we watched people do, especially on the bars in gymnastics seemed unworldly and elicited great squeals of joy from my son.

However, I have a really pointed complaint about the Olympics that I am sure is going to rile most of you up. I do not consider many of the most popular Olympic events as sports. I define a sport as "a competitive event in which the spectators can clearly define and understand the achievement of points which culminates in a winner and a loser."

Now before I start listing these events, let me first say I am not against the athlete or belittle what they can accomplish through their training. Everyone of these people have sacrificed years of their lives and the quality of those years, to participate in something that they at one point loved to do or continue to love to do.

Generally speaking, I don't think gymnastics is a sport, nor diving, most equestrian events, and maybe, probably. fencing. Specifically, I don't think any sport where only a handful of people in the whole world are qualified to judge it, is a sport. When you watch action take place and then have to wait for the results, its not a sport.

Events like basketball, track and field, swimming, cycling, weightlifting, boxing, triathlon, volleyball and several others, these are definitely sports. The vast majority of spectators can easily observe who is winning and who is losing. Another defining trait of a sport in my opinion, is the ease in educating others on how the event is scored and the consistency of it; fastest time wins, farthest throw wins, most points wins.

Can there be discussion on if handball or Beach Volleyball should be in the Olympic games at all? Sure but its a different discussion.

I also don't think that if you can play the game while drinking and/or smoking at the same time that its a sport. So there goes golf and bowling, though neither are currently in the Olympic games.

Furthermore, the Olympics have in the last few decades become just one more venue for anti-American propaganda. Famed American gymnastic coach Bella Karolyi on Monday said that the judging is so biased against American athletes it will be almost impossible to win in Beijing. This of course comments on a sport that needs international judging, instead of individual/team achievement to define the given score. After the last Games when judges in figure skating where found to be paid off for adjusting scores higher or lower based on country, I noticed this year that only aggregate scores are given and not the score from individual judges. I guess we won't be able to see how France or China rates full points lower for American contestants any longer. Last but not least is my oft commented position on the derision of American athletes by spectators when playing in foreign countries.

I am watching more of the Games than I thought this week and biased aside, the exposure these events get are massive. Some of these athletes truly become internationally known, household names like Oxana Biaul, Nadia Komenich, Mark Spitz, Bruce Jenner, Jesse Owens and Halle Gebrselassie. You may not even know what they did, but they were Olympians and they were great.

By the way the decathlon is on the 22nd, the marathon on the 23rd and triathlon will be from the 21st through 24th.

Retreat!

Just so you know, in the Army, 'retreat' is the ceremony that defines the end of the work day and the lowering of the flag, usually accompanied by music. There are other terms used to describe the common perception of retreat defined as, "a withdrawal of troops to a more favorable position to escape the enemy's superior forces."

No, I am talking about a business retreat. I am leaving this morning for eastern Washington to stay at a private golf resort. There will be about four hours of meetings and then the rest of the day to do whatever fitness professionals do. In this case I have packed my helmet, my HR monitor, my running shoes and my goggles. I plan on getting in some solid hours of uninterrupted exercise in favorable climate conditions without work or family commitments.

Today is also the birthday of my lovely Mistress. Its a decade changer, you can do the math. Mighty Mo and I made an indoor picnic for her last weekend and the desert was Strawberry shortcakes. She was very happy. I gave her the new Stephanie Meyers book in her vampire line, and Mighty Mo gave her a deck of cards to play War, his new favorite game.

Happy Birthday Babe.

A new November Ironman

The WTC just announced a new North American venue. Ironman Cozumel will have its inaugural race on November 29, 2009. Cozumel is an island about 25 miles off shore from Cancun, Mexico. The most mostly like NON-wet suit race will be a walk in start, the ride will go around most of the island on flat roads and the run is a two loop 13.1 course.

IM Cozumel will be the last of five iron distance triathlons in November and will preceded in order by: Beach2Battleship (Wilmington, North Carolina), Ironman Florida (Panama Beach City), Silverman (Las Vegas) and Ironman Arizona (Tempe).

As hard as Ironman distance races are, the only mystic surrounding those that have done one, is to do the first one in a new location. This race will only allow 1,500 participants, almost a third less than stateside events. Slots will go quickly.

...as for me, it is sadly not to be.