Getting chased by the big white dog...

I feel great. I mean it. For some reason, for the past week or so, I've felt really great and I don't know why. I'm in a high energy, Zen like state. Even simple things, like waking up in the morning and having a cup of coffee and checking email just feels great.

I've even been looking forward to falling asleep quickly so tomorrow comes quicker. Weird. I could get used to this. I think this warm fall sunny weather might have something to do with it, I don't know. But I wish I could bottle this feeling.

Even during my swim at lunchtime I felt awesome and was pulling myself through the water effortlessly. I was at a different pool that was only 25 yards, not meters, and I think I felt faster because I had to turn more. I now know the secret to feeling faster in the water, swim in a shorter pool.

I didn't get home until almost 6 pm tonight. I had everyone at work wanting to talk to me and then I had pick up Alice's car, it was in for an oil change. On the way home I realized I needed to put my race wheels on in preparation for Sunday's race. I'd been intentionally putting it off, it can be a bit of work and messy. I also wasn't looking forward to having to remove a tube to fix one of the stems which was leaking air.

To put the race wheels on, I have to remove the skewers, remove the old tires, remove the old front and rear brake pads, take off the speedometer magnet from the rear spoke and then put back in the skewers, put on the new brake pads, put on the new tires, and reattach the speedometer magnate. Oh yeah, and then pump up the tires. It's a bit of work and my hands get filthy dirty. There's no clean way to do it.

The added work I had tonight was having to remove the tube on the race wheel and put on a new extension on the stem, the old one was leaking air. Surprisingly, everything went perfectly easily. Like I said, life right now feels great. I did everything so gracefully it felt like I was in a ballet. What normally takes me at least 30 minutes, took me about 15 minutes, tops, and that even included removing the tube and fixing the stem.

I can tell fall is coming, it's getting darker earlier now. I was on the road by 7:00 pm and 30 minutes later it was already getting dark. As I was near the end of my ride, I rode by a yard where I've been chased by a big white dog all year long and he's never come close to catching me. Today he was out and he saw me early. In his pursuit, he took a tangent that had him catching me head on. I had no choice but to slow down, and then stop, and always thinking to keep the bike between me and the dog.

As I stopped, the dog stopped, it's hair all high on it's back and it's tail dead still. I chose not to be afraid and tried to do the old "eh boy, eh boy, come on boy" thing. I could tell I startled him by not being afraid. Truth be told I got the idea from a motivational speakers podcast I was listening to a couple days earlier.

He was telling a story about a man who had two large guard dogs, who broke their chains and started running straight at him. Instead of running away, he ran right at the dogs and startled them. They stopped, got freaked out and started running the other way. The moral of the story was to "face your fears and they will go away". It was a nice "corny" story, but I drew from it.

As I was standing only 3 meters away from this dog, and trying to be nice with one hand, I was trying to get my camera out of my jersey with the other for this perfect photo op. I ended up taking two photo's, one with and one without the flash on. As a young teen aged girl came to get the dog I could tell she was wondering why I was taking a picture of her dog. The look on her face said "weirdo".

The moral of the story is, "if you truly face your fears, you'll be relaxed enough to take a picture" - Bryan Payne. Feel free to use it.

Mod Swim - 40:54 / 2000 meters

Mod Bike - 1:02:38 / 32.68 km / 31.2 kph / 135 avg hr