I'm now Crispy...

I'm officially over-trained. Last night I went to the movie "The informant" with Alice, Alyssa and Reid. For that 90 minutes during the movie, thinking of nothing else, I felt great. Then when it was over I went back to fatigued.

I must say, in that movie, Matt Damon who gained 40 lbs, added a mustache, toupee and glasses, looked just like my brother Bobby. It was freaky, I kept thinking I was looking at my brother. He even had my brothers listening skills.

This morning I wanted to sleep an extra couple of hours but couldn't. I took my time getting ready, had a good breakfast and even waited until it warmed up outside while I ran some errands.

I went to MEC and picked up some toe warmers, water bottles and a front head light. I like MEC. The products are good, at excellent prices, and they have a second to none return policy. It's become a favorite store of mine. Which is hard to believe, I only thought "granola eaters" bought from MEC. I guess I'm now officially a "granola eater".

They didn't have any brake pads so I went to one of the local bike stores that I spent a lot of time and money at last year. I easily spent close to $1500 at this bike shop last year alone. I don't mind the place, Alice doesn't like it. She says the two owners seem arrogant.

At the end of last year they wanted to sell me a 2008 P2C and offered it to me for $3000. I called Endurosport and they said they'd sell me a 2009 P2C for $2800. The local bike shop could also sell me a 2009, but wanted $3500.

Needless to say I went with Endurosport and got a 2009 model bike $700 cheaper than getting it from my local bike store. Anyways, today was the first day I'd been in their store since I bought my P2C. I found the brakes I wanted and found some long stemmed tubes and before I checked out with my $65 order, one of the owners asked me if I was still driving the Roo. I said no, I sold it and bought a P2C.

He pretty much flipped after he found out I didn't buy it from him. I told him his partner offered me a 2008 model P2C at a higher price than Endurosport was going to offer me the 2009 model. He kept going on and on about why didn't I buy from him. I started to tune him out when he started to give me an economics lesson on why he can't lower his price and I should have bought from him at a higher amount, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just nodded, I wanted to get out of there.

He then stood the hair up on the back of my neck when he said that he gives advice, like some cold weather riding advice he gave me moments earlier, and that has got to be worth paying more for. I snapped at him and said, "look man, your partner knew what was going on, I talked to him numerous times, you couldn't compete on the price and in the past couple years I've probably spent $2000 or more in your store, don't tell me that you give your advice away, heck this order in my hand is worth $65". I could tell he realized he went to far. It became a little uncomfortable. As this was all going on, his partner was stacking shelves, listening, but not getting involved. Pussy.

We both awkwardly parted with pleasantries like nothing had happened, but I was pissed off. Who does he think he is. When I got home and told Alice the story, she gave me the "I told you so" story about their arrogance. The one thing I know for certain is that I'm NOT going to buy anything from them unless I absolutely have to. Had he kept his mouth shut or "accepted" losing the sale like a man , I would have still purchased tune-ups, tubes, nutrition, clothes, etc from them. Now, unless I'm forced to, I won't go back, and obviously I'm not going to be spreading good word of mouth about my experience or recommending others to buy from them.

When I got home, I changed my wheels and put the new brake pads on the bike. It wasn't easy, the new ones were much thicker and I had to spend about 25 minutes making adjustments so that they didn't rub on the wheel. I put one set on and then when I went to put the other set on I realized that Alice took my truck and the package was on the hood of my truck. Damn. I called her, she came back with the old ones in her hand, but the new package had blown off. I ended up walking down the street, in my bare socks, and eventually found them and put them on.

I then re-taped my handle bars and put the new headlight on the bike. It only took me 2 minutes to put the headlight on, but 28 minutes to look for the light attachment. Ah, the joy of having kids, they move and break everything. As a matter of fact, yesterday I went to put on my good dress shoes for a business meeting and the shoe laces were missing from one of the shoes. How does that happen? What the heck is Reid thinking? Doesn't he think, these are my dad's dress shoes, taking his shoe laces would not be a good idea? Or if I take these, he's going to kill me? Apparently not.

Kids break, take and lose everything, especially boys. Actually only boys. I now know how my dad used to feel and I can hardly wait until Reid becomes a dad. I'm going to relish in his suffering. lol.

I finally got on the bike and the weather had turned from sunshine to cloud with a 100% chance of rain. Within 2 minutes of riding, my derailleur wasn't working properly. I couldn't change gears. I got off the bike and at first thought, I should take this to a bike shop, then I remembered that I don't want to go to that bike shop unless I absolutely have to, so I started to fiddle and got it semi-working and persevered on with the ride.

Then it started giving me problems again. I fiddled, it worked better and I kept going. Then it started raining and the speedometer stopped working. I stopped, fiddled and got it working but inadvertently erased all the data. Damn, I didn't record of how far and long I was out for before it was erased. Right from the beginning problem I was wondering if this was an omen and that I shouldn't be riding today.

As time went on I started feeling worse and worse, I had just no leg strength. My heart rate was so low, I was physically and mentally severely fatigued. I decided to turnaround and head back home. I took a road that I hadn't before and it turned into a gravel road. Do I keep going on dangerous gravel, or turnaround and go back? I kept going. I finally got back onto asphalt.

A few times I almost stopped and called Alice to come pick me up, but I didn't. Eventually I managed to get home and along the way realized I'm over-trained. When I got home, Alice said she noticed I've looked terrible all week. Enough said, I'm taking at least 2 days off. Let the recovery begin. I'm going to start with a hot shower, a cold beer and I'm going to turn the computer off for a while.

I had to add this comment. So when I do my book for the year, it will be included. It is from Johan Stemmet of South Africa. He reads my blog and left me a message that I inspire him. He is a Mark Allen triathlete and qualified for the Ironman this year. I asked him "why I inspired him", it threw me. This is his response.

Hi B
Thought it will be best to post the answer to your question on your blog. Without sounding Cheezy here is the answer to "Why do you inspire me" you posted on my blog

Since I've started reading your blog I found it very inspirational.
whatever the post there is always a lesson I can learn from it and most of the times it reflects to my own life.

you are a very positive person and i respect you for your positive outlook towards your career, family and Triathlon training/racing.

When i read your post I can just sense the positive energy you give to others. I think anybody who inter acts with you face to face get something out of it whatever the situation might be.

You should know that training for IM's is not easy and one sometimes just don't feel like doing a training session. when i read your experiences i relate to my own and it gives me the positive outlook to just push through.

being a serious person and one who is always target driven, i've seen when i read your posts that life doesn't always have to be serious to enjoy it. One can have fun and still achieve major accomplishments.
Since qualifying for Kona i was so tensed up to achieve a good time but now i am just gonna enjoy the experience.

thanks again for inspiring me when i read your posts

regards
johan

Long Bike - 2:30:00 / 69.26km / 27.7 kph / 113 avg hr

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