Happy 37th Carlos...

About 90 minutes after yesterday's ride, Alice and I were at a French restaurant in Toronto for Carlo's surprise birthday party.

I now know why the French are so skinny, they charge you a lot for so little.

I will say the food was great and the testy waiter was authentically French. Alice and I really enjoyed ourselves. Thank you Fernanda for inviting us, it was an honour.

There was a group of ten of us. Everyone was very nice, lots of triathlon talk with four male triathletes in the bunch. Alice and I were the only non-Brazilians, the group was probably only speaking English because we were there.

I have now realized the hardest and coolest English accent on the planet to duplicate is Brazilian. Next time I go out with them, in their honour, I won't be able to speak with an Brazilian accent but I am going to get a "Brazilian Wax".

We were the second couple there and the first people we met were Leandro and his wife. The first thing he said was "Bryan, I know who you are, I read your blog", and the first thing she said was, "Oh, you're the blog guy, I feel sorry for your wife".

It is the weirdest thing meeting people that I've never met that read my blog. This has happened many, many times before. It's hard to make a good first impression when they know the truth. They know so much about me and I no so little about them.

It also limits the conversation, I pretty much say everything that goes on in my life on the blog, so any stories I have they may already know and I don't want to "bore" them. I really enjoyed meeting Leandro and his wife and all the group. Carlos hangs out with "good people".

Since I started writing the blog, I've met many people who read the blog. It's pretty much the same each time. If it's a couple, the husband loves me and the wife is "suspect".

At times, it feels like the "ladies" don't want me getting to close to the "hubbies" and "rubbing off". Many people think Alice is a Saint for putting up with me and if I was their husband, I get the sense "they'd straighten me out".

What most people don't know is Alice is not what she appears to be. Under that classy, graceful, quiet, strong, good mother, patient, loving, caring facade, is a major league instigator.

If you've ever watch the TV show "Pippy Longstocking", that's her. I married "Pippy"and she's my "Party Muse". I should know, we've been together for 29 years.

One day, I'd like to have one person who I meet for the first time say, "I feel so sorry for you being married to that enabler, you poor thing". People don't understand how hard it is being married to Alice. She's a stay at home mom and does EVERYTHING around the house.

Alice does the cooking, the laundry, the helping with the homework, the cleaning, the bill paying, the lawn cutting, the grocery shopping, the pizza pickup-ing, the clothes shopping, the driving the kids to school, the dish washing, the Slurpee getting, the lunch making, the kids driving, the deck staining, the garage door painting, the oil changing and the booze getting.

It's not easy living with a person that does all those things. Alice comes by it honestly, she can't sit still or watch TV for very long. There's not a lot I can do, I've tried, but I never do things to her high standards. Like I said, it's not easy being me.

Although, over the years, I have learnt to contribute in my own way and take on responsibility when I can. The first thing I do is control the TV remote. I take over the remote whenever I walk into a room and pick what the family is going to watch. I also get to select which triathlon vacation the family is going to go on.

My biggest responsibility is I'm in charge of the family entertainment. Alice and the kids get a kick out of it when I "get mad" and try to flex my authority. There has been times, they turn their heads and start laughing as I have a "vein pulsating from my forehead". Although, to my defense, it's usually for a serious offence, like when one of my socks go missing.

Probably most importantly, my roll is to "keep it fun". I know how much Alice works hard and I try to stay out of her way and keep the house clean by training a lot. But I feel my job is to do more. I like to keep her laughing. Alice is my best friend and my favorite past-time is talking and partying with her.

I appreciate what she does and her fun loving nature. Alice considers me a "Pirate" and enjoys that lifestyle. She'd be bored with someone who was too responsible and doesn't have a "little devil" on their shoulder. Both our philosophies is "Life's too short not to have fun.

People may think Alice does everything I say, which is the farthest thing from the truth. Every man knows that "women are in charge". The only time a man is in charge, is if "he's beating his wife verbally or physically" and I don't yell at her or beat her. If I tried, she'd "kick my ass".

She was a major athlete in high school and consitently beat the "black girls" at the 100 yard dash. That says it all. She has too many first place red ribbons to count. It blew Reid mind when he saw them all.

Alice is not the type of person that can be pushed into anything she doesn't want to do. People shouldn't feel sorry for her, Alice is the smart one, I'm just her "puppet". She pulls the strings and I dance. I'm the victim.

Before we left Carlo's birthday party, I gave him some Birthday presents. I gave him three things. A P.F.G. (Previous Fat Guy) Triathlon Club Beer Stein (You can check out his P.F.G. story here), A Triathlon-Toons button of himself and an Ironman eye patch. As many may know, Carlos is blind in one eye from a competitive swimming accident when he was training as part of Brazils National swim team.

I consider Carlos a "Pirate", like myself. It was only natural that "the Captain" get another sea-ferrer his very own Ironman eye patch. As strange as it sounds, I've never seen one at any Ironman expo, so I had to make it myself. I think it should be Carlo's new look. He should do races with an eye patch and a Pirates "head rag". It would be a great sight, "the Captain" and "the Pirate" racing.

At the worst case, if he wore it when we get together, I'd know what eye to look into when talking to him.

Today's training was hard. My legs were still beat up from yesterday's ride and today I had a 3 hour run scheduled. The moment I got out the door, I started at a 5:15 per kilometer pace and it got worse from there. My legs felt like lead. When I do my 3 hour runs, to get through it, I pretend I'm @epicbillbradley doing a crazy long run.

By the 2 hour mark, my legs were toast. If I was to categorize this run, it would be a "cartilage and bone strengthener". It was a slow shuffle and my knee joints hurt. My "mind" wanted to walk so many times and my "body" wouldn't let it, just like yesterday. Thank goodness for my "body" taking a leadership position this weekend.

I'm actually worried. I feel so slow and sore, I'd swear I'm out of shape. It didn't help that my arms and chest were "wickedly" sore from Friday's weight training session. It was a two day delayed soreness and I have trouble lifting my arms over my head and straightening my arms. Running with bent arms even hurt.

It's apparent that it wasn't a smart idea pushing heavy weight after a few weeks off from weight training. I know right now that my next few swims are not going to be easy, painless or fast.

I'm happy to say, since Friday's weigh in, because of my training and my reduction of beer intake, I'm down 2.4 lbs and now weigh 186.6 lbs. As a reward for this weekends tough training sessions, I rewarded myself with Chicken and Ribs from Burlington's weekend Ribfest. It's the largest in Canada.

I stayed home and fell asleep in bed with a semi post-run bonk and Alice and the kids went and brought some back for me, along with some cotton candy and fudge. Also, as part of my recovery from extremely sore legs, I decided to forgo a massage and went to McDonald's for ice cream instead.

Also, congrats to Adena who finished her first ever triathlon. Awesome job for someone that had trouble riding a bike less than a year ago and has the scrapes and bruises to show for it. She's in her forties (A, hope you don't mind me saying that) and she wasn't an athlete and now she's a triathlete. She's an inspiration. You can check out her race report here.

Long Run - 3:03:38 / 33.29 km / 5:31 per km pace / 135 avg hr

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