I have decided that as a public service to all of the people who read this blog (all three of you) I will give you my simple rules of life. These are in no particular order.

1. Accept the fact that people are lazy. We're all guilty of it at some point or another. If given two choices, some people, maybe not all of the time, will take the path that presents the least resistance. Therefore, if you assume that people are inherently stupid, and will make stupid decisions 70% of the time they are faced with a challenge, it makes living your own life that much easier, because you've prepared yourself, as opposed to saying "I cant believe he did that to me!"*

2. Dont take yourself so seriously all of the time. I am talking to you- the guy I see everyday in Starbucks in your pretty suit, ordering your cafe mocha latte half skim whatever, with your copy of "The Journal" tucked under your arm, while you blather incessantly into your bluetooth ear piece, about something that sounds so utterly boring that I want to grab a plastic knife and stab myself in the throat. Order a man's drink - Coffee, black. And then take that stupid ear thing off because you look like an asshat

3. No one should be saying the words "Grande or Venti" when ordering beverages at Starbucks. It sounds stupid. Make sure you tell the "Barista" - aka the guy making $10 an hour to brew coffee but let's give him a really fancy title so that it appears he/ she is doing something that the the pimply faced 17 year old working at Wawa does for half as much money- that you want a tall, medium or large.**

4. It's just a job

5. Go outside

6. Take the backroads if you are stuck in traffic. It might take you just as long to get your destination, but at least you wont be sitting in traffic

7. People who are dooshy dont know that they are dooshy. I have seen this time and time again.***

8. There's no rule that states that I have to like everybody that I encounter in my life. Just because you think someone is a nice guy doesnt mean that I have to think the same way. He's probably an asshole. Trust me.

9. Attractive women avoid sitting next to me at all costs on the train. Instead, rule #9 states that fat/ obese people must make every attempt to sit next to me, at all costs

10. Drive it like you stole it

11. Use a turn signal. How hard is it to use a turn signal? It's a simple flick of the wrist.

12. Some things in life are a privilege, not a right.

13. Give me eight hard hours of work everyday, and I will excuse the small mistakes.

14. Engineering is tough biz, and if your right out of school, expect to do some really shitty stuff in your first job. It's like engineering boot camp. Get used to it. The guy you're working for served his time in the trenches, now it's your turn to climb through a dirty nasty mechanical room counting valves

15. I am my biggest fan.

16. The glass is always half full

17. It is what it is

18. Yell at your kids when they are acting like little asshats in public. Everyone will respect you more for it. There's a reason why more and more restaurants are banning small kids - it's because you cant control your offspring

I have more I just cant think of them and I am now officially bored with this post

* I get alot of flack for this one because people think that I have a defeatist attitude. Wrong. Take my word for it
** I dont want to hear any feedback from anyone about how I am being as asshole to the hard working people at Starbucks. I respect anyone who busts their ass as much as the people who work in those stores do, but "barista?" For real?
*** Am I dooshy? Someone please tell me because I could be violating my own rule

Meh

It's been a while since I've slapped one of these entries together, and to be quite honest, I have no meaningful content to add, whatsoever. I havent been riding as much, which is unfortunate - it's been three weeks since I've been on the bike, but I have been working out - running here and there, spinning here and there, and I just added some weight training. I really need to get back out on the bike during the week. This week has been tough for me to get my ass out the bed in the morning, and I have been doing alot of after-work gym visits.

Running: not so good. I am still experiencing some pain in my side. I am going to try and get in to see a PT sometime in the next week - a guy who was reocmmended to me my the guy who gave me my shot. I have run out of solutions. I am hoping that adding some core work to what I do during the week will help strengthen the muscles on my side because at this point I believe its a strain of the oblique or something related to that.

I paced Lou through the 5k piece of the Journey for Joann tri over the weekend. While I got participate in a portion of the race, I was disappointed that I couldnt do the whole event - I've done this race three or four times, and it's one of my favorite events. With all of the ink work that I have had done on my arm over the past few weeks, and the fact that my running has really shit the bed, I couldnt put the time in for the swimming or the running. There's always next year I suppose.

I would love to get out on the bike this weekend, but I am volunteering for the 20in24 race down in Philly- I am manning a water stop for 24 hours with Cat and Lynne, starting Saturday at 8:30 am through Sunday at 10:00 am. Twenty four hours straight with those two clowns. It's going to be awesome :)

Spin

I know that there are some people who read these worthless blog entries that I post, so if I offend anyone who goes to my gym with what I am about to say, I apologize in advance. Part of my responsibility with this blog is to report on the cold hard facts. I am like a hard-charging journalist pounding the street looking for the story, to report the facts. I am like the Steve Langford of blogging.

I took an easy spin class this morning only because I am going to be slogging through four miles of trails this afternoon marking the Pickle Course for tomorrow's big Pickle Run, and there is a *slight* chance that I might run the Swarthmore Independence Eve 8k tonight. Plus, running a five spot yesterday kinda made me a bit sore*.

I dont know the name of the spin instructor who taught my class this morning, but I have blogged about her class format in the past. It's awful. Her music is atrocious. Like as in take a hostage atrocious. She goes from an up-tempo song to a down tempo song. We do way too much standing climbs. She has no idea how to moderate the levels of resistance. I guess I should explain the resistance control on the bikes that we use in class.

The bikes are rather nice - brand new with digital readouts for level, rpm, HR, wattage, average wattage and time. There are 25 levels on the bike. Everyone has a baseline level - the recovery level. My recovery level hovers around 13 or 14.

Depending on the class, the instructor will have the people in the class increase the level of resistance in small does over the course of an internal. Obviously the number of level increases and the frequency of the increases varies with whatever workout we happen to be doing at any point in time. Most instructors will peak out at about 4 or 5 levels above baseline at the peak of the interval, with an occasional "max effort" which is the maximum resistance level you can maintain for that interval at whatever cadence the instructor is calling out for that interval.

My girl will have us at 7-8 level above recovery. I am glancing around the room and people look like they are about fall off of their bikes. For real? None of these people are Lance Armstrong. not to boast, but there are probably 4 or 5 of us in the class at anyone time that can maintain that level of effort. To make matters worse, she'll keep repeating those intervals over and over again. I am assuming that she's assuming that most people have a very low baseline, hence the fact that she'll keep bumping the levels up so high.

I'm glad that today was a rest today because I wouldnt have been able to sit in that class for more than 30 minutes without my own music.

Rant over.

* Wah

Poked

I got a cortisone shot yesterday. Let me preface the remainder of this entry by saying I hate needles, which is odd because I have half my arm tattoo'd. But it's a different kind of needle - I am not a fan of anything that get's inserted*

I know people suffer worse things in life - my boy Mike went through countless tests when he had cancer, and Dom had his blood clot issue. I count my blessings everyday for my good health, but I need something to blog about, so shut up and read.

The needle that they jabbed into my side was the biggest goddamn'd needle I have ever seen in my life and this procedure was a little more complicated that I had thought. The doc warned me ahead of time that because my pain was in a tricky spot in the ribs, there was a chance, albeit slim, that the needle could hit my lung and my lung would deflate. Not particularly what I wanted to hear at the time, but nothing in life comes without some risks I guess. Fuck it. Stick me. So they drag an ultrasound machine** into the room and another doctor comes in to navigate while my docs pokes around with the needle. First, they gave me a numbing shot. Then, I feel him stick the needle in- no pain but just the odd sensation of a needle buried deep inside my muscle. He must have been in there for a good two minutes fishing around and I could feel the damn thing moving around. All the while, doc #1 is guiding doc #2 as if he's trying to parallel park a car -

"Slowly, slowly..."
"Ok a little right. Stop"
"Ok move over and try over here"

At one point doc #2 says to doc #1 - "Well there's a rib. Found it." Great, at least we got the hard part out of the job. If we can't find the rib, we got bigger problems yo***

He explained that with my injury, a cortisone shot is like a grenade **** - he throws it in there and peppers the drugs around a bit to get the greatest coverage.

So I got up this morning and ran- I figured I'll test her out and see what's doing in the ole' internals. I ran 4.9 with no pain at an average pace of about ~ 9:10. The only thing that "hurts" is the spot where he stuck the need and there's a nice bruise on the spot. I've been poked more times this week than a Chinese Hooker during the week of the Army-Navy game*****, between the shot yesterday and my tat work a few days back. And I am going in for more tat work today :)

* That's what she said
** Hey doc if you find a pair of gold cuff links in there, let me know. I've been looking for those for 2 weeks
*** Sounds like someone didnt exactly nail the basic anatomy classes in med school
**** Not sure how I feel about a doctor using the term "grenade" as a context for any type of procedure
***** Yes, I threw a chinese hooker reference in there. That's how I roll.

Crappy 5k

The Crappy 5k went off without a hitch on Sunday. This is the fourth little "impromptu" race that we've done over the past three years and they are always a blast. Everyone comes out, runs a race and then drinks and eats for the next three hours. We're doing another on the 29th of July on a Friday night which is probably going to be trouble since the day following isnt a work day. These two races also serve as training runs for the two girls that we're prepping to be full -time timers.

I ran the crappy 5k in under 25 minutes which is rather amazing. The course was a bit short and adjusted for distance, I wouldnt have broken the 25 minute mark by very much, if at all. My side felt "ok" - not great but not "I feel like someone just stabbed me" painful. It was a drastic improvement over Thursday's Rush Hour Run/ Slog.

Kinda weird considering that out of the last four runs that I've done, three have been races - The Media Five Miler, Rush Hour Run, and The Crappy 5k. Strange.

Not so good

Not so good is how I felt last night at the Rush Hour Run. Dear christ in heaven was it hot! I ran at the gym the night prior and the side started to hurt again, about a mile into the run. I had a big lunch that afternoon and I am not sure if had something to do with the onset of the pain - perhaps the half pound of roast beef from my roast beef sandwich was sitting in the gut like a lead balloon. Regardless, I had pain, so I stopped running at just under 3 miles.

I woke up yesterday to find that my side was sore which is typical with the injury. So I called the doc and I made an appointment to get the shot. Enough is enough. So Wednesday I go in.

So anyways, last night, I figured I'll go out and run as far as I can and turn around when I couldnt stand the pain - it was an out and back course on the river up in Oaks. As luck would have it, a message therapist and chiropractor setup shop right next to our timing setup, and I got a quick adjustment from one of the doctors, that actually did help the pain, although minimally.

So, adorned in full Pickle suit, I setout on the race, midpack. Within about a mile, I couldnt "settle in." I have a couple of mental tricks that I have adopted over the years. I tend to go out fast when I race - usually too fast- and in order to try and back it off, I tell myself to settle in. I liken it to road riding, when I am tucked in a pace line, and I do my pull, I have to tell myself to get comfortable with the pace- to settle in. Relax. Get everything under control. So I have adopted that mantra with just about every physical endeavor that I do - running, spin classes, etc. If I can't get settled in, I know the ship is sunk and the rest of the exercise/race is going to be a shit-show.

I'll sometimes tell myself to "stay ahead of the pain." Picture the pain, and try to ride just ahead of it, like a surfer riding a wave, managing to stay just on the crest of the wave. This concept is a it hard for me to explain relative to the settling in bit.

So, anyway, the point is that I couldnt settle in last night. About a mile in, I was hot and my stomach hurt, so I stopped - walked - cheered the runners, etc. I repeated this run/walk process for the remainder of the race. In the last mile, I had to take the suit off for a bit- I couldnt take the heat. I did manage to run the whole race, albeit slow. This was a shitty week for training. I dont think I will be able to squeeze any type of workouts in today, and tomorrow might be tough as well. I am heading down to the Philly Tri in the am to which Baggadonuts do his thing, and then I have a shitload of yard work to do in prep for the Crappy 5k at my house on Sunday.

The Crappy 5k is a small race that I am hosting at my house on Sunday morning. We're using it as a training exercise for two girls that we're prepping to be full-time timers. I have a few spots left - the entry fee is beer or a BBQ item for the post race tailgate at my crib. It will be a full scale race with our normal race setup, and I will setup a course through the hood that will be a cross between the Wife's Away 5k course and the Brookhaven Sunshine Run course. If you are interested, please let me know and I'll get your registered. I have less than a handful of spots left.

Keep it Simple Stupid

I got the results from the bone scan: negative for a stress fracture. The doc thinks its a muscle strain. I have two options: a cortisone shot, or a dextro something or other (I have it written down). The cortisone is a pain management shot. The dextro is a bit more invasive. In addition to management, the shot tears apart the muscle which then causes the muscle to heal back, in theory a bit stronger. I have to do some research. However, on the handful of runs that I have done over the past four or five days, I have had no pain, so the doc thinks its best to wait on the shot to see how I feel.

I am running the Rush Hour Run tomorrow night in Oaks. This is a great race with one great amenity that attracts alot of runners -- the post-race food. The RD gets a bunch of local gourmet restaurants to setup shop after the run. It's the est post race food spread in the area. I do alot of races as a timer, and I have run a shitload of races as a runner. Quite frankly, man cannot live on soft pretzels and bananas alone. Having some variety is always a good thing. I understand that nothing in life is free and that the RD's have to be very cost conscious with respect to race expenses, however, I always appreciate the folks who go the extra mile - some bagels with peanut butter, perhaps some tomato pie. Runners want a little bit of protein after a run, not just carbs. There are plenty of companies out there that will donate food to a good cause.

I'll be out there tomorrow in the Pickle Suit. It's gonna be another hot one- 86 degrees and a 60% chance of storms.