"Dont Sweat the Small Stuff"

First off, you need to know that I’m travelling today……

So Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff!

Yah but……why are those bastards at the airport allowed to steal my brand new, expensive Eveready coppertop AA batteries!!! Especially since they already passed through security successfully 2 previous times. I questioned how that made any sense, since like everyone else I needed batteries for my camera. That’s when it got really ridiculous…he was going to let me put them in my camera and then suddenly they would have been acceptable!! As if I was too stupid to figure out how to get them back out of the camera, and yet maybe smart enough to use them to turn my seat cushion into an explosive device!! Of course I already had batteries in the camera and as such couldn’t stuff 4 more into the space allotted, and thereby the lives of all those aboard continental flight 788 were spared. I know it’s small stuff, but the stupidity and the waste just pisses me off. Of course on second thought they probably aren’t wasted. Someone I’m sure will be using those batteries, just not me!

Then before getting on the plane they also steal my toothpaste, which has been in my computer bag for 6 months and has probably gone through screening and bag checks 25 times!! Whew again….security first! We wonder why our world is facing an economic crisis when there are hundreds of thousands of people doing completely non-value added nonsense like this all over the freakin globe! I know it’s small stuff but it pisses me off.

So ok relax. Get on the plane and spend some time with the book you brought. Something called “Start to Finish”, which is of course a guide to Ironman training. I bought it way back when I was first planning this thing back in 07 and I thought to spend some time with it to see what I could learn. You remember I’m sure my previous complaints about the lack of good basic, simple to follow, ironman training advice. Maybe this will be different. This book proposes a 26 week training schedule, and when I turn to the recommended workout for the very first day I read this.

“SWIM -3000 yard technique workout
200 freestyle
100 kick
200 freestyle
100 kick all with 20 secs rest
100 kicking on your stomach, arms at your side
5-10X…25 kick on left side, 25 kick on right side
5-10X50 S2S kicking drills
5-10…25 left arm, 25 right arm
5-10 X 50 CU
200 cheating CU swimming
100 choice easy

Just bizarre in my opinion, not to mention that there can’t be more than 10 pools left in the whole world measured in yards…and one of the authors is Canadian!
I know it’s small stuff but give me a break for crying out loud! How can anyone possibly understand that crapola let alone want to do it?

Oh well, just skip that part, relax and read on, and eventually I come to this. Tuesday of week 18…recovery week. “Key” bike ride goes like this.

Turbo AT Intervals
15-20 minutes easy
3X1 minute SLD
1 Minute both legs
7 minutes steady in aero-bars at 90-100 cadence
1 minute big gear standing at less than 70 rpm
1 minute fast spin
1 minute recovery
6 minutes steady in aero-bars at 90-100 cadence
1 minute big gear standing
1 minute fast spin
1 minute recovery
45 secs SLD
1:15 both legs
5 minutes steady in aero-bars at 90-100 cadence
1 minute big gear standing
1 minute fast spin
1 minute recovery
4 minutes steady in aero-bars at 90-100 cadence
1 minute big gear standing
1 minute fast spin
1 minute recovery
All at HR#3 mid to high and in aero-bars
10 minute ride…switch gear, cadence, speed or position every 30 secs, k
Cool down 10-15 minutes

Holy shit! Yah I’m serious, that’s what it said! I know it’s small stuff, but am I supposed to be able to remember this idiocy, or do I take the book along on my ride?

Ok..ok..forget it. Maybe they have some good advice on nutrition, so skip to the back of the book and I discover this advice about vitamins and minerals. “you should include the following supplements in your diet’…
Vitamin A
Vitamin C
Vitamin E
Zinc
Bioflavinoids
Grape seed extract
Pycogenol
Alpha lipoic acid
Beta-carotene

I know it’s small stuff but I give up. I need a new outlook otherwise it’s all small stuff and it’s all gonna stress me out. So at that very moment I decided to adopt Dave Scott’s Ironman training advice(he won Hawaii 5 times), and it goes like this…

“SWIM LOTS, BIKE LOTS, RUN LOTS”
.
Actually I’m even gonna modify that a little to “swim SOME, bike lots, run lots, eat lots”

And if I really tell the truth most of this didn’t really stress me out…with the exception of the battery bullshit. I actually smiled as I read some of the stuff in the book as I truly found it absurd, at least for a beginner like me. I chuckled out loud when I noticed the pre-race checklist at the end of the book included the item “bike”! And when I continued to browse I did find some reasonable ideas and thoughts on things such as weight training, nutrition, technical skills etc. I firmly intend on trying to keep it simple, but at the same time gradually try to apply a little more science into my regimen.

Then again there’s all that other small stuff that keeps cropping up. Like the fact that I got bumped to First Class again, or the fact that in my little travel bag I found 50-some US dollars and over 300 pesos that I forgot I had, or the fact that tonite when I get home I have to go with Colby to buy him new skates for the learn to skate program that Roo signed him up for, or the fact that next week I have to go shopping for a new wetsuit(I slipped that one in for you dear) or the little issue of the incredible amount of incredible people I have in my damn near perfect life.

Speaking of people in my life, I need to include a special tribute today to my big sister Cory, just for making me laugh. If I were in a confessing mood I may tell you that sometimes, just sometimes, I include statements in my web rants that are intended just to provoke her into a reaction. All you who know her will acknowledge that she can be a cantankerous, miserable, pontificating, opinionated, old bitch, but I also bet that all you who know her would not want to change her one little bit. When I grow up I want to be just like her. I got the pontificating part down already.

Which makes me ask myself…..how did someone as quiet and gentle as my Mom, birth such an incredible horde of brash, loudmouthed idiots, such as the bunch of people I call my family? Hmmm?

Maybe we’re all adopted?

I would also like to thank those special anonymous people who frequently send me notes offline. I often wish they would share more publicly as you would not believe the terrific inspiration I have received from several friends and family, but I also respect and appreciate that not everyone is as noisy as I am.

Some people think before they preach!

I wish to dedicate day 114 to Stan Trojek. The wonderful old gentleman upon who’s farm we now live. I wonder how he’s doing?

So on wasteful attitudes…

“Thoughtless risks are destructive of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity”---Gary Ryan Blair

And on the perfect training regimen…

“Every year I went to the starting line feeling I had it all figured out. Every year I was wrong”---Mark Allen (6 time Hawaii Ironman winner)

And on airplanes and the like…

I went to the airport the other day and the stewardess told me to get on the plane. I said, “Fuck that, I’m getting in the plane. It’s much nicer inside”---George Carlin

Love
peter