"Deja Vu"

It was like Bill Murrays groundhog day. I woke up to the same music as yesterday blaring from my Blackberry, and that same decidedly frustrating question in my mind, “Why am I doing this shit??”
Except today it was different shit and a whole lot earlier. I needed to be up at 5 am to catch a flight out of Detroit, and as you well know, just getting up in the morning annoys me, let alone at that hour. I hope that at the end of the day I can say the same thing as yesterday, that I will understand why I do this shit. I’ll let you know. Maybe if Colby was with me I could promise it, but right now the jury is still out. At the moment I’m sitting on the plane in Detroit which in itself was an “almost not” kind of thing. Usually I check in on-line from home but even if I do, I still need to swipe my passport at the airport so I just didn’t bother. That’s why I didn’t find out until I got there that I didn’t actually have a ticket. I don’t know what went wrong but apparently I had a reservation but no e-ticket. I will tell you, I came this close to calling the driver to take me back home, but in the end, and after a bit of stress, I paid for the ticket with my credit card and proceeded through security. I do have obligations which are not so easily shrugged off.
I suppose I could change that real quickly if I wanted to, but that would also mean not having an income. And since I may live for a long time yet I have to be smart eh? I guess that’s the problem with taking care of your health. It could be more expensive in the long run. If only my children were independently wealthy I could think about living off of them, but that doesn’t seem like a pending danger! So it’s off to work I go.

This may seem a bit ironic but I believe that once the Ironman is over I will enjoy work more again. It’s so hard to focus on both things at once, let alone all the complications of life’s other challenges(read that as meaning children), and somehow it leaves me in a constant state of anxiety. I don’t like to admit that because I’m gonna get shit from Old John, but it is what it is. Right now I choose not to give up my job or my training, and as such I need to hang in there . Wish me luck!

One good thing this morning is that I got my favorite seat again on this Embraer 175. I’m right behind business class, I have more leg room than them with no one beside me, and I’m eating my delicious (if cold) Sausage McMuffin with egg, while they are eating raisin bran…ha, ha ha! And I have another one for later along with my low fat milk. I’m finally learning to plan my nutrition better while travelling.

I’m a little bit nervous about my arrival in Monterrey because I rented a car this time instead of having a driver pick me up. Monterrey is a huge city and I have to drive to a neighboring community where the plant is located. Being picked up is convenient and stress free but it leaves me always at some one else’s mercy when I get there, and I like to have my independence. Once I’ve done it one time I will be ok for the future.

It’s funny how certain fears I’m always ready to face up to because I know that once challenged they will go away, and other things I keep procrastinating, even though I suspect that I will feel better about those things as well. One example is calling Jon, and trying to maintain some kind of contact. I have not talked to him since he called at Christmas, and despite repeated coaching from Claudette I have continued to put off picking up the phone. I guess it’s like Tony Robbins says…I associate more pain with talking to him than with not talking to him….the exact same problem addicts have for that matter. Maybe I need to do the same thing as I do with this blog as relates to my ironman…make a public commitment so that there’s no backing out?

I know the next 4 days are going to be tough from the training perspective because my mind keeps telling me to do more. I was so tired last night that I turned my weight session into primarily a stretching session and yet I’m afraid to take time off. I will try my damndest to relax today and tomorrow and then perhaps try to spend some time on a treadmill on Thursday. I get back late Friday and will try to get a short run in then as well so overall it may be ok. I know that my endurance continues to improve and yet sometimes when I think of the scope of the undertaking it seems so formidable. Yesterday I raced for 1 ½ hours, and 3 months from now I need to do the same thing for an entire day! I’m still not saying how long it will take me, even though I have my goal time firmly in mind now. Maybe later….I don’t want to disappoint anyone if I don’t do what I say.

I'm now at my hotel after landing safely in Monterrey but getting from there to Salitllo was a bit of an adventure still, again on account of poor planning. First off I somehow lost my map to the plant and so I had to go online before I left the airport. Then when I pulled up to the first tool booth I said oh-oh....something else I knew about but forgot. Thank goodness that they took US dollars which I happened to have a few of...well more than a few actually...closer to twenty!

There are still some people wearing masks both at the airport and here at the hotel. At lot of them were just hanging around their necks however as if it were a company policy, loosely enforced. The funny part was that at the airport they made you fill out a form asking a bunch of medical questions, and if you answered them wrong you got the pleasure of talking to a medic before you entered the country. I can't imagine anyone being silly enought to answer yes to any of the "have you had a cough etc" questions, and as such I don't think the doctor was doing much business

That’s about it for today I suppose. I hope all is well with everyone listening out there, and I hope you don’t get tired of my ramblings. I suppose that’s a needless fear however, because as they say, “those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter”

I wish to dedicate day 244 to Patty Fraustro, who always flawlessly arranges my travel and accommodations in Saltillo, and does it with a smile!

“Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time."---Stephen Wright

“I went to a fancy french restaurant called "Deja Vu." The headwaiter said, "Don't I know you?"---Rod Schmidt

Love
peter