The race is nine weeks away, but who’s counting the days? This week was a recovery week, so everything was a little less intense and a little shorter. Now I go into five weeks of “tough”. Next week is the Ironman camp at Madison with Multisports, the week after is an intense Ironman specific week (and the weekend of Jean’s race-GO JEAN), and the week after is the Steelhead Half Ironman back in my “so-called” home town of St. Joseph. The following two weeks are the longest bikes and longest runs in the 24 week program.
We moved to St. Joe in between my 6th and 7th grades, moved away right after I graduated from high school and I haven’t really been back much since. I’ve always called it the town I grew up in, but when I went to my 40th class reunion last night, I didn’t know anyone. Jean and I spent $80 for hors- d’ouvres and left after an hour. Out of 280+ kids there were 50 or so there. Most of them had been at each reunion thus far and knew everyone else.
Not only did I not know them by sight, I would look at the name tags and the names didn’t ring any bells. As always, people seemed to congregate around the jocks, the cheerleaders and the homecoming queen. I wasn’t a high school jock and, luckily, I wasn’t a cheerleader or queen either. As I told Jean on the elevator out of the yacht club, at least we didn’t have to block out our calendar 10 years from now for “The Big 50th”.
Yesterday Bill, Larry and I went for a recovery ride. It was supposed to be at heart rate 1 but I couldn’t keep it there. We did the same route as last week, only 20 minutes longer, and I was still in HR 2 most of the time. Some of the hills got me into high HR 3.
Shortly into the ride, somehow the conversation went from “I thought there was a restaurant in Banfield”, to “There was a great restaurant at Gilkey Lake called the Gilkey Lake Tavern”, to “Remember when they turned that place into a topless joint?”. Bill complained a little about being the “center subject” of the last couple of e-mails and was afraid the students at Lakewood would get the wrong impression of him. So when the conversation went to “The dancers there were the rejects from all the topless bars in Kalamazoo, Battle Creek and Lansing”, and “Yeah, instead of having 38-Ds they were 42-Longs”, I promised I wouldn’t say who said what. OK, Bill? You’re welcome.
Bill tells me he has been asked several times if the statement about ejaculating 21 times a month to minimize prostate problems was true. I think some of the questions are from men who want to tape a printed copy of the article to their wife’s pillow, and some are from wives who want to burn the article before their husbands see it. At any rate, ask Bill. I’m only the messenger.
Larry kept stopping on the ride yesterday at the side of the road. I counted four times but it could have been more. Larry, being a retired Navy pilot and current Delton Middle School teacher, couldn’t have been relieving himself because public urination is against the law, and I’m sure he wants to continue to be a role model to his own kids and students. I finally figured out that he must be rinsing the dust and bugs from his bike shoes with a rinse bottle because there was a stream of water each time. I asked him if that’s what he was doing as I passed him and he said yes, so I know it’s the truth.
Better go. It’s warm and the beach needs raking.
Just (Ready to Get It Over With) Jack