i'm not dead teho

and here's what i need for xmas.


3 pls.

my dog is hot

- have a good walk? - D asked last night when the dog and i got in just before dark.
- yes. a couple people stopped and said what a good-looking dog.
- were they guys?
- erm... yeah.
he snorted.
- what?
- total pickup line.
- i don't think so. he IS a good-looking dog.

that, and clad in an XXL Hate '90 shirt and court shorts down to my knees, cradling my sore swollen belly, bruises pooling from wrist to elbow and greyly po-faced i'm hardly pickup line material. but men are from mars and finns are from Blue.

3rd & 10

a beautiful day yesterday. slept in instead of swimming and in the afternoon blew off a RBRBRBR BTW workout to watch delcastle scrimmage against howard & st george's. i'd sidled in on utter whim but immediately became part of the scene, folded into a mix of siblings, parents and teachers who'd collected in the stands on a perfect day in august to watch a bunch of high school kids score a touchdown every 45min. a girl who melted me with her marion jones smile rubbed her little brother's shoulders while he squirmed with pleasure. the fathers of squashed and spindled players tromped heavily down the risers to confab with the physical therapist – we wrapped the ankle, just ice it tonight and we won't run him tomorrow/it's just a jammed finger, nothing to worry about/he's a tough kid, he'll be fine tomorrow – and smiled at me on the way back up, relief smoothing the corners of their eyes. a big, big man who to this day holds penns grove school records in the 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100 relay railed against clewless assistant coaches and the questionable wisdom of spending money on computers instead of hiring quality coaches who would “get those skinny fuckers in the gym and put some meat on their bones.” we held our collective breath when another boy crumpled on the field and the players went down on bended knee, and we clapped when the trainer resurrected him.

i didn't intend to sit there for 2 hours, didn't intend to be there in the first place, but it was an unexpected pleasure and i left reconstituted.

it is good to be free.

nice crack, asshat

well guess who went and ran when they shouldn't have and turned a 3rd metatarsal stress fracture into a full-bore break:

NOT ME!!! that's my teammate iPimp's crack. it's doubly ironic, like rain on your wedding day AND your first communion, that we should suffer the same injury in the same foot, verily on the same bone. only iPimp REALLY fucked his ship up and now he's Booted 24-7 and and can't ride, not even the rollers, and can't do the EFX or elliptical (read: no excuse to check out jack on the rowing machine or doing pushups orSTOP the train,kay). he can, however, pool-run, so i may soon have company for my misery.

- what did you DO? - i emailed iPimp.
- Well, I had a stress fracture for a while, and thought it was better... so ran in a local du... got 3rd and after that... went to Vegas... by the time the plane landed my foot was so huge I couldn't get my shoe on... did you know they sell crutches at 11pm on a Saturday night on the Vegas strip? LOL. I was 4mm away from surgery... I asked the Foot Dr (Tell me, why are they always so small? Like hardly 5'5') I asked when can I start even the smallest bit of training, he said anything with the legs would be at least 4-5 weeks....

lesson lock stock & barrel-delivered. there will be NO runninks on the tready for me for at least another week.

but, all is not gloom & doom according to iPimp:
Das Boot can fit a flask, and an amazingly huge boot-knife.

when obama wins....

toilet tanks won't sweat anymore, pasta will always be al dente & gluten-free, and jameson will come out of my kitchen faucet.

also, we won't see crappy powerpoint presentations like this anymore. in fact, ppt will just go away. so will MS Turd.

and when obama wins, shit like this won't happen:

there. i've made a deal with your devil.

what else?
you go to here now.

the irish blog awards, and The Oracle

first of all, congrats to fatmammycat and twenty major for representin (FMC in spirit) at the irish blog awards saturday nite. FMC took best post award; twenty snagged most humorous post and best blog overall. congrats to both, and to arseblog for winning best sport blog.

now, let us speak of sport, which i don't do often because i know that playing with dust particles is more exciting than reading about so-and-so's training plan, unless so-and-so happens to be your competition and if you are my competition then i have done this blogging thing wrong wrong all wrong.

to some people, having the right coach is the difference between an All-American season and one that ends in june when you're burnt out on the sofa reading Lucky magazine and eating Mallomars. finding a proper coach can be an arduous process, and having just gone through it myself i feel qualified to offer this guide called:

HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT MULTISPORT COACH FOR YOU:
A GUIDE FOR DUMBFUCKS ACCUSTOMED TO FLYING BY THE SEAT OF THEIR PANTS AND SETTING UP THEIR BIKES IN TRANSITION AS THE STARTGUN SOUNDS

step #1. undergo a rude awakening. finding out that qualifiers for long-course duathlon (run-bike-run) worlds are only a month away is very effective. attendant upon this awareness are these realities:

• - your first race of the season will be a worlds qualifier
• - your second race will be another worlds qualifier (for short course), 3 weeks later
• - you are just now coming off base. you have done NO speedwork.
  
• - you will be off the bike for 11 consecutive days this month
• - you are fucked
• - you need professional help
• - your bowels are hot, roiling liquid

2. while you're in the bathroom, text all your friends who have coaches and ask whether it's too late to get connected with them (it is MARCH, after all). don't discriminate, blanketbomb. beggars can't be choosers.

3. back at your desk, stare at your unresponsive phone and then recall a crazy pipedream idea E proposed on a ride. send an email to the 2004 elite world duathlon champion and throw yourself at his mercy, esplainin' you're seeking training & racing advice from someone who's:

• - experienced, and successful
  
• - okay training by feel not numbers, and not all caught up in heart-rate, wattages, V02 max or lactate-threshold. some people dig that shit. not me.
  
• - appreciative of the fact there's life outside training and racing. there's whisk(e)y, for one, and 65hr work weeks.
  
• - unlikely to get on your tits too bad if you spend a weekend in the boozetank or battling the Dog, instead of riding a bike.
  

4. SQUEEEEE when he says yes and run back to the bathroom.

so now, for the first time i have an Oracle to guide me and reveal certain truths -- like if i wish to place top 2 in my AG in carrboro, NC on april 6th i need to get on a bike as often as i can during those 11 days in scotland.

so, finn's world has undergone a seismic shift, and instead of lazily slouching toward a half-ironman in june we are rabbiting into race shape for april. huzzah! -and i need a nap.

in which i bring The Heat

FattyTime is done; long live FattyTime. it's succeeded by the more enthusiastic, yet patient brother Base, to be followed sometime in march by Speed, who cracks a jagged whip and makes you weep into your pint afterward.

but that is later; for now it's miles and meters and yards galore. a new tri team's formed in the area and i started swimming with them on saturday mornings at the ungodly hour of 7am. i've found though that there are many benefits to getting in the pool that early on a weekend, to wit:
1. it's good reason cut down on the friday night hooch.

okay, there's ONE benefit. but it's a biggie.

tomorrow will be my third swim with these guys. last week i thought my arms were going to fall off during a set of 200s, but coach promoted me a lane and though that may be temporary the other outcome i don't believe is.
- you got a nickname now - brian informed me as we stood at the wall recovering.
- a nickname?
oh dear. it can't be any worse than Moose. can it?
- yeah. eric's dubbed you The Heat.
i leaned around bri to question the dubber.
- The Heat?
- yeah - eric clarified - cos when you get into the pool steam comes off the top and the water gets warmer. The Heat. or 212 for short.
i am irrationally pleased. i feel like i'm in 4th grade and made the first round of selections in dodgeball.
- i really have a nickname??? - and a cool one at that.
- you do. welcome to the club.

my shoulders and back ached 'til sunday night, but it was worth it.

in FattyTime...

in FattyTime, after you do anywhere between a third and half of the prescribed workout at tues nite track, it is okay to sit down for a while. 

- what's good in the land of finn? - laf asked, dropping beside me.

fucking that was a tuffie.  christmas, which is so simple for kids -- you leave snickerdoodles on a plate by the fireplace and the next morning there is a new bike for you -- becomes a tangled, fraught affair as you delicately balance family, friends and people you'd rather never see ever again.   what's good indeed.

- wellllll i got four strikes in my second game today.  

loucypher, huggy bear and i went to a client-sponsored bowling party.  when i wasn't pitching my ball into the gutter, i was notching strikes and spares.  i'm like donovan mcnabb!- i told my teammates.  they were less charmed than i'd hoped.  

laf and i talked about how non-athletes wrongly assume that, as athletes, we should excel at anything that involves movement, when in reality anything that requires coordinated movement is something we'll unequivocally suck at.  we bitched, commiserated and laughed while watching runners pacing through 500s.  our bench soon accrued sir oliver, teej and il divo.  fisch crossed the track to fetch a foam roller from the equipment room.  hands on hips, he surveyed the black rebel motorcycle club.

- what, you think i couldn't see all of you from over there?

i gave him a big gappy grin.

- what are you doing? - he asked.

- it's december - i explained - it's FattyTime.

- the more people we get here, the faster everyone else will finish, and the sooner we'll be at the deer park - laf clarified.

in FattyTime this equation always holds true: 

[oz of post-track guinness consumed] x 100 > [meters run]

it's FattyTime

before the workout last night, coach ran through past and upcoming events, then opened the floor.
- any other items of note? - he inquired. standing next to me, A murmured a response.
- yeah, Finn gained 10 pounds.
i snorted & retorted.
- you're one to talk. did you "forget" to go to the pool again this morning?
- HA. yes.

friends, it is FattyTime ah FattyTime when the living is easy.
/ when at 5am you drive right past the gym to the dunkin donuts.
/ in fact, sometimes you sleep IN until 5 -- or even 5:30!!
/ there are no double-workout days, and if you want to take a day, or two, or three off, you do, without excoriating yourself.
/ dinners don't have to be at least 40% carbs; and with no hard morning workouts to load for, pints of ice cream last longer (but bottles of wine don't).
/ in FattyTime if you show at tues nite track you're there for the people, not the workouts, and during FattyTime you appreciate the scenery you normally charge by armed with focus and purpose.

that's not to say there is not a down-side to FattyTime, as i discovered over thanksgiving when i hopped on a scale for the first time since worlds. and this weekend when D and i got in the car to go to EMS i had a minor skirmish with the seatbelt.
- what's wrong? - he asked - belly in the way?
- it's going to be a long wintery winter. you'd do well to get insulated too.

conventional training wisdom says that as long as you stay within 10% of your normal body weight you needn't fret. still, A and i did marvel at how quickly we porked up since du worlds and xterra nats. laf too -- i hear his mom's sausage & peppers in breathing signif more labored now than in summertime.

the beauty about FattyTime is that it's fleeting; and as rudy said, once you get into base in january and feb those sausage & pepper, flapjacks & extra syrpul, bowls of whole-milk yogurt & granola will gradually melt away. at least that's what i'm banking on.

but to keep us in check, laf emailed me this pic, with the subject line If You Keep Gaining Weight....

countdown to richmond: 1+ week

in the bank is another week, such as it was. getting my ass out the door in the afternoon has become a mental battle, and many times the bike loses out to the hammock. during an ez ride, E attempted to console me.
- it's all just polishing, right? i mean, you're talking about workouts that will give you a fraction of a degree of improvement.
- i suppose.
- really, it's the hours you put in a month ago that are going to help you out in richmond.
an awkward silence ensues.
- you mean the hours i racked up in maine.
- with the gin. yeah, those.

we sensibly abandoned this subject for a discussion about the top-speed of armadillos and whether or not they're capable of "scampering." E says to scamper all you need is legs, while i argued to afford scamperability there has to be a level of spinal flexibility, which your average armadillo don't got. clearly this calls for more research, pref performed on a beach in st. john with a mojito in one hand and iphone in t'other.

this week i eeked out only one quality workout, a greg watson special [cos i figure who better to (try to) emulate than the duathon world champ several times over]; to wit:
warm up - run 2.5 miles - ride 5 miles - run 2.5 - ride 5 - run 2.5 - cooldown.
this workout's supposed to be done at race pace. it wasn't, but it was done. period.

when i got on the bike, however, i was warmed-up from the run, so i bombed the descent on my twisty, rough road that may resemble parts of the purportedly technical, potholed richmond bike course. as i dodged potholes and shot tangents i thought if this is what richmond's like, the bike will be a blast. hills, tight turns and road challenges may give me a leg up over the Tiny People... unless upon meeting the course's bumps and grates the Tiny People fling their water bottles or Tiny Bodies in front of me, in which case we're all fucked.

so.
it is friday. Eat, drink, and be merry / For tomorrow we die.

maine, in numbers

days in maine: 14

read by finn
books: 3 ¹
magazine back issues: 9 ²
newspapers: 0

consumed by finn
fifths of gin: 1 gordons, 1.5 tanqueray
liter bottles of tonic: about a quarter
gargantuan ice cream sundaes at Gillmores: 3 ³
six-packs of Redbridge gluten-free beer: 2.5 ⁴
12-packs of coors light: 0.75 ⁵
bottles of wine: 8 ⁶
lobsters: 3
tablespoons of butter per lobster: ~4
1-lb bags of skittles: 1.5 ⁷

activities performed by finn
early-morning swims: 0
skinny-dips: 5 ⁸
times D said to me you can read ANYwhere: 5
times i told him leave me alone i'm reading: 5
BJs: 2
fish caught: 9 ⁹
keepers: 0
kayak trips to pickerel cove: 7
times i considered not kayaking back: 7
times i kayaked back: 7
bear, moose and mink sightings: 0
dead, skinned beaver-hanging-from-a-tree sightings: 1
flicks watched on the Lapple (cos u kno i had to bring it): 3 ¹⁰

in summary, aside from kayaking to molest pickerel (many bites; none hooked), i didn't do much in maine but read and drink. 'twas a far cry from L's june visit, which included water-skiing, mtn biking, running and flinging off the rope swing; but it was exactly what i needed.

¹ the last Harry Potter book (HP and the SomethingSomething), Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, and I am Charlotte Simmons. Hannibal Rising doesn't figure in because the writing was so atrocious i was skimming after page10, snuffling for the salacious truffly bits, of which there were too few to justify this book IMHO. i don't know what exactly happened to thomas harris, but sometime after Red Dragon and Hannibal the firstust, dude lost his muse.
² Running Times, Runners World, Inside Tri, Tri-geke and The New Yorker
³ or, everytime i got dragged to walmart.
⁴ made from sorghumyum.
⁵ for lunch, yo. i know CL doesn't count as beer.
⁶ i had help here.
⁷ kept me awake at the wheel for the 15-hour drive.
⁸ not counting baths in the lake.
⁹ small-mouth bass.
¹⁰ American History X, 'Pocalypse Now, and Fight Club.

more pix on flickr.

this time next week

this time next week i will be sitting on a dock in maine reading the last Harry Pooter book with nothing on the iCal except for happy hour.

here are pix from june, when LAF & friends were up there. pretty chillin, eh?

breakfast

1 orange
2 plums
1 BIG peach
cluster of grapes
3/4 pint blueberries
handful of strawberries
1 apple

clean fuel, homies. if you're a fruit bat.

TV party tonight!!

nurse ratched and i got out of the pool at the same time this morning, and while we dressed we engaged in the kind of small talk necessary between two naked people in close proximity.

- any vacation plans? - i asked.
- i'm going to rehobeth for two weeks in august with some girlfriends. you?
- going to maine for a couple weeks in september. to a cabin on a lake with no electricity, no running water, no tv, no phone. i can't wait.

the nurse frowned and looked skeptical. i've handled this response, but before i could explain there's propane that will run a refrigerator, oven and lights, she spoke.

- that sounds nice except for the tv part. i don't know if i could go without tv.

that's the first time i've gotten that response, and i didn't know how to respond without sounding princetonian, so i smiled weakly and lied. - it takes some getting used to.

E did alert me to the fact that if there's no electricity, there's no way to charge the Lapple. now THIS has triggered some consternation on my part. i can pump my own water, shit in an outhouse, and forego bad television, but give up my mac for 2 weeks??

I sit glued to my Mac Book Pro all night
And every night!
Why go into the outside world at all?
It's such a fright!

Buddyhead will get you free shit

i learned this morning that this shirt will get you free coffee and a dozen Dunkin Donuts for the price of 6 at the kw hwy DD, compliments of your friendly hardcore counter help. (the tall skinny guy with all the piercings. whist!)

i am in a shitty mood because rudy informed me yesterday afternoon that i've torn my hamstring again -- not as bad as the first time -- and i didn't get much sleep because i started reading The Raw Shark Texts last night and could not stop.

so i'm sleepy and i hate the world, and then some guy gives me a break cos he likes my shirt. here's where i could be all blog-closurely and claim i feel so much better but even with that act of kindness my shit's still torn, my head still throbs and and i still want to be the fuck alone.

The Raw Shark Texts is really good, though: well-written, unusual plotline and unputdownable. recommended by mark danielewski and rightfully so.

MINE.

my FunnyBike has arrived. i took it for a test ride yesterday before the snow, sleet and "unknown precipitation" dropped. if you look closely at the top tube you can probably see where my drippy dnose baptised it.

what it is:

• - light, for a time-trial bike
• - a lot smoother on the road than my road bike (difference between carbon and aluminum)
• - surprisingly comfortable, even when you're not aero
• - 10-speed, running off a 12-25 cassette. a 25!! (read: total grannie gear for someone used to a 21)
• - full Dura-Ace. none of this campy eurodog snobbery
• - fucking sweet, and a lot of bike for the money, especially when your team sponsorship gets you half MSRP.

what it isn't:

• - an excuse.

i can't use the rationale of running a jacked road bike as justification for a shitty performance against pros with their lightspeed Blades. no more. i'll have to come up with more creative excuses.

i had some experience with this yesterday as i dragged my sorry ass up another chester county climb, falling off D's wheel halfway up, tormented by ouroboros loops of the "another train" song keith brand played during Sleepy Hollow:
there's another train
there always is
maybe the next one is yours
get up and climb aboard
[repeat eleventy billion times]

if you want to torment yourself likewise, you can click here, but i really don't advise it. i'll give you some better stuff in a minute.

anyway, i arrived at the top of the hill, bedraggled and broken but at least not crying like i've been known to do trying to stick to D's wheel and he says he says to me
- it's a good thing we didn't pass any other cyclists, me with my commuter bike with my fender and bento bag, dropping the world-class duathlete with the four-thousand dollar FunnyBike. you'd never live that down.

lots of retorts sprung to mind, like
- fuck you.
- fuck you, i ran 14 miles yesterday. on the road, which beats you up a lot more than trail.
- you're a DUDE. [i hate this excuse, but as FMC has observed it's depressingly accurate sometimes, unless we're talking about a marathon.]
- i fear i've got some stenosis issues in my left iliac now, but the idea of another bypass is a serious bummer.
- i'm 10lbs overweight and it's your fault for romancing me with pints of Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra.
- no wait just fuck you.

all this i thought but what i said was
- thank god for that 25.

it sucks to be overweight and mortal, and it sucks to get old.

but here's new nails (this Me one and this Twilight one), and this is some good stuff -- or MinimalTrent is finally growing on me.

benefits of being a multi-sport athlete

this morning terry and i left the Y's shower room at the same time.

-- hi! haven't seen you for a while -she said brightly. were you on vacation?
-- nope. just sleeping in.
-- oh, that's nice. did you come in later?
-- no, just stayed lazy for a couple weeks.
she looked at me blankly.
-- what, don't you ever do that? - i asked.
-- oh no. i'm afraid if i did i'd never come back.

much respect to the terrys of the world, for whom fitness is work and diligence. it is easy to do something you love.

after 2 weeks it was soooo nice to get back in the water. like a little kid on christmas eve i DREAMED about swimming last night and was not disappointed this morning. sure i'm slow and i didn't even attempt fly, but that will come back.

in february.
it's still FattyTime.
and i'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.