WHAT is this?? : )

Ok, this has nothing to do with anything, but I ran across this picture and it just made me laugh out loud. I can't explain why.

As previously noted in the poop blog, I am embarrassed by what I find funny. What do you think this man is doing? More to the point, what is the FISH doing? LOL.

I flew back from 75 degree sunny Arizona weather two days ago to 10 degrees and snow in Boulder. There have been VERY few days, so far, I would have described Boulder as cold (unmanageably so for me), but the last couple would be described as such.

Yesterday it was 9 degrees. Lovely. I was one of the few seriously deranged people who swam outside. I admit that the FAC water is warm but man-oh-man, the run to and from the indoors elicited quite a yalp!

Denny Meeker was the other freak in the pool with me. We rallied and Denny decided to join my workout. After our 5 x 200 set, we did a 4 x 150 pull set. Before which, a man jumped into my lane. Denny, the guy and I chatted a bit before we started, the guy said he hadn't been in the pool for a while, was really out of shape, yada yada, and soon enough Denny and I began our set. After we finished the first 150 and were stopped at the wall, I teasingly said to Denny, "Single man in the pool, babeee!" (Denny is dating our favorite, Laura Tingle, so I certainly wasn't meaning him.) He spit out some water in a giggle at my comment as we pushed off for the second one.

At the wall this time I smiled coyly to say, "Single woman under 35 looks down at his shorts. Single woman over 35 looks down at his left hand!" :) Denny laughed out loud at that.
"That's funny, Sharpie!", he laughed.

As we began the 3rd one, a woman got into Denny's lane (next to mine). Bless her heart, she was loaded up with all kinds of gear.
"Bless her heart", by the way, is the southern, polite code for "stupid, F*** idiot". :) By the time Denny and I finished up our 4th one, the woman was wearing swimmer gloves, flippers, and a scuba mask with snorkel! I kid you not. I saw that and couldn't help but start to laugh, I'm sorry. Combine that with my lane-mate who, true to his word of being out of shape, was flopping all over the lane like a fish out of water -- it was a FREAK SHOW going on the pool.

"It's like Ringling Bros in here!!!!", I joked to Denny as he laughed.

"Put your finger in the blow hole of the snorkel and see what she does!", I encouraged. Denny is the nicest guy on the planet and would never do any sort of prank to anyone .... (that's partly why I tried to encourage him to do it! I knew he never would.)
In his typical patient, parental tone he said, "No, Sharpie. We're not doing it."

"C'mon!!!" I laughed.
He didn't do it. :)

As all of this was going on, it had started snowing. Now I wouldn't call it a BLIZZARD, but it was snowing! My pull buoy had frozen to the deck and it was almost covered in snow. I just couldn't shake the idea how disconcerting this was!!
It is one thing to swim outside in the summer rain. It is quite another to be OUTSIDE in temps under 10 degrees, with snow hitting you during the swim. On one hand it is kind of freaky-different, on the other, there is something just NOT RIGHT about it. :)

Anywhooo, I managed 3k, said goodbye to my partner-in-crime Meeker and hauled ass back inside, screaming the whole way.

I thawed in the shower for about 20:00, put on 16 layers, and schlepped out to my car in my thick Ugg Boots. On the back window of my car in the parking lot, scribed in the snow, was a message: Call me bitch
:)
I knew instantly who it was. Who else would write that? Brandon. :)

It was.

Greetings from Phoenix, AZ.

My Timex partner-in-crime, my little hottie Rachel Ross, keeps getting on me about posting pictures in my blogs. "You NEED the pics, Sharpie!", she'll advise. "It just makes them more interesting."

Never let it be said I want to be boring. :)

Unfortunately, I have no pics in this blog, but I am trying to be better about doing it. I just need to remember the stupid camera when I am at functions. I never do.

So... I came to AZ to work the expo for the Phoenix Rock & Roll Marathon on behalf of Trakkers (www.trakkersgps.com) and had a great time! I've been working with the company head, Charlie Patten, to help introduce the product to the mainstream, and also select Team Trakkers 2009 who will endorse the product. It has been such an awesome opportunity to get to meet athletes from all over the country. It will be VERY difficult to narrow down the applicants to our small team group. Everyone seems very excited about the Trakkers concept and seem eager for product launch in June at the Rev3tri.com race. It will be quite the show!

While in Phoenix I had the pleasure of doing some workouts with the Racelab team. (www.racelab.com). They are an awesome group, all of them, and I encourage anyone in the Phoenix area looking for a tri club to look into this team. Andy Kreb, the suave and witty :) dude in charge of sponsors, has been working with me to bring Trakkers on as a sponsor for their team.

Andy invited me to their team swim workout at ASU Wednesday morning at 6am.

I try to swim at the Arizona State pool any chance I get (although U of A is, admittedly, my favorite. There is a radio underwater! Love that!) so happily accepted the invitation to swim with them at this pool. Their head coach, Bettina Warnholtz, led the swim.

I kind of laughed during the workout, truth be told, because - let's be honest - the workout was definitely off-season and not something I would have normally done. No criticism intended, drills and lots of rest, etc., is VERY appropriate for January and necessary for non-swimmers ... but swimmers don't need that shit. :) I decided just to enjoy it, and take it as a "vacation day" since JZ never lets us do drills or chat between sets or get sickening amounts of rest. She's our swim Nazi.

I also didn't want to be rude and launch into my own swim workout when Racelab so kindly invited me to join. So as a group we did a bunch of drills, some of which I had honestly never even heard of before, so that was cool, and everyone joked and laughed between each 50, exchanging jabs when possible. I fit right in! :) My kind of people. I don't think my HR got above 120 for the whole 50:00 swim workout but I really enjoyed myself and met some of the coolest people!

I guess I passed the initiation because they invited me to track workout that evening at 7pm. Andy offered to pick me up at a mutually convenient meeting spot so I didn't have to drive the whole way. How nice is he?

(Toto -- we're NOT in Boulder anymore. Oh Lord - the DRIVING again! I have gotten so spoiled in Boulder and rarely ever drive more than 5-miles in one shot for anything. This 30:00-40:00 car commute thing took about 1 day to start making me CRAZY.)

Let me assure you that these little Racelab bastards :) COMPLETELY got even at Track from the swim. I kept reminding myself that I have only done a handful of runs, 30:00-50:00 in duration, in the last year and a half. These people were fit. There was no way I would keep up so I needed to keep perspective -- but I did think I would hold my own better than I did. I had my ass and pride handed to me on a paper plate. Not even a silver platter - tonight it was paper. I was dead last for each 400m repeat, behind some old-timers and newbies who should have been eating my dust for lunch. ;) Instead, holy crap, at 9:00/mile pace I was huffing and puffing and just hoping I wouldn't hurl in front of them. I had a pro triathlete image to uphold. I didn't need the negative press. :) (Note the sarcasm.)

At one point Andy came over and put his arm around me to keep my morale going. "You're doing great!", he encouraged. I had to laugh at that. My face was beat red, I was bent over, and kept begging everyone to end the track session early and go out for Pizza instead. (Now EATING is the arena in which I will defeat EVERYONE!)

Andy knew it was pretty much among my first sessions back, and he was so kind to try to keep me going. I know I didn't look too happy. I laughed because normally I am the one in group settings to keep morale high. But man, bring my fat ass to a running track and the men get separated from the boys ... and I am a CHERUB! :) I appreciated that on this night, the positive encouragement came back to me.

Karma is very illuminating. Things really do shine back as you put out.

On Saturday I am doing a ride with Kevin's group out of Tribe Multisport in Scottsdale. He's promised me fun - and promised a camera on hand... so I will make every effort to post pics.

Team Mascot

No, it isn't Brandon! :)

Billy and Lara recently got a puppy, and our group has adopted him as our mascot. Meet Bogart, canine of cuteness.

Expect to see this cute little furball at many of our training sessions and races. He'll be the one near me, 'cause I am his favorite Aunt. :)

Team Rides....

This morning to escape the Colorado cold, the group met at JZ's for 2+ hours of torture on our bikes.

Forget what they tell you about women always being late. Our boys can be counted on, consistently, for lateness. As JZ says, "But we can depend on them to be late!" Tru dat! Our 9am start time didn't get going until almost 10am...

Once we finally got going, the group definitely works together to keep us all on it.

Billy tells the stories .... today was a joke about apples and a story about some kid born without a butthole! (??) .... Brandon tells us about his date number 3, or how only he could have had a date with 2 people not knowing they were roommates! .... JZ corrects us to keep all the stories and quotes accurate ... and Carole sings off-key to whatever song is blaring from the radio.

We each have our role! :) And each of us can be counted on to keep the laughs going. We are a good, compatible group.

Brandon's side of it....

Funny post from Brandon's perspective about the poop....

http://www.bdcinla.blogspot.com/

"The Poop in the Pool Incident of 2009"

After my bidet story, you are going to start to think I have a fetish for things related to the butt. I can't deny that I find these things incredibly funny, but I am a well-rounded individual. I find other things funny, too ..... perhaps not as much though. :)

So... the poop in the pool incident of 2009.
OH LORD - what has happened NOW??

Let me start by highlighting the dynamics of our training pod of 4.

Billy is a Marine. Everything about him screams MARINE --- except he has the softest, sweetest side more than any "I can break your neck with my bare hands" Marine I have ever known. Having grown up near the Naval Academy, and gone to college not far from Camp Lejeune, I have known my fair share. Billy is steady, calculated and normal. (Normal in the idiosyncratic way of being normal. If he really was "normal", we all wouldn't fit as we do. Billy definitely has his funny quirks that will no doubt be revealed on my blog from time to time.)

JZ, Brandon and I are beyond immature. We each find potty humor incredibly hilarious. Any mention of a joke or story to include poop, or the act of pooping, will collapse us in belly laughter. We always point out to one another that we are so embarrassed by what we find funny.

Billy definitely keeps us all in line and rolls his eyes at us at how stupid we are. We love to tease Billy -- watching his face grimace and his eyes bug out when we mention anything "homosexual" is hilarious. His reactions to things are usually what spur us on to continue.

So, what happened? On Christmas Eve, Mark & JZ picked me up en route to Matt and Kelly Reed's holiday party. There was a huge spread of food and yummy treats. Kelly did an awesome job hosting the evening. In one bowl of food contained a pile of black potatoes --- I had never seen anything like this before. Unless you looked closely, it looked like a bowl of poop. No lie. I grabbed one of the potatoes in a napkin and showed it to JZ, saying, "Put this on Mark's side of the bed!"

She laughed. "Oh my GOD. What is THAT?"

"I have no idea, it's in the bowl". I pointed to the kitchen table.

Everyone in the circle said they were potatoes and talked about how much they looked like real poop. I then started to laugh myself senseless and told JZ I was going to keep one of the potatoes until Billy (and Lara) got back from VA and Brandon got back from CA --- and I would put it in the pool during our next swim session. Joanna thought the idea was hysterical, adding "put some corn on it!" LOL. Yuck! :)

Yesterday was the first Saturday our pod of 4 was back together for swim workouts. I discreetly dropped the poop-like potato in the pool (think Babyruth from "Caddyshack" movie) and it sunk to the bottom like a heavy turd. IT LOOKED SO REAL!!!!!!!! JZ popped up when she saw it, cracking up!!!! I could not stop laughing as I was swimming, I was snorting up water, everything, waiting for Brandon to see it.

When Brandon saw it, JZ and I LOST IT!!!! Brandon was hovering over it, scrutinizing, looking at it like a scuba diver hovers around a coral reef of unrecognizable fish. He popped up and screamed to us to take a look at the poop in the pool! Oh my G O D!!!!!!! We were laughing so hard!!!

"It's a potato!" I screamed, and told him I had planted it. When Brandon figured out what we were saying, he absolutely LOST IT with laughter!!!!!

"That is the FUNNIEST joke I have ever seen!" he laughed.

Billy hadn't yet seen it, he was in another lane. We grabbed it and planted it near him. Typical Billy, he was unfazed. Just looked at it and sort of kept swimming! ??? This dude has seen it ALL in the military world. Think poop in a pool would deter him?? Nope. He just kept right on going. THIS made us laugh, too. When we told Billy it was a potato, he just looked at us and shook his head like we were the most idiotic people on the planet. (Aren't we?)

We are so immature. :)

I think we all needed that laugh because JZ gave us yet another f'ing hard-as-shit swim set that trashed us all.

Happy 2009 to everyone. Keep finding the humor in things, friends. We all have to get up every day so we may as well find something to keep us laughing, and keep us from taking ourselves too seriously....

Words on the swim challenge...

I definitely need to blog about The Boulder Beer Mile and New Years... will do so later ... but thought I'd forward the link to what Brandon wrote about our upcoming swim challenge.

Funny....

Hey B: DON'T SING IT. BRING IT!!! :)

http://bdcinla.blogspot.com/2008/12/timex-tristar-showdown.html#comment-form