Keep Your Damn Government Hands Off My Iron Man!

Following up on one of last week’s posts, we saw this week that both Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump have formally dropped out of the 2012 presidential race.  Leaving almost no one besides Romney actually running.  With that, Slate seems to think Tim Pawlenty is now your next Republican presidential nominee.  Eh.  They may well be right.  Still, if more than 1-in-25 Americans can pick Pawlenty out of a line-up, I’d be astonished. 

BTW, if you actually go through and read that article, ask your self a question: How many Americans can actually chant, “Keep your damn government hands off my Medicare,” with a straight face?  If Slate’s to be believed, there’s a whole movement out there.  Scary.

***

Sally and the kids and I had a nice weekend.  Kind of laid back.  A lot less physical labor than we’ve had in the last few weekends past. 

I took Friday off completely from working out and instead went out for a few beers with some of the guys from work.  Nice time.  To say that I don’t get out much is to make the understatement of the year.  Still, I had a little hangover on Saturday morning, so my planned five-and-a-half miles of interval runs turned into a straight, 5-mile aerobic-paced jog, and when I eventually got into the water, I didn’t have my best stuff at all.  Plus, we were out of Gatorade at the house, so I actually bonked towards the end of the swim, and that left me feeling headachy and wasted for the rest of the day.

Which isn’t to say that Saturday was a bad day.  We had a leisurely brunch at one of the local diners after swimming, and then we drove to the Honda dealer, where we (eventually) made a deal to trade in our CRV and my mom’s Nissan Altima for a new Honda Pilot.  Unfortunately, that took several hours.  But now, Sally tells me, she can carry fully HALF of Hannah’s Brownie troop with her in the car when they go out on outings.  This, apparently, is a good thing. 

I’m sure the dog’s gonna like it at any rate.

I spent the rest of the afternoon ironing and watching the new Iron Man cartoon on Netflix with the girls.  They loved it.

Sunday was rainy.  I’d planned to do a long ride (with more intervals!) to close out my Week 3 training, but I ended up bagging it.  I’d been exhausted all week, and Saturday’s workout left me feeling even worse than I’d felt during the week, so that by Sunday morning, I was ready to close out my Week 3 training early and head straight into my regularly scheduled Rest Week.  Thus, instead of me going long on the bike, it was Sally who went, going for a quick brick: 8-mile ride/2.5-mile run.  She looked good doing it, too, which was nice. 

I did eventually make it to the pool Sunday afternoon, but I only put in about 1700 yards of mostly tempo work.  After that, it was more ironing with Iron Man, and then the skies cleared up long enough to let me grill hamburgers and hot dogs.

So now it’s my Rest Week, and I’m slowly but surely starting to feel like myself again.  Finally.  It’s a good, too, because we’ve got our first actual triathlon of the season on Sunday.  Admittedly, the Milford Y-Tri is a short race—300-yard pool swim, 10-mile ride, 2.2-mile run—but it fit well into our schedule, and it’s hard enough if you do it at a dead sprint.  Which is what I did last year.  Last year, I also won my age group here, and as I mentioned last week, I’d really like to defend the title belt.  Plus, this’ll be Sally’s first triathlon, and I’m excited to see her race.  I think she’ll do well.

***

I keep feeling like I need to call my mother.  She’s been dead for maybe four weeks now, and mostly I just can’t shake the feeling that I haven’t talked to her in a while.