gotta love triathletes :0)

well today is bike shipping for me and that makes me sad :( i haven't spent nearly enough time with my bike lately cause of LA and barbie and that makes me angry with myself. so now he'll be gone for three weeks and i have to substitute spin class for my guru. at least this means that i will be in hawaii soon even if i'm not quite prepared for this race! some silver lining in the black cloud i'm creating over my head. i blame barbie (yes, i know in reality it's my own fault but it makes me feel better to blame barbie).

some fun tri humor for ya:
you know you're obsessed when...............
50. You are over 30 and there is still someone in your life that you
refer to as "coach".
49. Your last bike cost more than your first car.
48. You have peed outdoors more times in the last year than you did
in your first year of university.
47. You think of mowing the lawn as a form of cross-training.
46. You've worn a heart-rate monitor to bed.
45. And it wasn't when you were sleeping.
44. You refer to the front hall of your house as the "transition
area".
43. When you get home from a training session at the pool, the
newspaper is just being delivered to your house.
42. You have changed more flat tires this year than light bulbs.
41. The most frequently used software program on your computer is the
one that keeps track of your workouts.
40. You have no idea why they call Cal Ripken Jr. "Iron Man" when,
after all, he was a baseball player.
39. The first three items on your grocery list are Gatorade, power
bars, and gels.
38. When you floss at night, it's to get the bugs out of your teeth.
37. Your legs move in a cycling motion while you are asleep.
36. When you see a drop of blood, your first reaction is that you
spilled some red Gatorade.
35. You know how far you biked and ran last year, to one-tenth of a
kilometre.
34. You think the ultimate form of wallpaper is about 64 racing bibs.
33. A 19-year old kid who works in a bicycle shop know more about you
than your next-door neighbour.
32. Your children are more likely to recognize you if you put your
bicycle helmet.
31. You have a vanity licence plate with the work "Kona" in it.
30. About half the shirts you own have at least a dozen logos on the
back of them.
29. You don't find the word "fartlek" in the least bit amusing.
28. When you refer to your "partner", you mean neither your spouse
nor the co-owner of your business but the person you run or bike with
three times a week.
27. You shave your legs more often than your wife.
26. The closest you came to punching somebody was when they disagreed
with your position on whether wearing a wetsuit amounts to cheating.
25. It doesn't feel right that you can't "clip " in and out of the
pedals in your car.
24. There is a group of people in your life about whom you are more
likely to know how fast they can swim 100 metres than their surnames
or occupations.
23. Some of the shorts you wear today are tighter than the ones you
wore in high school.
22. You are frustrated with the latest Garmin Forerunner because its
live readings have a margin of error of approximately three per cent.
21. There's a separate load of laundry every week that is just your
workout clothes.
20. One of your goals this year is to be faster at getting out of
your wetsuit.
19. You failed high school chemistry but you could teach a course on
lactic acid.
18. All you want for Christmas is something called a carbon crank
set.
17. You wore a digital watch to your wedding.
16. You have to have completely separate meals from your spouse
because he or she is on a low-carb diet.
15. Your bicycle is in your living room.
14. You have stocked up on a brand of cereal because it has a coupon
that will save you money on your next two pairs of running shoes.
13. In order to establish a new personal best, you considered peeing
without getting off your bike.
12. One of your proudest moments is when you lost a toenail.
11. When a car follows too closely behind you, you accuse the driver
of "drafting".
10. When you went for a job interview, you wrote your social
insurance number on your arm in black marker.
9. Your spouse cried during Terms of Endearment; you cried during the
television coverage of the Hawaii Ironman.
8. You are comfortable discussing the sensitivity of your nipples
with other guys.
7. Your spouse is looking forward to the day when you will slow down
and just run marathons.
6. You have paused in front of the mirror in your wetsuit and
thought, "Hey, I look like Spiderman."
5. You see no issue with talking about treatments for chafing or
saddle rash at the dinner table.
4. You recently asked your spouse out for dinner by asking if he or
she wanted to "fuel up" together.
3. For you, "bonking" no longer has a sexual connotation.
2. The magazine secretly tucked under your mattress has pictures of
really expensive bicycles in it.
And the No. 1 sign you're obsessed:
1. Most of this list doesn't seem like a joke to you.

enjoy the day!
~danban

i tri because i can!

for those of you who wonder why i would get up at 4:30 am to participate in a sprint tri, and get up early every saturday to go on long bike runs, and beg for money, and and and......well, here's a poem that explains a bit about the TNT triathletes:

Why do you do it (Train, Fundraise, Compete)?

I do it for those who can’t.

I do it for those who told me I can’t.

I do it for those who think they can’t.

I do it for those who won’t.

I do it for the little part of my brain that says “you won’t go through with it.”

I do it for me.

I do it for time, distance and speed.

I do it because when the challenge ever arises I will meet it, complete it and smile.

I do it for the hills I never thought I could climb.

I do it for my teammates at the finish line.

I do it for my finisher’s pin that I wear with pride.

I do it for the mission moments.

I do if for the Honored Teammates.

I do it for the Honored Angels.

I do it because it makes me a better person.

I do it because there is no greater competitor then you except for maybe your watch.

I do it because I love the rain, sunshine, roads, woods, and ocean.

I do it because it makes me feel better.

I do it because it puts us one step closer to a cure.

I do it because it puts me to sleep at night.

I do it for the adrenaline rush before a race.

I do it for the last ten seconds of the race.

I do it to push my body to the limit and watch it deal.

I do it for the little kid in the back of my head telling him/her “No we are not there yet.”

Why not?

I do it to push my body to the limit, wait what limit.

I do it because my body yells “stop”, my mind screams “pain”, and my soul says “keep going”.

I do it to find the place where I hit a brick wall and then break through.

I do it for when my mind and body thank me it is over and my soul tells them that was just the end of the beginning.

I do it…

No one ever works out or donates their time and money and regrets it. You never go for a run, bike, or swim and when you’re finished wish you would have just stayed home. You never climb a mountain and reach the top saying, “I should’ve been content to stay where I was.”

This is for all the times people ask you why you compete, train, and fundraise and your innate response is “I just do.”

the next time you get one of those "will you please donate" emails/calls/voicemails, please think twice about brushing it off. you make a bigger impact that you know!

~danban

lobster for the day

today i am red and sore and still happy about my day yesterday. ok, i'm getting ahead of myself. so, fri night i hung out with trouble and had a good relaxing evening which is rare. that started the weekend off very well! saturday morning i got up before the ass crack of dawn and wasn't feeling well at all so ended up doing bike turn-around duty for the practice tri. went home and passed out for a few hours (which is bizarre for me since i never take naps) and woke up to chris and kuu calling. chris and uncles came over to help move my dresser to the salvation army truck and then i headed off to the house to see kuu and the fam. hours and lots of food later, we headed to one of the care houses for the egg hunt which turned out to be loads and loads of fun!! they "hid" 42 eggs and matched them with 42 clues and you couldn't take the egg until you knew which clue it matched with and you had to have your entire group with you. it was a hectic crazy awesome mess! everyone yelling and sprinting around to see if they could guess the right clue with the egg. our group came in 2nd place. then yesterday, i went to church with the filpi's and then off to gunn's new house to drink mimosas by his pool! his house is going to be flippin awesome when it's done and katie and i had a marvelous time with our many mimosas by bri's pool. it was great getting to catch up with her and again getting to relax for a change. we headed to la jolla to meet up with bri after the swim and then shopped and ate at karl strauss. off home after walking around art seeing and i watched august rush then went to sleep. early night and lots of lotion but i went to be happy!

hope you had a great easter too :0)
~danban

say what now?

i feel like such a space cadet lately! i'm dragging so much arse that it seems to take me the longest time to comprehend such simple things. and i even walked off and forgot my hanging clothes in the hotel last night!! i've become very clumsy lately cause i'm just not paying attention. all i do know is that i need the lavaman vacation badly! and no, i still haven't told barbie that i'm leaving during go-live. and yes, i will be back there at least one day next week. and NO i'm not looking forward to it!!!! i also feel awful that i haven't been able to train at all while i'm up there cause i work all night since th pm has been in china so her timezone is the complete opposite of ours. so everyone in the US is demanding during the day and she with all the hong kong people are very demanding during the night. my pm has been great about making sure that he's involved in helping to answer the late night questions. this past week was great though cause we got so many of the huge issues resolved and they feel better about go-live. i'm just beyond exhausted at this point and will be going to bed retardedly early tonight.

i got some good conversations in with the fam and even heard from my filipeno fam about going on a surprise trip somewhere which i won't mention in case the person being surprised reads this which i also doubt. anyway, so that'd be fun. and i'm looking forward to the company cruise. i'm hoping chris can go with me! i have surprises for both him and kuu for tomorrow afternoon! i'm going to hang with the fam after my practice tri tomorrow morning then off to brunch on sunday with gunn and katie b. it looks like it's going to be a great easter :0) oh and yes, i will be heading to church just on sat night around 5 instead of the early am. i am NOT a morning person when i can avoid it!!

ok, back to work and barbie.

~danban

bleedin me dry

well i'm headed up to la yet again for a few more days. they're getting more and more hectic and panicky by the hour up in el segundo. they're getting closer to go-live and they're having permissions issues. and they have a completely useless person as an admin these days who didn't go to admin training who is completely messing up my system!! he's messing around with user permissions and attempting to error handle even though he knows NOTHING about my system. i told my pm that i do not guarantee that their dev environment is sound and the only thing i will stand behind implementing is my configured system which unfortunately does not contain any of their data. i locked him out of dev since that's their prod staging environment and i don't want him screwing it up any further. fuckers are killin me already this week. and now they want 24/7 support.........it'll cost 'em!

i did have a GREAT training weekend/hang out weekend. got to spend some qt with sandra which hasn't happened in far too long. she was an angle to help me figure out one of my duvet covers. who knew she was suzie home maker!! and she made some phenomenal raspberry chipotle chicken :0)

training was kick ass and we're down in the teens for the vineman waiting list which means we're in and i'll be doing v-man this summer! we're also discussing cancun in sept!! apparenlty i'm becoming addicted to half irons and i haven't even done one!!!!

k gotta get ready for another barbie meeting.

~danban

p.s. i'm way pissed that i have to give up my favorite holiday to work. so hope y'all have a phenomenal St. Patty's for me :0)

ready for the weekend

this will be the first weekend in a few that i'll be home.....hell it'll be the first time in a while that i'll be home to sleep in my own bed!! i feel like since i bought my new furniture, i haven't had much time to spend in my room. i haven't even gotten the pictures up on my walls yet!

gotta admit i'm a bit freaked out by how quickly lavaman is coming up and i don't feel at all prepared because barbie has held so much of my time. the pm actually got pretty mad about the fact that i didn't spend yesterday there as well and that lj and i jetted out by 4 instead of sticking around for her meeting at 6. right. want to hang out and do more troubleshooting for two hours (more like three) til she shows up for a meeting. she threatened to have me go out there again next week (which is what got me out of jury duty - out of town for business).

anyway, i feel like i haven't worked out at all lately. i need to go swimming today, we have our brick/transition practice tomorrow, swim on sunday and then begins the week again. next week i WILL get up early and swim (especially cause t is out of town and not a distraction for the next two weeks and i'll get some sleep). and i WILL run in the evenings or if it's early enough i'll actually ride my bike (there's a novel concept). i am passionately committed to kicking my ass into overdrive for this race!!!!

well, off to a lunch and learn and then back to the grind. will have some free time this weekend so i'll post again.

~danban

back again

well, i'm back up in la la land and not thrilled with barbie but i'm helping to keep the training class going and this project afloat. i'm pretty sure that i'll be beyond done and recognition when hawaii time actually rolls around if i make it that long! i'm hoping that when we apply the sp that we'll fix most of the problems they're seeing now.

i feel like a lazy blob cause i've been bad about training but i do need to get this done and at least i'll get done with work soon and be able to focus on the long runs with the filpi's again. well, nto much for now i just wanted to check in cause i hadn't in a while.

~danban