The wrap up - UPDATED

< update >: I've been stalking the mailman, and the blood test results just came in. Liver enzymes are back to normal. Quite a relief. So now I guess I need to get a bone density scan. < update >

Life in bullet points: the Bipolar Posting Disorder (BPD) is going wild today so I can't pull together a chohesive thought pattern.

• THANK YOU for all of the well wishes about my liver and shin problems. I still haven't seen the blood test results, they should be coming in the mail today or tomorrow. I'll post the results once I get them.
• THANK YOU for all of the votes for me on Steve's "Tales of a Virgin Athlete" contest. You can still vote until saturday if you have not voted yet. And if you haven't read the whole story (longer than the 300 words I had to condense it down to) I have that posted here as the first message I wrote on this blog. Apparently the long version is more inspirational than the short version. Right now I've got 6.2% of the vote, and I'm only beating a girl with bad fashion sense that locked herself out of the dressing room. that's kind of pathetic, but not as pathetic as finishing in last place. The current leader is the guy who lost 385 lbs with his wife. I guess I'll have to concede the Drymax Socks prize.
• We finally picked a team name for the mud run. We're going with "Irish Mafia" because it makes us sound dirty and drunk. and instills a little bit of fear in the other teams. As much as I loved "the Bruised Taints" and "Dirt Digglers", they wouldn't cut the mustard with the girls. I also wanted the "Dutch Rudders" hoping that none of the race people would know what that was, but chose not to take the risk. Most South Carolina people have their head in a bucket when it comes to modern terminology like that anyway. Other name candidates were the Skidmarks, Elephantitis, and a few others.
• The Hinman trade show starts today. My company has a booth where they are selling some of my software, http://www.securedentalforms.com/. Last year they tried to sell the same product, but it was a very incomplete product. and a tornado came through atlanta and knocked out the busiest day of the show. It's been a fairly stressful time the last few weeks so I didn't have to make liars out of the salespeople, promising features that I hadn't written yet. but we got everything squared away in time this year. Sweet!
• March Madness starts today. Office productivity everywhere is going to slow to a crawl this afternoon as everyone who's ever seen a college basketball game before stops to watch the games. I can't wait. While I'm not a huge college basketball fan, the first two rounds of the NCAA tourney are riveting. If you were curious, I'm picking uConn to go all the way, with Kansas, Oklahoma, and Duke joining them in the Final Four. Everyone and their brother is picking UNC to go all the way, including Barak Obama. So there's no way UNC will actually go all the way. And I'm a decent fan of UNC basketball thanks to Coach Stu who is a Chapell Hill native.
• Since I haven't heard from the doc/lab, there has been no running since saturday. I did get the bike into the shop for a little tune up, and it's ready to get picked up today. I just wanted to be sure everything was going to be ready for the Assault next weekend. I did get a little bling installed too, some water bottles and cages, maybe a few other little treats like a bike computer or new saddle.
• I've been trying to name my bike for many months now but I haven't been able to think of a good one. It has to be female since I'm going to rider her so often this year. I think I'm going with Jenny, after the Forrest Gump character. I tend to stumble through these races like Forrest stumbled through life with Jenny supporting him. Many times "run Forrest run" has popped into my head during a run and/or race. Plus Robin Wright is kind of hawt when she isn't sick or coked out.
• So Jenny is coming back from the shop today, all clean and race ready. As a triathlete that's already registered and paid for many tri's and running only races this year, I'm struggling to come to grips with the possiblility that I might be off of the running bandwagon for some time, if not a long time. These are the thoughts that are going through my head: can I still run the half marathon april 25th; the doc might not be able to clear me for the marathon in june; i might not be able to run at all until the half ironman training starts in july; i might not be able to run the b2b?; give me a break. It's not a fun thought process.
• The one consolation for that? I am truly loving the bike right now. I'm having a tough time getting into the pool, running is completely shelved. So I might have to mentally change my approach from being a triathlete to being a cyclist. Change the marathon to a nice century ride. It's just a mental thing that I'm struggling with right now. it all makes sense, but is kind of hard to accept. Hopefully the tests/bone scans/whatever will provide a path for me to keep running, but I end up mentally going to the worst place while playing the waiting game like this. Actually the worst place is some kind of liver disease, but we don't want to go there. But I'm loving the bike so much that I can totally see myself getting about 12 Jenny's and riding all the time.
• I am still sticking to my yoga and Tri Power strength training program. It's still kicking me in all of the right places.
• My favorite bike name of all time comes from my good friend Sarah (Chasing Iron) -- she calls her bike Cupcake. Some people in her track group get it wrong and call her cupcake, which is actually quite insulting. She's one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, and I can't wait to see her ride Cupcake to turn Ironman next year. rock on.
• Do you have a name for your bike?
• I watched the Biggest Liar on tuesday night and didn't feel quite so lied to. The fastest contestant's half mararthon time was still 3 minutes slower than my half marathon PR. This makes me think that they are actually giving us actual times, not made up times or something including drive time. But we're really still supposed to believe that Dane broke 4 hours running 23 miles? i swear that had to be a 5:53 time just to come close to being in line with the other contestants half marathon times.
• The "people" whose backyard backs up to mine have gone crazy. Our hood is full of old growth trees that give us all a lot of privacy from each other. Last year someone bought the vacant lot on one side of my house, cleared away a large chunk of the lot to build a house, then didn't build the house. So now my whole backyard is visible from the street I live on. thanks for screwing that up. Now these people that back up to my lot have cleared the entire back side of their lot, exposing my entire backyard to their street as well. The only possible benefit is that it should let a little more morning sunshine onto my berry garden, and maybe some extra light on the veg garden too. but the extra exposure sucks!
• I think it's incredibly stupid that the first thing large real estate developers do is clear away all of the trees for the entire neighborhood. They replace a forest with a single 8' Bradford Pear, and that's supposed to be ok. Our subdivision here in the suburbs did not do that when the houses were built 35 years ago, and these stupid people are doing it now. stupid south carolina people. there are only 2 streets in my neighborhood, about 100 houses. It's a small development in a close community. I should also mention that our subdivision is called "Seven Oaks" even though there are no oak trees. I also find that humorous.
• Finally, a funny picture I stole from another blog:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Do you really think they care? I don't. Have a great day! Go tarheels!