Bits & Pieces...

• Don't forget, anybody in the Madison area, we're getting together tomorrow (Tuesday, the 14th) at the Great Dane at 6:30. Come and say hello!

• I've had some continued absurd swims in lately. Every once in awhile I toss in some 600 yard sprints, because this is the distance of a very early season race I often do, where the swim takes place in the pool. So, I have an idea of my "best" race-day time at that distance, and can compare training times. My best on race-day is 10:11, I think, and usually in training the best I can do is in the 11:00s, which is always curious to me, how much faster race-day is just because it's race-day. Aaaaanyway, last week I swam it on a whim, and at a pretty moderate pace - no real sprinting, and certainly not all out, and I came back in 10:22. Thinking I must have miscounted 50 somewhere or something, I rested 3 minutes then swam it again - this time fatigued from my first go-round, and working harder; but still not at race-day effort, and finished in 10:29. Thinking this still can't be right, I finished my workout for a 100 yard all-out sprint, this after 1200 yards of fatigue, and finished that in 1:29. Which is only 7 seconds off my best-ever-fresh-and-just-in-the-pool time. So. Huh. I have to attribute the stronger left side with the increases, especially since I'm not really trying for them. Interesting.

• Endurance House cracks me up. First, it's a great store, I love that there's a tri-specific store in the world around here. But anyway, they all wear tri gear while they work. Like, tri-tops and running shorts, and running shoes, and hats, and they look like they could burst out the door and into a 10 mile run right now if they wanted to. That's amusing. Also, on the weekends when they have 3 employees working the store (which was really busy on Saturday, which is cool) they all shout welcomes and goodbyes to you. I feel like Norm on Cheers. Also, they always kind of slide up next to me in the middle of whatever I'm doing and randomly want to show me something. "Hey," dude almost whispers confidentially, "you wanna see the lightest running watch ever?" and shows me a gleaming Nike thing that's this twisted ergnomic shape and is pretty cool. Or "hey, have you seen the new Helium", showing me the new Fuel belt line. Anyway. Cool people.

• Also cool is to geek out in a triathlon store whilst in line for checking out. Some lady mentioned how many people she saw that morning on the Ironman bike course, and then we started talking about how for a lot of them this might be it before taper, and then we got to talking about tapering in general, and I was totally geeked out. Awesome.

• Some random blog notes: Erin's blog is one of my favorites. You should check it out. She's full on in Ironman craziness right now. Awesome. She also stated last week that it was so humid that Madison smelled like wet socks. I'm also enjoying Wil's blog, which has her on point and confident heading into Ironman. This is great, because she seemed to dwell in darkness for a lot of the year and it was hard for me to keep up sometimes. I'm glad to see her back in the game. Plus, she and TriSaraTops have been awesome resources for me lately in a series of emails about how to be a parent and triathlete.

• Steve's hilarious. I know you know this and don't need me pointing it out. Sometimes, at his blog, I have to look away.

• Pretty dope, this whole blog community. You guys all kick ass.

• I'm almost a month out of my A (and B, and C, and G) race for the year. While many of you prepare to blow your minds with Ironman, I am keeping equal pace with trying to prepare for a lowly sprint. But I'm taking this one really seriously, and am fully on point with training. My hope is it is setting a great precedence for 70.3 base training, beginning in October.

• That said, I missed my long ride this weekend, because sometimes that's what happens when your wife is pregnanter by the minute. But: regrets = none.

• Apparently everybody got smacked with the crazy thunderstorms this weekend, eh? Geez, that was nuts. It woke me up at 1:00am and I couldn't sleep. So I watched Bret Michaels Rock of Love on VH1. Tell no one.