Dear Weber

I bought a smoker, a Weber Smokey Mountain. Ordered it online. Why did I order it online? It was 20% cheaper than the local stores with free shipping. It came in a couple of days and when I put it together  I found that one of the parts (the charcoal grate) was for a different size smoker rendering mine useless.

So I called Weber customer service. After explaining the deal to the rep, the said that they would Fedex out a replacement part. I thought that OK and expected it in a couple of days at the latest.

A week later no part so I called them again. After waiting on hold for about 20 minutes I got a rep who said that the part was backordered and they expect it in about a month! Then they would send it to me but since I was probably not the only person waiting for this part I should expect it early November. I tried to explain to the rep that this was unacceptable, found it incredulous that Weber had no parts, and that my option was to return it and buy a competitors' product. They didn't get it or seemed that they didn't care. I asked for a supervisor hoping there was some intelligence up the food chain. I was on hold a few minutes and then got cut off.

Rather than wait on hold to complain again to people that don't listen I figured out Plan B. I would go to either Home Depot or Lowes and buy another of the same Weber smoker, take the part out (what I was asking Weber to do but they couldn't understand that), and return the whole thing for a refund when I get the replacement part. I had a bit of a moral internal debate since this may not be the fairest thing to do to these stores but figured it would all go back to Weber.

Lowes was sold out but when I went to Home Depot, they had the part I needed that they sold individually. $9. I bought it. Problem solved.  A simple solution to a simple problem that would have turned an unhappy customer into a satisfied customer. Weber somehow doesn't understand that simple concept. Maybe I was dealing with someone having a bad day or someone who shouldn't be in a job dealing with customers. In any case, I'm wondering if I'll ever get the correct part from them.

Hope to do the first trial/experiment this weekend. I sense that a smoker is best operated with a beer in one hand and close proximity to a football game (or perhaps "games") on TV. Probably won't help with the weight loss diet so much. I won't be racing this weekend so I have some time to figure it out.

Recipe's anyone?

Questions I keep getting about the accident

Question #1) What happened to the car?
Answer #1) I am not a small guy. I'm 6'2", approximately 250 pounds and was going >20mph. All I know is that I left on a flatbed and so did the car.

Question #2) Were you wearing a helmet?
Answer#2) I was once told to consider this when thinking about not wearing a helmet: Take a cantaloupe and drop it on the floor. Watch it break. Then think about what would happen if it was going 20mph. Then think about the cantaloupe being your head. Then put on your helmet. In other words, I was wearing a helmet.

Question #3) Why aren't you as injured as you could have been?
Answer #3) It could be that my superior cat like reflexes saved the day. It could have been that it wasn't my time. Or it could just be, as Yukon Cornelius says, "Bumbles Bounce." Whatever it is, I'm not complaining.

Question #4) When are you getting back on the bike?
Answer #4) Just did. 15 minutes on the trainer. We build from here.

Game on.

Putting the pieces back together.

Today I went to the office. I have a long commute with plenty of opportunity for people to invade my "personal" space. The inadvertent bump as people jostle for seats on the train or when walking along is one of my biggest fears. Actually, the pain from that bump is what makes it, let me word this right, "not good".

Monday night is supposed to be master's swim class for me but I only can resume training in the water when my wounds heal. My daughter Courtney swims at the same time with her junior tri team but since I look forward to the quality time to and from with her in the car, I'll sit there and watch the workout. Maybe I'll take a short walk. Oh, how my athletic goals are getting recalibrated.

The haggling is starting with the insurance company. I'm preparing the property loss estimates and will soon see which neighborhood their first offer lives in. I've ordered new glasses since my old ones are in pieces. I found that I had a bunch of spare glasses but none seem to be the right Rx.

I haven't eaten a lot of green food the past week as I've sort of focused on my type of comfort food (which are all unhealthy choices). With the return to work is the return to weight watchers and the eating program. I need to take control of something, not be a victim, and this is something that I have to do anyway.

The thing I miss the most is sleep. I can't sleep for more than about 90 minutes without moving and when I move my rib pain wakes me up. The pain killers buy me only a little more time of continuous sleep. A great accomplishment will be to sleep through the night. I'm sure MrsRockstar feels the same as I keep waking her up too.

But going to the office is a big step. Bit by bit, piece by piece, I'm getting it together. Hopefully the pace of recovery will quicken but I've never been known for my pace - the slow part of the journey strikes again.

Thank you.

I'm still investigating new aches, bruises, and pains but the pieces of glass are almost all out of my body (at least I hope they are). There are all sorts of stages that my mind is now going through that I'm sure some PhD types have defined much better than I would ever be able to but I have been amazed by the support that I've gotten from friends, family and even complete strangers.

Mighty Hamptons Tri on Sunday will happen without me. The likelihood of doing the rest of my 2009 race calendar on the road to the NYC marathon is low. The likelihood of the marathon itself grows slimmer every day.

But I am alive. A lot goes through your mind in the split second when you realize that there is nothing you can do to not crash. I wondered how fast I was going (22.4mph was the answer) and what my chances were (not great). I'm still sorting out the other thoughts that were racing through my mind at that point. I realized that I can look at this as a "why did this happen to me?" moment and be angry. I may look it it that way soon but I've decided to view this as I was lucky and it could have been much worse.

I feel that I am now at the entrance ramp to the road to recovery. MrsRockstar asked me today if I was afraid to get back on the bike and ride. I can't physically ride yet (I hope to return to work on Monday) but I did set up my road bike on the trainer. I think that would be a good step once I'm ready physically. Won't be today but hopefully will be soon.

I'm not going to wait until then to say thank you for the help. Expressing gratitude is not one of my strengths so I'm trying the best I can to give thanks where it is due. I can't say thanks enough to all the people that are helping me through this. Thank you for the support and thank you for everything else.

It means more to me than I can write or say. Thanks.

Abrupt end to the tri season

My ride ended tonight at the trauma ward. I was brought there in an ambulance as I was a participant in a bike vs. car accident (I played the part of the bike rider). I have some major road rash and broken ribs. I never lost consciousness but my bike is in pieces.

I hurt a lot. Tomorrow will probably suck. The day after too.

It could have been worse.

Weight Watcher's week #1 results.

This week I lost 8.6 pounds.

Let me say that again - this week I lost 8.6 pounds. I weigh less than an eighth of a ton for the first time in a long time. While I don't expect to lose this amount every week, I feel it was a good start.

I like saying it so here it goes again: This week I lost 8.6 pounds and now weigh less than an eighth of a ton.

Of course it won't matter if I just put the weight back on and this week is looking like it will be a challenge. On one hand I've got an open water swim followed by a 2hr ride (where I'll preview the Mighty Hamptons Bike Course) and on Sunday a 9 mile run. On the other hand I'm hosting an end of summer barbeque with friends on Saturday and TeamRockstar is going to the US Open to watch some tennis on Monday.

MrsRockstar commented that I may weigh less now that when we got married those many moons ago. I don't know if that is true or not but it is a good thought. A few more pounds and I'll know that it is true. I also know that continued focus on my body composition is one of the keys to my athletic success.

Rock on.

525,600 Minutes

"525,600 minutes,
525,000 moments so dear.
525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?"
- "Seasons of Love" from Rent

A year ago today I started on this triathlon journey seriously. Before that, while I competed in a variety of events and thought I was focused properly , my goal was simply to finish whichever event was next on the agenda. On some level with those goals, I was successful.

When I originally signed up for 2009's Eagleman Ironman 70.3 in Summer 2008, I had a change of mind or perhaps an evolution of my mindset. I no longer wanted to simply finish but I wanted to do well. Of course, defining "well" was ambiguous at best but it was a goal none the less.

I mark September 1, 2008 as the tipping point in this journey as it was the day I signed on to start trying to listen to the sage advice offered by BikeMike. At that point, I couldn't run since I was injured but no one could really tell since I normally ran very slowly. My biking endurance was OK but I didn't have a lot of speed. My swimming was best described as poor and was poor only with the aid of a wetsuit or pull buoy.

MrsRockstar oftens says that I sometime have "patience" issues but every once in a while I like to take a look backwards to see if the plan is working or not and to revise if necessary. Anniversaries are a good time to do this and I found that I set a PR at every distance I raced. Specifically I found these PR changes from last year:

• My 5K PR was 35:41 and is now 29:57 - 16% improvement
• My 4mile PR was 44:48 and now is 42:34 - 5% improvement
• My 8k/5m PR was 58:33 and now is 55:30 - 5% improvement
• My 10k PR was 1:14:10 and now is 1:08:16 - 8% improvement
• My Half Marathon PR was 2:53:58 and now is 2:31:11 - 13% improvement
• My Oly tri bike split PR was 1:28:53 and now is 1:16:56 - 13% improvement
• My Oly tri run split PR was 1:29:01 and now is 1:13:44 - 17% improvement
• I'm sure my Oly tri overall would have been better too but the only race at that distance scheduled this years had the swim cancelled. I do have high hopes for the Mighty Hamptons scheduled for 9/13.
• I did, for the first time a 15k
• And I finished two Ironman 70.3 races, a distance that I never competed at before.

While I'm still not up to the performance standards I've set in my mind not at the body composition that I hope for, I am making measurable and, I think, significant progress. There is some debate on this (mostly with the voices in my head) especially after my Timberman performance but over all I believe I am headed in the right direction and that more improvement is still possible.

The journey is continuing. Mighty Hamptons Olympic distance triathlon in less than two weeks.

Other Timberman Lessons

OK, I promise to stop with the volume of postings about Timberman but indulge me with one last set of thoughts. I hope to reread this post before I sign up for any future race as well before I "toe the line" on race so. So, in no particular order, the lessons:

1. Expect to be out there longer than you expect to be out there. This means bring (and consume) extra nutrition if you have to.
2. When they say the parking for transition fills up at 5:30, believe them. I got to the site a little before 5:00AM, waited on line to park for about 30 minutes and got one of the last parking spots.
3. I've still never gotten a cold bottle of fluid handed to me while on the bike (the run, in contrast, is hit and miss even within a race). Need to figure the best combination of carrying cold drinks vs. adding significant weight to the bike. I drank the warm stuff because I had to.
4. The bottles on your bike will get thrown away at the bottle exchanges so you don't want to use ones that are too "good" but you don't want to use ones that leak when you drink out of them - like I did. Gatorade gets sticky
5. Even though I wore the clothes I raced in previously, I needed more body glide on the inside of my arms (a new spot) as I got friction burns from my tri top. Of course, after the race my family mentioned that they didn't like the look of the one I wore anyway. Got to lose weight and fit into the team issue without muffin top on the run.
6. My wife thought it great that I finally put sun tan lotion on before the race. I even had it ready to use in transition (but skipped that step too). Unfortunately I missed a few spots (see point 1 and point 5). I was able to get the body marking on my legs unreadable to the dismay of a volunteer so I need to learn how to put it on correctly.
7. Dawn attempted to use her iPhone as a stopwatch. It worked great until it quickly wore down the battery. Then she had no stop watch and no phone. It didn't matter so much as there was no cell phone service at the race site.
8. Mapmyathlete (see mapmyathlete.com) is a great idea only if there is good cell phone service in the area of the race. Timberman had between 0 and 1 bar at best. I don't know who was more disappointed - my family or the mapmyathlete guys. They did the right thing and said they would refunded everyone's money since it didn't work well.
9. Pick the right course for where you are in the fitness and capability curve. Set your expectations accordingly. Even though two races may be the same distance they will be less similar than dissimilar.
10. Know the course. Ride it, on a bike, beforehand. Driving it is better than nothing but driving it doesn't give the appreciation for the inclines.
11. Don't go out too hard.

Return to Weight Watchers

My weight is my biggest limiter to my athletic success (sometimes trumped by my lack of brain power like at Timberman but I've almost beaten that thought to death). Even with all of the training I've been doing, my weight has been bouncing around a small range for a while now so I decided I needed to do something to break this cycle.

I've had success on Weight Watcher's in the past and I realize I need a way to jump start my metabolism into losing weight mode again so I went to a meeting this morning. The scale said 258.2. Of course, this was with clothes on but the number was not completely unexpected.

I'm going to try to follow the program as closely as possible to get on track. I don't know why I feel a little like a failure for having to go back to WW but I do. The good news was that the scale was still lower than the last time I went to WW. I know shouldn't feel bad since I'm doing something about my problem and I hope that in a few weeks and months I'll look back at this day as an "on your left" on the road to success.

Chrissie Wellington, thank you.

After Chrissie Wellington won the Timberman 70.3 Women's professional division, she stayed at the race site for hours. She helped out the volunteers by handing out finisher's medals. Although she could have, Chrissie didn't rush out of there.

She took time to talk and mingle with the "regular" folk. She spent some time with my daughter Amanda and even autographed Amanda's "triathlon cheerleader" shirt that she wears to most of my races. A young girl later asked Chrissie if she could take a picture of her. The girl said she had to do a school report on someone who changed the world for the better and wanted to do the report on Chrissie. Chrissie commented that the girl should probably pick someone more famous and more influential.

I think that Chrissie may have sold herself a little short. I know that Chrissie had an impact on a bunch of folks, including Amanda, last weekend. After the race Amanda looked up Chrissie's background, her sponsors, and became more a fan. The influence that she had is hard to measure but I feel just these short interactions with children could, in fact, change the world. Even if it doesn't, it was nice and something I think my daughter will remember forever. Above is one of the pictures that my wife took of Chrissie and Amanda.

Once again, thank you Chrissie Wellington.