Back at it

I got smoked yesterday by a run. Gosh it sucks being big and slow. I was whipped at the 7 mile mark, and still had to limp home a mile and a half. I sorta miscalculated the distance, hoping to be back at the house pretty close to the 8 mile mark. Oops. The walk at the end did me good. Sorry the run is in MPH - totally spaced on that until I got done with all the lines and editing, then just said, "too bad, so sad"...

In an effort to complicate my workouts some, I tried running the first 4 at base HR, then progress for the next 3 miles to just about LT. Then cool off a mile for an even 8. I like the workout, I felt like I exercised my aerobic machine for a while, and then did the same for my anaerobic twitchy musculature systems. On a suckiness scale of 1-10, I'll give it an high 7. That's straight from the Bigun PS workout system - Perceived Suckiness.

Should I even mention the insanely hot, humid conditions at 3pm in Tampa? It had just rained - I thought that would cool it down some - it did; only 85 degrees, but one MILLION percent humidity. Fun.

Afterward, sucking down copious fluids, and not the beer variety, my Dad calls me. He's just arrived with his moving truck, and needs help. Who am I to refuse my dad in need? If I wasn't smoked before hand, unloading the never-ending furniture, followed by the infinite number of boxes totally bonked me.

Now if I can time a bike ride right, in between all this rain, I can really beat myself into a good night's sleep. Fun stuff!

Artsy

This week accomplished it's purpose - I'm ready to get back to training again. There's something about the way I'm built - I need some time off every now and then - like, REALLY off. Sit around and do nothing off. Training wise, that was my last week. I'll still go on a little, low-intensity ride Sunday, and probably run off it, but that will be it.

I haven't been doing ABSOLUTELY nothing either. My lawn business has me hopping, in this heat, and trying to beat the daily rain and lightning, I'm sure I get my HR up for the 5 hrs or so I've been cutting every weekday. I'm certainly getting acclimated to the heat and humidity better - so this business is helping in that regard.

The Bigun's are now with their new bed! After one night, nothing special to report, other than a sound night of sleep and no back ache in the morning. Awesome. In a moment of weakness, The Bigun himself decided to take on an "Artsy" project - recover the headboard. This entailed taking apart the headboard to "release" the padded piece. Then line up the fabric - staple it (that was kinda manly, working the power staple gun - anytime you can work a gun-like object, it's cool) and then reassemble. Came out looking great, and I only had a little help from my designer wife. Of course, we have a matching bedspread, pillows, etc, etc - but for the purposes of the Bigun's project - the gold fabric addition - well, you get the picture. I'll leave all the fancy pictures and design shots for Di's blog.

End of August - The Chicago Tri's a "B" race - I'm excited about it, and I'll taper a week for it - but I won't get all bent out of shape if I don't do as great as I'd like. I'm using the time to get a bit of intensity into my swim, bike and run - some intensity that has been lacking at the expense of LSD - Long, Slow Distance. 100m swim intervals. Speed and hill work on the bike. Fartleks on the run. Bring it. This will be a great time regardless of performance. Roman will be there. Mike and J-Wimm will be there. We'll be staying with good friends who live outside of the Windy City. Wings will be eaten, and beer will be guzzled. All will be well.

This season's coming down to just 3 more training cycles. Wow! Time flys. I get this speed block, then Race, and that finishes out August. Sept - Oct brings about 2 distance training cycles, with break weeks, culminating in the Florida Challenge Half here in Clermont Florida. A "C" race; I've timed it so that I get to race that one at the end of a cycle break. One more MASSIVE week after the Half, and I'm in a 2 week taper for Woodlands 101. It's all coming fast and furious - just like it will for CdA. 10 hard training weeks left for this season. Lets make 'em count!

Sweetness

I'm still wrestling with this "what do I call Brian (not Myles...) instead of Sweet Baboo?" thing. So now I've got this song in my head:

Sweetness

Sweetness I was only joking when I said

I'd like to bash every tooth in your head....

Sweetness

Sweetness I was only joking when I said

By rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed...

I think that's how it goes...anyway - Sweetness could be a possibility - in that song's context it has a certain ring to it. A certain charm. The song rocks - it could be a frontrunner in the IPod - should I ever get one.

Man how I used to love The Smiths - I'm about due for a rehash of all that good ol' 80's crap!

Of course, it is his nickname - his Moniker - who am I to question it, right? It's just that - he changed it, abruptly, and it's going to take some getting used to. Sweet Baboo. Sweet Baboo. Sweet Baboo. Maybe if I say it over and over again, it will grow on me.

And I don't know where this whole "bet the Bigun for the 101 win" came from. He's about 210lbs....I'm about 240lbs....hmmm, a bit of a discrepancy there. He's racing Clyde 2, I'm racing Clyde 3 - but who am I to get all technical about 30 lbs? He's a "tri-toddler" where I'm still a "tri-infant" - but why get bent out of shape about race and training experience? Sure, if Sweetness wants to bully me into a friendly wager around the 101 race - by all means, I'm not going to shy away from a challenge. I'm a glutton for punishment in that regard - I bet Excel Man dinner on St. Anthony's and he weighs about a buck 70...soaking wet.

Jees, I remember wrestling 170lbs in the 6th grade.

Monikers

It's an off week for me, and I really got little to say. Training - yea, a little. Working - yea, it's hot. Reading - yea, lots of good blog posts out there....ya'll are a thoughtful bunch. Granted, I'm easy - my thoughts revolve around food, boobs and my favorite TV shows (not in that particular order...). Oh yea, and some little Ironman event that's right around the corner.

We bought a bed last night. Ours has officially bit the dust - CRIMENY! My back is even starting to hurt, and it's effecting my swimming and biking now. New bed, pillow top, mid-line king size (I'm the Bigun, I need my space...) - we get it on Friday - really can't wait for a good night's sleep.

I think I have MY official moniker for Sweet Baboo - Boo-Man! Still has a little of the "Sweet Baboo" that his loving bride GG has tatoo'd him with , yet is masculine enough to be "nemesis-worthy". Say it out loud - "BOO-MAN"! I like it. Even when I'm cheering for him, like when he does IMKY in 33 days or so, I can yell, GO BOO-MAN! at IMLive and not feel all wierd like I do when I think of him as Sweet Baboo. Yuck.

Mrs. B's Back

Yea! Di's home and everyone's happy again. The dogs are cheerful. Brisco (our cat) is jumping up on us again. All is well in the Bigun household.

So, Bigun, why did you just train hard(ish) for 2 weeks and now are taking a break? Well, I'm glad you asked! I'm 5 weeks out from the Chicago Olympic Tri on August 26th. With a week's worth of traveling to get there, I know that last week will be a really, really light taper. So what do I do, train hard this week again for my normal 3-week training cycle, and then the next cycle be only two? I opted to devote 3 full weeks to working on speed so that I'm back in Oly form for Chicago.

After Chicago, I'll go back into 'base' mode for the last two races of the year for me - Florida Challenge 70.3, and then my "A" race - Tri 101 Woodlands. Like this base ride I did on Sunday, only longer. This was a good ride none-the-less...19mph for 47miles @134hr...

This past week's highlights included:

* Di coming home on Sunday night (yea!)

* the beginning of some gnarly hill work in San Antonio - I'll be back! (Arnold voice)

* Broke 20 miles of running again, first time in 8 weeks. Must continue that trend for 3 hard weeks in August...

* Bloggie peeps crushed IMUSA! Also, my Mom's Husband's Son's wife (Step-sister in-law?) Kathy Shubert finished her first Ironman - IMUSA - and absolutely rocked it.

I"m still undecided on what to call Sweet Baboo - I just can't wrap my head around my nemesis being called Sweet anything. As Geek Girl put it, imagine getting crushed by a guy called Sweet Baboo... that's just not right! "Boo" would be better for me (after all, it's all about me...), but we have nicknamed our friend Luke's girl Boo after the animated girl in Monster's Inc. Maybe a play on words - call him Bitter Baboo...naaa, that's gay. I'll have to work on that a bit.

Bigun Lonely...

Mrs. Bigun's been gone to see her family up in North Cakalakie - been gone since Monday. At first it wasn't too bad, but I'm ready for her to be back home. Since I got out of the Army, I don't think we've spent even this much time apart - and that's been darn close to 10 years now. Bigun misses Lady Di.

Our pets miss her too - I don't think they know wassup, just me around feeding them and taking them out. I'm sure Di loves on them more than me - so they must be in Di-withdrawal too. We expect her home on Sunday - but it will probably be late Sunday, so the Bigun's got to go one more whole day with the empty house and no Mrs. B. Darn.

I thought it was going to be a cool day - get in a really hard bike and then finish up some work from the week. We had some early rain days, and it's just not easy to cut in the rain - or safe! Yesterday we had 3 people in the Tampa Bay area get struck by lightning.

I met up with Mike (Slowrider) and a couple of his friends, one had just come back from the Death Ride in California - sounds like the ride was aptly named - 16,000 feet of climbing in 120 miles....anyway - we were slated to be wheels up at 7:30am and all was well. These guys are little and light. Good climbers. And do you believe, after a few hills that I had to fly to catch back up to them after, they had the nerve to want me to pull on the flats?!?!?! I did of course, but a break would have been nice. I just couldn't show weakness or pain or suffering - they may not have invited me back!

So it's one hill after another, as you can see from the Garmin Chart - it really never lets up (I would guess that the "flats" I was referring to were around mile 12 or so..?..). I'm chasing them up a particularly nasty hill and I'm losing sight of them, so I stand in the saddle and "ping" - I can hear the back spokes making all kinds' of noise - but that's pretty regular in the hills - except this time I can hear the rear brake rubbing hard as the wheel goes around. I look back and see my back wheel is ALL out of true. Kinda scary when your miles away from nowhere. I got to the top and stopped to check it out, and still didn't notice that the spoke had broken. I opened up the rear brake all the way (fun in these hills) and hope the guys waited for me.

Luckily they had - about a mile up the road they were pulled over. Mike spotted the broken spoke right away..."so that's what happened". We couldn't pull it out, so we wrapped it around the adjacent spoke, and they were goading me on to continue with them - the plan was for 70 miles. I just couldn't see pushing hard up another hill and making it worse, so I opted for the parking lot - just didn't realize I still had a long way to go on my own. The difference was, on my own, I could take my time and not drive the rear wheel with a lot of power - which I did, and made it back with all of my fingers and toes in tact. At an average pace of 16mph, well, I really took my my time coming back - we were right at 18.5mph average when the spoke broke, and those guys showed no signs of letting up.

That's about as much hill climbing as I get in with my 82 mile Suncoast ride - which I can now painfully tell is not enough climbing. I need to re-do my training schedule and hook up with this crew every Saturday morning. Mike says that when the group is bigger, they really go after it - um...what was that today then?

Who needs a track?

When you have a Garmin...you don't need a track. Of course, you could use a different HR monitor - why does the Garmin HR monitor have to suck so badly!? Rhetorical question - marketing...so they can sell the next "better" version...oh yea, we fixed the HR problems - right!

So my 6 mile interval run had to be done by feel and prior pace info. I know my "base" run pace in hot weather is over 11:00 per mile. So there abouts was my "easy" pace, and I ran "hard" for my intervals, which were half miles on the mile. Hey, I felt like I did something when it was done, and that's all that matters. I marked where the intervals were, cause there isn't much of a difference, it seems, between the Bigun's "fast" and "slow" - hey, I'm a plodder...

Today was much better than yesterday. Nothing broke today. I got 6 lawns done before it rained and even swam 2100m (800m x1, 700m x 1, 600m x 1, with some fast (ha! I think I'm the only one at that pool who would call them fast...how about fastER?) 50m's mixed in for good measure.

I used the Triathlon Mag's latest 16 weeks to Ironman run training program as a template for my upcoming 101 race - since it's only 18 miles long, I made that my top long run, instead of the 22 mile top long run in the Mag's program. This week's got a late start, but if I can muster up the discipline to do all the prescribed workouts, it should look like this:

I just love Training Peaks - don't you? Somehow I got lucky and managed to "join" on a week or month when they had a never-expiring basic signup - I get all the basic stuff and pay nothing, and that never expires. So the least I can do is talk up the site - and I've been using it since I started with triathlon in '05 - I couldn't imagine using anything else.

Lastly - I know, when will it end? As part of my Accelerade Deal, I'm supposed to give my impressions of the stuff. It never really quenches my thirst while working out, so I thought I try it as an after workout drink. A beer-replacement, so to speak. At least until it runs out. I've got some of the Citrus Grapefruit variety. A) I hate Grapefruit. But to be fair, this stuff is drinkable. I put it on ice, in a beer glass, as if I were fooling myself into believing it were beer. It's not. Not even close. Nice thing about this particular taste is that it masks very well that powdery, thick "Accelerade" texture you get from other flavors. I'm not sure this one even had any protein in it. 4:1 my ass. 20 oz later - ahhh, I feel refreshed!

Cheering up

Work was horrible today - a long, painful story - so I need some cheering up. Nothing makes me happier these days then typing up some smack, Excel-man style. My wooping on him in the swim on Sunday was a culmination of, well, me training harder than him. Lets face it - I got 2 shots at opening up a can of woop-ass on him - the swim and the bike. The run, and hence the race overall, I just have to concede to Mr. Skinny.

Now here's a part of the results from June's Open Mile swim. You will note that Curt bust-a-cap in my ass and spanked me by 3:02. It was a perfectly calm day, water was like glass, 80 degrees...most women would have loved to swim in these conditions.


Here are part of the results from July's Open Mile swim, held just last week. You can see that Curt gained 3 placed in the overall standings, but the Bigun gained 7! His margin of victory was only 1:46, and I can tell you, the swim was rough! Like I said before, not as bad as St. Anthony's '06 (I know Curt can't relate having not done that race, but quite a few folks got pulled from the water that day!) but close. I liken it to the big boat theory. The Big Boat Theory is all about Sine waves and complex geomorhorfical equations and calculations, but the bottom line is that, a) the longer the boat, the faster it can go though water, and b) the bigger the boat, the better it handles rough seas.

So the final part of this smack-down was Sunday's swim - a paltry 1/3rd Mile swim compared to these mile jolts, however, the Bigun, for the first time against Curt in a Triathlon, was victorious with a faster swim split by all of 11 seconds...an eternity in the water.

As you will recall, the Bigun was again victorious against the (evil) Excel Man in the 15k bike Time Trial also held last week. What was the margin of victory in that little ol' race, you ask? One whole minute....a millennium on the open road. This was after he directed his wife to put a "BEAT Bigun" banner on my work trailer - can you believe this guy? Here we are, fellow West Point graduates, both of us an integral part of the Long Grey Line, and he has to slap me down like that. What ever happened to camaraderie? Teamwork? Fair Play even?


Well, no more swims in store for the Bigun vs. Excel Man match up. We may meet again for a bike Time Trial, a 30K - but that is iffy. Our next official, both-signed-up-for-it match up is The Florida Challenge Half Iron-Distance event on October 20th. This could be interesting.


Editor's note: I'm a stickler for the Truth - heck, I just quit a great 6-figure easy as you pleasy sales job because I just couldn't quibble with my customers anymore - so now I cut grass....anyway - Curt aka Excel Man is absolutely the most humble, giving, level-headed triathlete and friend you could meet - all this smack talk is almost 100% written in this blog. That makes all this even funnier, and the fact that I sucked him partially in to this smackage is even funnier still.

So what is it with me and this blog? For the most part, it's factual, but I like to bend the truth from time to time for humaphorical reasons. To spice it up. Is that ok? As long as I come clean, perhaps?

Morton Plant Meese Sprint Tri Race Report

Whew, out of breath just typing that title. Fortunately the race was not as long. Di's got a great post and pics of the race - worth checking out! We had Luke and his family there cheering us on (Luke has a hernia left over from Madiera Beach Tri in May), and GEL volunteered out as kayak support.

For the Bigun, nothing special to report. I thought I had placed, but in the last minute they posted a guy who lost his timing chip, bumping me from 5th to 6th for the old Clydesdales. I was pretty psyched there to get some bling, too. Oh well.

This is one of the biggest sprints around - there's a pro prize purse, so that tends to bring out all the athletes. On the Clydesdale side, there were 55 starters total, split pretty evenly between the under and over 40 age groupings. Here's a look at the old guy's top group:

I added what the bike speeds amounted to and the run paces for some of the guys. I keep telling Excel Man that even though the swim is a short part of the race, when you come out of the water 3 or 4 minutes behind, it's difficult to make that up. Again this was the case for me for this race. Now if I had a bike and run like Larry... well, Larry barely weighs 200lbs as well. I've got to lose some more weight! Speaking of the swim, interestingly, I crushed Excel Man by 11 seconds. He had the luxury of starting 15 minutes before me, and a whole lot less people to swim though. This race had a bunch of newbies in it - and as the waves wore on, the water got pretty crowded with back, side and breast swimmers. We swam into the current, making for a bit slower pace than my last sprint, just over 2 minutes per 100 yds.

The bike, however, found me lacking today. My run out of transition with my bike was so long, I thought I'd try something different today - I ran with my shoes in my hand, and put them on over the bike mount line. Not recommended. Didn't save any time and it ruins your bike split numbers with a falsely quick T1 and added seconds to your bike. Plus, I had to get out of the way, and it was just a silly move. I picked up a shell on the ball of my right foot during that run, and it stayed there for the whole bike - pretty annoying.

The bike was over a quiet a few bridges and 2 really tall ones. The Bigun loses his bike prowess in the hilly stuff. Even beyond the bridges, the course had a roller feel to it, plus some sharp turns. On the first bridge, a woman came wizzing by me on the down hill, that we could plainly see had a sharp left at the base of it. I was riding my brakes, and made the turn easily. She went over the curb to my right and straight into the hedges - she didn't get hurt as she had slowed down enough, but it had to be embarrassing. I still managed a 21mph bike spit which was faster than I expected with my 8mph speeds at the top of the bridges. Excel Man was in the high 21's, the son-of-a-gun.

T2 went much better, and I got out on the run. UG - the first mile or so was soft sand on the beach. Not where the waves hit the sand - "inland" sand. So that hurt the run split. All I could do was push hard and keep working to keep my pace under 9. Unfortunately I didn't seem to reel too many in on the bike, and even fewer on the run. I guess, I just picked up 5 places total over the course of the race, from leaving the water to crossing the finish line.

This was race #3 in 4 days, suffice it to say, this was not an "A" race. Not too bad for racing tired, though, and I think I've finally figured out that I need to practice T1 with my shoes already in the pedals. I need to keep on swimming; that seems to be a trend to my race reports. And since I've not broken 10 training run miles in a week in a few weeks, I really need to start running again. It's just so dang hot!

Mile Ocean Swim

For you guys and gals that think the ocean is better than a lake - you can have it! Check out these shots of Excel Man and me racing this Clearwater Beach Patrol Mile Swim this morning:

Seems like a nice morning

The buoys are out - a little wavy and breezy perhaps?

Of course there are old guys in speedos - what open water swim would be without them?

-

The Bigun

Excel Man with the sun coming up behind him. Scared, of course, with those big waves out there.

Still waiting on official times - but I can tell you - it was pretty rough out there. Not as rough as St. Anthony's was 2 years ago - when they were pulling people out of the water - but it was up and down and I got salt water up my nose. Man, that really sucks - you want to avoid that. I also got slapped in the face once, and elbowed in the right eye once - hard. She was a brute, but I didn't cry!

The big 10k

Nope, not a run. Not the amount of yards or meters swam in a week. Not the number of dollars spent on a new bike (I wish).

I'm approaching the 10k VISITERS mark for my blog! Not new visiters, these are new and repeats. So thanks to all of you visiting and reading my crap. It's hard to believe I've been blogging this long - but the most coolest thing about blogging has been the folks I've....been engaging with in this time. Someday we'll meet. We'll drink a bit and enjoy our real company hopefully as much as we enjoy our virtual company. I can't wait!

Time Trial'n

So that was cool! Wait, let me back up. Somehow Excel Man and I got to throwing smack back and forth early last week about this Time Trial today. A little over 9 miles, supposed to be 15k - pancake flat, usually a little wind - anyway, Excel Man steps up and says how he's gonna crush me at this time trial.

Then, his wife, GEL gets into the smakadge picture. I wish I had a shot of it other than on my phone, which is not easily transferable to blog land, but she puts a poster on the ramp of my lawn equipment trailer with the words, "Beat Bigun" on it! Yea, a friggin poster! I laughed my ass off - granted it was boiling hot already, but it made my morning. That was a good one, GEL.

I get there at around 5pm for a 6:30 start - a little out of place since this was my first TT - and I get signed in. Since I'm new, I'm the 5th one to go - 42 folks there total - with 30 second intervals. I get the steed ready and off I go for a 9 mile warm up of the route. Wait, let me back up. Excel Man shows up just before I leave for my warm up, so figure I'll be a good sport and see if he wants to warm up with me. "No", he says, he's only going to warm-up about 3 miles max. Kinda wimpy warm up if you ask me, but since no one ever does, I do my route recon. The little yellow bike to the left is my steed, BTW...Excel Man rides that blue Trek below...

Nice cross wind in the beginning, glad I have the wheel cover. Then it's 2.5 miles or so of wind in your back. NICE. Crank it here. Turn around has some sand in it, so be careful. Then it's into the wind almost all the way back, until that short area with the cross wind. Road condition is newly paved. Not a closed course, but the cars are giving us the whole lane when they can. Good people.

I get back, and BS with Excel Man for a while. The RD on the PA says, "5 minutes" - wow, that went fast. I high-tail it over to the start line with 30 seconds to go for my turn. Gees! Start in the wrong gear, of course - but it was neat having someone hold me up and give me a little push. Probably hurt himself. So now I'm off.


The graph tells the tale pretty well. You can pretty much see the "with the wind, against the wind" parts of the course. One of the scary things for me was how quickly I hit the red line. Man, before I knew it I looked down and had the HR in the high 170's. But, I wasn't going to let Excel Man beat me, so I thought that I'll just run it here until I puke. I didn't puke - I hate puking. But I did take the "safety tabs" off.

My official time was 23:15 - that aught to put me at 23.92 MPH - I really tried to hang on to 24mph on my Garmin - I just didn't have the juice left. Gives me something to shoot for though, and soon they are running a two lap TT for 30k - which I'll do. The winner of this thing came in really close to 20 minutes, or 27.8 mph.

Results are now posted - Official time was 23:17 for a speed of 23.88mph-

Oh, and how did Excel Man do, you ask? Lets just say that his time was a minute or so longer than mine (exactly a minute, to the second!). He did PR over his last effort here, so he's got that to feel good about. At least.

One last thing - a rant if you will. I go screaming past this guy who started at least 1:30 head of me - well, I was screaming, I didn't really go by him all that quickly, but I passed him, right. With about 3 miles to go. I go around a bend, and now the sun is right so I can see a shadow behind me - the DUDE is drafting me! Big time. I yell back, in between breaths, "NO DRAFTING!" and I notice he drops back about a foot. So what happens? You know what happend! In the last 200 yards, the shithead passes me (looking at the results, it had to be Racer #2). Comes right off my wheel and passes me at the finish line. As he goes by, I say to him, "You're not really gonna pass me after sucking my wheel at the finish, are you?" - no word from him - what.a.jerk.

Curt (Excel Man) and I hung around to see the final folks finish - the fastest one's in fact, and then for the RD's to announce the winners. Made for a late day, but it really was a good time and a great workout. My only lesson learned - push harder longer.

'Cruit Beginner

I'm all signed up for the Time Trial today and the epic battle of Bigun vs Excel-Man aka M-Gel. This will be my first time amongst a bunch of "roadies" and doing a dedicated time trial. I'm excited and looking forward to the event.

I had to call the shop to make sure they would fix my bike before I registered. We'll see if it's ready this morning. When I registered, I had to buy a $10 one-day cycling USAT-like licence thingy....and I felt like a newbe. I've got so much to do today work-wise - I'm sure I'll be hammered before the thing starts tonight. I had one of those nights where you can't sleep because you're thinking of useless crap all night. So not a good night of sleep.

But so what, it's a training event really - this whole week is just a step up in the training hours. If I get it all done, it should be one of my longest weeks. 12:18 is my best so far, with a 12:13 and 12:10 as close second efforts. Gotta start some time. Like now...

All Aboard to Ironman Coeur d' Alene 2008 (With Edits)

Edited Again in July with new arrivals to the Party (17 blogger-racers and 10 blogger-support crew)! (I think this is it now)

This train's leaving from the station, and there's a party a goin on. An Ironman party. Who's all here, you ask? Well, we have the Bigun, obviously. Then there's two mystery guests, a man and a woman...(ok, we now have one Mystery Guest - and no, it wasn't Desiree - it's none other than Tri-Greyhound - he's next to the bar giving lessons on tying a bow tie to Bolder - unsuccessfully I might add...) didn't I tell you, this is a masquerade party, and somehow I got all the secret identities. The keeper of secrets - that's me. How I got to be the one, I got no idea....wait a minute, what's this? In a surprise move our other mystery guest takes off her mask - it's MOMO! Another Coeur d'Alene Vet joins the party, officially, and in a wise move proceeds two fisted over to Big J to keep him absolutely snockerd, lest he figure out that she was racing yet another Ironman! (I can't wait to meet Big J, btw - we's gonna have big laughs...)

Blink140pnt6 got his game on singing karaoke - what's that? A Star is Born? Sounds just like Barbra... Barbra Walters that is! Iron Eric's singing background - it's a good thing, not that Blink's got much better of a voice...

There's Sweet Baboo over in the corner getting hydrated on Gatorade and Cytomax - the guy's an animal! He's got Curly Sue on the couch and she's telling him all about her secret life of crime - well, it's not so secret anymore miss Ponytail Bandit (in case you are wondering, Myles is a shrink...).

Spokane Al is here, all healed up and raring to go - this train stops in his backyard - no funny business you - HEY Spokey, do you really think the Electric Slide is a good idea, I mean, you could pull something! Tending bar we have the Bold - Boldster, the Bold-one - the P-dawg Leader is in the house! CdA may not have chosen him, but he's got a dozen or more microbrews that have - before, during and after the race!

Accompanying Bold in the IMCdA'08 Cheering Section are veteran CdA racer IronBenny and Nytro - be nice, Nytro - hey look at you, I guess pink is the new black...Big Duane (seen here with Iron Eric) has got the beer bong out and is getting crazy, getting ready for a long day of cheering everyone on!

As if Colorado was not represented enough, DrBubba has joined the RAVE and has started his own mosh pit. I see Duane eyeing the fun...and the Bigun will stay clear thank you very much. Veteran Tri-Sherpa and all around great cheerleader Stronger (not to mention a kick-ass triathlete herself) is enjoying the more sophisticated tastes of Mojitos - who knew Bolder could whip those up from scratch?

T-guyJ's throwing around his weight and some custom T's - I really like the one's he's got with the hot chicks in bikini's airbrushed on the front.

Mrs Bigun's got on one I really like:

- you'll have to excuse us for a minute. Or two. Or just a minute.

Dread Pirate Rackham (cheerleader extraordinaire) read "the memo" - it ain't a party until someones nekked in the hot-tub - and proceeded to officially make it a party!

Myles just grabbed a t-shirt for Geek Girl - GG just joined the fray and will be racing - so Team Baboo will be hiring sherpas - they will be in great practice after they both do IMKY together this year!...

Sitting in a comfy chair, watching everyone, sipping a glass of wine and just taking it all in is IM Ultra-Vet IronJenny - cool as spring day, calm and collected, IJ knows perfectly well what's in store - for everyone who's racing - she'll be cheering hard for us all on this one... FE-Lady's got her own bottle of wine and is slow dancing with Mr. FE to Blink and Iron Eric's crappy singing.

TriDogMom is talking "pets" with Diana - I don't think it's safe to have two pet lovers in such close proximity - her hubby and Ironman veteran Iron Shane entered on a Community Slot - glad to have him aboard for the fun...The Bradster yells out, "Freebird!", and the whole crowd starts in with "If I stay here with you girl..." Tea yells, "the heck with that crap, lets do the Macarena!! (I've been dying to fit that in!).

Someone heard we were doing the Macerena and thought it would be good to sign up for CdA, just to do the dance with us. Johnny-Tri's got a Harley rental waiting in Idaho for some post-race riding activities...One of the last gals to join the party is Boomer - making up for lost time she's chugging beers faster than Will Farrell at a frat party.

Joining the CdA Support Crew are BigMike and J-Wim (they are scouting out the pain and suffering neccessary for thier '09 IM bids...); hey Bold, I think we need to tap a new keg! And none of that LaBatts Blue crap this time, thppppp eeeyucko! Even the Kahuna will be joing us for his 2nd Ironman bid - bringing his guitar and plenty of Tequila for the post-race victory dance. Well, sit.

What a party! Who's missing?