Why Ironman?

A Footnote to Yesterday Evening's Phone Call With My Father.

Not minutes after I hung up the phone after chatting, I began to think about what I had told my Dad. Sometimes we just shoot the breeze & pass along what's landed in our exitential in-basket. It's often stuff we want to get out of our system, our way of saying here's what's important in my life; I hope you think it's that way, also.

For me it was the change of seasons, & the drop in humidity here; the bellwether for winter's arrival to the FL panhandle. It's dark early; it's often dreary when I step out of the office & walk out to my car en route to my afternoon workout. I know, Dad...I need to suck it up & drive on. He's itching to do something, anything, since he gained the green light from his neurosurgeon.

To hear my father back at his baseline warms my heart. I haven't enjoyed the subtle reminders of aging, especially when seen in those around me. Seeing a spreadsheet of my classmates as we prepare for my thirtieth high school anniversary reunion, with bright yellow highlights of the members who passed away in the interim period (since I did not go to the twentieth, I'm not certain who lasted this long) makes me frightened once again for my own mortality.

By the way, Dad, that's one of the reasons I signed up for Ironman Florida.

I intend to go down kicking & screaming into that good night. As Don Henley has sung, 'I will not go quietly...I will not lie down.' I want to hear the shout of affirmation from Mike Reilly late in the afternoon...or late in the evening...of November 7th, 2009. I have seventeen hours from the moment the cannon goes off, & I might take every last minute of those hours, just to remind myself I am alive. Alive, capable of traveling under my own power with the assistance of a good wetsuit, a time-trial bicycle, & a pair of training shoes, farther than most care to travel for pleasure in a single day.

I might even think about detractors who have tried to drag me down in the past, commented about running form, ability, personality, anything they felt could get under my skin. I'll think about them as I'm cursing myself during the second half of the swim; motivation to keep going.

Then, I'll urinate in the Gulf of Mexico in their general direction.

Watching Ironman up close & personal proved it is a family affair, Dad. Every participant there, from the professionals who take eight or nine hours to blaze through the course, to the ones who barely miss the swim cut-off two hours into it, have at least one person in their corner through the long, hard months of training; they spend hours observing & supporting, enabling this single-minded obsession by the person they love. Often, I think (if they could) they would give a portion of their own energy to see that olympian (sisyphean?) goal achieved. The ones who travel from Wisconsin, to New York, to Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, Florida...are what I almost would consider 'iron-pimps,' comfortable, warm & dry as their family member goes back out onto the street for just another 140.6-mile trick, coming triumphant up the chute after a hard day's/evening's labor. Those spouses, children, siblings, & other family members get to experience that last 140 feet - yep, a minute 1/5000th sliver of their day, in recognition, or as compensation, of the love and support with which they undergird every participant.

So, while my "team" here in the panhandle consists of my wife, my swim coach & my closest friends, there'll be a couple of empty spaces in the family corral in honor - like Tim Curry's toast in the Rocky Horror Picture Show - of absent friends.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Hear that thump? If you didn't figure it out that's the sound of the mercury hitting the floor. Most of my friends & loved ones live in less-temperate climes; they are not showing any love. I can guess why; we don't get near the cold they get, & definitely not the snow.

As much as I hate the dark & cold this time of year, the colder temps mean we get to change our favorite meals from salad to stews & soups. Much, much easier to prepare, even for a culinary-clueless clod like me. Stop by the local grocery & grab up some more vegetables for chopping, or stew beef, or chicken breast filets...nothing like a nice hot stew with a large chunk of Panera asiago cheese bread (and a cold beer!) after a workout.

A couple of weeks ago when the first real cool morning occurred, we heard thumps every few minutes on the window of the pool where I train. At the end of the workout, I saw the lifeguard walking outside with a stick or something, trying to pick up the birds who managed somehow to commit suicide by flying into the window. Flying toward the warmth? Not certain.

The other evening, our 'hound decided to climb up on our bed while we were in a state of repose. If the dog were a small breed, like a pekingese, it would not be such a bad thing. However, we're talking about an 80-pound greyhound. All right, I know he has zero body fat. He also learned the behavior from his "uncle" Steve; when Rubin stays over for the weekend, Steve lets the dog share the bed with him. In light of the $90 gas bill from this last month, the dog might spend more time at the office. Now, though, we have to keep more blankets at the house, think about a better dog bed, or break the dog of this new habit. Or perhaps just suck it up & fire up the furnace. Perhaps after Thanksgiving.

I almost have the missus sold on the benefits of cycling arm/leg warmers. She borrowed a pair of mine the other evening at the track, & did like them save for the painfully-obvious fact my arms are a little larger than hers...so they kept slipping down. Beats carrying extra long-sleeved garments & the need to stop and pull the suckers off, in my humble opinion. Just wear a good short sleeve, & pull the arm warmers down to the wrist when you get too warm.

My Thanksgiving

(With a little bit of help from Don Henley, circa 2001...)

"A lot of things have happened since the last time we spoke; Some of them are funny, some of 'em ain't no joke; and I trust you will forgive me if I lay it on the line; I always thought you were a friend of mine..."

Over the last couple of months I've seen my high school classmates attaching through Web 2.0 modalities like Facebook. It's cool to see some of us have changed over the nearly three decades since graduating high school. Some of us haven't changed a bit. Some haven't left the old home town; some of us are sitting on the far side of the world, in places we would have never imagined being in when we were 17, 18, 19 years old.

"...Sometimes I think about you; I wonder how you're doing now and what you're going through..."

It's a d*mn good thing I'm married & I had no social life in high school. No old flames to fear re-kindling. Well, it'll be uncomfortable next year & I have little to recollect upon but the occasional band or track bus trip...compared to some of the parties my friends engaged in that seems pretty d*mmned lightweight. And since there was no Web 2.0 to speak of back then there won't be any incriminating evidence to dig up.

"...The last time I saw you we were playing with fire; We were loaded with passion and a burning desire; for every breath, for every day of living; This is my Thanksgiving..."

I'll be looked at with a certain degree of admiration, or pity...haven't figured out which. How many people get to re-make themselves 15 years after high school? How many want to re-make themselves? I think I can name at least one or two who would, but I'm not going there at this moment. Well, maybe I will.

"...Now the trouble with you and me, my friend is the trouble with this nation; Too many blessings, too little appreciation;and I know that kind of notion-well, it just ain't cool; so send me back to Sunday school; because I'm tired of waiting for reason to arrive; It's too long we've been living these unexamined lives..."

Getting married & divorced in the course of two years is a blessing in disguise; it showed me the superficiality of some people's religious faith, how fleeting their emotional support can be. It's a harsh wake-up call when you find the people you most hope to stand in your corner when the stuff hits the fan are the first to bail on you. It's provided insight on religion, on faith, & on the painful revelation the two often are not mutually inclusive.

"...I've got great expectations, I've got family and friends; I've got satisfying work, I've got a back that bends; for every breath, for every day of living; This is my Thanksgiving..."

Thank God for those years of solitude & searching in the early-to-mid-1990s. I would have never taken up running, never asked questions of the truths dropped in my lap on a weekly basis, & never thought about doing little more than a seven-to-three, five-day-a-week, working class existence. No college, no job potential, no relocation, no second marriage, no athlete-coach relationships...probably on the fast-track to fat, dumb & happy-ville.

"...Have you noticed that an angry man can only get so far; Until he reconciles the way he thinks things ought to be with the way things are..."

Coaching, here & now, has taught me the need to be less concerned about people who disagree. Most make their case known behind your back, with little or no evidence. They don't want to prove you made a mistake, they want to humiliate you in public. When you're the target of ad hominem attacks, there's not a lot you can do to defend without looking foolish...face it, some knucklehead is bound & determined to drag you down to their level.

"...Here in this fragmented world, I still believe in learning how to give love, and how to receive it; and I would not be among those who abuse this privilege; sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge..."

So, I take my joy from making a difference in a small handful of lives; by motivation, by encouragement, by counsel, by setting the best possible example. The joy comes on days like today, when I can help someone run a personal best at a race...just talking them through the process...not screaming & yelling until it's all said & done (the right time to scream, no?). To those who decide to cross & burn the bridge behind them, all I can do is smile, watch them march into the darkness. Then I'll sit down to roast weenies in the embers.

"...And I don't mind saying that I still love it all; I wallowed in the springtime, now I'm welcoming the fall; for every moment of joy, every hour of fear; for every winding road that brought me here; for every breath, for every day of living; This is my Thanksgiving..."

This time of the year, with the darkness & damp & cold, is a strange time for running. You spend lots of time in solitary pursuit if you stick to the road or the track; treadmills only isolate us from each other through music players & headphones. Sometimes it helps just to break the rut; if you've been treadmilling regularly, get out on the track or the road. If you run in the dark under the streetlamps, get inside every so often. Break the monotony.

"...For everyone who helped me start; and for everything that broke my heart; for every breath, for every day of living; This is my Thanksgiving."

Law Of Diminishing Returns

Okay, a survey link on the front page of Yahoo! asks what I consider a rhetorical question: What's the key to having the happiest job? Part of me thinks back to the physician/ultrarunner Timothy Noakes' 14 Laws of Training, hidden in plain sight within his weighty tome Lore of Running. (if you want to be a serious runner or effectively guide runners, this text is probably the philosopher's stone of running texts) One of the laws says something to the degree of try to achieve desired athletic performance on the minimal volume of training possible.
Most runners I encounter, however, want to achieve great gains in performance on less than optimal training, or on no training whatsoever. That's like doing no work & expecting a paycheck mailed to your home...even better, direct deposit to your bank account, as a reward. Crazy, no? John Parker, in several of his books, reiterates a painfully obvious fact on performance gain; there is no secret outside of the often heart-rending process of wearing down the outsoles of your running shoes, one molecule of rubber at a time. Really, if there were a pill, potion, powder or plan that could guarantee performance gains 100 percent of the time, it would have been outlawed by now. Even (so-called) performance-enhancing drugs can't replace desire & discipline. Or plain dumb luck.

So, sometimes you have to experiment & find out how much training is too much, & how much training is the most effective...for you. Not everyone has the time or work schedule, or the physical desire to get up at oh-dark-thirty & run six, eight, ten miles, day in & day out. Perhaps they have found their fastest performances were the result of long, easy runs in the afternoon, with one or two speed workouts laced in during the week. Sometimes this also means taking a rest day or an easy day here & there...planned or unplanned, it makes no difference.

I don't think this is necessarily limited to male athletes. I've trained with a couple of female runners who would literally run themselves into the ground & not give an inch during a workout. One was definitely the type that if I were to mention there was a bone sticking out of her leg she would have likely asked me 'and whose bone might that be?' Regrettably, she is Once A Runner, a recreational runner now, as is her husband. Proof sometimes that madness begets madness? No. Birds of a feather? Perhaps.

What Is The Difference?

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out

--because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out

--because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out

--because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out

--because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me

--and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Martin Niemoller (1892-1984)

I ran into an old friend yesterday afternoon at a Veterans' Day 4-Mile Run, which is held yearly on the Naval Air Station. This was a good thing; it gave me the opportunity to ask about his training. I didn't need to hear much in specifics on the training, but I wanted to know more about quantity - in hours - of training he undertook to prepare for Ironman New Zealand.

Of course, Dixie (Jon being his real name) is one of those guys who buys into the if two hours a day is good, then three hours a day is better training philosophy. He can afford to, more or less, at this time; he's ten (perhaps a few years more than ten!) years younger than I, & a medically-retired Navy hospital corpsman. So, he has the benefit of reasonable medical care & retirement pay, school support, etc., etc.

I told Dixie I was going to try & keep as close to ten hours a week as possible for the next month, then move up to as high as 15 hours; I don't think (without lots of medical assistance) a training volume of more than 15 hours is possible, especially given the need to work 40 & sleep 55-60. Dixie told me he spent three-to-four hours a day training...so that's probably closer to 25-30 hours a week, knowing him. He did marvel, though, at the participants he encountered who managed to juggle a full-time job & training for Ironman.

Where do you fit a life in the middle of 40 weeks of work and up to 30 weeks of training; if you're sleeping eight a day that only leaves 14 to do everything else!? Some people are fortunate, like my friend Steven. His profession is closely tied into fitness & coaching, so he's able to wedgie his strength work & his swim workouts in during the day. I'm certain that if he could find a way he would get the rest in somewhere.
I'm thankful the election cycle is over. We had a couple of days where the discussions within our e-mail support group were a little testy, but I think we're past it now. Unfortunately, our little social group hasn't quite finished the cycle...yet. We had a group of nine for Friday night dinner/beer, with a couple of friends who have not hung out with my wife & me in the past. The election wasn't spoken about too much, but we noted that 2/3rds of the group voted on one side of the aisle, and 1/3rd the other. A snide comment or two was made about race, which caused both my wife & me to have a collective tongue-bite-down.
After several years of trying to be agreeable & rational with disagreeable & irrational people, I think my wife & I both decided to be mad as hell & not take it any more. When you sit there & swallow down the poison handed out by unenlightened "phobes" after a while it makes you weak & eventually kills you.
So, we ended up calling this couple on their unenlightened, race-phobic statements. The most amazing thing was their defense. "Oh, I've been teaching (blank) for (blank) years, I wouldn't be teaching if I were..." "Oh, we're (blank); we're good people..." The more I had to listen to what I considered lame excuses, the more firm I stood on my convictions. I told them, 'look, we love you guys, too. But we're not going to stand idly by and listen to statements we consider to be unenlightened & racist. We're both highly-educated people, have done our share of overseas travel, & work with lots of different persons from different cultures. Don't insult our intelligence, be prepared to support your assertions when you come out with statements like you did the other evening.' My wife & I might have lost a friend or two as a result of this last weekend, but we feel good about how the loss occurred. At least we didn't surrender our personal convictions in the process. Sometimes maintaining your integrity is what makes all the difference.

Kipling As Coach

Every so often I like to take a look at the local bulletin board postings, especially after a race, to hear what participants are asking - or complaining - about. Most of the time the questions are 'where can I find results to a race?' But every once in a blue moon a person complains about stuff that often can be resolved by either individual participants taking time to know the rules & read the fine print on the application, or by individual race directors taking the time to educate before, & enforcing on race day.

I have my own pet peeves about what should & should not be permitted on the race course, for a number of reasons usually codified in a rule book somewhere. That might be the part of me that's much like my late uncle; my mother claims I harbor a lot of his here are the rules, d*mn it, so follow them until someone in authority decides to change them point of view. If my father & my uncle had worked on the same law enforcement agency together any longer than they did, they would have made the perfect good cop, bad cop (by bad cop I mean playing by the rules 100-percent of the time) combination. My father knew letting my school friends' borderline infraction of the speed limits slide would lead to peaceable relations with their parents, many of whom were upstanding citizens in the community, business leaders, & the like. Uncle Ernie, on the other hand (bless his heart, as my wife would say), knew only one way other than the highway...the rulebook, statute or law. That was it. Suffice it to say my father probably has more friends outside of the law enforcement community than my uncle did while he was alive.

As coach, I have certain statutes & rules by which I have to abide. The national governing body under which I (voluntarily) labor says so. The other national running organization under which I voluntarily labor asks me to act in an ethical manner & work to help educate the local running community. Naturally, like every play by the book law enforcement officer & teacher, there is the feeling you're standing & shouting into the abyss. The persons who appreciate you let you know in private, the persons who would rather you stay the hell away are more likely to do it in a public manner.

My wife continues to remind me my labors are not completely in vain. That's a fortunate thing, because if I didn't hear it from her I probably would have packed it in years ago; more time to be spent with her, the d-a-w-g & the people I enjoy the most, as well as some flexibility in my own personal training schedule.

Every so often I pick up one of my college literature textbooks and thumb to a dog-eared page of poetry or two. Some times it's William Henley's Invictus when I feel the need to feel ten feet tall & bulletproof. But Rudyard Kipling's If often does the work. Kipling, with his prototypical British stiff upper lip reminds me to get up, or stay up, when the public smack talk comes a little too thick or hits a little deeper than a civil disagreement would/should:

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs & blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, yet make allowance for their doubting, too.

If you can wait & not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies;

Or being hated, don't give in to hating; yet neither look too good, nor talk too wise.

If you can dream, & not make dreams your master; if you can think, & not make thoughts your aim.

If you can meet with Triumph & Disaster, yet treat those two impostors just the same.

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools;

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken & stoop to build them using worn-out tools.

If you can make a heap of all your winnings & risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, & start again at your beginnings & never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart & nerve & sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds & keep your virtue, or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; if all men count with you, but none too much,

(N.B. My wife, the English major, paraphrases the previous couplet to remind me to "care, but not too much.")

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth & everything that's in it, and--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

So I'll head back to my corner & put some ice on the bruise. See you next round.

It Hurts When They Do That

No doubts there are a good number of folks in Chicago, Dover, Phoenix & Juneau feeling a tad wobbly this morning; some in a good way, others not so good. Our little pluralistic e-mail group has become a tad testy during the past months as the election cycle came to a head, but it was more likely the outward manifestations of some inner workings. Most of us moved off the Runners' World "Letters & Opinions" Forum as we developed a sense of affinity with one another...more in spite of our differences than because of them.
Not everyone in the group has spoken out about the election; I think many of them have stayed silent because they want to avoid conflict. Well, most of you who read this blog know I don't shy away from conflict all that often. Thank goodness I have a spouse who is more politically-active than me (my employer precludes me from doing things political because of the possible implied approval, yada, yada...). She does all the good grass-roots things; I help her maintain a sense of history and provide, on occasion, ad hoc PoliSci 101 lectures at the drop of a hat.

Our track group is apolitical, outside of brief Friday night discussions over beer...which usually last only until the main course arrives, after which we find some other topic.

Here in FL, we went to optical scan voting machines. However, I still would love to see a feedback cycle to the voting process. As part of your voter registration, there should be the option of placing your e-mail address on a bar code or something on the ballot, which would transmit a message to you after the vote is submitted. If I were the king of elections, here's what the message would possibly look like:
Thank you for taking the time to vote in this election. Here is your ballot feedback. If these are not the choices you made, please call the supervisor of elections at (xxx)xxx-xxxx. To contact other voter rights organizations, please call (xxx)xxx-xxxx.

President - Xxxxxx Xxxxxx

Vice President - Xxxxxx Xxxxx

...
and so on.
Yes, it would be expensive, but I'm certain America has the technological capability to develop a low-cost voter feedback system, which would make us the envy of the rest of the Western world. As it is right now (evidenced in the past two election cycles; not so much this one), we have little moral authority when it comes to telling other soverign nations how to elect their leadership.
Something like the cartoon above would have been fantastic during the wait for IM FL 2009 registration. There was a line of about 100 volunteers from the previous day's race waiting to register for '09...at 6:30am. We were fairly jovial, but slightly decaffeinated, as we waited for the right to pay our $551 in advance to Active.com. The RaceDay Cafe' tent was sealed shut; some mentioned that a good capitalist would have been out selling coffee & donuts to the volunteer line, or, better yet, the line of non-volunteer registrants who were second priority. Hill work? As a warm-up? With no foreseeable hilly races in the near future? Probably not wise. Often, I get questions about training and I have to ask those rhetorical questions, especially the classic why are you doing that? The classic Lydiard statement: 'if your coach cannot tell you the reason for a particular workout, it might be time to find another coach' should (sometimes) occasionally hold true for the individual athlete. Well, or at least the coach should have the right to say... D'oh! Especially when you get the 'coach, it hurts when I do that...' line.
Sometimes, the athlete is their own worst enemy.

Three Is A Magic Number

Fresh in my home e-mail in-box...good stuff from PowerBar and Carmichael Training Systems, which I'll shamelessly borrow for your benefit. (My editorial comments will be in italics.)
Exercising with partners provides additional motivation and adds an important social component to keep you engaged in your exercise program. There are days when it's easier to do something other than exercise, or you'd rather sit on the couch than go for a run. It's not that you don’t want to exercise; you just need a little nudge from a buddy. Even highly motivated professionals benefit from training partners because they make you accountable for your workouts: Someone waiting for you at the park or the gym will make you shut down the computer or drag you out of bed.
In our household I have little trouble getting out the door to the pool or the bike, at least when my wife is home. When she is on the road, however, the positive motivation to get up and get out begins to wane. This autumn I found the motivation loss kicked in about three weeks into her last business trip. Mind you, I still managed to get my afternoon run workouts in, with varying degrees of (perceived) success, but the cross-training sessions which enabled me to loosen up tight muscles went by the wayside.
Optimal performance often depends on involving the perfect number of people. In business, a team that's too big struggles to make decisions, and a team that's too small doesn’t have the brain power to cover all the angles. Likewise, for training groups, involving too many people makes it too complicated to coordinate schedules and preferences. But training alone makes it too easy to put exercise on the back burner.
Even Saturday morning track workouts during the late summer got scrapped because there were no fellow participants. I'd show at the track, see no teammates, and say 'stuff it.' Well, I'd use the YMCA cardio machines (elliptical trainer or treadmill) and/or the pool for lap swimming in order to fill in the check-box for the day...kind of the 80-percent solution to physical training.
I’ve found that three is the perfect number for forming a reliable training group. A triad ensures that if one person can’t make it, there’s still one person depending on you to show up. It’s not imperative that all three of you meet up to do the same workout, just that you commit to starting and finishing together.
Sunday morning runs are a good example here. In fact, I changed the Sunday morning route from a loop course to an out-and-back, based on time, in order to allow everyone to (nearly) finish together. All each person has to do is keep track of their time and turn at the right moment. When/if the pace on the return trip is the same as the outbound, just about everyone encounters each other at the last mile at the worst, the last five minutes at the best. This way no one is left alone on the course, and if someone has a very bad day we can help bring them in.
The importance of a third person is evident even in a (pro-exercise) environment....I noticed that several of my employees were struggling to stick with their fitness programs, so I encouraged them to establish training triads....signing up for endurance events, like the Leadville 100 mountain bike race, and then completing a fraction of the necessary training. He went and completed the events anyway, but he suffered more than he needed to in the process. When he (had one) training (partner), ...only had a little more success sticking with his training. Whenever (one) had to miss a session, (the other) missed it too. But adding (a third athlete) to the team created a training triad, and the chances that at least two people were available for a training session increased by 100%....Training triads work. Even for athletes of differing fitness levels and disciplines because they keep everyone engaged and committed to training.

Blip On The Horizon

Been home for eight hours from Panama City, a trip originally planned to take an extra day. Quality time with my wife (in spite of the previous week in Dubai) comes few & far between.

We talked about going to Ironman Florida as spectators. As most participants will tell you (once the DOMS fades) it's nothing like the telecasts on Versus or NBC...in many ways it's better, in my humble opinion. I'll have a couple of (phone camera) photos posted in the next day or so, fleeting glimpses of things I saw during the first six hours of the day. I did not take any shots of the run or the finishers because of my (poor) vantage point in the finishing chute, however.

I volunteered to work a three-hour shift at the finish line, handing out bottles of water to finishers, but was placed a little further down the finish chute, to help hand out finisher shirts and hats. Let me tell you, the range of emotions displayed by nearly all of the finishers (not just first-timers) ran the gamut of shock & numbness to emotional overflow. Who would have thought a man would weep like a seven-year-old child at finishing under ten hours?
No, I truly enjoyed seeing & experiencing...& being a part of the experience...over two thousand brave souls test themselves against the Gulf of Mexico, the roads of Bay County, & the streets of Panama City Beach. Of course, there wasn't the heat, hills & winds of Kona, but for many, this was as good as it got.
And, as my wife knew, I was stoked to be there, & be a small part of the equation. I knew I had to become, somehow (as Faris Al-Sultan said), part of the family. Which, outside of the $500 entry fee, meant a year (technically a year & six days) of commitment to a goal.
Well, the decision was 90-percent made before I left the house on Friday afternoon, but I made certain Suzanne completely bought in to the ideal & the plan. I did have a 30-second moment of what am I thinking? the minute before I provided my information...& a 30-second moment the minute after.
My friend Steven stepped out of the tent about three minutes after I had my confirmation sheet. 'I guess there's no turning back now, is there?' I asked.
So, like watching a tropical storm on the radar screen you know is going to put you into the hurt locker soon enough...and soon enough for Steven, myself, & another 2,000 of us...is coming on November 7, 2009.
Bring it on. Well, maybe that's not such a wise statement, given the track record of it's previous speaker. :)