If you pierced something, what would it be?

Yesterday afternoon, I picked up Erika and we headed to St. Sabrina’s to pick out her belated birthday present, a new nose ring (actually a ball).  The previous year we spent time in there getting it re-pierced after years of it being closed.

Since the tiny piece of jewelry had fallen out a few weeks ago and she didn’t want me trying to shove it back in her nose, we got to sit and enjoy the people watching at St. Sabrina’s for quite some time before we were escorted to the back room to get it reinserted.  And let me tell you…you would NEVER imagine who gets what pierced where.

We heard it all and I really should have taken photos of everyone, posted them and created a sort of match the photo to the piercing game.  That would have been fun.  Instead, I’ll give you a quick and dirty run down and you can try to guess.

Here are your choices: eyebrow, labia, nose, penis, tongue, nipple, belly button, ankle or ear.

Answers are on the bottom.

1.  Blond 16 year old, not old enough to be there alone.   She is in with her mom and older sister and describing the piercings her friends on dance-line have all the while signing, “Mom, IT IS JUST SOOOOOOO CUUUUUUTE!”.  She was clearly the “cute” sister and the other older sister was either thinking her younger sibling was really stupid for doing this or wishing she had the balls to pull it off.

2.  The 62 year old male who looks like your old math teacher.  He has gray hair, glasses, khakis and a Mr. Roger’s cardigan on.  It looks like you could really trust him with Algebraic equations.

3.  The mid 40′s couple.  We couldn’t really tell if the woman was undergoing a sex change or not, but she was all dolled up in over the knee fuck me boots, sheer floral tights, a very short black knit dress and a leather jacket.  Her man was just a regular looking salt and peppered guy in workout pants.  She knew these people by name and was looking for her new piercing to match her pre existing ones.  They were either going to have a lot of fun tonight or they were going to be in a lot of pain.

4.  Late 30 year old gal, dressed head to toe in black (not goth, just urban) with grey striped tights and a cane that supported the limp in her gate.  I couldn’t tell if she was going to mess someone up with that cane or not.  Although, she was also in getting a fix on a botched finger tattoo and hopefully PEACE written on her other hand.

5.  The EMT, dressed in her uniform straight from work.  She must have been about 25, pink cheeked and ready to save the next guy who was going to have a stroke.  She looked too fresh to be part of this group and when I looked at her the song from Sesame Street (One of these things is not like the other) started playing in my head.

ok

time

to

guess

Answers:

1.  dangling bedazzled belly button piercing.  2.  left nipple-he made it VERY clear the barbell needed to match the right.  3.  Lots of conferencing went on with this couple:  woman-2 additional labia piercings, man-starts with a P.  4.  eyebrow  5.  nose

How many did you get right?

Surly Boy Wonder

My friend and fabulous work mate at Surly, Keith (AKA Surly Boy Wonder–his jacket even says so) has taken to blogging.  He sums up our last Surly Gives A Damn event well and uses the words “lovely” and “talented” in conjunction with my name.

Oh Keith…that will get you far!

Catching Snowflakes

Dude, it’s so much easier to catch’em in a blizzard!

For the love of jMatt

Here he is in all his glory…crossing the finish line in Kona.

Way to slay those lava dragons jMatt!

A marathon, a sherpa, a gun, a hit-n-run, TACO the dead dog and off to Boston we go!

What a day, what a race, what a way to end the season!

3:40:31 and 1st in my age group!

The late TACO, my race inspiration.

I love Penn Cycle

I’m going to say it again…I LOVE PENN CYCLE!

I’m sorry Gear West, you don’t really care about me and I have moved on.  Ok, unless you have what I need and then I guess I need to go back to you but I try really hard not to need you.

Sounds like a bad relationship doesn’t it?  Or maybe the realationship I had with my bike that didn’t fit that I bought there.  ANYWAY…

This is Rich, he’s the manager over at Penn Cycle.  I bought my new-wonderful-amazing-fast-hot bike at Penn Cycle AND they fit me on the right size, imagine that!

Rich is holding up race wheels.  Those race wheels are now on my bike for the big race, for free.  Those wheels cost more than my bike, I better not mess them up.  The one draw back, if I flat, there really isn’t a way to fix it. I know, I can feel your worry.  Don’t, I’m trying not to.

How did I get these you ask?  Cute, fast (in a racing way), funny, chatty, hot Di was at Penn getting new bike shoes and told Rich I needed some for race day. Sure enough, he told Di to have me give him a call.  So I did.  And while I was one the phone with him, I told him that I was pretty sure that if I had just walked in and talked to him, he would have NEVER handed me a pair of very pricey racing wheels.

That kinda stuff just doesn’t happen to me.  I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m funny and I have a great personality, but I don’t get free shit from boys.  I am at least glad he found that conversation funny because it could have been very weird and awkward.

Of course, I also found out he liked Surly, so I felt that the least I could do to repay the favor was to pay him off with beer.  I’ve never seen a bigger smile on someones face than when I walked in with a bunch of Surly under my arm and handed it over, along with my bike.

Thanks Penn, may these wheels make my travels very fast.

Vicki Update

Vicki just got word from her doctor, who read all her MRI results from every part of her body, and it looks like her knee is fine.  No breaks or tears, just one big’ol bruise and if she can tolerate the pain, she won’t do any damage to it by running on it.

Her wrist, which they thought was a hairline fracture, turned out to be a complete break along the radius.  Since she feels jarring while on her bike, the doctor wants to cast it.  So Wednesday, 4 days before the race, she will have a cast put on.

How bad ass is that going to be?  I hope she gets a glow in the dark one.

So YES, she will be doing the race with a cast.

Bumps in the road

This ironman race is NOT for the faint of heart.  Anything can seem to happen, in the blink of an eye.

The day we came home from Ironman Camp in Madison, Jackie forgot her bike was mounted on the top of her car and ran it right into the garage.  Needless to to say, it broke in two, IN TWO!  So three weeks out from the race, she was on the hunt for a new bike.  Not really the thing she wanted to be doing.

(Old)

(New)

Last weekend, when we were all on our Clover Leaf of Death ride, the LAST hard ride of training, 15 miles into it Vicki went over her handle bars.

Out cold for a good 30 seconds, just laying there in the road still as a stone.  Her wrist is broken, her body is scraped up and they are is still trying to figure out why her knee swelled like a blow fish.

She is getting run through the paces; x-rays, MRIs, pulling, prodding.  She is doing everything she can to move forward and YES, still complete the race.

These are the moments, after all the months and miles and sweat, that you sometimes hit.

You can either be torn apart by them and quit or move forward and persevere.

Let’s hope the rest of the days leading up to the race are smooth sailing.

PIKE BOYS

These two eldest sons went off to overnight camp for the first time last week.

Running in a pack for four days, sleeping in bunks, eating camp food, exploring and hang’n out with each other with no parents around…their world will never be the same.

And on to the adults

Seriously, three posts about one weekend.  Trust me, it will be short or not.

I just had to throw out the kudos to my amazing friends who also did the race last weekend.

Jon kicked in a 5th place finish.  Seriously Jon, I am expecting more from you. SHAME!

Nate, who did not really train for the sprint, took the most Swedish Award at 18th.

Jen, who travels with me each and every year to hang out and cheer me on and then get Chipotle afterward, now calls herself #27!  Woot, woot.

Becca, who kicked this bitch Athena style.  Ends up #2.  Way to take it home Becca!

Those are my homies!  Without you guys, it is just not as much fun.  Thanks for making triathlons a social event.

Then, then there are the other people in my life that I train with.  The people that I have shared large chunks of time, blisters, bitching, saddle sores and all the other stuff that comes along with all of a sudden sharing a life with random strangers that happen to become training partners.  These people also…are amazing.

These are the people I work out with MANY times a week.  And all this training, paid off for this collective group of 40 somethings.  Jackie (far right) took 3rd in her age group.  Next in line is Di, who is in my age group and if I didn’t like her so much would HATE her.  She makes me a better racer.  My one bike goal was to stay ahead of her.  She took 2nd in our age group and had the fastest bike split of ALL women, even the pros!  Next, Vicki, this was her first half ironman race and she finished with a smile on her face.  As for my coach in the back, he realized once he was home and analyzing the results that he took 3rd in his age group.

All that said, I am so lucky to have friends, team mates and a supportive family to make this ironman dream come true.

Thank you to all of you.