It's 10:47. I'm mildly intoxicated. I just watched Jerry Maquire. I'm listening to Loreena McKennitt. On my way into my room i had to move the two boxes that i brought from work, full of my personal affects.

I was terminated today.

The charisma i carried to that place outshined all other personalities. No one got as much attention then i did, whether i liked it or not. A solid silence will now permeate the air where i once was. Some will miss it, others will be thankful.

I do truly believe that this seperation was for the benefit of all parties involved. I truly believe this is the best case scenario. That if i hadn't made michelle cry, which started the chain reaction where i believed i'd be terminated all week: I'd have had some random day in some random month, been called into a random office, and termintated, with no knowledge prior. THAT would be the worst case scenario.

I think it's bed time.

After my swim workout i was walking to my car when i noticed a woman sitting in her car, doing her makeup in her vanity mirror. How odd i thought, why didn't she do her makeup in the gym? Then an absurd thought came to mind...Was she putting her makeup on, to GO INTO the gym?

I turned around at that thought, and sure enough, she emerged from her car, with no less then a little bag that had wheels on it, in her 4 inch high heels, and walked towards the gym.

Should have shot her in the head till she was dead; put her out of her misery. GIVE ME A BREAK! Bally's is Club Med only worse, i can't stand it! GAAAAAH! I can't wait till i get my USAT Training center membership, then i can cancel my Bally's crap and never go again!

Last night i had a weak moment and had a piece of Josh's birthday cake. :S nothing overly bad, i ate 1/4 of the slice that was left, so it wasn't overly huge. I went back for more but Josh butted in and said, "You don't want that." heheh. So i put it back.

I have the first 24 weeks of my training plan almost complete....and holy crap! I've got some serious training to do but i'm going to rise to the challenge. I'll be posting my schedule and maybe figure out a weekly visual aid or something so you can all keep up with my day to day doings.

More to come later...i'm going to run 1/2 hour tonight.

I got a bunch of orders from the Syndicate folks for posters, i'm under $100 now! next week i hope to send it all in and secure my place in the race. I did 1000m in the pool tonight thena te some sushi and a boca CHICKEN pattie. Chicken pattie was ok, the burgers are better! MmMMMMMMM!

This mornign i got up and had some extra energy so i decided to spin on my bike for half hour. I didn't even break a sweat, just sorta spun, and in doing so i found that my left foot 'snaps' forward at the bottom of each stroke, almost how your foot snaps when you're running just as your lifting your foot to propel yourself forward. I tried to correct it because my right foot does no such thing, but it was too natural. Not sure if this is effecting my pedal efficiency or not, i'll have to look into it. Also i'm almost positive now that my creaking on my bike is coming from my seatpost. heheh i'll oil it later this week.

Going to swim about 2000m today at varied difficulties, but nothing overly hard. Probably do a bunch of 100's and 50's instead of the longer sets. My IM schedule is starting to come together nicely now, i'm excited to start this weekend. I'm also convinced that in my current state i cannot do a marathon running the wholetime without big risk of injury. So at the request of some people i'm going to train a 1 minute walk at every mile, as if it were a water stop, and then run from there, treating each mile like an interval. That training will start this sunday with a 10 mile run. This may or may not help my hip.

Just got back from the gym, i ran 3 miles around the block, then lifted and now i'm home. Was a decent run, but right at 3 miles my hip started hurting, even when i increased my pace in an effort to change my stride and spend less time on each leg, it still hurt a bit. I'm just going to make it out to be a comfortability issue until it starts hindering me.

The meeting today went very well...i do believe that this will all end with a happy ending , it's now up to the president of the company. If he believes me and what i've said, and allows me to correct a few things, then everything will be well.

I can only hope now.

After much delibertation with friends and with myself, and after a nearly sleepless night, today i've decided to go to the HR and tell my side of the story. Not to cause any ruckus, but to put my side on paper, so i have a foot to stand on if push comes to shove. I'm going to type a statement and also verbalize my concerns this morning.

I don't expect i'll be working here very much longer and thats a very very sad prospect for me. I've put a lot of myself into this department, more then any other job i've ever had. I've developed relationships, all unique with 35 different employees. I've drank beside some of them, i've laughed beside most of them...leaving here or getting terminated will be a very sad day indeed.

Amongst all of this, i can't let my training endeavors waiver.This morning i didn't go lift, but then again, i got very little sleep. Instead i chose to sleep but will go lift tonight. Since this is an off week i'll swim tomorrow: No doubles this week. Then next week back in full force. I'm also watching my calorie intake, yesterday i took in about 1000 calories, i know it's low but i couldn't eat after the incident with Dick. I'm going to try and keep it around 1600 all week.

Wish me luck today.

I've deleted this post in anticipation of the end of the incident, adn out of respect of fellow employees.

I just got back from riding stationary at Bikeworks to raise money. I ended up with $50! It was great, as it got closer to superbowl time, the traffic slowed down quite a bit, but in the beginning i had some very good luck. Most people donated $1 and one guy donated $5 while another donated $20. Everytime someone stuck a dollar in my tupperware container i just wanted tor ide harder. I rode 15 minutes, then stood for 1 just to keep the circulation going in certain spots. I rode for two and a half hours, then Bikeworks closed and i brought my stuff home. It was a good time.

I talked with Dave yesterday and i'm moving into his house on the 8th, then doing the Tri Clinic from the 14th to the 16th. That'll be a great time! I also get to meet the 'stephens' from trisyndicate.com. They're running the clinic.

Time to make sushi, drink water adn watch the Superbowl!

I went and met Dave yesterday afternoon before my run. Dave is a fellow witha big house who offered to rent a room to me on a more permanant basis. He's a very nice fellow with indeed a big house...made even moreso by the fact that he's made the back sorta like a dorm bunkbed cluster. We worked out a deal where i'll pay a monthly flat fee and get the front bedroom to myself. If the house is full, i may have to share it with one other person for a few days. Then i went and did a 6 mile run.

The run was good until about mile 3. Mile 3 my hip started bothering me (this is getting really REALLY old. If it's not one thing its the next. I beat achilles tendonitis, stress fractures, some foot problem, now it's my friggin hip) i didn't let it slow me down though, and kept up a relatively slow 11:40 per mile. At mile 4 i did stop and try and stretch the muscles around the hip but it didnt' help much. After my run i spent a good amoutn of time stretching and what not.

This morinng just walking hurts but i'm just going to assume its from those muscles not being used very much like in the beginning of my running. This coming week is an EZ week for me so i'll bear through it and if it still hurts by next weekend i suppose i'll go see a sports doc.

At 1 today i go to Bikeworks and start riding on my trainer for donations. I'll ride 1 hour at a time with a 10 minute break in between. 3 hours on a trainer straight would probably make me steril! heheh.

My swim went fantastic tonight. I'm getting more and more use out of my back with a good hard twist of my hips which is propelling me faster with smaller energy use. I swam 2000 meters in 22 minutes. It was a fast workout, doing lots of short 100m repeats and 50m repeats. What i'm happy with is i can swim longer before my form starts to breakdown from exhaustion.

My lifting went ok, it was sporadic because i HATE lifting at Bally's, and lots of people were using weights and machines i needed. Oh well.

Tomorrow instead of biking i'm going to do my long run, then do my 'long bike' in front of bikeworks. 3 hours on the trainer. Yeouch! But it's for charity right?! I hope i can collect and send in the checks by the 8th. I should still be ok by then.

It's interesting to note that people i thought cared nothing for my triathlon endeavors, gave the most money, and people i thought cared, didn't give anything. Just goes to show, what you think you know is probably wrong! heheh.

After collecting from work i've made another dent as can be seen by what i need left. After Sunday's "Ride for Donations" in front of BikeWorks that i'm planning, i may just have enough to send in! All i'll have to do is collect and send in the application.

I'm not looknig forward to lifting after i swim tonight, but it's something i gotta do.

On the scale this morning: 231.5. not bad.

Last night i hit the bed at 8 pm, but tossed and turned till almost midnight. Needless to say i didn't get much sleep. I planned on getting up at 4:30, lifting for an hour, then going to work really early so i could take care of some work and get it out of the way, but at 4:30, in my total sleeping stupor i hit the wrong button on my alarm which turned it off. But i did wake up on my own at 6:15 so i immediately got up, skipped lifting and came into work with the intention of lifting and swimming this afternoon.

By the way, ITS FRIGGIN COLD HERE IN FLORIDA!!!! I can tell you what, BOB or no BOB, if i had to bike today i simply wouldn't, not outdoors. Last weekend it was cold, like 30 degrees, right now its 18, feels like 8 because of humidity (according to weather.com) and not only that, there is ice on my car!

Yesterday it got pretty cold, and i ran for 30 minutes with arm warmers but nothing on my legs. I got nice and numb and just cruised. I cant tell you how happy i am that i'm not having any problems running. I'm actually very quickly getting back into my old groove where i feel lik ei can run forever.Another good thing: I weighed myself this morning and came in at 231.5, 1.5 less then last week. Thats the way i like to see it, slow and easy. I'll be where i want in about 12 weeks if i keep at it.

I have some good news for the fund raising, Bikeworks not only will let me bike in front of their store on Sunday, but they donated two full tune ups! They retail for $50 a piece, and in order to entice people (besides the fact that the money goes to charity), i'm selling them for $40. I gave the roadies the first chance by posting it on teh boards, but if they don't take them off my hands by Sunday, i'll bring them with me and try to sell them to customers. Thank you Bikeworks! (namely Buddy and Travis).

Thank you to Dave at work here who just donated!

I added a countdown clock to the left, i'm going to try and make it a bit smaller with the help of BigDaddy over at Syndicate3. it's pretty cool though!

Thank you to Rob Carter who emailed me out of teh blue and pledged a donation to me! Rob, good luck with your first triathlon, a HALF IRONMAN! And i thought *I* was being audacious! It's the Gulf Coast too, so i hope we can meet.

I recently met Stephen (BigDaddy) over at Syndicate through Dave (the fellow i'm going to move in with in Clermont) and he's a very nice guy! He's helped me get my fund up and running over on his site and even bought a poster to add to the fund, thanks BigDaddy! Things seem to be working out quite well, once i move in with Dave, i'll be right where i want to be: In the middle of a bunch of athletes who share my interests and goals. It's a small world and i'm excited to go out and explore it!

Clermont is going to be good for me, very good.

Tonight i'm going to do a small 30 minute run. Tomorrow it's supposd to snow...in FLORIDA! But i'm not going to be outside, just lift in the morning and swim at night.

Thank you to Bigdaddy for his help and donation, i will be writing for his site now too. :)

Alright! i gotta write this down so i don't forget:

Ideas to use for fundraising:
Bike outside of a bikeshop on my trainer with signs for donations
Ask bikeshop to give me 5 free tuneups which i'll sell for $30 a piece (30 less then normal)

Now as for training today i ran for 45 minutes and it was great. no pain except my hip slightly, but more importantly no foot pain or achilles tightness. Then i went home and spun for 45 minutes while watching the Carmichel Hill tape. Thats a good tape, i think i like it better then Spinervals because they use you're HR as a guide for your intensity.

I think this friday i'll leave work at 3 pm, set up my bike in front of bikeworks from 4-7 (if they let me) and we'll see what i can come up with.

Donation Update!
Thank you to the following Donators as of 4:21 pm today:

Riff Raff Running Forum Members:
AlaninTX
Erstwhile Lurker
Cherylpf

Co-Workers
Rex
Steve
Ryan

That's almost 300 bucks in 3 days...30 slots left, i hope i can do this!

Thank you very much to all of you. It's hard to focus on work because all i can think of is fundraisers for money!