Author Archives: tim

I kinda fixate on names. They get in my head like advertising jingles and bad pop songs.

It’s a useful skill during the school year, but at other times, it’s a little annoying and strange. During the Tour de France, for example, I’m always blurting out names of cyclists.

Recently, I’ve had names of NPR DJs in my head. Daniel Shore, Carl Castle, Shimain Mills, Melba Lara, Michelle Norris. The list goes on. Weird, huh?

The other night, as I was lying in bed, the name Richard Strauss popped into my head, so I said it. “Ri-shard Strauss!”

Eileen responded by saying “Wagner” (pronounced Vagner).

I pondered for a second and remembered that Wagner’s first name was Richard. “Aha!” I thought, “we’re playing a little game.” So I went through my mental catalogue, looking for Richards. Naturally, I came up with Richard (Ri-shard) Virenque, the French cyclist who frequently won the polka-dot jersey. “Richard Virenque!” I said.

“He’s not a musician,” Eileen said.

“Oh, we’re just doing musicians?”

“Yeah. Richard Davis.”

Hmmm. “Keith Richards!”

“You can’t do Keith Richards. It’s first names.”

“Fine.” I could deal with that. I went back to my mental catalogue. “Richard Springfield.”

“Who?”

“Richard Springfield. He goes by Rick.”

She laughed. “I don’t know if that counts.”

“C’mon!”

“You can’t call Rick Springfield Richard.”

“Ok, then.” I was having a lot of trouble thinking of musician Richards. So I changed tactics. “Richard Davis.”

“No! I already said him.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t your turn.”

“What?”

“I said Richard Strauss. You said Wagner. So the next one was my turn. I’m saying Richard Davis. Your turn.”

“Fine,” she said. She went silent, thinking, and then said, “Keith Richards.”

So I’ve been gone. Hence the lack of posts.

The first excursion was a three-day “Ride Across Wisconsin,” which my brother-in-law does every year with some friends of his. I joined them this year as we rode from Prairie du Chein to Sheboygan (more or less). I logged 314 miles in three days.

On the second day of riding, which also happened to be the easiest, my big toes went numb. They’ve kinda been numb since. I looked up the problem in a bunch of forums and other internet sites and figured out that it’s a fairly common issue — caused by bad socks, poorly fitting shoes, improper cleat position, or pedaling technique. It has something to do with the nerves in the metatarsals not getting the proper rest . . . I don’t know. I read enough about it to make sense of it, but I can’t really articulate it to anyone else.

I didn’t do much in the days following the bike trip. Just a few swimming workouts. Eileen and I went to Blackhawk Lake to camp. We took Eileen’s boat and she rowed each day we were there.

My toes were still numb afterwards. Yesterday I soaked them in hot water, which hurt. Today, I biked and ran. I experimented with my pedaling, and I wore my good bike socks. My toes didn’t seem to get any worse; in fact, they actually felt best when I was running on them, but my IT band started getting a little irritated on the run.

Afterward, Eileen and I were discussing my problems.

Tim: I’ve had this IT problem before and it’s not gonna go away before the Ironman. It’s an overuse injury.

Eileen: Maybe you should take vitamin N.

Tim: Vitamin N?

Eileen: NSAIDS, like Advil.

Tim: Is Advil an NSAID?

Eileen: Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug?

Tim: Hmm. I guess so. You know, when it comes right down to it, the Ironman is pretty stupid. You know that thin line between tough and stupid? This crosses right into stupid. Now a rowing marathon, that’s tough.

Eileen: Well. . .

Tim: Ok, it’s a little stupid, too. It’s really a thin line.

Eileen: One might even say it’s more of an area.

Tim: It’s transparent. Actually, it’s like a gradient.

Eileen: You never really know when you cross it. You’re always in both.

Tim: Yeah, but on either end, there are pure areas. Pure toughness would be like if you did something tough involuntarily. Or selflessly. Like saving a baby from a whirlpool.

Eileen: Yeeeaaah (Looking doubtful) . . . And pure stupid?

Tim: That’s when you die trying to do something tough, like if you try a Jackass stunt and end up killing yourself as a result.

Eileen: So you do something you don’t really know anything about?

Tim: Yeah.

Eileen: Well, I’m glad we got that figured out.

Tim. Me too.

Message from Eileen: the above is an approximation of the conversation we had. Tim actually brought up taking advil during the race and I told him that might be hard on his stomach (and that he should probably just take it after the race since that’s when inflammation is the worst anyway). I don’t advocate painkillers. I hate taking them – and the vitamin N comment was me quoting some of the sports medicine people I’ve run into who dish out NSAIDs like they are vitamins.

I awoke this morning to an intermittent beeping sound — so intermittent, in fact, that after it would wake me up, I’d lie there for a second sleepily contemplating whether or not I had heard a beeping sound until I finally drifted back to sleep, at which point, I’d hear the sound again. This happened about five times, probably.

Then I heard the floorboards creaking loud enough to wake me up for real. I immediately ruled out cats as culprits. It sounded more like a human-sized weight. The dog was right next to me in bed. I quickly deduced that it had to be a person.

In our house!

I slammed my hand on Eileen’s side of the bed to feel if she was there. If she had been, it would have been a rude awakening indeed.

Eileen walked into the room just as I was groggily sitting up. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“There’s a beeping sound. I think it’s a smoke alarm, but I can’t find it.”

I got up and walked out of the bedroom. “It’s this one,” I said, walking toward the most obvious smoke detector.

“I already checked that one,” Eileen said.

I stood there for a full minute until it went off again. I was wrong. “It’s the one in the bedroom,” I said.

“I was just in there trying to get it down, but I couldn’t. Is there one in the piano room?”

“I don’t think so.” I walked into the piano room and turned on the light. The alarm beeped again. It seemed to be coming from the original detector. I thought for a second and came up with a brilliant plan: check the basement.

“Where are you going?” Eileen said, as I walked through the kitchen. I mumbled an incoherent response.

At the bottom of the basement stairs, I paused until I heard it again. I sneezed just as it sounded. It was coming from the furnace room (Can I call that place a cellar? Cuz I do.). I walked into the cellar and listened again.

Eileen came in shortly afterwards and we both listened. “Did you say ‘shit’?” she asked.

“No. I sneezed.”

It beeped.

“There.” We both pointed at a smoke detector lying uselessly on the workbench. I picked it up and opened it. It had no battery.

“Shit.”

We looked around. It beeped again. We looked back at the work bench. There was another one lying there — with batteries.

“Good grief,” I said, as we left the cellar. While we were heading back upstairs, I heard my alarm clock going off.