Life Catches Up

No swimming today as I had to leave work early to get the other three tires on my car replaced. If you remember, one of my tires completely shredded on our way to Ottawa back in late January. Today I had the car inspected by my trusted mechanic and got the word back that the other three are also of the "sub par" variety and are just about ready to blow. Naturally, with the impending drive to the Around the Bay race in Hamilton coming up this weekend I don't want to face a similar mess so I fixed the problem (hundreds of dollars and several wasted hours later, of course). I even called the dealership where we bought the car last November, not to get any sort of financial restitution or anything, but simply to let them know that the mechanic they used to safety our car put on a set of duds, told us they were new, and in the process risked my family's safety and that of the others on the road at the time of our blowout. Like the title of this post says, life has a way of catching up to you sometimes, and I suspect it will catch up to that crooked mechanic somewhere down the line. I was informed that for other reasons this dealership no longer deals with that mechanic, which is a very good thing. And even though the used car warranty has long expired the dealer asked what he could do to help and offered me 4 new tires at cost. I thanked him but couldn't take advantage of the offer since I needed them replaced asap and couldn't make the trip up to Bolton this weekend on account of the race.

On the lighter side of things, if you are looking for a meal that packs in the calories like few can check out this story about a massive burger being offered at the Detroit Tigers single-A affiliate's, the West Michigan Whitecaps, ballpark this summer. A free t-shirt to anyone who can finish it in one sitting! Someone should tell Dean Karnazes about this thing. And doesn't Nitmos live in the area? Maybe he could check this out and give the blogosphere a review sometime when he is suffering from "hunger pangs".

And in case you are thinking that your long run calorie intake isn't up to snuff, check out this race report from ESPN.com. I almost chucked-up the butter chicken I had for lunch when I read this story, partly from laughing and partly from the prospect of ever being subjected to such an ordeal.

Strength routine tonight. Then lots of exercises that the physio prescribed. I'm back to standing one-legged on a wobble board, something I did religiously for about a year during my slow recovery period. I had built up enough strength in the ankle to stand on that thing for a good ten to fifteen minutes at a time, but now I find that my muscles burn like crazy at about the 2 minute mark. I guess that's a good thing in that I have lots of room for improvement, but I do feel bad that I ever let this slide. Perhaps if I had kept up the wobble board balancing exercises my current foot pain would never have crept up? Hindsight's a bitch.