OK...

So this week just can't get any worse can it??? You saw my previous post about my computer, the one that hooks up to my Tacx and has all of my photos on it. Well it still isn't working.

Then there are the $90.00 running shoes I just bought this week that I discovered I couldn't run in yesterday. Yep, 30 minutes into an hour run there was PAIN shooting up my right leg. I had to walk back to my car. If I had any wits about me I would have phoned in the rest of my planned workouts for this weekend. But no, I had a 5 hour hilly bike ride scheduled for today, the Dam Loop plus Limecreek road (home of the Triple Bitch climb - trust me you don't want to know) then back home on 360. Brutal, hilly and hot. But like some famous blogger named Chuck says, "Miles make champions."

Well 2:15 into the ride, right a the foot of said Triple Bitch the entire drive train on my road bike explodes into a gazillion pieces. I kid you not. My rear derailleur was in pieces all over the road. My front derailleur, what was left of it, was lodged in between my large and small chainrings. I had to call Du Shun for a ride home. Thank God I forgot to text him last night or he might have been on the ride with me. 40 miles is a long walk in cycling shoes... I thought about swimming later but decided to stay home in the house where I'm safe. Right now I don't think I should go anywhere near the water given the week I'm having.

My Computer Is Dead.

So I raced this weekend. There are pictures. There is a story to be told. Why am I not telling it, you ask? Why are there no pictures? Well it is because of some freakish glitch in the video drivers on my desktop computer. The computer that has the nice monitor I use to view and choose the photos I post on this blog.

Somehow I've managed to corrupt the video drivers each time I've rebuilt the system from scratch and each time, I completely lose video output and wind up staring at a blank screen. So you might be asking yourself why is this on my blog? And you might also wonder why it matters and what it would have to do with my working out? So what if there are no pictures, you say. And indeed a good argument could be made that pictures on a blog devoted to training and triathlon aren't necessary.

But I have a reason to be at least somewhat concerned by this. Not only was this the computer that I kept my video and my blog pictures on. This was also the computer that I attach to my Tacx bike trainer. Not to mention it is the only Microsoft Windows system I have (everything else, including the homebrew PVR attached to the TV downstairs is some flavor of Linux or BSD). This means it also has all my iTunes music as well. Blah, blah, blah.... You get the picture. I sort of need to have this thing running.

Of course all the files are backed up and I do have access to the pictures, but that isn't the point. The point is I don't like it when something I built isn't working. Everything sort of stops for me until I get it working again. So today, instead of going to the gym and working out, what was I doing? I was trying to rebuild the desktop. Nothing worked. At least nothing that provided me with video output. So I'm stuck with having to work some major MS-fu to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Got all that? So anyway that's why I raced this weekend. And there are no pictures. And I haven't blogged.