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Oh, I do so love it when I get comments from my fan(s) and they throw in some of the
wonderful little colloquialisms or jargon that makes this country great. If I’m not mistaken, I believe “cookins” (cookies) is part of a rural Appalachian dialect, as in “Maw ’ll bake us’n summa her oatmeal-hogfat cookins when she gits them darn goats outta the kitchen’s.” This is just splendid. I suppose it could have also been a typo, in which case I do sympathize – my father was a master at the single-finger-typing method, but not everyone has his skills; hence, mistakes do happen. Though since the “e” is nowhere near the “n” on a keyboard, perhaps we should go with the dialect theory.In any case, anonymous comments make me a little sad, because I like knowing who my tens of readers are as this makes it easier for me to visualize our happy little family, just part of the larger triathlon community as a whole. So there’s Colleen, professorial and sporty, Bridget, corporate and sporty, Deanna, prairie-knowledgeable and......well, you get the picture. Deanna also stands out due to the picture of Drew Peterson that she carries in a locket around her neck, but that’s another matter.
So in the absence of a name, I’m forced to use my imagination a bit, though I’m pretty sure that
Anonymous here is one of my, umm, more persistent fans, who I like to refer to as Swimfan, and who lets nary a day go by without an eager missive reaching my desk: “Tasha, your Greatnessess, I patiently await your next gems of information so that I can proceed with my own training, patterned exactly after your own. While I appreciate the multi-paged plan in Excel that you sent me, as well as the laminated cheat-sheet for nutrition on the bike (which I promptly zip-tied to my aerodrink!), both at my request, I must confess that I am lost without your daily (would that it was hourly!) guidance. Please, do not keep us waiting!!”(Note: I have translated from the rural dialect that Swimfan tends to use, to make it easier for others to comprehend. It’s only after the hundreds of emails I’ve received from Swimfan that I’ve become so adept at figuring out what the hell he’s saying.)
I fondly recall the time I foolishly went a few days without posting anything – that didn’t stop my Greatest Fan, oh no! The little ping of each and every email, hour after hour, growing increasingly frantic...well, I finally took pity on Swimmie and sent along some details on my
latest epic 15-minute swim workout, and all was quiet for a while. But, it wasn’t long before the proverbial clicking of the bike shoes tapping impatiently against the floor began anew, as Swimfan has mentioned that he likes to sit around in his cycling gear all day (see picture, last person on right), so that as soon as he receives more training information from me, he can leap out the door and go to his garage where his trainer is set up – something about how hard it is to tape the necessary one-gel-per-ten-minutes onto his new Cervelo, even though the ten spacers on the bike give him almost enough room to manage this – so he just does all his riding in his parents’ garage. Shrug. We all have to make our own path in this world, I suppose. Who am I to judge?But, to his comment – while it seems that the OCD is getting worse for my dear Swimfan (note: I keep telling you, Swimmie, UP THE MEDS!) as he continues to rather obsessively try to get me to stop writing on the blog and just correspond with him, sharing my Secrets to Greatness – I am a bit aggrieved that after all of the explanations, he is not quite grasping the essence of my nutritional plan. After all, it is the nuances of my plan that are so critical to its success. Some seem to take my instructions as license to just eat whatever they want, willy-nilly, in an opportunistic fashion: “Oh, there’s a corndog stand, I guess I’ll declare it corndog week and have at it!” No no NO, gentle readers, this is just not how it works. One must work hard to meld opportunism with the natural lifecycles that should dictate our food choices. So, for example, to suggest that I’m sitting around eating “cookins” these days flies in the face of the plan. It’s a mockery, really, and while I apologize for being a bit harsh here with my gentle nebbish reader Swimfan, I don’t want people to misinterpret my advice, and then blame me for the disaster that ensues, as in “Tasha’s nutritional plan didn’t work at ALL! I’m now the definition of roly-poly, not a finely honed athlete! Well, even more roly-poly than before, if that’s possible.”
The point being – there is a strict schedule that must be followed, based in part on the waxing/waning cycles of the moon and tidal patterns. This means that DECEMBER, yes, December, was “Cookins” Month. Right now is, rather, Petit Four Week – since everyone knows that petit fours are the perfect expression of spring, with their sprightly wee appearance, their light texture and pastel colors – and so this is the week that I have incorporated petit fours into my training, not cookins, sadly, since cookins are so much easier to transport in a bento box. But, far be it from me to take the easy way out. And no, none of this is easy – why do you think not everyone trains this way??
1 comment:
You had me at Swimfan
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