Should I stay or should I go

The following post is informational only.  I don't want to get all dramatic but I am not sure what to do next. I think it's fair to say that I do not use this blog for personal drama. I have always wanted to keep it focused on training and my 'dramas' as they relate to my training schedule, injuries, good times, bad times and making people laugh where possible which is usually pretty easy when I'm talking about falling off my bike or better yet when I plain fall down on a run for no reason.

Sadly I have a stalker. I dated this guy for less than 8 weeks but I was not seriously interested after the first week or two. I told him that and said I would like to keep it casual and he agreed. Over time I became less and less interested so I finally said it was over around the end of October. By that time I had already deleted and blocked him on facebook. I didn't hear from him for a bit and had hoped that radio silence would continue but not with this guy. I knew he was still following my twitter feed and my blog - fair enough - they are public. He emailed me several times and my response was to ask him to leave me alone - DO NOT contact me again. Then I blocked his email and told him that was what I was doing, thinking that should have been the end of it. Nope. He created a fake profile and started commenting on my blog. It was very easy to tell it was him.

But, even though I have shut down every avenue of communication and stated very clearly 'do not contact me again' he just keeps coming back. He has even gone so far as to say 'you are responding to me, you MUST care'. (cue the really creepy music here because that is incredibly alarming).

Over the weekend he posted an inappropriate message directed at me on a triathlon forum and it was then that I protected my tweets and shut down my blog. It made me very sad to do that because I love my twitterverse being open to new people and as well as my blog. I have contemplated making my blog invite only but I have made some terrific bloggy friends and found others blogs because my blog is open (someone even told me they LIKE my blog and found it motivating which is funny cause I'm here because of you guys, not the other way around, but I digress). At any rate, I am totally creeped out to know that this person is not only reading my blog but then he clicks on all of your blogs and stalks my comments there too. In fact, I suspect that he's delusional enough to see this blog entry as positive to our non-existent relationship and feel that if I'm blogging about it that must mean I care about him. 

Now I'm rethinking the decision to shut down the blog because I am not going stop my life because of someone else's "challenges". I am now only concerned that he is contacting random people about me because all other avenues have been closed to him. So the main reason I am posting this now is to say that if a guy messages you and says he is my boyfriend, he is lying. The guy I am dating would not contact friends or blog pals. In fact, normal people just don't do that. So please, if he contacts you please just ignore him and his lies. I sincerely hope he finally leaves me alone. I am going to leave the blog up and hope for radio silence or I'm going to have to take this to the next step. His behaviour is harrassment and I'm done sitting quietly by hoping he'll just go away.

And now back to our regularly scheduled triathlon training posts. I appreciate your patience.

For Q

I'm just hanging out surfing the net and this guy is one of my favourites when I need a laugh.  When I saw this I HAD to post it for Q since he got me started on these videos.  I have no words.

Tomorrow I will return to my regularly scheduled posts full of triathlon training and injury photos, there'll be winter running so of course there will be injuries. In the meantime, this Bud Light's for you!

The toilet

I am not normally a toilet humour enthusiast but I DID pee myself when I saw these the first time.

Under pressure

the stencil

and it's not about the challenge, more on that later.  Well it seems that Mr. Payne has done a bit of a write up about my tattoo and when I looked at my latest entry I thought it would be an awful first impression for people that might actually stop by here.  It's like having people drop by unexpectedly at your house, I felt the need to clean up a bit.. now there's no telling if this entry is actually any better than the last one but I can at least say I tried.

Bryan mentioned that I might be conservative and it's true in some ways, I have worked in insurance my whole life but what he doesn't know about me is that I also worked a downtown rock bar called Rock and Roll Heaven for many years (in my 20s), yes a very very long time ago. I doubt if my friends from back then would call me 'conservative' but it's true I have mellowed over the years for sure.  That's a way more boring story.  Anyway to prove that I was once less conservative, here's a pic of me in my 20's.  Yes, you can laugh, it's not my fault, it was the freaking 80's people!!!

I have wanted another tattoo for a very long time but tattoos are a huge commitment, obviously and I wasn't certain what I wanted and knew that in time I would know what to get and I also knew that if the time never came, no big deal.  I wanted one down my entire spine, nope, not kidding and am still considering that but based on how painful this one was, that probably won't happen.

I almost passed out at this point

Back when the whole triathlon thing started I honestly didn't think for a second it would last more than a week, hell ask my friends, my trainer, they'll all tell you I'm the queen of join and never finish!  Then on my first google search for 'triathlon' I found trainingpayne's blog and started reading.  From there I found more blogs and interesting people and then I found twitter and then I got involved.  Well as involved as "I" could be but then other people started involving me which was really scary and slightly exciting.  Before I knew it I was loaned a bike (a Pinarello no less) and there I was riding 2.5kms on Bell School line and wiping out.   And while my blog friends laughed they also cheered me on very loudly!

It's true I am not and never have been athletic at all so this was a big struggle to me but over time I really wanted to finish at least one race.  Then one day on Bryan's blog  I had made a comment saying that at 44 years old I really felt like I was a bit of a fraud, that the voices in my head were telling me 'it's too late for you, stop making a fool of yourself'.  It was meant to be just a statement but what i got back were words I will never forget and in fact, I posted them as an entry here. Over the last year those last words, 'Adena, what you want is in you' have played in my head over and over again and I knew that was it.  I have to say that I am often taken aback by the sheer size of it day to day but I love it more and more every day.  Even if I was to never do another race this journey has taught me more about myself and other people than anything in life.  PS - if you are Finnish and this does not translate to what I think it does, DO NOT TELL ME!!  It's impossible to change, let me have my illusion.

So yes, it's true Bryan did give me advice that I actually had tattooed onto my arm but I'm just joking, what it really  means is 'where did you put the beer bong!!'.  I actually just walked into the tattoo shop and asked them to put something on me that would cost me a very large amount of money and be excruciatingly painful.

finished, thank gawd!

That's all I got.

(and for those tracking the challenge, I zoned this weekend, between my roommate moving and my need to watch Season 2 of Sons of Anarchy in it's entirety today I did not train. Thank god I didn't bet anything BUT I'm moving forward and will continue, it doesn't stop here, in fact I have spin class with Mike tomorrow.. ouch! cause yea, there's that pesky 1/2 IM looming)

I am more important that John

This blog is posted so I can appear above JohnP in Daryl's blogroll (and everyone else that lists both of us).  I will be back to post a real blog later.  In the meantime go read how John is a quitter and Daryl is getting back at it!

More to come later today.