Becoming Timberman

It’s the first race of the year and I am absolutely stoked to be this close! I’ve been training hard for 3 months, and just winding down a little bit last week and this week in preparation. I’m a little nervous that I haven’t done an outdoor swim yet this year, so I’d like to try to get one of those in before the race, but it’s not looking too promising at this point. There just aren’t very many lakes around here that are open for swimming at this time of year. But it’s not like I’ve forgotten how to swim outside, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.

For those of you who don’t know, I went to Tampa for the weekend with my father in law to watch the Frozen Four college hockey tournament. I had a great time, did a ton of walking, a little swimming, and got in a couple of good runs. Running in Florida is ridiculous; I don’t know if i have enough willpower in me that if I lived in Florida that I could do triathlons. It’s way too hot and humid most days to even consider running. I got up early 2 days while I was there, and one was absolutely awful. Thank god it was my short run. The longer one was on a much cooler day following a rainstorm in the evening, so it wasn’t too bad. I don’t know how Florida people do it but I know I’d be a lot skinnier from it from just sweating so much… hmm… maybe I SHOULD move to Florida.

It’s really exciting that race season is here, and that fundraising is also going well, now at $355! That’s about 1/8th of what we need to hit to give away the iPad 3, and 1/3rd of the minimum that I’d like to raise this year! So by either measure, making good progress!

Sadly in a small bit of bad news, our poor little dwarf hamster Wangles passed away today. She joined our family in October of 2010 so she’s been with us quite a while, but sadly today she passed. She bit and was grumpy a lot (which reminded me of Rachelle) and she was furry, liked to make a mess, and stuff her face (so she reminded me of me). She will be missed.

5k’s are so short, that it’s hard to do them justice in a race report. You go, you run, it’s over. With it being that short of a race you’d also think there’s not much time for things to go wrong. Actually, there’s plenty of time for things to go wrong, it’s just that there’s not as much time to solve the problems so that you’re forced to just deal with it.

The weather on Saturday was rainy and cool in the morning, but heated up less than an hour before the race, which made my choice of just my Underarmor base layer designed for warm weather seem like a good choice… except that I accidentally put on the one designed for cool weather. And because I didn’t get a chance to put new laces in my older running shoes, I wore the cheap tennis shoes I bought the other day. So, I spent the entire race hot and in pain from my hips to heels; the new shoes are Saucony’s but not the right style for me to run in according to my foot type, and let me just say what I’ve been told about having the right shoes for my feet makes a real difference. Even though I was hot, the first silver lining was that we weren’t racing in torrential rains like we did at Paddy’s Road Race a couple years ago. Ruined iPod and wet, blistered feet are just not a fun way to race.

The roads we ran on are ones Rach and I are really familiar with because the race was held at the school Rach works at. It is held annually to benefit the athletic training club at Campbell. Jennifer Webb, the girl the race is held in honor of, was an athletic training student, hit by a drunk driver on her way to school about 10 years ago. Besides being a worthy cause that means a lot to Rachelle, it’s also a fairly flat course very close to home. Other than one steep but thankfully fairly short hill it was almost all flat.

As you know I’ve been training a lot, at least in comparison to my personal history, and I’ve been taking this season a lot more seriously in terms of preparation. I still haven’t made the progress I’ve wanted on my running, but my general fitness does seem to be coming around enough that it’s helping my running just from having my cardio capacity and tolerance for suffering higher than usual. That training was the second silver lining of the day.

I started the run with the idea of trying to run the first half mile, and seeing how I felt as that approached. When I got to the half mile, I still felt pretty fresh so I kept going and didn’t stop until I hit the 1 mile marker at 13 minutes on the dot. I walked a few minutes and then started running again, mixing segments of running and walking throughout the rest of the race. I found I had a lot more stamina than I thought I would and was able to run 3 to 4 minutes at a time without risking blowing up completely, even in the heat and leg pain I was dealing with. The race finished on the school’s track, and I ran the most of a quarter mile finishing lap with even a little bit of a sprint kick for the last 25 yards or so.

The race measured short, only about 2.95 miles according to my Garmin. My finishing time was 40:30, which put me ~70th out of 115 or so folks. I don’t have the official results yet, but I was fairly happy. If I’d put the right shirt on, I’d have definitely been able to run more, and if I’d had the right shoes on I wouldn’t have hurt as much in the last mile so I’m guessing I would have been faster. Even so, when compared to my previous 3 mile races, it was the slowest, by about 45 seconds. Both of the previous 3 milers were run in much cooler weather, and with better clothing choices made; but it shows I need to keep working on run fitness and weight loss, the two biggest factors in my running.

The really great part of this race was seeing Jennifer Webb’s mom and the joy she felt knowing that her daughter hasn’t been forgotten. That alone was worth racing this race.

As a follow up, I woke up sore on Sunday, very much feeling the result of the wrong shoes. But after watching the Tour of Flanders and Ironman Texas 70.3 Sunday morning, I pushed myself out on the bike, where I had one of my best rides ever, though it didn’t feel like it for much of the ride.

Finally, I have some fun pictures of Stanley to share with you that I took late last week. We have a hay field behind our house that hasn’t been planted yet, so it looks like a big prairie and it has a bunch of wildflowers growing in it. Stanley was kind enough to be in the mood to pose pretty much whenever I snapped a shot, and you can see in some of these how he’s not even as tall as some of the flowers.

He was distracted by a butterfly at the last second

A dog truly out standing in his (neighbors) field

I bet you can't see me in these flowers, huh?

Make sure to get my good side

Let's go! There's so many more bugs to chase... and eat!

- I’m finding it harder and harder to justify using my extra points each week, at least the way I am used to using them; which is to say basically having a meal a week of crap food I’ve been building up cravings for. I had McDonald’s for lunch today and I’m pissed at myself about it. After I eat that extra points meal, I always find myself feeling unhappy with my choice and wishing I hadn’t done it. Plus it tends to impact the quality of my next workout, which is something I dislike, and even worse it acts as a roadblock to continued weight loss. I’ve been plateaued at right near the 15 lbs lost level for the past few weeks. My weight loss and health goals are way more important than feeding some craving.

- As Rach came around to identifying her racing schedule and I looked at the finances of everything involved, we decided the Rev3 Wisconsin Dells just didn’t make sense for us this year economically. In it’s place I’m racing Giant Eagle Triathlon Festival Olympic distance in Columbus, Ohio on 7/29, and as a result of winning a free race entry (yes, another one) Rach and I are going to race the Washington Sprint Triathlon in place of the Greensboro Triathlon the 3rd weekend of May. Finally, we’ve decided to add one final Olympic distance race to the schedule, the Jamestown International Triathlon in Virginia the first week of July as we couldn’t find a June race that fit for us. My whole schedule is up on the Races/Results page. This is still pending what Dr. Pain thinks about my not having a half in the schedule this year as prep for the full.

- Stanley has become good friends with the Neighbors horse, regularly eating grass together. Today though Stanley took a walk on the wild side and ate some of the horses poo. I have no idea what in the world possessed him to do that but I can tell you who will not be getting kisses from the doggy for a while: This guy. I also have some pictures of Stan running through the field with grass and flowers as tall as he is to upload for next week.

- I’m as ready as I’m going to get for the 5k tomorrow, so hopefully it goes well. Training this week has been challenging but successful. Even my “easy” 15 miles was almost 14 MPH average

- My fundraising is on track for a successful year, and we’re just about 100 shy of the first chair being donated. I’ll have an updated total on Monday and hopefully prizes for the April drawing to announce next week.

Yesterday was a busy day at work, wrapping up the last of my efforts on a project at work so I didn’t get out to train until after dinner. That meant I had to do the two workouts back to back in “brick fashion”, which as it was a swim and run, I’m calling it a “Swun”.

For some reason I didn’t feel overly fast, but I think its because Im being too critical of myself. My slow 100s take about 3 minutes, so trying to figure out my pacing when I’m doing 150s was confusing, but that the 150s were in the 4 minute range made me pretty happy.  I even did my 3rd one really smoothly, got the turns right and everything and went hard just to see how I would do. That may have led to my screwing up the last two 150s and making them 200s.

Im set up for a straight out awesome week, and I thought I’d share in advance rather than just wait until after all the stuff happened.

First, I talked to Dr. Pain, and after the kindness of a recovery week, she’s doubled up on the helpings of suffering, so I won’t have a day off until next Wednesday. Since many of you have asked what my workouts look like I’ve tried to provide occasional snippets of what I’m doing but didn’t want to make Dr. Pain’s work product public without her permission. She told me yesterday that she’s fine with it because it’s customized to me, so it won’t help other people as much if they just did it. I really think she wants to show how much of a whiner I am by letting me post the stuff I think of as “hard” so she can have people heckle me about it. Or maybe it is really hard and she wants the masochists out there are looking for a coach to make them suffer more. All I know is that it’s been working, and I’m excited to see how much I can gain from this last big build week as I get close to the first triathlon of the year.

So here’s this weeks plan

Mon – Run/Walk 45 mins; 2150 swim (highlights 8 x 150, 8 x 50 hard, with 550 easy/cooldown)

Tues – 15 miles hilly ride

Weds – Run/Walk 80 minutes

Thurs – 15 miles easy

Fri – swim 2250 (highlights 600 continuous,  10 x 25 sprint @ 10 seconds, 10 x 100 @ 10 seconds, 400 cooldown)

Sat – 5k race (more on that below)

Sun – 30 mile ride

This is easily the hardest week I’ve ever done in March, and it should be good fun. Plus we’re doing our first race of any kind for the season. There’s a very small 5k in the tiny little town Rachelle works in that we’re doing on Saturday. It’s held in memory of an athletic trainer at the school Rachelle works at that passed away and benefits the athletic training club that she was passionate about. It’ll be interesting to see what the course is like because there are a couple big hills in that little town that I’ve never run. I have no idea if this is a “fast and flat” race or something more challenging, so it will be interesting to see.

And then there’s my new bike frame which should be here this week as well hopefully and might give me a chance to get it built and ready for the first triathlon of the season which is just under 3 weeks away and I am all registered so now it’s just putting in the last of the work to be sure I’m ready.

This is my 4th triathlon season, and when I pop into the water on April 14th, somehow I’ll only be doing my 3rd go at an international distance tri. I’m not sure how that happened. I guess focusing on Timberman in 2010, and then now over a year with my eyes on the elusive 140.6 goal; it was never a big priority for me. I have done some longish sprints, and the Shipwreck Tri last year was labeled a “Sprinternational”, with longer than usual distances but not quite the full olympic distance.

I’ve had over 3 months to focus on the Belews Lake tri, and I’m feeling prepared, but also nervous. My first Olympic, I forgot my CPAP at home, I ate like crap & slept like crap the night before, it was wicked hot (it was a MA race, use of wicked is mandated by law as a descriptive term there), and was done before I even got up the big hill 300 ft of elevation over 10 miles (which is basically my standard 10 mile ride these days). The second one, Rev3 Anderson last fall, was a lot more successful with 1 small caveat; I didn’t make the cutoff time on that race. The race organizers were kind enough to let me finish (as they had a whole bunch of 70.3 athletes on the course still) but I was 22:12 over the 4 hour official cutoff. The same 4 hour cutoff as Belews Lake is going to have.

That makes my first goal a simple one: Finish under the established time limit so I don’t spend half the run worrying that I’ll be pulled from the course.

That’s a good goal and all but where am I going to find 22 minutes? Here’s where I think the 22 minutes will come from:

Swim – I wasn’t swimming nearly enough when I did my last two races last season; this year I’ll be over 30,000 yards by race day, and my swim endurance is a ton better. I averaged 3:03/100 yards at Anderson; today those are my very slow warmup/cooldown times. I’m going to be listing 2:25/100 as my average time, though I know I’ll fade a bit from that near the end. But I should be faster because it’s a time trial start which will let me hug the buoy lines without worry of being over run and site more clearly. Hugging the buoys makes the whole race a lot shorter than being out far to the left; and I will swim a lot closer to the actual .9 miles than I have in races in the past.

Rev 3 Anderson: 44:16 (.9 miles); Belews Lake Goal: 41:00 (.9 miles) { Time saved: 3:16 }

Transition 1 - I shouldn’t be as wiped out as I have been in the past getting out of the water, so I should be able to make up huge ground in T1. Simpler layout, not going to worry as much about getting dry before I get on the bike, no wetsuit mistakes (if they’re even legal), and waiting to eat until I’m up on the bike should save me a lot of time  I’ve wasted standing still in the past.

Rev 3 Anderson: 8:16; Belews Lake Goal: 4 minutes { Time saved: 4:16 }

Bike – The course is 2 loops, 5 miles uphill, 5 miles downhill and repeat. The good news is, other than a couple steeper bumps, the average for the uphill is only a .6% grade. That’s less steep than almost all the climbing I do around here but it does go on a bit. The other bit of good news is that it has 5 miles of essentially uninterrupted slow sloping downhill twice during the ride. I should have no trouble gaining back time on each of the downhills, and shouldn’t be too bad off going uphill. The total elevation gain for the whole bike is only 525 feet, so it’s definitely in my range right now. I just did a 30 mile bike in 2:01:42 hours with 200 more feet of climbing.

And then there’s my secret weapon:

My soon to be new bike frame

Yep, I’m buying the Kestrel Talon frameset. All of my existing components are compatible with it, other than I probably need a steerer tube. Assuming I have this new rocket in hand and assembled in time with at least a week to get used to it, I can only imagine I’m going to be at least a little bit faster than I’m currently expecting but for now I’m not counting on it until the bike is here and put together.

Rev 3 Anderson (1:50:21, 25 miles) Belews Lake Goal: (1:47:00, 27 miles) { Time Saved: 3:21 }

Transition 2: Drop the helmet and the gloves. get out of my bike shoes and be off on the run. Depending on the size of transition, and the fact that I’ll have the last 5 miles of downhill coming into transition to both push the pace and recuperate, I may just have a shot at lowering my T2 time, though it’s the one time at Anderson I wasn’t terribly upset about, and will be tough to beat until I get new shoes.

Rev 3 Anderson (2:58) Belews Lake Goal: (2:30) { Time Saved: 28 seconds }

Run – If everything goes as listed above, I’ll have shaved 11:21 off my Rev 3 Anderson time. That means I need to shave just under 11 minutes off my run time at Anderson if I am going to finish under 4 hours. I’ll be the first to admit that it sounds daunting, and that my run hasn’t exactly picked up as much as I’d have liked. But here’s the thing; I’ve trained harder in the past 3 months than maybe I’ve ever trained. My stamina is better than it’s basically ever been at least for the distances I’ve been doing thus far, and the distances of this race are inside those. Finally, my run at Anderson was quite slow as I walked the entire distance other than a little ways before the finishing chute. I averaged only a 15:30 mile, which won’t be hard to beat, but the question is by how much? It’s gotta be by at least 11 minutes.

Rev 3 Anderson (1:36:19) Belews Lake Goal: (1:24:00) { Time Saved: 12:19 }

Pretty exciting that in 3 weeks I’ll finally get to see how the training is paying off!

Sorry for my absence late last week, you know I still love you guys, but work was VERY busy, and I had my hardest 3 workouts of the year to this point all in a row, so I didn’t have as much free time as normal. Dr. Pain had this jacked up idea that it would be AWESOME for me to do an 80 minute run/walk on Weds, 15 miles on the bike on Thursday, 1900 yards of intervals on Friday, and a 30 mile bike on Saturday. Ok, so she was right, but that’s not the point. All of those workouts went pretty well, except the Friday swim which was total shit. I don’t know if a moose swims well, but I felt what like what I imagine moose swim like. I had a very stressful day (Stanley was off at the vet getting fixed, and we had all kinds work craziness), so I ate like crap and my mind was not on my workout. I didn’t skip it though, because I wanted to have a much stronger few days going into recovery week than I did last time.

Saturday on the other hand was amazing. It was hot (another mid-march 80 degree day), but I felt strong from the minute I got on the bike. I was pushing 16 MPH for the first 15 or so miles, and at mile 25 was still just over 15 MPH. But the last four miles home is uphill on the route I took, so in the end I just missed averaging 15 MPH for the 30 miles (I got 14.8 MPH). Plus I did 750 feet of climbing, which is the most I’ve done this year by ~200 feet. it felt like most of it was in the last two miles, but that was probably just the mental piece of growing the distance I’m riding. I really think that was a big problem during Cedar Point last year is that I didn’t have the mental fortitude built up to ride that distance, even on race day, and that the pain just compounded the problem. I think that’s going to be an issue I’ll have solved for this year.

Speaking of mental issues, Dr. Pain gave me kudos for being open to the fact that I can follow up a bad workout with a good one.  I had to sit there and comprehend a minute, because not only did Dr. Pain give a compliment, but that it was about something I did that was 2nd nature to me. Being the optimist that I generally am, I really don’t let a single bad workout get to me, and it doesn’t usually impact how I approach the next day. It was nice to hear for sure that it’s a good trait to have.

So now it’s recovery week. The longest hardest efforts will be an hour ride with some hills on tuesday and 2 swims. None of my bikes is longer than 10 miles, and I only run like 30 minutes all week or something like that. The big work will be controlling appetite, which I did pretty well last recovery week. The day of long rides it doesn’t usually go as well, but now that I’m past that, I have a whole week to relax and eat healthy.

Lastly, I mailed all of the prizes for everyone who won something for the rafffle, so you should all be receiving them sometime this week I’d think

I have so much to (show and) tell you that I don’t know where to start… so I’ll start at the beginning…

On the first day, God created the Earth… wait no, this is not a Rick Santorum stump speech, so I need to skip ahead.

I was born a poor black child. No, that’s funny (all these years later), but that’s not it either.

Ok, so Saturday morning we went to the multisport expo. It was very cool! I got to hold an Olympic gold medal, and got a GIANT pile of swag! Plus I got to meet the President of INFINIT and thank him for sponsoring Eleonore Rocks. And I got my first bit of pink team kit with the INFINIT visor I picked up at the show.  We signed up for some contests and such (foreshadowing?), and I spent 90 minutes volunteering at the registration table handing out GU and electrolyte drink tabs. It felt like triathlon trick-or-treating, except the costumes were all race shirts. For some reason, triathletes and runners going to a show like this all have to wear a shirt that confirms they do indeed belong. Personally, I was trying to decide between my “I heart hot moms” or my “you smelt it, you dealt it” shirts, but in the end just went with something comfortable. The show was on Duke University campus, and the little we saw looked very nice.

I am addicted to free things

After a late lunch and a stop at Performance Bike for much needed chamois cream (overshare? nah, we all know what it’s like), it was too late to ride so I bagged it until Sunday.

Sunday morning after our one big breakfast of the week, made at home, Rach & I together in the kitchen (Stan didn’t help but he did beg for bacon. DENIED!), we decided to take the worlds most spastic dog (he’s going crazy from teething, you should see the mess on my office floor) out for a walk at Raven’s Rock State Park, not too far from our house. Here are a few things I learned I’d like to share with you:

• It is advisable to look at the length of the trail you’ll be hiking before you undertake it. You know, in case you have a small dog and a woman who wants a donut with you
• Maybe don’t choose the 5+ mile hike on the first warm day of the year when none of you have been hiking in a while.
• Dogs and women get grumpy when they don’t have food immediately following a hike. Bring donuts and puppy food for post hike de-grumpifying
• It is advisable to fall at least once during the walk in an unflattering but non-dangerous way so as to provide comic relief to the woman who wants a donut whose knee is now bothering her
• Do look where you’re going, rolling the same ankle twice is bad for training
• The small dog learning that water can be a lot more fun when it doesn’t have dog shampoo in it will make the long hike all worth it

Yes, I do talk to the dog in strange voices on occasion, and yes, I’m ok with it.

You’re probably wondering about that long ride I booted til Sunday, right? Well, fear not. Because of the magic of daylight savings, our extra long hike didn’t stop me from riding. In fact, that long ride was MEGA AWESOME!   My long weekend rides have been 25 miles for the past 4 weeks, and I haven’t been able to quite hit 15 MPH average for them; until Sunday. I was just over 15 MPH. Granted, it wasn’t the hilliest ride I’ve done, but I worked hard on every climb I did encounter and I was super stoked to finally hit the number I’ve been aiming for.

Of course I followed that up with a skipped run (sore twisted ankle and blister from hike) lousy swim Monday night, but I chalk that up to going all out on Sunday.

Finally, Tuesday it was EIGHTY DEGREES outside today. And I rode my bike on hills in it. I had a good ride, but still not hilly enough. I took a wrong turn and had to take a shortcut to finish my ride at 15 miles somewhat close to the house. Wound up doing 2 extra miles with another 100 feet of climbing so I at least i got a little more in. Now I know where I’m going for next time, should be able to double my climbing.

PS You remember that foreshadowing WAY WAY WAY back up in the front of this post? I won a race entry to a big race here in the Raleigh area. It’s UNC themed, and they have both a 10 and 4+ mile version. Based on where my training will be at the time, I opted for the 4+ mile version. Yay for Free Racing!

• As a reader of this blog, you might ask yourself from time to time; “So, how exactly is Ben’s training going?” I know that with gas prices on the rise, the potential of the US getting involved with military action in Syria, and a highly contested presidental election upcoming, the thing that keeps you up at night is worrying about my training. I appreciate that, and I apologize, I will attempt to rectify that here:
•  Since January 1st, I have logged 39 hours of training on my Garmin, totaling 455 miles of biking and running. That doesnt include a few indoor workouts. I’ve climbed almost 10,000 feet over those miles. I’ve also logged over 20,000 yards in the pool.
• I brought that up because I felt like I let people down who donated last year, and ‘Im going to make sure that isn’t happening this year.
• Oh, have I mentioned, I’ve now lost just a hair under 15 pounds since the beginning of the year? No big deal, though.
• Yesterday, I got in a gorgeous 20 mile ride in 70 degree weather with clouds and wind. I could tell I got some sun after the ride, and the wind was really pushing me around, but without traffic stops, I would have averaged 15 MPH, so I’m pretty happy with how the riding is coming along especially.
• Tomorrow is the North Carolina Multisport Expo; I’m headed out to meet folks from a couple of Eleonore Rocks Triathlon Team sponsors, and to volunteer to help for a bit in the afternoon. It won’t be anywhere near as big as the one in Boston, but it will still be nice to browse (and I REALLY REALLY need chamois cream!)
• Rachelle’s season with the basketball team came to an end today with their first round loss in the Big South women’s basketball tournament. That means she’ll have a lot more time to spend with me, some of which will be spent training. We’re still looking at her race calendar and it could mean a minor overhaul to mine as well, but the big races are all staying put.

Next week is going to be intensely busy with work, and there’s been some stress there. I’m about to start work for the 4th different person they’ve had me assigned to in 7 months! What’s really funny is I never actually reported to the 3rd person at all, they just moved me on again. Evidently I’ve been requested to join the team of the 4th person by request of that team lead, so it sounds like things may be headed in a good direction. Now I just have to get through the challenges of my current project while not stress eating my way through the week!

First off, I want to thank everyone who reads this blog. I enjoy sharing oversharing about my life and training and I do think it really helps me to stay focused on training and forcing myself to eat healthy most of the time. I’ve heard a lot of positive things from readers lately and I appreciate it a lot. There have been some negative responses to my “shouting at the heavens” regarding anti-doping in triathlon both in email and on some forums. I’m a bit thin skinned so I will admit it occasionally gets to me (especially for some reasons the people who personally attack me and call me “fat” even though I own this most of the time. Having it thrown in your face still sucks). Having those of you who read and say nice things has been reassuring.

Next, thank you to those of you who participated in the raffle. It means a lot and I really appreciate it greatly that you would help contribute to my fundraising. I try not to be a selfish person, which is part of why I wanted to be involved in fundraising for foundations as a way to make my racing mean something more than just to me. Sure I get some small perks out of it, not the least of which is being involved in a team environment and the camaraderie that comes with it, but raising funds to help other people is something I’m really glad to do. To this point, we’ve raised $330, which puts us just $165 from being able to donate the first of what I hope are 5 rocking chairs to Eleonore Rocks hospital partners. And it’s only early March.

So without further ado, here are the raffle winners, determined by random # selection on random.org against spreadsheet rows (1 row per entry per selected prize):

• Polar Prize Pack – Edie M.
• Nutrition Prize Pack – Jen S.
• Peeled Snacks/Everstride – Melanie P.
• Jabra Bluetooth Headphones – Erika W.
• Yurbuds – Bengi S.
• Spinervals – Jordan V.
• Justin Bieber Autographed Photo – My mom

I was a bit shocked that there were only 2 entries for the Justin Bieber autograph, but I guess teen heartthrobs have a limited shelf life, or that most of the people who read my blog are not big fans of his. Again, thanks to everyone who donated, and look forward to more incentives. Plus. once we get to that 5th chair donated, I’ll be giving away an iPad.

When I moved down to rural North Carolina, I had some preconceived notions about what the people here would be like. Some of them were spot on; most people are VERY friendly, and there are a LOT of guns, and even more pickup trucks. But it is not Hickville, USA; there are plenty of international students taking classes at Campbell, and I’ve met some vert smart people. But Sunday I saw something I could barely believe. Suffering my way up a hill on a road I hadn’t taken before; I heard a slamming noise, some yelling, and the yippy bark of a small dog. When I turned to look, I saw a fat older man (Those are descriptive terms, not judgmental ones) chasing his Pomeranian around the yard in front of his dilapidated trailer in an orange tank top and an adult diaper… and thats all. It took a minute for it to register for me, but once it did I started laughing and by the top of that hill I was crying I was laughing so hard. I don’t think I’m going back down that road.