Pay Attention!

141 Days and counting.

Last night was my decoupling run. How this works is you run a loop of X distance twice trying to keep the same pace for each loop and see how much higher your average heart rate is on the second lap in comparison to your first lap. Naturally your second lap should have a higher average heart rate just due to fatigue but the lower the difference between the two is an indication of your overall fitness. The loop course is key. If you do an out and back then you run the risk of having the out leg being more or less hilly than the back leg thus your results are skewed. This is all besides the point as it is not the actual purpose of the workout that I wanted to talk about but the events during the workout.

Since it gets dark at about 5:00 these days and the sun doesn't come up until about 7:00 most of the runs that Kati and I do are in the dark. To make things a little safer as we run the dark trails just south of our house we purchased some ultra light weight head lamps so we can see variations in the sidewalks to avoid tripping as well as become more visible to others on the trails and to cars. Let me first note that I have never had any problems with cars in the past not seeing or yielding to me on a run. That being said let the story begin.

Last night was the first time that I have had a need to wear my headlamp since we just got them last week. This lamp has many different settings and degrees of brightness to choose from. I initially put it on the dimmest setting but switched to the brightest shortly into the run. Less than a mile in I see a car coming out of a side road. At first he slowed down but continued to inch forward into the road and right in front of me. Eventually I had to stop, throw my hands up and give a sturdy "What the hell?". He threw his hands up as well, surprisingly without the Texas Salute, and I went on by no worse for the wear. One accident avoided. On lap 2 at just a little over a mile in I was at a major intersection waiting for my green light. Once I got it I started south across the street and noticed a car coming north wanting to turn into the lane that I was crossing. Apparently he didn't see me either and had to make a wide last minute turn so as to not run me over.

C'mon people, pay attention!

I might have to stop wearing the headlamp because I think that I'm safer without it. It's just like those parents that put their kids in full pads to go place tennis, their kid is the only one that ends up with a broken arm.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

Saturday was my first "long" ride for the training. I put "long" in quotations because 50 miles has become the norm for Kati and I. We normally won't even venture out on a Saturday morning anymore for anything less than 50 miles. So heading up to Saturday we thought we had it made. We'd wake up, bang out 50 miles and then we would have the remainder of the day to get done what we needed to. The day didn't exactly go as planned.

As you may have heard, this week brought the first signs of winter to Texas. We had snow on Wednesday and the rest of the week was just bitterly cold. The Saturday morning temperature was being predicted at 21 degrees but showed that it would warm up to the mid 30's later in the day. So we waited. And while we waited the wind blew in. By the time we left the house at around 11:00 it was about 36 degrees with a 20mph wind coming out of the south.

While training for the Half Ironman we rode in some pretty crazy windy days. One day Kati even got blown over while waiting at a stop light. Pretty brutal winds. We just learned to deal with it. Kati, being the scientific minded person that she is, made peace with the wind by explaining to herself all the good things that the wind does and how important it is to the ecosystem. I just learned to laugh at it. What else can you do while your pedaling to keep a 15mph pace down a hill that you would normally be coast down at 25mph? It's either laugh or cry and I think I made the right choice. Little did I know that this mental training is something that could be lost as fast as muscular training. I just didn't have the mental strength to deal with the wind anymore.

If wind was the only problem we had to face that day then the ride wouldn't have been all that bad but there we extenuating circumstances.

Kati and I bought ourselves some early Christmas presents on Friday night. We ventured to REI and got each of us a Garmin Forerunner 305 and the cadence sensor to go along with it. A brief explanation on these is that they will give you all the information that you could ever want to know about your workout. Distance, elevation, gradient of the hill you're climbing, heart rate, speed and averages for all the above, just to name a few of it's features. It's truly insane just how much information it records. I told my coach that it gives more information than I want him to have. All that being said you can only imagine how complicated the thing could be to get to function properly and accurately. We spent most of Friday night and Saturday morning trying to get all the settings right and trying to decide what 12 pieces of information we wanted to see on the three screens that we could scroll through during the ride and run that morning.

At the beginning of the ride Kati caught up with me at a stoplight and said that here cadence and heart rate weren't working and that she hadn't set the Auto Pause (that makes it so that the watch automatically stops the timer when you stop instead of continuing the timer while your at a stoplight, thus, messing up all your averages). So we stopped and got that figured out. Or so we thought. It wasn't until I saw her at the end of the workout that I found out that neither her HR or cadence worked the entire time. Frustrating!

I read somewhere once that going into a 10mph headwind can take you from 20mph to 16mph with the same effort on your part. But not even this can explain my horrible ride that day. I have never averaged this bad of a speed. Ever! Some of it I will chalk up to the wind and some blame gets to go into the fatigue category from the week's workouts but I am praying that most of the fingers get pointed at the watch and to some setting that I don't have right. This average was so bad that I won't even put it down in text in hopes that by not doing so will make it so that it didn't really happen. If I had never done any other race or road rally before then I would have a much easier time thinking that the cyclometers that I've had in the past were really that off on their speed and distance. Considering that I have calibrated both our computers on a treadmill, they just can't be that off. But Kati and I have done too many races with set distances for this to be the case.

What I need now is a good ride day where there is very little wind. I need this for two reasons. One reason is because I really need a mental boost right now and the other is to see if this watch is really functioning correctly. On my way home from my Sunday morning ride I turned the watch on to see if it was reading the same speed that the speedometer in the car was reporting and they were nearly identical. So my thought is that either the average has some setting that is not right or that maybe the Auto Pause got turned off some how during my ride on Saturday but my average on Sunday was pretty crap also.

If nothing is malfunctioning other than me then you might as well put a toe tag on my foot because this race is going to kill me.

Bike LTHR

This week has been pretty light as far as workouts go with a grand total of 8:45 of training. I believe that this is mostly due to the fact that we have a few of the fitness tests to perform and you don't want to go into one of those already worn out from the previous days workout.

Monday was the swim fitness test that I already told you about and last night was the Bike Lactate Threshold Test. The way this test works is I had a 15 minute warm up followed by an 8 minute all out sprint, 10 minutes of recovery and then do it again. The purpose of this test is to see how high you can get you heart rate (HR) average during the 8 minutes. From there my coach will use my average HR and percentages of it to set up my HR zones for the duration of the training. The reason that we do this is so that you don't set out on a long ride with a HR higher than you can sustain for the duration of the ride just to burn out before the ride is complete. An Ironman is a long day so you have to learn to pace yourself and using your HR to judge your exertion works perfectly. If you want to get into the scientific side of Lactate Threshold you can read more here. But it gets pretty complicated and I don't understand it all.

For example here are my HR zones that we used during training for the Half Ironman
Z1 0-150bpm (Recovery spins)
Z2 151-163bpm (Normal rides)
Z3 164-170bpm (Tempo rides and long intervals)
Z4 171-182bpm (Short and fast intervals)
Z5a 183-192bpm (Sprints)

The coach and I headed out to the Texas Motor Speedway which has a 5 mile loop that goes around the perimeter of the grounds. For the most part it's flat, well lit and has light traffic on a weekday evening making it perfect for night time riding. Remember also that it snowed here yesterday morning so as dry as the streets were it was still really cold. By the time we were done for the night I believe that it was 40 degrees.

This test is most especially uncomfortable. Imagine getting your HR as high as possible and keeping it there for 8 minutes. That might not seem like a long time on the front end but try getting on the treadmill at your local gym, throw the speed up as high as you can manage and run a mile. Pretty tough huh? By the end of the first 8 minutes I was extremely light headed and was weaving all over my lane, for a reason that is still unknown to me I was salivating as if I was looking at a perfectly cooked steak after being on a week long fast and my chest felt as though my heart was going to burst out à la Aliens. Luckily I had a 10 minute rest in between these intervals and I needed all 10 minutes. Round 2 was just as bad and had the same final results at the end. But at least I could be happy that I didn't have to go for a third round. The other thing that is nice is that this time around as opposed to Half Ironman training was that the test only lasted a grand total of 16 minutes. When I did this test for Half Ironman training it was a half hour straight of bust your butt follow directly by passing out at your car.

So the test results are as follows. During the first 8 minute interval my max. HR was 184 with an avg. HR of 181. I got it down to 137 during the recovery and back up to 180 max. and 176 avg. on the second interval.

Only the run fitness test remains and then we can get on with our regular training weeks.

And So It Begins

Training for Ironman St. George officially starts today. The next 5 months will bring with it 10 workouts a week, meaning multiple double days with a workout in the morning as well as one in the evening. I'm sure that there will be blood and tears somewhere along the way which will hopefully be out weighed by triumphs and accomplishments.

This week starts off with my second least favorite workout which unfortunately is a necessity as well. My first workout for today was to test my overall fitness in the pool, I will have to admit that I've been neglecting the pool lately. This test involves swimming 1,000 yards as fast as you can without stopping. The results of which will be your T-Pace or your average time per 100 yards. My total for this morning was 15:48 meaning that my average time per 100 yards was 1:34. The rest of my swim workouts will be based on this time until we retest a few months from now to see if there is improvement.

The reason that I don't like this workout is that it's just painful. If done right by the end of the test your lungs should be burning and you should be a bit dizzy due to lack of oxygen to your brain as, what little oxygen you are getting in with each breathe is, all going to feed your muscles. Luckily though it's not a long test and will probably only be done one more time.

Tonight's workout you ask? Short run with hill intervals.

You're Not So Funny

One of these days I would like to perform a social experiment whose purpose would be to discover if comedians are actually funny or we just perceive them to be funny because we are told that they are supposed to be. I'm not exactly sure how this would go down though. My initial thought is to have a person go to a social gathering and introduce himself as a regular Joe Schmoe accountant, or something boring like that, and proceed to tell humorous jokes through out the night and see what the crowds reaction is. Then have the same person go to another gathering and introduce himself as Joe Schmoe comedian and tell the same jokes and see if the reaction is any different. I thought this was a decent initial idea until Fred shot me down saying that the jokes told at gathering A might not apply to gathering B and therefore would not have the same reaction regardless of who told them. He has a good point and that's why I keep him around. In response Fred's plan was to place a person in front of a sitcom with a laugh track and another sitcom without a laugh track to see if the show with the laugh track gets more reaction from the subject than the one without. I have two problems with this, one is that laugh tracks submit the subjects to the influence of an "audience" and the reaction from the subject might not be a true reaction but just a response in possibly thinking that everyone else is laughing so I'm suppose to be laughing also. And two is that most of the time a sitcom makes situations humorous by conveying interaction between people. I want to know if one person is funny, not a group of people put into a scripted humorous situation.

I'm no scientist so I can't really begin to figure out how I would conduct an experiment that closed all the loop holes for erroneous data so I am more than willing to accept other ideas.

I also want to know if a dog's tail wag is involuntary or not. Anyone?

I swear we really do work around here sometimes.

Toyota US Open Triathlon

Last Sunday was the 2009 Toyota U.S. Open Triathlon. This was the first triathlon that I did two years ago so it's a special race for me now. It's one of the few times that a person would have the opportunity to race and talk with Olympians and other professional athletes.

The forecast for the day was supposed to be partially cloudy with a temperature in the high 60's by the afternoon. You can understand how surprised we were when we woke up at 4:45 Sunday morning to find it cold, wet and rainy. Not ideal race conditions. As far as the day goes, getting to the race start was the most frustrating and difficult part of the day. We were told that the last bus from transition 2 to the race start was leaving at 6:30am so we got there in plenty of time to set up transition and get on the bus. We lined up at a little after 6:00 in a line that was a couple of hundred people long. Buses were only coming around about every 15-20 minutes and by the time we got on a bus for the 30 minute drive it was already 7:30. Transition 1 was suppose to close at 7:15 and my race wave was supposed to go in the water just after 7:45. This created problems. By the time we got to the race start we had to rush to get our timing chip and then rushed to get transition 1 set up and get our wetsuits on (70 degree water and all). Due to the late bus Kati missed her swim wave all together and had to start with the 30-34 female wave and Jonathan and I barely caught our 30-34 wave.

Swim (1500 meters/ 0.94 miles 29:45)
The water wasn't nearly as cold as I was prepared for. We were told on Saturday that it was going to be 68 degrees but rose to 70 by Sunday morning. Probably could have done the swim without the wet suit but it was definitely more comfortable to have it on. The water was super choppy. I don't think that I have ever swam in that choppy of water before. On the way out and back you had to lift your head pretty high out of the water as to avoid getting a wave in your face and swallowing a mouth full of water. I wish I could say that I was successful every time but have to admit that I drank so much water on the swim that I didn't have to drink much on the bike.

One of my goals this year was to get out of the water in under 30 minutes. I had accomplished this task at the Capital of Texas Triathlon in May but that race was in a river so I felt a little like it was cheating to swim with the current even though you were swimming against the current about half the time as well. With the choppiness of the water I was very surprised to see 29:45 on my watch upon exiting.

(Ready to roll)

Transition 1 (5:30)
Transition 1 was abysmally slow. Partially due to having to get a wetsuit off but mostly because you had to have your bag packed with everything that you wanted to keep before you left transition since the local high school basketball team was moving the bags from T1 to the finish line. Stuffing cap, goggles, wet suit and everything else that wasn't coming with you on the bike took far longer than it should have.

(Yeah it's taking me forever to get out of here, what's it to ya?)

Bike (40K/24.9 miles 1:22:16)
I have no explanation for why this ride was so slow. I wish that I could say that I took it easy because the roads were really wet and I wanted to be safe but that wasn't the case at all, I felt as though I was pushing pretty good. The ride was altered from last year and did have a 17% climb at about 8 miles into the race which brought my average down and I have to think that the wet roads did slow me down just due to having to ride through puddle after puddle but that can't account for a 7 minute difference between this year and last year.

For the most part the rain held off during the ride but a light drizzle made and appearance occasionally. Surprisingly the cold was really only a factor during the down hill portions when you really started to feel the wind. The arm warmers were really nice to have on though.

Overall the ride was pretty uneventful although Kati did see a rider run into a car because the car disobeyed the police officer that was directing traffic and pulled out in front of the rider but I'll let her tell that story.

Transition 2 (2:30)
Transition 2 was still quite a bit slower than I would have like it to be. I debated about ringing my wet socks out but opted out and just grabbed my race belt with my number on it grabbed my hat was heading on my way.

Run (10K/6.2 miles 47:13)
I've gone into the last few races with three goals. Get out of the water in under 30 minutes, finish the race in under 2:40 and run a sub 8 minute mile. I have accomplished the first two already but the third has eluded me. The inclement weather was going to work to my advantage today though, I run better off the bike than I do just going out for a run and I run best in the cold. I knew that I needed a 48:36 run in order to have an 8 minute mile average so that was my main goal this year. The run was mostly an out and back on a concrete trail with a turn around at about 3.7 miles. I started out feeling pretty good. The plan was to keep the first half of the run around an 8:10 min/mi and to pick it up to a 7:45 at the half way point. On the way out the plan was working great, I felt good and had the confidence that I could do it this year. The half way point came and I picked it up a little bit knowing that the actual turn around was still about a half mile further. At the turn around I started pushing and kept my pace below 7:30 for the entire way back. By mile 5 I was really starting to hurt and felt it in my legs but I was just too close to slow it down now. With the end in site I put whatever I had left into it and finished at just over a 7 min/mi. This was the best run that I've had on a triathlon of this distance. This really made for a happy finish despite the ride.

(bringing it home and feeling the burn)
(A cold day done, time for a warm shower)
(Team Stoddard)
(The Villains)

Once the official race pictures are posted they will be here. I was bib number 430, Kati 346, Jonathan 431 and Fred 749.

What Plan B?

I'm surprised that after 30 years of knowing myself I still learn something new about my personality every once in a while. You would think that I would know myself like the back of my hand by now...hey, where'd that freckle come from? Anyway, I think this is one of those situations where I knew this about myself already but never really knew what to call it other than what I refer to as being "The Lazy Triathlete" since that's when this trait tends to surface most often. If my plan for the day is to do an open water swim at the lake and the park at the lake happens to be closed for whatever reason I have no problem justifying to myself that I have made a concerted effort to get a workout in and it just wasn't meant to be. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 and no plan B. Guess I might as well go home and play Guitar Hero because pulling out the bike trainer or hitting the gym would be the result of having a plan B.

This also reflects itself when running errands. I know the places that I'm going, I know what I need to get while I'm there and I have no intentions of going anywhere else while I'm out. If another store or location gets thrown into the mix I get really frustrated because now a plan B has disrupted my one and only plan A. But the caveat is that if another location is thrown in before I leave the house then that is usually alright as long as it's somewhere that I want to go or I am promised ice cream or some other form bribery in return for the extra trip. But suggesting another stop after the car has been started and we have pulled out of the driveway is going to get you the ole stink eye look.

Hotter 'N Hell Triple Threat

Hotter 'N Hell Hundred is one of the largest and longest running road rallies in the nation and has to be the largest one in Texas. The number that I heard on Sunday afternoon was 14,200 riders on either 10K (6.2 miles), 25 mile, 50 mile, 100K (62 miles) or 100 mile routes. This is the most known event of the weekend but what is lesser known is that there are two other events during this weekend that are open to the public to compete in, one being the 12 mile mountain bike race on Friday night and the other being either a 5K, 10K or half marathon trail run on Sunday morning. For the few special souls there is the Triple Threat Challenge, which comprises riding in the 12 mile mountain bike race on Friday, riding 100 miles on Saturday and running the half marathon trail run on Sunday. I'm not sure how many people actually participated in the TTC but of the 14,200 total riders it has to be less than 150 racers.

This isn't our first rodeo. Kati, Jonathan and I did the 100 mile ride last year and I must say that we learned a lot that day. So this year we decided to up the ante and go for the TTC. I have been training pretty hard for this event ever since the Lone Star Half Ironman by slowly increasing the distance of my rides on Saturday and getting up early on Sunday mornings to run so that my legs got used to how it felt to run the day after a long ride as well as trying to get used to long workouts in the heat. My plan was working well until I was on what was suppose to be an 80 mile ride and started getting knee pain to the point that I was unable to push down on the pedal any more and had to call Kati to come pick me up at mile 70. I went to the chiropractor with no results and finally went to a sports medicine doctor who ordered an MRI. The MRI concluded that I had a bruise on the top of my tibia and that I shouldn't run for at least 6 weeks, but the race was 5 weeks away. This ended up presenting two problems, one being that I wouldn't be able to participate at all and the other being if I was able to participate how much mental and physical strength would I lose with 5 weeks of little training. Normally I wouldn't start tapering down my workouts until about 2 weeks before race day but now I was forced into starting my recovery 5 weeks out. Stay tuned to find out how this worked out for me.

12 Mile Mountain Bike Race (1:05:49)
This was a great trail to ride. It offered every different possibility that a trail can have. It started out really easy and then changed to tight hairpin turns with close perimeter trees that just begged to catch a handle bar and send you flying off your bike. Then the dirtiness started at about 5 miles in with what seems like endless short and very steep drop offs followed by just as steep climbs. Some of these drop offs were so steep that if they had been much longer there was potential there to send you over your handle bars. After about 8 miles of pushing the pace pretty hard I pulled of the reigns knowing that this was only the first event of the weekend and the shortest so there was no rush. I loved this ride because it had so much to offer the rider. As far as the knee goes, there was very little pain but a little discomfort so it was a good start to the weekend.

pre race picture

100 mile road ride (5:43:48)

Last year was the first time that I road 100 miles at one go and I might have gone into it a bit naive. I didn't stop for the first time until 70 miles in and by that time I was running pretty low on nutrition which I never really recovered from. But this year having trained and raced the half ironman I had my nutrition down pat and used it in this race. So I had a plan set out to stop at miles 30, 60 and 90 to refill cold water because I over heat rather easily. When I got to 30 miles I was still good and pressed on to mile 40 where someone met me at my bike to refill my bottles. I also grabbed a Luna Bar (yes, I realize that these are suppose to be "women's" nutrition bars) out of my bag to eat. This is when I realized the age old adage to never try anything new on race day because I had stomach cramps from mile 50 all the way to 70 while that thing digested. After the refill, the route turned to the east and into a slight head wind that we rode into for about 25 miles which got a bit daunting at times. The mile 80 stop was the first time that I got off the bike a took a few minutes to enjoy not being on a hard saddle. This is when it started to get hard. I tried turning to a mental strategy that I have used on long runs to help through the last 20 miles, that being to tell myself how many times I have ridden 20 miles before and that I can do it again. This really didn't work because all the other times that I have ridden 20 miles it wasn't at a time that my legs were hurting so bad already. Luckily there was a lady that I ended up leap frogging with for the last 15 miles to the point that it became a game to us and we would say "Tag you're it" or "Now it's your turn to chase me." In the end I don't remember whether I got ahead of her or she beat me but I know that we didn't cross the line together. It was so nice to cross the line and get off the bike for the day. The other nice thing is that they have a fire hydrant blasting out cold water. While it kills Kati to see so much water being wasted it feels too good to be wrong. I finished just in time to see to see the Killdares start their set which was nice because the bagpiper in the band is my music teacher so it's always nice to see them. That night was a struggle to stay awake and we ended up treating ourselves to Sonic ice cream because I think we earned it.

post 100 mile ride

Ah yes the cycling tan lines.

Half Marathon Trail Run (2:05:43)
The third day was supposed to start at 5:00am but none of our alarms went off so Jonathan came in and woke Kati and I up at 5:30 so we were already a little behind schedule but not too bad. Luckily we still got to the race start in plenty of time to sort through the chaos that was race morning. None of the race officials or volunteers knew what was going on. The packet pick up was that morning, which is generally a bad idea, it was also outside and the volunteers didn't have flashlights to be able to read the names on the lists. It was a bit ridiculous. The race was supposed to start at 7:00 but didn't start until 7:30 due to the disorganization so I took a little jog around to see how the legs were feeling and how stiff my knee was. I must admit that I was a little concerned with how stiff it felt. The race organizer gave an instructions speech before the start that went something like this "5K runners you will turn around at point such and such, there is supposed to be someone there directing you but I wouldn't guarantee that there is. 10K runners will turn around at the second water stop which may or may not be there and half marathon runners will just keep running". I'm not exaggerating. Finally we got started and the first 8 miles felt great, volunteers were where they were supposed to be and water stops were located in their positions as well. Over all the run was quite uneventful until about mile 10 when I really started to hurt and by 11 I just wanted to stop and walk, I was done. Luckily I talked myself into continuing running and was so very thankful to cross the finish line and end this difficult weekend.

Finally done (the trophies say "I Survive the Triple Threat")

By Sunday night I was already getting stiff and sore. By Monday morning I was starting to waddle to get around because I couldn't walk right. As Kati said "This was a fun weekend in a sick & twisted kind of way" and I can't agree more with her on that sentiment. This weekend offered challenges like I have never faced before. With a triathlon you have one race day and you're done. But with this your body had time to get tired and stiffen up before it was expected to perform another grueling task. There were many times during the weekend where I wanted to call it quits but pressed on knowing that I would regret it later if I did. Even with the knee problems that I had coming into this weekend I believe that I was still able to race to the best of my ability. I must say that this is one of my prouder accomplishments.

You can see pictures from the race here. All you have to do it select the 2009 Hotter 'N Hell Hundred events under "Select Race" enter my last name and enter the bib number below. The pictures for the hundred mile ride and trail run have been posted but not the mountain bike race yet.

12 Mile Mountain Bike Race (#141)
100 Mile Road Ride (#837)
Half Marathon Trail Run (#622)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Rarely ever do I look for recipes and from those rare times it's ever more rare that I find something that actually makes me want to don an apron and bust out the wisk. But in the August edition of Triathlete Magazine there is a recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins from Andy Potts. I have no idea what the nutritional informaton is for these but they are so stinkin' good who cares.

Ingredients
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
14 ounces pumpkin pie filling
3 cups flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips

Each batch makes about 30 muffins.

I have cooked this with the oil and am cooking them right now with the oil substituted with sugar-free apple sauce (yes, this was a request from Kati). I also find that miniture chocolate chips work best.

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix together the eggs, vegetable oil, sugar and pumpkin pie filling. In a seperate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and baking power. Add the flour mixture to wet ingredients. Add chocolate chips. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray Spoon the batter into the muffin tin and bake for 15 minutes.

I find that these are much better warm, so I throw them in the microwave for 15 seconds per muffin to melt the chocolate. Delicious.

Look At The Bones!

Last night marked the annual Glutton-Fest that coincides with my birthday each year. Glutton-Fest is a grotesque display of manhood, one might even say a right of passage to be accepted into the Stoddard household. The way that it works is Jonathan, Darin and I see how many teriyaki chicken wings we can eat. This annual event started out innocent enough many years ago, I simply just loved the chicken wings that mom made. So each year mom would purchase one family size package of chicken wings (I'm not sure how many pounds in one package). Now it has turned into her buying 12lbs each years just for the three of us. You would think that 12lbs would be enough that we ate until everyone said "Uncle" and the last person standing was the winner for the year, but no, the 12lbs don't last long and the whole charade turns into a display of a speed race rather than endurance.

There are a few rules to this madness though.

1. You can't fill your plate with all the chicken wings right off the bat.
   
2. You can only take a reasonable number of wings with each refill.
3. You cannot refill your plate until you have eaten everything that is already there.
4. When we start getting low on wings you can only take one at a time.

Each person has their own strategy. Jonathan likes to start out with the wing and not the drumstick. There is less meat on the wing but it is a more precarious piece that takes more effort to get all the meat off. The drumstick is easier to eat but there is more meat to get off before you can move onto the next one. So it ends up being six of one and a half dozen of the other. You have to come in with a plan and stick to it.

My plan this year was to come in with more speed. The problem with this plan is that there is a fine line between a good speed and just being rude and disgusting, there are other people around the table trying to eat after all.

(The carnage begins)

After the dust had cleared and the tray was empty, the counting began. Darin was done first and called out 36 wings consumed. I went next and to my dismay had come up two wings short at 34. Jonathan didn't bring his A game this year and came in a distant third with 25 wings.

(I look forward to this day more than any other each year)

There are a few people that without them this event would never go down. So let's thanks our sponsors.

• Mom - she does the brunt of the work, she has to buy the wings, skin them and make the marinade. There were 95 wings this year that had to be skinned.
• Dad - he mans the grill and makes sure that no wings slip through the cracks
• Kati - I'm just surprised that she even comes to Sunday dinner on this night, that's gotta be worth something.

Long live Darin the King of Glutton-Fest!