Rest week - day #6

I've almost made it through rest week. With work getting busier, it hasn't been so bad, but I'm itching to get back to training, at least light training until November 1 (Then, as my friend Eric says, "game on").

Speaking of itching, I have 7 bug bites on my legs. They are not mosquito bites, so I can only guess that they are spider bites. Ugh! I hate spiders. I noticed the bites yesterday at work. The location of them suggests that the creature traveled down one leg, hopped to the next and "sampled me" along the way. Gross! I used to get really freaked out about bugs (especially ticks and spiders), but I came to the realization that I can't control what happens when I'm not looking or not awake. Letting go of things that you can't control is one of the most valuable lessons I've learned. I think it will serve me well come Ironman day.

The worst part about the bug bites is that they itch like heck! Last night, some wrong caller called our home at midnight. I'm on-call at work (more on that later), so I woke up fully, tried to answer my cell phone, realized it was my home phone and then answered to find out it was a wrong number. My response to the lady was "No, I didn't call you earlier and I'm sleeping now." After hanging up, I realized that my bites itched terribly. I couldn't get back to sleep. I tried many remedies, but had no bug itch cream. I settled on using an unopened tube of Monistat. Believe it or not, it actually helped and I was able to get back to sleep.

As I said above, I'm now on-call at work. One of my big clients is going through negotiations with its union, so they need many different pricings (mostly for the retiree medical plan) with a due date of yesterday. Now, I'm a pension plan expert, but I have dabbled in the accounting for retiree medical plans, so I've been tapped along with another guy to be on-call when they need last minute reviews. This could mean being called at 3 AM to check something that needs to go out by 8 AM. This is not my idea of "good times", but how can I say "no"? I started working at this place 6 months ago and since then, haven't been busy enough. We have to bill our time and I'm woefully behind in my billable time goals. Besides, I'm not the only one who wants to have a life. At least I get to go home and be woken up. The guys who did the work are staying till past 3 AM and are missing tucking their kids into bed at night and sleeping next to their wives. At least it couldn't come at a better time - training for Lake Placid doesn't officially start until November.

My manager came over yesterday and told me I needed to be more "flexible" with my schedule, now that this client team needs me so much. Now, I'm regimented about my training, but I will move it around and have never proven inflexible. I think he was just concerned, because I've been "educating" him about how much time I'll need to train for IM. I told him that if I have to work 50+ hour weeks, week in and week out, that I would go part-time in order to work no more than 40. Hopefully, that won't need to happen. I hope come July 23, that I'll be considered a great employee as well as an Ironman.

In that spirit, I better sign off to go check a spreadsheet. : )