Skinning the cat

Husband-dear is not one to use, or for that matter, like, any of the sayings that the Dutch are so fond of. Whenever I start a sentence with "Well, you know, in Dutch we have a saying that..." I can just feel him working his best to not start rolling his eyes. He's more the "tell it like it is" type, so all these sayings about trees, birds, big legs and wealth, and wells are just for him. And in case you're worried, no, he dislikes American sayings just as much. You will never even catch him use a word such as "doohickey", or "thingie" - husband-dear will in all cases think before he speaks, and so he never has to struggle for a word. That must be nice.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to get to is that during the past few months, I finally, after all those years, got husband-dear to get off his anti-saying high horse (sorry honey), and use a saying. Just one, the same one that he's been using over and over, but it's a start. Honestly, I don't even think he's aware of it (yet).

Lately, he's been telling that I have been "skinning the cat my own way". Yep, the very first American saying my husband ever uses, and he picks one that involves torturing fuzzy little animals with really big eyes and fluffy tails. Anyway, I digress. The question is, of course, why would my husband be telling me that I need to/am/will skin(ning) the cat my own way?

Well, the answer is that I've been doing something that I've been keeping a secret from pretty much everyone.
I have spent the past four months training for a half ironman.

In case you just went, "A what?", a half ironman is an insane sporting event created for die-hard, slightly derailed athletes who are not yet ready to completely sacrifice their lives and participate in a "real" ironman, and therefore sign up for a race that "only" entails a 1.2 mile swim, a 56.1 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run. And the reason I haven't told anyone is because I was worried I wasn't going to make it through all my training with my knees and my legs and my feet, and didn't want to look some idiot who announces something to the world and then doesn't go through with it. Since the race is a week from tomorrow, I think my knees, legs, and feet will be OK (but let's all knock on wood right now anyway. Thanks).

So where does this poor furless cat come in? Well, most half-iron training schedules involve things like swimming three times a week, biking two hours twice a week, running an hour four times a week, and other things that assume that the athlete has a normal job, at a normal commuting distance. The idea is to spread out the heavy workouts as much as possible, so you don't overtrain and end up injured. Great idea. If you have a normal job and a normal commute. As you all know, I have neither. My days usually start at 5am, and if I'm home by 6:30pm and have only a little work to do, it's been a great day. So there is just no way I can come home, bike for two hours, and retain my sanity. Subsequently, husband-dear and I came up with an alternative, a very alternative, training schedule. One that involved scheduling minor workouts throughout the week, and three heavy workouts back to back on Fri-Sat-Sun (a swim, bike, and bike-run, if you want to know), which according to all serious half-iron training plans is an absolute no-no, but which, according to husband-dear would actually work out beautifully ("since you''ll be exhausted start the run portion of the tri, it's great that you're training yourself to run on Sundays, when you're tired and hurting from the other two workouts"). Oh, and it worked out beautifully, if you discount the fact that some Sundays I was so tired, I could barely stand up straight. And that training schedule, that was, according to husband-dear, where I "skinned the cat my way".


So anytime I would read an article or a blog about the ideal training program for a half-iron, and talk to husband-dear how there was NO way I could do a half-iron since my schedule was NOTHING like theirs, and I was so obviously going to COMPLETELY fail at this, husband-dear would just remind me that I was getting my training in, I was, well, skinning that furry little four-legged creature differently from everyone else.

Obviously, we won't know if this whole alternative skinning technique was effective at all until next week Saturday. So until then, I'll just keep mistreating this poor kitten my way, and we'll see how it turns out.