First of all I had to remove the Car Poll because it was tossing out evil pop-ups and I hate them!

Here are the results:

Answers

                                    Votes       Percent
1.  Subaru Outback Wagon with Bike Rack    17          47%
2.  Kia Spectras (cheap!)                   1           3%
3.  Toyota Yaris (very cheap!)              1           3%
4.  Toyota Corolla 4 door sedan             0           0%
5.  Honda Civic 4 door sedan                9          25%
6.  VW Jetta                                5          14%
7.  Other                                   3           8% 

“Other” translates loosely to ‘Get a sugar Daddy who will buy you a Mercedes’. Roger that. I’ll take beach house to go with the Benz, thanks!

As much as I love the idea of a big, expensive Mercedes it appears that the Subaru Wagon is the clear winner. As it turns out I’m going to wait a while to buy a car but it’s good to have the data. And oh – if you happen to know of a good Sugar Daddy candidate please send him my way. As long as he can put up with my training schedule he’ll do just fine.

Second – The World’s Most Expensive Pancakes were delicious. The trip down there was rife with aggravation. The flight took off over an hour late, the rental car lot took a long time to get out of due to trainee checking car at the exit, a very looooong train was moving through town just as I got to the intersection of the tracks and my street and I had to drive up to the 11th floor of a building to park the car. I finally got into my $86 Priceline special room at the Sheraton to discover that I was in a lovely mini-suite that I had no time to enjoy as it was now 11 PM and I had to get up at 6 AM to make sure I could pick up a disposable camera and get to the breakfast on time. Oh well.

When I got there the kids were still all sleeping. Turns out that 8 AM really meant 9AM but oops – they forgot to update the website. That was okay, though because I had the pleasure of photographing these barely awake kids – very fun! I’ll wait until the pictures come in to give more details.

Last – thanks for the bike advice and special thanks to Nancy Toby for discouraging my performance anxiety. But really – is that possible? I don’t think so. I am really wondering how I managed a 2:31 last time when well trained, fast people seem to do these sprint distance triathlons in 1:50 – 2:05. I figure the 700 yard swim will take me 20 minutes what with the thrashing and piling on that goes on at these events. Then the bike will take me an hour if I really bust a move (18 mile ride) and then the run will take at least 45 minutes (4 miles on trashed legs). The transitions will probably be about 5 minutes because I’m practically a transition virgin. So that’s 20 + 5 + 60 + 5 + 45 = 2:15 if I really work it. That’s only 15 minutes faster. Maybe ONLY is the operative word here? I don’t know. I’ll just move as fast as I can and see what happens, right?

And on that note it’s pillow time so I can get up and do another fabulous workout. I swam and ran today and loved it! More on that later, too.