Iron Courier
You can call me the Iron Courier.  Delivery under three (hours) or it's free.  Some background and details, perhaps?Much like other days of the week, Sundays at our house have a bit of a routine.  One key part of that routine involves my kids asking to go to their grandpa's house after church.  I typically tell them to ask their grandfather.  He typically tells them to check with their dad.  Yes, it's a vicious circle.  It makes them laugh.Yesterday was all boys.  My daughter went to church with my wife, leaving three generations of males from the Pol family to fend for themselves.  Of course, my son wanted to go for

mIronman
With the economy and events of the past year, planning races for next year is becoming a challenge.  Though luckier than many, the economy has stretched our family budget pretty tight.  I made it through the year with my job, but made several adjustments to my payroll deductions due to cuts at work.  They stopped all matching contributions to our 401(k), so I upped what I was contributing.  Which meant less take home pay.Then, we had the Great Bathroom Fiasco of 2009.  With tile walls collapsing faster than Wall Street, we spent far more than planned on repairs.  Add the skylight to that, and we blew the budget.  Obviously, that will have

Signs
Is it bad when every song you hear on the oldies station during a 20 minute drive is from your time in high school?  That happened to, um, a friend.Oh yeah, I managed to get out running the last two days.  I'm still fighting the tail end of that upper respiratory infection, but the worst is over, and I'm not dealing with constant coughing.

Hey! I Needed Those
Another week has gone by, and the training volume remains at essentially zero.  I'm fighting off the remnants of the upper respiratory infection that's been plaguing everyone in the family except my wife, who might have dodged this bullet.  Fortunately, if my son is the gauge, I should be getting to the end of this, as he has been cough free for about a week, now.The last two nights have been interesting as I've woke up from a dead sleep as my body attempts to cough my lungs up.  With two small kids in the house, it's not uncommon for coughing to wake me up.  It's just not usually ME doing the coughing.  I'll take it as a good sign, though, as it is

URI
There are few things that will get me to take a break from training or racing.  I've raced with pulled muscles, high fevers, and sinus infections.  I've trained through pelvic torsion, ruptured eardrums, and other, more typical, maladies.Recently, I found that a complete bathroom remodel was sufficient to totally derail training.  Last week, I was excited to get back into training.  And this week...The beginnings of an upper respiratory infection.  Because I refuse to accept the potential that it's the flu.  Regardless, lung related issues are one thing through which I'm unable to train.  Little things like pulmonary doctors re