Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Booth Babes, Cracked Ribs, Sleep Deprivation and Climbing the Walls

So you can tell by the title that this is going to cover some varied terrain. First things where they belong, this is my training blog, so I guess I should catch you up on that a bit.

I mentioned it in my last post, but I have messed up ribs. I bruised/cracked/broke one or two of them in Tahoe a couple of weeks ago. Not hucking myself around in thigh deep powder, no, but screwing around at slow speed on a cat track. I'm not going to say more, it's too painful, too embarrassing, too bloody stupid. So, the doctor said it isn't broken. He poked me and I didn't scream. He gave me a big Motrins. Works for me, when I take them.

So I had to skip training this past weekend to go to NADA in San Francisco. That's the National Auto Dealer Association trade show, for those of you who don't know. We spent days in end in the west hall of the Moscone Center, which was, as it turned out, the red headed stepchild of the show. I don't know, we got a good reception for our stuff, both from the company we were showing with, and the people we brought by to see it. Now we'll see what we can do with it.

This brings me back to the title. One of my favorite aspects of the convention was booth babes. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not because they're hot and wearing skimpy clothes. If that's all I need, then I can go down to PB or the Gaslamp on any given evening. What I love about booth babes is that they are both the most obvious manifestation of fluff marketing and the most effective traffic generation tool I've seen. I saw more pudgy, middle-aged and old white guys standing in line to have their pictures taken with scantily clad blondes than I had expected at a show where you can buy oil additives, frame aligners, websites and dealerships. I'm not sure any of them knew what the girls were selling, but hey, they were in the booth.

I just have to wonder at what point the girls start to wonder why they signed on for "stand still, look pretty, hand out brochures and get groped."

So we finally got back late last night, and here we come full circle. I couldn't work the show without the Motrin, so I was looped half the time and hurting the rest. Even so, I had run gear with me to try and get in a few miles in place of the team workout. I never made it, between beer and long days and pain, but I was climbing the walls not being able to train.

So tonight I went for a short, relatively easy run. I made it three miles without too much nastiness and I'm not in screaming agony now, so that's good. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. Gonna try swimming tomorrow. That didn't go so well last time, but hey, maybe I'll get lucky.

More later.

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