No biting the personnel

I’m in Penticton this weekend for Ironman Canada (IMC). The plane has just left the Cascades to enter Eastern Washington. Sadly, I won’t get to race: a nagging injury had me off of cycling and running for much of Spring and Summer. Still, since a good friend and a few people I know are competing, I elected to go. I’ve already got a buzz running through me. Everyone at the gate, staff and travelers, probably felt it: there’s something over there that’s drawing a special crowd this weekend.  My flight was overbooked so I ended up spending the morning at the airport waiting to get up North.

I overhead people discussing the wait line at registration for the next year’s race . That’s quite an event: historically the only way to register was on-site the day after the race. Besides yourself, you could also only register one other person. Last year I woke up early, drained and hungry to get in line. Right now there’s a woman describing the feeling of the mass swim start to the person next to her. By the end of the flight, the other one might be convinced to show up at registration on Monday.

We’re landing. I’ll write more later and post some pictures.

I’ve spent a lot of time recently at Vivace’s new location across from REI in downtown Seattle. As a friend of mine said: they don’t serve drip coffee; only espresso based drinks. It’s incredible how the folding of the milk or its temperature impacts the taste of the latte. If ever you’re looking for something sweeter, try out their Cafe Caramel.

Most of the weekend was spent cleaning. Over the last few month I’d accumulated too many magazines, Toastmasters documents, etc. It’s in sorting one of these pile that I found an old edition of National Geographic on “why we love caffeine.” What a coincidence! I delighted myself knowing that the barristas of my favorite spot could all outdo the latte art pictured: the leaf and the heart I see all the time.

There was one part of the article I thought I should write down here for you to read. Here’s the chart about caffeine from page 11 from the January 2005 edition: 

• Hershey’s milk chocolate almond bar, 6 oz — 25mg
• Espresso, 1-oz shot — 40 mg
• Brewed tea, 8-oz cup — 50 mg
• Coca-cola, 20-oz bottle — 57 mg
• Red Bull energy drink, 8.3-oz can — 80 mg
• Excedrin pain reliever, 2 tablets — 130 mg
• Brewed coffee, 12-oz cup — 200 mg
• Mountain Dew, 64-oz Double Big Gulp — 294 mg

A cup of joe has 5 times the caffeine of any drink with 1 shot of espresso.

This page has been going around work lately. The video is hosted by YouTube. I’ll admit I find it incredibly powerful and inspiring. No, it’s not a fake.

Turn up the volume and take 4 minutes of your time today to watch it. You won’t regret it.