Riccitello

I have a dog named Rudy. She's a very cool dog. She's taught me a lot about life and running and relaxing. I wonder if dogs are really wise, reincarnated people who come
back to try to teach their not-so-wise owners a thing or two about life.

Rudy and I have spent a lot of time together this winter, and I'm on to her. I know there's a human in there. And she knows I know. That's why she's agreed to be my coach. She didn't want me to know she's human. She tried diversionary tactics but I was too clever for them. The puppy stage was a diversion. She figured I would be too busy trying to teach her things. Things like not taking a dump on the couch, or to sit, or stay—the usual puppy tricks. That's how the puppy stage diversion works. They fish you in with all their puppy behavior, the licking and cuddling, to get you thinking dog, not human. That's why they're real hairy too. You never see a human that hairy. And the tail.... major diversion. They wag it around to distract us, maybe even hypnotize us when we start to think they might be human.

The other day I was lying on the couch. I looked over, and Rudy was lying in the exact position as me on the other side of the couch. Only a human, I thought, would know how comfortable this position would be. So I'm staring at her and thinking, "You're not a dog, you're human." As I'm looking at her she starts wagging her tail. The next thing I know, it's an hour later, "Days of Our Lives" is over, and I don't remember a thing that happened. It's a good thing Rudy has one of those stub tails. If she had a long one, I'd probably be in a coma right now.

Anyway, her diversions didn't work. There were just too many human factors. I'd come home from working out and she'd be in my room lying on the bed with her head on the pillow. The weird thing is she had opened the door to the bedroom and let herself in. She thought I would think I forgot to close the door to the bedroom. But I knew she opened it. She knows the spoon position, too. I'd wake up and Traci, Rudy and I would be in a triple spoon. She drools when she sleeps, too. She got that from Traci.

In the morning, she goes out and gets the paper. I started noticing the sports section was always missing. I thought it was Traci until I walked into the living room one morning and Rudy was lying on the couch reading the sports. She looked at me with this smug look. Like it was impossible for me to believe a dog could read the sports section, but I knew. She couldn't hide it from me. I knew she was human.

So lately Rudy's been trying to help me with my training. Now that I'm sure she's human, I'm a lot more receptive to her advice. You could understand my reluctance early on. It just seemed weird taking advice from someone who looked like a dog. It's easier now. She's a tough coach, though. She lets me know it's her way or the highway. And she has some pretty unorthodox training philosophies, too. She is a much better athlete than I, so I've decided to give her a year to take me to the next level. We both agreed that it wouldn't be practical for her to help me on the bike with her having four legs and all. It would be hard to get a bike that would fit properly. Plus I already have a good group to train with on the bike. It's my run and swim and diet that need the extra help.

Rudy's not really into pool swimming. She finds it boring. And she can't do a flip turn. Plus she doesn't like the way the chlorine bleaches her fur. She says since I race in the open water, I should train in the open water. She's got me trying to smooth out my stroke. I make too much splash, she says. She tells me the only time I should make a lot of splash is when I'm sprinting. She has me trying to get all four of my limbs working in unison. I'm keeping my head up more, too. It's easier to see where I'm going.

Her favorite workout is the duck fartlek workout. I'm supposed to swim out easy and unassuming toward some ducks. As I get closer and the ducks start to panic and flap away, I sprint as hard as I can, making as much splash as possible, and try to get the ducks. When the ducks flap away to the other side of the lake, I turn around and swim easy and unassuming toward the ducks and repeat the process. I continue doing this until I'm so tired I can barely swim back to the shore. Rudy says I should be so tired that my nostrils are the only things out of the water. It's a really good workout.

The other thing she has me working on is my start into the water and my exit from the water. She says I'm way too wimpy running into the water. It's important, she says, to get up as much speed as possible before you hit the water. Once you hit the water, the first few steps are the key. You jump as far as you can until you can't touch the bottom anymore, then you start swimming. You have to get agro, she says. Coming out is similar. As soon as you can touch bottom, you start running. Another key is that you stop as soon as you get out and shake as much water as possible off your body. This allows you to be significantly lighter and therefore run much faster. So far, so good. I think my swimming is getting faster.

Rudy has some great running tips. Again, her philosophy goes against the grain, but you can't dispute the results. Rudy stands about 1ft. ,11.5 in., and weighs about 40 pounds. For someone that small, she can really move. She has great endurance, too. If you figure that one human year equals seven dog years, a one hour run for me is a serious run for her. I'm no math whiz, but I think that would be like me doing a seven-hour run.

The main difference in training is that she has me going out hard. She says it's important to always sprint the first mile or two, then settle into a rhythm. I think this is to demoralize your competition. And you also have to always be really enthusiastic about running. This also helps to demoralize the competition. When they see how excited you always are about doing something so painful, they can't help but be bummed.

Rudy's favorite run workout is similar to the duck fartlek. It's called the rabbit fartlek. I take off running through the desert. Whenever I see a rabbit, I sprint after it. These are especially hard, because I never know how far I'm going to sprint. I must continue sprinting until I either catch the rabbit or the rabbit gives me the slip in the underbrush. After either of these two things happen, I can get back on the trail and run easy until I see the next rabbit. These are killer. I highly recommend them.

Bicycle chaser sprints are also a favorite. These have really helped my explosive speed. I'm supposed to sit in the front yard. Whenever a cyclist rides by, I book after him or her as fast as I can. Usually the cyclist doesn't know I'm chasing him until he hears my feet peeling out on the ground next to him or hears my labored breathing. When the shock of seeing me sprinting next to him makes him shift into high gear so he can get away from my crazy self, I try to keep up until I get dropped. Then I jog back to the yard and wait for the next cyclist. These are pretty taxing, and after three or four I've usually had enough.

With the increased intensity of my workouts, Rudy has made a couple of modifications to my diet. She's a proponent of a higher fat content diet. Between 70 and 80 percent. This took some getting used to, but I'm starting to enjoy it. I've upped my meat intake considerably. Rudy says not to be shy when it comes to eating. Eat as much as you can, as fast as you can. It's important to replenish your stores as quickly as possible.

And you know how the Chinese athletes have their special food that makes their athletes perform like they're taking steroids, but they're really not taking steroids, it's the energy they get from eating the caterpillar intestine, or fried moth wings? Well, Rudy has a special food. It's pig ears. All the dogs are eating them. I'm telling you, once you get past the fact that they're actually ears that were on a pig not too long ago, they're quite tasty. Good for your teeth, too.

Rudy also stresses adequate hydration. Any time you run past water, you should stop and drink. Don't worry if the water doesn't appear clean. With the increase of fat in your diet, the dirty water doesn't seem to affect the intestines as badly. There seems to be something about toilet bowl water, too. I just can't bring myself to get my head down in the bowl. I hope it doesn't matter.

Rudy says if I have a good year, she'll consider writing a book. Until then, if anyone would like some coaching advice from Rudy, you can call me and I'll set up a meeting. She charges $200 an hour. Trust me; it will be money well spent. You can make the check out to me. Rudy says she has no immediate need for money and told me to put it in a trust for her until she gets older and can't work anymore. She would do it herself. But she's had trouble opening an account, what with her looking like a dog and all. So I told her I would handle the money for her. It's the least I could do.

This is the time of year for me that I make some long travels. It's too cold for triathlons in the U.S. I must venture to the southern hemisphere and South America. This year I went to Chile and Brazil.

Every year there is a new adventure to flying halfway across the world. This year the big brouhaha was over having only two carry-on bags; one on some airlines. I didn't foresee this as a problem for me, as I only travel with my trustee backpack and a small travel guitar about the size of a tennis racket. I was sure, however, that this was going to be an interesting dilemma for 90 percent of travelers. You want to check as little as possible when you fly halfway around the world. You never know where your stuff may end up.

I'm at the counter checking in and the check-in person asks me how many bags I'm carrying on. I tell her I'm carrying on my trusty backpack and my little (about the size of a tennis racquet) travel guitar. She asks me, "That's makes two, right?"

I wonder if this is a trick question. I actually get flustered as I add up the pieces in my head. I add, and then re-add just to make sure. "Two," I tell her. "Unless I've added incorrectly."

"That's good," she tells me. "Because you're only allowed two carry-on bags." Then, after she asked me if I'm the only one who packed my bags and if any stranger has given me something to take on the plane, she looks at my two carry-on bags and tells me they may be a little too big to carry on. She tells me the gate attendant will let me know if my two carry-on bags are the appropriate size to carry on the plane. I tell her that's fine, knowing I've never had a problem with these two pieces in any of my previous travels.

So I'm in line waiting to board a big ole plane to Chile. 747. Lots of room on that baby. I notice as I'm standing in line that everyone has carry-on bags of various sizes. I notice some other peculiar things as I wait to board the big ol' 747.

I notice most of the men are carrying on big garment bags and either a briefcase or laptop computer case. That makes two, I notice (if my math is correct). A garment bag by definition must be pretty big. It carries garments, after all. Assuming the average man is 5'10", a garment is a decent-sized article of clothing. And, by law, a garment can only be folded one time. And it can only be folded for a short period of time, meaning that usually upon entering the plane the garment bag is unfolded and either hung up in a closet or laid out in the over head bin.

I look at my backpack. It's fatter than most of these garment bags, but in terms of cubic inches, it's much smaller. The gate attendant doesn't even give these garment bags a second look. I relax, knowing that the check-in lady was just making me sweat a little. I'm not even worried about the lack of overhead bin space due to excess garment bag stuffage, because I know from experience that my trusty backpack fits comfortably beneath the seat in front of me.

I notice the women as I'm still waiting in line. Most of the women have the following: one big black suitcase with wheels and a retractable handle to ease the strain of rolling 230 pounds of clothes, cosmetics, irons, blow-dryers and such through the airport (with the handle on these bags resembling an appliance dolly); one small suitcase or duffel bag that contains extra cosmetics, spare brushes and combs, shampoos and conditioners, spare blow-dryer, and other possible emergency items; one extremely large purse with a double reinforced strap that they try to shove under the seat in front of them in which they carry things they may need while in flight such as magazines, romance novels (at least 3), snacks (rice cakes, anything fat-free), a laptop computer, a large wallet, toothbrush and toothpaste, water bottle (1.5 liter); and a small purse in which they carry the personal things they may need in flight like those fold-out mirror things that you can look at your face in, some lipstick, perfume to spray on before you depart the plane, and other feminine products that don't take up too much space. If my math is correct, this makes four carry-on bags. (Please don't think I'm sexist or anything. It's just that I travel a lot, and I notice things. And I did say "most" women, not "all.").

I'm astounded, as I wait in line, to see the gate attendant letting these women on the plane. They clearly appear to me to be exceeding the two carry-on bag rule. Maybe they're cutting these extra-carry-on-bag-carrying women some slack because the plane isn't that full.

As I reach the gate attendant/carry-on bag inspector, I notice him giving my trusty backpack the evil eye. He must be jealous that he doesn't have such a wonderful, trusty backpack. He looks at my backpack and says, "Sir, I'm afraid that bag is too big to carry on the plane." "What do you mean it's too big?" I say. "It's a backpack."

Then the gate attendant tells me that if my backpack doesn't fit in this little box he has on the ground beside him, that I must check it. I look down at the box. It's a small box. Some of the ladies' purses couldn't fit in this box. No garment bag could even think about fitting in this box. I look at my backpack, then the box, and then my backpack again. It reminds me of that children's game when you're a kid, where you try to put a wooden block into the right-shaped hole. I can see my backpack is not going to fit in this box.

"Sir," I tell the gate attendant. "I fly every week, and every week my trusty backpack fits comfortably beneath the seat in front of me." "Sir," he tells me. "We have new rules now. If your backpack doesn't fit comfortably in this box, you're going to have to check it."

"Oh, it'll fit," I angrily tell him. Then, just like when I was a kid playing with the wooden blocks, I proceed to make that backpack fit in the little hole. I shove, slam, and squish my trusty roundish backpack into that little rectangle hole. When it didn't seem like it was going to make it, I thought about all those giant garment bags I watched some businessmen carry on. I thought about the suitcases attached to an appliance dolly I watched some women roll on, not to mention their three or four other bags. I felt like the gate attendant was discriminating against me because I didn't have proper-looking carry-ons. I stepped my 140 pounds up on that box and I jumped up and down on my trusty backpack (squishing my two bananas, breaking my water bottle, which leaked all over my magazine and paperback, and severely scuffing my trusty backpack) until that sucker fit into the little rectangle box. I was wracked with flashbacks of my youth when, sledgehammer in hand, I bragged that I could make any wooden block fit into any shaped hole.

"There, it fits," I told the gate attendant. "May I board the plane now?" "Go ahead," he said, as he and quite a few passengers (all with carry-on bags bigger than my backpack) looked at me with astonishment.

I barely made the flight by the time I pried my bag out of that box. And when I finally did get on the plane, there was no space in the overhead bin for my guitar...but that's a whole other story.

As I finally take my seat (after helping a lady hoist an incredibly heavy suitcase into the overhead bin) and carefully tuck my trusty backpack beneath the seat in front of me, I can't help but smile. I love traveling. It's only my first race and already a new adventure. I glance down at my trusty backpack...it's going to be a good year.