Rants from Rob Straz!

Note: In the future, there will be pictures of Rob in this space, doing stuff...

December 28, 2008


For those of you who may not know who I am (how dare you!), my name is Rob Straznitskas. Eric invited me to write some occasional entries for this site.

Some things about me that you may find uninteresting: I lived most of my life in Connecticut then moved to Farmington, Maine to run a nursing home. I've been racing pretty consistently since 1992 and have already accomplished all the things I set out to do when I began this sport - the beauty of no swim / bike / run background.. cluelessness!

I have a pretty twisted sense of humor sometimes and laugh at things that others may not find funny. I will gladly make fun of myself and others for the sheer enjoyment of laughter. I also find selfisheness and overconfidence repelling.

I'm not really sure why Eric asked me to write some jibberish for his site, I figured I must entertain him at times so what the hell.. what harm would it do to have some moron write paragraphs for internet viewing? Seems like you're more the exception nowadays if you don't have a self absorbed blog containing very important details of your life like how many yards you swam, what you ate for lunch or how your boyfriend Bobby is being a jerk because he'd much rather watch midget porn than go furniture shopping with you and your half sister.

I do admit to being a student of human behavior and an amateur psychologist in my own mind. There's so many great things about this trigeek world and my life is much better because of it but there also are things I don't like about it.. I'm not a big fan of the technology, downloading, analyzing, etc. It's not that I don't think there's value in it it's just that I can be very lazy in some ways. Hell, I even don't have a bike computer at the moment because I just didn't want to buy a battery for it. Of course I play it up saying, "Man, I don't need some electronic device telling me that I just rode hills for two hours" when in reality I just couldn't be bothered with making a trip to WalMart for a 3 dollar battery.

The other thing that really gets me going is the day after an ironman when you happen to come across one of "those guys". You know who I'm talking about: one of those people who will think of any excuse or opening to talk about themselves at length. How incredibly boring and self indulgent. The day after LP 04 when I was picking up one of my Kona slots (that I subsequently crapped out of) I was stuck with a guy who I already pegged as a "Me, me, me" guy. I noticed his tactic before he got to me.. he would ask a stranger, "So how'd your race go?" and as the person was giving this total stranger a nice, summarized 20 second recap you could see Johnny Self Indulgents eye's frantically getting bigger, his head nodding fakingly attentive just waiting to launch into his 15 minute, incredibly detailed script on how he felt during every bike segment, how he passed packs of drafters, barely missed getting wiped out and held on bravely for a great finish.

So when Johhny Self Indulgent got to me he asked, "How'd your race go yesterday?" I replied in my oh so sarcastic way, "Good." That was it - "good". A look of confusion came over his face. Where was his opening? How could he work his race in? How could he tell this total stranger of his incredible bravery?

So when about ten seconds of silence passed Johhny made a brave move: with no segway or bridge to his tales of conquest he made the desperate leap to go into the details of his race (the same word for word details I and everyone else in our line had already heard a few times). I decided to one up Johnny: about 15 seconds into his fable when I decided to go toe to toe with the yard spinner by just simply turning around and facing my back to him while he rattled on. It didn't phase him for a few seconds but he just stopped mid sentence realizing that he wouldn't have an audience any longer. I still laugh about that day and what must have gone through his mind.

I guess as the years go on I realize I don't want to waste time around people I find to be self indulgent, fake, two-faced.. life is just way to short, you know? I also have little sympathy for those who love to assume the role of victim but I'll save that for another day.

Anyway, that's enough babble for now.

Future writings won't be limited to triathlons or training because too much talk about anything bores me quickly. Either way, if you like some stuff that's great.. If not, feel free to pull me aside the day after an IM and let me know how you feel since I'll be oh so interested in your thoughts.