555-6792

 If anyone other my sister can tell me where 555-6792 comes from I will be fully impressed. Any takers?? This is a phone number that was sung on an episode of Cheers. For years afterwards my sister would repeat it. Last year I watched all of Cheers and I heard it again. Neither of us knew the context of which the phone number was sung, but she always remembered it. When I finally got to that episode I remembered instantly Charlsie singing the phone number. I called her that same day and gave her in the context of the phone number.  In season 10 episode 16 Frasier and Lilith take Frederick to see Nanny G, a children’s performer, for his second birthday. Nanny G ends up being Frasier’s ex-wife and an ex-wife Lilith knows nothing about. At the end of the episode Nanny G sends a jack in the box clown to Cheers and when Frasier winds it, it sings 555-6792 which is Nanny G’s phone number.

So why this long story about a random phone number on some TV show from the 80’s? Well this little jingle of seven numbers jumped into my head on Friday. As I was setting up for a four hour and fifteen minutes ride on the bike my phone fell off the bike and turned off for its last time. I want to give you a little history on this phone. My phone is four years old and the screen has been severely cracked for eight months. Every time I turned it on I was thankful it actually turned on. When I call home it often switches on and off. Although what I found was this phone has become my security blanket….as I’m sure this is probably true for at least 80% of the people reading this right now.

I started my four and fifteen minute ride with no phone. It was just a steady state endurance ride. I didn’t need my app to tell me how hard to ride, I knew, but I just kept thinking how will this ride count if it doesn’t register on the app? Reality is the ride counts and it still happened weather my phone told me it did or not. I struggled through the entire ride. The first ninety minutes there was a spin class in the room so they kind of distracted me. Then I asked a fellow Naval Officer if she could stop by my room and grab my surface pro so I could as least have music. She brought it back, but I could not get it to connect to the WiFi, so no music, but I did have some TV shows downloaded so I watched Big Bang Theory for the last two hours. Although TV is not nearly as motivating as music.

I learned a lot on that ride. I was shocked with myself at how easily I fell apart. Without my workout app and music you would think someone cut my legs off and I was not capable of riding at all. I even just gave up with less than a minute left of the ride. I got off at four hours, fourteen minutes and two seconds. I never do that. Usually I ride longer than I need to, NEVER shorter. I know at some point while I’m racing I will remember how hard it was to finish (well almost finish) that ride. I won’t have my phone or music while I’m racing so I really needed this.

In the days that followed the loss of my phone I had to get comfortable without it. I had all kinds of issues syncing my Garmin to my surface pro. I don’t think I actually ever did and it messed up the time terribly. For a while it was a week off, but when I turned on the GPS to run it fixed its self. Without going on and on about the loss of my phone this gave me a moment to really evaluate my training and I really needed to. How in this last year did I get so addicted to workout technology? I sat down and looked at my Ironman training plan and figured out how to make it work, and convinced myself my workouts all still count! I found some peace in it all while 555-6792 kept going through my head.

To put things in perspective this last week we celebrated Memorial Day. This makes my phone “drama” seem very silly. We all celebrated, but we in Afghanistan celebrated by doing what we do every day here. Go to work. We are working for what you are celebrating. My parents took the kids to a Memorial Day parade. We never missed the Memorial Day parade growing up. If only I had a picture from high school in my marching band uniform! This year I’m wearing a uniform, just an Army one! Happy Memorial Day! I hope everyone took the time to enjoy a long weekend, but also took a few minutes to remember those who wore a uniform and worked so you could rest in freedom!