99 problems

Dear Blog Diary,
Whenever I start a triathlon training camp, two things happen:

1. My numbers drastically improve like clockwork.
2. It’s never enough, either intensity or volume.

The first, I’m always surprised and I shouldn’t be. Wherever I start, at some point an hour long run feels like nothing.

Then (where I’m at now), that hour long run is nothing, unacceptable, and I’m falling behind. By July it should be normal to bike 80 miles one day then run 20 the next.

Forty mile bike ride feels guilty. Should’ve been 60. Heart rate was off and my legs were soft. Training becomes a daunting task and you dread missing the mark. Worse, you don’t even get the real joy after good training because that’s just what you’re supposed to do. Goal post cha-cha.

Recently discovered one of those things I thought I understood but didn't.

Jay-Z never actually says that a bitch is a woman in 99 Problems.

It’s inferred in the hook and in three verses he explain three different problems and none of them are women.

Interesting. In the second verse he talks about being pulled over for driving while black. Way deeper than I thought, and clever.

Jay is a drug dealer with drugs in the car, but the cop doesn't know that. He pulls him over purely for racial profiling. Harasses Jay, makes assumptions. The duality of who is in the wrong provokes questions worth examining. Clever how the last words of the verse are "we'll see how smart you are when the K-9 come."

“I got 99 problems but a bitch (the K-9 looking for drugs in my car) ain’t one.”

I never thought of it that way. Makes me rethink the hook, even if he is referring to a woman.

“If you’re lucky enough to have girl problems as the toughest thing for you, I’m going to condescendingly tell you how I feel bad for you and call you son. I have 99 systematic problems bigger than myself and a woman being a bitch to me isn’t one of them.” 

He ends the first two verses the same way, with the hook as you know it but he ends the final verse differently. I love that he chose to leave the listener with the impression of how he faces the adversity, and maybe he’s clarifying what he means by the word “bitch.” It’s what I ultimately say about my training.

“I got 99 problems. Being a bitch ain’t one.”

Best,
E
#ARTiculate