Chitter Chatter

I usually bike alone. I have lots of friends who ride, but for many of them their schedules are reasonably predictable - they work, they go for a lunchtime ride, or a 5:30 ride, or a Saturday morning ride. Me, I go for the spontaneous ride, the scrounge-a-babysitter ride, the hubby's-home-early ride, the whenever-it-works ride. So I put 95% of my miles on my wheels keeping myself company. Not that I mind. I'm an introvert in a family of extroverts. An experience that is summed up extraordinarily well by this article, pointed out by blogger, writer, and introvert extraordinaire Dorcas. Time alone is precious, silence golden, the miles spin by and I utter a small sigh of relief at being able to recharge long enough to be swept up by the energy of my hubby and kids again.

But today our neighbor Richard called. I think he was actually calling to see if hubby wanted to go riding, but hubby wisely and happily asked if I wanted to go with him instead (wisely because hubby has been out of town for a week and I'm itching to go ride!) This turned out to be a great thing. For one thing, Richard is one of those most marvelous of riders. Someone who is faster than you, and so pushes your envelope, but doesn't rub it in or make you pay for it. He dropped me on a hill or two, but hovered patiently at the top until I caught up. He's also one of the great conversationalists of the world. Walk by his house and you might not get home for an hour. On top of that, we have a ton of things in common: we're both pilots, WWII history buffs (recently ran into him touring a B-17 at the airport, not surprisingly!), both own Triumph motorcycles, are passionate photographers, have skydived, travelled, scuba dived on WWII wrecks in the South Pacific. He's also had a lot of experiences that I've never had, he's been in the Navy, and has been an antique dealer and expert. He's got a thousand stories.

I couldn't believe how fast a two and a half hour ride flew by. It felt like an hour, maybe less. And we had these unreal winds to boot. I mean it's always windy around here, but these were great gusting blasts (most of my laundry was blown off of my line when I got home). A solo ride in such conditions would've been a tough slog. So today I'm grateful for the good luck that landed us two houses down from a fellow cyclist and generally cool person, and for the opportunity to be out in the sunshine, the fresh air, with good strong legs propelling me along, and the bonus of a friend.

Thanks For Making Me Think

A friend of mine who is a writer, Dorcas tagged me from her blog Life in the Shoe. The challenge was to list five blogs that make me think. In trying to decide which of the many blogs I love to include, it made me realize how much the words that others write out here do make me think. Especially the posts that are not so much about heartrates, repeats, tempos, and such but about their lives and how training for triathlons intersects the essential components of existence: family, friends, jobs, the environment. So here's my post on Blogs That Make Me Think, and I wanted to take a moment to thank all the bloggers out there whose words help me see my world in new and different ways, and offer a window into their own unique perspective on the world.

If all electricity suddenly went out and the internet disappeared with a *poof*, I would miss some of these perspectives. I would wonder about you all, think about the challenges you've written about and there would be a void where your stories now are. When blogging, it sometimes feels like your words are just going out into the air like dandelion seeds blowing in the wind. The thing is, you never know when a new weed is going to spring up (I'm the queen of bad analogies this morning, apparently).

Missed, By An Arm Warmer

So I was standing on the lakeshore yesterday morning in about 41 degrees of horribly damp cold, with rain streaming down my ears and saying to myself "This is why I never do early season triathlons in the Northwest. Sorry, make that the NorthWet." It didn't help that I'm still trying to shake this chest cold (so why am I out in the freezing drizzle doing a triathlon? I have no answer for that one.) And it doubly-didn't help that the long-sleeved wetsuit I had rented for the occasion (see previous comment about never doing early season tri's, I've never needed a long-sleeved wetsuit before...) didn't work. As in leaked water like a sieve. As in didn't fit right or something (good thing I tried it out before the race). So I'm standing there on the lakeshore in my sleeveless warm-weather-wimpy-triathlete farmer john style wetsuit getting ready to go into the water. In the words of Han Solo, I had a bad feeling about this.

That bad feeling was one of my intuitions, those things I've learned to listen to now that I'm old enough to believe I'm more or less mortal. And it was based on the fact that this is a pretty hilly, curvy bike course with many of those curves coming sharply at the bottom of those hills. I'm not the world's best technical cyclist on a good day, and this was not looking to be a good day. So I told myself (again, and again, and again) that I was not going to try to qualify for Nationals in this race, and therefore I did not need to kill myself on a slick wet corner going hell bent for leather on my bike. Having decided that one up front, I also decided to put on some arm warmers when I got to T1, judging (quite rightly) that my arms would be nearly frozen coming out of the lake and riding through the biting wind would be unpleasant at best. If I wanted to qualify, of course I would've never taken the time to pull arm warmers onto wet arms with nearly-numb fingers, but I was not going to worry about it this time.

Out onto the bike course, I played it safe. Using my patented Hill Weenie steering techniques, I probably frustrated the hell out of the riders around me, three guys I kept passing on the uphills who then usually passed me on the downhills. But, given my cornering history (remember my day with Billy Blaze?) and the steep dropoffs to the lake on the side of this road, I didn't really want to go riding off into the puckerbrush again, so I didn't have a very fast bike time, in fact I think it was the worst I've posted on this course, ever. But, I was alive and not covered in road rash, and given that the race organizers said that there would be absolutely no pickup of cyclists on the course ("you'll just have to walk" was the answer one gave to the question of whether or not cyclists with injuries or technical problems would be assisted back to the transition area), I was doing good as I rolled into T2.

Well, good until I put my running shoes onto my frozen slabs of meat...er....feet. And then tried to run on said slabs, which I pounded senselessly into the pavement over and over thinking some blood might start flowing to them eventually. All that run training I've been doing to get faster and I was looking like a Frankenstein monster on crack out there. Thud thud thud. At this point, I was apparently in the lead, however. No one bothered to tell me this (usually a race official or kind spectator will at least mention it!) so I didn't know until I was getting close to the run turn-around, which was also when another woman passed me. Still, first off the swim and bike, and a good mile into the run course is not a bad day under such conditions. Another gal caught me, and then one more just before the finisher's chute (grrrrrr) but my legs weren't going to go any faster, so I just kept chugging along as best as I could. Very very surprisingly, I turned in a PR for the run on this course for me, at 25 minutes for the 5k. Don't know how I managed to do that, except that maybe that run training and all of those hill repeats did actually pay off on this hilly course. That's pretty exciting for me, and gives me some hope for later in the season with non-frozen feet.

I ended up 2nd in my age group, 4th overall (though I'm listed in the race results as being male, the final indignity of the day I suppose), and there was only a minute and a half separating those fisrt 4 places, probably about the time it took me to screw around with my arm warmers in my slow T1, so the joke's on me there. In a way, it was a cool race though because it was different for me (early season, very indecisive about how to approach it and what to wear). I felt like a bit of a rookie, and sometimes it's good to push your own personal envelope a bit. I'm encouraged by my running, and not too discouraged by my slow bike time because I hope that these road conditions won't be repeating themselves in any further races this season!

Faves and Raves

I guess I can't call these "weekly faves and raves" because I always forget to post them, so it's more like "whenever I feel like it and get around to it faves and raves." In no particular order, here's a few:

Favorite Activity of the Week: This one's a no brainer: Mother's Day. And not just because the kids brought me breakfast in bed (cooked by the ever-fabulous hubby), flowers, chocolate, my Sudoku book, stuffed animals to snuggle, etc. but because it's always a reminder of how grateful I am for my own mother (who met us in Disneyland and is now off on a solo adventure around the country) but also how grateful I am to be a mom to my two awesome kids. The entire day on Sunday was just so perfect. I got the royal treatment, got to go on my long run in the sunshine (which felt just great after a spurt of cold weather), got surprised by my dad and step-mom who came to visit in the afternoon, got to take the tandem bikes down to the park by the river with the kids, and went out for some late Thai food on the way home. Nothing could've been better.

Kid Quote of the Week: This one's from my son, who was trying to convince my hubby to violate the "no food upstairs" rule in order to bring me breakfast in bed. I overheard this from down below: "Dad, it'c called Breakfast in Bed. The operative words here are In Bed, otherwise it's just called Breakfast."

Quote of the Week: "Happy people plan actions, they don't plan results." - Denis Waitley. This one is particularly appropriate for me this week. I've been waffling off and on about trying to qualify for Nationals this year, since they're in Oregon for once (which I didn't know last summer, or I would've done a race then to qualify.) The last qualifying race that I can get to is this coming weekend, and I originally registered for the sprint (I don't usually race this early at all in the season, wimp that I am!), but then found out that only the Olympic was an official qualifier. To complicate matters, I've been sick with the remainders of a chest cold. Could I do the Olympic? Should I? Today my hubby looked at me and said "You know, you could just find a nice race later in the summer and qualify for next year and just stop worrying about it right now. What a wise guy (and I mean that in a good way). So yes, I'm going to do the sprint tri this weekend. No, I'm not worried about qualifying, if I do that would be icing, but I'm going to plan my actions and not worry about the results, and most of all enjoy it!

Favorite food: Always a hard one to decide, but I do try to keep this relevant to training for triathlons, so the chocolate souffle is pretty much out. I'd say now that we're reliably into the warm weather, it's smoothie time. Today's offering includes blackberries we picked last summer and froze, eggs from our very own lady chickens, and goat's milk from a nearby farmer (don't wrinkle your nose, when you get fresh goat's milk from someone who knows how to keep dairy goats, it's very good stuff). A dash of vanilla and it's perfect on a warm spring afternoon before or after a ride.

Workout of the Week: Over-under intervals on the bike. 1 minute max effort, 2 minutes just under the anaerobic threshold, repeat 10x. I actually did 5, took a break, then did 5 more. Wonder how the legs will feel tomorrow!

Music to Run By: I have none for this week. I loaded up my iPod with a Learning Italian CD and buon giorno'd my way down the trail. We are now definitely planning on a multi-week family tandem biking excursion in Italy for '08, and as I'm the family linguist I figured on getting a jump on Italian. So far I've managed to amaze the kids with how much I can pick up just from knowing French and some Spanish (as well as a smattering of Latin and a musical background). I also made an interesting discovery about myself. I'm such a completely visual (and completely non-auditory) learner that I can repeat out loud any word or phrase on the Italian CD that I can visualize in my head. If I can't visualize it, I can't say it. I remember this from learning French in college. We would watch movies in French and my comprehension dropped from 95% to about 10% if a character turned their back to the screen. I was actually lip-reading in French, not hearing it. Isn't that weird? It may explain why I can never remember anyone's name... unless I write it down or see it on a nametag.

Chapter Seven, In Which Robin Meets Badmouth Bob, Billy Blaze, and Takes an Excursion Into the Puckerbrush

While not quite as frightening as J's encounter with bicyclist Bob (scroll down to March 15, but I warn you may pee your pants laughing, this is the funniest blog in tri-town), I had some very interesting run-ins with the local two-wheeled loonies this week.

First, there was Badmouth Bob (or BB for short). I was cycling to work and only a block from the club when I pull up next to another cyclist on a commuter bike at a stop light, an act I would soon come to regret. We're right near the downtown bus depot, and a bus turns right on a red light directly in front of us (though not close enough to put us in any danger). Badmouth Bob, who up until this point looked relatively sane, takes a deep breath and yells at the top of his lungs "The Transit District can lick my hairy nutsack!". All eyes from pedestrians, car drivers, people waiting for busses, and the usual crowd in front of the library are now focused our way. Did I mention I'm a block from where I work, and am sitting right next to Bobby Boy, as if we're cycling together? As the light turns green and he moves off, I decide to put as much distance between us as possible, which is a good thing because he repeats his little proclamation (in a voice loud enough to carry a good half mile) over and over again as he pedals away. When I've finished racking my bike, I can still here him shouting his displeasure with the transit district into the sunset.

So that was day one of my cycling week. On day two, I've dropped my daughter off at her play rehearsal and headed off down the nearby bike path en route to a nice 90 minute ride along the rolling hills by the river. It's a gorgeous early evening, and I'm enjoying just cruising along. I'm coming up on a cyclist in front of me, decked out in long cycling tights and riding a mountain bike with knobby tires for all he's worth. Seriously, the dude is doing almost 19 mph on this mountain bike, and he's standing up and pumping every minute or so, going hell bent for leather. Still, heroic though his efforts might be, I was gaining on him steadily over the course of a mile or two, if for no other reason than I'm on aerobars and skinny tires. So I'm doing about 22 when I pull out, give him an "on your left" and pass him, not thinking anything of it.

The river looks gorgeous to my right and I'm enjoying the light breeze and sunny weather as I cruise along when I notice this weird sound, kinda like heavy breathing off of my left shoulder. A sunny patch of ground reveals his shadow, still pumping legs like crazy, right on my rear tire. So that's a little strange, but maybe he's on testosterone overload or doesn't like being passed by chicks (quite unfortunately, that's not an infrequent occurrence if you're a female cyclist). As I brake to make a turn off of the path, he whizzes past me and resumes manic pumping action. Of course, he also drops back down to 19 mph, now that he's lost my draft. I'll take a second just to point out here that this little event happens in races all the time, which is really hard on those female cyclists near the front of the pack. Some guys (no matter how much slower they're going) will just not be passed by a woman. It's downright maddening in a race (where it's costing me time), but is merely irritating on the bike path.

So I slow down for a little bit until there's another straight section and it's safe to pass again. A little bit more curt with the "on your left" and I'm past. Now we've gone up and over a bridge and are coming down the other side, picking up speed. My bike computer reads 24, then 26mph. At 28 we come out from behind some trees and I get another shadow glance, the dude is still glued onto my back wheel. At 28.5 on a mountain bike! Ordinarily, my hat would be off to him, but at this point it's starting to feel downright creepy. Interestingly, my girlfriends I've told this story to have nodded their heads - scary stuff. Guys look at me oblivious: what's the problem, other than a dude in need of an attitude adjustment? So here's a Public Service Announcement: Guys, girls can get a bit freaked out when they're being chased. Many of us have had unsavory, dangerous, or downright victimizing experiences with men in our lives, and while it doesn't make us walking paranoids, it's just not nice to chase us around (when you don't know us of course, if you happen to be my husband, go right ahead!)

So I did what seemed to be the best thing to my rabbit-being-chased-by-fox brain at the time: accelerated. I poured on the gas and took the speed up a few more notches. Dude is still there, ragged breathing and all. I'm so focused on getting away from this guy, I forget that the bike path is almost ending and there's a big sweeping curve coming up. I'm sure you know where this is going. I realize about 1/8th of the way into the curve that there's no way in hell I'm going to make it without completely dumping my bike over at a speed that will ensure most of my skin gets left on the pavement. So I straighten up and ride right off the path into the weeds.

Now I'm hurtling along over the rocky ground, thigh-high weeds and thorns whipping past my legs, and, as if in slow motion, the guy goes past me on my right on the bike path, his mouth in an "O", and all he says is "Wow". I manage to yell something like "wild ride" as I hold tight to the handlebars with both hands in a death grip. I manage to brake to a stop about fifty yards off the path, just before I would've hurtled off an embankment into a gigantic blackberry thicket. After checking my tires for thorns, and letting all of the blood drain back out of my cheeks, I head back onto the path. There at the end is Blazin' Billy, turning around to speed back into town. After all, he appears to be a pretty normal guy out for a power ride after work, not some kind of freaky demon. He looks as if he is going to say something to me but I just keep pedaling, hoping futilely that he will forget what color jersey I'm wearing (orange with flowers and purple shorts, what are the odds??) or maybe that he ever saw any of this (where's that Jedi mind-control thing when you need it: "You didn't see anything. You can go about your business now.")

I'm a little nervous about what tomorrow's bike ride might bring, I could use a more normal ending to my week. I just hope that Badmouth Bob and Blazin' Billy don't have a cousin or something. Maybe this guy...

Jumping Back In To Life

It's funny how time flies by during the weeks here, but one week of vacation can simultaneously seem very fast and also very long. It seems like forever since I've been home, but the days went by quickly. I had planned on running a few times on vacation but that only materialized once. There's also not many good places to run around Mouseland, a lot of cars and traffic, long lights and freeway intersections make it more of an exercise in frustration than anything. I think I'll write to the Disney people and suggest that they open up the park in the early mornings for us running folk who need a place to stretch out our legs, that would be fun.
This is my favorite photo from Disney, I went on Autopia with Miss A., a ride that lets the kids drive. Made me wonder what I'll be going through in seven or eight years when she wants to drive for real!

Now I'm back and staring at a race in less than two weeks, that's about 10 days of workouts, taper, and boom it's here. I did get out on my bike yesterday for a brick of 1.5 hours, and then 45 minute run. Strangely enough, though I felt like I was sluggish my biking speed was quite fast. I guess a week of rest after four weeks of time trials left me with some oomph in my biking, that's nice! But running was dreadful and I've got just a few days to try and get some speed back into my legs or I'll be toast. And this tri has a hilly run, so I'm off tomorrow to start hitting the hills again.

Dispatch From Disney #1

So far it's Vacation 4, Workouts 0 (unless you count hoofing around Disneyland for 8 hours with two kids a workout, and judging by how tired I am at the end of the day, I guess I can!), but we're having a good time here. I've blasted the Evil Emporer Zurg numerous times on our journeys through the new Buzz Lightyear ride, and managed to convince my less-than-thrillseeking kids (don't ask me how mine and my husband's genetics combined to produce that) to try out the Matterhorn and the Haunted House. I haven't left the park with kids in tears, and my usual tactics (get there when the park opens, stay 'til 2:00, go back to the hotel to swim and lounge, return for evening and stay until park closes) are working well. We've done just about everything in two days and are off to SeaWorld and the San Diego Zoo, then back for one more day of Disney and then home. Whew!

I packed my running shoes but they haven't been out of the suitcase yet. I didn't even take this big of a break from my workouts after Ironman, so it feels very weird to be doing absolutely nothing at all. But sometimes I think maybe that's not such a bad thing, and regardless of the fact that I've got my first tri of the season in just a few weeks, it will probably be just fine. Call it a pre-taper maybe. Now I'm off to read the kids some Harry Potter and then to bed....

Woooofreakinhoooooo

When you do triathlons, there's usually a nice little grace period in between races that lets you more or less forget about the pain you were in during the race, and remember the nice afterglowy feeling of having completed it successfully. This is more or less the same mechanism that allows humans to have more than one child, because if we didn't forget a lot of childbirth it probably just wouldn't happen.

So all of that is different when you step out of the triathlon world and into a race series like the cycling time trials I've been doing. There's one of them a week, and that's just not enough time to forget how bad it hurt last time. It's also a little strange doing the same course over and over, although I guess the upside is that you get to know it a bit better over the course of time.

This Tuesday was the last race of the time trial series, and to tell the truth I wasn't really looking forward to it. By the time my busy Monday and Tuesday is almost done, it just seemed like one more thing I had to do. Get all the gear together, slog out to the countryside and ride fifteen miles as fast as I could, then check it off the Palm pilot for another day. Fortunately, my hubby and the kids came along this time and that always makes it more fun. Also fortunately I had taken a peek at the rankings going into the last race and knew how close it was, so that was a bit more encouragement to get out there and go hard. The weather cooperated this time and it was balmy and lovely as the sun faded toward the horizon. I got a slot close to the start along with a couple of teammates, so I could look forward to chasing them and being done early.

Although it was a bit windy and I didn't post my fastest time on the course (and in fact, missed 1st place in Cat4 for that race by a measly 4 seconds), I held on enough to get the overall series win in the Cat4 Women's division. Woooofreakinhoooooo! There was only a minute between myself and the next gal over four races, so that was very close. I'm pretty excited, and my hubby has been nodding knowingly because he's been saying for a long time I should try my hand at just cycle racing. It does make me wonder what I could do if I actually got on my bike more than twice a week (I'm sure I will once the weather gets warmer, I don't usually ride this much so early in the year!) I don't know though, it was a cool experience and all but I really discovered something about why I love triathlons so much. It's that you're always doing something different. Every race is different, each course, each transition, even the water in the same lake is never the same twice. This was fun, but my true love remains triathlon.

Birthday Week Ups and Downs

So last Thursday was my birthday, I turned 41 at eight-something in the evening as my mom likes to say. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster week including the birthday. My husband was out of town (hazards of marrying a pilot) but my son brought me a birthday card as soon as I opened my eyes, and my daughter went downstairs and came back up with breakfast in bed (toast, well buttered) which was very sweet. By the afternoon however, I was feeling really miserably sick. The sore lungs from last Tuesday's Time Trial in the freezing rain were turning into a hacking painful chest and I started to run a fever. It's pretty rare that I get sick, so it always throws me for a loop not to be feeling good. I didn't even exercise for two days in a row, so I knew I was really down with something.

Other than the cold though, many quietly good things happened in my birthday week. My mom and sister called, my friend K. wrote me a card about friendship that really touched my heart. Her daughter C. made my day by writing "No matter how old you get, I know you are a wild teenager at heart" in a card. High praise indeed from a teenager herself! And they gave me a copy of the comic book Zits, which has been cracking me up regularly. I guess it's good reading for a few short years when I'll have a teenager myself.

My hubby made my day by drawing an almost indecipherable wetsuit in his card to me. Luckily, he wrote the word "Aqua" on the leg of it, or I might've really wondered. So wheeeee! I get to get a full-sleeved wetsuit! My old farmer john style is on its last legs, so this is really exciting for me. Other women may want flowers, wine, and diamonds, but this man knows what really makes me happy: neoprene.

Other exciting things happened this week. I got my first photo into Flickr's Explore section (where they showcase interesting and enticing photos), which is a pretty big honor. It was this photo I took of the kids in the Sacramento River at sunset, one of my favorites. I also discovered that so far I am leading the Cat4 women in the Time Trial series I've been doing. Given that it's my first year taking a stab at bike racing, and I get on my bike maybe twice a week right now, I'm pretty pleased with that. We'll have to see how this last week goes though to see where I end up.

So all in all, not a bad way to get another year older. No big parties, no hoopla, just some quiet moments, cards, conversations with those who are closest to me. As I get older, I am happier with presence than presents. I'm thinking a lot about getting older this year, partly because 40 was a milestone year but 41 is now into the 40s. It's also partly because I can feel my body pushing back a little on me, resisting getting faster, getting a little more sore than it used to when I ask it to go hard. And partly because of this 365 Days of self portraits project on Flickr. Ever try to look at a hundred photos of yourself? It really makes you look at the person that you are right now, not the person you think you'd look like if you took the time to get all glammed up and take a studio portrait with nice lighting and all, but the person with spriggy grey hairs and a wrinkle or three or four. It's been an interesting experience since I'm usually the one taking photos of everyone else in my life, now suddenly I have all these photos of myself and it's kind of strange.

So I'll probably muse more on aging some other time, but for now it's nice to feel healthier again, and I'm grateful to be forty-one years old on this earth today and feeling the sun on my face.

The Swim Coach Writes...

I got to coach the Master's morning workout today and thought I'd share this fun set. This distance swim workout is a great one if you're either trying to work your way up to a specific distance, or improve your time at a particular distance: take the distance and break it down into an increasing set. This is how it works.

Say your distance is 750 yards (or meters), it can be broken down into this increasing set:

50
100
150
200
250

Now give yourself a little bit of rest in between each of those components, like 10 seconds after the 50, 20 after the 100, and 30 after each of the others (I don't like to go more than 30 or your heart rate comes down too much). By the end of the set, you've done the distance with some breaks to make it easier on you. You can repeat the set as many times as you want.

If you're going for a time, set an interval instead of a specific number of seconds. So, if you were hoping to hit a 1:30 interval per 100 in your 750, you could swim the 50 on :55, the 100 on 1:50, the 150 on 2:45 and so on. Then try to hit your interval for each component (swim the 50 in :45, the 100 in 1:30, the 150 in 2:15, etc.)

This set looked deceptively easy when I wrote it up, but we repeated it four times on a pretty quick interval and it got tough fast! Give it a try if you're looking for something to spice up those boring long swims.

Cycling Event to Honor Cyclists Killed by Motor Vehicles

On May 16 at 7:00 pm in locations all over the United States (48 states) and in several other countries, a Ride of Silence will be held in honor of those who have been injured or killed while cycling on public roadways. There's seven or eight locations to participate in my state alone, so it looks like it will be a pretty big event.

I am planning to do this ride, probably with the kids. I think it's a good idea to bring attention to this issue during Bike Safety Month (May). Being out on the roads on a bike all the time, the issue of cyclist safety is never far from my mind, especially after the death of a fellow triathlete (seven-time Ironman and an amazing woman) in May of last year in a collision with a truck on a route I was biking earlier that day. For those concerned with our safety as cyclists and interested in participating, more information is available at http://www.rideofsilence.org/

Addendum to Faves

Favorite Kid Quotes:
From Miss A. (7): Mom, can you hand me my Lip Chap?
Me: What's Lip Chap?
Her: Well, there's Lip Gloss, Lipstick, and Lip Chap! (in tones of "everyone knows that" LOL)

I figured out it was the chapstick she wanted...

And from Mr. M. (10), overheard when he was upstairs playing with Miss. A.:

"Cry havoc and let loose the squids of war!"
(I have no idea what he was referring to but it cracked me up)


Favorite Weeknight Activity:
We invited several couples over and watched the British comedy Coupling. If you're not familiar with it, it's like Friends meets Sex & the City meets Seinfield and then some. Pretty damned explicit (with episodes like Size Matters and Lesbian Spank Inferno) and blisteringly funny like split-your-sides, laugh-until-ya-puke kind of funny.


Favorite Weekend Warriorism:
Watching (from the comfort of a computer monitor) BlueBirdBiker, and several other people from the Trifuel forums complete Ironman Arizona. It was a tough and windy day on the course and as always I am inspired by what people face and overcome in this difficult endeavor.

Weekly Faves n Raves

Favorite Food This Week: Leftover Easter crepes with yogurt and blueberries. I always make crepes for Easter and I'm in the habit of putting almond meal and flax seed meal in the crepe batter so they're full of protein and kind of nutty tasting. For Easter we had them with strawberries and whipped cream, of course! But they make a great lunch with fruit and yogurt on other days.

Favorite Workout This Week: That one's easy, the time trial on Tuesday, if for no other reason than it's the only workout I haven't done in the rain or cold. But today is sunny and I'm looking forward to a much warmer long run this afternoon.

Favorite Song to Run To: Fall Out Boy - This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race. Thankfully someone I know posted the lyrics online because it's dang hard to figure out what he's saying. Then again, I'm the queen of misheard lyrics, and by the way if you are too, check out The Archive of Misheard Lyrics for some good laughs.

Rave for the Week: Someone keeps stealing my favorite pull buoys from the pool. We're down to one of them left now. Who on earth has a membership at a private club and then can't go buy themselves a pull buoy?? Did they actually "accidentally" just carry one home with them? They're a bit bulky for that. All the other ones are slick, which might work fine for the furry-legged men, but for those of us with smooth thighs, they just slip around annoyingly. I know it's a petty rant, but that's mine for the week.

Saddest Thing That's Happened This Week: Kurt Vonnegut's leaving this earth. At one time, I read every book he wrote over the course of a year or two. Might be time to go and re-read some. It would be impossible to find a favorite quote because there are so many, and I can't seem to dig up (even on Google) the quote he had about swimming (half of it was about writing: "When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth." but the other half was about swimming and I can't find it anywhere!) If anyone has this quote and can help me out, I'd be ever so grateful.

But this is one of my faves that seems appropriate to this blog and will stand as my weekly favorite quote: "I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."

RIP Kurt Vonnegut, who once said about death:

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

Note to Self: Buy Booties

It would seem rather late in the year to be buying cold weather gear, but it doesn't seem to be warming up at all around here. And having a race in May, which I usually don't do, is making me ride outside in all of this cold and rainy weather. My previous MO has been to not even think about biking outside until all the rain disappears, so I don't have a lot of the rain riding essentials (except my big flapping rain jackets and pants for around town riding.) I think from the state of my toes after today's ride, I might invest in some booties at the very least.
I came home frozen to my bike like a popsicle only to find that my hubby had been on the phone for awhile and predictably the kids had gotten up to mischief. Big bro' M. (trying to look innocent here) had devised an alien costume for his little sis from crepe paper and bags. The entire dining room looked like a bomb had gone off in a craft store, and I no longer have any tape in the house. But at least they were having fun, and I have to give them full marks for creativity!

At least it wasn't as bad as last week's ride, where I got a panic-stricken voicemail from my daughter that went something like "Mom, you've got to come home Now! The baby chickens are all bleeding from their noses!" When was the last time you got a phone call like that? And being twenty miles from home on a bicycle, there's not much you can do about "come home quick". As it turns out, the chickies got in a bit of a panic and a couple of them banged up their beaks on the cage wire. They weren't actually hemorrhaging out their noses as I was picturing as I listened to this message, just a couple of tiny scabs is all. We don't call Miss A. the Drama Queen for nothing.

Here's hoping next week brings warm weather, and bike rides without frostbitten toes, craft bombs, or chickens knocking on death's door.

Now That's Better!

It's TT time again and let's see, what was improved from last week.... rest, nutrition, hydration, warmup, organization, gear... yep, this time I was prepared. And had a terrific ride and if I'm not mistaken a PR on the course. I don't have my official time yet, and as I rode past the timekeeper's stand they called out "Race Number!" - I guess my number wasn't pinned visibly enough - so I didn't get my exact time off of my bike computer in all the confusion. I think it was around 40:40 though (at least that's my hope), which would be a minute and a half better than last time if so.

I do know that I got passed by three people on the course (all men), and I passed three people (two women and a man), so I was even in the count (keeping track of that helps me pass the miles as I push my quadriceps to the bursting point and try to blow up my heart - did I forget to mention that time trials hurt. A lot.) The women were both from the local women's team and they both had disc wheels (which I envied) and both of them had to be at least 1:30 or more ahead of me at the start because the three riders in front of me were all male. So that was pretty cool!

It was a gorgeous evening (sorry, I didn't take time to snap photos with my phone camera) with shining sun, only a light breeze, and enough warmth to go in just jersey and shorts. If I hadn't been busy exploding my heart and quads, it might have been pretty enjoyable out there. We had another nice little brick to cool down (and as much as I'm not really a runner, I do enjoy these because they feel nice after all that hard work on the bike.) All in all a good night for some hard work, and I did my best out there. I'll be curious to see where my time falls, but doing my personal best is what really matters so I'm a happy gal tonight!

Thug Mama Cyclist Meets the Yodeling Mountain Goat

Have you seen that movie Hoodwinked? Well, if you're not a parent, probably not. It's actually pretty damned cute for a kid's movie, but the part that seems relevant today is a song yodeled by a banjo-playing mountain goat with removable horns whom a witch has cursed to only be able to sing, not talk (yeah, the movie's strange.) The chorus goes something like:

Be prepared, be prepared,
This lesson must be shared,
Be prepared, be prepared,
And unless you got a spare,
You got one life, so handle it with care!

I obviously forgot this lesson this week. You see, there was this cycling time trial Tuesday night. And though I would've liked to have been prepared, I really wasn't (see previous post about three-ring circus, I was still making pizzas ten minutes before throwing my bike in the car to head out to the course.) But life lessons have a great way of coming around to kick you in the arse when you're not paying attention.

With triathlons, I'm almost always prepared these days. First of all, I've been doing them for over twenty years now, so I sort of know what I'm doing. Secondly, my uber-geek nature took over years ago and created spreadsheets for every conceivable aspect of triathlon racing, from what to buy in the week before the race to what to pack for each aspect of the transition area. I print out my sheets, check the little boxes, and I'm squared away. When it comes to TTs though, I'm not nearly that organized. On the surface it seems much simpler: one sport, one bicycle, some shoes, a helmet, show up and ride. No wetsuit, no changing, running shoes. Easy, right?

It started earlier in the day when I realized I forgot to change the battery in my bike computer. Took care of that, but it put my whole day behind schedule. By the time I was throwing the bike in the car, I realized I didn't change my wheels, so I threw those in too. Got to the registration just slightly late, but got signed up and got my start time. Set to work changing wheels. It's damned cold outside. Realized I forgot to throw in the bag with my warmup clothes, but an old black hoodie sweatshirt of hubby's takes most of the chill off even if I look like a thug. Get my wheels on and take 'em for a little test spin. Damn, it seems like I'm going really fast but I chalk that up to a little pre-race adrenaline and forget about it. Don't have time to throw the bike on the trainer and also realize my pre-ride nutrition was in the bag with my warmup clothes - at home. Eat Trader Joe's gingersnaps by the handful from a bucket in the car (sometimes it's useful being a mom, there's always food in the minivan if you look hard enough.)

Looking around, there's lots of really serious and professional-looking cyclists warming up on their fluid trainers, in with nice long-sleeved skin-tight thermal jerseys, disk wheels and those funky aero-helmets that look like something a Sith Lord might don for a night out on the town. Meanwhile, here I am, gangster-mama eating her kids' gingersnaps on the tailgate of her minivan. But no time to worry about my public image, they're calling my number.

Now comes the part I've really been fearing: the standing start. You might think that someone with a background in skydiving, motorcycle riding, and other assorted dangerous occupations would not be as big of a chickenshit as I am, but you'd be wrong. The one and only other time I've done a TT, I backed out of the standing start at the last second and took off by pushing myself with one foot repeatedly like a total idiot. This time though, I got tough and went through with it, and I was off. But my complete and total lack of preparation made this race a very long and hard one.

Mentally, I was off of my game from the first mile. I wasn't warmed up enough, hadn't had time to jump on my trainer, had gotten chilled from the breeze blowing through the cotton sweatshirt, and the gingersnaps were sitting a bit hard in the ol' stomach. Still, I was making some really good time, or so I thought. My speedometer was going crazy: 24 mph in the first few miles alone. But then I looked at the mileage and knew something was wrong. I was in the wrong place to have put so many miles on already. Eventually it hit me: I changed the battery in my bike computer, and that wiped out my settings. The computer is automatically set for 700 wheels and I ride 650s. Crap. So much for my blistering speed.

Now let me explain something. For the kind of geeky brain I've got, numbers are everything. I can't live without my numbers. I dream in Sudoku. I was a Vulcan in a former life. So I'm out on the course without Any Meaningful Numbers. Except for my total time. If I hadn't had that, I might've really gone crazy. From there on out, time just spiraled out into the long kind of misery that every athlete has endured sooner or later. Nothing feels right, the universe is pissing on you, and you just have to gut it out. I eventually crossed the finish line 30 seconds slower than the last time I did this (and I definitely should be faster).

So I felt kinda demoralized by the whole thing, and not even my nutty tri friends suggesting a brick run after the TT could cheer me up. I ran in my thug sweatshirt and a black watch cap of my hubby's that was in the back of the van, while the cyclists heading home goggled at us setting out on a run. Since that evening, I've been really dwelling on how much of a mental difference it made to be completely unprepared to race. And that mental difference carried itself over into my athletic performance, making me slower than I knew I could go.

Today I looked up my time on the results page on the web and was moping about how bad it was when my hubby pointed out that really, I came in 2nd in the Cat4 Women, and I was only about 30 seconds behind the woman who finished 1st in the Cat1/2s. Even with the Thug Mama duds, the lack of aero anything (except bars), no coach, and no warmup, I didn't do as badly as I thought. My friend and teammate Megan really rocked and rolled, beating all the other women entirely. And she did it all without even a disc wheel or Sith Lord helmet. She is really inspiring.

So next week, the hubby has offered to come chair my pit crew. Get me warmed up, set up, nutritioned up, and see what I can do when I'm feeling more like my usual self. Next time I'm going to listen to that damned yodeling mountain goat, next time I'm going to Be Prepared.

Welcome To My Three-Ring Circus

In ring #1, we have Robin the triathlete. She did a time trial last night with some of her teammates and they did a brick run afterwards (while cyclists going home looked at them like they were nuts), and then she gave them a ride home. The back of her minivan looks like a bomb went off in a bike store: wheels, trainers, shoes, helmets (some of which are not hers). Although she brought her bike in when she got home last night at 9:00 pm, it's now 9:30 in the morning and she's just realized that she has to put up the backseat in order to carpool everyone to Karate class by 10:00 am. She is frantically carrying biking gear into the garage and dumping it willy nilly.

In ring #2, we have Robin the homeschooling mom. Note: this is the same Robin that's in ring #1. She's busy making sure the kids are fed, they have their karate gis on, belts tied correctly, waterbottles in hand, and a bag with clothes to change into after karate. She also needs to bring along cloth grocery bags for shopping at Trader Joe's afterwards, and make sure she has playdate arrangements for the kids' afternoon, as well as time to shlep kid#2 to her horseback riding lesson shortly after lunch.

In ring#3, we have Robin yet again. This time it's Robin the urban homesteader and environmentalist. This is why she's carpooling to karate (when the weather is not so rainy, she'll be busy loading kids onto bicycles and making sure they have helmets, sunglasses, gloves, etc.). She's busy letting the adult chickens out of their coop for the morning, making sure the baby chickens have food and water. Oops, carrying all the biking gear into the garage has caused all the baby chickens (which currently live in a cage in the garage until it's warm enough for them to go outside for the day) to go nuts, so now that she's filling their feeder, they're busy popping up out of the cage and flapping around. She grabs a chicken with one hand and stuffs it back into the cage, then another, making mental note that they are now able to fly quite well, and moving cycling gear out of the way with her toes at the same time.

Usually, the three rings of my life run more or less seamlessly. I'm doing one thing or another, taking the kids someplace and then running or biking, or I'm home with the kids doing their stuff, or we're taking care of the animals together, or my hubby's home and that's when I exercise or whatever. But some days every ring has to be going at the same time, and there's just not enough of Robin to go around. This morning was just one of those times! And don't even get me going on what it felt like to have to complete dozens of punches in a torturous position known as Shiko Dachi while the sensei walked around with a bopper hitting you in the stomach and arms and shoulders to make sure everything is solid (it wasn't, my legs were quivering like jelly on a plate.)

Luckily, tomorrow is our day off from everything: all activities, places to be, things to do will cease. I will stay home, try to get the house straightened out, and dye easter eggs with the kids. Oh yeah, and bike. And run. And do it all again.

The Need For Speed

Can't help that blog title, we just watched Top Gun again, now that we've got our home projection system set up in our basement with surround sound speakers borrowed from my computer and all. That movie was my son's suggestion and it was a good one to christen the system with. You know, it doesn't matter how many times I've seen that movie, when the cheesy 80's music starts pumping and the afterburners fire up, I'm totally sucked in. And just for the record, the projector and screen are so totally cool when watched from our couch! I think I might never set foot in a movie theatre again.

But this week's been all about speed for me anyways. Not a big volume week, but I really hammered out some tough workouts (taking that meter all the way up to Agony) and I get to announce....

ta da da....

I set a PR.... in the POOL! After 20+ years of swimming, this kinda blew me away. But I think it's all those distance miles I piled on for IMFL last fall. My stroke felt so much more efficient after that and I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that once I started doing more intervals and speed work that I might end up faster. But countering that was the fact that my left shoulder has really been bugging me this week. I took a fall while running and went down pretty hard on my left wrist before I managed to pull my arms in and do a judo-style roll. The jolt traveled up through my poor wrist and up through my shoulder into my neck. All week I've been saying that I really should see my chiropractor, but just didn't manage to haul my butt down to his office, and have had shooting pains in my hand and elbow. So when Saturday's Masters workout showed up, I was feeling less than enthusiastic.

One thing I like about our new coach though is that he gives loooonnnnnggg warmups. Like a thousand yards, which is exactly my kind of warmup. By the time we get to the main set, I'm actually feeling like I can swim. This particular main set started with 800 yards freestyle, then went to 7x100 on a 1:30 interval, then 600 straight, then 5x100 and so on. The total at the end of the board was 5,000 yards! Which, if truth be told, I usually only swim once a year at our killer New Year's Day workout.

My friend The Barge was swimming over in the fast lane next to me, and he's usually just a tad faster (and he's aiming to swim the 1650 in close to a 1:21-1:22 split at a meet this month), so I figured I'd pace off of him. Unfortunately, what I didn't know when I started swimming is that he wasn't first in his lane. I was pacing off of Steve the Insanely Fast. He left me in the dust in the first 50, when I realized my mistake, and when I hit the first 100 and saw the clock read 1:16, I knew I was in big-time trouble. So I backed off and managed to come in at 10:40, which I have Never Swum in My Life. So I might not be as fast in a sprint as I was in college, but I am still picking up speed at distance and I am so excited about that!!!

In other news, I set a practice PR for a 5k run at 24:47. My run is my biggest limiter, so I've been hammering it pretty darned hard in the last two months and it looks like that's definitely paying off. I'm not setting any land speed records, but I'm hoping to get to the point where my run isn't just completely holding me back. If I can come anywhere close to this in May's sprint tri (which is debatable, because I think it's a hilly run following a hilly bike), it should really help my total time.

Best of all, that good hard swim somehow managed to fix my shoulder problem (which swimming often does for me) and I've been pain-free since Saturday now. I still might use it as an excuse to go get a good massage though.

The C & E People

When I was a kid, the minister in our church was a bit of a humorist. He was one of those pastors that knew how to bring laughter into a sermon at just the right place, and keep everyone engaged in what he was saying. I remember that he once poked a bit of fun at the full church on Easter Sunday by referring to much of the crowd as "C&E People" (those who only come to church on Christmas & Easter.)

I was reminded of that this week when I realized why the gym is feeling relatively calm and not so crowded these days. The New Years Resolutionists have departed once more. Anyone who goes to a gym regularly, year-round will understand what I mean. Like clockwork, right after New Years day, the Resolutionists will arrive in droves. They're often sporting brand new workout garb, holding shiny water bottles, their shoes are unscuffed. They're ready and raring to go. They're going to knock themselves into Denise Austin shape this year, or die trying. Some of them will fall prey to the over-do-it-itis. They'll lift or aerobicize themselves into an overuse injury within a matter of weeks. Others will simply fall off of the bandwagon when the newness and excitement wear off. This is also why I find so much good athletic wear in brand-new condition at thrift stores.

Of course, there will be another surge once the radios and TVs start reminding people that it is Almost Swimsuit Season. But that one will be smaller and shorter-lived than the first. It seems that good intentions at the start of the year trump even the thought of squeezing oneself back into a bikini when it comes to motivation.

As perhaps my childhood pastor did, I have to scratch my head and wonder at what makes the difference. What makes some people stick with it year in and year out? What keeps them coming when they feel like sticking their head under the covers and going back to sleep when that alarm goes off? Why do some pairs of shoes and running shorts get worn until they fall apart, while others end up at Goodwill, unscathed? I'm sure the answer is different for everyone, but in general I think that it takes longer than one might think to change old habits into new ones, just as it takes longer than people might think to change in an out-of-shape body for a stronger, fitter one. Try too hard or too fast or place your expectations too high at the outset, and disappointment is probably going to be the outcome.

So those of us who are still there, at the gym or on the running trail, in the pool or on the bike, know that we're in it for the long haul. It's not an immediate size 6 that we're hoping for, but a strong, fit, fast body for the rest of our lives. There are lots of side-benefits that keep us coming back as well: the people we meet, the smiles we share, the feeling we get after we've pushed ourselves really hard and every fiber in every muscle is quivering in response, the fact that we can run around on a field with our kids for hours and not get winded. But I think it's the long-term outlook that makes the difference. A spiritual journey cannot be accomplished in two brief stops in a church a year, and likewise a bodily transformation won't occur with a couple of bursts of good intentions. Any step one takes has to build on the steps that have come before it.

In any case, I'm not going to complain about it. The lap lanes are now empty, there's no waiting lists for the treadmills, and there are plenty of towels in the locker room instead of the depleted stacks of six weeks ago. The rest of us can enjoy it, at least until next year.

Best of the Week

Favorite Food this Week: My son's muffins. He made chocolate chip for himself, but saved some batter out (I'm not a chocolate in baked goods fan) and put in cranberries and walnuts for me. Yum! I got these cool flexible muffin pans that make getting them out soooooo much easier, and the small size fits in our toaster oven so the kids can easily cook with them.

Favorite Workout: I read on some pro triathlete's blog about doing 300's in the pool as a distance workout. I did 12x300 yesterday evening, descending them in sets of three. I also made each set of three faster than the previous one. This was a killer main set and coming after a longish run I slept about 10 hours straight last night after getting home!

Favorite Sports Quote: From a local champion master's swimmer: "You've got to turn the pain meter up to Agony at least once a week." (that's what that 12x300 in the pool was doing for me last night!)

Favorite Music to Run to: I popped Dire Straits Brothers in Arms into my iPod this week and remembered all over again why that's such a great album. I used one of the songs "Why Worry" for the memorial slideshow for our dog. That song was playing in the car when I took my last pet to be put to sleep, almost 20 years ago, and I've never forgotten it.


I'm still getting what my friend K. calls "sneaker waves" of sadness, and so have the kids. My son M. broke down the other day when he burnt a pancake (we have always called those "Sabre pancakes" because we'd feed them to Sabre, who eagerly waited for them.) So that brings me to my last favorite of the week:

Favorite non-sports quote: "When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." - Kahil Gilbran