Today I saw a commercial that gave me a great idea.  Apparently when you use Cascade dishwashing detergent these construction workers invade your dishwasher and chip the dried on food off the plates.  All I have to do is whip open the door at the opportune moment, snatch one of those little guys out and figure out how to grow him  I’m thinking they are like those little dinosaurs you put in water for 24 hours  so that they plump up and grow to be 12 times as big!!  In this case I’d get a full sized, muscular, hard assed man.  And God knows I love a man with a jack hammer.

Stay tuned – I’ll probably need some help naming him.

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1).  I was tagged by Juls with the Sunshine Blogger award

I’m supposed to tag 10 other people and tell them that I did that. Only problem is I’m kind of out of the blogging loop so I’m tagging you all and thanking Julie for thinking of me.  Here are the rules:

• Add the logo to your blog
• Pass the “Sunshine Award” to 10 bloggers
  • Link to your nominees within your blog post
  • Let them know by commenting on their blog

I’m sorry I’m not doing a better job of playing along but at least getting this award prompted me to create a post and that’s  something, right?

2).  My friend Cindy won the swag for the not-an-internet raffle.  I made a spreadsheet and had as many lines for each person as they got based on their contribution level.  Then I used a random number generator and it gave me a number and the person whose name was on that line won.  And that was Cindy which made me very happy and it made her happy, too!

3).  I got a job.  A real job. The kind that pays a salary and has benefits and stuff.  Very excited about that.  I will start on March 8.

4).  Oceanside is in 28 days.  Holy Hell.  I’ve been benched since the end of December on and off so the training has been sporadic at best.  It’s an ITB problem and it’s getting better but, as anyone who has had one of these issues knows – it’s an on-going battle.  PT, foam roller, ice, ibuprofen and rest.  I’m doing it all.  The PT told me that I can’t inflict permanent damage by training through it (and he said most triathletes do) so I’m going to train with pain and treat it after and just do what I can do.

5). I love Chipotle.  Really love it.  My new favorite dish is the chicken burrito bowl with 1/2 the rice, black beans, pico de gallo, hot sauce, guac, cheese and lettuce.  That’s about 690 calories and Jimmy Crack Corn and I don’t care.  Delicious!

6). Did I mention that Oceanside is in 28 days and I’m not ready? I guess I did.  Oh well – it will be what it will be.

7).  I am so ready for the Olympics to be done.  Fie on you NBC for not airing stuff until 8 PM.  Could you not have started at 6:00 so you got your prime time slot but so we could have gotten to bed at a decent hour?  My god.  I know 6-8 is news stuff but I think most people would have been happy with greatly compressed news during this important time of obsession with sports about which we know almost nothing.  I mean come on!

8). It’s starting to be light out until 6:00!! At the end of March when we change the clocks life will be bliss again. Can’t wait!

There was more… oh so much more.  And now I’ve forgotten and that’s okay.  I’m sure you have better things to do than read this.

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Saturday was long run day – I had to run 2 hours.  It was also a day when many members of my club race at the Back to School 5K or 10K and those not racing go out and volunteer.  Many of my New Triathlete Program people (NTP aka newbies) said they would volunteer and I really wanted to be there to see them the day before our big triathlon and just to be a part of it all.  I also really needed to go see my foster kid for whom I am an advocate through the Court Appointed Special Advocates program (check out the national site to see more).  This child lives hours from me so I had to allocate 2 hours to run and 5 hours of travel time plus the visit plus I had to be up at OMG:thirty on Sunday so I needed to get home early.  I couldn’t work out getting the race in (I guess I could have raced 10K and then run another hour but there aren’t any showers there and racing wasn’t on the plan) so I didn’t go and it felt sort of wrong but very right.  There are things in life that really are more important than triathlon and race clubs and foster kids in need of an anchor is definitely one of them.

My 2 hour run was fine – it felt good and that was exciting because the run and I have not been such good friends lately.  Score!

Sunday was the day of the race I’ve been training the Newbies for.  Most of them had already done a shorter sprint and some had even done an Olympic distance race but this was our big club event and I was so excited.  I didn’t race but I did do the swim with a woman who was very nervous about getting run over by the swim waves behind us (our club gets to go in the first wave en masse and there was quite a mass of us!).  I was there to defend her water space and help her stay calm and I did and she exited the water all in one piece.  After that I ran up to the bike course to cheer people on and then I headed up to the water station to cheer some more and pass out water. Turns out I positioned myself incorrectly and missed some people that way but it was fun.  Then I went down to the finish line to cheer everyone in.

I really wanted o stay and be at the award ceremony and just hang out and talk to everyone about their race  and I wish I had because NTP had people on the podium! How great is that??!!  Alas – I had a long ride on the plan so off I went with my 2 new BFFs and a friend of theirs.  It was a tough, long ride and it was hot and windy but it was great.  There was a moment when I was sure I couldn’t do it and I really worried about how I was going to get out of there but some cold water and a PayDay later and I was fine and rode strong – no problem.

Elevation from gpsvisualizer (top) and from MapMyRide (bottom)

That's it - you ride almost 40 miles and this is what is there

We got back to the park where our cars were right about the time the Challenge Weekend Celebration BBQ was starting but we were sweaty and gross and really needed to get cleaned up.  I had neglected to bring clean clothes but my BFFs had several outfits each with them as well as soap and shampoo and cream rinse so we all used the outdoor, cold water shower and cleaned up in our tri suits and then put clean clothes on (in the privacy of the ladies changing room) and finally, finally headed to the party arriving a mere 90 minutes late to a 2 hour party.  Great.

But it was great because I got a chance to say some words about my fabulous Newbies who stepped up and trained and made their dreams come true.  I’ve hatched a litter of tri-junkies and I couldn’t be happier about it.  I’m so proud of them and so very happy to have played a role in giving them a chance to do something they might not otherwise have done.  I said my words and I handed out a little memento to each of them and then they took the floor.  One of them read a whole story about how there is no “I” in  TEAM and about how great the program had been and how she had made friends and accomplished something wonderful.  Another woman gave a speech about me that made me blush and made me proud and made me feel loved  and then they gave me something to remember this inaugural season with – a Garmin 310XT and a $50 gift certificate to Forward Motion Store, our primary benefactor.  Wow – just wowl  *Channeling Sally Field* -“You LIKE me… right now.  You  LIKE me!”  I’m so humbled and so happy and so very jazzed about my new toy!  But I’m more jazzed that several of the newbies want to ban together to train for an Oly.  Success!

Looking forward, one of the things possibly on my plate is getting a slot for IM Canada when I race Oceanside.  Because it is so early in the year the carrot they dangle to athletes is the potential to get a slot at any of a couple of NA Sports M-dot races and Canada  is one of them (but shhh… don’t tell everyone about this because it’s kind of a secret, okay?).  I have several friends who are going to race and a few more racing Oceanside so they can get slots.  It’s a possibility but one I don’t think I’ll take because this weekend I figured out something really important about me.

My “moment” came when I realized that triathlon is a fundamentally self indulgent endeavor but I am not a fundamentally self indulgent person.  I spend a lot of time volunteering and giving to others because I like it and it makes me feel good.    I feel good about having become an athlete, too but the trade offs cause me stress. This weekend was a great example of that where I was torn between being with my race club and being with my foster kid and being with my race club and getting in my training.  I had to just take a deep breath and let it go but it was difficult.  It all worked out in the end but in the process it made me feel a little crazy.

I’d like to do the NTP next year again and I’d like to help organize this year’s newbies to train for an Oly and I’d like to train with them.  This year my direct participation in their training fell off because I signed up for Beach 2 Battleship and if I raced Canada I’d have a worse problem because it is in August and the training would consume my whole summer.    So again – the opportunity for conflict and stress is huge and I’m a ‘want it all’ kind of gal.  I’m a problem solver, too so here’s the solution:    I’m going to race Oceanside which means training up  a 70.3 on  March 27.  I’ve also decided that  I’m going to attend IM St. George in some capacity.  If I love 140.6 after B2B I might do a fund raiser and buy a community slot for 2010 (I’d pay my $550 and raise the rest) and attend IM  St. George as a participant.   If  I don’t want to do that I can just go be a Sherpa and then sign up for 2011 on-site.  Either way my IM training and season will be over in early May at the latest  and I can get on with the business of playing, training  newbies, and racing shorter distance races.  Brilliant and perfect and what a great Monday it’s been.

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Where the bugs are huge

And the babies travel in herds

Where the vines cover everything

And the healthy living trails are brought to you by the American Tobacco Industry

Where they love ironworks

and they search relentlessly for ET.

And where I’m having a fabulous time with my daughter and son-in-law.  Tomorrow we go scope out Wilimgton, home of the Beach 2 Battleship 140.6 and 70.3 to which I will be returning come November.

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Things I love

1).  A great day in the wine country going on a bike ride with Juls, Runner Susan and her lovely husband The Chef. We had such a great time!  Runner Susan is everything you ever dreamed she was and more – sweet, adorable, entertaining and the hostess with the mostess.  The Chef is charming as only a man in a white cycling kit can be.

We had a beautiful ride and then we went back to Susan’s room to shower and go for lunch.  The Chef provided glasses of ‘recovery juice’ that looked and tasted remarkably like red wine and was just what I needed.  Then The Runners Susan took us to a delicious lunch where we consumed some more wine.  Fabulous.  After lunch I would rather have gone back to the hotel with the whole gang for a group snuggle nap but I’m pretty sure Julie and I would have fought over Runner Susan and The Chef would have gotten jealous and felt left out so it was better to just hit the road.  Not sure I was totally legal for that but we made it to my house where Julie and I proceeded to pass out on different couches.      

I wish I could go on vacation with the Susans all the time and that we could take Julie with us.

2).  My jet lagged daughter apparently left her wallet on the roof of the car when she got gas and a man picked it up and walked to our house with it.  He removed not one cent of the roughly $85 that were inside.  I got the call about that while drinking wine and eating delicious food in Napa which made it a doubly lovely day.

3).  I  found a new cycling route today and it has a big hill – just enough to make me work but not terrible.

Things that make me mad:

I had some of these.  I remember thinking “grrrr… I need to put this in HDM” but now I foget what they are.  And that’s probably one of the things I like the most.

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I think Mr. Runner Susan will be there, too.  Lucky guy, non?

In other dating news I got back on match.com last Thursday  and my profile has been view over 480 times.  I got 1 email from a guy whose profile reads:

“Im a old fashion country guy who loves rodeos and country music.  Im currently divorced and im looking for a nice country girl. I like fun and respectful women. I do have kids. I like football and warm nights by a fire. I guess u could say im adventrous”

You think he actually read my profile?  Me either.  I told him I didn’t think we had anything in common and his response was

Subject:  Your Choice

Body of message “I tried beautiful im a good man and i would treat you good “

I’m still taking a pass.

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New Year’s Day is all about the goodness that is “me”. It is about assessing the year gone by for its highs and lows and deciding how this year can be better, richer, more fulfilling, and both more self absorbed and more selfless. It is about finding ways to be more dedicated to what is really important in life which requires us to think about what is most important in life and how we can, i n the words of my all time favorite insect, accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. .


My goal for 2008 is to do just that – be more positive. Most of you don’t know this but I’m a bit of a cranky pants. I’m pretty quick to focus on the negative get all worked up about perceived injustice and then act on that and when I say “act” I mean “lash out”. And then I get a grip, stop and cover and apologize and smooth things over. I’d like to improve on that and really focus on seeing that glass half full so I don’t go through the cranky pants routine.

Another tendancy I have is toward self-sabotage so I want to start honoring my intentions instead of blowing them off with cheap excuses. I want to toss myself out the door for a swim or a run or a ride knowing that whatever reason I have to avoid it isn’t worthy of derailing my plans. I want to spend less time surifing the web and more time indulging my interests. I want to push for a strong finish in whatever I am doing be it a race or creating a report for work and not give up with that cheapest of all cheap excuses “it doesn’t really matter, anyhow”. In short I want to stay on top of things instead of putting myself in react mode and then pushing the rock up the hill against the added weight of self generated defeat. I want to march forward with a sense of purpose and optimism calling out “Feets don’t fail me now!” with no particular reason to think they will.

All of this reminded me of my favorite Tracy Chapman song – Change.

This song asks the question ‘how bad does it have to get before you’ll change”. The beauty of New Year’s is that the intention to assess and change isn’t motivated by fear or sadness or problems – it is motivated by hope and the promise of new beginnings and New Year that is as bright and shiny and unsullied as a newly minted penny. So here’s to everyone’s shiny bright New Year. May you realize your goals and may your penny be as bright and shiny at the end of December as it is today.

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My friend Panther Girl has a greyhound she rescued named Kelso. Kelso had a spinal disk problem that landed him in the doggie hospital. As luck would have it he didn’t need surgery but he did need the well attended convalescence long enough to rack up a bill for $3200. Ouch.

So – do you by any chance have plans to purchase something at Amazon.com in the near future? If so, if you could get to Amazon via The Dog’s Breakfast, Panther Girls most excellent blog, she will get financial credit for any purchases you make. You don’t need to buy the stuff featured in her side bar – you just need to get to Amazon via her sidebar and then buy something.

Thanks a bunch and Kelso says “Woof!”

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“Truth overheard from the finish line announcer, “And here he is, Number 1549, Andy Baldwin, the Bachelor, and he’s still a bachelor.” Yep, Andy and Tessa have decided to split up and see where things are when he returns from the Persian Gulf. ”

Now I feel doubly sorry for the 2nd runner up. I also feel doubly ooged out that he picked Tessa up and carried her across the finish mat at IM KY. It seemed very inappropriate and like a publicity stunt at the time and I kind of creeped me out. It’s one thing to run across the mat with your family or give a loved one a piggy back ride (that happened yesterday!!!) but treating the finishing mat like a post-wedding threshold? ew.

Also, in case you didn’t hear, Sister Madonna Buder did not make the bike cut off. How sad. She said she’ll be back next year. >

ps – I’m totally hooked on the Bachelor this year. I’m almost ashamed but it’s the truth.

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We might as well go back to the days of the Coliseum and lions eating men alive.

gak.

disclaimer – I didn’t watch the show all season. I didn’t watch as other women got bruised and battered but I did see what happened to the second place woman and that is just evil.

ps to AJ – good one figuring out the outcome.

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When we got up to the room it finally hit me – I was the Mother of the Bride! I almost started crying right then and there but held off until the bride arrived.

It was a gorgeous evening in a beautiful setting

When the Bride arrived I I gave her hug and then looked at her adoringly while she almost cried.

She drank champagne and laughed with the groom.

The wedding ceremony was really amazing and magical. It was the most heartfelt, authentic, romantic wedding on record. The officiant has been the Bride’s best friend since they were in high school and the words she wrote and then read to the attendees made everyone cry and laugh and rejoice. The couple wrote their own vows which were a perfect expression of their feelings, their love for each other, and their vision of their shared future. There were a couple other readings and some more words and then the Mother of the Bride completely broke down and cried like a baby.

After that there was only 1 thing left to do – toast the couple and dance.

Or, in some cases, dance like a fool

Everyone was touched and everyone had a great time. It really was the most fantastic wedding I have ever been to. I feel honored to have been a part of it. I could NOT have done it without a considerable amount of help from my sister. Thank you so much!!

These picutres represent but a mere fraction of the total. I’ll have to figure out some sort of slide show when we get the digital images from the professional photographer.

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Stay tuned for pics early next week!

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To give credit where credit is due I first read this ‘chosen’ notion on Stronger’s blog where she was referring to what Kahuna said. When I couldn’t remember where I first read that notion I did a search and found a similar post by Daniel Clout on Beginnertriathlete.

I’m glad other people feel chosen. They probably feel competent, too. Not me. I’m a great example of how you really can cram a square peg into a round hole. Of course if the diameter of the hole is bigger than the diagonal distance across the square it’s no contest but I’m not very big. And I’m not very strong. And I’m not much of an athlete. I’m tenacious and I persevere but it is definitely a brute force effort and I don’t love it. I love me a little bit for doing it but I don’t love the sport.

This weekend was a painful reminder of why that is. Saturday I had 22 million things to do so instead of going out riding with my friends I just went for a short ride locally. I went to the road with the hill that tried so hard to kick my a$$ a few weeks ago. It kind of kicked my patoot again but having just climbed the Berkeley hills I knew I could do it so I did. When I got to the top of the hills I could only marvel at my prior accomplishments. What happened to the Queen of the hills? She abandoned me and left me yearning for a leg transplant.

My run yesterday was also a total bust. Of course my Garmin has started lying through it’s non-existent teeth about my pace and that just really gets me down but still – I felt heavy and slow. I did take the opportunity to run up a big old nasty hill because Wildflower is pretty much all about tackling hills but my pace overall stunk. It’s the first time I’ve run 11+ minute miles in a long time. No joy there.

I will not be denied, though. I will not lose confidence. I will love myself no less. I’m eternally grateful to every single couch potato in the world because next to you I look like an athletic Goddess but I’m no goddess. I’m not even very good. All I can do is set my goals, train and try to make them and when it doesn’t work out just move on to the next thing. I’m really glad I do it, too because I’m in the best shape of my life and because I meet great people both in real life and on the internet and I will soon meet a bunch of internet peeps face to face – good times!

Triathlon, you may be a reluctant date but I’m not letting you go just yet. I will keep coaxing you and whispering sweet nothings into your 3 ears, ignoring your scorn of me because I’m sure that if I do this long enough we’ll find mutual love. Please stop being so recalcitrant and tell me you have feelings for me, too.

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I’m not wearing white because there’s no reason to. I think upholding traditions just for the sake of tradition is silly, especially when the traditions started based on silly reasons anyway. Women started wearing white not because it represented virginity or purity, but because Queen Victoria wore white when everyone else was wearing their best blue/green/brown dress. I look at all these wedding magazines and to me it’s just like girls wearing Ugg boots because Angelina started wearing them . It’s just celebrity worship, gone amuck. And nothing is less feminist than not thinking for yourself (especially when you allow yourself to get duped into spending $1000 on a ballgown you’ll never wear again. I’d much rather spend $600 on Manolo Blahniks I’ll wear every New Years for the rest of my life). Plus white is really not that flattering. And Uggs are OUT.

Indeed they are and you, my darling, are way smarter than I can ever hope to be.

Although she isn’t wearing a white dress in the wedding we decided to go try some on just for fun. Just for my fun, that is. I think for her the fun factor rated about a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 but she loves her Mama so she was a sport about it. And it might have been a little bit fun.

(click to see larger image)

Getting back to me and triathlon…….

I did zero training Saturday, Sunday and today. Horrors! The problem is that I had a soreness issue and didn’t know what to make of it. Friday I got a serious, serious cramp in my calf at the pool. I often get cramps in my calf when we do a lot of kicking or I’m swimming hard. It happens when I push off the wall on a flip turn. I can generally stretch my foot and keep it from getting too bad. As per my coach’s suggestion I take electrolyte drink to the pool with me to try to keep the cramps at bay. Anyhow, on Friday I was having these issue and then when I tried to get out of the pool by hoisting myself up on the deck and putting my foot on top of the gutter I got a hideously painful, super hard cramp in my calf. I fell back in the pool screaming ‘OW! OW! OW! MY LEG! MY LEG! OW!” (which was pretty damned funny except for the pain.) The life guard told me to grab my toes and stretch my foot to get rid of it. That worked. I used the ladder to get out of the pool and limped into the locker room. When I drove home I had to use both feet on the brakes because my leg was weak and quivering. My calf was so sore all weekend that I was limping.

That was weird. I’ve never had cramp created prolonged pain and I really didn’t know what to make of it. It totally screwed up my weekend, though. I was planning to do a brick on Saturday and then either just ride or just run on Sunday. I did nothing. I’ve done nothing today although I expect I’ll get on the trainer this evening.

I’m back in the saddle now but I’m getting terrified of Wildflower. I really only have 5 good training weeks and then a week of taper. I’m trying not to feel like I’m toast. April will be interesting.

One other pain point – I didn’t see the latest Wildflower newsletter until today. It listed a Wildflower training camp that took place this weekend. grrr… not that I had time and if I had registered for that and had this pain I don’t know what I would have done but be that as it may I feel like I missed something important.

Did I mention I’m terrified of Wildflower. Oh yes I am!

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That one is mine.

Here is a professional shot of the same bike

Anyway you look at it – it’s hot! I had a fitting – it feels good… oh so good. I just wish it would quit raining so I could ride it.

Specs can be found here if you are so inclined.

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