It’s official! I’m listed with the RBF now! I have been reading several RBFers blogs for some time but always felt like an outsider. Well peeps – I’ve just crashed your clubhouse and it’s pretty cozy in here. I’m not doing a lot of running these days but I try to get out once or twice a week just so I don’t lose my running chops altogether. Mostly I have been biking and swimming.

It’s been lovely out here on the Left Coast. The mornings are cold but then it warms up to sunny, spring days with the temperature in the mid 60s. In the morning there is frost on the roof and ice coating the car windows and I think “brrrrr….. I couldn’t possibly go out there and run” and then, when I finally haul my lazy butt out of bed or later in the morning after I’ve gone swimming I start blog surfing I find that people in frostier climes go running in the snow and the freezing cold. My hat is off to you people. In other words, better you than me. Even though the pool is outdoors and it is a bit nippy on the deck, once you get in the 80 degree water it’s quite nice. The other day the air was so cold that my face felt like I was up on a mountain when I was waiting for instructions between sets but once we got going it was fine. This is different than running and having the sweat freeze up on your jacket. You people are amazing.

I am still in training for my 65 mile bike ride at the end of March. I can’t even believe I’m doing this. I have to confess – I don’t really like it that much. It’s nice and scenic and all that and I do feel a sense of accomplishment when I ride my bike 35 miles (the longest I have gone to date) but I’m just not loving it. On the plus side, the more I ride more anxious I am to get back to running. April 1 I will start training in earnest for the SF Marathon.

Speaking of which, I’d like to thank Jon for my new favorite running term – marathon splat. He used that in reference to how David felt after he completed his marathon and that term exactly describes how I felt after my first marathon in 1999. I didn’t care if I never ran another mile. It didn’t help that just after that race the temperature started to climb so that running as early as 8 AM meant running in high heat. I don’t like running in the heat much more than I like running in the cold and oops – do we see a problem here? I’m a wimp – that’s the problem. Truth be told, if I could sit on my butt all day reading and writing and not blow up like Marshmallow Peep that’s been put in the microwave, I’d do it. Unfortunately, if I allowed myself go like that I’d feel just about like that pathetic little Peep after it blew up and imploded and thus I must swim and bike and run and the only way to get myself to do it regularly is to register for some big event and struggle through the training. Just call me Sisyphus.

Speaking of Peeps – do you think I could substitute Peeps for Gu on the long runs and rides? If Jelly Belly can create Sports Beans why can’t Just Born make Sports Peeps? Of course knowing Peeps as I do (guilty indulgence alert!) Just Born would probably make them so they look like runners and then instead of hanging out with peeps in the clubhouse we’d be eating each other alive. I think I’ll just leave that behavior to other bloggers with less noble intentions (note the lack of links –ha ha! I’m not about to lead you off to blog wars, but they do exist).

And on that note – happy training, peeps!