Dear Dinah,

I notice we are having some issues lately and I’d like to address them before I have any more thoughts about permanently locking you out of the house. This is happening with alarming frequency so I think we need to comes to terms.

1). You know that thing you do where you monopolize my lap the second I sit down and then you purr as a stroke your head and then all of a sudden and without warning you turn viscously and bite my hand? I hate that. I really do. I’m sorry about forcibly tossing you to the floor but it hurts. Cut it out or you may soon find yourself taking flying lessons.

2). Yes, you are cute. When you find a sunny spot and stretch out and go to sleep with your teeny little pink tongue between your teeth – adorable. It does not, however give you free rein to bite me – ever. Note open warning about flying lessons.

3). You are fat. I will not feed you any sooner or any more just because you are yowling incessantly. This goes triple for 6 AM Sunday morning. Not.gonna.happen.

4). The litter box. I got a nice big one for you to make things easy so when you poop could you please finish in the box? I know you are a little skitterish but this is a very safe house so there’s really no need to jump out prematurely and leave a little present on the bathroom floor. You can do the whole thing in the litter box and really, I wish you would. Every time.

5). The bath mat. I know it is greenish and soft but it isn’t meant for you to pee on. Would you like to know how much I dislike stepping on a wet spot on the bath mat and realizing that it isn’t water? Never mind – I’m thinking about flying lessons again. In any case, please refer to point #4. It’s all about the litter box.

6). Your dirty butt. You are a cat – you are supposed to be clean. If you have a messy time of it in the litter box you are supposed to clean yourself up. Trust me when I tell you this would be far more efficient than you leaving skid marks on my bedspread and then licking them. That doesn’t even work and I’m spending too much time doing laundry. Just lick your butt – it’s what cats do.

So next time you feel like peeing on the bath mat, pooping on the bathroom floor, biting me or yowling for food just stop. How about you just go spoon with the dog, instead?

Every once in a while I like to look at Statcounter and see what searches are bringing people to my blog. I know using foul language makes those results really awful so I try really hard not to do that (also because it makes for bad writing). Today I checked and saw this:

2 25.00% tater tots t shirt
1 12.50% mamas-crazy
1 12.50% hymen reattachment
1 12.50% zits comic january 26
1 12.50% dean karnazes whole foods
1 12.50% dudes look like a lady
1 12.50% shut your pie hole

Loved it. I’ve never had such variety before and it’s mostly so clean. Hymen reattachment is a little oogie but I did mention it in context of all the loopy things women feel compelled to do to be more attractive.

For my money, when it comes to doing something to be more attractive I’ll take ‘getting buff from training for a marathon’ for 200, Alex.

Mark, The Blogfather and my new favorite person, wrote a post not too long ago about run he had that was sub-optimal for him. He ended that post by asking the question “Had any humble pie lately? ” That got me to thinking about my particular answer which came out a resounding “Yes!” I eat humble pie every single time I go for a run, a ride or a swim. Every.single.time.

I am not a performance athlete. I didn’t even begin my life as a casual athlete until I was in my late 30s when I started running. I started swimming in my mid-40s and I started riding my bike last summer in my early 50s so at some level I’m a rookie. At every level my performance is, on a good day, middle of pack-ish. I spend my swims eating other people’s bubbles and my rides watching my riding partner’s backs. I don’t fault myself for that – I am kind and loving when I’m not beating myself up for being a weiner.

I have had to work hard to come to grips with what has always felt like a lack of talent. It took me a really long time to appreciate my efforts at all – to recognize that just getting out there and doing what it takes to cover the distance really does count. That was in spite of all of the kudos I got from just about everyone I know. Lately I’ve even been pleased with my efforts because I have started working harder and it seems to be paying off. My times are better and I feel better after I finish.

Until recently my routine was to eat my humble pie, lace up my shoes or get in the saddle or pull on my goggles and then go out and just sort of run or swim or pedal. I often thought of Signorney Weaver playing Lt. Tawny Madison in Galaxy Quest shouting, “Look! I have one job on this lousy ship, it’s *stupid*, but I’m gonna do it, okay? ” the parallel being “Look! I have one job on this lousy ship, it’s *hard* and I’m not that great at it , but I’m gonna do it, okay? ”

I could talk about how lots of people never get past “I could never do that!” which is what I said about running a marathon when I first started running. I didn’t even want to get past that feeling and then, somehow, and I can’t for the life of me remember how this happened, I signed up with Team in Training and I did it – I ran a marathon. 6 years later I turned 50 so I ran another marathon and my time was worse – by 8 minutes.

Now I’m training for another marathon because I believe I can do better. I believe I can work and train and focus on my weaknesses (form and lack of strength) and run a marathon in just under 5 hours. Since I’ve started trying harder and started getting better I’m eating less humble pie and focusing more on the next little mini-goal, the next triumph.

I’m sure there will be many more days when I eat humble pie and feel discouraged but finally, after years and years of begrudgingly continuing to go the distance in spite of my limitations I’m starting to feel like I am reaching for my potential and that tastes a whole lot better than even the most lovingly baked humble pie. Besides, I need to save some room for the tater-tots!

I could hardly wait to run today because I had to take a few days off due to an impending injury (sore soleus muscle). The goal was to run 6 miles. When I first started out my calf was hurting and I thought about tossing in the towel but no – I decided to keep on going for a bit and then reevaluate. The further I went the better I felt so I just kept going. T his is kind of a milestone for me. In the past I generally took any excuse I could find to stop running, run less, slow down, stop, complain, be a big baby – you name it. Having the desire to run outpace my inner whiner is a new and very welcomed addition in my life.

When I hit 6 miles I thought about stopping but then I thought, “Why?” If you keep running you will get home that much sooner and so I kept running and I kept my pace even though I was going up hill.

I had to overshoot my road and stop at 7-11 to get some milk. I hit the stop button on the Garmin and looked down – 6.66 miles and no leg pain at all. Devilishly delicious, indeed.

Pace:
1 – 10:17
2 – 10:25
3 – 10:59
4 – 10:58
5 – 10:29
6 – 1051
.66 – 10:38

Paris Hilton singing Happy Birthday to Hugh Heffner on his 80th.

I’m usually really good at figuring out what powers a truly screwed up woman but Paris has me completely bumfuzzled. There is no explanation for this behavior. She is a freak, plain and simple.

Get it right here

“This is small! This is really small!”

So very entertaining

And if you haven’t gotten in on the action get going! It’s for a great cause and the fun is just beginning!

I have been such a stud lately – I have amazed myself. The Plan ended up becoming this

April 13 – 6.38 mile Run – Avg pace 10:35
April 15 – 25 mile Bike Ride, 5.42 miles run. Avg pace 10:34
April 16 – rest
April 17 – swim 2000 yds.
April 18 – Run 6 miles. Avg pace 10:13

April 19 – Swim 2600 yds. Run 3 miles Avg pace 10:13

I was so proud of myself. All that cross training and those times! I was also proud of myself for swimming and running on Wednesday because I went to an awards program and ate a couple of donut holes Tuesday night so I really kind of had to do that. But mostly I was jazzed about that pace – 10:13!!!

Alas, somewhere around last Tuesday I notice a little pain in my left calf. I chose to ignore it. It seemed like it was going away until yesterday when I ran and noticed that it was not going away – it was lingering. I did a little googling and it seems that the pain I have is often the first symptom of an over use injury. Sigh….

I scuttled today’s running plan (6 miles) in favor of rest. I will probably swim tomorrow but not run. I am supposed to go on a hilly, hard bike ride on Saturday but I’m thinking that maybe a not so hilly ride followed by a 6 mile run is better.

Hopefully the leg will settle down and I can get back out there and keep that pace thing going. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get a running skirt to see if it helps because who wouldn’t want to look like this?

If you haven’t gone over to Mark’s blog to check out the running skirt program you really should.

I actually think I need a coach to help me with my biomechanics but I can’t afford that right now. If you know of a good book that helps with form please let me know!

It isn’t a beautiful day because of the weather. In fact, it rained again today – hard. It was a beautiful day weatherwise on Thursday and I had the great good fortune to run in the sun. I covered 6.38 miles in 1:07:38 for an average mile pace of 10:35 – very respectable. But that isn’t the beautiful thing, either.

I had been wanting to go for a bike ride because I hadn’t done that since the Cinderella on March 28 which was quite some time ago. I just hadn’t gotten around to it either because it was raining or because I was focused on running. The time had come to get back in the saddle. Yesterday I went out at 6:30AM with friends C and B and I rode 25 miles with them. They continued up our local “mountain” but I didn’t want to do that because I still needed to run 6 miles.

On my way back it started raining. I couldn’t believe it. I had intended to get home on the bike, change shorts and shoes and head back out the door but no – it was really raining by the time I got home. I was starving so I ate then I needed to wait to run because otherwise stuff would be sloshing in my tummy and I would hurl. Then I decided I was sooooooo tired because I had woken up in the night and couldn’t get back to sleep for 3 hours so I took a nap. Then I got up and it was still raining and I did some stuff around the house.

Finally, at about 5:30 it seemed it might rain some more but it might not. I grumbled and complained to myself that I really couldn’t go running because it was late and it might rain. And then I said to myself, “Self – do you really want to get up tomorrow cursing yourself for failing to do what you said you would do? Can you really live with yourself if you do that?” And Myself said, “Hell no – not a chance” so I got on my running stuff and headed out the door. I thought I went 3 miles before I turned around but somehow when I got home I had only gone 5.42 miles but that was okay. It took me 57:22 for an average pace of 10:34/mile. Very respectable.

But that isn’t the beautiful thing, either. The thing that made today beautiful is that yesterday I rode my bike 25 miles and I ran 5 miles and today my legs are NOT sore. Repeat – my legs are not sore. And that means I am getting stronger and fitter and that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.

Tomorrow I swim and then Tuesday I run at least 6 miles, maybe more.

It isn’t a beautiful day because of the weather. In fact, it rained again today – hard. It was a beautiful day weatherwise on Thursday and I had the great good fortune to run in the sun. I covered 6.38 miles in 1:07:38 for an average mile pace of 10:35 – very respectable. But that isn’t the beautiful thing, either.

I had been wanting to go for a bike ride because I hadn’t done that since the Cinderella on March 28 which was quite some time ago. I just hadn’t gotten around to it either because it was raining or because I was focused on running. The time had come to get back in the saddle. Yesterday I went out at 6:30AM with friends C and B and I rode 25 miles with them. They continued up our local “mountain” but I didn’t want to do that because I still needed to run 6 miles.

On my way back it started raining. I couldn’t believe it. I had intended to get home on the bike, change shorts and shoes and head back out the door but no – it was really raining by the time I got home. I was starving so I ate then I needed to wait to run because otherwise stuff would be sloshing in my tummy and I would hurl. Then I decided I was sooooooo tired because I had woken up in the night and couldn’t get back to sleep for 3 hours so I took a nap. Then I got up and it was still raining and I did some stuff around the house.

Finally, at about 5:30 it seemed it might rain some more but it might not. I grumbled and complained to myself that I really couldn’t go running because it was late and it might rain. And then I said to myself, “Self – do you really want to get up tomorrow cursing yourself for failing to do what you said you would do? Can you really live with yourself if you do that?” And Myself said, “Hell no – not a chance” so I got on my running stuff and headed out the door. I thought I went 3 miles before I turned around but somehow when I got home I had only gone 5.42 miles but that was okay. It took me 57:22 for an average pace of 10:34/mile. Very respectable.

But that isn’t the beautiful thing, either. The thing that made today beautiful is that yesterday I rode my bike 25 miles and I ran 5 miles and today my legs are NOT sore. Repeat – my legs are not sore. And that means I am getting stronger and fitter and that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.

Tomorrow I swim and then Tuesday I run at least 6 miles, maybe more.

I started this post yesterday. It is still raining today. I am getting quite despondent with this weather!
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It is raining and I am breaking with THE PLAN which is okay because …well… it’s my plan. I ran 8 miles Monday so that’s a good start on the week. I swam this morning (Wednesday) so I’m not in terrible shape but it is supposed to rain more tomorrow and I MUST run so I will have to run in the rain – sigh. I don’t like running in the rain.

Weekly Milage Since the Beginning of the Year:

I only need to run another 15 miles this week to keep that trend going up. If it would quit raining that would be really easy. As it is – not so easy 😦