Been There Done That

Today I finally pulled my triathlon bike out, dusted it off, oiled the chain and changed the wheels to get it ready to ride.

This weekend?

Maybe!

I haven't been on the bike since the Alabama Coastal triathlon (Here) last September so it still had the racing wheels on it. I changed them out and aired them up and now the poor neglected bike is ready to ride.

Since September I've been either on the exercise bike at the gym or on my bike trainer at home. I don't like riding outside in weather under 75 degrees F, or in the rain, or on bad air days so I don't mind the indoor training at all. In the past when I was a little more obsessive about training I rode in the rain, in the freezing cold, in the dark at 5a.m. and in the dark at 7p.m and on days when air was so bad I coughed for days afterwards.

I don't do that anymore. Been there, done that!

I will say, however, that for the first time since training for Ironman Canada 2010 that I'm actually motivated and excited about getting back out on the roads. With all this indoor training I've been doing for two years, I am fully caught up on reading my stack of People magazines, I've seen an embarrassing number of episodes of Hoarders and Toddlers and Tiaras and I know more about Kim and Kourtney's taking of Miami than any normal person should.

It's time to take it outside before I lose my tentative grip on reality.

And I love to bike! Really, I do! I just don't love the traffic or the distracted drivers or the lack of adequate bike trails/lanes in this city. There's some folks around here that just don't like cyclists taking up space on their roads not one bit and they're not afraid to let you know it.

And I'm not just talking about my brother.

I use to ride with the bike club, now the triathlon club every Tuesday night during the spring and summer. I rarely missed a Tuesday night ride ever and if I did I felt bad. Nowadays, I rarely make it to a Tuesday night ride and I never regret it. Last year I did make it to a couple of Wednesday night rides at Oak Mountain State Park with a group of cyclists that's a little less competitive than the Tuesday night group and really enjoyed the more laid back ride.

When I showed up for the first ride, someone asked me where I'd been riding because I guess nobody had seen me out riding in awhile. I didn't no how to answer because there was where I had been riding. It was my first ride since Santa Rosa Triathlon (Here) seven months earlier and the only reason I was out riding that evening was because I had signed up to do a race that weekend and I wanted to make sure I could still ride without training wheels.

That was last year. This year it's going to different. This year I'm riding my bike and not just during races. I don't know when I'll add swim training to my schedule, but I am biking. There was a time back in the day when I actually got up and was at the Y as soon as they opened so I could swim a mile before work. For extra motivation to make sure I got up to swim, I would sleep in my swim suit. When 4:30 am rolled around, I woke up ready to go.

I don't know who that person was but I can almost promise I will NEVER do that again. Been there done that! And it was insane!!

I'll swim once or twice before the races I do this summer to make sure I still can. In the meantime, I'll do "dry land" training and no sleeping in swim suits!

The State Of Things

Cadence totally ignoring me.

This past week I have been a little off, a little "hormonal" I think.  At first I blamed it on the 20 mile run I did on Saturday.  It was tough.  And slow.  And tough!  Maybe it was because I didn't have any caffeine or maybe I didn't eat enough Gu.  Who knows.  It was a struggle.  First water stop and I'm asking if we are at the 8 mile mark yet.  Nope, only three.  Can't be!  Uggg!

Then today I'm suppose to meet the Running Nazi, uhhhhhhh, I mean L, to run 5 miles at 5:30 am.  I wake up with a huge headache so I try to text her that I'm not running.  I can't get my phone to text right.  Or maybe it's my fingers.  My head gets worse.  The cats think it's time for breakfast since I'm up.  They start their pleading and meowing.  I ignored them and go back to bed.

Phantom in one of those rare moments when he's not in time out.

That's the way this week has been.  The cats have been driving me nuts!  They want snacks ALL the time!  And they didn't even run 20 miles!  Today when I get home from working out, Cadence follows me around the kitchen meowing.  Demanding little thing!  I'm trying to find something for lunch.  I'm starving.  He's already been fed.  I scrape up baked beans and peanut butter crackers for lunch.  That's all I could find.  No bagels, no chicken salad, no balance bars, no soup.  We REALLY need to go to the grocery store but that's tomorrow!

Cat Cocaine

As I'm walking out of the kitchen with my bowl of baked beans, totally ignoring the little cry baby, he runs up behind me and bites the crap out of my leg.  How dare I not give him some party mix!  I am NOT allowed to leave the kitchen without giving him a snack.  But now there's no way I'm rewarding that kind of behavior by giving him a snack.  No way.

Then I'm feeling all hormonal and craving sugar, salt, something that's bad for me.  All we have are butter mints left over from the wedding.  I'm shoving them in my mouth when The Murph walks in and discovers my desperation.  He warns me about what happens when I eat too much mint.  It isn't good!  Unfortunately, it was all I had at the time and I was desperate!

Yesterday, I tried to get back on my green smoothie kick, but there's no kale and very little cilantro and what's left is kind of rotten and mostly stems.  Also, the protein powder is Berry flavored!  I like vanilla.  The universe is conspiring against me.  I can't deal in such a delicate hormonal state!

Our herbs are a pretty pitiful sight too!  No more basil or mint for the smoothies.

The pool is doing much better now that all the yellow algae has died, but look at all the leaves.  The pool will be covered in a few days.  Summer's over.

Phantom doesn't care about the state of the pool.  He just wants to get outside and chase the chipmunks.   He's already forgotten about the "flea" infestation problem he had most of the summer because I let him outside.

Not again little buddy!  I learned my lesson!

My wedding dresses are still draped over the door to the Murph's office/man cave.  Yesterday, he asked me what I planned to do with them.  By leaving them on his door I'm seriously threatening his man card.  I suppose I should get them cleaned at some point.  Maybe even preserve the long one.

Things got much better this afternoon.  We went down to the Social Security Office and officially changed my name to my new married one.  On the way we stopped by the drugstore to replenish our vitamins and while there I replenished my sugar stash.  Animal crackers and some candy pumpkins.

 I'm so happy now!  New name official, lots of sugary snacks, I think I will survive this hormonal state (unless one of the cats bites me again).

And I noticed today that we don't even need fake cobwebs on our house for Halloween decorations.  We have REAL ones all over the place!  Is that great or what??

Last but not least, I worked out twice today, am on my second glass of wine and The Murph is cooking dinner.  Can't get any better than that!

Life is great!

Triathlon Race Photos And The Beach Trip

Last Saturday The Murph and I drove over to Orange Beach, Alabama from Pensacola Beach, Florida so I could do the Alabama Coastal Triathlon.  We got up at 4:30 am to make the hour and 1/2 drive.  It doesn't seem like it would be that far, but we had to go up and over and stop and go through some small towns to get there.

There were two distances offered.  One was a full Olympic distance and the other was a very short sprint distance.  I did the very short sprint since I haven't been bike and swim training very much this year.

Okay, I confess!  I have done zero swim training since Ironman Canada 2010 and most of the biking I've been doing has been on the exercise bike at the gym instead of my road bike.  The Murph is my true, very loyal athletic supporter!

This is us right before the race start.  You can see from the waves behind us that the ocean was not very calm that day.  I was a little worried, but I have had to swim in much rougher water and this was a very, very short 300 yd swim.  No Ironman distance swim here!  Thank God!

It was cloudy in the beginning, but by the time I crossed the finish line the sun was out and it was clearing up.  Also, it was getting hot.  I was glad to be finished in less than an hour.  I love short triathlons right now.

This is me coming out of transition after getting off the bike.  Now it was time to do the run which was very, very short.   Only two miles.  That's it!

I'm thinking that my butt looks fat here in these shorts.  I doubt I will wear them again.  I may need to cut back on all those cookies I've been eating too.

Despite the lack of swim training and the big butt, I place third in the masters category and was the 10th overall woman.  I was very happy with that!

The night before the race, The Murph and I went to eat dinner at Jackson's in Pensacola, Florida.  I ate tons of bread with fresh butter and the most delicious steak and crab cake ever.  

This probably contributed to the bigness of my butt the next morning....

Oh well, it was worth it!

This is The Murph about to go in the water the other day.  He didn't know I was taking pictures of him.

I added our baby pictures to our wedding website last night.  This is The Murph's baby picture.   He's such a cutie!

I tried to scan this picture in and post it on his birthday post in July, but I couldn't get the scanner to work.  I have been trying to scan things and print for two months now and couldn't get the dang printer to work.  Then right out of the blue it just decided to start working last night.

Go figure!