The Boy And The Cats

Yesterday we drove the Boy back to school after he spent the weekend here with us. Saturday night I took the Boy out to dinner, but forgot the camera so I don't have pictures. I tried to take some pictures with my phone on Instagram. I posted some out on Instagram, so if you're following me on there (Click here to follow me) you may have seen some of them, but I don't know how many posted out because I was having some trouble with the app on my phone. One day I will figure it out and my pictures will come out straight and focused. Probably.

Anyway, we had barbecue and there were fireworks across the street as we were leaving the restaurant.  Then we stopped at a convenience store on the way home so I could get the Boy another Dr. Pepper (the real deal, not the Dr. Thunder Walmart stuff). As usual he wanted to stay in the car and as usual I hit door lock with the car key thingy, forgetting that every time I do that and he's in the car, he sets off the motion sensor in the car and the alarm goes off.

I was in the store and heard an alarm going off in the parking lot.  I soon realized it was my car when I saw a group of teens looking toward where I had parked. I could just imagine what the Boy was thinking at that moment. When I walked out of the store, he was smiling and shaking his head. "MOM!! You did it AGAIN!!"

Oh well, I couldn't help but laugh at him. Next time maybe he'll get out of the car with me and go inside the store. He knows how to grocery shop now. He told me he mostly eats Ramen noodles now because he can get a 12 pack for $2 and 1 individual thing makes a really big serving. He actually likes them. Who knew!

Phantom seemed much better all weekend. I think he liked having the Boy back.

Cadence and Ed, on the other hand, freaked out and ran and hid every time the Boy walked into the room. He did look pretty wild and in need of a hair cut. I tried to cut it before he left, but he wouldn't let me near him.

Cadence trapped in the kitchen looking up at the Boy

Cadence jumped up on the counter to find an alternate means of escape

Is the wild hair Boy still over there? I'll stay here until it's safe!

Tonight Cadence is much more relaxed even though he's been whacked on the head a couple of times today by Phantom.

Poor Phantom! Missing the Boy again.

The Boy's Visit

This morning I got up early to drive the three hour round trip to get the Boy from college and bring him back to stay with us for the weekend. These visits seem to keep getting more and more rare as he would rather stay at school most of the time. I figured he must be running out of food and/or money and he knows we will feed him when he's with us. He did make sure we were taking him out to eat before he decided to visit us and I got him breakfast this morning on the way back. It really wasn't that difficult getting on the road early since the last few weeks I've been up with the cats watching the sun rise.

On the way back I asked the Boy if he was out of any toiletries are anything and he said no. We stopped at Walmart Marketplace anyway because he wanted something to drink, meaning soft drinks because he knows we don't buy them and keep them in the house. He wanted Dr. Pepper and ended up getting Walmart's version, Dr. Thunder.

 Just kind of scary if you ask me. Why Dr. Thunder? How does Dr. Pepper translate into the Walmart Dr. Thunder version.

While I was there I thought of the Murph and got him another 12 pack of his drink of choice. At least that is one of them. 

Since the Boy is always complaining about being hungry, the Murph planned ahead of time and put a plate of pasta and chicken parm in the fridge with the Boy's name on it, complete with heating instructions.

On the hour and 1/2 drive back to the beach, the Boy and I got to catch up on things. We talked about several things like....

1. The possibility that Phantom might have cancer and what to do next

2.  How the Boy liked his student assistance job (He likes it)

3. If his room mate was still eating the Boy's food (Not anymore)

4. Phantom

5. The importance of the Boy keeping a clean and sanitary apartment, especially bathroom

   (He thinks it's clean, but when I saw his bath room it was pretty gross)

6. What we were going to do about Phantom

7. There's no way Phantom has cancer (says the Boy)

8. The fact that Phantom's bedroom is where the Boy sleeps and there's cat hair all over the bed, but I didn't think the Boy would mind since it's still a cleaner room than what he's been living in for the past several months because he refuses to do what I say and CLEAN his apartment! (He thought I was joking about that part (because he knows I usually clean everything for him) until he saw the cat hair)

9. The possibility that Phantom might have cancer and what to do next

As you can tell, we talked about Phantom ALOT. I did hear from the vet yesterday and had another call today and we are still unsure what is causing the high calcium levels in Phantom's blood. His thyroid is good. We've ruled out pretty much everything but cancer. The vet called some specialists at Auburn University and Michigan State to try to find out if they had blood test to detect cancer in cats. Michigan State has one and so now I just have to arrange for Phantom to get blood taken and shipped to them to be tested. He's also going to get another physical to check his mouth and glands in his neck since he keeps licking his lips and his breath smells really bad. 

Now I just have to decide if I should wait 2 weeks until we get back to Birmingham for the tests or take him to a new vet in Gulf Breeze next week. I'm thinking I should go ahead and take him next week and try to coordinate all the tests with my Birmingham vet and the new Gulf Breeze vet that a friend recommended.

Today Phantom's doing much better. He seems to love having the Boy back. Sometimes I wonder if he's just depressed when he seems to be feeling really bad. It's hard to tell with a cat! We know he's sick though because he does have heart disease and something causing this high calcium in his blood.

 It was a good day. I love having the Boy visit and we now have more options on what to do with Phantom instead of  "just wait and see." Phantom has been such a great pet for the Boy. I plan to do everything I can to help him get better if that is possible.

Another awesome sunset this evening!

Waiting...

I haven't been sleeping much and I have been having some "mini" anxiety attacks and trouble with my asthma, mostly due to the big guy in the picture above. After being diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy a few months ago and put on heart meds and Lasix, he's been having to get his blood tested to make sure his kidneys are functioning correctly. The first blood test last May showed he had high calcium levels in his blood. The vet said it could be his new food and clean eating and we would wait a couple of weeks and get it tested again because if it was still high it could be something much more serious.

Monday before we headed back to Pensacola, we took him by the vet to get his blood taken. He wouldn't eat any of his food the entire time we were in Birmingham for the race so after a day of not eating, I gave him some tuna fish. That's all he would eat from Saturday to Monday. He also started walking strangely and his hind legs seemed a little stiff which could be a sign of poor circulation or blood clots in cats. This is common with heart disease.

The vet checked him, took blood and said he thinks Phantom either has hyperthyroidism or cancer. If he has cancer there is not much we can do. Heart disease can be a secondary condition caused by both thyroid problems and cancer and having too much calcium in a cat's blood can be a sign of both of these conditions. The vet tech took Phantom off to take the blood and when she brought him back to me his neck was soaking wet and smelled like rubbing alcohol. I didn't want him to lick it off (would this type of alcohol intoxicate a cat?) so I got tissues and tried to dry as much up as I could.

Phantom just wanted out of there. His weight was at 17 pounds which is good. The highest was 24 pounds last summer and that was much too high. The vet said the blood test results would be back in about 3 days.

So we are waiting. Hopefully for good news and no cancer.

We drove the 4 hours back to the beach and Phantom slept most of the way. Then for two days he's been curled up sleeping and appeared not to feel well. He's been eating a little and drinking and taking his meds which is good. I have NOT been sleeping because I get up every hour to make sure Phantom is breathing and drinking if he wants. He likes to drink directly out of the water faucet and the diuretic he's on makes him thirsty and his mouth dry. He's constantly licking his lips and opening his mouth. I thought maybe he couldn't breath well or had an infection in his mouth but the vet said his mouth was probably just dry. He hasn't thrown up very much so that is good.

Poor baby!

Buster Britton Triathlon Coffee Mug Age Group Award

I really needed this cup of coffee this morning which coincidentally was in a mug I won from a Buster Britton triathlon many years ago when I was in a younger age group. I was so out of it this morning that I stole the Murph's coffee mug that he had out to use himself. I just thought he was being nice to put a mug out for me and I thought he was probably on his second cup by the time I got to the coffee.

Opps! Sorry Murph!

This morning Phantom seems much better and was playing on his cat tree and hanging out on the balcony. He ate and drank good all night and this morning so maybe he was just recovering from the trauma of both a vet visit and a long ride on the same day.

I'm still a little sore from racing on Saturday then doing a long run on Sunday followed by weights which really broke my muscles down. This is good, except for my arch and knee on my left leg is bothering me. I put the inserts back in my running shoes and stretching. Hope that helps!

Today we should get the results of Phantom's blood test.

Buster Britton Memorial Triathlon

Watching the 3rd place baby fly!

Saturday I raced in the Buster Britton Memorial Triathlon in Birmingham, Alabama. It was my 12th time to do the race which was the very first one I did in 1999 when my son was seven years old. I have raced it every year except two over that 14 year period. (read about last year's race here and here)

Over the years they have shortened the swim from 600yds to 400yds and shortened the bike from 16 miles to 13 miles and moved the transition area up the road a bit until now it's at the very last picnic area before you start up the barely paved rough road that winds it's way up the mountain to peavine falls.

That's where the run takes place. It goes gradually uphill out and then mostly downhill back except a couple of small uphills. It's not bad though. The bike ride is the same. Going out is rolling but mostly uphill and coming back is smoking fast downhills with a couple of uphills.

There's a reason it's called "Oak Mountain" State Park.

In line for swim start... adjust the googles.... it's important!

The swim start is not a mass start. Everyone lines up by race number and goes in the water every 3 seconds. It use to drive me nuts to stand in line and wait, but after last year being at the end because I registered late, it doesn't bother me at all. I even got to the race at 6:30 instead of my usual 5:30 a.m time and parked a fairly long distance away from transition and that was fine. This was my husband and chief athletic supporter, staff photographer and food and beverage coordinator that broke me of the my OCD habit of having to get there at a certain time, park in a certain place, do everything in a certain way or have complete meltdown.

I actually race better now!

There was one small moment of panic when I couldn't get my bike in transition area before the race start because I wasn't wearing my arm band. It was way down the street in the car because I hate wearing those things! We have to have our bike racked by 7 a.m and I only had 5 minutes to run back to the car and grab it and get back. I had also forgotten my bike pump and had pumped the tires a little before we left Pensacola on Friday, but I knew they needed more air.

I rode the bike to the car to get the arm band and then went by the Bike Link tent to get the guys to pump air in my tires. Good thing because the back tire only had about 65psi and I usually race at 100psi. Luckily, there wasn't a line and I got my bike in transition right at 7 a.m with tires full of air.

Image from Facebook.com -Team Magic photo

Ready to go!

The water as usual was very warm and very brown and squishy at the bottom. The ramp is slippery but they had us going in next to the ramp with a carpet down. I wish the carpet had been extended all the way into the water until it was deep enough for me to start swimming though. It was squishy.

Thinking if I lean back far enough it will postpone going into the icky brown water....

Finally in the water swimming around...

It was very foggy at the start of the race and my googles were a little foggy too so I had a little trouble seeing where I was going. I think I stayed on course though. My swim time was only a few seconds slower than last year at a little over 9 minutes. Two minutes slower than I had wanted though.

Buster Britton transition area... you can't come in without your wristband... don't forget the wristband! Trust me!

The camera battery died right after the swim start so the Murph couldn't take any other pictures of the bike and run portions of the race. I got the awards ceremony photos off of facebook. The President of the Vulcan Triathletes Club took them. I missed the group photo with them though. I usually do! Now I am a member of both the Vulcan Triathletes and the TriGulfCoast club in my new home city. I guess this will be my last year as a Vulcan Triathlete. 

I will miss that too even though I haven't been training with them much the last couple of years because I haven't been training much at all the last couple of years! That will change now that I'm training for a 70.3 race.

Transition area

Award ceremony

I felt a little flat on the bike and I don't really know why. It was the first time this year that I've used the race wheels. I didn't use them in the other two races I did last month so I thought I would feel faster but nope. I was a minute slower on the bike than last year which was disappointing since I've been on the bike more than last year.

Buster Britton Finish line... always a welcome sight!

My run was much faster and I that's because of all the 5k's I did in April. I've been working on speed and keeping my long distance runs under 13 miles. Long distance has always slowed me down.

Overall I was about 3 minutes faster than last year and placed first in my age group same as last year. This year we stayed for the award ceremony so I could get my award. I'm glad I did because I also got a bag of all kinds of goodies such as running socks, bike tubes, water bottle, bike co2 pump, power gels, etc. It took a very LONG time to get to my age group though because I'm so old. The Murph was somewhat patient and I appreciate it. He even broke down and used the port-o-potty, something I thought he would never do.

Also, new this year was that everyone, all the race finishers, received a very nice finisher medal. After all that hard work everyone deserves a medal, especially the ones on the course in the heat after the 2 hour mark. They deserve something more than the top finishers and now they get some hardware too.

At packet pickup Friday I ran into the psychiatrist my son has been going to for ADD meds since he was in 6th grade. The same psychiatrist who diagnosed the Boy with Asperger's when he was in 8th grade and changed our lives for the better. He told me he was racing and that Buster Britton was his first triathlon. I didn't see him during the race, but as I was heading over to look at the results after the race I ran into him again and asked him how he did. He kicked butt! He placed 6th in his age group and was 6 minutes faster than me.

I have to admit I couldn't find his results because I thought he was much younger than he is. When I first took my son to see him many years ago, I even remember thinking he's so young that he probably just got out of school. "How much experience does he have? He's barely older than the Boy." Of course, I immediately realized he was very qualified and I shouldn't be so quick to judge. After seeing the race results I realized he's older than I am! Oh, well, sorry I thought what I thought! I'll never tell though!

The race is named after Buster Britton, a Birmingham area triathlete who died while doing a fun run a couple of weeks after doing the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii about 25 years ago. Buster Britton's family was there and his daughter spoke about what a great legacy this race was for their family. This was the first time I had seen the family and I didn't realize that Buster Britton's daughter was pregnant with his grandchild when he died. The granddaughter had never met her grandfather, but his legacy lives on in the triathlon which is one of the longest running ones in Alabama.

That was very touching. I hope that I can continue to do the race in the future even though I'm not living in Birmingham. Oak Mountain use to be practically in my back yard and was one of my favorite places to train. I will miss it.

Another pic of award ceremony.... babies still flying!

Except not the icky brown water part!

Fashion Friday - A Little Late... A Little Lululemon

Thursday my husband and I drove through the gulf national seashore to Navarre Beach, Florida about 10 miles away. The gulf was rough, red flag, because of Tropical Storm Andrea which hit south Florida.

I wore a white Lululemon athletic tank that I purchased a couple of weeks ago and a Lululemon floral running skirt that I purchased last year. I don't usually run in the skirt, but usually wear it for casual wear.

Tank: Lululemon running tank;  Skirt:  Lululemon;  Sandals:  Tory Burch;  Bracelets:  Free People

And one more workout outfit by Lululemon that I love...

Tank:  Lululemon;  Running shorts:  Lululemon;  Running shoes :  Mizuno Wave -Here;  Sunglasses:  Oakley

I'll try to put more links in for the clothing.  The tanks are new so should be still available for purchase if you are interested. The shoes are new too.  I love the bright color and they are very light and comfortable. The shorts and skirt I got last year.

That's all for now!  It's late and I have a race in the morning!

My Half Ironman Training Plan - Because I Need One Now...

Image from tbtriathlon.com

Last year at the Coastal Triathlon in Orange Beach, AL, I came in first place masters category, which qualified me for a slot into the USAT Age Group Nationals in Milwaukee this August. It was the first time I've ever qualified for anything like that so I had planned on doing the race this year. Unfortunately, we have too much going on in August so instead of going to Milwaukee and doing an Olympic Distance Triathlon, I signed up for a half ironman 70.3 race in October.

Image from triradar. com

That means I have to start regular triathlon training. Not the kind of "regular" do what I feel like doing kind of training that I do now. I have to come up with a plan and I have to follow it. I have to somewhat follow it fairly regularly whether I feel like it or not. I have to start swimming and biking more consistently again. It's been a nice break but now it's time to buckle down again and get serious.

I have done several half ironman triathlons in the past and for all except one of them I have followed a training plan I found on the trinewbies.com website. Here is the link to the training plan below:

18 Week Half Ironman Training Plan

If you are new to half ironman training and don't want to hire a coach, I highly recommend it. I started using it in January several years ago for a half ironman that was in May. It starts out very easy, especially if you're like me and don't swim or bike much during the off-season which for me is November and December. All I do during those months is run and whatever I do in the gym. No swimming. It's easy to start with the swims in January and build up from there. I usually am way ahead of the run part of the training plan.

I find the race date on the calendar and count back 18 weeks and then start filling in the workouts on a blank calendar. I use to use a paper calendar, but this time I think I will use Google calendar. When I was training for Ironman Canada in 2010, my coach had my training plan on Google calendar and he could change things as needed and we could both access it. I still have some blank paper calendars that I can fill in the dates and my workouts if I want to do it that way too.

Below are my times for all the 70.3's I've done with the fastest being 5:42:18. My first 70.3 was 5:43:35 and in both of those races I used the above training plan.

All Years » Triathlon & Multisport » Half Iron

Best:	5:42:18	Gulf Coast Triathlon 2005 / Half IronHalf Iron (5/7/2005)
Latest:	7:23:52	2011 Ironman Hawaii 70.3 / Half Iron (6/4/2011)
Average:	6:09:47	6 races completed over 9 years 1 months 6 days

My slowest 70.3 was the most recent, Hawaii 70.3 in 2011 and the only only one where I did not use the 18 week training plan. (or any training plan)

Reason's (aka Excuses) for my slowest and latest half ironman results other than the fact that I'm just older and slower...

1. I followed no training plan and actually did not "train" at all for the race except for running and   
    getting on the exercise bike at the gym and weights.

2. I only swam twice before race day after taking 9 months off after doing Ironman Canada.

3. I only biked on my tri bike 3 times in those 9 months with my longest ride being only about 20 miles 
    since I was "burned out" from all the Ironman training.

4. I had to get stitches in my hand and elbow while in Hawaii after doing a practice swim the day 
    before the race.

5. My bike didn't show up until the day before the race and I wasn't able to do any practice rides before 
    the race. I barely got it checked into transition in time for the race. My bike fit was totally screwed up 
    with my seat being too low. (I actually realized I ride faster that way after I got use to the weird way 
    it felt.)

 6. Due to my inept packing of my bike, some bike parts fell out of the box during transport and I was 
     running around trying to purchase replacement parts after getting the stitches mentioned above.

7. During T2 when I was about to put on my running shoes, I realized that I had two un-matching 
    shoes (Here). I had packed them up, flown them all the way from Birmingham to Hawaii, then put   
    them in my T2 run bag, never even realizing my mistake until the middle of the race when it was 
    time to put them on and run. Luckily, I had one lefty and one righty, otherwise I would've looked   
    even stranger than usual.

Those are my excuses and they are pretty darn good excuses I think. There were so many times during that trip/race that I thought about calling it quits and not doing the race. Especially while getting stitches and worrying about getting my bike put back together in time. I was totally depending on the bike shop guys who were putting the bikes together at the host hotel to get it right the first time. There was no time for errors or for test rides. My test ride was riding the bike from the hotel to the transition area and that was about it. The bike guys did great!

The doctor who did my stitches was wonderful even though the tetanus shot and the numbing shot hurt like hell. Even the Murph had to look away.

This time a training plan is very important because I am going for a faster time not just "to finish". My goal is to finish in under 6 hours. With the above plan, I think I can do that since I've done it before with that training plan. I know I can already jump into week 1 and follow all the workouts pretty close and work my other races (sprints, 5k's, half marathons, marathons) around the training as I did in the past.

The key is to not get injured or burned out. Two things that have also happened to me in the past! 


Also, if anybody has a good training plan that they recommend, I am open for suggestions.

Paddling And The Boy

Paddle boarding that is, not paddling the Boy although he could use a good paddling about now!

Everyday I see more and more people paddling around on paddle boards. Popularity seems to keep growing in this sport that originated in Hawaii, the Murph and my future retirement state. (If I can get him back on an airplane for the time it takes to fly there it will be a miracle!) Yesterday evening there was a lone paddler on the sound at sunset. Very peaceful! I haven't tried it yet, but it's on my "to do" list this year. I wonder how hard it is to balance on one of those things?

It's almost impossible to be stressed out here even though the Boy is continually working on it for me. His latest issue is not answering his phone when I call him or responding to text messages from me unless he needs something from me. Usually when he decides to call me he is in some sort of "crisis" situation. For example, the other day he called (after not responding to my calls or texts for 3 days) extremely, EXTREMELY upset because one of his roommates was eating his food. Instead of confronting the roommate, the Boy decided I need to bring him his own personal refrigerator for his bedroom.

When he realized that wasn't going to happen, he calmed down and hopefully either confronted his roommate with the problem or purchased food items that don't require refrigeration so he can store it in his room. At the time, those were the best solutions I could think of for him. I was a little upset myself that he didn't call or respond to me unless he needed something and then he demanded that I do something. Oh no! Not going to happen.

Tequila helps the de-stressing process too. With the awesome sunsets, bike rides, long runs and adult beverages, I can handle the Boy's "crisis" situations a little better than I use to.

One more thing - I don't think the Boy reads my blog (as a matter of fact, I know he doesn't), but if he happens to come across this post, I have one thing to say to him -

" If you want me to answer my phone when you call or text me, then I would suggest you do the same when I call. I know you are really, really busy, but I was a little busy myself all those years I had to set aside my own interests to change your diapers and attend all those IEP meetings. So.... answer your phone or at the least return my call at a time when it's more convenient for you, preferably on the same day I called you. That is all."

"Comprende?"