Winter May Come Today

I really hate the cold weather and we/I have been so fortunate thus far. It hasn't been too bad - at least not for running. Biking is another story - but until this week, I've managed to get one ride outside every week.

Today, though, it is supposed to snow. It probably won't stick and by the weekend, the highs will be in the 40s and I've adapted to that. Forties works for me. I will even reluctantly go out to run if it's above 35. Anything less than that and I need someone to make me get out there.

Last Monday evening, I ran on the treadmill. First time this season - I hated it. I could only muster staying on for 40 minutes and I had to take a break around the 25 minute mark to go to the bathroom.

Today I plan to hit the treadmill once again. I know in my mind that each time it will get a little easier - but I'm really spoiled about being outside. The inside bikes or trainers are untenable. But, I can't be outside on a bike if it's under 50 (really under 60, if you want the truth).

Yesterday, I think I dodged the flu bullet. Tuesday evening I went to bed and my stomach was making these terrible gurggling noises. Then the nausea set in and the burny hot feeling. I thought for sure it was the flu since one of my co-workers just came back from a bout. I laid there thinking that I was going to miss all my weekend activities - a great trail run, a party and a good swimming session. The only possible good that could come from a bout with the stomach flu is the loss of weight - and I don't want to pay that price. I laid there for hours feeling sorry for myself and getting myself ready for the ensuing vomiting and diarrhea party - but, it never came! I didn't feel good when I woke up, but I felt OK enough to go to a spinning class. If a spinning class doesn't make you puke - nothing will. So, with fingers crossed, I'm hoping I missed that fun time.

My New Toy

I bought something for myself (which I do a lot around Christmas time). Why is it that I can't think of things to tell family to get for me, but everytime I go out shopping I find something that I want. The list is endless.



Anyway, my new toy involves water, but does not have anything to do with triathlon. Again, another oddity. My new toy is an aquarium. I decided I really enjoy watching fish. After all, they are a fairly clean pet. No paws to wipe or poop to clean up.

I've had my 5 fish and 1 snail for two weeks now and they are doing well. So, I should be adding some more fish soon. I actually really like watching them swim around - doesn't take much to entertain me.

The Case for Training Buddies

In case you don't know this about me, I hate cold weather. I don't like to run when it's cold and I definitely don't like to bike when it's cold. But, living in St. Louis means that I have to either adapt or do all my winter training indoors. So today, when the temp is supposed to be 50+ degrees I make plans with a friend to go for a bike ride. It was a good plan and a good route.




My friend cancels at the last minute - however, my bike is on the rack on the car, I'm dressed to ride and on my way to the meeting point. My first thought, is great, I can turnaround and go back home - but come on, I'm dressed.



So, I set out for my ride. All of a sudden water is splashing on me and I look down. The sponge part of my tri bottle is missing. So I think that I've forgotten to put it in the bottle. I turn around and go back. I looked all around and in my car and could not find that sponge. So I take the bottle off my bike - but I don't have a spare bottle and don't want to ride without fluids.

Catching Up - Left Behind

OMG - I have not posted anything in quite some time. That means that I've either been extremely busy or extremely boring - I'm leaning more towards the boring part. At any rate, time to get back in the swing.

So today, let's discuss friendships. I just got an email from one of my friends that I haven't heard from in months. This "friend" and I trained together every Friday (well, almost every Friday) for 2 years. Then she got a new job. Her new job was with a competitor of the company that employs me. I have a high level position in the company and wondered if this would present any conflict of interest. Actually, I never really got a chance to find out, because she disappeared off the face of the earth. We were supposed to meet one Friday for a training session and she didn't show up. I called and left her a message, I emailed numerous times - no reply at all, no reply at all (to quote Phil Colllins).

What on earth is going on?! As of today, I'm not totally certain, but I'm wondering if she was told that it might be a conflict and has avoided me. But certainly, off line emails or a quick phone call as a courtesy could've explained so that I didn't feel like I'd done something wrong.

We ran into each other a couple times in passing and have been cordial - "let's get together for lunch" - which hasn't happened. Also, today's email was to inquire about an upcoming race - she's pretty sure I'll beat her as she hasn't trained in awhile - I'm not buying that at all.

Anyway, the email ends with the "let's do lunch or dinner" again. We'll see. And then, when we do finally get together do I just let it go or do I ask what in the hell happened. But, maybe I'll never be in that position....We'll see.

A Guy Thing

Things that I think are "guy" things:



Writing in your blog that you have a new grandchild - well, is it a boy or a girl or what? No details.



Getting out a new roll of toilet paper when there are still about 6 sheets of toilet paper on the roll - do you put the new roll on the holder - no, you leave it sitting on the sink....are you afraid you'll do it wrong?



Opening a new bag of potato chips when one is already open - oh, there are only crumbs left in that bag that you have no intention of eating - how about throwing that bag away?



Thank you for putting your dirty dishes in the sink after dinner, but why did you leave your glass and napkin on the table? You already walked to the sink and the trash can is right next to your chair.



Thanks for cleaning up that one section of the garage - where for the past 2 years you've left paint, paint rollers and brushes and other assorted tools right where I get out of my car. Let's not mention, that in a 3 car garage, you have 2 cars and 2 slots - so I guess the only place to leave your junk is by my car!

Cold Day in Hell

Yeah for me! When I left my house this morning to go on a group bike ride, it was a brisk 38 degrees. I whined the whole time I was getting ready. As I put my bike rack on my car, I was shivering - how would I ever be able to ride a bike without freezing to death.

I told my husband when I left that I might be right back home. That if the temperature didn't go up significantly, I was not going on the ride. Once at the signup tent, it was still friggin cold - I wanted to back out. However, I took my friend with me to make sure I would go. We keep each other honest. We looked at the bike route and weren't too sure about that either - after all, this is for fun - we could freeze, we could encounter large hills - none of which sounds like too much fun to me.

One of the attendees assured us that the hills are doable - that there wouldn't be anything of significance. And so we placed ourselves at the back of the pack so that we could ride "our" ride - using aerobars once the pack got out of range. OK - so I didn't freeze to death. Seems I dressed exactly correct for the weather and was comfortable. The first half of the ride was very smooth with some rolling hills and winding roads - it was fun! However, coming back, we did encounter 2 hills that required some huffing and puffing to reach the top - but all in all - doable.

And for me - it's always about being doable. So today was the first time I had ridden my bike in that type of temperature - and I survived. Yeah for me! (Post ride food was also outstanding - anytime they have chocolate chip cookies - it was worth the ride.)

ReRuns

They're inevitable - aren't they? But the upside is, for TV, you get to see episodes or begin watching programs you've never seen before. Who knew it would hold true for blogs as well?

Went to my most favorite blog today and you won't believe it, but it was a rerun of a previous blog. I guess the writer must be on hiatus - after all, the triathlon season is over. Does that mean we will be reading reruns until next season - would that be March, April - when?

But like I said, the upside is, I'm new to that blog so the rerun was new for me and I enjoyed it every bit as much as if it had been written within the last 24 hours.

I've actually become quite dependent on reruns or in reality, replays. I love DVR - I need DVR for my entire life. I'm never quite focused (notice the title of my blog site) so I barely catch things and if they sound interesting - I want to go back and replay what I missed. Now that I can do this we TV, I'm very spoiled. I want it for radio talk shows that I listen to at work - I sort of half listen - what was that? I really want to start that over, but, I don't think there is Tivo for radio. Same with meetings and conversations in general - I catch a part of something that interests me and I really need to go back a minute or two to capture the entire conversation.

OK, while we're on the subject of listening - I'm not sure if I'm going deaf or if I have ADD. I just don't hear everything. Cell phones are the worst - I try really hard to listen to every word and still I can't get it all - only bits and pieces. So I have to constantly be thinking to make the assortment of words make sense in my head. That can give you a headache.

So if you ask me a question and I give you a goofy answer - it's probably because somewhere I missed a key word that would have given me a clue what the hell you were talking about, so I made up something in my head and that's what I answered or commented on. Don't take it personal - I do it to everyone.

Continuing On

Weight went down 1 lb yesterday and back up 1 lb today - no loss/no gain - no progress. Ugh!

So, to celebrate I had to have a Nutty Bar - it's been awhile and I'm entitled. I mean after all - yesterday I swam an hour and the day before that I ran an hour.

Cool website for workouts - itrain.com You can download mp3 workouts of all types to your iPod - of course, there is a cost - but it's not too bad if you buy a one year subscription. They have something called a Killer Workout - to make you lean and mean - it's 7 days of workouts. Treadmill, strength training, cycling, stretching, sculpting - the whole gamut. So I put that as a playlist on my iPod. I might try it next week.

The weather here is getting colder - highs in the 50s today. Great weather for running - but for me and cycling - not so good. I am such a wuss when it comes to cold weather. You probably think I'm crazy, but I'd rather have 90s instead of cold.

Today's workout looks to be an inside bike with some strength training. Then it's TV time for this evening.

AGHHHH!!! Weight Woes

So the weight focus is just not happening yet - apparently. I got on the scale today and I'm up 2 lbs. again! I just finished a weekend of 2 hour bike ride, 2 hour run and last night did one hour of core work at the gym. Five hours of workouts in 3 days and no real over-eating - unless I'm missing it. So what is my problem!

So far here is today's breakfast - packet of oatmeal, small container of light yogurt and ruby red grapefruit cup.

Today's snack - Pria bar and banana

Lunch will not be very controlled - we are having a work seminar where lunch will be served. Let's see how I do.

I plan on running for an hour after work and then I have a hair appt at 6:00 pm - no real time to grab a good dinner - maybe I'll just go with a protein bar and a glass of milk and try to have only fruit for a snack before bed.

Tomorrow, I will weigh again to see if I've made progress. I know you can't lose it all overnight, but you can get back on track.

Babbling

Just want to get down a couple of thoughts -

I really want a tattoo - but I don't know that 54 year old women should go get tattoos - seems wrong somehow. But what I want would be a triathlon tattoo (see below - minus the verbiage) that would go on my right/back shoulder. It's a circle with a characterization of the three disciplines inside the circle.) I'm pretty sure my husband will say I'm nuts - so I'm not sure I want to go there just yet.

I ran 10 miles of a half marathon yesterday. It wasn't a race, it was a real nice group run, but I'm not trained to do a half, so I only did 10 miles. I forgot to put body glide on my underarms - about 6 miles into the run, I felt that all too familiar stinging sensation and knew I was doomed. The rest of the run, I worried about how bad the chafing was getting to be and how loud I would scream when I got into the shower. The chafing under both arms was really bad - but when I got home I put some Neosporin on the chafed areas and got into the shower - I didn't scream, only winced a little. I also think that helped make it not so bad today - although it looks terrible, it doesn't feel bad.

I also put an ice pack on my hip when I got home for 20 minutes to help prevent any future hip flexor issues (just finished working with a chiropractor to make that injury better) - but the cold pack left red blotches on my hip. So I'm now a mix of red blotches including the chafed underarms - looks real nice.

Mastering Mechanical Mishaps

I am on a roll. First, my bike would no longer shift up to the large chain ring. I had fully planned on taking it to the shop for an adjustment. I've tried reading a repair manual and none of it really makes sense to me. I do try to keep my bike clean. Here's a tip - do not get any cleaner or lube on your brakes unless you want them to squeal for a couple of months. Learned that one the hard way. But I thought I would try looking in the manual just to see if there was something I could try myself. Working with the gearing always scares me because I think there is the potential to really screw things up. The manual stated that you could do minor tweaks by turning the screws a half turn and then see what happens. If it gets worse, you just turn it back that half turn and try the other direction. I gave it a shot and was able to fix it myself - YEAH!

Then my Garmin Forerunner 305 wouldn't turn on at all. It wouldn't charge or anything. I looked through the users manual - but no luck. I was bumming because I love this watch and GPS system. Buying a new one would be very expensive, but getting this one repaired could take a long time. It's taken one month to get back a Timex watch that works with the Timex GPS and HR system - I sold off the GPS portion, but kept the HR monitor and watch for races. I don't mind swimming with this setup.

Of course, I was running 10 miles the next morning and now no GPS to track it. Prior to leaving for my run, I Googled "Forerunner 305 won't turn on" and lo and behold - I found the answer. I followed the instructions to reset the watch and it now works. Unfortunately, it barely had any power so I was unable to use it for my morning run. But it's good to go for next time.

Now if things would just stop breaking!

Goal Setting Part 1

Starting today, I want to get myself focused on my goals.

First goal is to lose weight - I really only need to lose 5 lbs by Christmas. How hard could that be? If you ever tried losing weight, you know it can be monumental.

I also want to eat healthier to support this goal.