The Triing Lizard

2008-08-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

Race Report - Pikes Peak Ascent – 2008
The anxiety over the weather conditions started the Wednesday prior to the event. Different coworkers and friends would come to my desk or email me to update me on the projected forecast for the weekend and to get my take on how that was going to impact the event. The weather forecast was mid 50s and rain in Manitou for the race start and 20 degrees at the top with storm force winds and 4” of snow expected above the treeline. Somewhat of a chance for lightning and thunderstorms throughout the day. Oh and add some freezing rain and hail into the mix. My biggest concern was what the heck I was going to wear. Not finishing the race or being turned around didn’t even cross my mind. I figured I am fast enough to make it to the top before the thunderstorms – they will hold off until 12:00. If I start at 7:30, finish in 4:30, I’ll be at the top by noon so I’ll get there before the usual thunderstorms start. So I put the thoughts of potentially not finishing to the back of my head. I settle on some tech capri pants, a long sleeve tech shirt, my paclite gore-tex jacket with hood, a headband, and some wool mittens.

Up early at 4:45, it’s raining, it’s dark. I get dressed in my full outfit and head outside to see how I’m feeling temperature wise. I get outside under the rain and I feel just right, actually a little warm but I figure if I get hot I can always take off layers. That will be a better strategy up top to have the jacket, esp with the snow prediction. But I’ll be generating a lot of heat and the water proof gore-tex will keep me dry so I should be just fine. Plus at the top my sweat check bag will be waiting for me. In that bag I packed a fleece jacket, a pair of long pants, and a new pair of socks.

I eat breakfast, fill my camelback, and throw in some food. I also put my target splits and my nutrition plan that I’ve carefully crafted in my jacket pocket for easy reference. I wake up Chris and he drives me to the race start where I jump out of the car ready to go, ready to start the race.

At this point it has started to pour down rain – and I mean HARD. I am already cold and a little wet. I look up and can’t see Pikes Peak, or even any of the foothills surrounding Pikes Peak, but they are all completely engulfed by the clouds. I am thinking to myself, I would never climb a 14er in these conditions, not with my inexperience, but I figure if everyone else is game, so am I. I am not a quitter, my parents would never let me quit anything when I was little – I’m not about to start now. I can be cold and wet but I’m GOING TO FINISH THIS THING.

Luckily the rain let up a bit for the race start. I’m actually getting warm running up to the start of Barr. I wanted to seed myself toward the front so I wouldn’t have to worry about passing too much. I see what everyone had told me about how close everyone is packed together, it is like a line all the way to Barr Camp. I am annoyed by people passing me who are breathing really really hard, there is nowhere to go because everyone is so close together and plus these people are going to end up having to slow down shortly because they are already probably anaerobic thereby slowing the whole line but I digress. I am berely breathing hard at this point because the pace is slower than I know I can go but I figure I can save some of it for above A frame when I’m really going to need the extra energy.

I am pacing a little slow to reach my goal of 4:30 but I end up making up that time on the downhills and I end up at Barr Camp in 2:19 which is a little slower than 4:30 pace (2:17) but I don’t care. At this point I am completely drenched from head to toe, my pace and nutrition plan has been completely erased by the rain and I don’t know any of the other target splits from here. My gore-tex jacket did not keep me dry at all, the rain was just soaking right through. Luckily my feet were dry and my hands were warm from my wool gloves. I am following my nutrition plan of eating every half hour and stopping to drink Gatorade at most of the aid stations.

We continue upward to Bottomless Pit, thunder every few minutes or so. I commented to someone how sad I would be if they turned us around at A frame. Though I said it I still didn’t really think it was going to happen - I was still very optimistic about the whole thing. I then start to see groups of twos and threes running down the mountain. I figure they are doublers (racers doing both the Ascent on Saturday and then the Marathon on Sunday) who had finished the Ascent but just wanted the extra miles on their legs (I don’t know why but at that point I thought it was possible). Someone asked them if they had been turned around at A frame and they said that they hadn’t but they had heard that they were planning to close down the race at A frame. I didn’t think too much of it, I figured they were cold and decided to hell with it.

Another 20 minutes passed and the trickle of two or three people coming down had turned into a stream of people all reporting that the race is closed past A frame. But no one had actually heard it from an official, it was all just rumor at this point. So I was determined to get to A frame and hear it for myself. But the trail was narrowing and the further I kept going the more I was hearing comments from everyone who was coming down telling me to turn around, that people who were trying to continue up were just in everyone’s way and were making it slower for them to get down. After 20 minutes of what felt like paddling upstream on a river with a very strong current and while being yelled at constantly I decided it wasn’t meant to be and I finally turned around and joined the line.

The journey back down was sad and slow. There were hundreds of runners all in a line trying to get down and there were still people trying to go up so our progress was slow. On my way down there was a woman with the same build as my mother (5’4”, probably 100 pounds soaking wet) who was shaking uncontrollably. Luckily there were people there helping her who sounded like they knew what they were doing. I couldn’t help out because I had no extra clothes that I could offer and I wouldn’t know how to handle hypothermia. There were two guys behind me who were trying to keep their hands from freezing – “put them in your crotch is the best method” I heard someone shout out. I don’t know how they’d manage to keep walking while holding their hands in their crotch. Interesting. We were all just frozen to the bone. Soaking cold. Shivering. Finally the line thinned out a little and I was able to run. I ran as fast as I could all the way down to Barr just thinking about the wood stove in Neil and Theresa’s house and hoping I could go in and get dried out a little before making my way to the bottom.

I arrive to a big line to get to Barr where we have to give them the bottom part of our race numbers and it turns out Neil is there taking numbers and I say hello and he commiserates with me about not being able to finish the race.

I get closer to the house and find that there is tape up so you can’t get into the house (since they were helping man the aid station) so I then realize that in order to avoid hypothermia I had better book it down to the bottom immediately. I drink some Gatorade and chat with one of the volunteers who gave me the summit report – 8” of snow, 19 degrees with strong winds, conditions were too dangerous for the volunteers up there which was why they had to shut down the race. At that point I had heard it from an official volunteer which made me feel better. I continue down the trail, glad that I have the extra body fat that I do so that I can stay warm. I also start thinking about how if they had let us up to the top that a lot more of us would have had hypothermia. Especially the racers who only had garbage bags as rain coats.

I make my way to the bottom, meet up with John who is walking and I end up chatting with him all the way down. By the end I was in some major pain and ready to be done. We get back to the bottom and stand near the tents in the rain, just longing for food and water. But we didn’t know where to go and we didn’t want to expend extra energy wandering around looking for it. So we wait. Not saying a word. Getting more and more soaked. We didn’t care. I’m looking at everyone with finishers shirts and I’m angry, disappointed, sad that the race was over, that I hadn’t finished. That I couldn’t finish. What a journey, 4 months of hard training, of getting up both Saturday and Sunday at the crack of dawn (or earlier) to climb Pikes Peak, Elbert, or to do Section 16. Running at lunch, hiking after work, trying to balance training, friends, Chris, and regular house chores. All that effort and I couldn’t even complete the race. I was stunned. Finally John’s friends (who had all finished the race) let us know that we could get a tiny Subway sandwich at city hall. We walk slowly over there and go inside where it is warm and dry. Wow, does it feel good to be inside out of the rain. But I knew Chris was coming for me so I got my food, said goodbye to John, and headed back out in the rain to wait for Chris. Chris came only a couple minutes later and I happily collapsed in the car. My race journey was over.

2008-08-13T15:30:00.001-07:00

Since I've moved to Colorado I've started to seriously consider the whole idea of climbing all the 14ers. I think that just kind of happens when you live here and you like to do outdoorsy stuff. So I printed out a map of the Colorado 14ers and there are two with "Wilson" in their names - Wilson Peak and Mount Wilson. And the best part is that they are near Lizard Head Pass! I love it. I must climb them both. So Wilson Peak is easier, it's a class 3 climb (meaning some bouldering but you should still survive if you don't have ropes and you don't do something incredibly stupid) but Mount Wilson is a class 4 climb (meaning you best have ropes if you wish to survive). In addition neither of these mountains have trails to the summit. I got spoiled by Pikes Peak and Mt Elbert where it was so easy to get to the top! Hmm, so it sounds like I need to get some topo maps, brush up on my compass skills, and potentially learn how to climb! I better start working on my arm and leg strength!
Photos of Mount Wilson here: http://www.14ers.com/photos/peakmain.php?peak=Mt.%20Wilson

This is just crazy - apparently I will be doing 53/54 14ers, Culebra can be left off the list! I am NOT paying some rich guy $100 to climb up a mountain that he has never even been up just because he owns the property! That is just wrong!
http://www.gazette.com/articles/culebra_39032___article.html/list_climb.html

2008-08-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

5 days til the Pikes Peak Ascent! It's a race to the top of Pikes Peak involving almost 8000 feet of altitude gain over 13.2 miles.

My journey to get to this race started back in March when one of my coworkers, Shawn, told me that registration for the Ascent was the following day. My response was "What's the Ascent?" He described the race - it's a brutal half marathon hike/run up to the top of Pikes Peak. He didn't sugar coat his experience doing the race the year before (which wasn't the greatest, he had major blisters and his legs were done with 2 miles to go). Despite his story I knew I had to sign up, this is just the kind of challenge I crave, it makes me get out there and train, plus it would hopefully help me get back my strong, lean body that I had lost in the process of moving to Colorado. So on March 12 as soon as registration opens I'm on the website madly typing in my info, desperate for an entry. The race sold out in 30 minutes and I was IN. Oh my God, I'm really doing this.

I had let my fitness go bigtime during the transition from Maryland to Colorado. It was a really stressful and scary thing to do all by myself so I told myself that it was okay to gain weight, that I would lose it once things settled a bit. I estimate that I gained about 10 pounds and I lost a significant amount of my fitness by working out only when I felt like it. So here I am, some extra weight, berely able to run continuously for a 5K (I had been doing Jack Quinn's runs on Tuesday nights), and berely able to get through a step class at the Y without passing out from lack of oxygen. So I had 5 months to get myself back into tip top shape, lose weight, and get used to not only the altitude here in Colorado Springs, but also the altitude at 14,000 feet where there is 43% less oxygen than at sea level. Yikes, this was a lofty goal.

I followed Hal Higdon's Intermediate 1 Marathon training plan. I decided to substitute climbing 14ers for my longest "runs" at the end of the program.

On June 29th I hiked up to the top via Barr trail, same trail as on race day. Started around 7:00 AM, the first part of the hike was tough, it is steep and I wasn't warmed up. Once I got going though I found a groove and got going. I didn't push too hard, this was supposed to be an easy hike.

View of the summit as I'm on my way to Barr Camp. The pile of rocks is the summit. I'm walking up there! Today. Right now in fact.

After the 7.8 sign to the top it started to get tough. I see a guy ahead of me walking, his pace was good but a little slower than mine, I catch him, we chat for a bit, and then I decide to jog a bit because we had finally gotten to the flat part of the hike (there's only one so I gotta take advantage of it)! Then I get to the dreaded 0.5 mile to Barr Camp sign which means that the trail is going to start getting really steep and rocky, I think it's an old river bed. It's a LONG TORTUROUS half mile but the reward at the end is Barr Camp!

Barr Camp is such a welcoming sight. I take advantage of the port a pots and stop in and say hi to Neal and Theresa (Barr Camp caretakers, people can spend the night in these lean to structures there or they can stay in their house) - Theresa always remembers me, I don't know how she does it. This particular day she was helping a group of people from Ireland with their options for getting to the top. She was strongly urging them to either drive up or take the cog, that it would be a long day going to the top and then hiking back down. Hopefully they took her advise! I said hi to the guy who I had talked to on the trail, he wasn't planning on going to the top otherwise I would have offered to hike with him to the top.

Above Barr Camp the trail has some LONG switchbacks, nothing too steep yet so I'm sticking with my comfortable pace and I'm happy with how little I had so far been affected by the altitude. I'm passing people right and left here which is pretty cool and I'm following 2 girls ahead of me, I'm trying desperately to keep them within my sight. I'm excited to get to A frame (apparently there is an A frame shelter here) since I had never been on the trail from a little below A frame all the way to the top - unchartered territory - I had no idea how my body was going to react to the altitude under exertion. I was nervous and excited at the same time. I am closing in on the two girls, this is very exciting for me, I need to ask them about my hands - they are at this point swelling up like sausages and I was getting a little concerned. I pass A frame (it was just a sign for all I could see, I wasn't about to hike around searching for the shelter at this point) and then I catch the girls. One of them turns out to be a PT who specializes in hands - perfect! Both girls show me their hands and they have the same thing going on, they tell me that they normally don't wear their rings on these hikes because of this problem. Sigh of relief! My hands aren't going to explode - that is good news! :)

I hike with them for 10 minutes or so, they have done the Pikes Peak Ascent in previous years and loved it, today they were just doing an easy hike. I start to not be able to breathe and I have to slow down. They keep going their same pace as if it was no effort at all. I stop, drink a bunch of water, eat some food, and just prop mysef up against a rock. I watch them as they get farther and farther ahead of me. No chance of catching them again. I start hiking again and the nausea sets in. I feel like I'm about to puke at any moment. I press on, just concentrating on moving myself forward, careful with my feet placement, and careful to not topple over down the pile of rocks. I have to stop periodically and just sit down. This is brutal. The top looks so far away still.

After a lot more trudging I reach the 1 mile to the top sign! Only 1 mile to go, excellent! I can do this. How long can 1 mile take me, couldn't be more than 20 minutes or so. But at this point my legs are really starting to get tired and the nausea is getting worse. Then I hit the sign for the 16 golden stairs. This part of the trail is basically a bunch of rock stairs leading closer to the top and then you still have to get through tons and tons of switchbacks. The top STILL looks really far away. So I rest against yet another rock (luckily there is no shortage of rocks up here) and a woman is heading down the trail and asks me how I'm doing. I tell her about the nausea, about the Ascent, blah, blah, blah, I think I thought she had endless amounts of time to hear about all of my problems. Then she asked me how I was getting down and I said I had no idea, I was planning to shower in the bathrooms at the top, try to find some tourists who didn't look like kidnappers, and beg them to allow a stinky exhausted hiker to ride down in their car with them (or on top of the car, I didn't care). Back up plan #1 was to try to take the cog railway down. Back up plan #2 was to attempt to walk back down. I had no idea really. I couldn't think with the lack of oxygen and the nausea. She told me that she had 4 people in her car but that she could take one more and I just about gave her a hug on the spot! She said she wasn't entirely sure she could take me though b/c one of the other people who was riding with her might have offered the spot to someone already - that they were on their way up from the bottom, she had driven their car up to the top to meet them. She was on her way down to meet them and hike the rest of the way back up with them. I was so excited that I might not have to beg for a ride, what good luck!! So we exchange names and I tell her that I'll meet her at the top, I'll be passed out somewhere inside.

I press on, I take it one switchback at a time, resting A LOT. That last mile took me 45 minutes, not exactly the 20 minutes that I had planned. :)

The top!! Check out those storm clouds coming in, hiking down might not be the most pleasant (or safe) option!! I've been told that you should try to get off of 14ers by noon and it was already past noon. I needed to come up with a plan fast.

I go inside, eat some freshly made donuts (I figure there is no way I could eat the same number of calories as I burned today so what the hell), and started scoping out people. The harley dudes are a NO, the couple with the million kids is a no, they probably won't have room for me, the other people that look like hikers are probably a no. Hmm, I better go find the woman who offered me a ride, she may be my only option.

Sheer happiness and exhaustion. I am thinking to myself - I just finished my first 14er!!!

I find the woman who I met on the trail, I can't remember her name right now! She has Doritos, gummi bears, sodas, and all kinds of stuff in the car! It was fantastic! I met everyone else, they were all ultra runners who were super cool. We had a really fun ride back down, I was sandwiched in the middle in the back seat but I didn't care, I was so grateful to be sitting down and resting. We regaled tales of past races and upcoming races, put in bets on the car's brake temperature (I won!), we all got along really well. I couldn't have asked for a better group to be with. Hopefully I'll meet up with this group again at some point! They dropped me off at my car, I offered money for the ride but they wouldn't accept it - they just said that if I drive up sometime that I should offer someone a ride back down - kind of a pay it forward type of deal. Turns out a few weeks later I would be doing something very similar, helping out another fellow hiker on Mount Elbert. All in all, my first 14er was a great experience, I enjoyed every second of it! Next time I do this hike, I will be racing it!

2007-11-23T10:24:00.000-08:00

Please don't ask me about my significant other at work of all places!!! So there are 6 of us moving to Colorado from Maryland from my department. A week or so ago there was a meeting with the 6 of us plus a few members of upper management. One of the execs asked us to go around the room and describe our experience when it came to convincing our spouses or significant others to move to Colorado. I was glad that they started on the opposite end of the room because I immediately started to feel a little bit uncomfortable since I didn't have anyone to convince to move to Colorado. I knew that most of the others had spouses but I didn't realize that I would be the ONLY ONE who wasn't attached.

I looked around the room and noticed that almost everyone had wedding rings. I started to feel really sad that I was the only one who didn't have anyone else - no one else to help me in the decision making or to be a friend when I needed someone, to share in the excitement of moving. I quickly decided that now was the wrong time to have a huge emotional breakdown, that would not be good for my career, especially in front of all these high level management people. Bad idea. I had to get through this without even the smallest display of sadness. Or show how truly scared I was about getting out there and feeling lonely and homesick. Right now I need to convince everyone that I don't need anyone else to come with me, that I am independent, strong, and happy to be single. Ha. Couldn't be farther from the truth. Well, the first two are true but I really can't say that I've ever been happy about being single. So I came to the realization that my story was not going to be anywhere near what anyone else is saying. that I was going to have to come up with something really fast and it can't be anywhere close to a sob story. So I came up with the best story that I could think of. I said that after getting the email asking if anyone was interested in moving to Colorado Springs I went home and asked my cats and they happily agreed - they wanted a new challenge of living at 6,000 feet. They wanted more snow to play in. Okay, I didn't get into the snow or the elevation argument but it sort of went that way. They got the idea. Basically, please don't ask me about my spouse or significant other ever again. I don't have anyone, okay???!!!!

2007-10-31T06:38:00.000-07:00

Am I really doing this? Am I really moving to Colorado? Do I really want to leave the town that I've spent the last 8 years of my life, where I've learned what it means to really be a grown up, had my first real date, my first boyfriend, my first broken heart, bought my first house, learned how to fix a broken toilet, how to install new electrical lines, new plumbing, cabinets, and I learned how to take care of myself, self reliance. I learned the importance of friends and family. I got in shape. I became a triathlete. I went from answering the phones and hating my job to moving up and into a job that I enjoy and that challenges me, and allows me to use my analytical and problem solving skills. I went from starving student to career woman.

So I had my interviews yesterday and they hinted that I'm going to be offered the position. So I'll be doing my same job (at least for now) and then potentially I might be asked to do projects that will be lead out there.

Am I ready to move to Colorado? Yes. The mountains, the outdoor activities, tons of biking and hiking trails, people who care about the environment, who try NOT to hit bikers and runners, a house with a garage, huge parks, open spaces. Am I ready to leave Baltimore? That is a tougher question. Really, I'm not leaving all of these memories and experiences behind. I'm bringing that stuff all with me. The things that I am leaving behind are the familiarity, the routine, my friends, my aquaintances, the Wine Underground, Volleyball House, my adventure racing team, ARMD, the Trail Snails, my coworkers (even though I'll talk to them I won't get to see them every day), the Avenue, and the eclectic interesting diverse culture of Baltimore, my house, my neighborhood, my neighbors.

2007-10-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

My first Adventure Race!

Me, Jess, and Sara before the race

Race Report:

Start of the race was we had to send one member to do a run about 1 1/2 miles out and back to get the team passport, we sent Jess b/c she is our fastest runner. She was back in no time at all, our passport was as follows: run, canoe, bike, and then special challenge section. Other teams had the courses in different orders.

What we could have done differently on the run course:

We were still getting adjusted to the scale of the map so I'm not sure I would have done anything differently but if possible I would have not missed that one trail we needed to take to get the one checkpoint that we overshot.

Transition to the canoe. We got our passport stamped, grabbed our bailer and throw bag which I then carried up the massive hill. Fast transition here. Set my watch to go off every 30 minutes so we'd remember to eat. That alarm system worked well for me.

Canoe time!

5 miles around a Lake, pretty flat water with some wind, made steering a little bit of a challenge but not too bad. We had three checkpoints here and landing the boat was a little tricky a couple times especially with other boats coming in and out.

I was in the back steering, Sara was in the middle sitting on a crate that Jason happened to have in his truck (thank you Jason!!!), Jess was in the front. We worked well together, switched when we were tired, sang songs when we started to get frustrated at how long it was taking, overall I think we did well. It was annoying to get passed by all these buff guys with super huge arm muscles. If we only had those muscles we could go just as fast! This is definitely an area we all agreed that we needed to work on. But I think I did a good job of steering, there were some other boats that were going right and left and pretty much anything but straight so I felt pretty good about how we did despite getting passed by some boats.

At the end of the canoe section there was a team challenge where we had to tell the volunteer how to measure 4 units of water from a 3 unit and a 5 unit cup. Luckily it was from a movie that Sara had seen so she got it right away!!

What could we have done differently?

Train for the boating section, I haven't canoed since June when I did 26 miles down a river with my sister and nieces. The river really helped us along but I didn't realize it at the time...

Transition from canoe to bike, we had a bit to do here in terms of making sure we had all the necessary gear. Sara and Jess took a little longer in transition, I was getting impatient but eventually we set off.

Biking time!

Bike course...we chose to do a lot of it on the roads vs the trails b/c it was faster (advice from Sean, thank you)!! The part that was on the trails was tough, the trails were technical at points with a lot of rocks and roots. My training sessions with ARMD definitely helped me. Even if they were harrowing training sessions. :)

I was the weakest here, in fact I fell once while trying to get started b/c someone was coming toward me and I was rushing and I could clip out fast enough and down I went. I got some style points from a couple guys who were watching, they said at least I was graceful. :)

We really had trouble finding one of the points here. We had seen Sean on the way to the canoe when they were coming back from the canoe and he had given us a key pointer on bike #2 which no one could find (it was in a tree). But point #6 was tough b/c it was buried in these windy trails and we kept back tracking and everyone was trying to find it and there were people biking in every direction on this tough technical single track, it made it really hazardous (that's when I fell). We finally found it and then we were off to point 7 when we found point 8 which we weren't allowed to get yet (we had to get the bike points in order). So we finally went back to the place where 7 was supposed to be and all we saw was a bunch of racers changing tires. So we figured we had to find the point first and then go and change a bike tire as a team challenge. Well we spent a good 10 minutes trying to find the point but couldn't find it and then we went back to where everyone was and found out that there wasn't an actual point, that we just needed to change the tube! Ugh. So I changed the tube in a few minutes (I've practiced this as part of tri training and I managed to impress my teammates and the volunteer who was there verifying that we actually did it). We passed a bunch of teams at that challenge.

What could we have done differently on the bike?

Ask the volunteer before looking for the non existent checkpoint!!

Transition from bike to special challenges, we dropped our bikes, helmets, and headed over to the obstacle course.

This was pretty fast b/c we were starting to run out of time at this point. We had a little over an hour left to finish everything and I wasn't sure how long all of this was going to take us.

Special Challenges Time!
Obstacle course - cargo net where we had to get a bucket of walnut fruit things and ourselves over the net - easy enough, we poured the walnuts into Jess's bag and put the bucket in my camelback and we climbed over the net in no time.

Next was this course where one person had to be tied in via a caribeener and follow the ropes around some trees and the other teammates could create slack in the rope and help guide the person by telling them to go over and under which rope, etc. etc. It was really easy, Sara was hooked in, Jess created slack, and I told Sara how to go over and under, no problem at all.

Next was the spider web where there were a bunch of ropes tied between two trees creating what looked like a spider web. The challenge was to get all three team members through without touching the ropes. Sara went through the lowest one b/c she was the shortest. Jess went through the second highest one while climbing on Sara's back and then landing on my back (Sara and I were on hands and knees on either side of the web). And then I tried a few different ways to get through a different hole (we had to go through different routes) but I was having a hard time. So after a few attempts Sara grabbed the front of me, Jess took my feet and fed me through to Sara. It worked like a charm, easy enough. I can't believe they could lift me, must have been the adrenaline!

Forth was the stretcher challenge where we had to transport a member of our team on a stretcher type thing 200 yards, down and back. We dragged her instead of lifting b/c I figured it would be easier, which it was. Jess was the "victim" and Sara and I dragged her down and back pretty easily. At one end I kinda dropped her a little too hard (I temporarily forgot it was a person that we were dragging, I was getting a little delerious at that point) but luckily she was okay.

Then we ran to the end and we were done!!!

Post Race:

Ate some food, waited for Kathy, Sean, and Jason to finish. They had finished the course in less than 4 hours so they were able to do an additional running orienteering course for some extra points. Turned out they made an error in judgement on one of the points which if they had gotten it they would have come in 2nd but since they got some other closer points they ended up placing 4th overall. They still kicked butt - they were competing against some realy tough teams. They were bummed though.

Our limiter:

Canoeing, we need stronger boating skills, stronger arms.

We were the only all female team to finish the course within the 6 hours and we had 45 minutes to spare! So I think we did exceptionally well especially since this was our first adventure race. Sara was an amazing navigator and Jess could spot those checkpoints from miles away! It was so much fun doing a race as part of a team. I like it a lot better than racing on my own. I hope to fit in one more race with them before I move to Colorado.

This was a ton of fun. I really wish I could do these types of races more often. This is totally my thing. I loved every minute of it. Requires strategy, teamwork, mental work, physical strength and endurance. What a challenge. I can't wait for the next one.

Post race:

The core ARMD group:

2007-09-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

Colorado dreaming…on such a hot summer day!!!

I’m in a holding pattern! So this past May my company asked for volunteers who were willing to move out to the Colorado office, that they were expanding our IT presence in that office. I thought about it for a couple weeks, well actually a couple days, and decided that I was interested. There were meetings held to go through relocation information and to let us know that we were going to have to interview for the positions even though we would be doing our same jobs except that we’d be living in a beautiful place with mountains, fresh air, drivers who yield to runners and cyclists, outdoorsy, down to earth people, and no grid lock! Amazing! And it turns out that they will move us completely, starting with a 5 day trip for us and our families (hmm, for me can that include my sister who lives out of town and has her own family? Wonder if I can get them to pay her expenses too, I need a second opinion on houses out there after all…) Also included is everything from animal transportation to closing costs on houses on both ends and lots of other stuff. I couldn’t ask for anything else. So starting in June/July timeframe I started to get a little antsy about when I was going to move. And the antsiness has not gone away.

I’ve had a great summer in Baltimore, I can’t complain, the middle was brutal with the whole break up during my birthday weekend and all but overall it’s been great, beach volleyball, spending time with friends. But it’s September and the building is supposed to be done in December and I want to know WHEN AM I GOING TO MOVE??? They can’t keep this information from me forever!!!

2007-08-28T04:31:00.000-07:00

My niece Veronica finished her first triathlon a couple weekends ago, the Greater Cleveland Youth Triathlon. She is 9 (age group of 7-10). The triathlon consisted of swimming 100 yards (in Lake Erie which is really choppy!), biking 3 miles, and running 1/2 mile. She did such a great job! She came in 15th out of 45 in her age group - top third! Very impressive. She was against some kids who had actual road bikes when she was on a really heavy regular kids bike (I think the thing weighs more than my bike)!!!

Check out that run time!!

Place  Swim    Tran1   Bike  Tran2  Run  Final
=================================================
15     2:56    2:05   15:36  0:41   3:37  24:53

At the start:
















On the bike:
















Starting the run:

















Almost there!
















A very tired triathlete!

2007-07-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

I'm leaning toward registering for the Odyssey Half IM Off Road XTREME duathlon in September. I had so much fun hanging out with everyone last year when I ran the 1/2 marathon and then volunteered afterward. Such a blast. I've been thinking about doing this race for years, this is the year. 8008 feet of climbing during the bike (damn, last year it was 7300) and 3094 feet of climbing for the run. Good prep for riding and running in Colorado!!

I estimate that it's going to take me about 12 hours, closer to an IM as far as time is concerned. I'm going to use BT's beginner full IM training plan. I'm not sure what combination of off road and on road biking I should do. It probably makes sense to do some technical mountain biking but it seems to me that it would make MORE sense to get really good at climbing in general whether that's on the mountain bike or on the road bike.

There are some LONG weeks of training scheduled in this plan but if I put in the time I think I'll be able to finish this race. It's going to be a very hard race and there are going to be points where I'm going to doubt that I will finish but that's the beauty of these events - pushing yourself to the limits and seeing where your limits are.

I have 8 weeks to prep for this race. Time to get serious with my training. 18 hours of training in one week - do I even have that much free time? Yikes. That will mean two training sessions per day. Maybe I can get in some bike training by bike commuting to work again.

Won't it be fun to be in the best shape of my life at 31??

2007-07-19T06:17:00.001-07:00

On a mission to reach 142! Weight loss challenge through BT, my goal is to lose 6 pounds by September 20th. That date is the goal b/c I'm considering doing an off road half Ironman (which I estimate will take me around 12 hours to complete so it's really more of an Ironman type race) September 22nd so the less weight I have to carry around the better. Start weight: 148, Weight last weigh in: 147, Goal weight: 142 (of course anything less than that would be fine too)!

Rough day eating-wise yesterday. I've been so good for the past 2 weeks. Yesterday I was just HUNGRY. I couldn't seem to not be hungry all day. For lunch I had a spinach salad with fruit but it didn't have any protein. So I munched the rest of the afternoon to stave off major hunger. But I was still starved when I got home so I cooked some Indian Stew (lentils with veggies). Then I headed out for a glass of wine with Len and Mike. So far not too bad. But no time for exercise which I'm starting to feel guilty about. Then we went to Cold Stone! Not good. But after that I finally felt full! And happy. :)

Today's eating and exercise plan:
Breakfast (6:30) - corn puff cereal from Whole Foods (no sugar, fat, very few calories) with 1% milk, coffee with 2/3 caffeine
Snack (9:30) - peach
Lunch (11:30) - leftover stew
Snack (2:30) - banana, protein bar
Dinner (5:30) - eggs, bagel
Biking and Beach Vball! (water, Hydroboom to drink, protein bar if I start to feel weak)
Snack (10:30) - plain yogurt with jam

I love Thursdays! Beach vball tonight and then vball tomorrow night! And then the weekend! The plan is to try to ride up Jerome Jay on Sunday AM. Over 300 feet of climbing in less than 1 mile. Maybe I'll try to do it twice!!!

2007-07-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

More streams of consciousness...

Yet another break up, this one tougher than the last. No info from his side whatsoever, I have absolutely no idea what I did or didn't do, he just seemed to lose interest. Boys are bad, cause me to expend way too much emotional energy, and I have had little success so far. The plan is to stay away from them for now, too much hassle.

Triathlon (or rather Duathlon) Racing news:
Race Report from the EXTERRA EX2 Off Road Duathlon from Sunday!! A ton of fun and now I'm ready to do another one.

Vball news:
Last night was vball, we kicked some serious butt, played the lowest ranked team and creamed them all three games. It kinda sucked b/c we berely rallied at all. I got in some super hard hits b/c Jenna and BA are awesome setters!! My power was ON!!! That's what a week and a half off can do! Kinda like volleyball tapering??

My Current State of Mind:
This song is going through my head, hmm, time to figure out why so it might go away.

Reluctantly crouched at the starting line, (man, I used to be nervous when I was in the blocks before one of my sprinting races in middle school track)
Engines pumping and thumping in time.
The green light flashes, the flags goes up,
Churning and burning, they yern for the cup.

They deftly manouver and muscle for rank,
Fuel burning fast on an empty tank,
Wreckless and wild they pour thru the turns,
Their prowless is podent and secretly stern.

As they speed thru the finish the flags go down.
The fans get up, and get out of town.
The arena is empty except for one man,
Still driving and striving as fast as he can

The sun has gone down and the moon has come up,
And long ago somebody left with the cup,
But he's driving and striving and hugging the turns,
And thinking of someone for whom he still burns.

He's going the distance (note: I always sing this as SHE)
He's going for speed. (note: I always sing this as SHE)
She's all alone, all alone in her time of need.

Because he's racing and pacing and plotting the course,
He's fighting and biting and riding on his horse.
He's going the distance.

My analysis:
Definitely racing related, beginning of a competition, lots of energy, nervousness. Long distance racing. When's my next race? I seem to live for these races. Maybe I'll do one of these Cranky Monkeys, same goals, stay out of the way and try not to get injured!!! I can't sit in this chair at work anymore. I need to burn some energy!! I still have a small hamstring injury from the race so I shouldn't do anything tonight but I need to, need to burn some energy! Hmm, what can I do tonight? Something not hamstring intensive. Maybe some biking. Very light biking. How about some road biking?

This nervous energy definitely stems from the fact that I AM MOVING TO COLORADO. There. I said it. IN CAPS. I'm really doing this. I can't wait. I want to go now. Starting anew. New house, new people, new friends, new parks, mountains to explore!!! So much new to explore!

I might have had too much caffeine this morning. Or I've developed ADD. I'm all over the place. I'm also HUNGRY b/c I'm participating in this weight loss challenge (lost 1 already, 5 more to go before September 22nd). Despite this all over the place frame of mind, I really AM moving to Colorado. Same job, just a new location.

I'm glad I have this song in my head as opposed to the "I bought on Ebay song" set to the tune of "Ain't Nothing but a Mistake" song by the Backstreet Boys, damn, that song is addictive. Listen to it on youtube, you'll see what I mean.

2007-02-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

My horoscope for today:
You may appear uncertain about your long-term plans now, but that's because your words are not telling the entire story. You probably know exactly how you feel, yet cannot easily express it to others. Don't waste too much energy trying to convince anyone else that you aren't floundering. If they don't understand, just come back to the discussion later.

This is certainly the case. A stream of consciousness about my current long-term conundrum:
I am having somewhat of a one-third life crisis, 30 years old, never been married, never been in a relationship that has lasted more than a year and a half. I don't think my life is going to take the traditional route. I don't even know if marriage and kids and all that acceptable stuff is what I really want. What do I want? Last night I went out with Len and Mike and drank a lot (3 drinks which is a lot for me) and even had a couple drags from one of Len's cigarettes! We talked about starting a Zen Monastery in Alaska. And traveling and living life to its fullest. Living like a homeless person, selling all earthly possessions for money. Going to school. Changing careers. Drinking a lot of wine. Playing volleyball. Swimming. I miss being spontaneous like I was in college, I wanted to stay up all night and do crazy things like swimming in the fountain at Rice, doing tai chi in the park, and falling backwards into the bushes to see how strong they were (who put me and Daniel up to that anyway, must have been Anandi). The past always looks so good in retrospect. I know it's not as good as I built it up in my mind. Len says I just need a boyfriend and that will all go away. Maybe it's true. I feel like there is some big change that's about to happen in my life but I don't know what it's going to be. Something like I might just up and move to Costa Rica. Or join the Peace Corps. I just want to feel alive. Why do I want to leave my current life? I really am happy where I am. How do I find the root cause of my restlessness and discontent? I'm not really all that discontent. I have a great life, I have a ton of fun and I have a lot of friends who I like to hang out with. But something is not quite right. I don't feel alive inside sometimes, like I'm a robot, especially at work. My days just go by one by one, week by week. I need to play more. How come only kids get play time? I want to just play. This adult life stuff is too serious. So if my horoscope is correct none of this will make sense to anyone else. It all makes sense in my head though. But I have no idea what direction I'm going to take. Until then I'll keep devising future plans in my head that may or may not actually happen.

2007-02-02T14:08:00.000-08:00

Masters Swimming saga
This is pretty much what everyone else at my Masters Swimming class looks like. The muscles and bodies of these people are amazing, the women included. I am in awe. Definitely gives me more motivation to lose that 9 pounds!

So here's the story of my masters swimming experiences this week. What is difficult will only make me stronger, this is my mantra as of late. It all started when I woke up Monday morning and realized that my cat Dorrie decided to eat my swim goggles on Sunday night (she retrieved them from INSIDE of my workout bag and proceeded to chew through the strap - BAD KITTY!!!) so Masters Swimming was out for Monday morning. I decided to go on Tuesday instead which is a swim workout geared specifically to triathletes. I figured, oh good, there might be some other beginner triathletes that will be there tht I can swim with. UM NOPE! I was the only one in the beginner lane that morning. Ugh. And that happened to be the morning that the coach wrote up the workout and it was completely undecipherable. All the other masters classes I had been to had been understandable b/c I had people in my lane to ask (what the heck is an IM? What does it mean 400 IM swim, drill, kick, swim, how do I kick from the other side of the pool when I don't have a kickboard, etc. etc.) So given all I had learned in my other non-triathlete based masters sessions I thought I'd be okay at the triathlete one (that just means all freestyle, no IMs and fly and all thadt craziness). Everyone else had their paddles and pull buoys going and they were swimming away, no one else was hanging onto the wall (for dear life in my case) just staring at the board trying to make sense of all the numbers and the labels. The coach was nowhere to be found. And he is intimidating as hell anyway so I didn't really want to ask all that much. He only talks to the fast swimmers, correcting their strokes and telling them to rest or not to rest and what to try. So I do a lot of laps of freestyle and then he comes back and erases one of the boards (the one that I thought we were supposed to use). I looked at the other board and start to understand it and then finally I get into the workout. I seriously thought about just getting out of the pool and leaving, I was so discouraged, everyone else had a bunch of people in their lanes so I guess I just felt lonely and neglected. Though wasn't that the whole reason I left the Y? I wanted to be with more serious swimmers and not have to deal with kids standing in my lane, the lane randomly closing, etc. etc. So I decided to suck it up and finish the workout. I'm glad I did. All this stuff just makes me stronger, RIGHT??

I went again this morning to a normal masters and my usual lane buddies were back which I was very thankful for. They lap me once every 5 laps which also gets VERY discouraging (as I'm completely gasping for breath and holding onto the wall and they finish the set just sort of out of breath) but at least they were there. And they were nice to me. But then I looked over to the next lane over and realized that is the next step after the beginner lane and I noticed that every single swimmer in that lane was doing the fly. Which means if I EVER want to move up I am going to have to learn how to do the fly! And do it FAST!!!

2007-01-29T07:14:00.000-08:00

My new weight loss ticker! I'm determined to lose 9 pounds by May 6th, the date of my first half ironman triathlon. I will use this ticker to update my progress.

I've officially started my half IM training program. It's been slightly discouraging in that I remember how much faster I used to be able to run and bike and swim. I'm kind of starting from scratch, retraining my body to work efficiently again. I'm not used to being sore after a 75 minute run but my body just isn't used to it!

I have finally started swimming with a masters group at Meadowbrook in Mt. Washington. Though it's intimidating and I am by far the slowest swimmer in the pool (this is the pool where Michael Phelps and other olympic hopefuls swim), it does give me some serious motivation to work my butt off and get better.

Today I had planned to go to master's swimming but when I woke up I noticed that my cat had yet again chewed through my goggle straps. ARGH!!!! I was not happy. I had already repaired them from the last time she chewed through them but this time a repair was not an option. I had even hidden them in my gym bag but she still was able to retrieve them and chew them up - that cat is evil!!! So I ran on the treadmill instead, it was way too freaking cold to run outside, windchills were in the 20s. Brrr!!!

So my workout plan for tomorrow is going to have to be adjusted, masters swimming in the morning, then spin class in the evening followed by a 30 minute run. Yikes, it's gonna be a LONG day!!

2006-12-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

Adventures in DC!
The night started out with me making a VERY BAD assumption that I could park near Dupont Circle on a weeknight. This is not possible. So after I drove around for the better part of 30 minutes looking for a spot I finally gave up and parked in a parking garage. I was the only non "official government" vehicle but I tried not to worry too much about it. But I was having thoughts that I was going to witness some kind of CIA killing like in alias, the parking garage reminded me of the one from that show. Next I got in the elevators and went to the "mall level" - guessing there must be a way out to the street from the mall. I walked around a bunch but couldn't find any doors and there weren't any windows so I could look out to see if I was on street level. Next I tried to ask a guy who was cleaning who ran away and disappeared in the men's bathroom, argh! I ventured up a set of escalators that was stopped for the evening (that always is weird) and tried to get out some revolving doors at the top but no luck. I was really starting to feel trapped!!! Well, I know I can get out the way that I drove in. So I take the elevator back down to my car, figuring I can get out where I drove in. When I got off where my car was there was another fellow parker and I asked him but he didn't know how to get out either. He told me to follow him and since it was my only option I went along with it. He showed me some new doors that I hadn't seen before and I was out! Now I had to remember where this door was so I can get back in!! I took note of my surroundings and started to walk toward Greg's hotel.

So then I found Greg, we had a nice dinner at Levante's. It's a mediterreanean place, we ordered a bottle of wine (half price on weeknights - nice!) and ordered some baba gnoush for an appetizer which was really yummy, very garlicky, mmmm!!! We chatted for a long time and then headed back to his hotel. He showed me pictures from his trip to China (I want to go now!) and then I headed out. I walked for a while but couldn't find the garage, nothing was looking familiar. So I turned around and retraced my steps looking for the large M that I had seen on my way to his hotel. 20 minutes later (and as I'm walking I'm noticing that a lot of the garages were already closed, the big silver metal doors had come down so there was no access to get out). I start to have this sinking feeling that my night was just beginning. I finally started to recognize my surroundings and managed to find the secret door again! I was celebrating just finding the door! But I tried it and no luck, it was locked. I tried a bunch of other doors and they were all locked (as they had been earlier so no shock there). My next option was to walk in where I parked. But when I got to the door where I had entered the door was shut, the parking garage was completely sealed off. I started to freak out a little bit and then I called Greg, but his cell phone was off. Then I just stood there for a while looking at the sign just dumbfounded, reading the sign over and over again. "Hours: M-Th 8 AM - 9 PM. You will not be able to access your car outside of parking garage hours. You will be able to access it on the next business day morning." Which for me would be 8 AM tomorrow morning. It was 11:10 and I had almost 9 hours to kill. I left Greg a message and I just stared in amazement at the closed door. I glanced across the street and noticed that the garage across the street was still open. If I had just turned right instead of left then I would be able to get my car and drive home tonight. So then I started considering my options, go back to Greg's hotel and sleep on the floor (meanwhile I know he has to work on his big presentation for the next morning), try to take a train back to Baltimore (but then how and when would I get back to get my car), or get my own hotel room (Greg said his discounted rate at his hotel was $225 so my rate would probably be closer to $300 - ouch). None of these options seem appealing. So I continue to stare at the closed door.

So just as I'm about to give up hope, the door magically opens! Like I had willed it open with all my staring!! I walk toward the door and ask the person in the car if there's any way that I can get my car out of the garage tonight. I expected her to say no but then she surprised me by saying that the garage was 24 hours, that I could get out through another entrance. (What about that sign, I'm thinking????) So she leads me to the other exit and I pay the other cashier and use the card to open the garage door to get my car out. I am free!!!! I was so excited. I drove for a while, following signs for 495, all the while looking at my gas gauge, the light had been on for about 20 miles, and the little indicator was below empty. I needed a gas station with diesel at 11:30 on a Wednesday night. Someone had to be open until midnight! I passed a bunch of closed stations and finally got to 495 and got on. I exited at Wisconsin and headed toward the city. Nothing, it was dark, passed the NIH and some other large facilities, but no gas stations. I thought about pulling over and walking to the gas station, I was so afraid of running out of gas. This would have been somewhat dangerous and would have taken a really long time. Who knows how close a station was. So I kept driving and I get to Bethesda, this is promising. I pass two open gas stations, neither of which had diesel. I keep driving. I finally see a station, no sign for diesel but I need to at least pull over and ask. So I pulled over and what do I see but a diesel pump!!!! Yay!! Thankfully after all of that I managed to drive home without incident.

2006-10-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Weekend adventures:
Saturday I'm going to see Flugtag down at the Inner Harbor, sounds like it will be interesting! The thought of swimming in the Inner Harbor is downright scary - I give all the "drivers/pilots/swimmers" major credit.

Sunday I signed up to volunteer for Buff Betty. I have to be there at 7:00 and it's an hour and a half drive so I need to leave at 5:30 which means up at 4:30 - why do I do this to myself? I seem to have this compulsive need to fill up my time with activities. I really should be working on the house or just resting. Oh well, it will be nice to be outside and I'm sure it will be a fun day (once I'm awake). I think I'll bring the camp stove and the stovetop espresso maker in case of caffeine emergencies! :)

For the first weekend in a month I am not going to be working! We are doing a simulated disaster recovery in our testing region so everything will be down for most of the weekend - this is such good news!

2006-09-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

My life is being invaded!!!!!!!! What the heck did I do to deserve all this stuff all at once? Ever since Jeff and I got back from our trip to the mountains in Virginia the house has been CRAWLING with ants. Ants like I have never seen before. Lines of ants marching around my kitchen like they owned the place. Ants swarming around my cats' food dishes. Ants in the cupboards all over my baking stuff. Ants on the coffee maker. Ants covering the white carpet making it look like a black flowing river. Jeff and I have launched an all out ant WAR. We've determined how the first set was getting and and sprayed profusely. We thought they might have been getting in near this old unused pipe going into the house so we removed the pipe and mortared over the hole. We sprayed in the kitchen, sprayed in the cabinets. Went through 2 bottles of spray in less than 2 weeks. So I called in the professionals, it's going to cost over $500 to get rid of them, they have to bait and then come back several times after that.

AND someone has hacked into my ebay account. I now get phone calls every couple of days where people start to ask me when I'm going to pay for some electronic device that I have supposedly purchased. Apparently I have purchased a camera, a laptop, and a cell phone in the last three days and I am requesting that the selling member send them via Global Express to Singapore!!! The best part is that I received positive feedback on my camera purchase!!! Isn't that lovely? And all the members who call me have all of my personal information. So not only do the hackers have all my info but the more they bid the more people get to see all of my personal information. So I go to the ebay site thinking I'm pretty computer savvy and I go to try to find their phone number. Nope, no phone number, only an online form to fill out where they may respond in 24-48 hours (note the hedge of "MAY" - should read "WILL PROBABLY NOT"). So I submitted the form two days ago and no response. So tonight I go back to the site determined to find the phone number. No phone number. I was just about ready to start composing letters to the BBB and their CEO when I decide to google for their phone number. I find numerous articles and blogs talking about how ebay has no phone number posted on their site but here is the secret phone number. So I think - ooh, I'm good, I've got their secret phone number! So I call the number and it says press 2 for customer service and I think, oh good, I'm almost to a live person who can help me, when I get a message that says, please go to ebay.com and click live help and the system has the nerve to HANG UP ON ME!!!!! So chat is the only option that they have to contact them. This is not my preferred method of communication. So I wait my turn in a queue of 45 people, about an 8 minute wait, and "chat" with a rep who then says I have to link to another chat. I ask her what the heck that means and she explains that I have to "chat" with another representative. I was being chat transferred!!!!!!!!! I click on the new chat link and it says average wait 15 minutes!!!!! I have to wait again and I still can't even speak to a live human. I am still writing their CEO. This sucks. You don't even get to hear that hold music when you're phone transferred. I guess I'm just old fashioned. Anyway, now that I've gotten the exterminator to get rid of the ants I'm now determined to offload this Singaporian hacker who is posing as me.

So I chat with the new chat rep and he says he's going to email me with instructions on how to change my password and all that good stuff. I wait for 20 minutes and NOTHING. But now the chat is disconnected and I closed the other chat so I no longer have the link to the chat that I really need. Oh my goodness is this frustrating. Back at square 1. I'm going to go through the whole process again. 39 minutes to wait for the next chat rep. I'm writing to the CEO. This is RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-09-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

This is just not my day, it keeps getting worse!!!!!!!!!! I get home and my phone rings, oh God, not another politician trying to get me to vote for them in the primary. Oh wait, the primary was last week so that couldn't be it. They're starting to call already for the November election! Oh no, not already!!!! So I answer, reluctantly, and it's someone who is asking me if I'm still interested in purchasing her husband's laptop. My first reaction is WHAT????? I think you have the wrong person. And then she read back my full name, address, and ebay username and says that it looks like someone from my account bid on laptop. Yikes. That is just plain SCARY!!!!!!!!!! She said that she got an email from ME asking if she could send the laptop to Singapore via Global Express. And that she tried to email me. But I didn't get the email so they must have changed my email address too! Great. This is lovely. So I try to log into my ebay account and find that someone has changed my password. Apparently I am no longer me anymore, this just feels so wrong.

And then I go to feed the cats and I see that my recent efforts to rid my house of ants have not altogether been successful, there are ants crawling all over the cat food again! Ugh. So I have to go and do ant battle yet again, getting out the flashlight and spraying all over the back porch in the usual places where they try to get in. We've gone through two bottles of ant spray in the past week, I think it's time to call the exterminator.

I'm going to bed!!!! I want this day to be over!!!! NOW!!!

2006-09-19T06:16:00.000-07:00

On the flip side, I seem to be having the less than ideal day today:
12:00 AM Tossing and turning, no sleep after reading about Jami Goldman's entrapment in a Chevy Blazer for 11 days in below zero temps...wondering if I would have reacted differently, would have remembered that the car had spun around so I would have known how to retrace my steps? Would I have stopped driving earlier? The story really haunts me, mainly because I could see it happening to me, to anyone really. It was just bad luck, the road happened to close for the winter hours after she started driving up it. So scary.

2:45 AM Still tossing and turning, thinking about the little boy on his snowmobile telling his father that they needed to go back and take a closer look at the red Blazer the next day, that there was something wrong, that little kid saved their lives, amazing how kids just know stuff

3:45 AM Wondering if this night will ever end, wondering if the kid would have been scarred for life if he had looked into the Blazer and seen two dead people

5 AM Cats end up in our room early in the morning (ran in after Jeff went to the bathroom), they start scratching at the box spring, I knew I was going to have to put them in the basement if I wanted to get at least an hour of sleep.
I grab one under one arm, spot the other one on the landing at the top of the stairs, sit down on the landing, grab her under the other arm, go to stand up and end up thumping down the stairs on my butt, boom, boom, boom. One cat goes flying, the other one I manage to hold onto. Jeff gets up to make sure I'm okay and we get the other cat down in the basement.

5:10 AM Back to bed. Sleepless.

6 AM Alarm goes off. I fall asleep. Alarm goes off again, snooze. I fall asleep again. Alarm goes off again, snooze. Repeat.

6:30 AM Up, feed cats, go to eat my cereal and realize that the milk has gone bad.

6:45 AM Then I hear this familiar rhythmic gagging sound. Cody proceeds to throws up right next to me. And then he starts to eat it. EEEEWWWW. Cleaned that up.

7:00 AM We're out of ground coffee so I grind more. I pour the coffee into my travel mug. I grab my three bags (lunch bag, purse, and gym bag) and keys and head out the door.

7:20 AM While I'm driving I reach down to grab my coffee mug from its cup holder and nothing is there. I had forgotten my coffee!!!!!!!!!!

7:40 AM Stopped at the Flying Avocado for some good coffee

7:45 AM Arrived at work in one piece with coffee!!!!!!!!! I'm determined to turn this into a good day somehow!!

2006-09-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

I think I just lived my ideal day!!! I took a quiz a while back that was supposed to help you to understand what type of career would best suit you. One of the quiz questions was "Write about your ideal day." I'm thinking back on my answer and I know it included: 1. coffee, 2. friends and family, 3. Saturday programming on NPR - Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, 4. good food, 5. sleep, and 6. being outside, preferably in the mountains

I think that pretty much sums up my day. First of all I slept in until 9:45!!!!! This is VERY VERY late for me. I didn't think I was capable of sleeping in that late anymore. But I managed it because I had the foresight to put the cats down in the basement the night before. Aaaahhh, that was so nice. And then Jeff and I read the paper, listened to NPR, drank coffee, and ate breakfast. Then Jeff went to work and I went mountain biking at Loch Raven. I'm driving over there and it starts raining and when I arrive there was only one other car - yay! I'll be the only one on the trails! This is excellent because that means I don't have to worry about being in people's way or pulling over to let people by. So I start off on the trail, conditions were wet, the trail was pretty technical (at least by my standards), lots of rocks, roots, stream crossings, mud, etc. But I didn't care! I just took my time, pushed myself when I felt like it, and got off and walked when I felt like it. I saw what looked to be a baby snake, beautiful black with yellow markings. I was so glad I hadn't run it over. And I saw lots of birds and a total of 9 deer, some of them were within 10 yards of where I was standing. Beautiful and graceful animals, I watched them as they bounded up steep cliffs effortlessly. And I listened to the birds singing and all the other woods sounds. After my ride, I drove home, washed off my bike, ate some lunch, lifted weights, and then promptly fell asleep on the floor!

Let the ideal day continue! A few friends are stopping by in a couple hours so I'm off to the liquor store to stock up on their favorite drinks!

2006-09-03T16:30:00.000-07:00

Home improvement and cats don't mix! For some reason, I told the painting estimator guy NOT to paint the trim on my house (I think I felt like I should at least do SOME of it). So now I have this beautiful stucco paint surrounding really really ugly doors, windows, pillars, wrought iron fence, and the list goes on. In any case, I am now inspired to get some of this stuff done (finally). So this weekend I started on the back porch.

Ugly window (note the fresh beautiful white paint surrounding it):

Closeup of ugly window:

This window required several HOURS of scraping, sanding, washing, and applying joint compound. That was yesterday.

Today I sanded again and washed AGAIN. And then applied two coats of primer.

My Helpers!

Dorrie wanted to be a part of the action, anything mom does she wants to do too.

Codie preferred to stay inside and lick the laundry basket. Yummy!

So Dorrie decides that it would be a good idea to jump up on the windowsill right into the wet paint!!! Instead of letting her jump back into the house side, I frantically pull her through the window and she jumps down to the ground. In the process of me pulling her through the wet paint her entire underside, paws, and tail become COVERED in paint.

So what do I do now? Ugh. I call Jeff and he tells me to put the cone on her so she wouldn't lick the paint. I do that and then I try to get the paint off with a wet washcloth. Nope, no luck. Next I take her into the bathroom, put her in the bathtub and start washing her with some shampoo, she is completely soaked and she starts attacking me with the cone on. It was pathetic, she couldn't attack really but somehow it scared me sufficiently to give up on getting the paint off (even with soap it just wasn't coming off). So I wrapped her up in a towel (kitty cat burrito) and let her dry off in the bathroom for a little while. She is trying frantically to lick where the paint is without too much luck. So she starts to hobble around knocking her cone on everything in sight and just feeling sorry for herself. I let Codie in and he instantly starts licking her. Uh oh. She can't lick but the superlicker will lick forever! He LOVES to lick her. So I put Codie outside and put Dorrie in the basement (there's something about paint on her underside and the oriental rug in the living room, I just couldn't let that happen, not yet at least).

After that debacle I finished another coat of primer while Dorrie wandered around outside. When I was convinced the paint was really dry I let her back inside and gave her free reign again, worried like crazy that if she licks too much she'll be puking on the oriental rug instead. Ugh. So far so good though, she is exhausted from her adventure and is currently passed out on the chair next to me.

Isn't it pretty now? A lot of white, I know, tomorrow I need to go and pick a trim color. I'm thinking blue of some sort.

More "before" pictures of the back porch - this is the ugly back door. Do you paint your door the same color as the trim stuff or does it stay white?

My pillars are really just "shabby shiek"! :)

Ugly pillar with nice newly painted downspout, quite a contrast. I have quite a bit of scraping and sanding in my future.

2006-08-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

I come from a do it yourself family. When I was living with my parents when I was little we never called in contractors, painters, plumbers, or electricians - my parents did it all! My dad would fix plumbing and electrical problems and my mom would paint and help my dad with all kinds of household projects. My mom learned how to do all the plumbing and electrical stuff along the way and now she is as good as my dad is! So when I bought my new house I knew I was going to need to learn alot. My parents were 360 miles away and I was going to have to deal with the problems MYSELF as they came up - this was scary! I didn't even consider that I could HIRE someone to help me with problems.

So a couple years into owning my house (and after many phone calls to my parents for assistance with problems) my mom decided that I needed to renovate my kitchen. I think it was mainly an excuse to spend more time with me but I think another big reason was that she really wanted to teach me how to be self reliant and teach me that I could fix stuff around the house myself without needing anyone else's help. So she and my dad came out every other weekend to work on the kitchen. She drew up elaborate project plans, drawings, timelines, and slowly the kitchen evolved. And along the way I learned a ton.

Since then I've been tackling plumbing problems, small electrical projects, and cabinet installation ALL by myself!! So far I've been pretty successful. I almost feel like I don't have the option to hire a professional. BUT this self reliance and the fact that I have a full time job and lots of other things going on I put off projects knowing that I can do them myself and that I don't NEED to hire someone to do it.

My house has needed to be painted for a while. The paint had started to peel and it was an ugly dingy white. I kept thinking, I just need to rent a sprayer from home depot, rent a really long ladder, and then get up there and DO IT. Time went by. More time went by. It still wasn't done. The house was still dingy white. I had to come home to a dingy white house. I didn't like this. One day I decide to get a quote from a contractor, it's expensive but really not that bad. And I had the money. So I decided to go through with it. This was a BIG STEP for me because it meant that I was not going to do it myself and there was some potential that my parents would find out and be disappointed in me. A few months later the painting company calls me and say they'll be there tomorrow to do the job. They arrived on Tuesday morning at 8:00, just when they said they would and painted my house a bright and shiny white! I came home from work, and it was DONE!!!!!! It was almost like MAGIC (except that I know how much work it really is, that is hard work)!! I didn't have to lift a finger, except long enough to write out the check. Every day I come home from work I appreciate my bright white house and how pretty it looks and I am glad that I finally hired someone to do it. It was worth every penny! And I'm not even feeling guilty about not doing it myself! I'm just so glad that it's done.

2006-08-28T04:59:00.000-07:00

IronGirl Columbia Triathlon Race Report!
Triathlon - Sprint (.62 mi swim, 17.5 mi bike, 3.3 mi run)
Total Time = 2h 2m 57s
Overall Rank = 312/1249
Age Group = 30-34
Age Group Rank = 50/203

Pre-race routine:
Up bright and early, had my usual breakfast of coffee and granola, drove to the race where my bike was already set up. Set up transition area and decided to head over to the start to check out the swim course and watch the pros start (my wave didn't start for another hour after that).

Event warmup:
The plan was to watch the pros and then head back to the transition area, warm up a bit, drink my Accelerade, and then head back to the start (which wasn't exactly close, maybe a 10 minute walk). But then they announced that they were closing the transition area in 10 minutes (I was way by the start when I heard that!) So change of plans, I walked really fast back to transition, got my car keys, ran to the car to get another bag, ran back to the transition area, grabbed the stuff that I was going to need for the swim, and then headed back to the start! Too bad I did all this warming up an hour before my swim wave! :) Headed back to the start to watch the other waves.

So I was standing near the shore watching the swimmers when this one older woman starts yelling from the water "I need help, I need help" and there were a bunch of us standing there but all of us kind of froze. I thought she was just going to need help getting onto shore but that she could make it to the shore (it was close) but no, she meant IMMEDIATELY! So one of the other spectators jumped in the water and got her up. She just looked totally exhausted. I felt bad that I had just frozen and not helped. But at least she was okay, that was really surprising.

Swim Ranking –
Age Group: 121/203
Overall: 764/1249
Ave Pace: 2:11 min/100 yards

Swim Comments:
Started off fine and was able to draft a bit but then I kept swimming RIGHT, I kept doing that the entire time. So I would keep running into people or people would keep running into me. Finally I settled down a bit and I was doing fine and then I realized that no one was around me! Ugh! So no drafting opportunities really. I don't know if I was really that slow or if I was just way off to the right since I kept swimming right. Based on the age group rank it looks like I was really SLOW! Wow, I guess I know what I need to work on! :)

What would you do differently?:
More open water swims! Figure out why I keep pulling right.

T1 Comments:
Good fast transition, much faster than if I had been wearing a wetsuit! 4th place in my age group for this transition time!!!

What would you do differently?:
Nothing!

Biking Ranking –
Age Group: 43/203
Overall: 309/1249
Ave Pace: 16.48 mi/hr

Bike Course:
Course had some good hills but all my training on Jerome Jay really helped, they were WAY EASIER than Jerome Jay so it really didn't seem too bad. I really pushed like crazy on the bike, I figured why not really try to go as fast as I can, isn't that the point? :) I did some standing climbs, just like I've been practicing when I'm out with Jeff, that seems to help keep my heart rate down on the hills a little so I can recover quicker.

Bike Comments:
At one point I'm cruising along and I hear a click and then I hear myself running over something! I was a little concerned about a flat and then someone said to me, you just lost something off your bike, something black and plastic. So I start looking down trying to figure out what it was. We come to a hill and I'm changing gears and still trying to figure out what I had lost and I dropped my chain. So I pulled over, put my chain back on and took off again. I look down again and I start going through in my head all the things I should have on my bike and I realize that I lost my left aerobar arm rest! It was too late to go back at that point so I just said forget it and kept going. I caught the girl that told me and I told her what it was and thanked her. The pin had come out of it completely. So all my aero position riding from there on out was with my left arm on my handlebars! It was pretty funny.

Then I saw someone crash when going around one of the corners, she had taken it too wide and didn't realize that there were cars waiting in a line to go the other direction! Luckily she didn't collide with the car so it was okay. Definitely an eventful ride!

What would you do differently?:
Fix my aerobar armrest! Not freak out and drop my chain! Other than that, nothing, my deraillers worked perfectly and everything else went pretty well!

T2 Comments:
Pretty good transition, was debating wearing my visor but since it was mainly overcast I decided against it. Took longer than my first transition b/c I put socks on.

Run Ranking –
Age Group: 53/203
Overall: 310/1249
Ave Pace: 9:24 min/mi

Run Comments:
Run went pretty well, every time I saw someone in my age group I kept trying to pass them. At the end I really sprinted in because there were two people in my age group right in front of me and I finished right in front of them! Normally I'm just trying to get through my races but today I felt like I could really push and be competitive, it was fun! I had NOTHING left at the end, my whole body was exhausted, muscularly and cardio-vascularly. It was nice to know that I had given my all. Oh, and my new Zoot tri top worked spectacularly!!!! No riding up, no chafing, very comfortable!

What would you do differently?:
Eat one gel, I never took the time to do that, I probably should have, I think it would have helped. Since I pushed on the bike I didn't have as much left for the run, usually I do much better in the run than the bike!

Warm down:
Drank lots of water, found the food this time (last time I raced a CTA race at Centennial I could not find the food), ate a bagel and a popsicle and then headed down to cheer on people coming in. It was cool because a mom and daughter pair came through, the mom was 57, the daughter 28, they looked like they had a lot of fun.

What limited your ability to perform faster:
Climbing muscles! My weakest event is still the bike, I need to keep getting out there and climbing Jerome Jay, and I need to start lifting weights again, I think all of that will help. Cardio vascularly I was okay, though by the end of the run I was really starting to breathe hard!

Event comments:
I was a little bummed that my dad decided to stay home and not come to the race with me, it would have been fun to have him there to hang out with. Oh well. I ended up really enjoying the race anyway, loved the fact that it was all women, everyone was very encouraging and helped each other out. One of the run drink stations was manned with "macho men" - they were in crazy costumes and stuff, it was funny. Lots of cool giveaways too, race metal had a pink band and the metal itself was the pink irongirl flower, a keychain with the irongirl logo on it, water bottle, energy bars, gels, etc. And the race shirt was nice, fits perfectly, you can tell it is designed for women. I can't wait for my next tri!

2006-08-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

The ongoing NO WETSUIT TRIATHLON apparel saga! Thanks for all your support, despite losing some weight and being healthier I still carry around a horrible body image!

After one quick stop at tri-speed, the local triathlon store, my trigear issues have been solved! I venture into the store with some hesitation, it's not my favorite place, (I think it's b/c the people that work there are all super skinny super athletes, something tells me that none of them have had to worry about things riding up or wearing multiple bras that can cut off lung capacity, etc, etc). So I walk in and they greet me and ask me what I'm looking for, etc. I tell them I'm looking for a tri suit and they show me the racks. Well, it turns out they only have extra small in the full tri suit. I'm guessing most people who are extra large do not purchase full tri suits. Okay, I get it. So change of gears. I'm going to have to settle for a tri top but the one I get MUST be LONG (avoid the riding up) and it must not be tight (no rolls) but it can't be loose (too much drag on the swim), oh and it has to be pretty (asthetics are important)! This is quite a tall order. So I go through the racks and look for the largest possible tops, grab four, and head to the fitting room (or in this case, the bathroom). The first one looks horrendous (shocker, white with stripes, worst possible combination for me), the second one looks okay (royal with white panels on the sides), the third one is WAY too short, and the forth one looks okay (turquoise, really pretty color). After I put each one on I start running and jumping in place to see if the thing is going to ride up (good thing it was a bathroom and not one of those fitting rooms where they can see your feet). The second and the forth both fit the bill. And I notice that the second one is 50% off - bonus! Decision made. And for a heck of a lot less money than I thought it was going to be! $30 instead of $95 for a full tri suit! I'm going to wear it for all my upcoming races, it has pockets on the sides for gels and it fits great even with a second bra underneath! I'm ready for IRONGIRL!!!!!

Lizard's New Tri Top:

2006-08-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

I am having major pre-race no wetsuits allowed anxiety!!!!!! I found out that my next triathlon will not allow wetsuits because the water is going to be too warm. For all of us triathletes that do not have perfect bodies, this is cause for some major anxiety.

Some background here on the triathlons that allow wetsuits... So normally I would only have to bare my midsection and sports bra for a brief moment in the transition area in T1 right after I have frantically and ungracefully peeled my wetsuit off. This process of peeling off the wetsuit is always well, awkward would be an understatement. This requires a lot of pulling, grabbing, twisting, bending, jumping on one foot, and sometimes ends in me on the ground. So I've already made a fool of myself before I expose my neon white midsection that has never seen the sun. Anyone still looking at this point would need to avert their eyes to avoid being blinded. But at this point I'm normally just so glad I got the wetsuit off without knocking over the entire rack of bikes that I forget about the fact that I am standing almost naked. In front of a lot of people. But usually my embarrassment is pretty low because well, I am in the middle of a race, I am focused on getting all of my bike stuff on. Plus, who is really watching the people in the transition area anyway? All the elites have gone by so everyone is watching the racers still coming in from the swim running from the water to the transition area and cheering on the bikers starting out the bike leg.

So this brings me to the main issue: what to do about the NO WETSUIT triathlon.

Concerns:
1. Must show belly before swim wave starts
2. Possibility that bra will unclasp during swim. It has 15 clasps so the possibility that ALL 15 come unclasped is unlikely but oh my goodness would it be embarrassing if my bra came off.
3. Must show belly as I run from water to the transition area (all eyes on me), YIKES!!!!!! Belly fat flying.

Two options:
1. Go with the sports bra and bike shorts and add the shirt in T1 (Pro: no soggy shirt during bike and run so less possibility of chafing, Con: the obvious, the neon belly is shown off before and after the swim and there still exists the possibility )
2. Swim with the shirt over the sports bra (Pro: no belly showing, Cons: soggy wetness during bike and run, the shirt that I have hikes up when I bike and run so the darn thing ends up showing my belly anyway, ugh.)
3. Buy a tri suit! Is fear a good enough excuse to spend more money on tri gear?

2006-08-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

A funny thing happened the other day. My manager who sits right next to me leans really close to me and whispers - "you're living with your boyfriend right?" And I was worried that she was going to launch into a speech about why I'm going to hell because I live with my boyfriend and am not married and blah blah blah, you know the standard religious no sex before marriage speech. I respond kind of defensively, yes he does live with me, bracing myself for what was about to come next. And she responds "because someone asked about you, you know, whether or not you were single." I was shocked. I don't think that's ever happened to me, usually whoever it is somehow lets me know in one way or another. And I got all embarassed. And then I started wondering WHO IT COULD BE, everyone I work with is pretty much married. So I ask her who it was if she could say at all. And she said it was a friend of someone in one of the meetings she was in, she wasn't sure who though. I didn't press further but now I'm walking around the office wondering who the heck it is!!!!

Meanwhile I just discovered that Odyssey is offering a trail half marathon on the same day as Jeff's half iron duathlon (Sept 9th). So I'm going to plan to do that as a training run and then volunteer for the rest of the day. I really want to do the half iron off road triathlon but I don't think I could handle 7300 feet of climbing in 56 miles, all off road. My training rides that consist of 3500 feet of climbing in 50 miles on road are tough enough! Maybe I'll be able to do it next year if I really can improve my climbing. It should be a fun weekend though, it's down in the mountains of Virginia at Douthat State Park, supposed to be beautiful!

2006-08-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

Work is sort of driving me crazy at the moment. I am in Test Case HELL. I am writing the most excruciatingly detailed test cases and it is starting to be REALLY BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My mind keeps wandering and I can't seem to stay on task. And the other analyst on my team is undermining my authority this morning by going behind my back to our boss RIGHT AFTER asking me how something should be done. I am the sr analyst on the team and I have a hell of a lot more experience than he does but he still feels the need to double check EVERYTHING I say with our boss. ARGH. (And it turned out that I was right for the record!) And there is a guy who sits in the row behind me who has to complain about EVERYTHING, like this morning he decided to go on a rant about our redesigned website that my company just rolled out to its retail customers. The site is beautiful, it looks really nice, I checked it out myself after his rant. He has to find something wrong with everything, and he sits and complains almost every morning about SOMETHING. But here I am complaining about him complaining... :)

But I really can't complain, I am inside in a COOL building, fed, caffeinated, and happy to be sitting down, my body is pleasantly sore from last night's 2 volleyball matches. It was fun b/c the second match I played in a league that was two leagues above where I normally play. And wow, were they good. It definitely made me play better than I normally do which was really fun. I got all my hits over and in and none of them were blocked. And I shouldn’t be complaining because I am going to the Outer Banks in North Carolina with my family next week for vacation!! I can't wait! My mom will be there too which will be really cool, I haven't been on vacation with her since I was a kid. This will be so much fun. I hope we plan on doing a talent show again this year like we did last year in the Adirondacks. The kids (and parents) were so much fun to watch. I need to think of something to do... Hmm, that might be a good project for me to do today to avoid actually getting any work done!! I don’t think I can really use my run, bike, or swim talents, that would be tough to demonstrate during a talent show… I know, I’ll play something on my flute!!! Hopefully I still remember how to play my flute. Do I still have my flute?

2006-07-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Colorado! I love the sign instructing cars to YIELD to bikes.

I used to really love to go out riding, it was always a challenge to see how fast I could go, if I could get up that steep climb, listening for that satisfying solid click as my shoe clips into the pedal on the first try. Negotiating around the cars, feeling the cold rain and other times the hot sun, and always listening to constant breaths in and out, in and out. Feeling alive.

But then I started noticing these abrupt interruptions, the horns beeping, the bottles being thrown, people making rude gestures from their cars, people yelling out the window at me. And the interruptions seemed to become more frequent. Was it that I was riding more or was it that I was riding in new places, or was I just becoming more aware of the rudeness and intolerance going on around me? It started to take all the fun away, how dare they rob me of my peaceful ride. I have every right to be there as they do. On the other hand there are many very courteous drivers, they drive patiently behind me as I do 5 miles per hour up a really steep climb b/c they can't see over the top of the hill. They swerve widely around me just in case I need to come over to avoid a hole or debris. So I'm growing my thick skin and trying not to let a handful of very rude individuals cause me to be down or to change my cycling habits.

On Saturday Jeff and I went for a 48 mile ride around Baltimore County and we didn't have any issues, no horn honking, no bottle throwing, no rude gestures, etc. So maybe the more we ride the more people will become accustomed to bikers and the better it will be! Can't we have a day where no one is allowed to drive and EVERYONE has to bike, walk, or take the bus? Maybe that would help to minimize the rudeness.

2006-07-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

Bike Dreaming!

So this weekend Jeff had me try out one of the Orbeas I've been dreaming about getting a road bike. I'm glad he didn't have me try one of the $4100 Litespeeds!! The one I rode retailed for $2100.

It's not that I don't like my current bike, it's just that I've had problems with it from Day 1. Plus I very rarely do the kind of riding that my tri bike is designed for (flat, fast, smooth roads, not very many turns, and not very much shifting). It doesn't have ANY give in it which makes it very uncomfortable and I return home from long rides not able to feel my fingertips. The frame does not have any flex in it which on bumpy roads causes me some major headaches, literally, my brain feels like it is being shaken. And the bike has NEVER shifted correctly. Currently I have to hold the shift lever in place with my hand to keep it in the middle ring. I can only use the small ring and the large ring on my crank. This is the compromise because the other problems I was having is that I couldn't get into my small ring AT ALL (this makes climbing really tough), and the problem before that was that I was dropping my chain every time I shifted. This makes my bike rides somewhat unpleasant.

The problem is that I can't in good conscience sell my tri bike knowing that it doesn't shift properly. Turns out that my bike is not designed for a triple crank (seat tube angle is too large and the frame is too small) so my options are to either switch to road levers or to change out the crank yet again (I went from a Sora triple to an Ultegra before we realized the problem with the sizing). Ugh!

So we go to Jeff's store and he wants me to try out the Orbea so I can try out to see how I like the road brake lever style shifters. Jeff is such a good salesman, he knew I would love that bike. And that I would find out how much more comfortable road bikes are. This bike was so much more comfortable (and lighter) than my tri bike! I didn't realize what I was missing!!! I LOVE the shifters, they are awesome. So the goal is to switch out the shifters and maybe sell the bike to someone who will ride the bike the way it was meant to be ridden.

So I've been looking at the Orbeas and I absolutely fell in love with this one, this blue is absolutely GORGEOUS! I see this bike in my future!!!

Plus I am buying Jeff a Felt F65 bike for his b-day (well, helping to buy the bike). Wouldn't they match nicely?

2006-03-24T09:48:00.000-08:00

Today was my first outdoor bike ride of the season! I've been waiting for my knee to heal and today was the first day that I dared to cycle. Hopefully it won't get swollen again. I think my right pedal is forcing my leg to track too much inward so I'm going to see if Jeff can help me adjust it out a bit. I'm hoping that will solve my knee problem. Funny how I can train and finish a marathon with no knee problems to speak of but the minute I start upping my cycling mileage my knee goes out!

So the course I chose today had a few gradual hills on it, I figured I would take it easy since it was my first ride since being injured and the first ride of the spring! I averaged 13.8 mph which I was pretty disappointed about. I was hoping to average 16-17 at Columbia.

Elevation Gain for Columbia bike course:

I think I have my work cut out for me!!!! Hopefully 8 weeks will be enough time to get back into the same cycling shape I was in at the end of triathlon season last summer, we'll see!

Jeff and I are headed to Cleveland this afternoon to visit my family and to attend my sister's Indonesian Coffee Tasting Workshop tomorrow morning. I'm really looking forward to it! I'm sure we'll be really wired by the end!! Can't wait!

2006-03-12T16:20:00.000-08:00

I am proud of myself! I completed my first early morning workout of the year this morning! I managed to drag myself out of bed at 5:00 AM to squeeze it in before heading to work. I was pleasantly surprised at how much energy I had! My next challenge will be to try to do this early morning thing twice next week!

I just started following the 12 week heart rate based Olympic distance training plan at beginnertriathlete.com to get ready for Columbia in May. My planned workouts today involved a swim workout and a run time trial. I didn't want to do the swim workout and the time trial back to back. So I knew the swim was either going to be in the morning or not at all. I wasn't going to give up the time trial because I want to use this time trial to calculate my lactate threshold so that I'll be able to figure out my ideal heart rate zones.

The swim workout went as follows:
Endurance Speed Workout
48 minutes
1750 yards
300 wu. 5x50 (sprint 1st 25) - on 20 sec rest. 4x - 2x50 Z3 (15 sec rest), 1x100 Z3 (60 sec rest) then sprint a 50 Z5 (15 sec rest) - 200 cd.

This is a super high energy swim workout as far as I'm concerned. My normal workout would include back and forth for 45 minutes, mostly crawl, some breast, some back crawl, and some drills thrown in for good measure, yes, kind of haphazard. The thought of sprinting kind of scared me! But happily I was able to "sprint", well, go as fast as I could before I started to get scared that I wasn't getting enough air and that I was going to pass out in the water and drown. Felt like I was going faster than a speeding bullet! Though to other people it probably just looked a little less slow than when I'm swimming normally! :-)

I had a little bit of coffee and half a harvest bar. That seemed to do the trick as far as pre-workout nutrition. I think it was the right amount of food and liquid, I had plenty of energy and didn’t feel like I was still digesting - bonus!

I'm looking forward to my time trial tonight! It will give me a good base level so that several weeks from now I can measure to see my progress. It's going to be a tough run though.
Here's the plan:
After 10 minute warm up, you are going to run for 30 minutes as hard as you can for the entire 30 minutes. After starting the run, hit your 'Lap' button so you record the average HR over the last 20 minutes. This can be run on track the or measured course (flat). Record the time and get a 10 minute cool down.

My conundrum is I'm supposed to go to happy hour tonight. So I guess I better not drink or maybe I better not go? Doing a really hard run after a beer or two could be a little challenging! But I'm definitely planning for a Guinness tomorrow night at my favorite non-smoking pub Mike McGovern's!!!

2006-03-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

I completed my maiden voyage at Gasparilla! My first marathon!

Race report:
Alarm went off at 3:30 AM. Yes, that's really damn early. When I first started to do triathlons I used to really worry that I would completely want to fall asleep half way through the race because I would be so tired. But no, it's amazing how adrenaline can always carry you through!
I made coffee with my trusty pour through (didn't expect even Starbucks to be open at this time). Drank coffee and gatorade and ate a bagel with peanut butter and a banana. Wrote my goal pacing on my arm: miles 1-5 - 11:30, miles 6-10 - 11:20, miles 10-20 - 11:15. I figured that should be doable since my pacing for my low heart rate training runs has been around 12 minutes per mile. Drove to Tampa. Sat in traffic in Tampa since I think the only parking garage that was open was the convention center one and there were a thousand cars all trying to get in at the same time. Definitely chaotic. I was a little panicky but luckily my bf Jeff who has done dozens of races before was really calm that kind of rubbed off on me. We finally parked, donned our garbage bags and headed to the start. Found out start was delayed which allowed for an additional and much needed bathroom stop.

Going into the race I really wasn't sure what my pacing was going to be. My biggest limiter as far as triathlon went was my aerobic endurance so I've been training using the Maffetone method to bolster that. All of my training runs have been around 11-13 minute pace per mile (varied based on distance). Based on all my calculations I was pretty sure that I would stay within aerobic if I could keep my HR below 170. Once I hit 170 I told myself that I should probably slow down. So I was in the low 160s for the first 5 miles and was maintaining a pretty fast pace, almost 2 minutes per mile faster than my training pace. I kept going at the same pace, only slowing down a little when I saw the 170s on my monitor. When I hit mile 16 and I was at 2:45 I knew I was going to make my goal time of 4:45, I knew I could run 10.2 miles in under 2 hours. I was so psyched!! And then when I got to mile 20 and saw that 9:14 pace I decided to go full out and deal with a crash if it came. I sped up as much as was possible given the strong headwind. It was awesome having people call out my name as I was running, that definitely energized me! I had a gel every 30 minutes which worked out great, I didn't have any stomach problems or cramping. Drank gatorade or water at every water station. With the exception of the water stations and a couple times where I had trouble opening my gel packet and had to stop to use my teeth I was able to run the whole thing!

After I crossed the finish line, I got my metals, hugged Jeff (well, really fell on him might more accurately describe it), collapsed on the side of the road to eat a bagel and drink some coke and water. With Mindy and Jeff's help, hobbled over to get some food which I ate as quickly as I could shovel it in, definitely wasn't pretty. :) I looked down at my watch and I had burned 4800 calories! About an hour after I ate probably the equivalent of two meals I asked Mindy if she could get me the biggest milkshake she could find. For some reason that was the only thing I wanted. She returned with this enormous thing that I had to hold in two hands. I drank it down in about 10 minutes. It was the yummiest thing ever. Later on Jeff and I stopped for Krispy Kremes and then we drove to his parents house and ate a full dinner and had key lime pie for dessert.

Crossing the finish line:

Next up: Columbia Triathlon!!!

2006-02-11T13:52:00.000-08:00

I made it! 20 miles! Well, it certainly wasn't a fast 20 miles, it took me 4 hours and 11 minutes. So I can't really call what I did "running", it was really more of a trudge/trot/walk that repeated over and over again, my HR monitor kept telling me that I had to walk. It was a tough especially since I hadn't done anything, and I mean NOTHING, for the past week and a half due to a cold. But I'm glad I did it - I wanted to do a 20 miler before the marathon so that I could be confident that I could at least finish. Now I'm confident that not only will I finish but that there is some glimmer of hope that I'll finish in less than my goal time of 4:45. My run today was at Maffetone HR (~70% of my max). During the race I'm planning to allow myself to run faster so I'm predicting my pace to improve by about 10-15%.

Notes from today's run:
Breakfast: oatmeal w/ coffee
Where: NCR trail (a rails to trails path in northern MD/southern PA), pretty flat (no killer hills like on my 18 mile route), and better on the joints than pavement.
Fuel: Two hammergels, one harvest powerbar, 10 oz. gatorade, 1.5 liters water
Temps: low 30s - snow started at the very end
Clothes/Gear: Enell, tneck, Balt 1/2 mary shirt, orange jacket, hat (didn't wear for most of the run), gloves, red camelback

I was STARVED when I finished. I burned 3440 calories! I just read an article that says for workouts beyond 2 hours that you should consume 2 cals/pound lean body weight every hour. So for me that would be 228 cals/hour x 4 hours = 912 cals. I probably only ate a total of 550 calories which may have caused my extremely slow pace (13-14 mins/mile) at the very end. I think I'll plan on a half a bar or one gel every half hour.

The best part of my run was when I got home Jeff had made a pasta lunch for us! The whole house smelled yummy, mmm, so nice to come home to a nice meal, esp since I was so hungry! Scarfed that down and took a long very hot bath.

Speaking of food - it's time for a snack! Peanut butter mountain bar w/ some decaf! Yummy!

2006-02-01T18:52:00.000-08:00

Here it is, my new Enell sports bra. Definitely not pretty but it fits PERFECTLY. Absolutely ZERO BOUNCE. I just took it for a 10 mile run and felt like I could have gone for another 10. Only slight issue is that my heart rate monitor slips out from under the bottom of it and chafes a bit. So now all Enell needs to do is to leave a place inside the bottom elastic so I can easily use my HRM so no slippage will occur. Well, I figure as long as I'm being picky I can lay out all my requirements!! :-)

2006-01-30T09:31:00.000-08:00

Adventures in bra shopping! The mission: to buy a new sports bra. The requirements: must be pretty. must fit a size 32G. must allow for zero bounce.

I've managed to lose a few pounds recently, part of which happened to be around the middle of me where I needed to lose the most. The impact of this weight loss is that I'm down to one sports bra that fits, and even it's a little too big. The bra is an Enell, it's ugly. It looks like a corsett. It's not easy to get into, it requires quite a bit of "adjusting" and mashing and I've often wished I had two more hands to help to get into it. It has about 15 hook and eye closures in the front that all have to be closed. Problem is that normally when you think you have all of them inevitably one or two come undone and in the process of hooking them again some other ones come out, yes, I know this is a sign that the thing is too big on me. Originally I think it was white. However it has slowly evolved into a dingy gray. And it's pretty much always stinky because I wear it 6 times per week. So I figured I could justify treating myself to another bra so at least I'll be able to start my workout smelling good 2x per week instead of just once).

So my quest begins. I read in Runner's World a month or so back that Moving Comfort had started a line of bras for larger breasted women. So I start looking on the internet to see where I could try some on. REI was it. So I was very excited the evening Jeff and I stopped by REI. I was going to find a new sports bra that meets all my requirements. And I had a $25 gift card to help defray costs - yay!!

I eagerly find the sports bras and start looking for the big girl sizes. Turns out they have one 32DD and one 34DD, both high impact by Moving Comfort. Unfortunately the largest size Moving Comfort makes is a DD, two sizes away from G, ugh. I'm still optimistic at this point, I'm excited to try the 32DD. Unfortunately I was spilling out of that one and the circumference was too large on the other one (and I could tell that it allowed for way too much bounce - yes, I was jumping up and down in the fitting room, but not out of joy). So I'm back to Enell, the only company that makes bras for DDD (which still is a size below what I need). Enell is listed as the "Bra of Last Resort" by Title 9 Sports that offers quite a few sports bras (and believe me, I've tried all the other ones). And guess what? Enell still only makes this same corsett style that I have now and it still only comes in black, white, and beige. So I'm not going to meet my requirement of pretty. Oh well. I went with the black this time so even if it gets dirty (which it inevitably will) it will only get more black. I ordered a size zero which is supposed to fit a 32 DDD (as close as I'm going to get).

The bra: http://www.enell.com/order.html
I'm hoping the new color they're going to come out with is pretty! I'll be the first in line! And maybe by then they'll have some competition (come on Moving Comfort - I want a size 32G)!

2006-01-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

I never would have dreamed in a million years that I would be saddened by the closing of a GAS STATION?????????!!!!!!!! Well, the day has come. The Shell station in Taylorsville, MD closed on January 31st. I am officially saddened by this news. I am no longer able to fill up Hao, my 2005 VW Golf TDI, with B100 (100% biodiesel, I think right now since it's winter it did contain some kerosene so that it wouldn't congeal when the temps dropped significantly). This station was only 16 miles from work. My bimonthly ritual was to drive that 32 mile round trip to the Shell station to fill up Hao. It was a welcome break from sitting inside in front of my computer at work, working on test cases, searching through code, writing requirements. The ritual usually involved listening to good music or the Mark Steiner show always with an open sunroof so I could soak up some vitamin D. I'd pump my bio and then go and pay. The same attendant was always there. He was watching his 4x6 black and white TV and seemed to just really enjoy watching the time pass. He was planning to work at Wal-Mart full time once the station closed. He didn't sound like he was looking forward to the change.

So I'm trying to move on. I've been forced to fill up with regular diesel since the station closed (dinodiesel) and I have driven my 550 miles, it is time to fill up again. Dinodiesel just plain stinks! The exhaust fumes stink. It has more polutants. It deposits stuff in the engine (don't ask me what, I just know the bio runs cleaner). It makes your hands stink for the rest of the day when you fill up. It's more expensive than bio. And I don't even talk to the attendant at the dino station, I can just pay with a credit card.

I miss my Shell station. I think of the attendant who now works at Wal-Mart full time. I bet he misses the station too.

2006-01-23T06:05:00.000-08:00

18 miles! I ran 18 miles this weekend! Well, actually 18.78 miles. My longest distance EVER. It was a journey. At the very beginning I was feeling like I was getting out of breath really quickly so after 30 minutes or so I decided that I was going to have to stop to pee. The road was fairly well travelled but I found a place where the side banked down steep enough that I could hide from the cars somewhat. It was the fastest I've ever peed in the woods! Once that was over I felt a lot better. I'm still doing all my training in my Maffetone zone since aerobic capacity is by far my biggest limiter in running and in triathlon. For the first 10 miles I know I could have run faster. When my HR monitor went off to let me know that I was out of my zone I would be surprised and a little annoyed that I would have to walk for a while. But after mile 10 that all changed - I started to get really fatigued. It was the reverse problem - my HR monitor would go off telling me that I was too low but I wouldn't want to start running again. At that point I think it was my legs that were telling me to stop. I had also reached a part of the course where it was going to be an uphill climb for about 2 miles (with a brief 1/2 mile reprieve in the middle). So I trudged along, listening to Jeff telling me stories and keeping us entertained. He was such a good sport, walking with me when my HR monitor went off, and starting to jog again as soon as my HR had come down. I knew that if he had gone alone that he would have finished the course about an hour before we actually got home (though he told me that wasn't the case, that the run was hard even for him). What a sweetie. So we hit the really steep part of the climb. No possibility of running, it was an uphill trudge, felt like we were walking up that hill for about 30 minutes when it was probably closer to 10. It was at this point when I knew that making it home would be about mentally not thinking about the exhaustion and pain that I was experiencing. I had 2 miles left. I had been bummed about a couple of our splits (I had a map with me so I could guestimate where the mile markers were), 16:10 and 14:50. We had missed an out and back turn around and taken a detour, so I knew a couple of the splits were going to be off but the 14:50 had occurred during the uphill section and I knew the distance was pretty close to being accurate. But in the end our pace was about 11:53 per mile which really isn't bad for me while staying within Maffetone. Total time: 3:43:34. So the plan for the marathon is to run Maffetone (or fairly close to it) for the first 20 miles and then race the last 10K. Goal time: 4:45.

2006-01-09T06:35:00.000-08:00

So I've officially registered for the Gasparilla Marathon!! This leaves me feeling very scared and very excited all at the same time.

Scared because I've never run 26.2 miles all at one time. Running 4 hours at one time (or maybe up to 5) is unchartered territory for me. By race day I will have only run 20 miles at one given time. Everyone says that the real race both mentally and physically begins after 20 miles. Yikes. So that last 6.2 miles could bring any number of things. I don't know what's going to happen. I could trip and fall. I could have a heart attack. My legs could cramp up and basically decide not to carry me one additional step. I could throw up. Or, and most scary of all, I COULD GIVE UP. I have to realize that this is within the realm of possibility. I am a person that is very careful about almost all decisions that I make in my life, I carefully weigh the pros and cons, I do my research, I logically move toward the best decision after careful consideration of all factors. Running the marathon was a big decision for me. I was planning to wait to register for my first until 2007 but I figured that I needed to motivate myself to improve my endurance for triathlon season so I decided to do it. So finishing the marathon is something that will be a stretch for me. Definitely a challenge. And I have a feeling that this will be a mental challenge almost as much as a physical challenge for me. So I'm working on my positive thinking that come race day when I finish mile 20 I will dig down deep to find my strength and confidence to get me through the last 6.2 miles and across the finish line.

2006-01-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

So I'm off to my semi-annual dentist appointment again.

Something happened to me when I walked into this dentist's office for the first time about 5 years ago. I became an adult. I realized that I am the only one who will make sure that I get my teeth cleaned regularly, I am the primary card holder on the insurance card. The reason I had gone to the dentist in the first place was because someone who berely knew me (my primary care physician) had told me that I needed to go to the dentist (I'm guessing my breath was that bad - ouch.) Anyway, up until that time, I had always gone to my childhood dentist in Cleveland, usually when I was home between semesters or in the summer if my mom had pestered me enough to make me pick up the phone and make an appointment. Up until I moved to Baltimore, I had relied on my mom to remind me about those kind of things. Once I moved to Baltimore (actually I think this happened as soon as I graduated from college), my mom never asked me if I had gone to the dentist so I had completely forgotten about it (or was too lazy to deal with it). I realized that I now had complete control over whether or not I went to the doctor, went to the dentist, got my hair cut. No one was going to tell me I needed to do those things (I didn't want to have a stranger tell me I needed to go to the dentist ever again). So my next step was to do all the logistical stuff: find a dentist, call to ask if they accepted my insurance, figure out where the office is, and show up on time. I can still remember at the end of my first appointment when the receptionist asked me when I wanted to schedule my next appointment, and I told her, oh, I'll just call as it gets closer. And then she had to educate me about how his schedule gets booked really early and it might be a good idea to get the appointment on the schedule sooner than later. So I realized that everyone else must plan ahead their dentist appointments this early, so if everyone else does it I guess I better follow suit. So I scheduled the next appointment, a completely foreign concept to have anything scheduled that was 6 months away. During my first couple years in the corporate world I learned that you had to plan early, had to schedule vacations ahead of time so you could get the time you needed off. So I asked for a palm pilot for Christmas that same year. And everything started to go in the Palm Pilot. I even bring the palm pilot to the dentist's office now so I can schedule my next appointment.

So earlier this week I was scheduling my entire year and thinking about how my life has changed since that first dentist appointment. I'm setting goals for myself that are years away now and I have events that are 8 months away (including my next dentist appointment). While I do miss the times where I didn't even use a calendar, planner, or palm pilot (and the spontaneity that allows), I know that all this planning pays off in the end - it has helped me and will continue to help me to reach all of my goals. Off to the dentist!

2005-11-20T10:08:00.000-08:00

I saw the coolest snake a couple weeks ago when I was running in Robert E. Lee park. I almost went running by without noticing him when my heart rate monitor started beeping, telling me that I needed to slow down to keep my heart rate in my Maffetone zone. When I did slow down, I noticed the snake sprawled out vertically along this tree, it was basking in the sun happily and it was about a foot from my head. Luckily I like snakes so I wasn't scared, but seeing that snake did get me thinking about how many other things I've probably missed that were sitting right next to the trail as I went running by, determined to get my training run completed as quickly as possible, not caring about anything else. It made me think about how self-centered I had become, especially when it comes to training. I didn't think about or notice anything when I did my training sessions. I would get annoyed when things like thunderstorms would force me out of the pool. Annoyed when I had to wait for my boyfriend Jeff to be ready to go on our training runs.

The Maffetone training has definitely made me slow down, and I think it's been for the better. It's allowed me to remember why I train, that training for triathlon is something I do because I love to be outside, I love to get out and really enjoy my life. I think before I started the Maffetone training, I had been focusing too much on just getting through my workouts. But now I'm thinking - why should I just get through my workouts? I want to enjoy them! I want to have fun training because training is a significant part of my life. So I decided something the day I saw the snake. I was going to train because it was fun, and that I was going to change it to make it fun. And I was only going to do it up to the point where it ceased to be fun. And I was going to stop being so self-centered and start noticing the beauty around me, the snakes along the path.

Over the past few weeks, I've been fighting the flu, allergies, and some other health issues and I haven't been able to run or do any of my other normal training. In fact, just being able to get out for a walk was a miracle with the way I felt. I really started to miss my training sessions and longed to get out there to do some biking, some running, and even go for a swim.

Now that I'm finally feeling better, I can get back into my training and I can enjoy it even more. And every time I go back to the park I will visit the tree where I saw the snake. I may not see the snake but I will still be able to see the tree and it will serve as a reminder as to why I train, why I am out there, it's fun and it is a privilege to be healthy enough to be able to get out and enjoy what's all around us. And I can stop and listen to the birds, feel the cold wind, watch chipmunks scurrying around a tree, enjoy the clouds reflecting on the water, and the smell of the fall. And who knows, maybe I'll be lucky enough to see that snake again one day.

2005-11-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

Being sick has given me lots of time to hang around the house with my cat Dorrie. Now I know what it feels like to be stuck in the house all day! This picture makes her look like she is the sweetest cat ever but it's just not true! She is so deceptive! But despite her periodic attacks for no reason, her clawing at the door at 2:00 AM, her shredding ALL of my toilet paper into piles of confetti, it's been nice to have her around to keep me company.

Dorrie

2005-11-09T10:07:00.000-08:00

Involuntary Time Off
Apparently my body is telling me that I need to take some time off. Or else my boyfriend Jeff is. Probably both. Jeff has given me (or my exhausted body allowed me to catch) the nasty cold that he's been fighting for the past week. I feel like hell. Just walking up the 4 flights of stairs at work seems like a long journey. The thought of going out for a run or going swimming is completely out of the question. At the end of today I will have rested a full 5 days, and by resting, I mean resting. Berely any walking, no stairs (except the mandatory stairs at home and the one time I mistakenly thought I could handle them at work), no abs and pushups in front of the tv at night, I mean just sitting and laying down. I am feeling like such a sloth. My muscles feel like they are melting into fat that I worked so hard to get rid of. Right now it is hard to imagine even wanting to do a hard work out ever again! Though I know as soon as I start feeling better I'll be out there running again! In the meantime I can crank out a bunch of chapters in my Actuary Level 1 Study Guide.

Maffetone Training Report
On a happier note I love my Maffetone training program so far! I'm starting to be able to run up hills while keeping my HR down and my hip pain has completely gone away. New muscles have been strengthened from all the walking (my body was getting sore from walking, it was weird). I've decided to do the half marathon at Gasparilla instead of the full marathon. I'm glad I made that decision, esp since I've been so sick and would have missed all of these training sessions.

2005-10-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

Maffetone Training! My newest training regimen. My goal originally was to do every training session (including bike, runs, or swims) staying in the Maffetone HR range (calculated to be 146-156 where max HR = 180-29+5 = 156) to build my base for triathlon season. Tri season starts with the Columbia Triathlon in May (olympic distance). So based on the tri season start date I figure training from now until say the end of Feb should be focused on base building.

But now I'm contemplating running the Gasparilla marathon (my first marathon!) on February 26th. That would give me enough time to use one of Hal Higdon's training plans however Hal recommends doing some runs in the higher HR range closer to lactate threshold (which may not be ideal for my base building). The other concern with doing marathon training is that it will only allow me swimming or biking one day per week, which probably isn't even enough to maintain the levels where I am now.

So the question is twofold:
1. Will March and April be enough time to build back up my cycling and swimming base if I focus on running for the next few months?
2. If I decide to do the marathon should I do all the Hal Higdon training miles in the Maffetone zone? Or should I follow the Higdon plan as he specifies? Which is better - spend all training time training your body to burn fat as fuel and becoming an efficient aerobic engine or giving up some of that low HR training and replacing it with speed sessions?

2005-10-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

Race pictures. There are very few things in my life that can cause me to feel as low as I do when I see race pictures of myself. I can't see them and be proud of the fact that I accomplished the event or see them and say, wow, I have lost weight! Or say how great it is to have a picture to commemorate the event. Nope, I see none of those positive and enlightening things. The negativity in me all comes out at once as soon as I see those pictures. All I can see is the progress that still needs to be made. I see the fat on my legs, the fat on my arms, the fat on my stomach. I see that my running form is still not optimal, that I'm not kicking my legs back and using them like pendulums as advised in the "Triathlete's Training Bible". All I can do is compare myself to the other people racing around me who I see as being thin and perfect (of course I should be happy that everyone around me is so fit and perfect looking, that means that once I lose the extra 10 pounds that I'll be kicking their butts)!

My friends give me advice on how to deal with this - don't look at the damn pictures! Just delete them! Well, I wish I could do that. In theory that would work. But for me, each time that email pops into my box with a happy subject line about race pictures, I feel this glimmer of hope that this time the pictures will be good. I will look good, that extra weight that I've been working so hard to shed has finally come off and I will be happy to see that I finally have an "after" picture that I can be proud of. Unfortunately that has yet to happen. But it will. I will lose that weight. I will finally be able to look at race pictures and be proud and happy of the new person that I've managed to transform myself into. I will look at those pictures and see an athlete. Until then I'll keep working on the transformation!!

2005-10-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

The timed two mile during high school field hockey practice was the biggest athletic challenge during the first 18 years of my life. I remember dreading those practices, the coach would tell us not to even bother bringing out cleats out to practice. I dreaded being at the back of the pack and being passed by freshmen who were on JV. I can still remember the dirt being kicked up in my face as all the fast runners took off. I can feel my heart pulsating out of my chest and realizing that I would have to stop to walk. And the worst was when the results were published for public viewing outside my coach's office. I think my best time was somewhere around 22 or 23 minutes. I don't think I ever broke 20 or came anywhere close!

But times have changed and this past weekend I ran the Baltimore half marathon! I RAN 13.1 miles (well walked for maybe .1 of those)! I finished in a little less than 2 hours (8 seconds less to be exact). 2 hours was my goal so I did pretty much whatever was necessary to get my body over that finish line in 2 hours. My pace was 9:09/mile. I was in the top 17% of my age group, no back of the pack this time! So I decided to look back at my percentiles in some of my past races. My last 5K back in March I finished with an 8:08 mile pace. With all this running training since March, I'm hoping for a 7:30/mile pace in my next 5K, which would put me around 23:15 for the total race. I can't believe that in high school I used to run 2 miles in that time! It's so exciting to see the progress!

2005-10-10T05:21:00.000-07:00

My boss asks me the other day what makes me such a good business analyst. Why are project leads fighting for me to work on their projects and trying to bring me over to their group? I admit that I was flattered by the acknowledgement that this had been going on for the past 6 months, ever since someone read one of my documents. Interesting how one document can cause everyone to take notice. I was glad the document had turned out so well because I remember working on it thinking oh my gosh I hope this isn't going to turn out like some of my college papers where I worked really hard on the paper and then didn't get a great grade. Going back to the conversation, I wasn't quite sure how to respond to my boss. Why was I a good analyst? What skills did I possess? Was it my writing skills, was it the fact that I had taken almost enough math classes in college for me to triple major in math? So I responded back explaining that I had done this type of work in my previous job and the skills translated well to my current job. I also explained that I had extensive writing experience, enjoyed problem solving, and got along with all different types of personalities, including extraordinarily lazy developers (well, I didn't go that far).

During a subsequent training run that evening or a few days later, I revisited the conversation in my head and started to brainstorm the real reasons why I'm good to my job. I decided that the skills I've developed while training for triathlons have helped me immensely in my role as a business analyst. Here is why. Each week I design my training plan based on a set number of hours that I have targeted for training. I then decide the number of workouts I will do in each discipline, add in a rest day, and decide when and where I will do each training session. This scheduling also takes into account social and family obligations already scheduled for that week. During heavy volume weeks this leaves little room for last minute changes or shifts and doesn't allow for re-scheduling if a workout is missed. It also tends to involve early morning workouts and evening workouts and mid-day workouts that require clothes, shoes, helmets, and other equipment to be packed and brought with me, strapped and secured to the car, in the car, in lots of pre-designated bags, etc. So when the alarm goes off at 5:00 AM, often preparations have already been made, things have been packed, the coffee maker ready beep is already going off, the swim schedule at the local pool has been checked, no last minute changes can be made. I MUST GET UP. I trudge out of bed and into my swim suit, grab my coffee (I LOVE my brew timer), and head out the door. I finish my swim workout and head to work. Already packed in my workbag is a post workout snack, lunch, and an afternoon snack. Work is rest time for my body but an active time for my brain.

So what does all this carefully crafted planning and scheduling, packing and training have to do with being a business analyst? In both, time is the most important part of the picture. Things MUST be done on time and with efficiency. I am assigned a project at work and I have to figure out how long it will take me and then go and DO IT until it is FINISHED within that alloted timeframe. The deadline cannot be changed once I set it. I have to use my time wisely, work hard during that time and get it out the door. Perfection is not an option. I don't strive for perfection anymore because nothing is perfect. And better yet, it doesn't matter if it isn't perfect because most projects change at a later phase anyway. With triathlon training it's the same basic principal, I have a certain amount of time per week that I have scheduled for training. When the time comes to do a given workout, DO IT. Focus on that workout only and get it done. Expect that it won't be perfect. But enjoy the journey.

2005-10-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

Beets are amazing! They are the one food that can turn everything and anything that comes into contact with them a bright purple color. My lunch today is a casserole of beets, pears, onions, wheat bean, cilantro, and red lentils. The beet juice has permeated everything and turned EVERYTHING purple. The combination of flavors is amazing. The beets and pears were a last minute substitution for carrots and celery and they made the dish all the much more interesting. What other veggies are capable of spreading their color in that same way?