Adjusted Reality

Usually, after I come home from vacation having enjoyed, but very happy to be home.  I know this was a particularly fantastic one because even after 11 awesome days of adventures, I wanted moremoremore.  More days.  More adventures!

I’m thinking this is probably going to be about a long, three part post.  So, buckle your seatbelts and expect that this may get pre-empted by some race reports and goal posts and speculating, oh my, because, oh yeah, my HUGE MAJOR A RACE is in 10 days.  *flail*

Saturday: Getting There

I had epic planz to be up at the crack of dawn (literally) and knock out 16 miles.  Well, I slept in and woke up in time for about 12, max.  Then, after I got out, I had a miserable day.  Little body niggles everywhere, heel in effect, and a poor choice of food made it so I just felt ucky.  After the second bathroom stop at 6.35 I called it with approximately a 12 min/mi pace (yeah…).  I wasn’t going to jeopardize my vacation being awesome to get in a certain amount of miles.  I rescheduled 16 for the next Monday and made final preparations and then hopped a plane after a “last Texas meal” of bbq beef, with our lightly packed bags in tow (we each brought 2 bags, and 3 of the 4 were over 45 lbs).

The flights were smooth and uneventful.  Zliten loves talking to people on the plane, and he found a lady with lots of stories to chat with.  I however, was in antisocial book read mode.  I conquered the 8th Galaxy Unknown book and I started another Sci Fi series called Annihilation.  We got there on time, and as we were flying over Seattle, I was impressed at how pretty it was.  The sentiment continued as we taxi’d from the airport to the hotel.  We got a text en route asking if we would make the rehearsal at 6… not so much.  However, right after we checked in and as we headed to the elevator, we saw half of the wedding party!  Success!  We made it to go to dinner with them on time!

We noshed on amazing pizza (my favorite was essentially a greek salad on top of a pie, but no surprise there), and got to hang with some friends we hadn’t seen in a while, and ended up with some gorgeous bridesmaids gifts – the bride had contacted someone on etsy, and gave them some simple descriptions on a necklace for us.  Mine was something like “classic, timeless and sparkly”.  I am in love with what happened.

(EDIT – think this one may show it better…)

And, this was our friends, so there was a lot of wine.  Then, some of us moved up the street to another bar to have the after party, so more wine.  And then a few of us moved back to the hotel bar for the after, after party.  Then, we retired to the room and I made use of the nice garden tub.  There were bath salts.  I didn’t eat anyone’s face though, except maybe the complimentary rubber ducky that we kept.

Sunday: Mawwiage and Hallway Pizza

Woke up feeling a *little* worse for wear, but I can sip wine like a pro without a crushing hangover, so I was up really early, and started getting pretty for the wedding, which involved actually blow drying and straightening my hair.  It happens a few times a year.  Soon, it was time to go, so we cabbed it to the dock and OMG I forgot to check out.  *facepalm*  They were nice enough to do it over the phone at least.

We got there, and we’ve now decided that each cruise, someone needs to get married.  We were given our own little boarding area, and we got to get on the boat first.  It was AWESOME.  Then, we were able to converge on the bride and groom’s suite and HOLY FUCK it was amazing.  It was on the top floor, it had a huge balcony with a hot tub, it was the size of a HUGE hotel room (which, if you’ve ever been on a cruise, you know it’s a BIG DEAL because the rooms are teeny tiny) with a shower and a garden tub.  The gals finished getting ready up there, we donned our peacock feathered hair clips and our awesome homemade bouquets, and we got goin’.

We had practiced how to come in, and as the wedding started… the music we walked in to was the Star Wars Imperial March.  Ha!  They both met doing QA on a Star Wars Game, so while it was good and nerdy, it was also really symbolic (and the music we walked out to was the Cantina Song – loved it!).

It was a very sweet and short ceremony – although the officiant did call my friend Anita (which is NOT her name) during the ceremony, and the ring bearer spent about half of it playing with the petals on the ground, it was just perfect.  Then, our work was over, the bride changed into her sparkly blue converse (and me into my knee high black boots) and we started eating and drinking and toasting and a little dancing.

And hugging.  Somehow, this tradition started at our wedding, I think, and it’s an awesome one! 🙂

All too soon it was over, and our non-sailing friends had to leave.  We decided to go back to the room and check and HELLS YAH we already had our luggage.  Being fairly obsessive about my clothes being straightened, we were able to get completely unpacked and settled by the time we had to do the boat drill.  After that, our duty performed, we sat on the deck drinking champagne and eating french fries and enjoying the fact that we were footloose, fancy free, and setting sail.  However, the minute we set sail it went from nice to COLD and I knew that part of it was already starting (let me tell you, it was weird being on vacay and not breaking out a swim suit and coming back paler than I left).

Pretty soon after we sailed, we hit dinner.  It was a nice first night of cream of broccoli soup, ceasar salad, seafood canneloni, and key lime pie, with a bottle of red wine split between 3 of us.  Our friend J’s wife was tired and went to the room, so we indulged him and went and hung out and watched the end of a football game on the two-story screen.  I gave excellent commentary the whole time and kept myself extremely amused.  Then, we ended up walking through the shops as they were doing a drawing, and I won a bottle of champagne!  This day is even more magical!  We tried to meet up with some friends at the ultralounge/nightclub area, but they all looked pooped and went to bed pretty quickly and it was just J and Zliten and I.  We hung out at the bar after that for an inordinate amount of time, and then had to check out the 24 hour food.  By this time, things are hazy, and I remember being there, and ordering something.  Possibly with cheese?

Then, we hit the mini bar in the room, and hallway pizza happened.  So – they advertised that you could pay 5 dollars, and get a pizza delivered anywhere on the ship.  J was OBSESSED with this and the concept and goal of hallway pizza was born.  A pizza, delivered to the hallway outside our room, just because we could.  And, around 3-something AM, we met our goals.

And then, having eaten and drank like an asshole all day, I passed the hell out.  Check my soft hands.  Thank you gymnastics and dance for perfect form!

Monday: Don’t Rock The Boat.  Really.

…and slept until 11AM.  I can’t remember the last time I slept that late – some people begrudge the interior rooms of the cruise ship because they can’t see light – I enjoy the hell out of it since my bedroom wakes me up no later than 9 most days unless I try reallyrealyreally hard.  We both woke up going “FOOD NAOW” because obviously 3 meals and pizza wasn’t sufficient yesterday, so we grabbed some soup, and I made an epic salad from their salad bar, and I noshed on some fresh bread.  However, the captain rudely did not understand that I had tied one on last night and kept rocking the boat which was not making me thrilled, and I couldn’t eat very much of it.

I pushed through and we met up with J and M to play some Phase 10.  J had beginners luck and he won… sadly I never got a rematch.  After enough hot tea and adrenaline pumping game playing, I started feeling better.  Since I couldn’t eat my lunch, we hit up the 24 hour diner and I snacked on some wonton soup, fish, and coleslaw.  We retired to the room after and I curled up with my book and napped and read and napped and read all afternoon.  It was fabulous!

It was dress up (or not) night, and we brought lots of fancy clothings, so we got up and put on our fancy duds but I got lazy with the makeup and didn’t even put in contacts.  I think I did alright.  We took fancy pics and one actually turned out, so we got it.  We swang by the karaoke and found the bride and groom and hung out with them for a while waiting for dinner – we were all going to teppanyaki that night.  When we met up with the flower boy and A, she and I were wearing the exact same setup, same color/cut of dress, same black bolero, same color shoes and tights, and practically the same jewelry.  It was uncanny how good her taste is!  Sadly, no pics (EDIT: of both of us but here’s Zliten and I lookin’ swanky)

But oh, the teppanyaki was pretty epic.  We started with miso soup and seaweed salad, and then we got veggies, fried rice, and I got filet and shrimp.  Perfectly cooked, and the show was fun – he tossed eggs at the boys to catch in their mouths, and was incredibly talented.  Then, we got some amazing green tea cake and ice cream.  So, so, so good, and it was fun to dine as a group – the whole wedding party and both sets of parents, our whole cruising party.

After that, our peeps headed to the bar to drink a bit, however, since we had tied one on two days in a row, and we were running long the next day, we sipped mint tea while we chatted, and bowed out early.  More reading in bed, and then we drifted off dreaming of what adventures we’d have on the Juneau trails tomorrow.  If only we knew what was in store…

Part 2 of the Epic Vacation saga soon!

Hey dudes and dudettes!

I’ve been in Seattle, Alaska, Canada, on planes, boats, bikes, running trails and even on a spaceship on stilts!

(ganked picture courtesy of the lovely bride…)

I saw glaciers, bears, sea lions, otters, puffins, jellyfish, and the best wildlife of all, my good friends get mawwied.

I wore everything from a bridesmaid dress to a wetsuit.

Right now, though, since I completely unplug on vacation, I am behind on everything from email to laundry to cycling miles on evilbike… so let’s chat more this weekend, eh? (I was in Canada for 5 hours, I’m allowed)

Races on a Monday on a holiday weekend make me sad.

I love racing, but I also love the champagne and patio time and deconstruction and playing music and basking in the glow of an awesome race or plotting how to do better that comes after.  And this is much better done with a day of recovery after.  Normal Sunday races are definitely offenders, but putting a race on a Monday of a holiday weekend is just extremely cruel.  I have Friday, and Saturday AND Sunday night to be good and not do anything above PG-13, and it sucks.  It’s a perfect opportunity for a Sunday race not to make Monday at work evil.  I’ve actually looked at this race 2 years in a row and nixed it because of what day it fell on.  Actually, both Austin Olympic distance races are on Mondays (CapTex on Memorial Day, and this one).  Mean, mean race directors.

But then it showed up on the TX Tri series.  So my race registration hand was forced.  I have vacation to look forward to soon, and I’ve become accomplished at learning how to not have my post-race Sunday fundays really fuck up my next day (read: nuun, eating a lot, and early sleep), and it actually worked out because Saturday became the RUN ALL THE ERRANDS day (not kidding, we left the house at noon, and didn’t finish until 9, it was ridiculous!) and having that be the day before a race would have blown.  Sunday was a run all over town day, but mostly in the car and sitting type stuff so my legs felt pretty rested.  I had put a 15 min swim/bike/run shakeout on the schedule but after the exhausting day Saturday and lack of time, we called it an extra rest day.  I’m pretty sure that 45 mins of easy multisporting w/pickups would not have made or broken my day, though it’s something I’d like to try to get in the habit of doing to see if it does good things for me (I usually go pretty heavy handed on rest days pre-race week except when I’m dumb, like Jack’s Utter Lack of Rest Days Generic Tri).

At the expo, I picked up one of those nifty TYR carbon tri suits for half off!  It’s a little snug, but apparently it’s supposed to be, and it looks pretty good.  Zliten and I will probably be sporting matching suits for Kerrville!  The shirts kinda sucked, I loved the color and the design, but it wasn’t girly fit and the shirts ran super big – like my medium fit Zliten.  Oh well, PJ shirt or maybe I’ll wash it and dry it on hot and hope it shrinks.  Also got a sweet hat, a water bottle, some bars, and some other random stuff in the packets.  We also had to rack our bikes the day before, and had assigned racking with very little space.  Also, we got race tattoos instead of body marking.  Crazy!

We didn’t get to sleep until about 10, but I got 6 SOLID hours and woke up feeling pretty great.  It’s been months since I was really excited about a race, and I think with all the racing I’ve forgotten how to be nervous, but I was really stoked to be racing an Olympic for the first time in almost 2 years.

Pre-race pretty much goes like clockwork nowadays.  Oatmega mint breakfast bar, chai late, put on peppy tunez, try to poo a bunch, get dressed and fill camelback and bottles, put the bags in the car, get to the race, set up transition, use the porta potty, warmup run, porta potty again, run into people we know… we saw our coworker/friend J, and I saw Maureen in line for the potties the second time, and then after Zliten’s wave started I found our tri-friend Brian and his mom.  It’s nice after a few years of doing this to have friends.  I remember my first year of doing this it was kinda lonely.

The only difference this time was no warmup swim.  Boo.  However, there was a band… on a boat!  Definitely a first for me.  Very quickly, we made our way down to the water, I placed my flippie floppie, they sang the national anthem, and the open wave was off, then the young uns, then Zliten and J.  Fast forward 20 minutes, I’m jumping off the dock, treading water, and then the horn goes, just as someone kicks me HARD in the heel that’s been a little touchy.  Yay!

It wasn’t the nicest lake swim ever, it had a whole lot of nature.  However, I do love a nice long swim and after 300m or so I found my stroke and just swam steady.  It felt slow, sustainable, and comfortable.  I had no idea if I was the last person in my wave or what, but I passed a few people in waves before me and had not too many other color caps pass me.  I ate some lake water as it started to get choppy but I made it out and felt barely winded though a little disorented being upright after just under 40 mins of paddling.

Swim time: 39:39 for 1500m

T1 went according to plan.  Camelback and helmet/glasses on the bike itself was sort of nice – I wasn’t bent over stressing my back as long.  I will probably continue this.  Exiting what I thought was the mount line wasn’t – you had a HUGE LONG run with your bike to actually get to the mount line which was annoying with clompy clomper bike shoes.  I expected this to be longer than normal and it was.

T1: 4:35

The bike was a joy, minus perhaps that first hill climb right at mile 2.  The majority of people seem to hate loop courses, but for me, the more the merrier.  The more times I ride terrain, the better and speedier I get each lap.  When I know what to expect I can use my energy more wisely, and while some people can study maps and elevation charts and understand from driving it, I really only know what it is to bike a place if I’ve biked it.  My goal was to ride the first loop sustainable pace that felt like I could go forever, and speed up from there.

Well, I didn’t really do that.  I did ride at what felt like sustainable pace, but it certainly wasn’t 15mph like I’d planned, it was closer to 16.  I didn’t fight it, and the second lap I was right about 16.5, and then I knocked out a little more speed on the third and spun the last mile or so easy to get my legs ready to run and ended up with a 16.69 pace.

I was scared as all get out about this bike course because I just don’t understand damn elevation charts.  This one looked like a wicked course, but I loved it more than every other course I’ve ridden except maybe Kerrville sprint.  I could have eeked out a few more tenths of MPH but I was really enjoying myself, I had more than beat my speed and time goal, and it was getting hot, I knew the run would be brutal.

The only negatives are that a huge tri with a 3 loop course, you’re always drafting a little even if you’re trying not to, rude people with 10k$ bikes, rude people with 10$ bikes riding on the left, and the fact that I am dumb and thought I dropped my chain but instead I just was going down a hill and had no resistance.  Duh.  I swear I’ve been riding my bike for more than 2 days.

Bike time: 1:29:54 for 25 miles

T2, I realized after doing my normal switcheroo and grab that I had way too many things in my hands to deal with, because I had added a wristband gel holder, a baggie of ice, and a frozen water bottle to my normal race belt and visor, and made the call to take some extra time to sort shit out.  Baggie went down the back of my shirt, freezy bottle went down my cleavage, gel and holder went on, visor, and belt, and I was off.

T2: 3:45 (see, long.  But it was a choice, not a fuckup).

That water bottle and baggie was my savior for the first 3 miles.  The sun was beating down and it was hot as balls.  My goal this time was to do everything I could to make it not an excuse, but something I could overcome.  A lot of the run is kind of a blur, especially the last few miles, but here are the high/low points.

-Friend filled run: I saw C and M cheering for us!  That was a huge boost, both on the first lap when they were there, and the second, even though they had left already, I was like “I can’t walk by them” and once I had made it by that spot, I felt better.  I ran into Maureen about mile 1 who tried to get me to run faster with her, but I was just lucky to maintain where I was at.  I ran into our tri friend quite a few times, he caught up to me at a point where I was really hurting, I picked it up for a while, but he had to take off.  It helped me not to walk.  Oh, I wanted to walk.  So badly.  But I read something that really stuck with me HERE (which btw is my new favorite blog), is she mentions that walking is a choice.  Well, I may have been shuffling in the 12s at times, but I was not ready to make the walking choice.  I’m still pissed at walking at Couples, and I think that is going to stick with me for a long time and keep me at least pretend running when the going gets tough.

-However, with a 3 loop course and a 2 loop run that doubles back on itself over and over, I never once saw Zliten (or J for that matter).  We both were a little worried about each other until we met up at the finish.

-Ice ice baby: A frozen solid water bottle lasted me 3 miles.  That’s how dang hot it was.  However, I kept fairly decent pace those 3 miles (~10:30s) and just started to fade once my freezy friend was gone.

-The epic hill at the end of both loops was just mean.  Especially the second time with no water and all the hot.

-I passed two girls in my age group on the way to the finish.

-My goal was under 11 min miles, and I just eeked out 10:57 pace.  Yay!

Run time: 1:07:56 for 10k. 

Total time: 3:25:52. 

Considering my pie in the sky goal was 3:30, and my first effort 2 years ago was 4:04 and change, I am over the moon!  A 39 minute PR! Simple math at the end of a race is hard.  I spent lots of time in my head trying to figure out my times from pieces of information I recalled (what wave was being called when I exited the swim, what the clock said at mile 3.something calculating how long I started after the first wave and adding what I thought the rest of my run time was), but thankfully the results were up quickly and I just kept high fiving Zliten all day saying “3:25!!!”.

Next up is the race for all the pistachios.  The A race of all A races for 2012.

With this fucker to conquer on the bike (2 loops).

Considering how my body feels this week so far (freaking fantastic – almost no carnage from the race at all), and the fact that I just have a little bit of hay left to shovel into the barn, I’m ready.  Bring it on.  I’m ready for half iron day.

Training recap:

Last week:

MONDAY: 1650m swim + weights
TUESDAY: 45 mile trainer (30)
WEDNESDAY: triple bricks (20 mile bike, 3 mile run) double bricks (10 mile ride, 2 mile run)+ weights
THURSDAY: 10 mile run  (6 mile run + 25 mile bike)
FRIDAY: 1500m swim
SATURDAY: off
SUNDAY: 15 mins swim/bike/run w/pickups extra rest day

This week:

MONDAY: OLYMPIC TRI (1500m, 25 mile bike, 6 mile run)
TUESDAY: 1050m swim + weights
WEDNESDAY: 35 mile trainer
THURSDAY: 6 mile run + weights
FRIDAY: off
SATURDAY: 16 mile run
SUNDAY: off

As you can see, training last week did not go according to plan.  I cut some bike miles due to schedule crap so I could get 8 hours of sleep.  Then my heel decided to act up a bit and to be careful, I cut some run miles and added back the bike miles.  I think I ended up flush with the bike and about ~5 down on the run.  I also cut the day before the race as my off day actually ended up being RUN ALL THE ERRANDS for 10 hours (literally), so rest was better than some arbitrary miles.  I wanted to make sure I was excited and hungry for this.

This week should go more according to plan-ish.  This week is also my first real definitely longer than half marathon run without a race to help me.  It says 16 miles, but I’m considering just changing that to 3 hours, putting on something to zone out to, changing my garmin to just display time and HR, and just being one with the road.

For now, I have a crap ton of stuff to do and not much time in which to do it.

**Note: I swear I have post race pictures.  Can’t find em.  For now, please take this offering of a picture of mah new hair did (Birds fixed my layers).

Vacation was fun, but back to the grindstone.  Good thing I love what I do!

Two new things I did this week…

My Fit Foods:

Zliten is working a bunch of OT at work and they’re providing lunch and dinner.  Sometimes, that’s good, and he can snag a semi-healthy (or at least not calorie offensive) sandwich or salad or something.  Sometimes, it’s pizza or other nutritionally void stuff.  So we decided to hit up my fit foods and get some help to fill in the gaps.  We decided we needed some help getting through the next few weeks with work and training and vacations, and one cannot live on Amy’s food alone.

It’s not cheap.  The smaller meals are more reasonable, but being that we are training a butt ton, we went for the large sizes, which were about 10 bucks each.  It’s about a restaurant meal cost, however, it’s a whole lot healthier so there’s that.

The verdict?  Is good!  We both got the Fit Nugget Nation – almond and flax coated chicken breast, cinnamon carrots, and broccoli.  It came with a mustard sauce, but I replaced that with light ranch and franks red hot, and I toasted the chicken on a pan.  Zliten loved it as is though.  We also both got the chili, which I added olives and cilantro to, but it was really good as is (I just always have to add stuff).  I got the Blazin’ Cajun Shrimp which was really good but light on the veggies and needed a little salt.

I expected them to be adequate, but they were actually GOOD.  Some were better with additions, but for some quick and healthy meals it was perfect.

Veloway:

This is my last weekend that is both in town and not racing before taper, so I wanted to make the most of it.  Swimming is in the bag, I’ve been running a lot (and on tired legs and outside) and done a lot of trainer miles.  However, I keep trying to remind myself that trainer != riding outside and that just because I can crank out 40 miles on a weekday and run the next morning (or 56 and then run right after) doesn’t mean as much out on the roads.  I was feeling a little sheepish about my outside riding since it’s been a little, uh, lacking lately.  Not bad, just absent (which is probably worse).  The last time I rode outside was Jack’s Generic Tri 3 weeks ago. And looking at the training logs, I’m not entirely sure I rode outside before Couples’ Tri either.  The last time I really remember riding outside was the epic hilly 30.  I think that was in June.

I’ve been using the little time I can get outside when its not hot as balls to run.  Which is good, because running on a treadmill is bad when you need to be heat trained and ready for hills, and biking on a trainer is much closer to biking outside, and bike workouts take longer to do and stoplights and traffic suck, yadda yadda.  But considering going into this training, the bike was the leg I was most worried about, I just want to have one more check that I’m not in over my head.  So 50 OUTDOOR miles went on the plan.

We were going to do Lake Pf, a bunch of laps around our normal 15-ish course, but Zliten still hasn’t taken his new clipless pedals out for a spin, and Pf does have some cross streets and scary stuff.  So instead, we headed to Veloway, which is a 3 mile loop that is a little slice of heaven – no pedestrians, no cars, just rollerbladers and bikers.  We’ve never been there because…well… it’s South and feels like it’s in another town and Pfluger is nice, but it was perfect for the day we wanted.

Now some people might go bonkers doing the same 3 miles over and over.  Not me.  I loved it.  The first loop, I cursed and got my heart rate up a lot.  There were a lot of twists and turns and my legs were fatigued and there was even a mini-carnage hill (a sharp turn right into a steep hill – just like the one from Rookie and Couples).  I wasn’t ready for it, and I thought I was going to have to try to unclip and walk up, or just topple over, but I made it.

Usually a ride starts out rough while I warm up, and this was no exception.  I was struggling to keep up with my 15 mph goal of the day.  No bueno.  I decided to eat something every loop.  At first I felt like a big piggy but I think it worked out well.  About 5-6 miles in it got good though – I was warmed up and feeling good and average pace was 15 on the dot.  My goal through the whole ride was to stay at a pace that I could maintain through the ride.  So far, 15 seemed to be it.  I’ve been much better at maintaining a pace on the trainer but as I said, the trainer is not outside.

Miles 10-20 were uneventful and we stuck together. 20-30, I started feeling…great!  Once I hit the halfway point I was just feeling joyful about being on the bike, the day was beautiful, not dealing with traffic, and just feeling awesome.  The worst part of long rides are the first few miles (getting warmed up), and the second to last 10.  You’re just far enough through it to be tired and over it, but not close enough to the end to be excited about it.

Not today.  They were just as awesome.  My only complaints were in the hoohah region, and a little bit of stiffness in my lower back, and that’s totally normal on a long ride.  At 40, we ran out of water so we stopped and refilled.  Let me tell you, trading lukewarm liquid for cold water was just AMAZING.  However, the stop did make it hard to get going.  I liked seeing 15 average (it had been there almost the entire time) so I told myself to buck up and speed up, and besides a brief dip to 14.9 on the garmin, we stayed directly in 15 territory.

The last few miles it became clear how HOT AS BALLS it was and I was definitely ready to be off the bike.  I took one last hike up mini-carnage, one more trip up the zig zag hill, one more practicing cornering sesson down the the last twists and turns, and I hit 50 and unclipped and found a place in the shade to wait for Zliten.  We stuck together for the first 42-ish, but I just couldn’t slow down and he just couldn’t speed up.  Soon he was along and we packed up and went home.  We ended the ride at 97 degrees.  Deceptive how hot it had gotten – I figured it was just pushing 90.  The plan was to run a mile after but considering how late and steamy it was, we skipped it.  But I knew I could have run. 50.12 mile done – 3:20.  Easy peasy. 15.0 mph average.

I really and truly feel like that was the last piece of the puzzle I need to feel ready for the 70.3.  A couple more weeks of maintaining where I’m at + some with running ramping up into higher double digits, and then taper (glorious taper!).  I’m in shock that 5 weeks from now, I’ll probably be extremely drunk on champagne and celebrating the completion of rocking a half ironman!

TL:DR?  Confidence, I has it.

The Scale:

I was worried about vacation taking it’s toll on my weight.  I mean, there was definitely a lot of eating like an asshole.  Plus, TOM and all that.  I was certain it would be tragic, but I’m back down to 176.0.  Awesome!  Lots of training + good foods = back to normal quickly.  Should the progress continue this month, I will be happy.  My pants are also looser, which is a good thing.

The Schedule:

Here’s the deets.

Last Week:

MONDAY: off
TUESDAY: swim all the laps (but we had to share a lane so I only got 600m done)
WEDNESDAY: 5 mile run + weights
THURSDAY: 10 mile run (8.7) + 15 mile trainer
FRIDAY: 3 mile run (4.3) AM
SATURDAY: 50 mile outdoor ride
SUNDAY: off.  Was going to swim, but the AC broke and that was drama and wasn’t resolved until the pool closed.  So the universe, or at least my house, wanted me to have a rest day.  I can dig it.  I’ll swim longer tomorrow.

This Week:

MONDAY: swim + weights
TUESDAY: 45 mile trainer + weights
WEDNESDAY: triple bricks (20 mile bike, 3 mile run) + weights
THURSDAY: 10 mile run
FRIDAY: 1500m swim
SATURDAY: off
SUNDAY: 15 mins swim/bike/run w/pickups

…and then on Monday I have a little Olympic Triathlon to do. 🙂

Time to finish watching Clueless (As IF! I totally paused…) and laundry.  My life, it is terribly exciting.

So, they say you can never go home again.  It’s always proven true to me.  Home is really where my Zliten is.  And my bed.  And right now, that is really and truly Austin.  I suppose it’s that I have lived in a handful of places for just about the same amount of time (besides growing up in Chicago), but we both expected to feel much more pull and attachment to San Diego.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved being able to see the beach.  And the nummy Cali-style tacos.  And the beautiful weather.  And getting to hit up some of our old haunts.  It’s just really weird to me now that in So Cal, people just don’t smile, say hi, say bless you when you sneeze, hold doors open, let you over when you signal when driving, and are just generally obnoxious.  I remember being that and thinking that it was weird not to, but southern hospitality has rubbed off on me and there’s no going back.  I had fun with the hippies in Ocean Beach, and if I came back, it would totally be to live there and be a (ridiculously rich) beach bum.  I’ve even picked out the condo.  However, I don’t think that in real life, I’d want to move back.  I just don’t feel like it’s a fit anymore (or maybe ever was…).

Anyhoo, high points of the trip:

-We took a prop plane from LA to San Diego.  It was a tiny 20 seater and really loud, but sort of fun.

-Taco shop food. Fried, shredded beef taco + enchilada combo = love.

-Getting to see Zliten’s parents.  It’s been since Thanksgiving.

-I read two books in 4 days.  One more to go in my sci fi series!

-The awesome weather.  It was 80 and they were calling it hot and muggy.  Pffft.  Puh-leaze.

-We stayed at the W hotel downtown.  It was super fancy.  There were some nice touches like pitchers of water in the lobby with different flavored fruit, an acura that would take you around (though we walked everywhere for the most part, or it was wayyyyy out there – OB), a nice cabana area, different rugs in the elevator depending on what time of day it was, and custom ordered pillows (feathers, synthetic, etc).  However, there was some bad/weird – the shower had a half wall that wouldn’t close with a hole in it.  It was supposed to be edgy and artsy, I get it, but there was no way around just spraying water ALL OVER THE BATHROOM while showering. Also, they had a TIIIIIINY pool to which they were serving drinks in glass glasses.  And there was a dude in it who drank way too much and didn’t get out of the pool for 3 hours.  So we decided it was hazardous and did NOT go in at all.

-I came back with a sweet orange floppy hat from the swap meet I scored for 5$.  I expect to obnoxiously sport it all around town as I did in SD.  Or maybe just in my back yard.  Either way…. ORANGE FLOPPY HAT!

-On the way back we landed exactly 9 minutes before our connecting flight took off.  They had to hold the plane for us.  It was sort of exciting!

….and oh yeah, I ran a half marathon.  +2 miles after.

It really felt kinda like that except for the reminder I even have today about downhill running, which I THOUGHT was my BFF, maybe she’s a little more of a bitch than I thought.  Because my quads sort of lost that arguement.  Toilet sore to quote Charlotte.  Squatting sucks even today.

So I didn’t have much hope for the race since we got crappy sleep all vacation and walked at least 5 miles per day, but I figured maybe I had a sub-2:15 in me.  We got up at 3:30 after having to call security on the room next to us who were partying just a little too loud (I felt like an old fogey doing it – but I mean it was LOUD.  I couldn’t just hear noise, I could hear what songs they were playing and what they were saying.  And it was after midnight), and did normal pre-race things.  We got to the shuttles, and immediately got loaded on (which was AWESOME), and they took us backwards through the course, pretty much.  Climbing, climbing, climbing, and we got off the bus to two amazing sights – rows and rows of porta pottys (they planned well), and a beautiful sunrise with an amazing view of the ocean and city.  The monument we were at is never open to the public that early so it was a rare opportunity!

I had intended to run 2 miles easy to warm up to get my mileage up to 15 for the day, but I didn’t see anywhere to run, so I supposed I needed to tack them on at the end.  We went to the bathroom like five times and walked around and tried to stay loose.  As it got to be time, we folded in with the crowd and got going.  Zliten’s goal was to take it super easy on doctor’s orders, so I left him for my own pace.  My goal was 10:30s to start, and then see how I felt.  Mile 1 went well, and I split that exactly and was feeling good so I sped up.  Until about mile 5, I just kept picking up speed, rolling mostly downhill with some uphill stretches, through this adorable neighborhood with tons of people out with their hoses squirting runners.  It was awesome!

At 4.5 I decided to take down my first gel.  It didn’t set well without water, so I held onto it until the next one.  WHICH. NEVER. CAME.  Either I missed the next water stop or it didn’t exist.  I started to fade and curse a bit and get grumpy.  I was feeling really, really dehydrated.  Around mile 8 we finally got another station which I walked through, chugged one water, and took my gel with another cup.  I picked up a little bit but the damage had been done, I needed that gel earlier and more water and some sports drink which was noticeably absent.  I kept running but my pace was definitely not what it was – more like high 10s and 11s.

Then, the mile 9 water stop was just fucking missing.  I had intended on doing another gel but I couldn’t do it without water.  I wanted to wait until the aid station to walk but at about 9.5 I just couldn’t hang.  I was just.so.thirsty.  I made the call to wuss out on the race, and just enjoy the views at a slow pace.  I walked a lot of the rest of the course –  when I got to the next aid station I even had to stand in line and it was “get a cup” “shuffle, wait” “have it filled with a HOSE”.  I didn’t care.  I got three of them.  I chugged them so fast my stomach hurt.  Another aid station came up quickly and I did the same thing.  I tried running again for a bit but then we hit the hill of stupidness, so I just walked it.

Finally, after I was mostly up the hill, I think the water finally kicked in and some people had squirt bottles around mile 12 and that finally jolted me out of headcase town and I started running.  Fast!  Mostly 9s and 10s.  I felt pretty great and got my second wind!  I finished up the race, did a lap around the parking lot, and then ran back to get Zliten and ran him in, and then took another lap… on the way back to the car I did a combo of running and walking and ended at the truck at 15 miles and feeling great!  Even with a TON of walking I ended the race with about an 11:15 min/mile pace (2:32) and the 15 miles with 12:15 pace.  My legs have never felt so awesome at the end of a race!

However, the downhill miles really screwed my quads.  The front of my legs are rarely sore when running and my quads and shins even are still sore today.

Then, we partied in Ocean Beach, hit the water for just a little bit, and had a few drinks at our old favorite bar Nunu’s.  I crashed HARD that night.

After Monday off and today really easy (15 minute swim), it’s back to the grindstone.  5 mile run and weights tomorrow morning, 10 mile run and 15 miles on the trainer Thursday, 3 mile run and weights Friday, and a 50 mile outdoor ride + 1 mile run Saturday.  I also would like some more swimming, so maybe Saturday afternoon or Sunday.

With all that, there’s work stuff going on and getting ready for the Olympic Tri in 2 weeks and getting ready for vacation #2 and unpacking for vacation #1.  So it’s time for me to stop yapping and start sleeping.  Thanks for indulging the rambly and potentially incoherent recap, but that’s all I have for ya.  Alarm in 8 hours… G’nite all!