Just imagine there are pictures: thursday 13

Dear Diary,

The wind is blowing like crazy outside and I am curled up under a quilt with Sweet Baboo, three cats, and Tom Waits keeping me warm. Getting up to put the promised pictures of the exercise room profiles of runs, and such, would involve leaving this all behind. Sooooo...placeholders for now.

don't you know there's no devil; it's God when he's drunk?

13.  Friday, two mothers and their respective children showed up at 3 pm, each claiming a 3:00 appointment.  Unfortunately, they were both correct: someone had double booked me.  I saw one at 3, and the other graciously agreed to wait until 4. 

Lunch had been Lean Gourmet Swedish Meatballs, and the package of Trader Joes Peanut Butter Goodies cookies that my Secret santa left in my inbox.  Urp.  I started eating Lean Gourmet because it's all I really have time for, and at the BX, it's about 80 cents.  NO, i do not want to know how high in sodium it is, or that there is a list of ingredients with chemical names longer than Moby Dick.

 It's food. It's cheap, it's portion-controlled, and it's pallatable.

12.  Saturday, I ran about 4 miles on the trail.  My legs felt heavy, which was attributed to the lunges and squats I had done during the previous week. Then, i went to a holiday party with the people who work with Baboo.

Each year I make the same potlock meal: curried yams, and brown rice. It's vegetarian, it's yummy, and it's wildly popular. I take home an empty dish.   But here's the thing: only Sweet Baboo's coworkers, psychologists, eat it.  My fellow counselors or social workers don't touch it. Ever. What's up with that?

11.  Sunday, I did 14 miles of a planned 50K FatAss that will be held on New Year's Day.  Here is the profile:

*placeholder for missing run profile here*

10.  Monday, Lunch was Lean Gourmet flatbread.  It wasn't bad.  It was the size of my hand.  I recognize that this is a normal portion.  Also on monday, I found out that the kid whol told me Friday I'm not fucking going upstairs with you for an assessment was hospitalized over the weekend. I told her so.

9. Also on Monday, it snowed. Again. We have had an unprecedented amount of snow so far this winter. Right now, as I'm typing this, the wind is howling and more snow is coming down, and they have closed I40. 

Now, New Mexico I thought we had a deal: you give me moderate, sunny winters, and I look the other way regarding the whole dust thing.  What happened?

*placeholder for snow pictures here*

8. Tuesday, I went to a local hospital's psych ward to see a kid that had tried to escape. He went over the wall around the facility the day before carrying, of all things, his lunch box.  

Also on Tuesday, I couldn't find my car keys. Anywhere.  I finally went outside to see if I left them in the car, and behold: they were there. 

In the ignition.

With the car running.

Yes, that's right. I parked my car at noon, got out, leaving my car running in the parking lot for four hours.  In th parking lot of a mental hospital. Have you ever done anything so stupid? I say you have not.  

Tuesday's lunch was Santa Fe Beans and Rice (Lean Cuisine).

7.  By the way: Lollicup.com Sugar-free flavoring syrups for coffee.  I'm just sayin'. It's the secret to me being a morning person.

6. Wednesday, the lunch of the day was shrimp scampi from Lean Gourmet. That night, we ate with folks from my the office at a local steakhouse, and the starters menu had calorie counts after each choice. It. Was. Horrifying. Few starters were under 1000 calories. I wound up having a 6 ounce fillet with sweet potato fries, and steamed brocolli.  I was very proud of myself. 

5, Most of the people I work with are in their mid-twenties. It was an interesting evening.  I found out things that I never knew about my coworkers.  Like, nearly all of them are half my age. 

4. Also wednesday, i had to caution an adult who wouldn't shut up and let me ask about their kid. It was all, me, me, me.  I get that people with disordered kids are grateful to find anyone who will listen to them but I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD. I DO NEED TO HEAR ABOUT THE VOICES IN JUNIOR's HEAD. 

3. Also on Wednesday, I made the following law, called GeekGirl's law no. 5150: 

if you name your kid Chaos, don't complain to me about his behavior.  

Ever.

Also, Greek Goddesses. I'm just sayin'. Greek mythology is a soap opera, so you're asking for trouble by naming your kid after one of the principle players.

Unless you're Greek, and then it's okay.

2. Also on wednesday, i discovered that 1) all seasons of 'Bones' are on Netlix, and 2) apple tv has closed captioning.  Thus, my new winter running is in place, in my new exercise room.  Bliss!!!

Pictures:

*placeholder for missing exercise room pictures here*

1. Okay. Here it is, my 50-mile running plan.  I hope this formats right. I used to code in HTML and am perfectly capable of creating a table, but why do that when I can copy and paste from Numbers?  

Recall: I. Am Lazy.

Week of:      Week. M.    T.     W.    Th.   F.    S.    Su.   Total

Dec 5, 2011 1 0 2 2 2 0 8 6 20

Dec 12, 2011 2 0 2 2 4 0 10 6 24

Dec 19, 2011 3 0 2 2 4 0 12 8 28

Dec 26, 2011 4 0 2 4 6 0 14 8 34

Jan 6, 2012 5 0 4 4 6 0 16 10 40

Jan 13, 2012 6 0 4 6 6 0 18 10 44

Jan 20, 2012 7 0 4 6 8 0 20 10 48

Jan 27, 2012 8 4 8 6 0 0 10 8 36

Feb 6, 2012 9 4 8 8 0 0 22 10 52

Feb 13, 2012 10 0 4 10 8 0 22 10 54

Feb 20, 2012 11 0 4 10 8 0 24 10 56

Feb 27, 2012 12 0 4 10 6 0 10 8 38

Mar 5, 2012 13 0 4 12 8 0 0 31 55

Mar 12, 2012 14 0 4 12 8 0 24 10 58

Mar 19, 2012 15 0 4 12 8 0 26 10 60

Mar 26, 2012 16 0 4 10 8 0 16 10 48

Mar 5, 2012 17 0 4 6 6 0 10 6 32

Mar 12, 2012 18 4 3 2 0 0 50 59

Each week I will post that week's running plan and the actual mileage, making me direrctly accountable to the half dozen people who still read this blog :-/

Last week, i was 2 miles short on my training plan.  This week, i was 2.3 miles short. 

The week day runs are all treadmill. The weekend runs are all on the hilly trails behind our house.

Ta-daaaaa!

...

Banal, ordinary snippets on being lazy and gluttonous.

Dear Diary,

One of the pictures that someone else took of the La Luz trail run
I did this past Sunday.

 13. Himself the Baboo is doing oct training in San Antonio during the MONTH of November. I have never been away from him for that long before.

12. That is, by the way, the reason I am signed up for the R&R San Antonio marathon. Some people check out the coffee shop when they teavel. I check out the marathons.

11. I am considering (just considering, mind you) attempting my first 100 miler at the end of February, here. 
(picture of buckle added for JoJaJogger)



10. My favorite work collegue and lunch partner is gorgeous. She likes to stay fit, and looks much younger than she is. She goes to the gym most days of the week. She is single, and would like to meet someone, she says, but the men her age are not only paunchy, but "seem" old. Meanwhile, the only men who approach her are 25-year-olds.
After I finished rolling my eyes at her "problem" I suggested that she hang out at some of the events I go to. "no paunchy guys there," I told her. She's not convinced. I think she thinks ling distance runners are freaks. I'll work on her.

9. I am now a firm believer in the Sunday marathin cooking and freezing routine. I have two crock pots running, usually, and when tney cool I bag and freeze the results. But I don't label them, because that would involve searching for a Sharpie and remember I. Am lazy. Soooo...Dinner is, um...dinner is whatever is in the quart ziplock bag I just took out of the freezer. I just grab whatever frozen bag is on top, thaw it out, and then decide what to do with it.

8. Moreover, I have discovered you and do pretty much anything with a generic mixture of tomatoes, chicken, chiles, and onions. Pour it over noodles and call it Italian. Layer it with corn tortillas, beans, and some cheese and call it enchiladas. Add curry, and pour it over rice. These are the ways I save time for running.

7. I am going to be so happy when the Final Destination 5 movie comes out! BECAUSE I'M really pretty damned sick of the commercials.


6. As of this morning, of the 3000 face-to-face client hours I am required to have before applying for my independent license, I have 13 left. THIRT. EEN. next up: a crazy hard licensing exam.

LUNCH:
It's what's for breakfast.

5. This has been one of THOSE WEEKS. You know the ones...most days, you've eaten your lunch by 9:30 and you spend the rest of the day prowling the halls at work looking for donuts. No? OK, maybe just me then.

4. No matter jow long I work where I work it's still jarring to hear a 4' tall 6-year-old saying, in his very sweet, high-pitched voice:
I DON'T FUCKING CARE! 
GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME! 
or, the ever popular FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKERS!  

Yes, children are the future you know.  Working with them is SOOO rewarding.

3. Sometimes when I run in the morning, I run past elderly men or couples, dottering along, and I wonder what they think.

(Actually, it's a diet Mountain Dew)

2. My lazy lunches this week: can each of reduced fat cream of chicken and celery soups, three chicken breasts cut into pieces, a bag of frozen veggies (I like the normandy mix). Throw it all in the crock pot. Cook on high 3-4 hours or whenever it seems to be done. I stir about halfway though.

Divide about 1/4 cup of brown rice between five containers and ladle this stuff on top.

1.  This week I was looking for a quilt hanger.  Sweet Baboo and I have a quilt that his grandmother made, very pretty, and I want to hang it up.
When you look for stuff on Amazon, Amazon makes suggestions for what other people bought this product also bought....  

Here are my suggestions from Amazon:

"Distance Creep" and foolish optimism.

I wanted to say thanks for all the encouraging words I've gotten on my finishing worry freak-out. Krissy emailed me and helped me to put it in perspective. I mean, the best I can do is train, and then show up and do my best, right?

I was reading AndreaSue's blog yesterday about "distance creep". I have a 100 mile ride scheduled for this weekend. I figure "Distance Creep" is one of the benefits of training; you're less freaked out by the longer distances.

At work yesterday one of the other teachers told me that she actually walked her very first 5K this summer. I was thinking, that's so cute! but not in a nasty, condescending sort of way. I was thinking of my first 5K almost wistfully, the way you think things like, Man, if I could redo my senior year in high school I would SO blow them away with how much more I know now.

I was also thinking that it was interesting that she singled me out to tell me about this, since, I guess, most people would say, "OMG, three miles? WHY?"

In that vein, my training today will be a triathlon, out of order, with really long transition times. I have a 50 mile bikethat I was supposed to do two days ago. Then I'm going to hit the pool for 2000 meters. Then I'll eat, go over to the high school and get Mini-baboo registered for his Junior year.

Then in the hottest part of the day, per the Jimmy, I'm scheduled to do a 7 mile run, down on the bosque, where it's nice and humid. Yay. You know I loves me some heat. The feeling of the sweat rolling down parts of me - where can I get me some more of that? And the river flies biting my slow-moving ass? Mmmmmm.

And it occurs to me, the only part of this day that I'm worried about finishing is getting Mini-baboo registered for school. I mean, standing in line for 30 whole minutes. Ugh!

So I figure that at least part of all the training and the miles and the miles and the miles for the Ironman has to do with preparing me emotionally for the distance, so that I don't say, OMG 100 miles? and instead I say, 100 miles. Well, here we go. Where's those four water bottles I froze yesterday? Are my fig Newtons still in the drawer?

Yesterday I 'volunteered' for registration for the new school year, which starts August 9th. (Ack!) Right after I got there the secretary pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted to "comp" my time. In other words, the two days I was going to take off to do "your iron race thing in Kentucky," would I like to come in and do registration and then get those days off instead of using up my two personal days?

Hell, yes I would! I was planning to do the 25-miler when Baboo and Bigun have their big show-down at the Tri-101 in the fall and was wondering how I was going to get that time off.

Lesson learned: go head and sign up for that race, even if you don't know how you're going to get there or get time off or pay for it or anything. Was this a lesson I needed to learn?
(Is this a new GeekGirl law, perhaps GeekGirl's Law of Foolish optimism?)

Anyway as much as I dread going to work today, it primes me for fall. Gets me into the right mood. This year I'll be a "floater" because we don't have enough classrooms. I won't have my own room; I'll share rooms with other teachers during their "off" period. I've done it before. It's no big deal. I'm also switching to teaching Algebra, something I did for about five years, by choice. It's actually easier than teaching science; there's fewer props involved.

On the downside, it means I won't get to decorate a room in Happy Bunny posters, something I've sorely been wanting to do. So, I'll have to put them on my teacher blog. Parents are always thrilled by stuff like that "Uh, Mrs. P? I was wondering if, you know, we could talk about some of the posters you have? They seem a little, uh, you know, not related to academics."

On the upside, administrators are extra grateful that you're willing to put up with it and they kind of afford you some latitude when you need a bit of time off. Or when you show up wearing a pair of crop pants, cycling sandals, and a race T-shirt instead of "professional dress".

It's disturbing how I'm beginning to manipulate my professional life to conform to triathlon.

Anyhoo, extra time off will be useful because I'm already thinking ahead to IMCDL next June. This means my longest and hardest workouts will occur while I'm still teaching, in May. I can't imagine fitting all these in while working and trying to wrap up a semester, when the kids are at their most hyper. Yikes! But, It'll work out. GeekGirl's law of foolish optimism says so.

...