Boulder.

Dear Diary,

This morning Sweet Baboo and I had a short run and then headed for Ironman Village to pick up our race pack. We are expecting perfect racing conditions on Sunday but it rained all yesterday afternoon, night, and into this morning, so the grassy field next to Boulder High school was a wet, sloppy mess.

For this race they gave us a backpack and a small bike multitool kit. And there were a few changes since the last time I did this one...no number on the bike, just our body markings and the stickers all over the bike. The race number with my name on it will be worn during the run. There are TWO bike claim stickers, so Baboo and I can each have one.

I'm busy packing my bags. Korbie has directed me to eat solid food throughout the race. Not a lot, just enough to keep something in my system. I've done this during ultras but not during an iron distance race. It will be interesting. I think it might help.

I'll be wearing my bike shorts and tri top Under my sleeveless wetsuit. I have corrective goggles, and anti fog stuff for them. I am to eat one of my protein bars about an hour before i swim. It may be as cold as 50 degrees (air temp) at the start

Bike bag: my pointy alien head race helmet, mountain bike shoes, regular cycling socks, Sportslick, and a ziplock bag containing my noon thyroid medication, four protein bars (one i am to eat IMMEDIATELY) and a couple of gels.

Bike special needs bag: i'm not preparing one. I'm too paranoid of not making the cutoffs, I will ride as continuously as i can. A small red bull will be de-gassed Saturday and go into a small bottle on my bike. I have to reach mile 56 by 1:30 and 86 at 3:30 and be off the bike by 5:30 pm. This is a source of great anxiety for me since I'm such a crappy cyclist, and because: hills. I will not be carrying a hydro pack. It's too unweildy and adds weight. I am worried about the possibility of an afternoon thunderstorm. I'm supposed to have a protein bar every 2-3 hours.

Run bag: underarmour mesh running shirt, raceready shorts, injinjis, and Newtons. Another packet of bars and gels and another degassed red bull. I'll be switching from corrective bike goggles to lightweight transition lens glasses and a hat. I have to be at mile 12.9 of the run by 8:50, turnaround at mike 16.5 at 9:40 pm. The third run cutoff is Boulder high school at 22.7 at 11:15 pm. Unless I'm injured or throwing up, i'm not worried about the run cutoffs. Protein bars every 2-3 hours. Headlamp, because, lets face it. I am not a pre-sundown kind of girl.

Tomorrow, I'll take Danger Kitty to the t1 area.

After that, it's over but the sweating, crying, and swearing.

...

 

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More on that later.

Dear Diary,

This week I decided I wasn't hydrating enough. As in, I go all day barely drinking anything. To get me back into the habit of drinking regularly, I've started drinking diet soda and flavored water to make me more likely to drink.

Cheaper than coffee.

But do you think the doctors where I work appreciate that? Noooooo. Yesterday, I walked into rounds and plopped this into the middle of the table:

 

 

 

Shrieking and hysterics ensued.

What is THAT? What's in there? What are you drinking?

Before I continue with my story it behooves me to introduce new characters: Dr. Zen and Dr. Drama.

Both are MDs, hence the unsolicited advice on my 64-ounce morning repast. Both are board certified specialists, which is why they work with me on the children's psychiatric unit.

Dr. Zen has been a child psychiatrist for decades, He's often pretty mellow, though he is not without some occasional flights of fancy. He does a lot of thinking, often for so long that he needs reminding, "we'll know what you're thinking when it's in the chart. Please put it in the chart." He haaaaates technology and is quite put out and offended by its intrusion into his life. I can't communicate with him by any other means than telephone. But when he does write his reports they are quite an entertaining read. They are a lengthy narrative containing every detail one could need on the life of a child in our unit. He teaches all the kids breathing and meditation, and spends hours with families in person or on the phone. He is much more interested in getting kids services and therapy than most. He looks a little like John Denver.

Dr. Drama really, really wants to be mellow, but he's prone to exageration and some catastrophising. He gets a bit dramatic at times, e.g., "can you call [dr. X] in [town]? I can't speak to him! He makes my ears bleed!" This said with much emphasis and some flailing, and then perhaps anecdotes. Note: Dr. Drama hates, for the record, the nickname Dr. Drama, so shhhhhh. His reports are tight, structured, clear, rarely contain adverbs but use words and phrases that frankly, I think are overly complicated. "... hit his head on the wall, causing epitaxis." (Nosebleed). Or, "several self-inflicted cuts on her left lateral iliac crest" (hip). Dr. Drama likes technology. It's not unusual to get a text from him: pls find play thrpst for 12 y.o. Fem. that takes BCBS. (Please find me a play therapist for a 12 year old girl that takes Blue Cross insurance) perhaps at 7 on a Saturday night, for his clinic patients, which is not part of my duties. And then i do, and he buys me chocolate. It's a system that's working well.

ANYway, I figured that for the morning I'd better come clean and get all the recriminations out of the way. Like ripping off a bandaid.

"What I have here, gentlemen, is Diet Mountain Dew, and a little fruit punch. I'm trying to hydrate more. And some ice," I added.

The furor that followed surprised even me. I sipped my half gallon of caffeinated goodness calmly, while they freaked out.

Apparently, not fans of diet soda. They told me I'm killing myself slowly with my 64 ounces of poison in a cup. It might as well be antifreeze. I'm messing with neuroreceptors in my brain! Why can't I just drink water? With a little LEMON? Oh, THE HUMANITY! MOUNTAIN DEW IS PEOPLE!! PEEEEOPPLLLLLLLL!!!

 

The lecture and arguing over my choice of breakfast beverages lasted about twenty minutes, and then it was over. I promise to try drinking some plain water, can we get on to talking about patients please?

For the record, I am the lead social worker and therapist for a 12-bed inpatient children's unit (soon to be 16 beds, More on that later.) at a local hospital. I've spent much of the past 3-4 months months while Sweet Baboo has been at various army trainings (More on that later.) reading and studying and attending workshops honing skills in the area of CBT play therapy. I use sandtray for now, mainly.

Behold my collection:

And yes, it is fun collectiong them. I frequently find myself reluctant to let anyone, much less a child, play with a new miniature I've bought. But then. I get over myself.

Last Sunday, I did an Olympic tri, the first triathlon I've done in several years. Ugh. It was fun. Sorta. But kinda hard. I have serious reservations about the upcoming. Ironman Boulder. More on that later.

 

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Thurs--er, Frid--er, I mean Saturday. Something. Okay: Saturday Something.

Dear Diary,

14.  BUSY.  I just simply ran out of day yesterday and again Friday, and didn't get this posted.  It's MYCHILDISDRIVINGME FUCKINGNUTSSOCANYOULOCKHIMUPPLEASE?  week at the children's place where I work, so everyone is showing up for their appointments meaning, of course, that I have to actually work.Maybe this will become permanent: Saturday Something.  Not to be confused with Saturday Somethin'Somethin', which is completely different, and not suitable for all audiences. 

13. GROWNUP: FAIL. I am here to tell you that my original thesis (Grown Children Should Not Live With Their Parents) holds true. In case you'd been wondering if you should do this some day, now you know. Yes, I threw myself on that sword for you. You're welcome.
For instance: several pieces of my beloved Fiesta Ware went missing.  missing.  How is this possible?  What on earth could have happened? We bought exactly four of everything for dishes when we bought this house, because it is designed for people to visit for short amounts of time.  On purpose.  So yes, I noticed when the pieces turned up missing.
UPDATE: The pieces were found, used, in a dresser drawer in the guest room.  WTF is that?

We'll go ahead and pretend these
sculpted arms and abs are mine.



12.  Keeping the girls at bay.  I am once again in the market for a bra, having lost enough back fat (you're welcome for that visual) to need a smaller band size.  No, I will not translate mysterious bra language for the males out there - ask your wives or sisters. Anyway, all the bras I have are too big in the band, so they slide around and chaffe the hell out of me.

I do have one fantastic bra made by Hanes and I've never been able to find another, of course.  OF COURSE.  

This month, I'm testing out this bra: The Moving Confort Juno bra.  I like that it has a T-back, so that I can terrify (riiiiiiiight) with my Mdot tat, and it comes in pretty colors.  If it works out, I'll get more pretty colors.  I also like that it could actually be worn as a top owing to the lack of plunging in the front.  I'll keep ya posted.

11. Two wheeled misery.  I am going to do - gasp - not one, but TWO sprint triathlons this summer.  Yes, that's right.  I am going to get on a BIKE.  One of them is in Fort Sumner, and the other one is in Socorro.  Since I rarely swim or bike any more, it should be interesting.  I actually got on a bike YESTERDAY and rode it a whole 9 miles.  Just to see how it felt.  Yep, I still hate it.  But I'm willing to do it to do a sprint triathlon, because those are fun. 

10.  iPad adjustment.  I still have no way to do blog posts without coding in HTML from my iPad.  It's not that I can't code in HTML, it's just that I'm lazy.  I was coding in HTML back in 1995.  So, I've gotten into the habit of jotting things down in the Notepad throughout the week on iPad, and then posting that at the end of the week.  However, if I want pictures, I have to go to a computer.

9.  Crappy weather.  It can't decide if it's super muggy here or dusty and windy, or both.  Bleh. Mornings are fantastic, cold and crisp, and then from out of nowhere, the afternoons are moist and hazy. 

8.  Himself.  Sweet Baboo is going to be gone during July.  Army stuff.  :-(   Starting in July, I'll be training for the Duke City Marathon in October.  I've never done it before.

7. I'm still lazy.  I was trying to explain to a coworker about the concept of I. Am Lazy.  but she didn't get it.  "you run marathons," she said.

It means you are more efficient with your time and how you spend your energy.

You have to understand, it's all relative.  Most of my friends are like Jack Russel Terriers - leaping all over and twitching their fast twitch muscles and  
HEY!  LET'S DO A 70 MILE BIKE RIDE ON SUNDAY!

HEY!  LET'S DO A DOUBLE-CROSSING OF THE SANDIAS ON SATURDAY!  

HEY!  WANNA COVER 100 MILES OF THE ROCKIES ON FOOT, INCLUDING 13K PEAKS, IN FOUR DAYS?!?!?
NO?  OH, C'MON!  it'll be FUN!

 and I"m all mmmmmNah.  There's a "Bones" marathon on TV.  and that roasted red-pepper hummus isn't going to eat itself, you know.  

and there's always this one (my favorite) BUT...BUT...IT WILL BE AT AN EASY PACE!

Yeah, right.  I'm not falling for that again.  Every single time something, anything, was an easy pace, well, let's just not go there.  Let's just say that "easy pace" is, like laziness, all relative.

You have to understand, many of my friends win races.  Win them.  Not like me, who wins because all the people in my age group stayed home that day, or the real serious runners didn't show up, but because they are faster than shit. So, there you go.

I hasten to say: I love them.  I love all my friends; they are awesome.  And, I know they love me.  Even though, I.  Am Lazy.

The upside to having super fast friends, of course, is that nobody ever feels intimidated by me.

Seriously.

Nooooobody.

6.  Breathe in, breathe out.  Something strange has happened this spring: Suddenly one day my asthma got better.  I say one day because I ran out of Advaire and remember, I. Am Lazy. So I kept putting it off day after day, getting the refill, and, well, nothing happened.  If anything, I breathed a bit better.
I'm not saying it's gone, but suddenly much better than it used to be, even given the time of year.  Yes, my chest was a bit tight when the thick smoke from ARIZONA blew over here yesterday (thanks for that, by the way, Arizona) but I wasn't up all night wheezing.

I'm not sure what to think of this, except that I quit smoking in 1995 after being told that a small amount (I think it was 10%) of my airway was blocked by scar tissue and I'd have emphasema if I didn't quit.  I've heard that it takes several years for your lungs to recover from smoking; I smoked for about 15 years, I quite 15 years ago, who knows.  All I know is that it's much better than it used to be. I tried googling for this, and couldn't find anything about it anywhere. 

5.  de-Hoarding.  I have to post this, it was sent to me by a blog reader that I think it's fantastic: Zen Mind: How to Declutter

4.  MYSTERY.  Facebook told me they had to remove something because it violated their terms and I didn't have any right to post it but I don't know what the hell they're talking about because everything seems to be in place.  whatEVER.

3.  Sweet Baboo never actually swooned over the new iPad as I did when I first saw one, but he sat closer and closer to me, asking questions, until inevitably he went and got one newer, with a faster processor, more storage, and a camera.

So now we are a two-pad household.  And I have iPad2 envy.

If I haven't mentioned this before, well, I'm the unofficial tecchie in the household.  I set up the wireless router and such.  I fix computer crashes and problems.  Even more importantly, I know when I'm out of my element so I can cook dinner for the youngling who comes over and wrote code into the router to make it do what I want.  
So, now, Sweet Baboo has an iPad, and I'm once again in the position of responding to frustration while he learns it.  It won't take long.  It's just that he hates technology and doesn't play with it to see what he can make it do, like I do.
Did I also explain that I break into hives when I hear exclamations that indicate there are problems with the computer?  Yep.  But it's all good.  He puts up with my messiness, disorganization, emotional lability, and general scattered-ness, and I fix computers, thermostats, electrical things, and automatic sprinklers.  It's all gooooood.

2. NO BITTERNESS HERE.  Lest I come off as bitter or angry (regarding #13) it behooves me to make the following, very serious point, which I believe is congruent with most of how I live my life: I would have rather taken my daughter in and found out that it didn't work and wasn't a good idea, then to have not taken her in and always wondered if I should.  I live my life that way.  A very wise man taught me that you have open your heart to live and be happy, but you have to be willing to risk the bad things that might happen and be willing to accept them, too.
(It's altogether possibly that the very wise man was telling me this to get me to go out with him.  It doesn't matter.)

The POINT here is that, there are few things that can't be undone.  So, why not do them.

1.  HOT FLASHES.  This is stuff men will not, or should not, be interested in, unless they have a loved one with this problem.
When I was told two years ago by the pharmacists "no soy, not ever" with respect to my damaged thyroid, I stopped drinking my daily soy latte.  I didn't know it then, but that daily soy latte was what staved off the worst of menopause symptoms.  These come early in my family.
So. I started having hot flashes of the worst kind - I'd wake up sopping in the middle of the night, shoveling all the covers onto Sweet Baboo, who would protest mildly in his way. Then, four minutes later, I would be freezing and grab them all back again, and then some.  (Yes, I know he's a saint.)

Sometimes in the middle of the day, during a meeting, I would suddenly feel like I was bursting into flame.  I would feel little cold pinpricks of sweat on my legs and I would calmly excuse myself, to to the ladyies room, and then press myself up again the cool, tile wall....ahhhh.

Most of the estrogenetic over-the-counter stuff has soy in it.
Then, I found Estro-Care.  It's not cheap, but it's available at drugstores and online, and it has a pump, so I like to think it somewhat standardizes how much I get.  I use it about every other day.  (If you have periods, you have to use it 3 weeks on every day and then 1 week off, but I don't have those, thanks to our local minimally-invasive women's surgeon) so I just use it about every other day or so.  Voila: no more hot flashes.

But I do have oily skin.  So I'm weighing the pros and cons of having my makeup slide off every day vs. not having hot flashes.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.  I hope that it's useful for someone out there.

...

Gosh, when I see it written down like that...

October's totals:

Bike: 15 Mi Can you tell I got pretty sick of the bike? This past Saturday was actually the first time I got into a saddle since AUGUST. I had several back bike experiences that really kind of freaked me out. First, there was my tire blowing up at Barb's race. Then there was several times that I fell over while trying to clip in going up a hill. Then there was the couple times I got ditched on rides with other people. I'm going to do indoor cycling for a while. I predict a better season next time.

Run: 52 Mi - My injury is slowly getting better - in fact it felt better this past Sunday than it's felt in weeks. I'm planning to start bringing this up soon, to get ready for my first 50-miler in February at Rocky Racoon.

Swim: 4700 M - I'm in a master's swim class now. We do a minimum of a couple thousand, so look for this number to increase pretty fast.

Wrapping up the 2008 Triathlon season. What did I accomplish?
I did a 25K midnight run in Texas.
I did a 25-mile trail run in Colorado.
I did four marathons, in Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, and Utah.
I did a 50k ultra marathon in Alabama and one in Texas.
I did five sprint triathlons in New Mexico
I did the 1.2 mile swim and the half marathon run at Barb's race.
I did one ironman triathlon in Idaho.
I lost ten pounds, and gained thirteen back. (170 lbs right now)
I lost a dress size, and then gained that back, too. (size 12)
I can do 8 pushups in a row now. (I've been slacking on this. I'll have to get back on the ball if I want to meet my year goal of 10 in a row)
I've just about got my last kid graduated and gone.
I got four black toenails.
I got my first over-use injuries!

Here's my 2008 totals, so far:
Bike: 1644 Miles (2740 km)
Run: 669 Miles (1115 km)
Swim: 32 miles (51,541 M)

Apologies to my international friends. I'll put up KM and KG up soon.

Not bad for a big girl who hates to exercise!

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