Future thought.

I've lost an inch off my thighs, and about 12 pounds.  I think last week I was stressed and dehydrated, because I gained a couple pounds this week but didn't change sizes.

This year as I turned 45 I had the time pause and think and I came to a couple of realizations:

1) Forty-freaking-five.  Holy crap.  That's older than, well, than I imagine many of my high school teachers would have been when I was in high school, and I thought they were old.

In other words, I'm older than what I used to think was old. 

2) I have been in college almost continuously for 20 years.  I started working on my Bachelor's degree in 1991, and then wondered from one graduate school degree to the next, including a couple of PhDs I never finished.  Don't get me started on why.  I rarely take a straight path to any destination, either literally or figuratively.  I meander. 

Meandering to my eventual destination is my third special gift.*  It makes a nice counter-part to Baboo's way of doing things, which is very tight, organized, and efficient.  He got his Bachelor's degree in 3 years, taking exactly the amount of credits he needed to get it. For my bachelor's degree I accrued 183 credits.  He's made me think more about efficiency.  I've made him learn to relax, because if you're all about efficiency and deadlines, but have to live with me, you'd go mad, otherwise.

All of this, of course, ending up where I am now.  Could I have done this with far less schooling? maybe.  But it's unhelpful for me to dwell on that.  One thing that is certain is that it's not like the journey is more enjoyable, I wind up overloaded and stressed because I've taken so long to get things done that they are piled up on top of other things I'm trying to get done, like this spring, when I've been trying to get ready for an Ironman, work full time, go to school full time, and deal with two new dogs.

Meanwhile, pretty soon, I will get to see my house in daylight.  My dogs will know who I am.

This third master's degree is kind of an analogy to Ironman.  After I've done my third, or fourth, one--I've made my point.  I'm ready to move on.  Or not.  I don't think it could ever be argued that I've gotten some shit done in my life. 

After May of this year, I want to take a step backwards, at least for a few months, and enjoy working out for a change, instead of feeling locked into a training schedule.  I'll do my last Iron distance this fall and then be done. 

I want to focus on what I like, running and swimming.  The swimming I'll do for fun, and the cycling will be cross training, but after this year, the most triathlon I'll consider doing is a half iron.  Maybe I'll train for a 100K.  Or not.  I'm stil thinking about these things right now.  I have one last iron distance race I signed up for over a year ago, and I'm committed to it, in OKC, in September.

There's nothing terribly entertaining in all this.  It's just me thinking out loud today. 

I guess I should get up off this couch and go ride my bike.


*the other two having already been mentioned yesterday.

Back online, Finally.

I finally got a new hard-drive for the computer, installed and most of the software is installed...except I don't have the key for my Office 2007. I'm going to try calling Microsoft on Monday. Now I get to try to catch up on the thousand blog posts I've missed.

I've got about 2 weeks left until the Black Warrior 50K. Today I ran 23 miles, my last long run. I hope it takes. I get a twinge in my right knee when I run. It doesn't slow me down or anything, and it stops hurting within an hour of when I stop running. It just basically says, Hi, I'm your right knee. Don't forget that I'm here. Maybe it's arthritis. It's been exactly the same for the past 2 years, without getting worse. Knock on wood. My run felt especially slow and heavy today. I think the taper will make all the difference.

This week I attended my first Pilates class, because I'm having, um, some issues with the ultra running. As in, I feel like my uterus is about to fall out. What is it with my lady parts anyway? Why do they hate my new active lifestyle so much; why do they try to thrwart my attempts to be sleek and healthy? Sigh. So, I went to my doctor, but it was during the holidays and so I met with his new physician's assistant to get a referal to the lady doctor. Not because the doctor is a lady (she is) but because she takes care of lady parts.

So what seems to be the problem?

Well, uh, I'm training for a marathon. I do these long runs, and recently I've started feeling some pressure

Pressure?

Yeah. Like, uh, I feel like my parts are going to fall out.

Blink. Blink. Your parts?

Yes. I feel like my uterus is about to fall out.

Oh. Okay....um, well. I think we can get you a referral...

So, I've got an appointment to talk to a lady doctor about such things. Meanwhile, Pirate ordered me to go to Pilates class which she swears will strengthen my pelvic mucles, (I haven't mentioned this, but for diet and exercise purposes in 2008 she is the boss of me.) So on thursday, I went to my first class, and I have to say, I love it. I just love it. For one thing, I'm forced to sit down and focus my thoughts inward, and sit still for AN HOUR. For someone who's been officially diagnosed as, OMG YOU'RE SO FU@#ING HYPER! and that, more than once, to sit still and just be. It's very nice. And Pirate is right, I definitely feel the work on the lower abs and pelvic floor. I think it will help my running, and all the other stuff, too. Maybe my uterus will stay right where it is.

Other lady stuff: This Wednesday I'm going to go get my first mamogram. I've been putting it off for 3 years. I was kind of freaked out when I saw a video of one being done. However, since I've started endurance sports things scare me less. I mean, if I can leap into the Ohio river at the crack of dawn and push through for 17 hours then having my chesticals squashed between two glass plates for a few minutes shouldn't be a big deal, right? Besides, It's time. I mean, I haven't any family history of breast cancer, but you never know. Time to grow up and stop being such a weenie.

After that Sweet Baboo and I are getting the some fitness testing done. We're going to have our bodyfat percentage determined by being dunked in water on a scale, or something like that, and something called a "Wingate" test and I don't know if that's how it's spelled, and some other stuff that I forget about just right now. I'll write about it.

All right. Time to start reading blogs...

Miscellaneous Thursday Stuff.

I've started my off-season marathon training. I find myself in the position of having signed up for four marathons in four months. 'Cause that's the way I roll. Some say driven. Some just roll their eyes.

Tonight, I used the "workout mode" on my Garmin for the first time today. It was pretty easy to program, and I programmed in an interval workout as follows:
Five-minute warmup walk - Then this sequence repeated 3 times:

• Fast Jog 1/4 mile
• Fast Walk 1/8 mile
• Fast Jog 1/2 mile
• Fast walk 1/4 mile

"Fast jog" by the way, is what Msr. GarMEAN calls the pace I've been aspiring to.
Yep, I hauled ass, only to be nagged by Garmin, which sounds a little tinkling, trilling noise when you're going too slow, and flashes SPEED UP! briefly on the screen.

Obviously, I don't know what happens if you're going too fast (are you KIDDING?)

I liked training with GarMEAN, although it was another startling reminder that I really, really need bifocals. I just can't read anything close with my near-sighted glasses on anymore. I did manage about a 9:30 pace on a couple of those intervals, which is great, but I didn't realize it stopped recording my run immediately when the workout was over. Maybe that's a setting I can change, but I ran about a half mile before I realized it was no longer recording.

I also wore my new trail shoes today for the first time. They are what I can only describe as breathtakingly ugly.

As in, every time I look at them, they take my breath away and make me forget how tired I am, as I think, "Holy cow, those are some ugly shoes." But, they're pretty confortable.

Then it got very, very dark, and I couldn't see any more, so I kind of shuffled that last few miles back to my car. Oh, and because I had to listen for the Garmin, I ran without music.

Diet-wise, I've been a good girl this week, except for what I suspect was a moment of PMS weakness when a kid in my classroom showed up selling fundraising candy.

I just wanted to help out, you understand. So I did, a Reeses' and a Snicker's worth. Hey, the kid is trying to earn enough to go to Italy. What else could I do?

...

the Jimmy speaketh

The moral of the story:

You don't need to have "equipment" to not enjoy ice between your legs.

Now here's the rest of the story.

So, I'm at Wednesday night bricks with The Jimmy. He's having me do various movement, stretches and extensions so he can identify where the pain is coming from.

"Does this hurt?"

"No."

"How about this - feel anything?"

"Nope."

"What about now. Any pain?"

"No."

"How about now?"

"nunh-unh.

"And now?"

"Nope."

"Anything?"

"No."

"Now?"

"Nope."

"Anything? "

"Nope."

By now, I'm on my back on a PT table with one leg raised. Then the Jimmy pushed his elbow into a spot at the base of my buttock, where my left sit bone is.

"What about now?"

"OWIE OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!!!!!!"

The Jimmy thinks it's the very top of my hamstring, strained when I took a wrong step and then twisted to compensate for it. I read some about it, which never helps. I think he's talking about this: Hamstrong Tendon or this: High hamstring tendinopathy.

I, of course, am running all the worst cast scenerios through my mind. Thanks to having an active weight-lifting, cross country teen, and a husband whose childhood nickname was "zipper" due to all the stiches he had growing up, and everyone who gets injured and blogs about it, and too many episodes of House, and the Internet, I have a an array of frightening possibilities in my head.
Hip stress fracture. Avulsion fracture. Ischial bursitis.

For now, I am ordered to ice the area. To reach it by ice, the pack basically goes between my legs. 4 minutes on. 4 minutes off.

That's a long 4 minutes, as you can surmise.

You don't need to have "equipment" to not enjoy ice between your legs.

And now you know the rest of the story.

...

in praise of slow.

I like the word 'indolence.' It makes my laziness seem classy. ~Bern Williams

Okay, so now September is drawing to a close and my month of sloth is over. I've meandered, whined, and avoided sweaty stuff for a few weeks now.

I claimed this month as my month of sloth - even though I did do a couple 7 and 10 mile runs here and there, and, um, a few bike rides, as well as a lot of swimming, at least until my tat was done.
Oh, and I also did Wednesdays with the Jimmy. Wednesdays are "turbo bricks," where we alternate plyometrics, interval training, and spinning. I never miss Wednesdays with the Jimmy. Even as I dread them, because he makes me go fast. However, during track intervals, the Jimmy usually sends me around the track first, so that there isn't a huge lag time between when the others are done and I finish.

For most of my life I was completely sedentary. Now I feel lazy for 'only' running 10 or so miles in a week! This week, for instance, I was scheduled to do a 10 mile run one morning before work (I have to be at work at 7:10) and I thought, nuh-uh. Don't feel like it. I'll do it later. Then that afternoon and evening, it rained like hell. I'll admit, I was relieved. Still didn't feel like a run. But even as I was thinking that, I was thinking, I have got to quit being so lazy, or I'll never get faster.

Which got me to thinking about lazy, which technically I'm not, and slow, which I definitely am.

I mean, I feel lazy but then the people I know every day don't exercise hardly at all. I guess i feel "lazy" because I hang out with some pretty intense people. Pirate likes to run (and bike) up mountains, and her Beloved runs a half marathon in about an hour and a half.

And relative to the Sweet Baboo, I'm pretty lathargic when it comes to training. For instance, if he had come in from running, as I did this morning, and discovered he shorted his long run accidentally by nearly 2 miles, he'd go right back out again and do more. Not me. I called it good, and made myself a Recoverite smoothie. It's all about the smoothie, baby.

And, as a result, I'm slow. Of course, it doesn't help that I've got 42 years under my belt of having been consistently rewarded for doing things s-l-o-w-l-y.

I didn't go to college until I was 26, and then I took 5-1/2 years to get my bachelor's degree. However, I've had jobs (mostly math teaching) fall at my feet ever since.

I met Sweet Baboo later in life than others meet their true love. But there's nothing or nobody I'd rather have with me if I were marooned forever on a deserted island.

And, despite an average 5K run speed over 10 minutes per mile, and an average bike speed in the 14-ish mph range, I've finished almost every single triathlon I've ever tried, including an Ironman. I've done over 30 of them in two years, and I've never had an injury, no a muscle spasms, and just one tiny toe blister that I disovered two days after Ironman Louisville.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this...

It just seems to me, that if I were supposed to be faster, I wouldn't be having this good a time, y'know? I wouldn't feel this healthy. Right now, my slow run, between 10k and 10 miles, is around a 12 minute mile. Above that, it's between 13:30 and 14:30. My five K time is still over 10 minutes.

Sometimes I think of the benefits of fast and envy faster people: they get done before it's really hot, spend less time working hard, and it's a bit easier. There's still pizza left at the finish line because the faster triathletes and their families haven't eaten it all yet. The photographers are still there.

Then again, I go to the local Wall-wart and compare myself to the general population and feel better. Many Americans can't pass a general fitness test, but I can run down most 8th graders. While others are waiting for the closest parking spot I'm jogging across the parking lot.

And, I was slow at IMLooUHville, but not too slow to finish, y'all.

Lots of things are better slow , such as food, sex...uh, okay, I guess it's just food and sex. (But what else do you want?)

Plus, I notice things during runs that faster folks miss sometimes. The sunflowers at the Oklahoma Redman. The smell of chocolate flower on my long runs up the north diversion channel. That funky smell on the run at the Cotton Country sprint. That mailbox that looks like a fish in the AtomicMan. That one horse that seemed to be looking right at me in Kentucky. The fact that since I'm the last of my friends to be done, I always have a cheering section at the finish line.

But now my month of "sloth" is over. I've run out of excuses: I'm no longer recovering from Ironman LooUHville, my tattoo, or starting back to work. It's time to step it up a bit. Tomorrow I'll do at least a 60 mile ride. I'll go back to swimming next week because the tattoo is nearly fully healed (I seem to heal much faster now than I used to.)

I'll keep working out, and if I get faster, so be it. I'll do a couple weeks of intensity to get back in shape for SOMA. Maybe I'll do SOMA faster this year. Maybe not. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy being slow.

This morning, I did a run without my garmin that I was convinced had to be at least 9 miles. Turned out to be 8.25 (whoops). However, I did it under a 13 minute mile, which was pretty good for me, considering it was hilly. And, I felt FAB. U. LOUS. Beautiful morning, that smelled good and felt good. And I enjoyed it, running as I do, S.L.O.W.L.Y.
...

Hallelujia and pass the WD40

This morning I ran 12 miles. I did it at an average 13 minute pace, good for me, and I felt good, too, sipping my Nuun and my grape-flavored gel.

Oooo, admit it, you wish you had some grape-flavored gel, don't you? I made it by accident by trying to mix maltodextrine and water to create a liquid with the same calories as a gel but wouldn't you know it, when you mix that much maltodextrine powder into water - you get gel. So I mixed in a little powdered grape-flavored electrolyte drink mix, and voila: a lightly grape-flavored gel. It was mighty tasty, too.

I wore my hydration pack with about 60 ounces of prepared Nuun in it, and two flasks of tasty grape-flavored gel, and it was a beautiful morning. I had a good run.
Except for the squeaking.

See, during my 16 mile run on Monday I was wearing my hydration vest I noticed a squeaking sound on my shoulder. The tube for the mouthpiece crosses over and hooks under an elastic strap on my left shoulder until I need a drink from it. I could actually feel the squeaking more than hear it; I can "hear" sounds in my bad ear that are conducted through my bones, and since this tube was resting on my collar and sholder bones, my assumption was that this was the squeaking.

It was annnoying, but livable.

Then on Thursday, I did about an 8 mile run, and there was that squeaking again. Squeak - squeak - squeak - squeak. But here's the catch: I wasn't wearing my hydration vest this time.

Nope, guess what: it's me. I'm squeaking.

Did you READ THAT?
I have something in my BODY that squeaks like an old metal door in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
And only I can hear it.

Today during my 12-mile run it was almost constant, a low squeak - squeak - squeak as my left arm swung back and forth. There's no pain or anything, but it's not like I need any weirdness to perseverate on when I'm trying to run.


I googled, "squeaking joints" to see if this was anything to worry about or if there was anything I could do about it, and here's what I got:

• "Forcefully blow powder into squeaky joints..."
  


• "Take several very thin wood shims and tap them into any loose or squeaky joints..."



• "Oil up the squeaky joints..."

I've already ruled out the first two, since they don't seem like a pleasant solution.

The only thing I can't figure out is where to stick the little straw so I can oil this thing up.

...