School days, school days. (Haiku)

Yellow buses roll

children head glumly to school

moms and dads celebrate.

On getting my butt kicked.

Boy. Talk about resting on your laurels! So after Ironman Coeur D'Alene I was all full of myself; I was all, you know that thing, the the gesture where you lick your finger and lay it somewhere on your body and go, tsssssssssss--yeah, i was all that

and I wasn't doing any speed work,
and then I showed up at a local sprint. Unbeknownst to me, my closest rival, fellow NM Outlaw "Warpath" Karen, had been doing some serious speedwork since the LAST time I beat her (twice, but who's counting) and of course, you know what happened next:

yes. Of course, she kicked my ass. SOUNDLY.
and that's even considering that SHE doesn't even have any place to SWIM where she lives, nor does she have any paved roads. She beat the crap out of me.

Lucky for me that Karen is also one of the most awesome people I know. Karen's been doing triathlon for at least 20 years, and for 19 of them has been an Athena. When I first met her, she sat me down and the speech she gave me went essentially like this: bodyglide, bodyglide, bodyglide, bodyglide. Best advice I ever got, hands down.

So, this past Saturday, she had no reservations about telling me what speedwork I should be doing. I sat next to her for nearly an hour after the race and soaked it all in, like a big giant Athena sponge. I had already made a goal of doing speedwork after Ironman but hadn't really followed through on it yet, but after Saturday, I was humbled, after placing fifth Athena, and I made a new training plan for the rest of August in which I do some speedwork in each of the three at least once a week.

Today I started the swim speed work, which I got off Beginner Triathlete, and then cycled uphill onto the mesa and back home. I used my commuter, which has SPDs, and I'd like to point out that I don't ever, ever, ever have to look down to clip into my SPDs. Are you sick of hearing about my pedal angst yet?

Oh, and I can do SIX REAL PUSHUPS now. SIX! I'm pretty sure I've never done that many at one time in my LIFE. I'm thinking, at this rate, I will make my 2008 resolution of doing ten pushups in a row, and then some.

...

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Siren says it all.

DANGER WHEELS! A Race Report.

Today was my third annual participation in the Annual Socorro Chili Harvest Sprint Triathlon, which I did with Sweet Baboo and mini-Baboo. Like to give a shout out to the Sanchez's, Kim and Ray, who were nice enough to chat with me and ask my advice, which is AMAZING; I'm AMAZED and confounded that somebody would ask me my advice on anything!

There a lot of Outlaws there and a couple bloggers: Courtney, Lisa, Cindy, SWTriGal, and lots others.

Now, last week I threw a tempter tantrum about my blown tire at Barb's race. I hated my Look pedals, because they make me fall, and I hated the tires, because I wasn't able to change them. Well, Sweet Baboo took me out to the garage yesterday and talked me through changing a tubular tire. Then, I changed the other one.
It was so easy! Why were people telling me that you had to cut them off? Wussies.
I popped that sucker off easy cheesey, then pulled of the old glue strip and then put on a new one, and then two brand new tires, and inflated them, and changing one, timewise, took the same amount of time it takes to change a tube on a clincher.

My flat kit now has a pre-stretched tubular and glue strip. Now I'm all empowered, and stuff. I'm certainly not afraid of tubeless tires any more.
Plus, my brand new tires are YELLOW. Here's the result:


Did you know in nature that the colors red, yellow, and black are colors that are Aposematic? They signal danger.

Rrrrrrr. Watch out for me, I'm danger kitty.

(Okay, well, actually the danger is that I'm so slow that you'll have to find a safe to pass and/or not trip or swim over me.)

But anyway.

I can't compare my times to last year because this was held on a completely different course, and because I did a half marathon 6 days ago, so my legs are, how shall we say it, a bit COOKED.

But, I did this race in 2006 and was about 3 or 4 minutes faster this year that I was back then. The course has a few long climbs on it - they aren't steep, but they're long. And the road is bump-p-p-py, but if you don't mind the jarring, and your water bottles are secure, then it's not so bad. The run is mostly flat, and the swim is a seeded start in a warm pool. It's a nice little sprint, well supported.
Sweet Baboo didn't do as well as he would have liked. We'll excuse him, this time, being as he did an ironman 6 days ago.
Mini-baboo had a hard time of it, being as he's 17 and believes that once you're fit, you NEVER, EVER, HAVE TO WORK OUT AGAIN. LAY OFF MOM, I SAID MY RUNNING WAS FINE! WHY ARE YOU BUGGING ME ABOUT THIS? I SPENT MOST OF THE SUMMER WORKING, MOVING FURNITURE AND CHANGING TIRES, AND I'M TELLING YOU, I'M READY FOR THIS SPRINT!

Oh, I almost forgot (added later) I got 2nd place master's Athena, and I think 3rd place overall Athena.

I like my bike again.

But I still hate the pedals.

...

Good things.

Mood music. Go ahead and listen to it; I'll explain why soon.

Good things that happened this week:

• I had several nice runs. I felt fast. Of course, I wasn't fast, but I felt fast. That's a nice feeling. I'm falling into a nice work week routine of running 2-3 times and doing strength stuff afterwards.
  


• I found my Garmin! I'd misplaced it after the Ft. Worth run. As it's my third Garmin (I lost the first one and ran over the second one), I know Sweet Baboo was somewhat distressed at the possibility of its loss, although he hid it well. Still, sometimes, I wonder, how often does Baboo have to hide his distress. Is he just working up a huge ulcer because of me? I downloaded the info and found out that I did the run at a 12:09 pace for 25 K. That's almost fast enough to be called "running". (WeightWatchers classifies anything over a ten-minute pace as "jogging".)
  
  
• On a related note, I have now found all the stuff this week that I los tduring July. Yay!
  


• I went running with Baboo this morning. My moderate run matched his very slow run, and while running, Sweet Baboo was able to discourse easily on a number of subjects, while I gasped out occasional answers, one or two words at a time.
  


• At the end of my 2nd whole week after signing my contract, I now have 9 clients. My goal is a roster of about 25 or so. The secret is to hang out and do intakes which, the other counselors don't like to do, and then assign the client to myself. Bwahaha.
  
  
• I've been doing some dumbbell strength excises about three times a week to strengthen my noodly, weak upper body, and proud to report that this week I graduated to 8-pound weights (from 5-pounders) AND, I can do FOUR WHOLE PUSHUPS. The real ones. No knees.
  
  
• For the first time in a very, very long time, I had no idea what day school started for Mini-Baboo. I had to look it up. Just 9 more months...
  
  
• We're having a good "monsoon season". It's rained about every other day. Our Coral Honeysuckle that nearly died while we were in Idaho is blooming, and the hummingbirds are going crazy around it.
  
  
• I'm getting pretty excited about the Colorado Relay. Have I mentioned the relay? The ten or so of us spread across two vans and 170 miles of Colorado? I don't want to detract from anything our Team Captain has to say about it.
  
  
• So about the video. Well, this song is just stuck in my head, and I'm hoping that by getting it stuck in your head I can exorcise the demon. Good luck!
  

...

More on my shiny new life.

I was thinking last month about all the fine people I know at my old school who went back to work today. They reported at about 7:15 or so, and on the 12th, the kids show up. They'll have five classes each of about 30 kids. If I had not resigned, I would have spent today making 5 seating charts and writing out introductory letters to parents, writing 2 weeks worth of lesson plans, and trying to arrange my room to meet all the rules:

• Make sure your content standards are posted where students can see them.
• Make sure your class rules are written in font that can be easily read by non-readers.
• Make sure all the tables (yes, table, not desks) are arranged in a way that kids can see the white board, AND the smart board, AND the television.
• Format my lessons so that the CPS system is used (with the smart board) EVERY DAY.

A month ago, when I was thinking about this, I was wondering I was wondering if I'd miss it.

So this is how my day went, instead:

I have a morning run now on most days at 6 am. Today at 7:15 I took my kid to the same school where I used to work for cross country practice, but after the 12th, I won't do that any more.

Then I went home, showered, made myself a latte and egg-beater omelet, then drove my car to a shady spot not far from my house, and then pulled my bike out of the back and commuted downtown. It was about an 11 or 12 mile commute, and I got there early, time enough to look over charts and such for the day.



My commute is about 40 minutes. It's a flat dedicated bike trail along the river. Then I turn in and head down a few nearly deserted side streets, past a coffee shop, and then at the counseling center, park the bike in a storage room, and change out of my shorts. Most of the people downtown are used to cyclists and drive pretty slowly there anyway.

Today I had a full day of clients and it was definitely challenging, but not the kind of challenging where you take lots of deep breaths to avoid throwing things at people; it was more the problem-solving kind of challenging.

At the end of my day, I got home later than I used to, but again: that commute, along the river, which provided a lovely 40 minute buffer between work and home.

Is this my new life? Well, I'll take it, thank you very much.

...

Barb's race: DNF

Added 8/4: Mood music.


Well, what can I say. Statistically, it was bound to happen sooner or later: I DNF'd due to equipment failure. Actually it wasn't so much equipment failure as it was realllllly crappy road failure, whose many flaws you could not see due to the dappled sunshine on the course.

But I"m getting ahead of myself.

I started my morning by eating a mess of Ramen about 3 hours before race start (lots of sodium, and simple carbs) They had already said it would be unseasonably warm. Right before the race I had a powerbar and an energy drink. I had a good swim. I swam at a steady pace, not really trying to haul ass, or anything. I also did not WALK in the river. I have a real problem with that; in my opinion, if you can't swim, do duathlons. So I did about 45 minutes on the 1.2 mile swim, without sinking.

Then I had another energy bar, and headed out on the bike. I went over the aforementioned crappy parts in the road around mile 14.5, and immediately I heard this noise: PDTHLPDTHPLDTHPDLTHPDTHLPDPLTHDLPDLTHPDTHLPDPLTHDL
I pulled over to the side of the road, staring down at my bike, but I couldn't get my feet out of the pedals in time and fell over, and--WHAM!

Have I mentioned how much I hate cycling?

I had cuts and bruises on me, but more importantly, I found a cut in my rear tire right along the rim. I have tubeless tires. Apparently, these can't be fixed, on THIS course, on THIS day, in THIS weather. I did not know this. I started walking, once I realized I couldn't change the tire. Several very nice people stopped and tried to help, and then agreed: this tire couldn't be fixed on THIS course, in THIS weather.
And, despite several promises by 1) a race official, 2) a race volunteer, and 3, 4, 5) several athletes to promise to let the sag wagon know that I needed help one never showed, so I hiked for about an hour, and then finally took a ride back to t2 and turned in my chip.

The people that picked me up seemed to have trouble finding their way back to T2, and so during that hour (It was now about noon) several things were going through my mind:
1) I really hate cycling, and here's one more reason why.
2) I'm always complaining about how I can't get to the run unless I do the cycling, and
3) I ate a buttload of food this morning, and now how will I work it off?

And I was pissed. I mean, I've never made a secret of how much I hate cycling, but it irks me that I have to endure it just to get to run. I was talking to someone before the race who was doing the aqua-bike, and thinking whistfully, why isn't there an aqua-run? Why can't leap into the river, swim my guts out, and then go running? No fair.

So, I decided to make my own aquathon. I was also thinking about how, last year, I walked off the course at Soma because I decided it was too hot. Maybe, at least in my own mind, I could put that half together with this half and make a whole half, and, hey, why did I always have such rotten luck with half irons? Maybe it's just not my race. So, I did what any idiotic stubborn Athena triathlete would do: I went and ran the half marathon.

The run course was surprisingly hilly, and it was 98 degrees. 98. Degrees. (Estimates were between 96 and 98.)
However, I had a secret weapon: my uber-cool Injinji's, yes, but more importantly, my keep cool bandana. This is actually two bandanas sewn together with an absorbant pad in the middle, and parts of the sewing left open so that you can load it with ICE. So you load it with ice, soak it in water, and then tie it around your neck, tucking the pointed part down the neck of whatever top you're wearing, and here's the result:
The ice melts slowly, and cool water trickles continuously down your neck and back.
I'm tellin' you, it's the BOMB. I can't wait to run in the heat again so that I can use it.

Oh, and be really careful about running under those sprayers. I realized around mile 9 that, um, you want to keep your feet dry when you're running longer distances. It's not a good idea to run in soaked shoes and socks and pound your soft, wet feet with nearly 160 (or whatever) pounds for 13 miles. Yikes.

So I ran the half marathon, and I ran in the company of a woman named Cory Churches from DC, and I was thanking her because without her I would have said, "crap, this is hot and I'm DNF anyway, so I'm quitting," while meanwhile, she said I kept her on pace. She told me that later when she stopped by to tell me, excited and breathless, that she was first Athena in the awards. I felt pretty good about that.
People during the run were all screaming and waving cowbells and it was just too much to say, No, I'm DNF, I'm not a real finisher but eventually I just said, "thanks". I did the half marathon in 2:56, not a PR for me, but considering the 98-degrees I was running in, I was pretty happy with my results.

So what have I learned today?
First, I'm switching back to clinchers. It's a very nasty feeling knowing that I can't fix my own tires, and I lack the crew to do it for me.
Second, Look-type pedals suck. I'm apparently much too retarded to coordinate getting my feet into them, and I've given it 2 years to get used to them, but I can't work it out, and walking in the shoes with Look-type cleats is nearly impossible. Not sure what I'll do next.

After I stayed to watch Sweet Baboo finish the iron-distance, I showered and ate.
Then I came back to chew on the skin on the sides of my thumb while DreadPirate finished her first Iron distance race. She finished at 10:51 pm, with nine minutes to spare since this very hot, difficult course closed down at 11 pm. After she crossed the finish line she looked at me, glassy-eyed, and I think--I'm not sure--she said something like, Holy Fuck Buckets. and I said, "Huh?" and she said that again. Her mommys, et al, whisked her away, wrapped in a mylar blanket and now I"m sure she's passed out somewhere, and can tell you all about her adventure.

Results: DNF.
Sweet Baboo got 2nd place in the Clydesdales.
DreadPirate went Iron!
21st Century Mom is, like, the best sherpa EVAR.
Keep cool bandanas are the Bomb. if you have to run in the heat, get one. Now!
My nutrition worked well, for what I did:
3 hours prerace: power bar and 2 servings of ramen
1 hour prerace: double latte, sipped slowly
post swim: power bar#2, lots of gatorade.
pre-run: power bar #3, lots of enduralytes, lots of water.


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