Shameless promos from my blog.

1) We're selling our house. Mini-baboo is graduating and joining the Navy, so we no longer need this big old house in the suburbs, and we work completely on the other side of town. We're looking at a house very seriously that is smaller, flatter, backs up to an area that we do trail running on, and has a much shorter commute. I'll have pictures up soon. Of the one I'm selling, I mean. It was built in 2004.

"Staging" is going to be a challenge. We have personalized this house quite a bit, and selling means de-personalizing. And cleaning. Where did all this STUFF come from?

Looks like we'll be buying boxes. And bubble wrap. And tape. And maybe getting a storage shed. I'm actually kind of excited about playing the game, "how-badly-do-you-want-this-nickknack-do-you-want-it-badly-enough-to-pack-it-in-a-box-and-move-it-and-unpack-it?" I played this game ten years ago, and it was liberating. In 1999, I rented a dumpster and filled it three times.

2) I'm flying to Arizona for IM Arizona, so if you want to meet up I'll be there. I'm planning on doing the Gatorade swim the morning before the race before the mandatory volunteer meeting. I'm doing the bodymarking and thenthe women's T1 changing tent, and then I'll spend the rest of the day screaming like crazy, eating junk food, and waving a cowbell.

3) Hmm. There was a third thing, but I can't remember what it is right now. I'll think of it soon...

Foothills Trail Run

Last week I discovered I still can't run on pavement. I did a 3 mile power walk Thursday, and then a 3 mile power hike on Friday.

Today I finally, finally, finally got a decent run in. It was a trail run, so a lot of it was hiking, but still - it's the longest run I've done since the 50K 2 weeks ago. My leg appears to be nearly healed, too, so I was actually able to RUN.

This is in an area that we've discovered we can get to pretty close after work. We came out here Friday, but my leg hurt like hell and I could barely walk. I did a few hill repeats and worried, worried, worried.

This morning, miracle of miracles, I barely felt a thing. We were at 6000 feet up, about 1000 feet higher than usual. I climbed up a ways, and got about a 200 degree view of the area.

The goal is to be ready for the Ghost Town 38.5 in January. I'll need to get in some more climbing and hiking along with running before then. Also, if I can't run on pavement at some point between then and now, I'm going to be in a world of hurt. The trail runs will get longer, in the meantime. Today I was only out for about an hour and a half or so. That sounds like a long time for 5 miles, but I was taking it easy because I was nervous about the neg, and also there was a LOT of climbing, stopping, and looking around.

Then we went to look at a nearby house for sale. Mmmm. How cool would it be to have trail running in your back yard? More on this as it develops. I'm just happy to be back on the trails again.

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My Big Fat Training Schedule

Okay, well, here's the dealio: I've gained 13 pounds, mostly due to sitting instead of being on my feet. When I was teaching, I was on my feet all day, which burns a lot of calories. Since May, I've mostly sat. Which means, now that I'm sitting all day, I have to work out more to make up for it. But holy cow, what happened to my metabolism? I mean, the las t itme I had extra time I didn't put on weight that fast. But now, WHAM.

It didn't happen right away, of course. Most things insidious creep up on you and then, lo and behold, you start searching through your fall clothes and, well, they don't fit. OWCH. Plus, it's 13 more pounds that are on the tips of my toes when I'm wearing heels. OWCH.

Then there's the whole leg injury thing. My leg is still injured. I can only run on trails, and even then I keep a 13 minute pace. Luckly, I just have the one sprint triathlon in early December, so I have time to heal.

Meanwhile, I hate the way my clothes fit. You know that feeling? I sure do. Ugh. The waistband cutting into my belly, the pants creeping up me....ew.

Yup. That extra me surface area AND volume needs to come off SOON. Hopefully, now that I"m not cooking and eating all day, it will. Usually when I go back to work it comes off.

So, okay, I need to work out more but how to do it? First off, the master's class meets 3 mornings a week. The other 2 days I figure I can run in the morning. Then, of course, there is that little 440 track in front of the VA that I could jog around during lunch those same days, so that Tuesday and Thursday are run days. Hmm. Friday evenings, a trail run in the foothills. Weekends, long ride or long spin classes and a long slow run. It hardly ever rains here, so schedules are pretty dependable. The problem with spin, of course, are the mirrors. Yikes.

Meanwhile, Baboo has sympathy pounds. We'll be working on this project together. ;-)

We'll see.

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Holy Cow, work cuts into my leisure time.

I have a new appreciation for Pirate, who works a 40-hour work week, like I'm doing, and then goes home to the twin munchkins. Honestly, I don't know how you folks have done this all this time.

Here's how my week fleshes out:

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I do master swim from 5:30 to 6:30 and then in 30 minutes I shower, blow my hair dry, put on makeup, and hit the car with Sweet Baboo, so that we can do our 45 minute commute to the VA. Tuesday and Wednesday nights after work I'm still seeing clients for 2-3 hours. Thursdays, I have a 3-hour class in Social Policy.

Tuesdays, and Thursday mornings, instead of a swim, I am going to run. I tried running this week but because my injury is worse, I can't run on anything but trails, and so the obvious choice seems to be to go down to the trails near my gym and run in the dark, then do the shower/hair/makeup thing and hop in the car and commute with Baboo.

The week wraps up with a nice easy trail run in the foothills with Baboo. Saturday mornings, I'm doing two spin classes back to back. Sunday is long slow run day. Whew.

So at work, I've spent the week getting trained for various things and refreshing my understanding of cells, and neurons, neurotransmitters, and other such things. I'm moving onto brain-related syndromes and disorder. Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, for instance, is interesting to learn about. And sad. I'm beginning training next week in several mental disorders and in using symptom rating scales. I also set up my new office, and ordered a couple of things to decorate it.

They gave me a pager this week. I was all excited when it went off - I felt all important, but it was a wrong number. When I was a teacher, they'd just shout out my name over a campus-wide PA system. This is way cooler. Plus, It's exciting to know that I'm important enough for them to want to get hold of me somehow.

I'm told that the excitement wears off pretty quickly.

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Master's Swim Class

So I've had two of these classes so far - they meet at 5:30 am for an hour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday. This in a pool that, in my opinion, could be a BIT warmer. But it wakes me up.

Today we did a 600 warmup: 200 free (freestyle) 200 kick (kickboard, no fins) and 200 pull (paddles and a pull buoy)

Then, we did 10 x 100 meters, with 10 second rest, and our best sustainable pace. The point of this was to establish a baseline of what we could average over 1000 meters. The first day of Master's Swim I was pretty happy to find that I could sprint 100 meters in 1:51. I've never been that fast before. You increase that distance at all, though, and I slow down pretty dramatically! Over 1000 meters, I averaged around 2:15 to 2:20 per 100. Actually this isn't bad for me, considering that I have barely been in the pool since August, but I'd like to go sub 2:00

After that, I finished off with 200 kick, 200 free, and 100 free, for a grand total of 2100 meters. I'm ashamed to admit to you that is pretty much the most I've done in a pool since, um, like, sometime in the spring. The master's swim class keeps me. on task; generally when swimming by myself I get bored and then climb up out of the pool.

I will step right up and say that I am always, I mean ALWAYS, the last one finished with whatever drill we're doing at the moment. But no worries. As long as I improve, that's all I care about.

So then at 6:30 I grabbed my stuff and headed into the locker room and in a half hour YES THIRTY MINUTES I shower, blow-dry my hair, put on my clothes and makeup, and sprint for the car, where Sweet Baboo chauffeurs me us to my our job. Whilst in the car, I use my curling iron to finish my hair. I'm MINUTE-WOMAN. Sometimes we stop for a latte. I'm in my office (I love saying, "MY OFFICE") at 8 am.

That's it, I guess. Just swim stuff. Now I need to figure out how to get my running in during the week, being as I'm still seeing a couple clients on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and I have a class on Thursdays.


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Top Ten Things I Like About My New Job.

10. I have an office, with a door that locks. It has a desk, a computer, a bookcase, a window, and a couple of chairs. I have never had an office before. The closest I had was a classroom, and 90 people trooped through there every day, throwing trash on the floor, occasionally spitting, and writing on my stuff.

9. I'm going to have my own laser printer soon. They actually apologized for not having it ready the first day.

8. There's a mariachi band every Wednesday in the lobby, next to the coffee shop.

7. Did I mention the coffee shop? They have lattes, mochas, smoothies, and pastries. It's run by vets and benefits veterans industries, so I am contributing to the greater good while indulging my coffee habit.

6. There is a medical library. Today they, like, printed stuff for me. FOR ME. Just because I asked. They didn't charge me, or take it out of my photocopy "limit," either. I don't have a photocopy limit. When I asked someone about that, she looked like me as if I'd asked about Sasquatch.

5. Any and all employee training takes place during the day, while I'm at work. They don't expect me to stay after work to do it.

4. There is a 1/4 mile track through a park in front of my building. It is shaded by very old cottonwood trees and includes some bars and benches to stretch on. It's just part of this really beautiful old campus that is mostly a collection of century old pueblo-style buildings. There is a new, modern facility for the medical center, but all old building are still in use. Behavioral health, where I work, is in the original veteran's hospital building.

3. I have my very own panic button! It's mounted under my desk and apparently if I push it, armed guards will instantly rush to my aid. Should be pretty fast, given that the VA Police are 3 doors away from my office.

2. Everyone smiles all the time and seems very happy to be there.

1. Except for the occasionally disgruntled patient being escorted down the hall by the VA Police who are 3 doors down.

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Things that are a big deal, probably only to me.

Sunday Miscellanea, with a juxtaposition of girlie/athletic girl stuff.

1) I just found out that there is a master's swim class in the new aquatic center that is 2.5 miles from my house. It meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 5:30 am. If I can't be speedy on land, maybe I can be speedy in the water. We begin tomorrow, me and Baboo, and then commute together to my new job, which is also where he works.

2) I always promised myself I'd get super cute shoes some day when I didn't have to stand up all day long on a hard tiled slab. Well, that day has come. I went shoe shopping with DreadPirate, looking for some versatile but pretty pairs of winter shoes. Part of my new job involves pitching to doctors and counselor and patients, so I'm going for the eye candy/scholarly librarian look.
I've never actually been to a woman's shoe store before; it was quite an experience. Without a doubt SweetBaboo would have abhorred every bit of the 2 hours we spent there. That's neither good nor bad; just the way things are, and in the absence of a spouse with a serious foot fetish, some things are just better done with other women.
So here's what I know now that I didn't know before: there is a huge, I mean huge, difference in how you feel standing for a while in nice shoes and how you feel standing in, say, cheap shoes. Huge, in terms of comfort. I took a pair of shoes that had my favorite heel height with me for reference, and made sure not to go over that height.

3) I did the first spin class I've done since April. They do "lifts" where you go up out of the saddle for a few beats, and then sit back down for a couple beats, and up, and back down, and repeat for what seems an eternity. I've never been able to do these all the way through. Today, it was easy. I couldn't believe it. Somehow, I've built my quads up pretty well this year.

4) I've now learned how to backcomb my hair so that it's poofy in the back. Even though I'm from the south, I was never properly schooled in backcombing. Now I am. Okay, so that's probably not terribly relevant to you right now. But to me, it's a big deal. I'm one of the "it" girls now. Rowr.

5) I have another black toenail from last week's trail run. Once again, this pleases me for some reason that I can't quite explain, while simultaneously freaking out the lady that did my pedicure.

6) I have not run since last week's ultra. I wanted to spend some time recovering, so I did a little spin, a little swim, and some elliptical. Most worrisome is a new pain on my right foot. It's on the outside underneath the midfoot, and it's actually gotten worse over the week. Eek.

7) I'm starting my new job tomorrow, finally. The counseling center where I signed a contract in July had a shiny promise that gave way to 2 months in which 4 weeks I'll never be paid for, no office, tyrannical office managers, dogs wandering around unaccompanied, doubled-bookings, and frequent chaos. And did I mention that there is a 40% no-show rate? And that if the client doesn't show I don't get paid?
Instead, I'll begin tomorrow at a secure installation with my own space and I'll still be able to work with behavioral health. Plus, I won't be on my feet all day. It's carpeted and I can wear wildly impractical shoes, just like I've always wanted, and best of all, I'll be paid as salary with benefits and stuff. Just like a grown-up.

I always imagined I could someday have a job where I could dress like a grownup and be treated like a professional. Now let's see if it's everything I thought it could be!

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