Run. Dog. Cat. Cat. Me.

22 May 2013

If I ever did that again, not that I will, but if I did…

As someone once said, “I know worrying works because 99% of everything I worry about never happens.”

Saturday, 2:45am, dark, warm, muggy. I’d been awake for a while, trying to sleep but failing. My mind was not going to let me forget we face Armageddon this morning. Talking sense to it was useless. WAKE WAKE, EMERGENCY! it shouted in my sleep, until I finally surrendered and padded barefoot downstairs, firing up the Keurig. I looked out at the foggy night, details blurred into soft gold and black while I sipped strong hot coffee, cozy and comforting. Soft air gently wrapped around me, sound suspended and dampened, moving slowly through the thick air like the drawls of old Southern ladies visiting on Mississippi porches. Murphy looked about with me and seemed to understand. The world muffled to velvet, we moved slowly not to disturb that sweet gentle silence.

Can you hear it? Can you feel it?

I’d found an interactive site and created a check list personalized to my preference. Everything had been checked off three times, lined up in the hallway and kitchen; Hubs has done this so often his checklist is in his head. We loaded up the car and bikes. The hour long drive to Tunica seemed endless, of course, and I could not leg jiggle enough to expend the nervous energy I had. Hubs looked at me. ”Are you OK?” Hell no I’m not OK, do I look OK? I’m hopping like a spider on a hot griddle in a front seat the size of jet fighter cockpit. But you are sweet and kind and loving and I thank you for your concern although I can’t actually speak right now.

You learn something new every day, so they say, and I learned something new about Fight or Flight: you body is going to jettison everything possible. Thankfully the Expo Center was nice and large and you can easily sprint through the foyer to the equally nice Ladies Room. I also noticed I didn’t seem to be the only person doing so.

There’s a lot of detail getting all that gear out of a car, into the Transition Area and set up properly, more than you need to know unless you have had a lobotomy recently and now want to do a triathlon; if that’s happened let me know and I’ll get with you. Otherwise suffice it to say that many surgeries are done with less preparation, although without a doubt they are more sterile, since I was soon to walk through fish sh*t and then drag that sh*t back into Transition and deposit it in my socks. Bleach. Just don’t think, and bleach.

For the fourth damn time in a row I put the damn wetsuit on backward. Next time I’m leaving it backward. If there is a next time. I got in the lake for a warm-up and paddled out to the first buoy where I stopped, my feet not resting on what can only be described as the un-bottom. There was nothing solid. It just sort of floated, a half-substance. The stuff nightmares are made of, the evil fog rising slowly through the cemetery enveloping the heroine’s feet…her ankles…her calves…rising, pulling, wrapping about her, slowly sucking away her life…

Damn, this sh*t is NASTY. Don’t think don’t think don’t think, just keep swimming just keep swimming.

We lined up for the swim by age group. Fortunately I was toward the front of the line with some older men behind us. They sort the groups randomly every time. Next time I could be right in front of the 20-24 males and get run over like a train. If there were a next time.

One of the ladies heard a couple of us commiserating over our first and possibly last triathlon. She gave us an invaluable piece of advice: when you get in the water, don’t kick. Just pull. This will keep your heart rate under control until you’ve had time to warm up and get the feel of everything. And then there I was, on the ramp, looking at my friend the photographer, praying her huge and hugely expensive camera would fail, nothing personal Donna, sorry, but I do not want to be forever remembered in that figure flattering wetsuit, swimming hair condom and goggles.

Not kicking made all the difference. I cornered the first buoy and realized that the wetsuit, my new BFF, made me buoyant enough that all I had to do was pull. Now it’s just another workout in the pool. With a deadly, life-sucking un-bottom, but you cannot have everything no matter how you try.

And then, I got pissed. I’m sorry, but I’m a bitch and it should just be acknowledged. I could try to hide it but it’s like trying to hide behind swimming goggles and a self-image crushing wetsuit: We know you’re in there Terri, no use hiding. The really nice lady right in front of me at the start was zig-zagging like a Singer sewing machine and I could not get around her. At first I thought it was me going crooked, but I realized that as I breathed I was sighting on the seawall, and it was always about the same place. So I went to the right. She was in front of me, again. Dammit. I swam to the left. BOOM. I went back right. Bang.

Oh, hell no. I stopped, deadly cloud of lake bottom rising to kill me. I watched, weighing time, enough time to sight her but not enough time to be completely sucked into a slow lake bottom death. She went…ri..no, left. I went right as fast as I could and aimed for the finish.

Not too quick in the transition (learning curve) I headed out on the bike. Nervous, I couldn’t clip for what seemed forever. We turned onto the highway and I got into a rhythm. Hey. This is nice. Mississippi is flat! The roads are coned off! No &^%%’s asking me if I pay wheel tax! I don’t have to stop at the lights! Cruising, I’m just cruising, me and Matilda, we’re just out, riding, having a good time when, suddenly, &^$#!!! that woman is IN FRONT OF ME.

Sorry, Lady, but yes, you do, and here’s your shirt.

Oh, hell no. I tooled along behind her for a few minutes, getting a feel for her pace. It was too slow for me, so I passed. No eye contract, I’m just out here, just out here riding my bike, me and Matilda, nothing to see here, Lady, just keep going slow, that’s good.

I kept a pace that felt a bit of a push but not uncomfortable since I had no idea what my legs would do off the bike. Next time, if it happened that I went batsh*t crazy more than once, I would know better how much to push it.

At mile 10, cruising, suddenly, what the $%#@!!?? She PASSED me.

Oh, hell no. I looked at my quads. Sorry dudes, this might hurt but it’s for your own good, and I knocked it into a higher gear and started stepping on those pedals. We went from the Beatles to some Highway to Hell in 13 seconds.

Coming in I heard Hubs, Becky and Heather yelling for me, although I didn’t try to see them, not falling over on the bike seemed more important, and at the dismount line there stood Killer, screaming for me! I looked at her: ”I’m pissed now.”

“SHE’S PISSED NOW!” Cheryl screamed in triumph, “GO TERRI!”

This time transition was as fast as I could handle it, gear thrown everywhere, shoes shoved on and I’m outta here, running out of transition and around the corner where

OH. HELL. NO. She’s in front of me. Again. What?? She’s filming an Eveready commercial??? Dammit.

I waited, jogging behind her, getting a feel for her pace. It looked to me like she had one gear – a good one, but it looked like she was a pretty steady runner, so if I passed her she might not have a higher gear. My legs loosened up and got into a running rhythm. I passed her and I had no intention of letting it happen again. Somewhere in the last mile I stopped at a turn and walked a bit, looking at the field behind me. She was still in the same steady gear, and I took off again. I am never doing this crazy voodoo doodoo again, but if I did ever maybe lose all my meds in a tropical storm or something I would definitely push the bike a bit harder and I would totally want my run stronger, I thought, as I died on the turn into the last few hundred miles.

“TERRI!! ONLY 150 YARDS!!!” someone screamed.

Well hell yes, I can do that, I thought, and I hammered on home.

You want some REAL crazy voodoo doodoo?

So, next time, if I ever do this again, not that I will, but if I did, I know I can’t expect that kind of thing because the fast ones stayed home or – most of them – waited to do the Olympic distance on Sunday (not being modest, I just know who they are). But if there were a next time, I’d still do it differently, and I’d still find someone in front of me to pick off.

And that was a pretty awesome ending, if I do say so myself.

Posted in Triathlon and tagged bike, biking, coffee, exercise, fitness, healthy-living, Run, running, swim, swimming, triathlon

17 May 2013

5 Comments

Confidence? Reality? A spoonful of sugar?

“To do your best, you’ve gotta believe in yourself. There is a functional link between physiology and psychology. If you have the confidence to do something, your body will respond. With confidence you can cope with various race day obstacles, but even slight problems are magnified if you lack it. Achieving goals – long training runs, consistent mileage, increasingly faster times in speed workouts and races – builds confidence, which results in further improvements in performance. Reflect on these successes as you approach a race and during it to keep your confidence strong.” Bob Glover, The Competitive Runner’s Handbook

It’s ugly at the rundogcatcatme household this morning and it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the day. And, yes, coffee: on the third.

Chunker must feel the tension because she is prowling about mewing and chirping at her stuffed toy ‘babies’. Just now she climbed up on the washer and dumped her kibble into the washing machine. Now I’ve got cat food pellets stuck under the agitator. I mean under the agitator in the washing machine, not the agitator in fur, mewing.

CHUNKDAMMITYOULITTLESHIT

Oddly just minutes before we were discussing yelling at our furry children and that our furry children didn’t have middle names to make the shout effective like it did when I would yell TRAITOR MIDDLE NAME CHILD DAMMIT I TOLD YOU BUT, NO, AND NOW WE HAVE TO GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM. AGAIN.

Apparently Chunker does have a middle name and I had just forgotten it.

Last night we gave the lake swim another try. Heather bravely faced the lake and announced there had better not be any &^%%&** snakes this time. I felt fine, buoyed by my new-found comfort and lack of fear in the lake Tuesday. Unfortunately I failed to realize I had a couple factors against me. First I forgot to use my inhalers yesterday and a front had come in (my trigger). Secondly, and much more importantly, Hubs was home. Home, and on the boat following us in the lake.

I have performance anxiety. I don’t mind failing or struggling in front of others (too much) but can’t stand to do so in front of Hubs, which is ridiculous because I usually manage to screw something up on a daily basis so I should surely be used to it by now. It embarrasses me, and he tries to fix everything which frustrates me (it’s a guy thing, isn’t it?). After all these years I should get over it. For some reason he’s fascinated by the thought of me swimming. He keeps saying, “I’ve never seen you swim” which means every time we’ve been to a pool he’s been struck blind? Or perhaps that doesn’t count if it’s not laps or something? I don’t know. I just know, at this point, that the pressure is on and it’s building and I cannot stand it.

B&H are two of the most mothering and nurturing people I have ever met, polar opposite of me. Becky stayed back with me when we set out. Every damn time I looked up there was that boat with Hubs, watching. The water was cool, I didn’t warm up and within a couple minutes my chest said Ciao, see ya later and shut down. I’d doggy paddle for a few minutes and set out again, Becky waiting and watching. I told her to go on, I’m fine. I swam a bit and floated a bit and doggy paddled a bit but I could never catch my breath, wheezing and pissed off, knowing that Hubs was watching me struggle. Finally I saw a dock and headed for it. I held on, trying to catch my breath, looking at our dock across the cove, a million miles away. Hubs and the boat swung around. I got on. ”I’m done. I’m fine, but I’m done.”

The reality, with no sugar-coating, is that inhalers or no, Hubs or no, I am not a strong enough swimmer to go even 400 yards. I will have to stop and I will have to stand in the 6 inches of marshmellow-y fish poopy fish burial mud until I can catch my breath and then I’ll have to start again. I’ll just have to boil my feet when I get home.

Well, SH*T.

One of my BRFF’s, Lisa, called yesterday to see how I was doing facing this weekend. She did her first Tri last summer. She told me how helpful Hubs was at the race start, consoling her with positive reinforcement. “You can FLOAT, cantcha?” he asked her. She nodded. ”You can DOGGY PADDLE cantcha?” She nodded. ”OKAY THEN, you’ll be FINE,” he boomed. She nodded.

Someone posted the quote above this morning. I can’t decide if the issue is that I don’t believe in myself enough and I need to pump myself with spoonfuls of sugar-y positive thinking and reinforcement all day, or if the issue is what I stated: I am simply not a strong enough swimmer at this time.

And if the reason is the fact that I am simply not strong enough at this time, is it negative to admit that? To be afraid, and to feel angry because I’m afraid?

Posted in Triathlon and tagged cat, coffee, exercise, fitness, healthy-living, Journey, muddy lake, positive thinking, Run, running, sugar coating, swimming, training, triathlon

16 May 2013

5 Comments

Good luck with that.

I’m sure it’s the same for you two faithful followers of my world-famous, mind-numbingly fascinating blog in which I constantly whine about butts falling off, snakes, crappy weather, and tigers in bathrooms; probably you, like me, think that everyone around you is somehow doing just a bit better, somehow just one percentage point less nervous, less worried, more happy, more confident. Probably the boss likes them one little bit better than they like you. Probably they’ve never walked out of the bathroom with toilet paper hanging out the back of their shorts.

A while back, when Becky and Heather were finally medicated to an acceptable level and allowed back out in public, they would message me.

HEY! I’m going swimming tomorrow, wanna go?

No.

It’ll be fun!

No.

Come on, you’ll like it once you try it.

No.

The entire time I was saying no I knew I needed to do this. This was where I had a choice. Become a smaller person, saying no, tightening my circle just a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more. I’m sure a lot of people are the same way, but there’s only me living in this head and in this life, only what I interpret. I assume there are more of me out there, struggling not to get smaller, not to live a more circumscribed life, scared and uncertain how to achieve it, but I only know myself.

Heather and Becky make it look so easy that I figure they’re cool with it all. They use words like “fun” which makes one think more of things like birthday parties and cake and ice cream. Or coffee. Or wine. Or anything other than swimming with the eventual goal being getting out of the pool and into a fish poop filled lake. After the snake issue on Tuesday, however, I realized that they have just been doing a better job than I of hiding it. Becky doesn’t like her wetsuit and neither of them like snakes at all. The messages are flying.

ARG! I woke up next to the bed beating the invisible spiders I just dreamed of!!

ARG! What’s the lake temp??

ARG! I can’t breathe in that wetsuit!!

LOL, snake code:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Snake
_____________ Dead snake
—___—___— Oops, just ran over a snake.

ARG! Just because ARG!!!

After realizing this was not the Bataan Death March – which was truly a horror – seriously, I’m not gonna die. I’m not going to lose my family or job or anything, I’m just going to swim in a freeking lake - which is only 4 feet deep and I’m 5’8″, so standing up is an option. Then I just have to ride my bike, which I could fall off of, but then I’ve already stepped on my own finger; at some point you have to accept that stuff happens. And finally I get to do my favorite thing: run. So I managed to switch off a couple of the Panic Buttons in my brain.

I’m a believer in signs, albeit a rather fair-weather believer. Obviously when things line up like I prefer it’s got to be a good sign. If the signs are bad I may or may not give it some consideration. For instance, the sign that says Speed Limit 55. Because personally, that’s just stupid and I’m not going to give that any consideration. I’m sure most people are like me, but there could be some who prefer bad signs and not having anything line up well. Those people probably also do 55 in the 55mph zone. Then they probably also get yelled at by me, which will surprise you both, that I would be in my car yelling &^$$# driver (*&^ your mother is a $#@!!!!

I have a chin hair roughly the width and tenacity of a piece of baling wire, which I’ve had since the twins were still in high school, making it about 10 years old. A quick internet search shows that the anagen phase of growth of a hair follicle is an average 2 to 8 years. My chin hair, which I should probably just go ahead and name since we’ve grown so close, has obviously surpassed this lifespan. If it were a person it would be my Grandma Alice, who lived to 103 years, only she was nice and did not resemble a piece of baling wire in any way.

The reason I mention this is that I managed to pluck the damn thing out in one try yesterday morning. This is an incredible stroke of good luck on my part, having ruined several pair of tweezers over the past 10 years, not to mention accidentally slamming my hand against the mirror repeatedly when the tweezers fail. That hurts. Hey, at least I never broke the mirror, right? Otherwise for sure the damn thing would live another 7 years. I expect that, having outed my chin hair in this public manner, I will no longer receive anonymous emailed marriage proposals or offers for £1million to be deposited directly into my bank account. So you see how much good luck that is!

Then Heather saw another dead snake on her bike ride yesterday, making it two days in a row of dead snakes! That’s a much better sign than live snakes. And when we were first starting out on the bikes, before we even started, I almost fell over! So that was good! The almost part, I mean. After the ride I got in the car and it was 12:34 which is my lucky number. And THEN – I got Taco Bell for lunch. That is a very good sign. You might think a person can get Taco Bell any day, but you can’t. If you have no money in the car, you have no Taco Bell in your tummy. Yes. Now you understand how tenuous the hold on luck can truly be.

So you see, luck is in the eye of the beholder. Well, except when it’s actually your real eyeball and it’s the bug that flew in Becky’s on the bike ride at the very same time a rabid ant was in her cycling shoe biting the stew out of her foot, which seemed rather unlucky. Although it was a lot unluckier for the bug and the ant, both of whom got squashed rapidly.

I’m telling you what, with all this good luck floating around I expect that I may not have to worry about the swim, for all I know I’ll be able to walk on water by Saturday.

Posted in Triathlon and tagged BFOS, Butt Falling off Syndrome, exercise, fitness, good luck, healthy-living, invisible spiders, Journey, lake temp, Run, running, swimming, swimming in a lake, training, triathlon

14 May 2013

4 Comments

Well, that went swimmingly.

7:42am *boink* B: Swimming today?

*boink* T: Sigh. Guess so. Just checked, water temp is still 70

*boink* B: I am not worried about the temp of the water really…wet suit–I must wear it, swim in it, and just do it. Intestinal fortitude.

*boink* T: studies show intestinal fortitude is highly overrated. And you can always take Imodium for it.

7:48am *boink* B: can you see the lake on google earth?

*boink* T: Checking. Been taking your meds, eh?

*boink* T: Yes, I see it. It looks like distance to the boat launch is 162 yards. I’m putting Kahlua in my coffee right now.

*boink* B: riiiiight….

8:18am *boink* H: Just catching up, you two swimming in the lake this morning?

*boink* T: I DON’T HAVE ANY KAHLUA

*boink* B: Can you put some Merlot in the coffee, then?

*boink* H: OMG I’m so nervous. Every night this week I’ve worried about snakes.

*boink* T: there are no snakes in my lake. I swear. I promise. I’ve never ever seen one.

8:57am *boink* T: how far you going?

*boink* B: I don’t care. What you need, is to get in the water and get the feel for it–and for the love of all that is holy DO NOT WORRY ABOUT TIME

*boink* T: no, right, just get in the water.

*boink* B: I repeat just get in the water…and swim some…no pressure

*boink* T: Right, that’s all I’m planning to do, I’m not concerned for distance.

*boink* B: there are no drills, no specific length just tip toeing through the tulips.

*boink* T: tiptoeing through fish shit, you mean.

8:32am *boink* H: I’m back. You’d better be right because if I see a snake I will die. Or maybe I’ll kill you.

*boink* T: I SWEAR.

*boink* H: okay

9:31am *boink* B: On my way

9:34am *boink* H: me too

I woke this morning feeling resigned and peaceful. Yesterday afternoon it occurred to me it was a swim in a lake, not the Bataan Death March. Seriously. I thought, what, I’m gonna die? I still wasn’t thrilled of course, but I seemed to feel a little more realistic about the situation. I’ll get in the water, I’ll get to the other side somehow, and then I’ll get back.

I was surprised, at 70 degrees the water didn’t feel too cold. It was chilly on my hands and feet but they quickly warmed; I’d expected to feel cold the entire time.

I finally let go of the dock and we swam to the boat launch and back. I did get dizzy, I might consider some Dramamine for the next couple days, and I called it at one lap.

B&H returned to the boat launch for a second lap. It all went well until they saw the snake. That it was dead did not make any difference to them. Heather threw Becky to the wolves and hauled ass. Becky did some speed work. Being dead and all, it stayed where it was, but, still, it was a snake.

Later we drove around to the boat launch to be sure. Maybe it really wasn’t a snake.

There were a couple guys working on the house next to the launch.

“Are you the ones that swam across the lake?” they asked in that tone which indicates they are watching carefully and are ready to back away slowly if necessary.

“Yes, we did, and there’s a f*cking snake in the water!” said Heather, delicately.

“Really?” Suddenly this was a lot more interesting. Men with trucks and power tools. Three women squealing about a snake, what’s not to like?

“Yeah,” intoned the younger one, walking to the shore to check it out, “That IS a snake.”

He threw a rock at it, it bounced on the waves, obviously dead.

“It’s dead.”

Heather shook her head. “It’s still a f*cking snake.”

Maybe that didn’t go as well as it could have, after all.

Posted in Triathlon and tagged coffee, dead snake, exercise, fitness, healthy-living, Journey, snake, swimming, swimming in a lake, training, triathlon, wetsuit

13 May 2013

6 Comments

OCD much?

Hubs and I were out of town last week. You might think I would feel completely free to leave town now the kids are grown and gone, no worries, enjoy the trip, relax, eat drink and be merry.

But, no. First, I no longer have that burning desire to desert Rome as it burns, my mother and four children waving forlornly as we back down the drive, desperately repressing the jiggling as my legs begin the Happy Dance under the dashboard. NO VOMIT! NO DIAPERS! NO CRYING AND FIGHTING AND STEPPING ON DEADLY LEGOS! I’m FREE!

I can lazily drink coffee and read the paper daily now. I don’t have to put on adult clothes to take the kids to school and work the phones in the office from 8am to noon or help in the clinic wiping snot and blood. I don’t have to camp out in a hotel to have a bathroom all to myself. I don’t have to hide the chocolates in a tampon box. I don’t have to worry about organizing soccer/cheer/homework/scouts/cupcakes for the birthday party before leaving everyone. No worries, now. Free Free Free.

Instead I spent three days prior to leaving town waking at 3 and 4am worrying about — The Damn Cats. What if they refuse to eat? What if they pee on the bed? What if they … I don’t know … jeeze, they’re CATS – how much could go wrong?? But, no…wake, roll over, worry.

Obsess much?

Meanwhile – no pressure here – every damn day hubs insists that I need to try on his wetsuit and be sure it fits. Fine, I tried it on. OK, right, it was on backward but what the hell. It’s not like it’s gender specific. If it fits backwards it should fit frontwards. No, apparently it didn’t count, backwards negates the experience so now I have to try it on … again.

Then, after I try it on again, he thinks I need to take it to the Center and swim in the damn thing. Remember the pool running incident (here)? Where all the senior water exercise class people glared at Becky and me in shock and awe? What do you think it will do to them if I show up at the pool in a f*cking wetsuit? How long will it take management to get all the exploded brain matter out of that water? And can they sue me for the damages?

Still hubs remains – daily – sincere in his insistent insistence that I must absolutely without doubt swim in water with the wetsuit. I pointed out that if I fail to do so prior to the race, and it is a wetsuit legal race, I will swim in the water to warm up and I will be wearing the wetsuit. I think that counts as swimming before the race. I mean, what if I swim in the wetsuit at the Center and I find out it doesn’t work so well? Is that going to change the temperature of the water Saturday?

Last week I ordered a tri-suit. It was in the mail when we got home. I pulled it out of the packaging. This sucker will not fit a skinny pre-pubescent 13-year-old. I don’t know why they wasted a 9×13 envelope to send it to me, it would have fit fine in a letter sized and saved some postage, which they handily charged me. Now I’ve spent $79 + tax, shipping and handling on something that weighs about four ounces and I may wear only once in my life – if I can even get it on. And hubs is happy I spent the money. If I buy a new lipstick and he sees it he asks me how much it cost. Tri-suit? Wet-suit? Bike? Helmet? Bike shoes? He’s throwing money at it like it was beads in New Orleans and he might see some boobs.

I spent one morning at the hotel swimming, then got on the spin bike and did 13 miles, then ran three. There, I’ve done the distance, so mentally I got that out of the way. What I realized is that I do not care at all about this triathlon like I have all the races I’ve trained for. I’m just as obsessive about getting everything organized, not forgetting anything, hoping I don’t bonk, but I don’t really care about doing the event. All I really care about is getting it over with.

Training for halves, fulls, 50K’s, I check weather for weeks, mentally preparing for wind/rain/floods/solar flares and meteors. I’m scared, nervous – but it’s an excited nervous fright. It can still get ugly – marathoniritationitis (with a graphic, here) is nothing to laugh at, but there’s still an excitement about the whole thing. This one: if it rains, oh well. If it’s hot, well damn. If it’s cold, well sh*t. Oh, well. If I get there, and I don’t like the weather, I might just decide not to do the event, and right now I cannot dredge up any impending regret, other than I’d be forced to register for another one and go through all this again.

Last night I dreamed I had a curse that if I talked to someone it would take away one of their powers. Unfortunately Becky asked me a question in my dream. I replied without thinking and it stripped her power to do triathlons.

Obsess much?? This is going to be a bitch of a week…

You can’t fall off a marathon, and you can’t sink in a 50K, and all you need is some shorts, a shirt and some shoes.

The truth is: I’m cranky and pissed and obsessed about the cats because I’m scared of this one and it’s not an excited nervousness. It’s just fear.

Posted in Triathlon and tagged 50K, bike, biking, cat, exercise, Felt F80, fitness, half marathon, healthy-living, Journey, marathon, marathonirritationitis, mental-health, Run, running, tri-suit, triathlon, wetsuit

06 May 2013

7 Comments

Oh, the places you’ll go (with sincere apologies to Dr. S)

“You should try Indian food. It’s better than a triathlon.” I won’t name the source, but let’s just call her the honorary mayor of Turdville today.

Heather suggested Indian food. Becky had never had Indian food but I pointed out how good it could be. Somehow, after a nice buffet at Bombay Palace, I was elected the Honorary Mayor of Turdville after declaring today to be “National Stupid Crap Weather Compounded By Being a Monday and I Have No Girl Scout Cookies Left in the Hiding Place Day and I hereby decree that everyone is not only permitted, but encouraged – nay – REQUIRED – to go ahead and quit trying to feel all perky and sunshiny because you’re just faking it anyway and that’s pissing me off too.”

Here is our National Stupid Crap Weather Day logo:

And our Official Turdville Motto: ”Welcome to Turdville. Go Away.”

My Staph Sargent-at-arms thought we should have an official Turdville Poem and suggested a Poetry contest. As the Mayor of Turdville I felt it only right that I be the judge of the contest, which I – surprisingly – won! and declared myself the Poet Laureate of Turdville. I offer my sincere thanks and heart-felt apologies to Dr. Seuss, although I do believe he might have felt the same way, this spring.

ODE TO TURDVILLE

Congratulations! Today is your day.
It’s going to rain the whole world away!
Can’t get the car out – the driveway’s a Bay!

You have brains in your head.
(Well. That’s what they said).
You’re on your own and you know what you know.
And YOU know where! To Turdville you’ll go!

You’ll look up and down streets. Look ‘em over with care.
You’ll say, “They just passed my bike — by only a hair!”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of cleat,
You’re too smart to go riding on any DAMN street.

And you may not find any you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town.
It’s opener there in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen and frequently do
To people on bikes, cars yelling at you.

And then things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along. You’ll get rained upon, too.

OH! THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!
You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.
You still lag behind, despite your 12-speed.
You’ll be passed by the whole gang, they soon take the lead.
Wherever you bike, it won’t matter, you’re not best.
Karma bites ass – it rains upon you and the rest.

BWAhahaha.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true
Pouring rain and floods can happen to you.

You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch.
Your gang will fly past – you’ll be left in a Lurch.
After a 90% uphill with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.

And when you’re in a Slump you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
You ride slowly, carefully, those damn dogs there just BARKED.
A place you could strain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How deep is that f*cking sinkhole? How much can you spin?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
Chambers Chapel? Damn uphill! Maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
No matter – it’ll be cloudy and windy, you’ll find,
A mind-maker-upper can’t make up his mind.

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place:

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go, Or the rain to stop
Shit. Leak in the roof. Where’s damn mop?
Or the mail to come, with more stupid bills.
Like riding on bikes, it’s always UP hills
The waiting around for a Yes or No
Weather.com just said, IT’S GOING TO SNOW??

Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
Or you asshole boss to go fly a kite
Waiting around for another Friday night
Or waiting for a chance to see some DAYLIGHT
Waiting, perhaps, for another damn break
But, no, JUST MORE RAIN, my yard’s now a LAKE.
I’ve flipped my wig, no more can I TAKE!
I’m going to bed, want to live? DO NOT WAKE.

Posted in Biking and tagged bike, biking, bombay palace, crap weather, fitness, girl scout cookies, Indian food, Poet Laureate, rain, raining, weather.com

02 May 2013

5 Comments

No. Try not. Do…or do not. There is no try.

All due credit to any triathlete out there. This is a bunch of hard work – not that I doubted that, having watched hubs do every distance from sprint to Full Ironman over the years. I’m doing, to my knowledge, the shortest Tri you can. I think the only way I could do a shorter race is to trick my way into a Kid’s Tri. ”Hey, I had a growth spurt! I’m tall for my age!” I won’t do that though, not because I’m an honest sort of person, but because some tiny dudette would go spinning past me on their little training wheels bike sporting a white wicker basket with pink streamers and I would cry. I would get off my bike and throw it on the ground and stomp my feet and cry.

Crazy Becky Heather Killer Hubs cannot seem to quit dropping helpful hints about triathlons. Very helpful hints, too, with the exception that I still can’t figure out if I’m flattered that hubs, while discussing this Crazy Weather and whether it would be a wet suit legal race, offered me his wet suit. Not so much even that he offered it, but that he seemed to think it would fit. Isn’t it in some hubanding manual somewhere that you never indicate that your dainty wife could fit into anything belonging to your manly self??

The learning curve is steepening rapidly. Suddenly what seemed to be an hour or so consisting of doggie paddling in a warm, shallow lake, peddling along a highway and then going for a little jog has turned into Mothra vs. Godzilla, and we all know what happened to Mothra.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra ”Mothra is known for her habit of dying somehow in many of the movies she has appeared in”

(I’m just quoting Wiki. Sentence above she is referred to in is somehow dying.)

I realized this weekend that I didn’t even know the distances of all three events. I thought it was a 5K run, and I know for a branded-in-my-brain fact that the swim is 400 yards but had no idea what the bike was. Ten miles? Eighteen miles? Who knew? And what kind of special stupid do you have to be to register for a race for which you do not actually know the distances?

Me, and one other lady.

I trained for three or four months for my first half marathon. I talked hydration nutrition elimination clothing shoes for months. I bought a Garmin and tracked every single mile like a new religion. Date, time, distance, pace, weather, everything. The day dawned. I’d set everything out the night before, of course, nervously reviewing it all 37 times. Hubs and the twins were going to meet me at the finish line, so I hitched a ride with a friend, a seasoned runner, marathoner and triathlete.

She noticed I seemed a bit nervous – probably the incessant leg jiggling, which I’m actually doing right now, I guess Pavlovian leg jiggling as I remember the story? Can leg jiggling be Pavlovian?

Yes, it’s my first half! I told her, jiggling, head bobbing, jerking slightly and slavering a bit at the corners of my mouth, my water bottle full of bubbles as it shook uncontrollably.

Well, I lived. I did the half and thought I’d conquered the world. Tired, stiff and sore – yes, I did – I wore my race shirt triumphantly to work the next morning and told everyone who couldn’t hide fast enough every excruciating detail, mile after mile. I did not wear the finisher’s medal only because it kept clanking against my desk in a very irritating fashion.

The second day, as even more soreness set in and I was forced to grab the edge of the desk to sit or stand, my friend came into my office.

“You did that half marathon, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Yep! It was great I was so excited I did it! It was hard but I did it!” (Why was she asking this? I’d talked about it every day for the past several months.)

She then told me that a lady she bowled with the evening before was limping terribly and could hardly get to the line to bowl. She asked the woman if she was OK. The woman (a smoker who walked a mile or two daily and bowled as her forms of exercise) related this:

She’d registered for “that 5K” over the weekend; she wanted to walk the 3 miles in support of the charity. Except after a while, when she thought she surely should have hit three miles by now, she looked about and realized there was no finish line. In fact, what she saw was a sign that stated Mile 4. Asking around she discovered there was no 5K, only a half and a full marathon. Well, what to do? So she continued on and walked the entire damn half marathon with NO TRAINING. Her feet were covered in blisters and she could hardly move her legs.

And she was my age.

After my brain stopped exploding I asked the woman’s name and immediately looked up the race results. Fortunately she was about the last in our age group, or my running career would have been over right then.

But you gotta admit, the woman did not give up.

And I won’t, either.

Anything you’re looking at that intimidates you? Are you going to try?

Posted in Triathlon and tagged bike, biking, exercise, fitness, Garmin, half marathon, healthy-living, Journey, swimming, training, triathlon

28 Apr 2013

There’s a WHAT? In the WHERE?

The pork chops turned out pretty well. Maybe a little dry but after four hours of yard work I was too hungry to know for sure. One reason I think the pork chops were OK is the next day for lunch I finished the leftovers straight out of the casserole dish without taking a pause. The dog looked worried and hid under the table. I don’t know what he’s being so picky about, does he hear himself when he eats?

Flush with success, Wednesday I made Trader’s Joe’s knock-off turkey chili-lime burgers and potato salad, which meant Thursday I could stand in front of the refrigerator and eat potato salad out of the plastic storage container. Yum. Crunchy celery, smooth creamy dressing, the tang of onion, salty peppery mushy potato goodness. *happy place* *sigh* *death by potato*

I think soon the Food Network will be calling me to host a show. It’s been a long time since my last brush with fame and no fortune as the Poster Child and National Spokesperson for the National Butt Falling-off Ass. Now that I’m healed they’ve tossed me out on the street like a used newspaper from the bottom of the litter box. I’m not bitter, I’m far to large-hearted for that, and I fully deny remarking that all their asses had obviously fallen off and landed on their shoulders. I’m not one to hold a grudge, and I’m not watching stupid AMC only because they happen to have nothing good on. At all, ever.

What should the focus of my cooking show be? Hmmm. ”Spices: From Salt to Pepper?” ”Conundrum: Cream of Mushroom or Cream of Chicken?” ”Pass on the Pasta OR: How I learned to cook a Spaghetti Squash?”

The best thing about it all, though, is I’ve overcome my irrational fear of returning to Kroger. I’ve learned that Olivia Newton John was soon to open a show in Las Vegas but has postponed it due to the sad fact that her sister has brain cancer, and she intends to spend her time helping her sister. In view of this very awesome and selfless act by a very classy lady, I’ve decided I can no longer remain small-minded about the guy playing B17 even though I do still have the damn song stuck in my head, doing yard work, pulling weeds, muttering lyrics.

Secondly I’m no longer afraid of finding a bath in the Kroger un-bathroom, AKA the Ladies’ Room. It appears there are far worse things you can find in a bathroom:

+++++++++++++++++++

SALINA, KS by the Associated Press April 23, 2013 — A central Kansas woman likely won’t remember her first circus for the clowns or performances — it’ll be the tiger in the bathroom.

The big cat had escaped briefly after its turn in the ring Saturday at the Isis Shrine Circus in Salina. Staff members blocked off the concourses at the Bicentennial Center as the tiger wandered into the bathroom, where one of the doors was blockaded.

About that time, Salina resident Jenna Krehbiel decided she needed to use the restroom. When she walked in the door that hadn’t been blocked off, she found a tiger standing about 2 feet away, The Salina Journal reported.

“You don’t expect to go in a bathroom door, have it shut behind you and see a tiger walking toward you,” Krehbiel said. (right??)

Chris Bird, manager at the Bicentennial Center, said the bathroom was only 25 feet long.

“Once she saw the tiger, I’m sure she knew to go the other way,” Bird said. “Overall, it was a scary, surreal moment. I am glad no one was hurt or injured.”

The tiger was captured within minutes and returned to its enclosure.

Krehbiel, a social worker, said she didn’t scream or run because she is trained to stay calm. ”Looking back, it was a scary ordeal,” she said. “At the time, I was thinking I just needed to get out.” (how many times does a social worker run into tigers in the bathroom?? Note to self: do not pursue social work.)

Krehbiel said her 3-year-old daughter had a different reaction. ”My daughter wanted to know if it had washed its hands,” Krehbiel said. “That was her only concern. I think that shows the thoughts of children and that they wouldn’t have known there was danger.”

Posted in Ruminations and tagged BFOS, Butt Falling off Syndrome, Olivia Newton John, Potato salad, Tiger in the bathroom | Leave a Comment

22 Apr 2013

Happy freeking Monday.

As you two might already know, I have a couple of Monday issues happening here.

First, I’m supposed to be having an “off” day. Obviously most of my days are “off” so I expect you’re both wondering what’s so unusual about that. Cynics, both of you, I’m supposed to be taking the day off from working out. So of course I slept wonderfully and didn’t get up until 7am, waking refreshed and enthused about maybe swimming (right, OK, not really enthused, but you know…sorta not hating the idea. That’s a lot like being enthused.)

I have to admit I no longer look at swimming like it was my second pregnancy and this time I knew what natural childbirth felt like and knew I was going to have to go through it all again anyway. See? That’s positive, right?

I remember being pregnant with the twins, sitting in a chair, unable to see my toes. Hubs asked me about the Lamaze classes, wondering how learning a breathing technique was helpful. ”Does it make it hurt less, then?” he asked.

In the most polite way possible I told him to go shut his buddy in the door over there and work on breathing slowly and deeply, which would be helpful in demonstrating to him both the feeling of labor and the benefit of proper breathing. He politely declined and indicated he was happy to take me at my word.

So today I’m not going swimming or running or biking (but I am going to sneak in some yard work SHHHH be vewy vewy quiet.)

Since I’m full of energy and it’s a pretty day and also I put it off for the past three days I decided to go to Kroger’s and buy food. Secondly, I decided to actually make dinner tonight. Fasten the seatbelts, it’s going to be a rough ride. I even looked up a recipe. Then I decided we don’t need no stinking recipe and I’m going to make up my own plan. Baked pork chops, rice and veggies. I’ll let you know if hubs survives. There’s really no other option because I forgot to buy the Lean Cuisines and I’m not going back to the store. I figure more than once a week in Kroger is probably a leading cause of brain leakage, and I have reason for that belief.

Part of the problem is the Muzak. Usually I can handle a little bit of the orchestral remakes of Back in Black or Somebody to Love because once those get stuck in my head, as they will undoubtedly and without fail do, I don’t feel like I need to thread dental floss through my ears and clean out my head.

Oddly, I kept feeling I should not go to Kroger this morning. Not that I didn’t want to, I was actually feeling rather enthused about buying food and cooking it, as opposed to buying it and letting it rot. And I kept thinking of other things to take care of instead of going to the store, but I didn’t want to go this afternoon because I want to get outside in the sunshine and rake up 10 millionbajillion leaves from the 87 trees on our lawn.

OK. FINE. It’s not really 87 trees. I don’t want to count them though, because then for the rest of my life at some point every freeking day my brain would randomly announce WE HAVE 23 TREES ON OUR LAWN and when I’m in the home and don’t recognize my own toes my brain would still randomly announce out loud to the nurse WE HAVE 23 TREES ON OUR LAWN. The nurses will all call me Tree Lady and they’ll all know which resident they’re talking about. Sometimes they’ll just shorten it to “23 needs a bed pan” and they’ll all know then, too.

Anyway, I didn’t listen to my own inner psychic and I went to Kroger. Probably, too, if I weren’t so damn well hydrated it would still have worked out OK. But, no, I’ve had like 40 ounces of water already this morning plus three coffees, so of course I had to go to the Ladies’ Room – this is the polite term for bathroom in public places – which when you think about it, they can’t call it a bathroom because it has no bath. If it did have a bath I would totally not go in there because I have no clue what I might see at that point, but – without meaning to point fingers – if that woman in front of me in the checkout was naked in a bath and I saw that at Kroger’s I would probably go blind or end up in the home tomorrow telling everyone about the freeking damn trees and drooling.

This is precisely why I will never make it as a nurse. I’ll never play piano either, but if I did, I can tell you one song I would NEVER-NEVER-EVER play: Please Mr., Please which, unfortunately, came on overhead just as I was checking out.

AND THIS IS THE SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED AT THAT STORE!! Let me repeat that as I’m sure you are both completely stunned and cannot believe what you just read: THIS IS THE SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED AT THAT STORE!

How can the odds possibly work out that I would hear that damn song twice in the same store? How random is that, anyway? Shouldn’t I have fallen into a black hole first, or hit a hole-in-one at the Masters even though I don’t golf? Wouldn’t those chances be better than hearing that song twice in the same place??? AND it happened in the check out line. If I’d just not gone to the Ladies’ Room. Dammit.

But, no. Here I sit, two hours later, and that song is running through my head like a warm murky stream on a grossly hot day. I even youtubed AC/DC and played it real loud to try getting it out that way, but they can’t seem to kick Olivia out. Probably by Wednesday or Thursday it should be gone.

Secondly, “at my age” which the doctors seem get some perverse joy out of saying, I think there should be some perks. One of the perks I think I should be able to enjoy is not have a pimple grow in the middle of my nose.

I’m concerned that hearing Olivia warble about B17 has flashed me back to my teen years and my pores felt obliged to make me feel right at home. Soon I shall don my jeans that are far too short because my legs are too long and they don’t sell jeans by the inseam yet and get some broccoli stuck in my braces so when I laugh out loud during Monday afternoon Spanish class the popular kids will laugh too.

What do you mean, they weren’t laughing with me?

Dammit. I HATE Mondays.

Posted in Biking, Running and tagged AC/DC, biking, coffee, earworm, exercise, fitness, grocery store, healthy-living, Kroger, mental-health, Olivia Newton John, posterchild, Run, swimming, training | Leave a Comment

20 Apr 2013

3 Comments

Never leave home without it

Tuesday was the one year anniversary of my dad’s passing (I like the word “passing’”. Passages. Life is a series of them.) so I was visiting with my mom for the past week. She lives in the hills about 1-1/2 hours north/northwest of Phoenix. The town is not that small but I was reduced to 2G on my iPad, which sucked since I’m attached at the hip to the internet and have no life to speak of. I felt rather as though one of my arms had been torn off. Probably by Zombies. This was particularly irritating when area TV stations kept emailing MRTC to see if we had any runners in Boston and could I give them their personal contact info. We have 3400 members, I don’t know and I’m not giving you their personal info if I did know, but thanks for asking. That, however, took 12 minutes to type every time, apparently you can’t type too fast on an iPad with 2G or you crash it. Repeatedly.

Hey, at least I didn’t have to call AT&T, right?

Mom lives in a bi-level house built on the side of a steep plot of land, the backyard about 1-1/2 stories above the street. The guest room is downstairs and the window sill is level with the yard. I look upward to watch chipmunks steal sunflower seeds from the bird feeder and see the lizards amble past. It’s cool and dark and I’ve named it The Bat Cave.

Every evening we watched movies on AMC, which, as an aside, I’m kinda pissed at AMC. Mom’s AMC is having a special this month with little notes popping up throughout the film about the actors, funny anecdotes, etc. I was so excited. I was going to watch AMC the rest of the month and learn all kinds of useless pieces of info. For instance I learned, while watching Willie Wonka, that all the little Oompa Loompas liked to rent a limo every day after filming and bar hop. This was particularly funny to me, and totally not PC, because I kept having a mental image of the little dudes hopping up so they could see over the bar: HOP “Scotch” HOP “on the” HOP “rocks, please” (bar? hopping? right?) So I apologize if either of you are an Oompa Loompa and also that I’m an insensitive un-PC bitch.

But, no. No little notes on my AMC. Dammit.

Oh, well, I’ve been distracted by the talking heads on CNN anyway.

Mom is of an unstated age that allows her to pick and choose what she feels like doing and I expect she’s earned that right. Personally, however, I do think she should have felt like killing those large red ants with the big mound of ant mansion in her backyard sometime in the last few years. I particularly think she should have killed them before one of the little bass turds bit my foot. Dammit, that hurt.

I grabbed some rubbing alcohol and some cortisone cream and some anti-itch cream and sat with ice on it while we watched the Oompah Loopahs roll away the large blueberry girl (one of my favorite parts, although I’m sure it wasn’t fun for her as she apparently wore the Styrofoam ball all day long and couldn’t eat while the rest of the crew had lunch because her arms couldn’t reach her mouth. Seriously? No one could spoon a little soup in her mouth?) Then I started worrying about her. What if she needed to go to the bathroom?

Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?

Sorry, I’m back now, I was gone for a while there ^^^ Chunk is on my desk hovering over my keyboard, trying to smack my hand every time I type. Apparently the typing is keeping her awake or something. So sorry, Princess, your constant jumping on me is the whole reason we’re all awake at 4am. Think about that tomorrow. Anyway, now she is distracted as the sun is coming up and she can see the birds outside so she’s at the window chirping, tail twitching, and no longer trying to kill the dreaded Fingers of Typing. That’s some tail, I tell you. I had to move my coffee cup.

After Charlie gave Mr. Wonka the Everlasting Gobstopper back (which, BTW, they do make Everlasting Gobstoppers in real life but they actually only last 16 minutes, thank you, AMC) and proved he was a great guy and got to own the whole candy factory I retired to the Bat Cave to read a while before bed. Of course then that damn ant bite started itching like fire. I didn’t want to go back upstairs to get all the anti-itch stuff because every step you take in that 40-year old house makes the cups rattle slightly in the cupboard and I would wake mom, so I sat there for a while trying to ignore it. You know how that goes. Pretty soon the ant bite was the size of a basketball and it was all I could think of, itch! itch! itch!, the way a mosquito in the night ends up the size of a 747 and the next morning the bedroom looks like a war zone because you’ve thrown everything you could find at the damn thing and now you have to buy a new lamp. Not that I ever did that.

I kept thinking there had to be something I could put on it to sooth the itching, something in that bathroom had to have alcohol in it, right? Dad’s old aftershave? Something? But, no. Mousse, Ajax, extra lightbulbs, I dug everything out of the cupboard – nothing. I started digging through my overnight bag, furiously rubbing my foot against my leg uselessly trying to stop the burning itch which was now half the size of Alaska.

And then, voilà:

It worked! Or, maybe it was just mental, but either way, the itching finally stopped, I fell asleep in the cool darkness of the Bat Cave and slept not like a baby until the sun came up.

We had another fun day and went shopping and eating and shopping and eating. I had a nice run in the hills – at 5,000 feet it takes a while to get acclimated to the thinner air so I had to do some stopping and starting but it was a beautiful day and I was so happy to be running my beautiful Arizona. You can’t feel too sad when you have a view like this:

And this:

Beautiful, huh?

That evening we watched Ground Hog Day and read all the little stories at the bottom of the screen which my AMC doesn’t have, not that I’m bitter or going to harp on that all month. Then I went to the Bat Cave to read my second book since I’d finished the first book I’d brought. This new book was one of those that Oprah’s kingdom has deemed worthy of her honor and they’d slapped a sticker on the front. But the sticker was a little loose in one spot, which was irritating because I could feel it with my fingers while I held the book. So I tried to pull it off but I think they use Gorilla Glue or something on those things so all it did was tear in half and then when I tried to read it was sticky. This was even more irritating. I tried scraping it off with my fingernail but that started to mess up the book cover, which was currently new and smooth. If you’re going to read a book it either needs to be new and smooth or totally worn out, not sort of new and sort of worn out. There had to be a way to get that sticky off the cover. If only I had something with a little alcohol … or … something…

So now my book reeks of mouth wash.

But – it’s smooth and new and the sticky is gone.

I’m telling you: do not leave home without it.

Posted in Running and tagged ant, ant bite, antiseptic, cat, coffee, exercise, fitness, healthy-living, Journey, mouthwash, Pet, Run, running, Zombies

Run. Dog. Cat. Cat. Me.

Everything you need to know about running and life and any other random crap I find bouncing through my mind like a ping pong ball. And always be sure your shoes are happy.

If I ever did that again, not that I will, but if I did…

Confidence? Reality? A spoonful of sugar?

Good luck with that.

Well, that went swimmingly.

OCD much?

Oh, the places you’ll go (with sincere apologies to Dr. S)

No. Try not. Do…or do not. There is no try.

There’s a WHAT? In the WHERE?

Happy freeking Monday.

Never leave home without it

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