May 2006 Archives

So, I'm home from my first day of my internship and I honestly couldn't be happier about the gig. Everything about it just feels so right and so me and I just want to finish school NOW so that I can start working there for real (*crosses fingers*).

I'm too exhausted to go into detail about it ... but it was amazing. Just know that.

Well, it was one of those days when a long ride throws just about everything (with, fortunately, the exception of getting up close and personal with the pavement) possible at you. At least it kept things interesting.

I was planning on doing my long ride on Saturday ... a day that ended up having 40+ mph wind gusts. Decided to move it to Sunday ... Sunday was't much better. So in the interest of riding in the "best weather" (ha!) this weekend, I ended up doing my long ride today.

It started out normal enough. The wind was blowing at 15-20 mph out of the south, the sun was up and the day was slightly unseasonably warm ... but not startlingly so. Before the temperature was to take a nose dive, we'd hit around 92 degrees I think. And it was humid.

It was around mile 35 when I saw SuperCoolThing #1. It was a prairie king snake, probably about 4 feet long (and nice and fat) stretched out on the side of the bike path. I had seen a TON of dead snakes on the road today, but seeing this huge beautiful live one totally made my day. King snakes are cool because, at least in my experience, they are relatively calm and non-aggressive (have I mentioned that I'm a total snake nerd?). Back when I worked at the ecological research station I would always play with the kingsnakes that the snake guys caught ... they were just so cool Today I was able to walk right up to it and check it out ... its skin was glistening in the sun and it just kinda slithered along on the side of the bike path. Very very cool. A dude (in a CSC jersey, surely celebrating Basso's victory yesterday in the Giro) rode up behind me and saw me standing over my bike leaning on my aero bars. He asked if I was ok and when I said "Yeah!" and pointed to the snake he just about fell off his bike. Pretty funny.

So then SuperCoolThing #2 happened when the boyfriend (who I met up with at mile 45) and I were riding south out into the country ... a beautiful coyote jumped into the road right in front of me! He was probably only 10 feet away - and definitely surprised me when I saw him! Good thing I wasn't going too fast (dam wind) or he (or I!) would have been toast.

At this point it started heating up and the humidity was on the rise. It was getting hot. I don't do very well in the heat so I was sort of dreading the 40 or so miles I had left. And then I noticed the clouds looming behind us. Big black billowy clouds that looked like they were about to burst at any minute. And burst they did! I have done a bit of riding in the rain, but never like this. Usually I only get stuck in little showers, but this was a full on downpour ... for 2.5 hours!!! I'm a little skittish on wet roads, but once I got settled in I did ok, and it was actually really fun. Of courese at this point the temperature dropped to around 70 and between that and the rain and the wind, the boyfriend and I were more than a bit chilly! I had fun splashing through the puddles. There was a good bit of thunder and lightening and I'm not at all sure that it was smart to be out there, but when you're 30 miles from home, you don't really have a choice but to keep going. It was about 10 miles from home, in the rain still, when I saw SuperCoolThing #3 ... a woodchuck!! I've never seen a woodchuck in the wild before! It was ridiculously cute.

Anyway, ended up getting in 92 miles or so which is a little less than I would have liked, but considering the rain, I'll take it. Legs felt great even at the end and I did a nice little run at the end. Next week my long ride is only 5 hours ... and it goes down down down from there!!! I'm finally starting to feel like I'm ready for my race ... and just in the nick of time!

And now i have to shift gears and get ready to start my internship tomorrow! woohoo!

Its been a little quiet around here since finals ended. I have a week off before I start my internship, and I've been running around like crazy trying to get life somewhat in order. My apartment was a disaster post-finals and I've dedicated an enormous amount of time to (attempting) to get it straightened up. Today's project is the closet.

Tuesday I went into the big city and my mom and I spent the day shopping for "business casual" attire which is what I'm supposed to wear to work. Have I mentioned that I lose my interest in shopping (unless its for bikes or dogs or something equally fun) in about an hour, so this all day trip was a stretch. I came away from the event with quite a few nice things that should hopefully work for work. And they're actually kind of cute outfits ... not at all frumpy as I had feared. Shoes were a bit of a struggle, seeing as I've lived the last 26 years in my life in some combination of flip flops, running shoes, and merril's/keen's/chaco's. Plus I have notoriously bad feet and an Ironman coming up! Now is not the time to be screwing things up! I think I found some shoes that I can make it through the day in, we'll see.

I'm getting really excited for my summer gig. I've been in contact via phone and email with the people I will be working for and I really think I will like them. They are friendly and accomodating and not at all intimidating. This is a good thing, but I have to constantly remind myself to maintain some level of professionalism. I just left an awfully unprofessional voice mail message ... need to remember to think before I speak!

Training has been interesting this last week or so. Had an amazing long run last week and things have gone downhill since then. Had an awful long ride last weekend ... ended up cutting it way short. 6 hour ride scheduled for this weekend and I'm just not looking forward to it. I'm just ready to be done. It doesn't help that all of a sudden its 90+ degrees out. Blah.

Back to closet cleaning.

"The day that I ran out of road"

I have been doing the same long run route for the last couple years. I absolutely love the route because I get a lot of variation in scenery, on most of it there's minimal traffic, and its really really pretty out by the lake. The other good thing about it was that I felt like no matter how long my scheduled run was, I could just keep running and running on this particular road until I needed to turn around and head home. It never occurred to me that I would eventually reach the end of the road.

Last night, I did. I got to the stop sign where the dam (yes "dam", not "damn") road meets up with a sort of busy road and thought to myself "well ... where do I go from here?". I was only 1:20 into my three hour run, so I needed an extra 10 minutes or so. I ended up taking an alternate route home that added a few miles to the out and back.

For the first few hours I felt AWESOME. For me there is NOTHING better than the way that middle hour of a long run feels on a good day. I was totally in the groove and just coasting along - felt like I could keep running forever. Unfortunately on my way back up to my apartment, in the last half hour or so, I developed a nasty side cramp that slowed me to a walk, and NOTHING would make it go away. I'd walk for a few minutes and it would feel better and as soon as I would start running it would come back. It was the kind of cramp that makes breathing just excruciatingly painful. I don't know what the deal was, but it was a little frustrating. My lower back is a little sore today one one side, don't know what the deal was, or if its related, but its all just a little weird. The back thing could be from my horrid posture and position when I'm sitting on the couch working on papers (which I did all day yesterday). I dunno. I'm sure I'll live.

A few things happened yesterday to keep the run interesting. When I was out on the dam I was passed by a pack of riders from a local cycling team, all wearing matching kits, except one. This dude caught my eye because he was wearing one of the jerseys awarded to the winners at collegiate nationals. I right away recognized him as the dude that won the crit (he doesn't go to Looneyville U. - he goes to the other big state University - but he must have been in town for some reason). At the race on Sunday a friend of mine who has raced with him all year said he doesn't have all that much natural talent, but he "can suffer better than anyone I've ever met". It was cool to see him out riding in his national champ jersey, obviously proud of his accomplishment. The same team was out last week when I was running doing loops on the dam - they must have passed me five times. Yesterday I was hoping they would come back around so that I could congratulate him, but no such luck.

The second exciting thing happened about 2:20 into my run, when I was getting ready to come off the bike path. It was getting dark and I was starting to get a little fuzzy. This time of year you see lots of snakes on the bike path if you're out just before the sun goes all the way down. The first few that I saw were all pretty small (including a little ringneck that I wanted to pick up and bring home!) and then, just as it was starting to get REALLY close to being dark, I saw what I first thought was a beautiful cornsnake laying in the middle of the path. We have lots of cornsnakes, but I never see them. I walked right up to this guy to take a look and then realized that ain't no cornsnake. I've seen a million copperheads in my life, we have LOTS of them around here - I can't believe I thought this one was something else! I blame it on it being damn near dark and my being a little fuzzy from the run. Copperheads usually don't bother me too much, I just give them some room and go right on by. But when I trotted right up to this one to give it a good look, it reared up in strike position, and was not happy again afterwards. So there I was on the bike path, in the dark, with this pissed off poisonous snake sitting right in the middle of the path. I stood there for a few minutes wondering how in the hell I was going to get around him (he stayed in strike position the whole time) until finally I said oh what the hell, and tiptoed around. I guess its really not all that exciting, but it certainly brought me out of my long run zen mode!

Anyway, side cramps notwithstanding, it was an awesome long run for me. Definitely the longest training run I've ever done. Was I REALLY considering pulling out of the race a couple days ago?? No way in hell I'm doing that!

Three finals down, one take home final due this afternoon, one due Friday, and then I am DONE for the summer!! Woohoo!!

Things are starting to fall into place for the summer. I've been in contact with the people I will be working for, and that has gotten me really excited! I need to go on a suit shopping spree next week seeing as I only have ONE business suit at the moment. I'm not sure how I feel about getting all suited up everyday ... maybe its because I've only worn a biz suit twice in my life, but I feel a little ridiculous in one. Like, oh look at me, trying to play lawyer! But I guess the time has sort of come for the "trying to play" lawyer to end, and the "starting to actually be" a lawyer to begin! I'm excited to see what working in the "real world" feels like ... how much time I feel like I have ... whether I'm less stressed out or more ... what its like to actually get a paycheck!

My last concern about the summer, up till yesterday, remained what to do with my beloved Maddie dog during the day. My parents generously offered to watch her everyday (have I mentioned that they adore her??), but taking her to their place would add another 20 minutes to my already way too long commute. Yesterday my upstairs neighbor (who has a beagle that Madison adores) came down and told me she got a new job here in town and would be home early in the afternoon everyday and that she would love to watch Maddie for me in the afternoons!!! Woohoo!!!!! Problem solved! I'll probably still take her to my parents' a couple times a week, but its nice to know that I don't have to! Remind me to do something nice for my neighbor!

Monday I had a small freak-out about my upcoming Ironman. I was feeling stressed out about finals and my job and training and excited about the possibility of trying some other kinds of races and it all just sort of exploded that day. I was having all these doubts about racing and then I found out how much my "sponsors" (my parents ;)) would be paying for the hotel alone in CDA. I feel SO SOOOOO guilty about it. I am not a cheap kid, and I'm not even a kid anymore! I spent a good part of the afternoon seriously considering withdrawing from the race. But then I realized that as unhappy as they were about the $$ (although they try desperately not to guilt trip me), they would be even MORE unhappy if I called and said "I'm not racing". I can't believe I even considered pulling out. I think it was a combination of the stress from everything that is going on, along with a healthy dose of nerves about the race itself, starting to get to me. Don't worry, I'm still in.

Enough procrastinating ... back to my final!

The boyfriend took a boatload of fabulous pictures at the race this weekend!

Check them out here!

Just got back from the crit at collegiate nationals!

Apparently we missed quite a day yesterday at the road race. Rumor (via velonews) has it that a big pile up in the women's division 1 race sent 20 girls to the pavement and 4 to the hospital. AND the women's Division 2 race was held up for half an hour (mid-race!) due to emergency vehicles and fallen riders in the road. Yikes.

The crit today was amazing. There was a pretty good turnout downtown - lots of locals came out to check out the festivities. My parents came in from KC. It was a blast. I get so emotional watching these things ... I'm SUCH a freaking girl sometimes! I just about lost it when I saw the dude that won the Division 1 race (which was a TOTAL surprise, according to my buddy T.) ride over and hug his mom and start crying. It was just so cool. Of course our local cycling superstar made an appearance, and Maddie played for a little while with his dog.

I talked for a while to a nice road racer chick from KC. She asked if I do anything besides triathlons and I said no, but I was thinking about maybe mountain bike racing. I pointed towards the riders going round and round on the crit course and explained that that scared the hell out of me and that you'd never see me road racing. At least not any time soon. She thought for a second and said "You know what I bet you would really like??? Cyclocross!"

I had never considered racing cross before, but now that she put the thought in my head, I can't get it out. Cross is a winter sport which is perfect - it would give me something to do when triathlon season is over (and my triathlon seasons have been VERY short lately). And any sport with a movie about it called Pure Sweet Hell is a sport I can get into. I love the idea of a short suffer fest ... it would be oh so different than what I'm used to ... a nice change of pace for sure.

We'll see. I was considering buying a new mountain bike this summer to try out MTB racing. But maybe I'll fix up my old MTB, and spend the money on a cross bike instead. I wish I weren't so damn short so I could find a used bike more easily. I dunno ... we'll see. I'm VERY intrigued!

"I've never seen wind like this before!!!!"

Welcome to Looneyville kids! This is the real windy city.

I think everyone around here gets a kick out of everyone coming in for nationals, thinking they are facing an EASY course, seeing as this state is "flatter than a pancake". What they are quickly realizing is that this part of the state actuallly does have hills (although nothing too dramatic), and we also have plenty of the one thing that is worse than hills .... WIND!!!!! Yesterday at the Team Time Trial the wind was 15-25, gusting way higher than that. Today for the road race it was only supposed to be 15 mph, but when I left for my ride this afternoon it was at 18 ... gusting to 30. For tomorrow's crit we're scheduled for another 15-25 mph day. Ahhhh .... ya gotta love it.

Ok, so today I was most certainly NOT loving it. Having not ridden long the last two weeks due to weather and illness, I NEEDED to get my long ride in this weekend. Lately I've been starting my long rides out solo and then meeting up with the boyfriend for the last few hours. But today he was stuck working and I had to go it alone. I should note that I am not a fan of doing long rides by myself, but I really had no choice. This afternoon it was just me and my ipod* and the open road.

This is definitely not the first time I've done a windy long ride this year, but this is the first time that I had the headwind on the way BACK. OUCH OUCH OUCH. I kept trying to tell myself "this is what will make you tough" ... it was much easier to believe when I had the tailwind. When I turned for home I watched my average speed drop significantly as I tried to "spin" into that damn wind (probably turning 60 rpms ... yeah, my knees are SHOT at the moment) in my easiest gear. Ooooooh it hurt. I pretty much crawled home the last two hours, fighting back tears and wondering why the HELL do I do this again????. Now that I'm fed and showered and home on my couch, I'm pretty proud of myself for toughing it out. This ride was very much a mental battle. Managed to get in around 85 miles, by myself, on a freaking windy day. Averaged around 16 mph which is a little slower than what I've been doing, but considering how nasty it was out, I'm pretty happy.

So now I must attempt to study so that tomorrow I can go hang out at the crit!!!! I'm SO looking forward to this!!!!!!!

* Yeah, yeah ... I know its not the smartest thing to ride with headphones. But I keep the volume very low so that I can just barely hear it and only wear one earbud. I'm not stupid ... well, not about this at least.

This weekend, for the second year in a row, Looneyville will play host to the USA Cycling Collegiate Road Nationals. This glorious event includes a team time trial, road race, and my favorite, a crit on our downtown streets.

I have been looking forward to this all year so I was thrilled today when I drove down sixth street and saw no less than three teams racing down the road, practicing for tomorrow's TTT! I've seen several vans loaded with 10-15 bikes on the roof and more spandex than this town has seen since ... last year? Its such a cool event. Especially the crit.

The best part for me is that this race comes at a PERFECT time of year, motivation wise. Its gotten me all excited for my race this summer. The hype around here isn't nearly as big as the hype in an Ironman town during race week, but its still a small taste of pre-race spark. And I can't wait!

Well folks, I am finally back to normal. Got back to training on Monday, took a final on Tuesday, and today, I did my first long workout since ... two weeks ago (ugh!)?

I felt pretty good for an hour and a half or so, and then, suddenly, I felt awful. I was way out on the Clinton dam, leaning over the railing, resisting the urge to yack all over. I was probably 6 or 7 miles from home and just not feeling good at all. I hopped over the railing and sat on the rocks for a little while, still felt like crap. So I took out the cell phone and did what I've only done ONE other time in my 6 years of doing triathlons ... I called for someone to come pick me up (the other time was last year, 60 miles into a long ride, when I overheated and started hallucinating!!). The first two people I called didn't answer and then finally I got ahold of my friend V. who was more than happy to come get me. Fortunately, she was on the other side of town and long before she got to me I was feeling better. So I called off the sag wagon and continued my run. I managed to get in a good 2:30 ... which isn't as much as I would have liked, but isn't too shabby.

Now I'm sitting on the couch, watching America's Next Top Model (yes, I'm addicted). There's something oddly satisfying about watching a bunch of under-fed model types whilst I scarf down a 2,000 calorie burrito.

Anyway, it feels good to be back at it after a rough week next week.

First of all, I'm still sick. What the hell?

Instead of studying, at the moment, I am sitting on my couch watching the Giro d'Italia on OLN. So sooooo exciting!!!! Its been a while since I've gotten to watch one of the big tours on tv. With the exception of the two stages I got to witness live and in person last year, I didn't get to watch any of the Tour de France. No Phil Ligget, no Bobke. Of course, I can't complain because last summer I got to see the time trial that sealed Lance's seventh Tour in St. Etienne and celebrated right along with him (well, in theory) the next day on the Champs Elysees. But I really can't tell you what happened during the rest of the race, which says a lot because I am a tour junkie!! The Giro is exciting, and its a warmup for the big one. I've got my eye on Basso to win it all this July. And its not just because I'll take as much Ivan Basso tv time as I can get. ;)

Have I mentioned that I'm STILL FREAKING SICK?!

In other news, four years ago today, I met a boy a cute boy at a triathlon. Four years! How is that possible?!

Last night the Maddie dog and I went and stayed at my parents' house. My dad is out of town on a business trip and so it was just me and my mom and the three labs. The dogs romped around the basement for a good hour and then promptly fell asleep. I was feeling quite a bit better, so my mom and I went to get some food. Seeing as my stomach was holding out, we decided to stop at the sporting goods store to check out their running tops.

This pre-Ironman top buying has become somewhat of a tradition for us. Every year, as the race draws closer, my mom and I go on a shopping trip and my girly colors come through as I look for a top that I will still feel at least a little cute in, even after 14+ hours of sweating, when its damn near impossible to feel cute. This annual shopping trip is how I know the race is near.

I found a great top this year! It's pink and red and black and white and very flashy. Yay!!

Maddie is being boarded with my parents' dogs when we all head up to CDA for the race, so we are trying to let them spend lots of time together before then. My parents' labs are both SO sweet and neither has an aggressive bone in their body. But the yellow one, who at 9 is starting to get up there in age, is a bit crotchety. When the two black dogs start paying too rough he barks and barks until they calm down. If Maddie comes close to him and he's not in the mood he'll give a little growl (note that he would NEVER hurt her - he's a big baby).

Well, last night I was in bed with the two black dogs and the yellow dog was sleeping on the floor. I woke up to BANG BANG BANG and saw that it was Maddie wagging her tail vigorously, because the yellow dog was standing over her, trying to find a place to sleep. The only open spot on the bed was RIGHT in front of Maddie and I was SHOCKED when he curled up right in front of her. She was practically spooning him!!!! And he didn't even move when Maddie (who is SUCH a cuddler) put her head on his back and let out a long blissful sigh. SO CUTE!!!! I couldn't believe how good he was with her!

And now, I'm home and must study ... still a littie queezy ... but a bit better everyday ...

No, its not what you're thinking. I didn't have a collision with an oncoming train on a ride or anything like that (and if I had, I probably wouldn't have lived to tell about it). "Hit by a train" is pretty much how I felt all day yesterday.

Monday night started out fine. Went for an easy 20 mile ride in the evening and then to dinner with the boyfriend. Woke up at 4 a.m. and did NOT feel good. After which I proceded to spend the next 30+ hours sleeping. Without going into all the gory details, lets just say it was NOT pretty.

Seriously, who gets the flu in May??!

I'm feeling way WAY better today, but a little weak. So much for my long run today.