Vegas Baby!

I have been looking for an excuse to go see the cutest baby in the free world

This picture so cute it actually makes my ovaries hurt.

Oh yeah, and his parents and a few other AWESOME Nevadans! Well, our very own Ms. IronJane has provided just the right excuse

December 6,2009

It is on baby!

*Beautiful baby picture was stolen from his mommy's site, who I believe is now cleared for exercise and a 1/2 mary sounds like a perfect new goal to me. I am just saying...

Customer Service

Dear Carolina John,

You so graciously offered to help me with my computer troubles. I hate to impose, but I think I will, indeed, need your services. It seems that I am ONCE AGAIN having trouble with my BRAND NEW computer. So what I need is for you to rub out some Best Buy employees. Rub out, whack, off, fit for a pair of cement boots, whatever you IT mafioso guys are calling it these days. And don't go denying that you IT folk are all mobbed up. Just because we are all a bunch of idiots that entrust our ENTIRE LIVES to a plastic box of electronic shit when we have NO fucking idea how it works and we call you crying that our computer has "crashed" (the only semi-industry term we know) when actually we have stepped on the power strip it is plugged into and turned the fucker off, doesn't mean that we aren't wise to your "connections."

Anyway back to the whacking. The aforementioned employees can be found at the Customer Service Desk, also known as the "Bend Over and Take it Like a Man" Desk. They will be explaining to some chump, I mean, customer, that "Yes, we are aware we sold you a defective piece of shit, but it has been more than 14 days so you are fucked."

The timeline is entirely up to you. You may want to wait a couple of days though. Some crazy chick in a pink baseball cap lost her shit there today, so I think the security has been beefed up.

Thanks! You are a gem!
RBR

If the boredom doesn't kill me...

...the unbearable heat or my remarkably bad sense of direction will.

I am in Sacramento this week for an scintillating (see title) conference on learning models and teaching strategies for science. Try to not be jealous.

For those of you not familiar with the climate of Sacramento it is similar to the surface of the sun only drier. We walk all of three blocks to the convention center each morning and I end up looking like I have just run a marathon. No, come to think of it, I actually I look better after I have just run a marathon than I do when I get there.

I will spare you the excruciating details of my conference, but I must let go of one small bitch and then I will move on. I promise.

Why, oh, why, must teachers treat all other adults like children? This week I have spent over 32 hours "modeling" learning strategies. Which means they "teach" me to do things like draw a bubble map (don't ask, it is hugely unimportant) and then I get to make the bubble map. I got to use markers and glue sticks and everything!

Word of advice to teacher educators, when you talk to people like they are 15, they tend to act like it.

I did do a little exercise on Sacramento, so let's focus on that.

Tuesday: Run 5 miles - A Solo Tour of Sketchtown, USA

I had checked out a map of the area so I had an idea of where I wanted to go and I got up to run at 4:30 am. I head out and immediately go the wrong way. Not a good start. I got turned around and finally started to recognize the route I picked on the map. After I headed over the Tower Bridge I noticed a distinct change in the environment and a distinct increase in the number and severity of the homeless and crazy people.

Tower bridge. Very cool drawbridge leading across the American River. It leads from pretty downtown Sacramento to the less scenic West Sacramento
Picture stolen from bprlaw.net

Two and a half miles from your hotel is probably not the best time to figure out that running at 4:30 in the morning in a city that you are not familiar with is not the wisest of ideas. After I ran by my third bum if a full heroin nod, I decided running the full 6 miles was not all that important to me and I headed back to the hotel.

Wednesday: Bike 18 miles - The Bum Slalom

This time I decided to go after the daily conference festivities which was SUPER smart since it was only projected to 103 degrees that day. I tried to drive and park where I thought I could get on the American River Parkway, which is a 20+ mile bike path that I had read about. As you know if you have read this blog more than twice, I can't find my own my ass with both hands, and I was on the wrong side of the river. I did, however get a grand tour of the various homeless encampments along the American River.

Ferry (?) whatever, big ass boat thing, on the American River. The Tower Bridge is in the back. No, I was not brave enough to photograph the homeless encampments.

After 3 miles of back and forth and a lovely conversation with a young man possessing, at most, 4 teeth, no shirt, and pupils the size of quarters, I discovered that I was in fact on the wrong side of the river. It was one of those times when you are doing something and your mind is screaming at you "You should not be talking to this freak. This is how you end up on the news, dumbass!"

At the end of the conversation he did say that I was "looking REAL gooood" so it is nice to know that I am at least still attractive to toothless, gacked out of their mind, meth addicts.

Once I was finally on the bike trail I realized just how fucking HOT it was. The trail only rides along the river for a relatively short time before it gets far enough away to lose the cooling benefits of a large body of water.

Little warm, but finally back at Old Town Sacramento.

There were little pockets of shade but they were more of a teasing "Ha! It could be cooler like this, but it is NOT" than actually lowering your core temp and making you more comfortable. I stopped at a public bathroom and waited my turn in line after a homeless guy to take a bird bath in the water fountain to try to cool off. A little less than 8 miles in I bagged at and turned around. When I got back, my car was still there and no one was sleeping in it so I will take that as a "win."

Now, I am from San Jose and we have our fair share of homeless people, but they are our homeless people and I am fairly comfortable with their level of craziness. Crazy people when you are in a strange town are far more scary. I won't be returning to ride alone in West Sacramento any time soon.

Mark this day

Today I chick'd someone.

I am going to apologize right now to Calyx because I know she personally HATES this type of expression, but it is all for a good cause. Namely making me feel better about myself. :o)

Ever since I first heard this expression from JohnnyTri and Formulaic I was intrigued (and HIGHLY amused because it had happened to them) Apparently, men do not like to get passed by women. This is true on the bike, the run, or even the swim. It does not seem to matter if they are a good 75 pounds overweight and have been running or riding for 3 weeks and the woman is Paula Radcliffe, it makes them quite pissy and they will do everything in their power to repass said woman. If they get passed and subsequently dropped like a used condom they call it being 'chick'd.'

Now, I get chick'd, dude'd, and even little kid'd all the time, so it hardly phases me. But I am NEVER the chick-er.

Here my chick-ing story..

I went for a long ride with LA Run Buddy. Neither of us were feeling particularly inspired and started late, so pretty early on our planned 50 mile ride turned into a revised plan 30 mile ride. We rode in Woodside which is Hardcore Bicyclist Central for Northern California. So we were two of the handful of riders out there that were not in full cycling kits or riding bikes that cost more than my car. (FYI: 'kit' is the cool-kid name for their little matchy-matchy cycling outfits)

We were practicing major hill avoidance. This is as good as it gets in this area.

Anyhoo, back to the chick-ing. We are riding up a hill and I am in front because LA Run Buddy is much faster than me and she drops my ass if she leads, so I, being the lowest common denominator, usually set the pace. I am trying to push because I always feel like I am holding LA Run Buddy back and we come up on a fit looking guy on a nice bike. We pass him. I say good morning, he smiles and says good morning back (I know, he was nice, so telling this story is kind of mean, but it may never happen again)

About 10 minutes later we are on another climb (the one that turns into the big ass climb you see in the profile) and he re-passes us, and he is obviously working hard. He smiles. I smile. We all continue to climb, but pretty soon the hill starts to get to him and we pass him again. I say "Hello again!" He smiles back, but it is a little tighter this time. My legs were feeling pretty great so I kept pushing up the hill, when we turned up another hill we saw him still coming, but he never passed us again.

I am not an expert on such things, but I think this qualifies as having chick'd someone.


On another note. Here is a letter to two of our fellow Sunday morning cyclists:

Dear $6,000 Bike Riding, Wearers of Cycle Kits from a Team you PAY to be on:

I understand that you are entirely too cool to be bothered to say "on your left" as you pass the likes of me. And I realize that to you I am no more than a round, purple and pink annoyance on the road. But if you do choose to silently pass me, altogether too close I might add, please have the decency to not stop pedaling 10 feet in front of me, start riding two across with your buddy, and chatting about how small your penises are or whatever the fuck you were chatting about. Your half-ass pedaling and frequent coasting leaves me trapped behind your skinny asses constantly having to adjust my speed and thinking of ways to remove said tiny penises.

Sincerely,
The chick in purple and pink that held your wheel all the way back to town (even when you finally did try to drop her)

Junk in the Trunk

In my blog header I say this blog is about my journey to marathon madness (check), triathlon triumph (debatable, but if you adjust your definition of triumph, we are all good), and a little less junk in the trunk (umm... epic fail)

Today's blog post is about just that, my epic failure at losing or even maintaining my weight, my legendarily unhealthy relationship with food, and, yet another, plan to try to deal with it.

Sorry. You can click away now if you want. I understand. I am sick of it too.

And so it goes...

I seek comfort and relief in food. I celebrate and rejoice in food. I cure boredom and relieve stress with food. Food is my friend and my enemy.

I know I am not unique and this has been a lifelong problem for me, but I am tired of going on "diets" and trying "eating programs". I am tired of thinking constantly about what I am eating, what I am going to eat, and what other people will think of what I eat. I am tired of obsessing about how much I weigh and how my clothes fit and look on me.

I am over it.

This has been a while in coming, but I am at the point (once a-fucking-gain) where I am severely limited in what clothes I can wear. I am uncomfortable all the time. My weight is the foremost thought in my mind. ALL. THE. TIME. It is effecting my relationship, as it is hard to be romantic when you feel like a disgusting pig.

Here is the quick and dirty version of my battle this time: In the last year I have gained almost 20 pounds. And the vast majority of that has been in the last 4 months.

Yep.

"Wait," you may wonder, "weren't you Ironman training for the last year? How is that even possible?"

Obviously, you have grossly underestimated my ability to consume obscene quantities of calorie rich, nutrient poor, foods.

Let's do some math, shall we?

In the last 15 months I have:
Run: 1,015.5 miles
Biked: 2,839 miles
Swam: 60.95 miles

Ok, I just posted that to make me feel better. :o) This is a rough post to write.

Here is the real math...

Total calories burned from workouts: 172,107 calories (According to buckeyeoutdoors.com)

Add Basal Metabolic Calories for my size and (ever growing) weight during that time period: 1415 X 455 days = 643, 825 calories

Add number of calories over BMR that you must consume to gain 20 pounds: 3500 calories/pound X 20 pounds = 70,000 calories

That means in the last 15 months I have consumed 885, 932 calories. The really scary part is that is only an average of 1950 calories per day.

I can eat that many calories as a midday snack without even really trying.

So if I keep working out at pre-ironman intensity and eating like I have been (which I actually suspect is significantly more than 1950 calories/day) I can expect to fucking explode by Christmas.

Quit bitching RBR, what are you going to DO?

I started talking to a nutritionist right before IMCdA, but I didn't want to change anything right before the race (lot of good that did me. I digress...) then immediately after the race I had a mini-meltdown that resulted in 2 weeks of some pretty serious binge eating.

Now I have started following her suggestions and we are working on incorporating these strange green foods into my diet. I think they call them vegetables. I call them garnish. In the past they have typically been responsible for holding up my salad dressing or cheese sauce. I can't remember the last time I ate a zucchini that wasn't breaded, deep fried, and dipped in ranch.

But seriously, I am trying to learn how to eat in a way that will support, and is in accordance with, my new active lifestyle.

That will help with what to eat, but as a binge eater I need help with how much. My idea of portion control is, "Dude, I can have cake. I don't even feel nauseous yet."

For that piece of the equation I have joined Weight Watchers (yes, again), This time I am doing the whole program. Even the stupid, fucking meetings. Whatever. Like I know more than them? I trained for an Ironman and gained 20 pounds, for Christ sake.

Obviously, I could use some help.

Much ado about nothing

Ok, after returning from CdA my computer promptly gave notice. As in I noticed it no longer worked. So I had to get a new one, then that one decided it would be a buggy son of a bitch. Now we are on computer number three and we will see how it goes, so obviously, I have been very behind in my blogging duties even though it is summer and I am officially

A WOMAN OF LEISURE

Ahem..., sorry to all you people that have to, umm..., work and stuff. That must suck. [insert toothy grin]

Let's see, last time we left off I had decided to do Vineman 2010. Now, what I neglected to mention is that Formulaic has also stated his intentions to be at Vineman 2010. He will tell you on his blog, like next year some time since he is all wrapped up in being a new daddy and resting on his Ironman laurels (which, believe you me, I would be doing in a MUCH louder, MUCH more obnoxious way had things worked out differently in Coeur d'Alene, but I digress...)

By the way Ms. Kelly and Form, we need new baby pictures and PRONTO!

IronJane has also indicated that she might be interested in coming to Vineman 2010 as well!! Now, she knows me well enough that I am taking her "hmmm", as a firm commitment and will bug her mercilessly.

In other "IronJane Official Bad Assery" news, she has also officially announced that she is taking on IMFL in November, because she is IronJane and that is how she rolls!

Anyone else considering Vineman 2010? (Come on, IronMisty, IronSnoopy, ShirleyPerly, IronMissy, and JohnnyTri, you know you have been missing Northern Cali! Waddler, you will be ready for IM #2 by then! Carolina John, you are ready for the big time! PunkRockTriGuy, you can run a marathon or two the week before it will be right up your alley!)

You know, there is also a SUPER woman friendly, cut off friendly half-iron at the same time called Barb's Race (hint hint, Stef, Calyx, Donna, Diana, Lisa-slow-and-steady, Penny, AKA Alice, Lindsay, and any other tri girls or burgeoning tri girls out there! I am sure Sarah will need a recovery Half-iron after CdA) Just curious...

Training

Yes, I have actually been doing that. I had a pouty, petulant week after CdA where I just ate VAST quantities of HORRENDOUSLY bad food and refused to work out, but I am over it and back in the saddle!

Literally

Saturday: Long Ride: 39 miles

I was asked by the gals that helped me with my 2.5 mile swim if I wanted to do a ride with them last Saturday. They are sweet, fun, and cool and I was very excited to be asked and replied,

Sure! I would love to!

Then they tell me they are going to climb Mt. Hamilton.

Oh.

Mt. Hamilton is a ride that I have semi-avoided during my training. It is a 20 mile climb of about 5300 ft on a narrow mountain road. It is often used as a training ride for the Death Ride, but is apparently easier than any of the passes at that one since you are not at elevation, but it was plenty tough for me, thank you.

I started Garmin a little late, but you get the picture.

It was going to be torture, so, of course, I enlisted LA Run Buddy to come with me!

RBR and LA Run Buddy at the top of Mt. Hamilton. The Lick Observatory dome is behind us. Photo courtesy of our riding buddies!

The last 7 miles of climb are a steady, 6-7% grade that often has no shade cover and is generally pretty soul crushing, but I did it. It took almost 3 hours to get up and just over an hour to get down. Sheesh. I was actually not the last one to the top. One guy came in behind about 10 minutes behind me (he only brought one bottle of water for a 20 mile climb in the sun and apparently drank about 10 beers the night before KNOWING he was climbing 20 miles in the sun. WTF? So even though I only beat him because he was stupid, I will still gloat about it. ) and one girl bailed and went back down. (She was ahead of me the entire ride, but I am still claiming her as someone I beat since she did not go all the way to the top. It take my victories where I can)

Yesterday: First open water swim since CdA: 0.75 mile

Amazingly, I did not suffer any PTSD symptoms when I donned my wetsuit and hopped into the Foster City Canals from what we affectionately refer to as Goose Poop Park

It is really called Gull Park, which, honestly, does not make it sound any more enticing to me

The downside to Goose Poop Park is that by July it has reached a crescendo of goose poop concentration and we were treated to several big rafts of our feathered friends' fecal matter. But what I always say when people are grossed out about swimming there, no one has EVER been attacked and eaten by goose poop.

Ever.

I am just saying...

Next up: San Francisco Marathon, July 26th

Now that Coeur d'Alene is behind me I can start to get excited about SFM. To be honest, I don't feel ready for the damn thing, but I am not going for a PR I am just going to have a good time and to celebrate my birthday! I am turning 40 in July 25th. I am not usually a birthday person, but I am kind of excited about turning 40.

We get to run over the Golden Gate Bridge. On the actual raodway! Picture by my talented hubby!

Plus I get to see Willie again! He is my brother from another mother. I swear. Over the past year and half I have seen that we share a lot of the same demons as well, as the same gifts and sometimes, we both often find them hard to tell apart. :o) He is a great friend and I am VERY excited to see him again. Even if it will only be for a second and a half before he drops me like a bad habit to go finish with one of his blazing marathon times. Whatever. Stupid fast people.

AND I get to FINALLY meet Penny!! Penny is my first Blogger buddy and she has been a source of support and inspiration to me for almost 2 years now! We share our love of animals and running and it is about damn time that we get to run together!

AND I get to meet PunkRockTriGuy! He is CRAZY and I just adore him! If you have not read about his insane marathoning, triathloning, and cycling adventures you simply must! Hilarious and inspirational!

Roadbunner and Julianne will be out there too! And I am hoping to catch a glimpse as their pace group blazes by me! (Someday, ladies, someday I will be able to keep up with your pace group, which I know is a hour slower than your PR!)
Sadly, the beautiful Jolynn was supposed to do this run with us, but she is injured and I am not positive, but I am pretty sure a road marathon is out of the question. But, she and I will be reunited on the trails again soon. I just know it! (See, I have been reading on my Blackberry I just can't comment from there)

My Run Buddy (not to be confused with LA Run Buddy. Man, I need to get better at the nickname thing) is getting married on my actual birthday, so I am celebrating with a marathon the next day! I am the matron of honor for her wedding (boy, that is a ego building title if I ever heard one) and I have been busy running around doing last minute wedding shit, throwing her shower and bachelorette party, and such.

Anyhoo... I need to get reading and commenting! I am so far behind I can see my own ass!


Side note: Holy Crap! What an epic post about nothing! I owe you for the hour of your life you will never get back if you actually read this whole damn thing. And if you followed all the links? Christ. I am pretty sure I can not pay that back.

This is what happens when I have pent up blogging energy! I will be back with other goals and future races I am planning!

We have a decision!

I want to start with a HUGE thank you for the AMAZINGLY kind and supportive comments to my Ironman post. I am so very, very grateful. It really helped me heal.

I have taken some time to process, pout, contemplate, snivel, examine, and generally piss and moan. One of my biggest fears has been to work really hard at something, give it all I have, and still fail. Well, that happened and I am here to tell you that it SUCKED ASS, but it did not kill me. It is not even close to the worst thing that has ever or could ever happen to me. So time to go forward. I am ready to move on.

With that said I have made a decision regarding my next Ironman attempt.

Vineman 2010

I have agonized over this. Many of you know I was looking at Redman and Beach to Battleship this year. I think I wanted to "erase" this failure as quickly as possible. Plus I would get to see many friends that will be out there racing, but several things made me decide that those races weren't right for me this year.

1. My family has already made many financial and time sacrifices for me to pursue this goal. My husband does not do triathlon and traveling that distance again so soon would eliminate a vacation we had wanted to take in April. That is really not fair to him.

2. Both races are during the school year and would require me to take time off from school. I am a teacher, I need to fit this into the time I already have off.

3. I have work to do. I am too slow. I am not being self-deprecating. I am being honest.
I truly believe that I have the endurance necessary to complete an Ironman, but that is only part of the task, the other part is to be able to do it within the prescribed amount of time. I am too close to the cut offs. If any small mishap occurs or, as we have seen, if there are less than ideal conditions I can not make the time requirement.

I want to go into my next Ironman attempt with a better cushion on those times. (Umm, and a little less cushion on me. More about that later) Of course, I have now chosen a race that has a shorter cut off. The Vineman mid-race cutoffs are all the same, but the overall cut off time is 16 hours. Yikes.

Looks like I have some speed work in my future.

Oh joy.