Anyone catch the number of that bus?

The one that hit me? And squashed me like a toad?

Christ. I made one fleeting appearance, read exactly 0 blogs and fell off the face of the planet again. I still have over 75 unanswered emails in my inbox from the Alaska trip. And the Google Reader? I believe that is a lost cause.

What kind of catastrophic event could cause such a melt down in the highly organized, meticulously efficient RBR lifestyle (stop rolling your eyes! It is rude)?

Seriously, what do you think would happen if I wore this to school? May be worth it.

Yes, dear friends, I am back at school.

I know some of you, *cough Lindsay*, are thinking "Suck it up sister! You just had 2 months off. Jet-setted to exotic locales like Idaho, Sacramento, Windsor, and Alaska. Lolled around on your ever expanding ass and put in some serious miles resting on your laurels. Put on your big girl pants and go back to fucking work!"

*le sigh*

The cherubs are back. And in even better news, with the MASSIVE-bend-over-and-take-it-like-a-good -little-teacher-Fuck-you-Arnold-Schwarzenegger-Terminator-wasn't-even-that-fucking-good California budget cuts, there are, on average, 25% more of them in each class. And I have about $1.12 per student FOR THE YEAR to teach them biology. For the record a frog costs $4.

(side note: I don't do dissection in class, but it is the only biology specific lab reference most people will get. *smiles politely* side note over.)

Superrific!

RBR, so bitter, after only 4 days of school. tsk tsk


Off to read some blogs. 17,569 of them according to my Reader. Christ, people.

I am BACK baby!!

Ok, so I am an ass for not remembering to post that I was going on vacay last week, but if you remember WAAAAAAY back to July 25-August 1, I did do some crazy shit right before I left so my brain was a little, umm... toasted, to say the least.

So where did little Ms. RBR jet off to for the last 12 days, you may ask?

ALASKA, BITCHES!!

Now you may be thinking Alaska? WTF?

Seriously? Not a very RBR-esque vacay

No, no, not THAT Alaska.

THIS Alaska

A Sea stack with a Bald Eagle nest on top in Kukak Bay, Katmai, AK.

To see these guys.

Melissa and her cubs (yes, the crazy fuckers that camp and live out there name them. No bear named 'Melissa' would eviscerate you, right? Ummm...she is still a fucking GRIZZLY bear, whack job!)

Link to hubby's pics. KATMAI BEARS He is working on getting them loaded so keep checking back they are AWESOME!

Yes, if you were wondering, we WERE that close. Scary, but fucking AWESOME!

We lived on this for the duration of the trip. Which explains my internet absence, no?

When was the last vacation you went on that required you to wear hip waders and you got to hold antlers left over from a wolf kill? Yeah, I thought so. I win the bad ass vacay contest.

It was an amazing trip, but I came home to 156 emails (most were trying to sell me shit. So, no, I am not nearly that important), my Google Reader just says "A whole fucking lot" new items, I guess it gave up counting, and I have to actually go back to work this week! Ain't THAT a bitch!

I will be desperately trying to catch up on your blogs while appearing to be paying attention during my hours of mindless, end of summer-beginning of school-let's bore the snot out of you so you forget all about vacation, staff meetings and trainings.

Race Report: Barb's Race 1/2 Iron Triathlon- August 1, 2009

Alternative title: A Tale of 3 PR's
(Oh yes, I went all Charles Dickens on your ass. I am feeling JUST that smug)


Official Stats:

Overall: 7:50:31 (Why, yes, that does make an 8 hour cut off if there had been one. Thank you for asking!)

PR: 1 hour and 32 minutes FASTER than last year at Barb's Race 2008, 39 minutes FASTER than Rage Out in the Treeless, F-ing Desert .... um, I mean Rage in the Sage Triathlon April 2009.


PR 1 - Swim 1.2 miles: 51: 56 (3 min FASTER than last year)

I honestly do not know why it was faster. I felt like I spent WAY too much time stopping and fiddle fucking around with my goggles, but, hell, I always say "do not look a PR horse in the mouth."

T1: 6:11 (2 min FASTER than last year)

Three words explain the VAST amount of time I spent here.

Serious. Wardrobe. Malfunction.

Let's just say that the 40-44 year old ladies in my general vicinity got more flashing than college boys at mardi gras. Eventually I got all of my parts covered and perched atop my bike and was off!

PR 2 - Bike 56 miles : 3:35:15 (43 min FASTER than last year)

I have to say I felt good from the very beginning of the bike. I had already decided that my run was probably going to suck no matter what I did on the bike so I may as well go balls out on the bike (Dude, G, it is a figure of speech *eye roll*) and that is what I did.

Elevation profile for Barb's bike course. 28oo' of climb

Upside of being one the of the slowest swimmers is that 1. I can very easily find my bike. It is the last one on the rack and 2. I don't get passed that much because, well, everyone is gone already. It is a little empowering actually. This time I got to pass some people and unlike last year where I was ALONE for almost 100% of the ride I was actually riding with people. I even almost caught LA Run Buddy and she is WAY faster than me and started in the wave 5 minutes before me. All in all a great ride for me.

T2: 6:33 (7 min FASTER than last year)

I came into T2 right behind LA Run Buddy and we stopped to stretch. She is having serious ITB issues and my knees and low back were feeling both the ride and last week's marathon. I had already planned to run (read: shuffle), no matter how slow, for the first mile to the aide station to get my legs back. We headed out together.

I didn't have my camera yesterday (see? I was going all hardcore!) so I am throwing in a random picture of us from last summer.

PR 3 - Run 13.1 miles : 3:10:34 (yikes, but still 37 min FASTER than last year)

My shuffle strategy was working and I felt pretty good for that first mile. I stopped at the port-a-potty and upon entering I found urine sprayed all over the toilet seat. A quick check to the left confirmed that yes, there was in fact a little urinal thingy in there. Filthy bastards.

RBR yells from port-a-potty: Boys are so gross!
Guy in port-a-potty next to me: We are. Sorry.
LA Run Buddy from outside: *cackle*
Guy from port-a-potty next to me comes out: I wiped the seat!

Boys, seriously WTF?!

(excluding port-a-potty boy because 1. he apologized and wiped the seat 2. he was hot and hot guys are forgiven for just about everything. I know, it sucks. Don't get mad at me. I don't make the rules)

We continued on, but after about four miles LA Run Buddy's knee was not having any more of the whole running thing and she sent me on. It was hard to leave her, but she knew I was trying to wash the stench of the Ironman CdA failure from my psyche and she was not exactly in love with me since I once again got her into a sufferfest. (Don't worry she will get over it. She always does. RBR is a tough habit to break)

About this time I ran into J who I met during the Cinderella training. We decided to shamelessly flirt with half dressed boys, um... errr.... I mean run the rest of the course together. I started to suffer about 7 miles in by 10 miles in I just followed behind J praying for it all to end. My knees and feet were toast, but I was happy that they lasted much longer than I had expected.

When we came in the clock showed the Full Vineman time and an error in calculations had me thinking I came in at 8:50, I was thrilled to discover that I was just an idiot, not ridiculously slow AGAIN and an idiot. 7:50:31 Sub-8 baby!

1/2 Iron PR for both me and J. Win-Win.

Hmm... seems a little less stinky around here.