run this amazing day

I got the call yesterday that my fabulous new crank had arrived, so I dropped everything and headed out to Bonzai.  Bike components are so beautiful.   Apparently replacing a crank isn't a 5-minute job, so I had plenty of time to kill. But pretty soon, I was instructed to   stop harassing the staff   go eat dinner and drink beer.  Which I did.  By the time I had giggled my way back to the shop, it was ready to go. Isn't it beautiful? These somehow jumped in the car and came home with me as well.  I've only been lusting after them for two months now.  Please ignore the permanent compression-sock-imprints. As an added bonus, the weather here in DC is ridiculous today, so I get to take my fabulous new crank out for a spin before the sun goes down.  How are you enjoying our mild winter that is certain to guarantee a horrendous summer?

I spent a lot of time back in the fall searching for the perfect pair of pink shoes.  As my gait was changing, so were my shoe choices.  The Adrenalines went in the trash forever, and at the MCM expo I tried on a pair of these: I wasn't quite ready to make the purchase.  Those darn shoes are expensive, and I really didn't want to invest in a $150 experiment.  Unrelated, I really don't like my hair that short. Through the fall, my shoe rotation was a pair of Asics 2160s that I couldn't wear on long runs because they chewed up my feet, a pair of Saucony Guides that I didn't really have a problem with except that they felt a bit clunky in the heel, and a pair of Brooks Ravennas.   But every time I went into a running shoe store, I was sneaking a peek at those Newtons.    When I ran the 10K at the beginning on December, I declared to the poet that if I PR'd, I was going to just buy them already.  When I missed my PR by 20-or-so seconds , I decided that I was go

1. Molly went on a massive dinosaur-killing bender while we slept last night. It's all right, Molly, get a cheeseburger and some Advil in you and you'll be feeling better pretty soon. 2. Every morning when I finish whatever workout I'm doing, I make a smoothie and a cup of hot tea (winter only) and refill my water bottle.  No wonder I pee 4329 times a day. 3.  There are four dogs in this picture.  Can you find them? 4. It's really hard to find a photo of the poet and I in my photo library where one of us is not in exercise clothes or being ridiculous. 5. This is the first race picture ever taken of me (second race ever).  Check out my sweet form. 6. However, I was clearly a cyclist from a very young age, even if I didn't learn where the brakes were until 25 years later. 7. 95% of the pictures on my phone are of puppies.  I'm sure this is a huge surprise. 8. Most of the rest are of food.  I'm so ashamed . 9. This is a drink I had with Heather righ

1. The weather man is fired.  At 6am this morning, my little phone weather bot told me it was "feels like 31º" outside, so I dressed appropriately.  I opened the front door and immediately took off my ear warmers and gloves and stuffed them in the mailbox.  A mile from home, I turned around and came back and did a Superman-phone-booth-quick-change into shorts and a tee-shirt.  31º, my ass.  The rest of my run was just about as disjointed - I didn't want to head out on the trail for the time I had left, so I did the out part of my usual 4-mile out-and-back, and then took a long "back," and then some idiot on a bicycle started chasing me so I went straight at a stoplight where I would usually turn and ended up doing circles around my house just to finish out the time.  Today gets a gold star.  Good thing I'd already scheduled a dentist appointment for after work today. 2. We've been doing a "clean out the pantry" meal week here in an attempt t

Dear Mamas, I'm sorry that I pooped on the floor and tried to rip Graham's throat out and won't stop jumping up with muddy paws when you are wearing your only clean pair of dress pants and keep trying to steal Molly's food while she's eating.  I promise to try really hard to stop rolling in the mud three minutes before you have to leave for work and jumping off the back side of the couch and escaping out the front door. Dear Mamas, Why is she still here?  She smells and takes my raccoon and is stealing all the really good cuddling.  I never wanted a sister! Dear Mamas, CAN WE GO OUTSIDE?

I don't generally like mindless blogger memes, but I suppose if I force everyone to participate in the one I created , I have to play along every once in a while, and there's nothing else to talk about in January.  I got tagged by a dozen people in the latest one, which looks pretty complicated and has a lot of rules.   First, 11 random things  rants about  from me.   1. I can't believe I have to come up with random crap twice this week. 2. I really hate the comment-on-every-blog-post game that a lot of bloggers play.  Commenting on my post every day to say "great job today!" just so I'll come and visit your blog and leave you the same meaningless comment every day is worse than the way I had to comb my hair in 6th grade so the cool kids would talk to me.  Comment when you have something worthwhile to say.  Comment if you just started reading so I can come and check out your blog and see if you are someone I'd like to read.  Comment if you want to t

I know, I'm a mess, but right now this is happening in our house and my office has been torn apart and all I can hear is ripping and tearing and cursing in Spanish and 70s music being blasted from every corner. I'll be back tomorrow with an actual post, hopefully I won't have any holes in the walls and Graham won't have permanently picked up any very interesting new vocab words.

1. The thermostat in my house is kept at 58º during the day and 60-62º at night.  The heat doesn't work all that well and after the first winter here of $300-$400 gas bills, I'd just rather be cold. 2. We live about 300 yards from a Target.  After 3 years, I'm not sure I could ever live further away from one. 3. I have at least three sets of plane tickets to buy and I'm not looking forward to spending the money. 4. My SI joint still pops out of alignment all the time. 5. I still haven't figured out how to consistently move forward while doing breaststroke. 6. Sweet potatoes are my new lunch go-to. 7. I really want to learn how to give my bike a tune-up and take it apart.  I used to fix computers, how different can it really be? 8. I use my ATM PIN on my gym locker. 9.  I'm finally down to only one shelf of beer in the fridge. 10. I think I need to start swimming with my goggles under my cap because one of the straps flips over all the

You'll remember, dear friends, because I just won't let you forget, that back in July I signed up for an ironman . One of the first decisions I made was deciding that I wanted to work with a coach.  I went through the highly scientific process of harassing the crap out of everyone I know, including the internet, for recommendations, and then spent a bunch of time asking the same questions to people over and over again on the phone before I settled on someone who I thought was the best match.  He set fire to my entire life,  my race schedule included , told me to trust in the process, and we hit the ground, erm, well... running.   August is a pretty tough month to begin HR training, and I get that.  I started out with my coach by doing a max HR test , and he created zones and numbers and training from there.  I trained using those numbers for a few weeks and something just wasn't right.  So he adjusted my numbers, and adjusted them again, and again and again.  And instead

Why, yes, I am enjoying recovery week.

1. I can't remember the last time that I was physically so in need of a rest day and a recovery week.  I can remember feeling mentally burnt out quite a few times in the past and taking rest/recovery for those reasons, but I can't remember ever feeling this physically drained.  It's a different kind of tired, too - post-race soreness is more sharp from a hard effort, post-long workout soreness is more of a hungry kind of wiped out.  Last week I built up to a pretty big weekend, and when I finished my Sunday workouts, it was all I could do to get food down before climbing in bed.  This is a deep-in-my-muscles kind of exhaustion which makes me not even a little bit antsy (so far) to go swim, bike, and run.  Instead, I want to be nice to my body with warm clothes and water and sleep and cooking real meals again.  I'm pretty sure this is the desired result of a proper block of training.  Let's not examine why I haven't experienced this before any more closely. 2.

1. We have two roommates and live on the main floor of our house, but I still almost always pee with the door wide open. 2. I have never been inside a lululemon. 3. One of my college roommates had a killer Chicago accent.  I managed to pick up pieces of it, and it still pops out sometimes. 4. I have finally figured out how to get the air out of my stomach in the pool before it kills me (bend over, push on stomach, burp).  Now if only I could stop sucking it in. 5. Through a lucky twist of fate, I have never had severe saddle problems.  The saddle that comes on the bike has always worked out just fine. 6. I probably should have been a finance major. 7. I know you're supposed to put spinach in the smoothie but I just can't.  It smells and gets stuck in my teeth. 8. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't let the poet do the "manly" chores while I do the "womanly" chores.  I want to be like, "No, you go clean the bathroom, I'll pick

1. Every time I post on the blog that my shins hurt, they stop hurting .  So: MY SHINS HURT, Y'ALL.  I'm not sure if it's still because of my bike shoes (I don't think so), because I ran three miles in the Newtons two days ago (probably not) or because I ran for an hour in my Ravennas this morning (also unlikely).  Or maybe it's just that my lower legs are still getting used to the way my gait has changed over the past nine months.  Let's hope it's that, although I prefer to freak out about ghost injuries rather than consult science and/or logic.  Meanwhile, there is no better feeling in my life right now than when I snap those compression socks on post-shower.  MY SHINS HURT. 2. For some reason, I imagined in my own head that last week was the last "build" week in my training and this week would be rest.  I have no idea where I came up with it, I have a lot of theories and it's hard to keep track of them all and where they come from.  

I know it's been puppy-overload here this week, but I've got just two more. Molly: "But I don't WANT a sister!!!" Ultimate concentration.

So, we really did it.  We brought her home. She came home on Sunday.  Graham and Molly met her briefly a few weeks ago, but we decided that it would be best to have a longer "getting to know you" period before we brought her into the house, so we spent a great deal of the afternoon in the backyard. Her personality is different than our other two - she's very sweet, but has tons of energy and just kind of explodes with joy.  She's only lived here two days and she will stand at the bottom of the patio steps and coo at me if I don't come into the backyard with them.  You can't not love her. Graham is thrilled to pieces to have someone else to play with, especially since Molly's been lethargic the past few weeks as she has gone through treatment.  He'll bring Sofie a toy, she'll steal it from him and then growl and bark at him if he tries to take it back.  Lots of tails wagging.   Molly is taking a little more time to warm up to her, but I think tha