caught by the blogger tag..

10 years ago I was
enjoying a summer at the shore. (ok the beach for all you guys below the mason dixon). this was my 3rd summer at OBX and probably the best. I had met a girl who was to become a life long great friend and shared more moments that both of us should probably forget.

5 years ago
Living in richmond - I think working for Evergreen at this point, though with so many jobs in such a short period of time its hard to recall.. bobby and I had started dating so life was good.

5 things on my to-do list
vacuum upstairs (neglected since pre vacation)
email out hawaii pics (check!)
find more money in our ever slimming budget (at work!)
track uniform shipment for august race
sign up bobby and me for 4th of july bike ride

5 snacks I enjoy
salad with cottage cheese
clif bars
cottage cheese and granola bars
wheat thins
pb & j

If I were a billionaire I would
build a huge home for all the dogs out there with out one. and put a small hut on the edge of the property with only a bowl of grimy water for the owners who mistreat theirs..

6 people I want to lunch with tomorrow
court and shannon (to catch up)
my mom who i havent seen in a few months
adam phelps (cause he can give me swimming tips)
the host of the soup! to make things fun!
my neice and nephew who i miss dearly (sorry that makes 7!)

5 places I have lived

Pittsburgh
OBX
Sydney
Richmond
Raleigh

5 jobs I’ve had-

boston market worker ( i hated this!)
newspaper carrier (worst one yet)
waitress
telemarketer (for 3 days before I quit, though i would have gotten fired as i used to pretend to call people)
trade show coordinator (ie grunt work do-er but they had to give me a real title).

as seen on tv

so i'm not usually one to go gaga over infomercials (though i could name a large amount of product offerings.. remember the ronco line? "set it and forget it"?) , but i've inherited (thanks mom) some quite atrocious lower extremities. couple that with the fact that my feet are now growing wide and flat - which i'm not sure if its a getting old thing or a running to much thing - but either way its not a good thing. i first noticed the XL-ness when i felt like i was stuffing easter hams into my heels for work. i've since had to move to ballet flats, but hey a valid reason to buy new shoes. but again.. digression gets the best of me. so anyhoo - i actually bought this wonderful product to deal with yet another "runner" issue - that being callouses.. - for $10 i was willing to chance it! works quite well in ridding me of them. ok so perhaps to much information for most, but its one of the down sides of working out alot and something that probably doesnt get shared all to often.

the ped egg!!!

training note. my longest ride of my life today. four hours - almost 80 miles. ok so its not the longest as last summer bobby and i went on this 5.5 hr ride but that was more of a scenic peddle as the group we were with was quite slow and apt to taking breaks at every corner.. so anyway. today. surprisingly the time went by rather quickly. guess after being off my bike for 2 weeks i was amped to get back on. randomly ended up riding with a guy named dave from england for about 45 min of it toward the end which was a welcome diversion and someones wheel to try to hang on to. (thats tri-biker lingo i learned!!) my mph av. was also a new high for me so i was happy to see some improvements in my speed and endurance. its been really good for me to set these little goals for each week and achieve them. i'm no where near rock star status yet - nor perhaps will ever be, but even us little guys need some glory in our lives :)

PVB

me and bobby after our snorkel trip


the running path by the beach
no caption necessary!

post vacation blues. you know what I mean. when you drive in to the office the first day back and nothing has changed. everything is how you left it and everyone has gone about their daily lives while you were away. (how are they not pining for my return??) then on to the gym where narry a person even knows you have just spent 11 days in paradise. it makes you wonder if it ever really happened and if it did, how could it be over so fast? hawaii was in a word AWESOME. (given 2 words i would put 'totally' in front of that). but real life has a nack for getting in the way of these few times when we are truly with out a care in the world.



training on vacation. a whole new state of mind needed to be created for this. how is it possible to relax on a tropical island yet keep your head in the game? i think i found that kauai was ready with a plan for me. a running path that follows the ocean? how can you even be focuses on heart rates when the water is just so blue and RIGHT THERE! i did my swims partially in the ocean where they had used rocks to create a small safe swimming area at one of the beaches, or in the gigantic winding pool at our condo. biking was a different story. the one road on the island was quite narrow and a bit harrowing at times and not rider friendly. so i was held to the gym bike for a few rides (but they had the style channel in their cable package so i was quite ok with that!)

i have to give a huge thank you to bobby for this past 2 weeks. he picked the spot. certainly a very merry xmas to me (6 months later!). i did think about asking him if we could put a lazy river in our back yard like the one in hawaii, but i know he will scrunch up his face and say "nuuuu" (not no, but nuuuuu) ugh! so not nice.

now its back to work, both my job and training. i need to get my head back into this. belgium awaits less than 6 weeks away and my behind is not wanting to receive but so much of a beating..

I'm not coming home

this place is amazing. three days in and my activities have included a helicopter ride over the "grand canyon" of the pacific, wild boar sightings (ha ha), a monsterous hike to the biggest waterfall i've ever seen (minus niagra falls..) complete with olympic sized "pool" below begging to be swum in, and today a boat ride up the napali coast with not one but two schools of dolphins in tow, and a swim with some of the coolest fish i've seen and sea turltles to boot. not to mention the turquoise waters, pristine beaches and well, eating ice cream at all hours of the day is not too bad either. the only thing i miss? my smart dogs (veggie hot dogs) i know WTF right? but they are good!! oh and clif bars. the assortment of food in the grocery is not all that steller..

aloha everyone.

sometimes you just have to find it..

your mojo that is. it likes to play tricks on you and go in to hiding - sometimes in a very good place that even an advanced seeker would have a hard time locating, perhaps even with the aid of GPS... mine took a hike-- or so i thought. with my forgetful trip to memphis earlier this week, need i say anything more than 8 hours in the charlotte airport (where mind you i made 4 new bff's - and have the name of a pilot whom should i ever see again will not forget me nor my seething words..) and a 3 am arrival time (estimated of course, ha ha).. it was not a good way to start and it didnt really even bottom out there. though i did have 2 nice runs along the mississippi river.. again i digress.

on tap today was a double workout, swim then bike, both with intervals. after a work day where i couldnt get my work done, i thought for sure i would be toast for both. first up the pool. sets of 100s. as we all know and i will be the first to shout from the roof tops i am not a good swimmer. but i try. and try i did. i pulled my mojo out of my behind and got myself moving. a tough hour in the pool but i felt good that i stayed consistent through the workout and didnt wuss out at the end.

due to the smoke from the fires east of here - my ride stayed inside today. more intervals. but i just went at each one, one at a time, and kept my mojo along for the ride. see he was right there all along, i have to remember that when i'm tired and grumpy and facing a tough workout.

now the toughest task for the day. packing. i'm the worst at this. i never know what to bring. its like i will become some other person who will need things that i did not bring and wonder who the crazy person is who packed. but we all know that we end up wearing the same thing the whole time.. or is that just me???

you've got to be kidding

so here i am in memphis for a work conference. pretty cool city, from what little i've been able to see. we are staying in the (apparently) world famous peabody hotel. pretty nice place. built in the late 1880s and still has much of that same feel. Elvis and Les paul used to hang here. anyway so there is one little thing about this hotel that literally brings hoards of people off the street, into the lobby. you might think its a celebrity or free drinks or announcing the secret of life.. but no, these hundreds of people - come in specifically to see 5 ducks. yes ducks. now i have seen ducks before at many a pond in my very own neighborhood and not once did i even think about pulling out a camera, or giving a high five to my companion when the duck proceeded to jump in to the pond - whoo hoo!. but .......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Ifq4dYXuY

here at the peabody, they have 5 ducks who live on the roof in a duck palace. (its really not much of a palace,, but they do have their own ceiling fans..) and every day at precisely 11am these ducks are led down by the duck master (a very talented and underpaid man i'm sure!) from the roof top - DOWN the ELEVATOR! and onto a red carpet where they walk in single file up to the fountain in the lobby and jump in and the crowd roars as if the duck had just walked a tightrope over a flaming pit while juggling a bear.. but no, they just walked...

check that off my list of must see's.. ducks, swimming.

the early bird...

in this case the early bird, me, avoids the 100 degree plus temps we are having here in the lovely triangle area and much of the south. yes thats right, spring was here for oh, 5 minutes and BAM summer throws open the door and makes its entrance quite abruptly and in no way to be mistaken for anything but summer in the south. though i must admit, perhaps my old person is starting to show since it has been much easier than expected to wake up at what i used to think of as "un-godly hours". hours that i used to see the other side of -when dawn meant it was time to call it quits and get some sleep!

so alas, i forsee a long summer of early risings, lest i be caught in the chokingly hot temps of mid morning. saturday when i was up at 530, yes thats AM! it had already hit about 75. even the refreshing jump in the pool i thought i earned after 4 hours on the road was a total let down as our pool had turned luke warm. boo!

you know the funniest part of all of this, we leave for hawaii in 5 days and it is actually about 10-15 degrees cooler THERE! so while many will take a vacation to the beach to escape the frosty temps, in all essence we are hoping for cooler ones!

ALOHA!

miracle on ice..

tiger woods today said about hockey " i dont think anyone really watches it".. and yes that may be somewhat true as his lack of playing makes more news than the winner of the Stanley cup.. but still after witnessing Game 5 on monday night, i have to say these are the toughest athletes out there. to get hit square in the face by a puck at full speed and close range, something that could kill you - and then come back?? to go off the ice to get stitches to close a huge gash and again, return to the game? to power through shoulder and knee injuries to help your team in the biggest games? take one look at the IR list in baseball or heck even football for that matter and you have guys with a "sore" hamstring who opt not to play. Ok so maybe you dont watch hockey tiger but you have to respect it. walking, WALKING! (oh and not even carrying your own clubs mind you) a few miles is nothing. Go Pens!

Bo knows...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GPxkpjCvWI

yahoo featured this today, a tribute to bo diddley who passed today. what a great commercial!

Kerr Lake Race

ok so this day came up on me so quickly. its like one of those things you plan for months ago and all of a sudden its the night before. I guess I really didnt have any nerves for this since I wasnt spending days thinking about it. probably a good thing to remember for the future...

so one of the bigger races I've been a part of, almost 400 competitors. Olympic distance. The lake was pretty calm and I was quite happy about that, since my last lake swim a few weeks ago felt like i was in a spin cycle.. it was an in water start, temp about 75 degrees making it wet suit legal. i was pretty happy that i only wore the shortie, (thanks suzie!!) i think the full suit was definately overkill.

so my goal for the swim was to swim. Duh right? but for me thats a tall order. I've spent most, ok all of my last 5 tri swims doing every stroke but the one that i was supposed to (free). not to mention the sheer panic i somehow embark upon the first few minutes of the race. you would think i had been dropped into shark infested waters with a carcass strapped to my leg.. anyway- so i was bound and determined to swim this one start to finish. the horn goes off and me and the rest of the wave take off. it takes me a few minutes to find my own space but to my amazement im swimming freestyle. what? yep i put my head down and just stayed in my own space. after making the turn at the first buoy i decided to do what i thought was unthinkable for me but i began to breath bilaterally (meaning alternating sides on three strokes). so here i am thinking holy cow i'm swimming. again, yes that is the point of this leg of the race, but if you had seen me "swim" at any point over the past year you would have shook your head and probably said something like "poor thing..." so the one down point of this whole swim thing is I didnt meet my time goal. despite all my efforts i was over by more than a minute. but i'm happy with the continuous swimming ... bobby also commented that i looked too "ho hum" coming out of the water so he knew i wasnt working hard.. and post race there was some chatter about it being longer than 1500, but I cant use that as an excuse...

T1 was pretty good. got my wetsuit off no problem and put on my new cool shark socks. grabbed a swig of drink and i was off. i was bound and determined to catch as many people as i could and totally rock the bike. check. i have never felt so strong before. i mean i passed people going up hills. rode aero most of the time and even down hills. again small victories for me. for us girls passing guys on any leg is such a boost - and i did that as much as i could! i dont know my exact bike split yet but i feel really confident i averaged over 20 mph - a best for me. I was a bit worried i was going to screw myself for the run part but then I shut those thoughts out and just kept going..

T2 was pretty fast for me. i was smart and put on all my accessories while running out instead of standing at my station doing it. heck even a few seconds count!

so the run- 2 loops. this is when i usually start to count the girls ahead of me to see where i am. bobby had me about 12th after the first loop. i wasnt moving as fast as i would have liked those first 3.1 miles, so i knew i needed to pick it up for the second half. to my surprise i was ready to do it and started passing some girls. girls who i thought - there is no way they are on the lead lap. but apparently they were. i felt good despite the heat and rolling course. (oh and also the chip strap digging into my ankle.. too tight and a gash to prove it- leave it to me to get bloody somehow..) so i finished up strong and 4th over all. and to top it off improved my over all time by over 20 minutes. huge for me. i met my over all time goal so all in all a really happy day for me. bobby told me later i surprised the heck out of him coming around the corner in 4th. he was expeciting me to be further back and almost missed me. that will show him to pay better attention! he's a good cheerleader though.. tough. telling me to go faster.. which i do until i'm out of his sight. ha ha!

there are always things i can do to get better but i feel like the training i have been doing is starting to show and i'm excited about the rest of the season to see where i can go.

PS a little blatent advertising for a super cool band, Phase IV, where my little bro is the rockin lead guitarist! at my next wedding (dont worry bobby already knows) I will definately be booking them. cheers!

hallelujah!

its finally here. after months, even years of anticipation, women everywhere are cheering, clinking cosmos and buying new shoes. men on the other hand-- suddenly have an unmatched dedication to yardwork - something suddenly needs to be mowed, whacked, raked or cut -- hmm convenient! no matter, the movie is best seen with your closest friends who can laugh at all the right parts and understand all the charlotte-isms... yippie!!! i'm so excited and i just cant hide it :)