on the mend...

Wow. Its been a while. Where to begin. I spent last week in salt lake city for work. Many of you question not only my sanity but wonder what the heck I do all the time besides make crafts and send out a billion emails during the day....so here it is- or at least a part of it – our space at the outdoor retailer show – some of my job revolves around design of our space and coordination of staff and stuff going to and at the show.


its a super cool show, if you actually get to walk around!
this is a copy of the daily newspaper that comes out and shows some of the fun stuff that happens here. oh and the whole mormon thing is pretty interesting.. best line from a radio station talking about their playlist was "just like a polygamist husband one is never enough"

In the summer its all about paddle sports and running and climbing and every major company, and some smaller ones are there showing off the latest gear, and nutrition. Yep GU and clif and nuun and many others are there offering up free samples that I tried my very best to grab in mass quantities… in the winter we get to go skiing.. but no such luck this time. we missed the open water demo for some of the paddle boards.. definately need to check that out next time!!!

to show what a small world it is.. see if you recognize anyone on this poster - we sponsored a student design contest and they had to create a story board to describe their garment and this girl chose a great inspiriation!

It’s a long week though. With 10 hour days at the show and then trying to maybe fit in a work out when possible. The hotel gym of course sucked but I was lucky enough to find a sports complex about 15 minutes away with a gorgeous 50m outdoor pool. It was even better the one morning I went when the sun came up over the mtns… though I will say the altitude KILLED me. I could not catch my breath and found myself hanging on the wall more than once. maybe a week of high altitude training did me some good (or im telling myself that..)


I made a bad call (super BAD) and ended up on the red eye home. I really need to swear that off for good. Even though I got bumped to first, a three hour flight that leaves SLC at 1 am local time is never a good idea. My co-worker and I actually slept in the Atlanta airport for an hour or so on the most uncomfortable chairs, but I guess we were desperate. I got home Saturday late morning and well it all started going down hill. I slept most of the rest of the day anyway and skipped my workout, just feeling no gusto. I made plans to meet a friend for a ride and run the next morning and was looking forward to getting back on my bike and a good workout. But that wasn’t happening. From the start I felt sluggish and could never catch my breath. We were defiantly not burning up the road and yet I was dying a slow death out there. The heat was definitely a factor as the temp and humidity was super high. We made it back to our cars and headed out for a t run. Immediately I was dizzy and sick and well just not right. I stopped to walk and that was the end of the day for me. I spent the next 2 days on the couch trying to drink fluids and just rest and get better. and watching some really really bad tv. i mean i normally dont watch to much at all but with nothing else to do and having to relax.. i found myself watchng charm school on vh1 and re runs of what not to wear and even some emeril on FLN...and that dance your ass off show.. oh lord...need to get back to normal.. tv sucks!!!

Today I finally feel like I’m on the mend. And just in time as I’ve got a little bit of a race on Saturday… so keep your fingers crossed that all of this is behind and maybe just maybe the rest was a good thing.

backwards and forewards

looking back over this past week i'm really proud of what i got done. clearly the biggest volume training week i've ever had and that alone had intimidation written all over it. on top of that, not alot of junk miles/time in there. aside from one easy run and spin (post run workout) everything was quality.... meaning following bri around in the pool, or alysia and brook up hills, or just little old me and a few tough miles on the ATT. today was the culmination of all of that work, and with a 16 miler on the schedule i wasnt sure how i would get thru it, but i wasnt ready to call it quits quite yet.... the last 5 miles were supposed to be faster than next race pace..jen gave me a time to hit... and well i wasnt batting 1000...and when the 4th mile was putting me further away instead of closer to pay dirt.. i hollered uncle. i had given it everything i had today and well the swim and 90 mile ride from sat (see bri's blog for more details and an account of the attack of the monster bug!!!) was back to haunt me. BUT i still feel good about this week and even today. i didnt crap out and i didnt sand bag. thats moving in the right direction.

ok so some of you know that i'm headed to salt lake this week for the outdoor retailer show. this is actually a great one in the winter cause we get to ski some great parks for about $15 a day. nice. but come summer.. well....we'll have to see what this trip brings. one cool thing, one very cool thing, is that there are so many great companies that exhibit here and if i didnt have to be in our booth talking about how great cotton is.... i would be wandering thru the HUGE Life is Good Barn listening to their band, or checking out new clothing at 2XU, or northface, or seeing the latest stuff at horny toad, but the best part--- sampling from the likes of Clif and balance bar and nuun... mmmmm - last winter i came home with 27 packs of the new GU chomps, and about a dozen balance bars, and got packs of nuun for $2 apiece. so there is good to come of this week... oh and did i mention a flip cup tourney? seriously. this place starts popping kegs about 4 pm each day and the bands start up, and well, again, if it werent for cotton i might actually enjoy myself.

safe travels to those heading out on vacation, congrats to those who raced today (waiting to see your reports!) and good luck to KO at IM!!!

later gators.

proof

that bobby actually does cheer for me. ha. thats him in the background of my finishing photo.. i look pretty dazed and confused.. huh?

in the midst of my bigget volume week, ever. and have been somewhat surprised and maybe even pleased with some of the efforts along the way. though i still have an epic weekend to get through.

starting up the travel circuit again next week so it will be a challenge to get in what i need to. especially when the event is outdoor athletics related so you know the gym is packed to the gills with people who work at pategonia and keel. but its funny, and this show proves it, but it seems that athletes burn the candle at both ends pretty good since all of the nightly parties are packed and about 4 pm every day you start to hear the bands start up and the beer starts flowing pretty good. i just look forward to the freebies - last time i ended up with a boat load of GU and got tubes of NUUN for about $2 a piece. oh and this electrolyte stuff that you spray in your mouth.. hmmm...

anyway. i'm trying to decide if we've been the victims of pesky teenage antics or not.. one of the bulbs of the spot lights on teh back porch was smashed, and though i didnt exactly see a rock or something near by that may have been projected toward it.. i dont think that bulbs spontaneously combust either... who knows.

i have now gone 3 nights in a row with out dessert. that is crazy. partially because i've been so tired and unable to get up to dish something up, and partially because we dont have any really appealing choices or maybe its that i'm eating dinner at 930...... for the first time EVER ice cream with sprinkles just didnt sound so worthwhile.. what is wrong with me????

Triangle race report.

Sunday I raced the triangle tri. It’s a local sprint that practically everyone in the area comes out for and that means some FAST people. I never really got too nervous or excited or really anything for this race. It was a last minute add to my schedule and I thought it would be good to go out and have fun. I had forgotten my watch so it was a new thing for me to have absolutely no idea what my time was. Even on the bike I didn’t reset my computer so I was just out there going!

The swim was a point to point and my goal was to go out hard and for the first time try to find some feet. I started out a veering a little right, fighting the chop, and had to get myself back with the pack. I thought the current would pull me more left and cancel out my veer-ing but didn’t happen. After the first turn I came across some draft that I thought would be good. I was just giddy that I was drafting. And it was, until the girl started doing breast stroke. Maybe that should have been my clue not to follow her… maybe next time I’ll choose better…the chop in the lake was a bit rough going out and then after the last turn coming in and I thought I had handled it ok... I came out of the water 13th in my AG, which for me was pretty good, I still didn’t have a great swim but by golly I’m trying! Its just not coming like I’d want it to. I think this race was really too short! It takes me so long to get into a rhythm, the swim was over before it started for me. I’m not sure what happens to me out there. I’m not waving at the fish, I’m not chatting with the kayakers, I’m swimming, but apparently not fast enough. ugh.

The bike. Oh the bike. I was sooo excited to ride my new bike. In fact I think I was too excited and too enamored with my new wheels that I maybe didn’t think about the race as much as I should have. I never really let up and thought I had a pretty good ride. I took some of the down hills a bit easier sitting up – cause I still feel squirrely and somewhat out of control and honestly scared sh*tless going aero down some of these hills! – I had no gauge of how fast I was going, I was just trying to pass as many guys and any girls that I saw. I was setting little goals of always catching the next group up a head. The course was really good, pretty nice roads. Some rollers and a few climbs. The worst part was the mile in and out of the park where we had to go over 4 huge speed bumps. The ply wood ramps they made were of no help and it was jarring (to say the least) to go over them.

I was ready for the run. I've had some pretty decent run workouts lately and was looking to see how I would feel off the new bike. GREAT. that’s how I felt. Light and strong and ready. I thought I was going to need to kind of gingerly test out the legs, but then I realized that they were good and I just started running. Wow what a concept right? 3 miles never went by so fast. A run in a tri never went by so fast. Ha! At mile 2 when I realized that I only had a mile left and not 11… I was so excited that I actually skipped a little bit. At one point I passed some guys walking and I was like WTF? Its not that hot out, its only three miles and you are only 32 years old! Ok so maybe those were mean thoughts but….I was hoping to go under 20 minutes, but missed that by a little.. but still was happy with the split.

Over all ended up 2nd in my AG. Won me a nice little back pack. Decent, but puts that fire in there for next time. Tough week on the training front but gonna do my best to get thru it. Michigan awaits.

congrats to BG who had a super race, despite random floating objects in the water...

Training.

Oh yea that’s right. Sometimes I get sidetracked in talking about other things and well to me they are fun and important.

Starting the holiday weekend felt great Thursday afternoon, getting an extra half day off of work is a real treat. I had a swim and a run on tap and headed over to my pool to do some laps. The pool had been closed for like 2 weeks for them to resurface the walls or something so when I arrived to find them behind schedule and still not open I was a little peeved. Stupid gym. Stupid me paying dues to a place that I go to maybe once a week these days. Granted that changes in the winter but maybe it’s time to cut the cord there… anyway after a few curse words, I had to weigh my options, first choice was the neighborhood pool but that was quickly poo poo’d since there were about three trillion kids in there and no way was I trying to swim around them and the plethora of floating things. So I headed over to the Morrisville aquatic center. It’s a pretty nice pool but again, open to the public and that means KIDS! Ha. Thankfully they rope off 2 lanes for swimming and I was able to snag one of them. Admittedly it was nice to be swimming outside in the sun. felt really good. After that headed home and went for a VERY easy run.

Friday morning I went out for a long ride and run. Typical. Temps were pretty mild for most of the ride, but they really started to creep up toward the end and by the time the run came around it was not pleasant. The saving grace were the bouts of cloud cover. I was itching to ride my new bike, but decided that my first ride on it should not be three hours, and besides I had no bottle cages or computer or anything on it yet, so I took the cannodale for one last hurrah. The rest of the day was spent doing pretty much nothing. Which I must say is not really a bad thing. We weren’t heading to the beach until later that afternoon (change of plans from earlier in the week) so what else does one do with time to kill but grab a popsicle and head out to the deck to read a bit. NICE.

We started toward the beach about 5 pm but then 20 or so minutes down I40 bobby realizes he forgot his clubs. So back home we go. We are taking a bit of a detour to the beach, one of bobby’s operators lost his wife to cancer earlier that week and he wanted to go and pay respects. Since we had the dogs I said I would just wait for him. So the three of us (me and the girls) set up camp in a church yard across the street. And then the calling began. I left messages from here to as far as the blackberry would reach- many of them sounding something like this “hey (insert name here) just calling to say hi and see what you are up to for the holiday weekend. I’m sitting on a picnic table in a church parking lot with the dogs… Madison, Madison don’t eat that! and a lone trucker in the middle of tobacco country waiting for bobby to get done with a wake. Ring me back when you get some time, OOOF (that was me getting pulled off the table).. ok see ya!”.

Hmm so nice weekend at the beach. Minus the fact that the worst of the worst drivers always seem to find the same stretch of I40 that we are on coming home and well four hours later..

Back to the grind today. Some might think my impromptu trip to Belk to buy a RL polo might be a wonderful excuse to take a longer lunch, but in fact these little buying trips are no such fun. And they always seem to come on the days when something goes a muck and I’ve no time to stop at auntie ann’s for a soft pretzel.. woe is me.

Hoping to find a deserted track for some repeats tonight, but not sure of the prospects.

tribute

i know i know. enough already. but in honor of my bike (ha!) i wanted to enshrine this in my blog. if you want to make me cry - all it takes is the emotion of these big strong guys after fulfilling their dreams.