okay.

gimme a break. I'm not going to win any age group awards (or even compete) at LH anyway, and, well, uh......... I got no private tour guide to plan my 50th birthday trip to hawaii.... so I did the best I could with what I had................
There's gonna be a lj cut so deal with it..

 

I went to the doc Wednesday afternoon. Naturally, my temp was only 97.4 in the office (with those disposable strips they use). I had also taken an advil earlier in the day.. She did comment when checking my lymph nodes, "your skin is really hot to the touch". Given that it didn't look like I had an ear infection, my throat didn't look too bad, and no obvious sign of infection, she suggested a viral infection or possibly... HEAT EXHAUSTION. (I probably shouldn't have told her I rode the LH HIM course last Saturday..) So she told me I can't do the LH HIM bike course this weekend, to stay indoors in A/C as much as possible and don't work out. She also told me not to take any antihistamines and she changed my BP med from one that has a diuretic component to one that does not - it wasn't helping the diastolic reading anyway.  We've been on this quest for the right BP med for me for several years. Nothing seems to help the diastolic reading and it frustrates me to no end.   She did order several blood tests to check my electrolytes, thyroid (ha! as if I, battling my weight for nearly 50 years, could have an overactive thyroid!), and red/white cell count.

I left my car at the shop overnight Wed so I'd have reliable A/C while driving. It was ready about 3pm yesterday so I rode my bike from home over to pick it up. Here is more evidence of not being "all there" - I hadn't thought to put a pair of running shoes in my trunk to change into. Duh. So I just drove home in my sock feet - I don't think it would be real safe to try driving a standard with bike shoes.. So I've missed two full days of work and I'm not planning on being here all day today either. There are many people missing in my lab, and those who are here are sneezing a lot. I sneeze a lot when I'm here too, and almost never at home.  There's supposed to be a product launch party at Marriott in RR but I know I couldn't tolerate standing around in a room full of people.

Will probably ride from my house tomorrow morning, out to 3405 and back I suppose.. sigh. Still planning on doing the OWS on Sunday, although my sinuses seem to be trying to convince me otherwise. 

haven't been feeling quite right lately... I swam with Cindy and Kim Friday at QL - I did two loops, they did FIVE
But I did finish my two loops before they'd done 3!! We rode the Longhorn HIM course Saturday, then Mindy & I went to Marble Falls to see my niece who turned 10 on Thursday. No workout Sunday - Steve & I went to brunch at El Mercado, then watched part of the Olympics before I had to take him to the airport. The A/C in my car finally came on about the time we reached the Montopolis exit ;-) I need to get that fixed... Last evening Cindy, Esther and I went to the Street Closure Task Force meeting (along with about 200 of our closest tri/running friends). It was pretty informative, but the signup sheet was already full when trimanarrived so he didn't get to speak! 

Waiting on the Sears guy to come do my final warranty work on the washer, I finally took my temperature. I never have fever but I've just been feeling like I'm constantly overheated (even when I take the estradiol). Normal temp for me is 97.0 and this morning it was 99.3. So there's something going on, and I'll skip tonight's bike time trial. Maybe go home and 'sleep it off'... 

So I took the plunge (so to speak) and signed up for the 1.2 mile OWS Sunday! gulp!

I kind of knew I probably wouldn't get that run in today. But I did make GM swim! Estimated 800 yd. It was windier than last Monday but not quite as harrowing as last Wednesday... 

Michelle, Mindy and Mindy's friends came over Tuesday evening and we set off 24 fireworks in honor of Mindy and Cindy's 24th birthday. Cindy had gone off to some person's party and wasn't there. It was a traumatic evening since Mindy wanted to give Cindy the presents she'd bought her, and Cindy didn't bother to show up.

Wednesday was soooooo hot I was dreading the workout that evening but showed up. I pumped up my tires and set up my little 'transition' area and while Coach Susan was describing the focus of the workout, we heard SSSSSSSSSSSSS from my bike. Wha??? The tires were fine when I put the bike in the car, and fine when I pumped them up. The front tire just went flat! Susan continued to talk while I changed the tube out. I bought these tires back in March and hadn't had any flats up till this week. After I got the tire changed, we went on the warmup bike loop, about 3miles with a couple decent hills thrown in. After we regrouped, I checked both tires. The REAR seemed a little low so I put the pump on there and it only had 40 psi! sheesh. So while Susan continued to talk I pulled off the rear wheel. That tire had numerous cuts in it. So many that I was uneasy about continuing to ride. Changed the tube in the rear, put the tire back on, aired it up, waited a little bit and then checked both tires again. Susan said I could cut the loop short if I felt like it but I went ahead and did the full loop, then did a quick transition and did my little short, hard run. The workout was supposed to be run, bike run x 2 but all I got was bike, run. That was the end of it. Susan gave us the choice of a little short bike cooldown or a 3 min out/3 min back run. I was the only one who chose run. Deb rode by me and said "my hat's off to you girl!". Running still hurts. I asked Susan for new tire recommendation...she mentioned she has Specialized Armadillo and rarely gets a flat, and never due to tire failure. Good enough for me!

Thursday I had PT with Pieter and Lex again and those guys made me work!! I admitted to planning to do Couples Sunday and Marble Falls the next Sunday, so Pieter told me "just know that you should be taking it easy and you're going to have some pain but if you're okay with that, we'll continue to work on you after your events". I had originally planned to go to the office for about an hour, then meet Coach Cindy at Balcones pool at 11:30 to swim. Well, since I was right there near Bicycle Sports Shop, I dropped in to buy some new tires and tubes. Thank goodness they had all of it, $140 later I had new tubes and tires. At that point, it made no sense to go to work, then over to the pool, so I just headed home and answered work email from there. Met Cindy right at 11:30 and we had the pool practically to ourselves. We chatted a few minutes, I was prodding her for ideas about the type of workout I might need to do. I suggested 300 warmup and she thought that sounded good. We both did 300 warmup. Saw her grab her kickboard and although kicking sounded non-appealing to me, I realized I hadn't done any real "work" in the pool other than swimming. (Bad, I know). So I did a 50 kick, then she asked if she could borrow my fins, so I said sure. I figured they'd fall off her feet cause my feet are huge! But I think she did 50 or 100 with the fins. I didn't want to keep stopping her and asking questions but I really was seeking feedback from her about my swimming. I decided to do a 100 for time - I haven't done any of those since T3 (nearly a year ago) and was pleased with myself that it was 2:50. I was just hoping to come in somewhere about 3:00 and it was a really easy 100. I bragged to Cindy and she suggested something that works for her, which was to swim 25s as fast as possible. I asked about recovering at the end and she said take as much time as you need but do some more 25s as fast as possible. I did four of those, with time anywhere between :28 and :31 (which includes the second or so it took me to stop the watch). She said that was about the time it took her to do 25s (I, of course, didn't want to believe that I'd be nearly as fast as her). Still I was not completely winded after these 25s, so she suggested doing something to get me even more winded and I thought maybe breathing on the 3s. I did 2 more 25s with breathing on the 3s and that did wear me out a little more but still kept the time about :30.

Did 200 with pull buoy breathing on the 3s, and then told her I thought since I did so well I'd do a timed 500. I'd already swam a little over 1,000 so wondered how doing a timed 500 at the end of a workout would turn out. Cindy said she admired me for being so disciplined! what a compliment, especially coming from her! my timed 500: 14:15. Yay! I was very very happy. Went home and showered and finally got to the office about 2pm :) Mindy called me from work and the poor thing had another misfortune involving her car! This time it was parked in front of Hangtown while she was in there cutting hair at Great Clips and some guy driving a Lincoln Navigator had run into the neighboring bank without setting his parking brake in the spot across the parking lot from Mindy. Well, this Navigator ROLLED DOWN THE HILL across the parking lot and struck Mindy's car. This was discovered when Mindy's coworker looked out the window and asked why Mindy had parked crooked in the parking space. Mindy answered, "I didn't". So they went outside and found the damage. Mindy took a couple digital photos with her phone. Her car was at a 45 degree angle out of the space and the closeup of her spare tire bracket showed it was all bent out of shape. This time, she got the guy's DL, insurance policy number, etc. etc. and filed a claim against him. At least it was driveable.

Today was an off day but very intense work-wise. Then there's the whole rumor mill about impending mass layoffs again. We'll see. Went to get my Couples packet but "someone" ordered me a large shirt. I went tonight because Cindy was going to be doing packet pickup. She was busy so the other woman prepared my packet.  She made me take the too-big shirt, so I guess I'll show up Sunday and see if someone will swap it for a medium. Otherwise I'll have to drag out the sewing machine and get creative. It's kind of a weird green color. I did like the beer mug in the "goodies" though. Since I was there at 7:00 and hung around a few more minutes (I toyed with the idea of asking Cindy if she wanted to go get some food somewhere), after Dan arrived I asked if I could help them do anything, tote boxes of t-shirts or something. The other woman said, "no, this is a volunteer thing". Uhhhh.. if you're reading this you know that couples is nearly the first event I HAVEN'T been a volunteer for. I was taken aback and replied, "well, yes, but the more people you have to do it, the faster it goes". Nothing.  No reply suggesting maybe I help stack boxes or anything. I stuck around and read my race packet booklet but still nobody asked me to lift a box, so I said goodbye to Cindy and left. On my way home, Cindy called me and asked if I was till downtown (she'd had the same thought about getting some food somewhere) and I told her no, your volunteer partner obviously didn't want me there, so I left. Seriously, I've done so many packet pickups and know that the more bodies to help pack it in, the easier it is on everybody. It was so weird to not only be told you can't help but it was done in such as way as to hint that I was a nuisance. I had chatted with Cindy for a few minutes so the other woman couldn't possibly have missed the fact that Cindy and I obviously were friends. Whatever!!

Tomorrow I'm planning on getting the new tires & tubes mounted on Buzz, take off for a 30 min easy ride, then a 10-15 min ez run and if possible a short pool swim. Not sure what else I'll do (besides get packed for Sunday), I had planned on getting my UAR waterbottle from BSS while at J&As but they were closed by the time I got my packet. I'm not going to drive downtown again tomorrow with gas at $4 a gallon to get a free waterbottle. If I'd known I would be too late, I would have asked Kim to get my bottle as well.

 New month, new resolve. 
Tuesday, July 1 - went to Gold's in RR and got ready to swim.. and... once again somehow got all ready to swim but left the cap in the car! Dangit! EVERY time I go there to swim, the cap's not in my bag - and I'm too lazy to go back to the car after pulling everything off but the swimsuit. So I twisted my hair up in some sort of knot-thing, put on my goggles and swam 1,000 meters.

Wednesday, July 2 - TX I women's. We brought our trainers to Zilker Park and did trainer/brick practice. It was a short but very intense workout (3 sets of intervals: bike, then a one minute out, one minute back run at "holy shit" effort). Very good. I wore my new shoes that I bought from Coach Jen at HCRC. Niiiiice. Cycling: about 12 miles, Running: probably .75 mile. Afterward, I went to my daughter Mindy's apartment, took a shower and she cut my hair.

leaving work now (yay!) and on the schedule for later is 30 min recovery swim. yes, I made sure to pack the cap in the bag this time.. tomorrow we're doing the triple bitches at 7:30.. ;-D

I feel pretty ashamed of my June totals but considering I was hurting for much of the month, I guess I shouldn't feel too bad:
 

Bike:	7h 39m 27s  - 107.5 Mi
Run:	3h 46m 32s  - 16.87 Mi
Swim:	1h 34m 23s  - 2570.21 Yd

I can't believe I didn't even break 200 miles on the bike -- but I'll just have to do better this month. Got my TxI calendar printed out in my office, and am going to do as much as possible to stick to it. 

Last Wed, TxI bike workout in Steiner - no, not hill repeats down to the lake & back (which I was grateful for), but multiples of the 2 mile "D" loop, practicing race pace intervals. 16 miles, 75 min.

I did not other working out till Saturday when I did a modified Pfinally Pflugerville ride with ACA. I ran into Robbie there - both of us had invited some "newcomers" to join and all of them showed up! I rode alone though because there was no "official" 33 mile PP ride. 33 miles, 2 hours. then Steve & I drove to Llano to meet a guy he went to college with at Cooper's. The guy now lives in Spain and his wife spoke only Spanish. Spent the remainder of the day at the guy's mom's house on top of a hill in Llano. Very nice place.

Sunday I went for my first run since probably Danskin. It was HOT and I was sore. Coach Jen had suggested running on a softer surface and I thought about going to Brushy Creek trail. Then I remembered: I've been paying my RCNA dues for 9 years and there is a small trail thru the park. So ran slowly from my house to the trail (about 7 minutes), then ran on the trail for 20 minutes, then back home. Not much distance, but I did "run" the whole time: 2.6 miles, 35 min. Steve & I went to his parent's house - they had postponed Father's Day for 2 weeks so more BBQ!!

Monday was an off day and I took it off. Today I had PT with Pieter, who is now back from vacation. There is something about the left side of my SI joint - it hurt when I arrived but after he worked on me, things felt better. He said that "situation" is what's causing me residual pain in the hip/hamstring area. I had to do my little exercises and then he turned me loose. I go back next Thursday. In the meantime he said not to try and run more than 2 miles.

with apologies to Johnny Cash:
"twenty six feet and risin'''
kinda sceery. My userpic shows the flood-swollen Mississippi River under the bridge leading from Iowa (where I was born) to Illinois. I was born in the 3 story redbrick building on the left previously known as "Burlington Hospital"

My mama lives in Oquawka, Illinois, across the river which is also a Mississippi River border town north of Burlington. So I've been trying to call her all day to find out if she's "okay". Finally got through about an hour ago.

Back in '65 (yea, I'm old, okay?) I remember the bridge was closed then, too, it was a different bridge (MacArthur bridge which was built in 1914). I remember traveling down US Hwy34 in a jon boat. Gulfport, IL was totally underwater. If we went anywhere by car, we had to cross the river at Ft. Madison.

But one of the things I remember most about the cruisin down Hwy34 (in '65 okay, cause we're old and nobody remembers this stuff) in a boat episode, is we landed at Earl Menke's place, probably 100 ft from where my Grandma Loretta lived later on (way after the '65 flood), some guy walked out of the water with a blue snake spiraled around his upper arm!!

Sorry, gotta go back to the nostalgic flood - In 1973, I cut high school so I could sandbag on the levee at Oquawka. I did this 3 or 4 days,got a tetanus shot, and thought "If I ever have to do this again, wear gloves"

So I talked to my mom tonight about this - My sister Carolyn, my brother Jim and probably other family members sandbagged the past few days at Oquawka. Carolyn went to stay with a friend in Mt. Pleasant, IA, last night before the bridge closed, so she at least might be able to get to work. Not sure about the rest of the family.......

oh yeah, tonight was Splash n Dash. I managed to do the swim and run portions. But I was thinking about mama and the flood back home.

that crown I had put on Wednesday has some sort of rough edge on it. Thursday at work, I heard so many people hacking and sneezing, I thought it best for MY health to stay home today with Danskin on Sunday. Since I missed swimming at Quarry Lake (well, I wouldn't say I MISSED it, sounds like they had lots of chop), I went over to Gold's to swim.  Although swallowing and eating had been mildly painful, the way you have to breathe while swimming raked the left side of my tongue over that rough spot hundreds if not thousands of times in my 1,000m swim. owie! The dentist's office is of course closed after noon on Friday. I should have called anyway but I thought maybe things would 'smooth over'. They never did. I set my alarm for 5:30 Saturday for the celebration breakfast and went to bed.

I don't know what to think about this hip situation. I pulled something 3 weeks ago when Deb and I took off for the Barton Springs parking lot loop run workout. It's been hurting ever since. I had the chiropractor pull on it twice yesterday in hopes of getting it 'unstuck'. He said my S-I joint had locked up and that I should stretch it a lot. Well, I do that. So I skipped the TxI women's group last night because when I saw 'Rainbow Hill' on the map, I knew there was no way... the problem right now is going DOWNhill. Which is how I hurt it in the first place. I opted to go out to the Danskin site and do an "easy run" of the run course. Ouch. Ouch. There was pain from the beginning but I just went very very slow and eventually it subsided a little. The chiro asked me if I felt like I couldn't lift my leg, more like I was "swinging" it forward? and the answer being yes, I consciously tried to lean forward a little bit to see if getting the footstrike more under me rather than in front of me would help. I do believe it did.

tripam found a shady spot to direct  people thru the woods and Ginger and sweetmonster greeted me when I came back out to the fenceline.  The TZ ladies started on their run about 8-10 min behind me so I knew some of them would catch and pass me. I was at the bottom of the hill when 3 young ladies ran by me, then Shannon of the 3Gs. I didn't feel too bad, only getting passed by 4 ladies in their 20's! I took the long final uphill very very slow, but I 'ran' it, I did not walk. I can't believe it took me 44 minutes to run that 3.11 miles.. but hey, the directions said Slow and Easy. Slow I did. Easy, notsomuch. A few of us are thinking of going to Quarry Lake to swim but I'm wondering if there are whitecaps out there?!? And I'm not sure how my hip is going to react to the swim kick, either. We'll just have to see how it goes cause the schedule says 45 min swim, then OFF tomorrow.

 

Got a fair amount of work done at work today so now I'm pretty much ready for Danskin weekend madness. I have a nice low race number this year: 412. Yeehaw!

Sat - we did TZ OWS at Mansfield. Ugh. An hour and a half of wearing a wetsuit, being a floating noodle-holder. It was after 10 when the TLs were finally able to get in our own swim. I was already getting hungry and the clif bar was up in the car, so I swam probably 700-750. Red & I rode from the park down past 71, looped thru the Galleria, and came back BeeCave Pkwy. About 20 miles but I was suffering. I had a clif bar before we started but I think I was already behind the nutrition curve. I felt terrible. Had 3 shot blox while we snaked thru the Galleria and started to feel a little better. Rather windy, so the 20 mile ride took just about 90 min (which is what the schedule said!). I went to Jersey Mike's to have lunch so the ACA would get their 15%. I was so wiped out, I went home and took a nap before going to work the 2nd shift of CapTex packet pickup. We were scheduled for 4:30-8 so I wondered if they were going to feed us - they did, domino's pizza. 

Sun - on my schedule was a 60 min run, but I figure being a CapTex Volunteer for 6 hours on your feet more than equals 60 min run. I have many comments about this year's event and will

Mon - re-hemmed Mindy's curtains and headed out for the 60 min run I was supposed to do Sun (I felt guilty). Horrible run. I didn't get out till nearly noon, and could only manage 45 min.  Cleaned up and went to get Mindy to get her out of her house for a little bit. We went to Best Buy and I bought a new dishwasher since it was tax-free weekend. Mine isn't completely broke, but I do need to replace it. Went over to Steve's and he put my salmon steak on the grill.... mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Tues - uh, it's all a blur. I still didn't feel real well and things were pretty busy at work. No workout.

Wed - TxI women's trail run at BCGB HoL entrance. Yay! I got to meet trichelle, who gave us great tips and kept track of us on the trail. I also got to meet the HoL. My quads are still hurting!!! Headed down to Sazon for the Rookie Volunteer appreciation party. MMMMMM margaritas, chips and a very delicious taco. Thanks guys!

Thurs - still feeling weird (what is this, anyway????), even sick to my stomach. On sched was 60 min swim and I thought about joining some people at Lake Pville after work but just went home to watch my new teevee instead.

which brings me current. - the yard still needs mowed (about to take care of that in a couple hours), the house is a mess and oh yeah, Danskin is NEXT WEEKEND! YIKES! I better get to feeling strong!

 I'm already looking ahead to June workouts. 
Tuesday, I did no workout. I put Buzz in the car for a 60 min ride but decided to do... nothing

Wednesday was TxI women's group. Only 5 of us were there, which made it a bit weird to do the relay loop thing. I paired up with Julie, but had to take off on the first loop with Deb. I pulled a hammy or something. Man, was I hurting at the gate. The subsequent loops were slower, cause I took shorter strides. It still hurt.. My pace was freaking fast (for me), though. Susan said to run it at 5K pace although there is no way I could have held that pace for 5K! I just didn't want to look any slower. Tracy passed me on her final loop. That's okay, Deb & Tracy are way faster than me and Julie. Kim just had to go on her own with a 5 min break. It was a pretty brutal (if short) workout with the temps in the 90's.. 

Thursday - on schedule was 60 min swim. I had a hard time getting a space at the gym pool, and these weird people kept popping in and out of the pool. One guy took the roped-off lane, I asked him if he was swimming laps and he said yes, so I moved just to the other side of the rope, then watched him essentially float on his back for 20 minutes. GRRR! A couple other guys came to swim on "my" side, so at the end of one length I asked if they were swimming laps and should we circle swim. One of them said he'd like to but wasn't sure of his endurance. I just replied, "I've got 1500 to do, so I'll just take this side". After I'd swum about 1,000 I supposed, I kept seeing this guy just standing in the water about 15 ft from the pool's edge. Then I'd see him swim (kind of a "tarzan" stroke, head out of water), then there he'd be standing in the water again. It was kinda freaky, especially since he had hair longer than me, wearing no swim cap. I finally called it good at 1500 although the time elapsed was about 53 minutes. Yes, I'm very slow. the muscle pull or whatever from Wednesday did not help my kicking, either..

Today - supposed to be 'off' but I met with Personal Trainer Karen again. I didn't exercise the entire hour though since I had questions about the stuff we did last time. A good workout for sure. Leaving work soon, tomorrow is TZT OWS at Mansfield followed by a 90 min ride, then working CapTex registration from 4:30-8:00. I guess that means I'm "Free" Sunday to go cheer for everyone! on my schedule is a 60 min base run so I'm wondering about the possibilty of running LBLT then heading to the designated cheering spot... Good luck all CapTex participants!

Thursday: lovely 21 mile bike ride with Cyclopaths

Friday: 3rd session with Personal Trainer - it was supposed to be an "off" day and we tried some new stuff. More on that later. Packed up everything I'd need for the TZ practice, plus AHCC, etc.

Saturday: up at 5:30 (again) & out to P-ville. Leading the OAs out on the 15 mile loop. For some reason I was not feeling real peppy. We had 9 ladies in our group with Becca sweeping. I asked at the start of the ride what speed they were comfortable with - they said 15 is okay. Judy stayed pretty close behind me & when we turned onto CR139, we all stopped to let everyone catch up (and get a drink). It was all I could do to keep ahead of them the rest of the ride. Chris caught up to me back at Weiss Ln. We were supposed to do 15 min run after the ride but I couldn't do it. I did, however, ride the 15 mile loop again with Coach Cindy and Becca. Perhaps I should have taken Friday REALLY OFF like the schedule said..

Off to Liberty Hill for the next adventure. I arrived just about noon (timing was on purpose!) so had me a sub sandwich and smoothie drink. For a couple hours there wasn't much to do volunteer-wise at the finish, so as my buddies came in from the ride I'd visit with them. Saw xomox after he finished his run and he'd said the volunteers/signs caused them to ride an extra 10 miles! Then a fabulous-looking shubbe appeared after the post-ride run and she was none too happy about the extra mileage either! After the ride, I looked at the map they were given and it did have confusing directions, for sure. It didn't help that some kids switched two of the signs - we might never have known that but the guy from the Spokes n Spurs ride (Clyde?) noticed it and got it fixed. When that got fixed, I'm not sure. It also didn't help that apparently the walkie talkies were not properly transmitting. Last year, I was outta there about 5:30, but this year, the "Big Truck" (wherein all the leftover rest stop supplies were contained) didn't arrive till about 6:00. Then we had to unload it, stack stuff, cart whatever we wanted over to our cars (just thought I'd throw that out there, one perk of being a cleanup volunteer), then we had to re-load the truck because a lot of the stuff was going to the Tour de Cure. I didn't leave LibertyHill till 7pm. Twelve hours of being outside. At least from noon-7 I was mostly in the shade. Cleaned up and went over to Steve's for the night.

Sunday - I ran 5 miles while Steve rode (hybrid) 5.75. Called my mommie to wish her happy Mother's Day - she was on her way to get Grandma and take her out for lunch. Cleaned up and went to Threadgills - we were in charge of bringing "side dishes" to Mother's Day brunch. We were there a little longer than I would have liked and I was getting kinda tired. Plus Michelle and Mindy wanted to take me out for dinner.

Called Michelle while driving back to my place - she suggested we all meet at Mindy's since Mindy had just got off work. I decided I really just wanted a big ol burger so suggested Waterloo Ice House. Michelle said, "I love that place!" so that's where we went. Mindy bought me a little bag of ghirardelli raspberry-filled dark chocolate squares and a bouquet of iris (purple's my favorite color!) and Michelle got me a card, 4 hand dipped strawberries and she bought our dinner. It was a Happy Mother's Day. I saw Cindy for about 10 min but she had left "my present & card" at her friend Justin's house. Whatever.

Monday - swam 1500 meters after work @ Gold's. Practiced sighting the last 300 to simulate Skees!
oh -- in the Battle of the Hypertension dept -- the last 3 times I've measured it, it's been like barely 100 over 70something. I hope that's okay! today it was 97/77!!! maybe we got the right drug, finally??

Friday is Bike to Work Day!! Yay! I talked to Monica Leo after she rode the AHCC on Saturday - we'd been trading emails but thought it was a good idea to introduce myself in person.  Dave's going to have breakfast tacos from Smoky Moe's and smoothies from Keva Juice! Yes, Music City Cycles on Parmer lane, between Corpus Christi dr and the intersection with McNeil. Y'all come! 

Coach Cindy talked me into joining her sister, and their OS (Other Sister) Friday @ 5 @ Pure Austin. I know Cindy wanted to swim in the lake but I just wasn't up for that yet. So the four of us swam in the outdoor pool (which was quite nice). Total swim: 1200yd. We then went to celebrate by having dinner at Baby A's. I'd never had a purple margarita so I had one. Coach Cindy scared me into only having one. Even though I'm not the lightweight that she apparently is... I ordered Shrimp Fajitas and although I stuffed myself, could only hold about half that food, the rest went home with me to becoming Saturday's lunch.

Saturday - up bright n' early to get to Caraway School to help with TZ Women's bike workout. I'm not real familiar with that neighborhood, but I had to lead, so I took notice of where the cones & flags were on my way there. Coach had me demonstrate cadence of 70 on one street, then cadence of 110 on the next (which, for those of you who have run Motive, was up Oakview!), 70 on the next, then 110 again. Repeat 3 times. Then we went on a longer loop (4 miles) twice and I finished with one more 1.5 mile cadence loop. I saw only 3 lost people on my last loop, told them to follow me and we all got back fine.

I wasn't sure what the coach/Team Leader post-workout-workout was to be, so Kim, Cindy and I decided Lake Pville. They donned the wetsuits (I'm about 15 lbs away from wearing mine) and as luck would have it, someone in a kayak noticed us and asked if we were doing the Lake Pflugerville Tri in June. Answer no, but the guy said Glenn Beck (RD) had asked him to set buoys out there so people could practice. And there they were! they're little red/pink (couldn't tell from the shore) bubbles sitting on top of the lake! one is 250 yds from shore, the other 250 yds from the first). That was really nice of them! Although I'm not doing that particular Tri (It conflicts with The Urban Assault Ride , it'll be good practice because Kim, Cindy and I (and possibly others) are going to start the "Cindy Sunday Tri Series". Well, practices anyway... So they swam 500 yds, then we went out for two of the Cele/Cameron/JesseBohls/Weiss loops (15 miles total). Then ran around the lake (3 miles). As I hadn't planned on being out that long, I hadn't worn sunscreen. My shoulders are a little upset with me, but it's not bad. Cleaned up and went to Steve's so we could go to dinner at Drakula Romanian Restaurant.  When we had gone to Sarah & Raz's birthday bowling party in Jan, they had brought a cake from there and sure enough Steve had to order a piece for dessert!

Sunday - nothing. Steve and I had brunch at The Omlettry, which is always good and reasonable. I went back home for a few chores then we were supposed to meet this guy at 6:30 at the Little Woodrow's up by my house. Consequently, I didn't have time for any working-out. And the guy never showed.. boo hoo.

Monday - after work, dragged my rear over to the Gold's Gym that I just joined. As luck would have it, Sarah was in the locker room as I made my way to the pool. Actually I was lost, so she pointed the way! I swam 1200 meters and met a nice lady named Denise who had been watching me swim for the last 800 or so. She said, "You really inspire me, how do you keep going like that?" (I really needed a compliment right then, too!) so I mentioned that while swimming in a triathlon, there's no stopping out in the lake! She replied that she'd done Danskin and had been a competitive swimmer in college. So to have a compliment on MY SWIMMING from someone who swam competively in college just made my day. I then changed and went outside to run 5 miles. Whoop! yeah, FIVE miles!

Had to get out of this funk somehow. In my continual battle of the Blood Pressure, I talked myself out of doing the TxI women's bike workout last night. But today I just had to do something to quit feeling so ... uh.. powerless? I dunno. I've been in some kind of funk-mood with zero motivation and that's not good for a Team Leader.

So, today I got up, did my knee exercises and decided I'd need to get my act together - tri season has started.

First, updated my
Then, since I need to volunteer for some of the Triseries, sent off the volunteer registrations. Then, whipped out the new Discover card to finally register for Skees Greets Tri. I need to start somewhere. So now I'm committed. I think I'll celebrate by riding with the Cyclopaths tonight.

Finally, I cracked up when reading a thread on the RunTex forum today. Hits pretty close to home for me!

Started TMC part 2 --- with the two high blood pressure pills and the .. ahem.. other thing (I turn 50 later this year, you know) to help me sleep at night rather than wake up in a pool of sweat, I'd gained back EVERY POUND of what I lost in November. Even after riding 62 miles at Spokes n Spurs last Saturday.

Sunday I ran 3 miles, not fast, but with relatively little swelling, etc.

Monday and Tuesday, I took off (!)

Wednesday was the return of the Texas Iron Women's group. We met in front of BS Pool, and while waiting for coach Susan, saw deankat leaving, guess after a nice swim! I ran a total of 4 miles with the warmup & gate-to-gate workout.

Thursday I decided on Nautlius and swimming. I managed 800 yd in the pool. Must work on upper body strength. I did so much better swimming this time last year.. but at least I've gotten in twice this month so far.

Today, I played hooky again with Kim and Cindy (Well, technically only *I* played hooky, they weren't "on duty") and we did the same ride as two weeks ago, the ACA Leanderthal 48 + we added 2 miles at the end.

I'm not enjoying TMC so much this time around. Maybe it's cause of the medications - I get a headache that starts pretty much when I get up and ends when I fall asleep ;-) I already bought the cans of stuff to make my soup Tuesday night and I can't wait.. Planning to  stay on this for 10 days again-and it's really slow going. I've got OJ to look forward to on Wednesday (not sure how Wed's workout will go) and the soup for dinner.. on the other hand, I think the morning & evening aleve regimen is helping with the knee situation. And to top it off, while at the store buying the cans of beans for the soup, prominently displayed in the middle of the aisle was (it was only a matter of time before they came out with this) chocolate-covered chex mix. Not that I want any, but I just smiled to myself thinking, "and we wonder why Americans are overweight".

looking forward to the "movie night" tomorrow at Carolyn & Tom's.

Sure is a good day to fly a kite!! I never have gone to the kitefest but I'll bet there are lots of lost kites because it's TOO Windy!

With my pained knee I didn't do much last week, but I guess the "rest" did me good, I played hooky (With my boss' blessing) Friday and rode with the IronBabes who Tri: Kim, Vickie and Cindy. We rode the 48 mile Leanderthal ride, adding on 2 miles at the end to make it a half century. The rest of them did a run after the ride, but I was truly wiped out. I felt weird for about 4 more hours. Probably a nutrition (or possibly overzealousness) problem.

So for the month of February, I did at least participate in the Three Sports-Bike:135 miles, Run: 13.2 miles, Swim: 500 yd

For the start of March, yesterday I did my Nautilus routine and 800 yd of swimming at the YMCA. Today I joined Carolyn for a windy windy ride out Wilco Reg Park-33 miles followed by one loop of running around the park. I put an ice pack on my knee, stretched a little and we went for lunch at Waterloo Ice House. yum!

Mindy's moved out, I helped with the furniture (got the bruises to prove it)... AND Cindy got a job. I took her over there for her 4th day in a row. Hopefully we can get her drivers license soon - I have "Ruby" in good working order with new window tinting, 4 new tires and a new passenger side low beam headlight.

Going to pick up Cindy from work in a little bit, and Carolyn suggested using Naproxen (Aleve) to help with the inflammation in my knee, so I'll pick up some of that. Crossing my fingers that it helps..

well, I gained a lotta weight. somehow. but I haven't stopped.

I rode 45 miles Sat, ran 5 miles Sun, took Mon off, Tuesday I did nautilus strength workout, (and spent 3 or 4 hrs at sewing machine) and today ran 3.8 miles to make sure my Oct monthly total averaged 1 mile running a day.

Although my pants don't fit right now, I refuse to give up.And, this is a first: I've never before posted my monthly workout log which included 2 hours of bowling....

October totals:

October's totals:
Bike:	21h 15m  - 308.5 Mi
Run:	4h 07m 30s  - 31 Mi
Swim:	2h 00m  - 4640.42 Yd
Strength:	30m
Bowling:	2h 00m
Yoga:	2h 30m