What email client does everyone use? Outlook suddenly started hanging on me this afternoon. I managed to 'fix' it by deleting the offending message, but during that time I downloaded and installed Thunderbird. I've been using it for 10 minutes or so and I seem to like it so far. Any good or bad things about Thunderbird a girl should know or do you recommend a different email program?
TIA.
I did the Mansfield Dam swim on Sunday morning. I did the 800 m length. How'd I do? Better than I thought I would. My time was 29:45. That includes one veering off course and being about 20 feet from the start when the gun went off. And I did it mostly side stroke! I've decided I'm side strokin' the Danskin. I don't have enough time to focus on fixing my freestyle form between now and then, so I'm going with what is working and seems to be working well enough for me to reach my goal. I finished before a couple of people in my tri group that swim much better than I do and once I decided to give up on my freestyle, I started passing people and made consistent forward progress. Overall, I finished 69 of 99. I drank for that at the Hash.
On top of our normal scheduled this week, the Tri group has scheduled another open water ass whooping at Windy Point and an open water swim at Decker Lake on Saturday followed by running at the park. Not quite the Danskin route, as there will be boats in the lake and the run course won't be mowed, but they want us to get used to running on a cross country type course. Woohoo! That beats a road pound anyday.
Hope everyone had a good weekend!
Saturday morning, BC and I woke up way to early to drive down to New Braunfels for the Rookie Tri. It was held at the Texas Ski Ranch. Here are my results:
| | ------- 300M SwmT1 -- | ------- 11.1M Bike ---- | ||||||
| Place | Name | Age | Rnk | Time | Pace | Rnk | Time | Pace |
| 382 | Jan Daley | 33 | 391 | 12:42.0 | 70:33/M | 381 | 47:56.7 | 4:19/M |
| ------- T2 ------- | ------- 2M Run ------- | Total | ||||
| Rnk | Time | Pace | Rnk | Time | Pace | Time |
| 319 | 1:37.4 | | 360 | 21:23.8 | 10:42/M | 1:23:40.0 |
The swim sucked, although it was much easier than swimming at Windy Point. I ended up in a pack of 5 women that either kept kicking me or I kept kicking. I'm not at the point where I'm comfortable with kicking others yet, so I never did stretch out and swim. I would get 3-4 strokes of crawl in before getting kicked or kicking someone, so I mostly side stroked.
I think I did great on the bike. In the first mile, there was a pretty steep hill and the chain fell off when I changed gears. It took me a bit to figure out how to get it back on and then I walked up the rest of the hill. That probably cost me 3-5 minutes.
The run could have been better. In the first mile, I kept taking walk breaks because I wasn't pacing myself very well. On the way back, I followed another woman back in. She had a pace I was comfortable with. I only walked up the hill leading into the ski ranch. I usually walk up hills faster than I run them.
Overall I was pleased w/ my performance. I finished only 8 minutes behind BC. He was 1 minute faster on the swim, 3 on the bike, and 4 on the run. If I didn't have the chain snafu, I probably would have done as well or better on the bike.
The post tri festivities were fun. The Regan HS band played. They had a couple of kegs of Fat Tire (yum!), sodas, veggie and real hamburgers, salty foods, and cookies. No bananas or bagels. They had a bunch of stuff that they threw out into the crowd. BC got a running cap and I got a race belt. We both got a pair of flip flops. We didn't win anything of the really cool stuff that they raffled. They gave away a few helmets, tri bags, hammer gel, tri clothing, hydration belts, etc.
Shawn Colvin sang the national athem before the race begain. She wasn't just there to sing. She won 3rd place in her age group.
All that fun and we were home by 12:15.
I met up with the tri group and we have a discussion about possible strategies for the Danskin wrt the swim. The exercise for today is to just swim for 30 minutes. Any stroke. Doggy paddle for all they care. Just try to stay close to the bouyies. So off we go. This is where the ass whooping starts. The current and the waves were too much for me. I couldn't find my rythym and my legs were sinking. I resorted to doing side stroke most of the time, mixed with short spurts of crawl. I did some breast stroke, but it was hard w/ the waves. I would bring my head up for a breath and it would be under a wave. My googles fogged up and the sun started setting so I couldn't see at all when I swam into the sun. I eventually took my goggles off and swam without them. This prompted everyone I passed to find out what happened to my goggles. They were hanging around my neck, but they couldn't see that. And the current kept pulling me out away from the bouyies. I was not enjoying this swim and it prompted one of the coaches to keep asking me if I was ok. After the third or fourth time in less than a minute I finally told her that "I am fine, I'd rather be at a bar drinking beer". That stopped her from asking me anymore. Was it my tone? Or could I actually be doing fine if I'm thinking about beer?
All in all, I was not pleased w/ my swim performance. I didn't panic. I never felt like drowning was a possibility. I could have stayed out there doing what I was doing for another 30 minutes. I just couldn't get all the pieces to work at the same time. I've been having problems getting all the components of the swim together in the pool, so it was impossible to do it under those conditions. I already had the idea in my mind that after the Danskin I would seek out a swim group or a swim class and focus on improving. Yesterday's ass whooping was the justification to follow through with that plan.
As far as open water swims, I have a few more planned before the Danskin. I'll also be hitting the pool pretty hard before then. I'm doing the Rookie Tri this Saturday. It has a 300m swim. We will also be going back to Windy point one or two more times and a bunch of people from my tri group want to do the Austin Triathletes Open Water Swim on May 21.
Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
It struck a familiar note w/ me. I spend too much time worrying about past mistakes, what I could have or should have done, and kicking myself for not handling situations differently. All it does is expend a lot of mental energy that could be put to better use.
On-On to focusing on today!
Friday night, Jim (OMG! I used his real name!!!) and I went to the Brushy Creek trail and ran 4 miles at my slow ass pace. When we were finished we hopped in the car and sped over to REI for their annual sale. We got there with only 45 minutes to shop before they closed! We managed to pick up all the stuff we went to buy plus more. I'll probably head over there again this week. I didn't have enough time to look at clothes. :-)
Saturday was a sleeping in day. When I finally got out of bed at 10 am, I whipped up a hearty breakfast without any fried pork. I fried up some eggs and really awesome hash browns. I've come to realize that cast iron makes all the difference when cooking potatoes. Then more shopping. We went to BettySport where I bought a pair of tri shorts and then to Bicycle Sports Shop to pick up biking gear/maintenance type stuff for me and some shorts for Jim. We then went to Pets Mart to get some stuff for Mav, Barnes and Noble so that Jim's daughter could get a book she needed for school, and card shopping for Mother's Day. Once we got home, we changed a bike tire and Jim showed me some basic bike maintenance that I should be doing. I wanted to get a swim in, but the thunderstorm rolled in at this point.
Woke up early to go to my tri group training. We biked 16 miles and ran 1. I should have ran 2, but I wanted to same some energy for the swim I would do later on. Michelle brought her husband Bryan and I brought Jim so Bryan wouldn't be the only boy at an all girl training group. It was good having Jim there. I'm still not proficient w/ gearing on hills, so he was able to tell me what I needed to be doing. After this, we went to eat breakfast at a little restaurant in Leander called the Oleander Cafe. It was delicious and while were were eating, Bryan's parents showed up unexpectedly and joind us. Bryan's parents are a hoot and were a welcome addition to our group. We headed back down to Jim's house where I rested up for a bit then we went swimming. I was pretty much a wuss and did more whining than swimming. But, I did get some swimming and drills in. Then on to see Mission Impossible 3 w/ Jim and his daughter. The movie was ok. A couple of suspenseful moments, but there are better action movies out there.
On On to a restful week.
I believe I said I would do a post about Mav's hips, so here it is.
When Maverick was 10 months old, he was diagnosed w/ hip dysplasia. At one year old, he had his left hip replaced. This was February of 2001. Here is a pic of the x-ray w/ one hip replaced. You can see in the x-ray that he has no hip socket on the right side. I believe this picture was taken in May 2002 during his annual hip checkup.
In November of 2002, he had the right side done. This pic is from his 3 month post surgical checkup.
Mav's surgery was done at Central Texas Veterinary Specialty Hospital by Dr. Stephen Kerpsack. Dr. Kerpsack is an excellent surgeon and I recommend him highly.
With his prosthetic hips, Mav has completely normal function. He does agility without any adjustments and can scale 6+ ft privacy fences to snatch a critter that has the unfortunate luck to be walking or sitting on the fence. And, as you can see, he has turned into quite the Hash dog. Here is a picture of Mav enjoying some brew at a beer check earlier this year.
Trail went pretty well. I received a lot of complements and nobody had any accusations related to trail, which I found shocking. I managed to stump a few people w/ the new mark I created for this trail. It was the ONIN/F mark. It means that if you get to the ONIN/F mark and you don't see the beer, its a false. If the beer is there, you are at the On In. Why would I do this to a bunch of half minds? I ended trail at a park in which I couldn't reserve the picnic area, so I found an alternate area for the On In in case the picnic area was in use. We ended up using the alternate, which was a horse corral area. I think it worked out better anyway.
Thanks to everyone that came out. I had a lot of fun.
One more thing. Tuck It was right! Husky liners rock! I bought some plastic matts/liners for my car. They have a 1 inch lip on them, so dirt and liquid get contained and not all over the carpet in the car. When haring trail, I just kept hopping in and out of the car w/ my wet muddy shoes without a concern. I didn't have to worry about coolers leaking or hashers with muddy shoes in my car. It was great.
