Danskin and other Random Stuff

I'm signed up for the Danskin this weekend. It should be a good time. This year I have a better bike and I can actually swim.

BC and I are also signed up for the Couple's Tri on July 15th. Our team name is 'Help! My husband can't swim!'. Lame name, but it was all I could come up with at the time. For the teams, the age group you compete in is your combined age. We are 77 years old.

Mav and I went to an agility trial last weekend. He did ok. He was one pokey puppy! We didn't make time in quite a few things. I'm not sure if he wasn't feeling well or if he didn't like the flooring. The flooring at the facility is some kind of rubber sports flooring that hasn't been well maintained, so the dogs slip and slide a lot. Many slow down as a result.

There is a swim team that has started practing after my group. They are mostly teens. We stuck around and watched them warm up. Wowsers! What a difference between the groups! They actually make it look effortless. They barely kick their legs. Just the occaisonal flutter to maintain their balance. Our coach, the tiny yet mighty Meredith said that is the way it is supposed to look and that they wouldn't kick unless they were sprinting. Sigh. Still a long ways to go! I'm no longer dragging my legs, but I still need to kick to maintain balance. I have a funny kicking story that I will save for next time. Off to bed now!

My First Olympic Distance Tri....

CANCELLED due to rain. So we went to Magnolia Cafe for breakfast instead. The end.

Here's the long version. We woke up at 4:15 am in the middle of a downpour to get ready to head downtown for the race. I checked the CapTexTri website for weather updates. There was a cryptic message that said 'Stay dry. We'll have more updates soon'. We didn't really know how to decipher that, so down to Auditorum Shores we went. Bodymarking was scheduled to begin at 5:00 am and the transition area was to open from 5:30-6:30. We left the house later than planned, but made it down to the body marking tent shortly before 6 am. The people doing the body marking told us the race was delayed and transition was currently scheduled to open at 7:00 am. We managed to find room in one of the tents where we waited. The water was up to our ankles. The atmosphere was pretty grim. At 6:10 am, the first text message from the event coordinators came in. The swim was cancelled!! Event cancellation will be decided at 7:30 am. Woohoo! No Swim! Given the noticeable change in atomosphere, I wasn't the only one! Shortly after the text message came in, someone w/ the event came by and to make the announcement and to add that transition would be opening in about 10 minutes. If anyone wanted to drop, they could get their bikes and drop off their chips at that time. Surprisingly, far fewer people dropped than I had expected.

After a while we went off to the portapotties. No lines! Another woohoo! But you did have to make your way through shoe sucking mud. But nothing that hashing hasn't prepared me for. At 6:45 the official event cancellation message came in. We got our bikes and headed back to the car. Everything was completely soaked. The husky liners I bought for my car came in handy once again! (Thanks to Tuck-It for suggesting them!) We loaded up the bikes and wet gear w/o messing up the car.

Then on to Magnolia Cafe for a hearty breakfast and home for a nap. Massage scheduled at 2.

800 Meter Swim

Thursday morning we did an 800 meter timed swim. My time was 18:48. We did this a few months ago and I'm about 1:10 faster. Woohoo! I think this swimming thing is finally coming together. After we were finished, I felt like I could have kept swimming.

This weekend, BC and I bought mountain bikes. Haven't been on them other than a spin around the neighborhood, but I'm sure we'll be on them this weekend. I'm pretty much a newbie to mountain biking, so I'm sure I'll be crapping my pants the entire time. I have a very healthy sense of self-preservation.

Babies, Bike Crashes, Book Club, and Boyfriends

Friday afternoon I receive a phone call from Great Dane Pain. Cumonawanalaya is in labor and we are having happy hour at Antonio's. Wowsers! I was at a stopping point anyway, so off I go. Just Bridgett, @ss Gagger, Great Dain Pain, Back Door Bitch, Just Alex and Just Zia were already there. Shortly after, we were joined by Sphincter Blinker. I only had one Negro Modelo (yummy!). The rule was whoever had more than one drink couldn't hold the baby. We headed over to the hospital and met up with Blassst Zone's father, Cumonawanalaya parents, Free Meat, Michelle, and Just Amanda. At 8 pm we were allowed in to visit w/ the Keevers and meet Kaylee. What a special evening! They are going to make incredible parents and I'm excited for them!

After running some errands on Saturday, I had a short amount of time before I had to get ready for my 'book club' meeting. It was a beautiful day and I haven't been on my bike yet this year, so I suggested we go out for a short ride around the neighborhood. The ride went well until the end. BC wanted to end w/ a short sprint. We were at an intersection and he gave me directions using street names, except he mixed up the names. The result is I went straight and he turned directly in front of me. I tried to turn and miss him, but ended up hitting his rear tire. I fell over and now have a couple of nasty bruises to show for it.

After showering, I headed off to the first meeting of the Non-Book Book Club. Cumonawanalaya was supposed to be there, but do to the early arrival of Kaylee, couldn't make it. We decided to stop off there on the way and visit. We hung out for about an hour. Blassst Zone, Cumonawanalaya and Kaylee were doing good, but in desparate need of sleep. Nurses kept coming in and poking and prodding and made it difficult to get any sleep. Once we were done w/ the visit, we headed out to Michelle's house for the meeting. For the next six hours we drank wine, talked, and read excerpts from 'Why Do Men Have Nipples'. It was nice just to hang out with just the girls. I realize how lucky I am to have such vibrant, funny, intelligent, beautiful, and caring friends.

Let's see. Boyfriends. BC went out of town yesterday morning. In that time, his daughter Y got a new boyfriend and they have their first fight. I've gotten to hear ALL about him and the fight. Every miniscule detail. Oh joy! If only this Stepmother gig paid per word listened...

See it! See it! And other ramblings...

This past weekend was spent at a dog agility trial out in Hutto. At one point, I was waiting in the aisle w/ Maverick waiting for our turn to run. There is an older gentleman about 10-15 feet from me with his JRT. He is bending over and telling his dog 'See it. See it'. I start looking around trying to figure out what he is telling his dog to look at. Then he pushes down on the dog's bottom and the dog sits. I started laughing. Sit has ONE syllable, not two!

We had a good weekend at the trial. Maverick performed especially well and I'm very proud of his performance. We got a 1st & Q in PII Standard, 1st & Q in PII Pairs, 1st & Q and our title in P1 Gamblers. We got some second places, but didn't qualify, so I'm not really counting those. We have another weekend of agility down in San Marcos this weekend. It should be fun. I am sponsoring the High in Trial award for Bionic Dogs. A Bionic dog is defined as one having prosthetic parts, wires, screws, or plates surgically implanted/installed.

BC has starting selling off our extra stuff on craigslist. Within 10 minutes of posting my washer and dryer, we had a kid call and setup a time to come over to look at it. He came and took it away. We also posted some other stuff and managed to sell a futon, one of his dirt bikes, and his spare car in one day. Yesterday, he posted the spare tires. He has 12 tires 8 w/ rims, 4 w/o rims for his old truck that the movers packed up and moved down to Texas from Idaho. 4 of those tires are studded snow tires. We (ok, I) want to get rid of them all, so we posted them on craigslist in exchange for a case of Shiner. We have gotten some phone calls on them already, so they should be gone soon as well. My old TV is posted, but we started the asking price too high. We will eventually post my old dining room table/chairs, 6 ft. office/meeting table, his lawn mower, a TV stand, leaf blower, another dirt bike, brand new helmet/gloves for dirt bike, a couple of routers, and who knows what else. We will also have a garage sale sometime in the next month or so to try to get rid of some of the excess stuff. If you are interested in any of the above, let me know. We are probably still 4 months away from one of us parking in the garage again. We'll get there someday!

Stupid Doctor

I went to the doctor on Friday afternoon w/ symptoms of a sinus infection. I told the doctor I was running the 1/2 marathon on Sunday, so try not to give me anything that could interfere with that. So what does he give me? The strongest dosage of Levquin to take once/day for 5 days. When I picked it up from the pharmacy, the pharmacist emphasized that I needed to take this with LOTS of water. Ok. Not a good sign. I get home and we start reading the drug info that was included. Other side effects? Dizziness and in rare cases tendonitis and tendon rupture. We decide the best thing to do is to take it Friday night, not take it on Saturday to avoid dehydration, and take it Sunday after the race. And drink LOTS of water. I drank 5 quarts of water on Saturday.

Now I'm experiencing another side effect: Insomnia. With the exception of Sunday night after the race, I have not been able to fall asleep, even with the assitance of a sleeping pill. Tomorrow/today is the last dose, so hopefully I'll sleep well Thursday night.

Agility!

Mav and I went to an agility trial in McGregor, TX (near Waco) on Saturday. The highlight of the drive was the 'Condi '08' billboard that someone put up to encourage Condalezza Rice to run for president. Why this billboard was there didn't make sense to me until a few miles down the road when I saw the turnoff for Crawford. Go Condi!

Mav performed well on Saturday, considering how little we have practiced. We brought home a couple of Q's and a handful of 2nd places. The funniest part of the day happened when Mav decided to no longer run the course and scratch and smell the ground. He picks something up in his mouth and spits it out. I think to myself that whatever it is, it probably shouldn't be in the ring so I picked it up and carried it out. When we are making our way back to where we are seated, I look at it. It is an unidentifable by sight, so I smell it. It was a flattened piece of poop. Thanks Mav! I needed an excuse to wash my hands three times.

This weekend, we are going to an agility trial in San Marcos, one exit past the outlet malls. The next two trials after that are the first and second weekend of March. I'm a member of two agility clubs in Austin and the two trials in March are being hosted by each of the clubs. Those two weekends will be hectic. It's hard to run your dog and be part of the committee putting on the show.

Other future plans. AT&T half marathon, TXIH (I filled it out today!), and Guadalajara for a wedding the third weekend in March. And I should try to squeeze a hash in there somewhere.

I need to run tomorrow. I haven't run since the twelve miles last weekend. I better go get my clothes ready or I won't do it.

Sunday is a Running Day!

BC entered the 3M 1/2 Marathon and his daughter and I were his cheering section. We woke up way too early and drove up there. It was pretty cold (for Texas, anyway) so we sat in the car to keep warm until 10 minutes before the start. We made our way to the start line where we found Sphincter Blinker and his wife Just Bridgett. Bridgett and I had made prior arrangements to meet up and find a place to wait for the boys. The race started and off we went to find a place to park on Burnet Rd. to wait for them run by.

We parked a block or two north of the Dallas Night Club parking lot. While BC's daughter Y and Bridgett go into a convenience store for coffee, I'm waiting in the car waiting. Finally, the first athlete approaches. It's one of the wheel chair athletes. I got out of the car and cheered. About 2 minutes later, the next wheel chair athlete goes by. The first runners were actually a pack of about 7-8 guys a few minutes later. We continued to shout words of encouragement and cheer until after BC and Sphincter go by. Y and I get back into the car with the intention of heading down Burnet Road to see if we could see BC again. That plan was good for about 2 blocks. On the side of the road a see a sign that says 'blah blah blah BIOTCH blah blah blah ON-ON!' I roll down my window and shout On-On to Ass Gagger, the holder of the sign. I pull into the parking lot, get out of the car and find out that she was waiting for a friend of hers to go by so we waited with her for about 10 minutes. Turns out she had two signs. The other one said '13.1 isn't easy like your boyfriend was last night'. Nice. Y (who is 15) holds the age inappropriate one until the Gagger's friend Tiff goes by. The female athletes seemed to appreciate the humor, while the men were looking at us like 'is that who I was with last night??'

Back into the car and down to Waterloo Park we go! We arrived at the finish line just in time to see BC come in. We wait around for Sphincter and Bridgett to join us and then we all decide to go home. We stopped at Galaxy Cafe to eat breakfast. Yummy! As we were finishing up, High Beams and Keeper come in for breakfast. (We seem to run into them at Galaxy quite a bit.)

Home for a nap! I doze on and off for a bit and finally get up to get ready to run. I've put off my long run until Sunday afternoon. I get ready and head out. The plan was to do 10. We have two distinct loops that we run in the neighborhood. One is a four miles, the other two. I planned on running the 4 mile loop twice, pick up Maverick and run the 2 mile loop. What I ended up doing was the 4 mile loop twice, picked up Mav and BC's daughter Y and told BC to meet me 1/2 way into the 4 mile loop to pick up Mav and Y. He actually met us a little over two, picked up the kids, and I continued on. I ended up running 12. That is the longest distance I have ever run! And I ran the final loop very strong. I felt like I could have kept going.

So, why the insanity? I signed BC up for the Austin Marathon and myself for the half. What was I thinking?? We haven't been training as well as we should have. I've pretty much have been doing a long run on the weekends if the weather is decent, (I'm a fair weather runner) with an occasional run on the treadmill during the week. Surprisingly, I haven't injured myself and I'm shocked at how far I can actually run, especially with the lack of training. I believe the only reason I have been able to do this is that I joined a swim program and have been swimming 1 hr 2x week since September. Swimming kicks my ass!

Once the Austin Marathon/Half Marathon is done, I'll work on speed. I'm REALLY slow, but based on today, I think I will achieve my goal of running the 1/2 in 2 1/2 hours. Woohoo!