Balance act

During my run this morning at inspiration point (8 miler) the weirdest thing occurred. my right hand was swollen, dry and tight and pretty much remained that way the entire run. the left hand was slightly edematous but not tight or dry. strange. it's "that time of the month" and i probably am slightly dehydrated. weird.
i felt great the first 6 miles, even picked up on the hills..breathing got a little out of control at this point, so i slowed it back down the last 2 miles.

i finished in exactly 80 minutes.

i'm supposed to be finishing up that 2nd baby quilt, already had to pull out one row of sashing after not paying attention and messing up. i gotta get this thing done! it's purely a matter of time management at this point, the weather is so nice today, only adding to my lack of motivation w/this quilt!!

i start swimming 101 on tues and thurs nights this week. tri grp. on wed and sat, plus my "homework"

thinking about my new years post and my desire to achieve balance, this current direction i'm taking feels right.

have a great week ya'all!!

Bring It On!

I've decided to go for it. After the meeting on wednesday, I still felt excited and it didn't hurt that among the group folks from last years event were present and said what a cool positive experience it was.

So, the journey began this morning with a 9 am group ride over at the bayside trail near the Seabreeze Market. I chose to ride with the beginner group and the leader went over the basics. Nothing too strenuous just a flat 5 miler with emphasis on getting to know the gears. I have a mountain bike and will need to switch out my knobby tires. No need to buy a road bike for this event, though I may consider switching from toe clips to real biking shoes that attach to the pedal.

I'm just gonna take it one week at a time.

Tri-for-fun

Considering my need for variety it makes perfect sense that a triatholon would appeal to me.
Why should I let the fact that I can't swim deter me?
Okay, I can float on my back, dog paddle, and put my face in the water.
When I try to swim on top of the water it resembles something more like a shark attack, with arms flailing....it's not pretty.

I ran over to the Y this morning and went to yoga. Feeling especially good afterwards, on my way out I noticed a flyer for YTRI 2006.
It appears to be beginner friendly, 1/2 mile swim (gulp), 12 mile bike (I have an awesome mountain bike) and a 3.1 mile run (piece-o-cake).

I carefully folded the flyer and put in my pocket and mulled it over on the run back home.

Tonight is the first meeting and I've got till 6:30 pm to make a decision.

I'm just giddy thinking about the possibility.....me.....a triathalete........no way!!!.............why not!!!!......uhhh, don't go there.........maybe.

The swimming has me most concerned. I think I could learn though.

The program includes:
training schedules
informational talks
open water practice (gulp, gulp)
track workouts
personalized coaching
group cycle rides
swim/stroke technique clinics
a practice triatholon

Maybe I'll go, just to check it out, get the scoop ya know, what can it hurt, right?

Meter Maids Suck!!!!

I haven't done too much since the race on saturday. A 75 minute beginners yoga class on sunday and todays BART trail run....it went a little faster than usual, I was a little tired on the turn around but the energy picked back up and I was grinning all the way home.

Lack of extra funds at the moment are preventing me from signing up for anything, not to mention the 250.00 ticket I got for "unintentionally" dropping M off in the red zone at school. I was attempting to turn right on MLK a very busy street in front of her school, the evil meter maid was parked in the red w/lights flashing and the road was too busy to go around her after a few minutes and a hand gesture (not that one!), more like " are you going to move?" I was trapped between the meter maid and the traffic and LATE. At that point M jumped out of the car and not long after that the meter bitch bobbing her head drug her ass out of the "ticket cart" and proceeded to give me a citation.......not really though, she never even spoke to me, just took my info...I got the ticket last week......mind you the incident occured over a month ago and it needed to get paid today or else it goes up to 280.00!!!
In retrospect, I shouldn't of let M get out of the car, I didn't tell her to get out of the car, but I didn't stop her either as it was getting later.
Clearly a case of poor choices under pressure, I gotta work on that!

Still, I pray there is a special place in Purgatory for evil meter maids!

Not too shabby!

Crossing the san rafael bridge, team taylor arrived at china camp at 8:30 am.
undaunted by the cold and overcast i hustled over to get my bib #4562.
i kept to myself jogging the perimeter of the picnic area and stretching, a nice gal approached me and we chatted abit she was running the 20k and her friend was running his 1st 10k.

the 20k's went first, the 10k's followed 10 mins later. i forgot to start my stopwatch on time so my data was off by quite a bit..too bad too, a 49 minute finish woulda been cool.

dare i say the course was easier than i expected. my training runs were alot harder than the actual race. the hills were mere bumps compared to Strawberry. the trails were in pretty decent shape considering all the rain, there were some mushy parts and one gal slipped and fell pretty early on.
i managed to stay upright the whole time.

i played it cool the first half and pushed harder on the turn around. things were going great until my shoelace came undone. i ignored it for awhile. a girl i had past shortly before commented on it and i said "yeah i know" but kept running. i wasn't stepping on it or tripping myself up, but still i stopped to retie it and that girl past me. once i stopped i lost my momentum and i never caught back up with her. she and i chatted afterwards, she had according to her time piece a 30 second lead! ( what? who me? i'm not competitive!)
man i wish i hadn't stopped.
i came so close to pulling this race off in an hour. next time for sure!
i placed 50th.

the folks at envirosports put on a fine race. gorgeous terrain, good snacks and good people.
The t-shirt rocked too!
what else do ya need?
...uuh, besides tighter shoelaces!


official time 1 hour 57 seconds woohoo!

mother nature gettin her freak on!

i just wanted to record a few details

THE NIGHT BEFORE MY FIRST 1OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a thunderstorm has just passed over berkeley headed towards hayward.

there's snow at 500' throughout the bayarea.

i think it's safe to say that i'll be getting wet tomorrow.

pre-race meal: spaghetti and gatorade (yum, i'm full=)

outfit: black tights, blue long sleeve asics shirt, white cap

hydration: camelbak w/lemonade gatorade

footwear: Montrails and smartwool sox

the weather has been bright and sunny in the morning and then overcast and rain in the evenings for the past week.

i didn't receive my race packet in the mail, despite having pre-registered 2 mos ago. i'll need to check-in early.

i'm nervous but not for the reasons i thought i'd be.

i feel really good, no hip pain or tightness.

i feel totally ready for this distance.

i just didn't factor in this crazy ass weather.

it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

My 40 minute run on the BART trail turned into an hour thanks to the nice sunny weather. I covered 6 miles and then made a very brief visit to the local gym to stretch and do a little leg work. The weather is suppose to be good on saturday, (light showers the night before though). Trail races go slower, and as this is my first 10K I'm just damn happy to feel fit and prepared for it. Come what may! The 20k route was demolished by recent storms and they had to shorten the course to 10.5 miles.
Now I'm off to help M deliver Girl Scout Cookies.