Of wedding registries and short rides...

Tuesday PM 30 minute spin
I can't decide how much I want to write. I got on to ride for a while, but my hip flexor is bothering me a little bit, and I don't want to irritate it any more than I need to. It is rather early in the training, you know.

I did get an e-mail back from my soon-to-be-coach-again coach, and he's going to be able to work with me in March. I just pray that we'll have the house sold by then. Anyway, his advice was to put as much run time on my legs as I can...that will help me on the bike. I know he's right. I've experienced it before. But I have to get going on that...it's so much easier for me to get on the bike at 4:00 a.m. than to hit the road.

To register or not to register
Ya kn0w, some people have this wedding thing planned for their entire lives. Those people are usually women. I'm not one of those women. While I kind of always thought I'd get married, I never went so far as to figure out what the wedding would be like. I always thought the marriage part would be more important, I guess. Or maybe I didn't think about it at all.

Anyway, we had to register for gifts...or at least I've been told we had to register for gifts. And I've looked at all kinds of gift registry places. Finally, we settled on Macy's. We did some stuff online, but then we went to the store. What a disaster. They recommend that you register for three different kinds of dinnerware--fine china, some sort of other china, and then everyday dinnerware. Then there's a list of all the barware. The list goes on. It's absurd. We wandered around with this little gun thingy and shot it at various things that we didn't really want until we finally got frustrated and left. We had one blanket and a bunch of fiestaware on the list. I abhored the whole process.

This week, my mom called, and friends of the family would like to give me a bridal shower. I'm terrified but honored. I'm terrified because being the center of attention isn't really my thing. I'm honored because it's just cool that someone would want to do that for me. But it means that registering for gifts is a courtesy to extend to people, it seems. They want to give you what you want, so you have to tell them what you'd like. Anyway, I quit with the Macy's deal and started looking at stuff online at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and I'm happy with what I've found. Plus, it's really easy to register online. So there it is. Still, it's not as much fun as some people want you to think it is.

Things that go squeak on the run

Monday p.m. 5 mile run
Tuesday a.m. 30 minute spin

Treadmills suck.

I went to the Y yesterday to get my run in. The lungs, the lungs...so no outside running for me until they clear. My approach to running on the treadmill is to load myself up with as much outside stimuli as possible so that I can trick my brain into not getting bored, disconnecting itself from my skull, and leaving my body altogether to find a much more exciting host.

My Y has a room for the ladies only from 4:30-7:30 p.m., and they ask that women check in that room first for open treadmills before heading out among the general population. I'm new to the Y, and I don't want to step on any toes quite yet, so I'm still following the rules. So I went yesterday to the women's room of the Y, dropped my water bottle down in what appeared to be a water bottle space on the treadmill, cranked the MP3 player, and I was off.

About three minutes into the run, I realized several things. First, I had the television on in front of me, but I was listening to my MP3 player instead of the sound on the television...a girl can only have her earphones plugged into so many places, after all. It would be good if I could set the closed captioning on the television (see two paragraphs ago for reasoning), but I couldn't. My solution was to choose something I had seen before, so it wouldn't matter if I couldn't hear anything. Problem with that is that having seen the show before meant that I wasn't so excited to see it again (see two paragraphs above for why that's a problem).

Realization number two: I was making outrageous amounts of noise on the treadmill. I had noticed when I stepped on to the beast that it wasn't as sparkley as the treadmills in the general population room, but I thought I'd give it a whirl anyway. Well, I was squeaking. Or the treadmill was. Every single step of my 6.6 mph run was making an outrageously loud squeak. This must have been annoying to the other people in the room, but it was the machine, for crying out loud. However, see the bit about not stepping on toes.

Okay, there were other things. The water bottle holder was just a giant pocket in the machine, so every step was also causing my water bottle to rattle. Rattle, squeak, rattle, squeak, huff, puff. You get it.

We have a 30 minute limit on the cardio equipment. I've gotten dirty looks for staying on a bit long even when people weren't waiting. That's a whole other story, though...I'll get to my interpretation of that rule at some point. So I stuck it out for the 30 minutes in the womens' room. Sigh of relief. Then, I moved to finish my run in the general population, sparkly, Emerald City treadmill room. Never again am I going to be in that chick room first. If they want me to be in there, they should move the good stuff in there, as well. Harumph.

Holy cold, Batman...

It's 4:00 a.m., and it's only 13 degrees outside. The schools in the county that I l ive in are closed for the day. Unfortunately, I work for a school in a different county, so I'm headed in to work. I went out to the truck and started it up a couple of minutes ago, and I'm sipping some coffee as I write.

Our house doesn't have central heat or air unless you consider "central" the air and heat that come through the cracks in the windows and various spots around the house. K. had to get up at 3:30 this morning to get to work early today, and he put some wood on the fire, but I still ended up on my bike at 4:00 wearing a shirt. Indoors. It's that cold.

Every winter I lived in Indiana, I hit a day when I thought my hands would never be warm again. That's today in Kentucky. My hands are freezing, and I can't find any relief. My skin is dry and cracked. It's definitely winter.

Oh, and my ass was KILLING me on the bike this morning. I definitely rode two hours yesterday.

Selling a house and other Sunday fun

2 hour trainer torture
We got up early this morning, and I watched the CBS Sunday Morning show. I don't know at what point in my life I got into that program, but I absolutely love to watch Bill Geist do his commentary on the most random parts of Americana. Today, it was messy offices. A few weeks ago, the national barbecue championship. At Christmas, Santa School. But it's an every Sunday morning thing.

Followed that up with two hours on the trainer while watching "Spiderman". I've only seen the movie once, so I figured the action would be new enough to me that it would keep me going. It worked, but my lower back is sore as I'm writing this now. It's my longest ride in quite a while, but I'm glad to have gotten it in. Have I mentioned that I'm still coping with this cold?

House for Sale
We drove to Versailles, Kentucky today. It's about an hour and a half away, and it's the place where I currently own a house. There's a lot more to the story than I'm going to tell in this entry, but I've had this house for sale since August when I moved out of the house. It's a great house in a good location, but I don't have a realtor representing me because I can't afford the fees. So I'm doing a For Sale By Owner deal (the low-tech version...yard signs and newspaper advertisement). I get to show the house about once every three or four weeks--clearly not often enough. But I show it whenever someone shows interest.

The carrying costs are wearing on me. They eat up one of my two paychecks every month. And K. and I are about to get married. We could certainly be using that money elsewhere (paying for the wedding to take the burden off my parents, paying off my truck, saving money for a downpayment on a house for us), and I hardly dare think how great it will be when I no longer own that house.

Even moreso, though, I want to close this chapter in my life--the Versailles, Kentucky chapter. I had a job there for 11 rather unhappy months that I am absolutely sure I will be writing about at some point, and I am absolutely grateful that I'm no longer there. Still, though, I'm stuck there in the form of this great house that I no longer live in. I'm working hard to move forward, to get back to myself, and to move on professionally and personally, but I feel like this house has me tied down. It will be a great weight to remove.

The people who looked at the house today seemed interested. I would love to sell them the house. They are applying for a loan. They are looking at lots of houses. They may or may not choose mine. I have shown the house to several people, and I have always spent at least the hour and a half ride back to my current house analyzing every bit of the conversation with the potential buyer the way some girls talk with their girlfriends about what a guy said on their first date. I think through in my head all the reasons why the person might buy the house. I come up with a (usually shorter) list of all the reasons why the person won't buy the house. By the time I get home, I have talked myself into being optimistically cautious. Then, I wait. So now I'm waiting.

Okay, wait. But I'm also putting this out to the universe--please collectively cross your fingers for me so that I can get on with this part of my life. (Honestly, I'd be so jazzed to surprise my parents by paying for the wedding that I can't even let myself think about it.) Honestly, the selling of this house would also somehow let me make right the decision to leave a life I really liked to move to this job I hated in Versailles, Kentucky. Having found another life (with K.) and a job (back at school), I'm almost there, but the house is a constant reminder that I can make bad decisions (this should be a whole other blog entry), and I think I've been reminded enough.

Sunday morning update

Friday
Nada
Saturday
55 minutes cardio (treadmill for 4.5 miles, elliptical for 1 mile)
2000 yard swim

I got up at 4:00 a.m. on Friday morning, and I walked out to my bike already mounted on the trainer. I filled up my water bottle. I plugged my trainer in. I got the towel out. I even turned the television on. I went back to bed. This cold has plagued me all week, and I wanted to take the morning off. I wasn't ready to do anything. This is harder for me to do than to do the workout because I know I have to live with that decision for the rest of the day.

Friday night, I still was not breathing well, so I sat on the couch and watched a couple of episodes of The Sopranos. Kept thinking about getting on the trainer, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Every breath ends in a wheeze right now, and it's just not enough air to make me feel like I ought to be doing anything, let alone Ironman training.

Then came Saturday morning, and I was ready to go...sort of. We headed to the Y, and I put in five and a half miles on various cardio equipment. I followed that up with a solid 2000 yard swim in the pool, and I was surprised at how great I felt. At the end of the cardio workout, my lungs were definitely getting on towards tired, so it was time to call it quits.

Sunday morning
We're up, and my lungs are still not clear. There's a wheeze at the end of every breath. And it's snowing outside. Cold + asthma = nastiness. So while I had hoped to get in a long run of 10+ miles today, I'm going to hit the bike in a bit and see how that goes. I'd like to have made this journal entry more than just this matter-of-fact reporting about my weekend progress, but that will have to come later in the day when I've had some time to reflect.

Leg cramps are funny

I have to laugh when I get one. Yesterday, I was hell-bent on getting in 3000 yards in the pool. I've had limited (read that: none) pool time in the last year, and I'm trying to jump start my system. So yesterday's plan was to go in and do 10 by 300 in the pool. I brought pennies with me to help keep track of the sets. I move one from the right side of the lane to the left every time I finish a set. K. thought some little kid might come along and steal my pennies, but it didn't happen yesterday.

So I'm cruising along at my comfortable 1:39/100 pace (yes, it's slow, but I'm still building), and I'm already feeling stronger in the pool when I feel a twinge in my left foot. It's just a twinge, but I know what it means. It's the start of something more. It starts in my toes. I can't wiggle them (or wriggle them if you are British).

It spreads to the arch of my foot. So I start to try to kick the cramp out. My toes stay cramped, but the arch of my foot is still just twinging, so I think I'm safe. I've got just 600 yards to go for my 3000 yard swim, and this thing is not going to get me.

I push off the wall and suddenly I can feel the twinge move from the arch of my foot to my Achilles and lower calf. MAN. Imagine someone cutting open the back of your leg, dropping a golf ball into the opening, closing it up again, then rolling the thing up and down your leg under the skin. That's the best way for me to describe the experience. But damn it, I was going to finish that 3000.

And I did. I smiled through the cramp. I glanced at the lifeguard a couple of times to size her up to decide whether or not she might actually be able to save me if needed (determined it wasn't likely). But I swam on.

At the end of the swim, I hopped gingerly out of the pool to find that my toes had never uncramped and my hip flexors were considering rebelling. My toes were practically crossed. I'm not kidding. How can that not make you laugh?

Lungs...again...

Today so far: 30 minute spin. Planned: 3000 yard swim at the pool.
Yesterday: 50 minute spin a.m., 3.2 mile run p.m.

I can't breathe right now. I couldn't breathe all day yesterday, either. It's just shortness of breath right now. Yesterday, the wheezing on my run was pretty tough on me. It doesn't feel good, and I'm not enjoying it. I've taken hits off my inhaler more in the last three days than I think I have all year. But I'm still being consistent in my training.

One thing that happens when you can't get a consistent deep breath of air is that you yawn all the time...well, I do. Ever examined a yawn? It starts with a shallow breath of air, but it usually finishes with a big, deep breath of air. I can't get a big, deep breath of air at the end of my yawns, so my body yawns again. And again. And again. At least it tries to. Problem there is that my jaw muscle is now tight and tired. This isn't so much fun.

Training
I'm working my hardest to be consistent. The thing is, I want to get back with my coach at the end of February, and I need to have a decent base for the torture he'll want to put me through, so I'm putting in two-a-days almost every day. My goal for this week is to put in more run miles, and I started with that yesterday until I ran out of daylight. The good thing, though, is that the days are definitely growing longer again, and I can run until about 5:00 comfortably. If we get home on time, that will give me a full hour to get a run in on any given day. Good, good, good.

I didn't want to get up at 4:00 this morning. I hadn't slept well. The breathing thing can wake me up. But I wanted to train, so I hit the snooze, and I was on the bike by 4:30 for a decent 30 minute spin.

Enough for now. This isn't a very inspired post, but I felt like getting something out there.

It's early

What's worse than getting up for a 4 a.m. workout? Getting up for a 4 a.m. workout and being too sore to do much of anything. I like the soreness but only if it still lets me do my training. I got on the bike for a bit, but my quads are aching still, so now I'm writing. It's going to be a long day. I have to chaperone a middle school basketball game tonight, so I'll be home late. So much for any other workouts today.

Living in headlines...

We took some time today to watch The Shipping News from Netflix, and I was laughing because Kevin Spacey's character develops this habit of thinking in headlines for the newspaper for which he is writing. I'm familiar with the habit because I did the same thing when I first started blogging. I've taken a break from it, but I'm back at it, and I found myself thinking in headlines already today. Bear with me.

Saturday training...it's all about the breathing.
6.3 mile run followed by 40 minute spin on the trainer
I've only ever run with music in two situations--when I'm on the dreadmill or when I'm running inside/on the track. However, lately I've found it really tough to get out to run. Frankly, I just haven't enjoyed it, and it's really hard for me to make myself do something I just don't enjoy. But yesterday, K. let me use his MP3 player, and I spent the morning compiling the perfect mix for a quick run. I DO NOT advocate running with headphones. I think it's dangerous when you can't hear the traffic around you (or the dogs). I also absolutely can't stand running a road race and having everyone around me tuning out. That's a whole other post. But yesterday I needed something. Quite frankly, we live in the middle of Amish country in the middle of Kentucky, and there's just not much traffic where I run. I also committed to not cranking the volume on the headphones. Took all my gadgets (Garmin 205 and MP3 player) and headed out the door to run the Amish Loop.

The Amish Loop is called that because it's a loop on which 4 of the 6.3 miles are populated mainly by the Amish. What this means for me is that I'm more likely to see a horse and buggy than I am a car. It also means that if I encounter a horse and buggy, I should stop while I'm running so as not to spook said horse. Yesterday, I encountered neither horses nor cars. The Amish Loop, incidentally, also includes some 15% grade + climbs. One is a half mile long, and it regularly slows me to a walk.

Yesterday, though, (I do have a point I'm getting to here), I headed out with my MP3 player, and I found myself wheezing from almost the start of the run. I've had a cold all week, and the cough is just not going away. Yesterday's wheezing brought me to a stop several times on the run--I was an idiot and didn't bring my inhaler with me. When I got to the top of the toughest climb, I had to kneel at the side of the road to get all the crap out of my lungs and onto the side of the road. But the lesson for yesterday? One I learned the last time I went through this training. If you're having a shitty run, keep right on running. It might get better, and if it doesn't, at least you are further along the road than you were. More than likely, though, it will get better.

Yesterday didn't get better, but I also told myself to remember that run because you've got to have a bunch of really bad runs to really appreciate the good ones.

Sunday's comedy of errors (and quads)
4 mile run followed by 15 minute spin
The plan was to get up early this morning and head to the Y to get in a good swim. 3000 yards, I said! I am trying hard to get back into the rhythm of swimming now that we have a Y available to us. Unfortunately, the Y is a 45 minute drive from home. We picked it out because it's...well, it's complicated, but it's close to where K. works, and we go there after work, but on the weekends, it's a bit of a commute if we are headed there. This morning, we were.

We got there and the Y was closed. Ugh. They don't open until 1:00 on Sunday. At that point, it was 9:30ish, and it was too long for us to wait around to go to the Y, and we certainly weren't going to head home and then back again. I feel like I spend too much time in my truck, as is. Sooo, we went to the grocery to pick up some supplies for the week, and we headed back home...no workout done. Lesson 2 (I just make up the numbers, there really isn't a list of these anywhere) is consistency in Ironman training, and I've been working my rear off to get back to being consistent. So I needed to get something in today. Despite my aching quads, I headed out for a four mile run. Sometimes, it's good to run sore.

Nothing really remarkable. I've been a wimp about running while sore--using it as an excuse to take the day off. More on all that later. It's been a wild year for me in a lot of ways. But today I hit the road, and I ran a (relatively) flat four miler on sore quads. Came home and spun for another fifteen minutes while watching the Bears beat the Saints. I'm still sore. I like it.

In media res...

I'd like to say that this is a beginning, but it's really in the middle of things... so many things that I'm not even sure where to begin--well, in the middle, I guess.

Ironman Wisconsin 2007
I'm headed back to the dance, and my window on the world has changed quite a bit since the last time I gave this a whirl. But the reason IM Moo is first on the list is that I'm envisioning that most of my writing will be about my Ironman journey or will come from my training. I completed IM Moo in 2004, and I'm headed back again this September. There's so much to say about it, that I can't even imagine starting here in my first post. But the last time I went to IM, I wrote a blog, and I found myself composing my entries in my mind while I was out on the bike or in the pool or taking a run. As I've kicked my training back into middle gear again, I've found myself having conversations in my head that I would have rather seen on paper...well, on the computer screen. So I'm back to blogging. My last trip was chronicled on www.trinewbies.com in the form of a journal, but this one will be a little different, I'm guessing. Different window.

Wedding 2007
June 16--Kevin and I will be getting married in my hometown in Michigan. I'm sure there will be plenty to say about that part of the wild ride, as well. We got engaged in December, the morning we took off for Memphis to run a marathon. Since then, the planning for the wedding has felt like it's sometimes taken a ton of energy and then sometimes no energy at all. Simple, simple. Our mantra is simple but elegant. We'll see how it goes.

Career 2007
I headed back to the classroom last fall to start teaching ESL once again after several years as a Challenge Course Manager. I teach in a public middle school in a large town in central Kentucky, and I'm loving my job again. I miss being on the ropes course, though. More on that in blogs to come.

What this blog is and isn't...
Not sure yet as I haven't really started it, although I think I've been writing it in my head all along. It's mostly a training journal and space for me to reflect on all that's going on in that realm of my world. It's also just a journal that, for some reason, I feel like I want to put out there for the world to see. I'll figure it out as I go. If you've read this far, welcome to my window on the world. Enjoy the view.