Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Evidently I needed extra sleep. I didn’t set an alarm for this morning, figuring I’d get up somewhere near my normal time. I think I did, but went right back to bed until around 8:30. Sinful. But it felt good. As a result I didn’t get out on the bike until around 10, so finished up the planned ride around 12:40ish, not quite 40 miles. The ride itself went well. No close calls with small children this time (went out about a month ago with a friend who ended up running over a small child who turned suddenly into his path with no space to dodge her; thankfully aside from a little cut on him, neither were seriously hurt). Only had to yell at one person (“Watch out!”) on the zoo property as he came at me head on while looking at birds off the trail rather than where he was going, and otherwise folks were behaving as I expected them to.

I find that I dislike riding the capitol crescent trail once you cross into Maryland. I’m sure the DC side would be just as bad were it as densely populated, but there’s a definite uptick in strollers, idiots wearing head phones and other obstacles. Heart rate goes up in such situations (stress much?), but so be it.

Debating a planned swim, I think I might be better off doing that tomorrow evening. The rest of the evening is set aside for le crush and a cheesy movie & dinner. Until then, it’s time to make coffee. And gather fruit.

Small gay world. Just discovered multiple connections between friends old and new this evening while out at dinner with a friend. Mentioned his new roommate and it went all over from there. As I’ve said before, DC is a big city, but a small town.

Behaving tonight, despite multiple invites to go out. Did pop out to the aforementioned dinner because the friend wanted to look at bikes over on the Hill, but then biked back home to relax here and lay out stuff for the morning.

Work dumped us out about 2 hours early, after the usual rush of “OMG, this has to get done NOW, NOW, NOW!!!!!!!” stuff that always happens on the Friday before a holiday. Shocked folks by wearing jeans today (for maybe the 1/2 dozenth time in the 3+ years I’ve been there?). But got through the majority of the issues and I hope got folks settled and ready for their weekend. Even if I didn’t, da bosslady said to git, so I left.

Almost ready for the race next weekend. Have to email my parents with some last minute stuff to prep my niece, arrange for the rental car, and then I’m good to go. Should be fun.

So, I’ve finally started training for this triathlon season. Sort of.

Ran this morning, since I didn’t get in a single run this weekend. Didn’t sleep well Thursday or Friday nights, so was too wiped. Friday it was the asshole downstairs neighbors and their incense again. I left a very ugly email for management about not getting that fixed yet. They of course did not come into the apartment today to do anything to the remaining hole in the wall that’s letting this crap in. Someone’s getting an ugly phone call tomorrow.

Anyway, ran this morning, swam this evening. Pool was mega-crowded. One of the few times I’ve had to circle swim at the Y, which always throws off the pacing of a workout for me. The other two folks in the lane were a tad slower than I was, but not too far off. Gave me some time to rest before heading back out. Was an okay swim.

Plan is to get up and bike with the club in the morning, provided it’s not raining.

Should definitely sleep well tonight.

Still have to write up the race report from the previous weekend. Oh, and I signed up for a 10k in two weeks. Because I’m insane. And didn’t have a race in May yet. Though I have a friend looking for a 5k in the area because he’s never done a running race and I said I’d do one with him.

What else? Work was nuts today. We had field counsel in from all over the country and I got to meet some of them in person finally. Otherwise I was buried in my office writing up stuff to go the uber-boss to tell him why we don’t think we have a legal problem with someone another BGA claims is a legal problem. Whee. That and trying to pry more information out of yet another BGA. At least they’re paying me well now.

Mixed messages and missed texts ended up scuttling Saturday plans, so was relatively good and quiet Saturday evening. Biked with my newbies Sunday. Made plans for dinner with a friend on Thursday. The same missed connection from Saturday seems to be missing making plans for this week as well. Oh well, his loss. Plans made for this upcoming Saturday to go to, of all things, an amusement park. Only riding the rollercoasters if they’re not too big. As Bug can attest to, I’m not a big fan. Should be a trip.

My sunglasses broke this morning; ear piece came off. Thankfully I have an eyedoctor appointment on Monday (along with the dentist – double whammy), so I’ll be able to either fix these or order a new set. Also have to get new regular lenses, I’m sure. The ones I have now must not have gotten the scratch-proof coating, they’re all scratched to heck and it’s beyond annoying when around any sort of brightish light. Look forward to being able to read the TiVo screen from my reading chair again. How much we want to bet I’m down another quarter of a diopter again this year?

Otherwise, kicking up the training for my first sprint race the first weekend of June, and settling back into a routine. While includes crashing at not quite 10 pm. Oy.

Oh, and on the removal of The Awakening from Hains Point? Let ’em have it. Maybe fewer tour busses will travel down there now while we’re trying to bike and run.

(This was typed on my Treo earlier this evening – just getting home to post it)

Spring is here, even if it’s not.

The temperatures outside have been hovering in the 30s to 50s for the past week. Snow was seen the Saturday before Easter. Flowers are having problems staying up and in bloom. However, despite all this, I know it’s Spring. Because my default fall-back waiting-for-someone-after-I’ve-just-gotten-my-hair-cut 17th Street bar, 30 Degrees, is busy on a Wednesday at 7:30.

The gays are out in force, they’re chatting away, looking stylish in either work drag (suit) or gay boy drag (jeans, sporty shirt), and drinking like the fish we are. If there were a clearer sign that warmer weather is on its way and that bad swimsuits and tank tops are just around the corner, I’m not sure what it would be.

The array of obsure yet terribly fashionable jeans alone is staggering. Patterns on pockets and pants legs which are hardly ever on display outside of you-have-to-be-introduced-by-someone-in-the-know dark shops are peeking out from under belts which betray the designer hopes of their wearers only in the subtle (or not so subtle) buckles. Boys are comparing power phone Blackberry and/or Treo cases and the latest models, and discussuons of who’s going where for which holidays and the summer months when DC decamps to Delaware in such numbers that Rehoboth and Dewey might as well be referred to as Washington in exile echo off the walls. The social pecking order is being established, and men are found desirable or lacking in the flash of a device or the dropping of a name.

Fancy drinks flow freely, like sap rising in the cherry trees around the Mall, and the definitive sign of Spring has come: the gay boys are out to mate.

Shopping, shopping and more shopping.

D’s in town from Brisbane and the first thing he wanted to do was shop. The US dollar is very weak currently compared to the Australian dollar, so everything is relatively inexpensive when compared to home for him. I believe my favorite quote was, “It’s like going to Bangladesh!” Thanks for the monetary and tax policies, Mr. President.

Did get in some proper touristy stuff on Sunday with a visit to the Corcoran Gallery’s Modernism exhibit. If you get a chance to go, I highly recommend it, it was well done. We dragged Tod and Doug out with us and then zipped to a late lunch after. But cold, so very cold this weekend. Easter is not supposed to be colder than Christmas in this hemisphere. Not to mention the brief snow Saturday morning. Brr!

Last day at work this week for me today. More touristy stuff and shopping with D the next two days, then I’m off for my half marathon on Saturday down near my parents. I offered to do a 5k with a friend who’s not done one before when I get back, so looks like I’m adding to my race schedule, though a 5k isn’t going to kill me. And it would be good to have a benchmark prior to my next Sprint triathlon the first weekend in June.

1:45:39 chip time (heart rate monitor time). About 1:57 on the course time. AHR: 174; MHR: 185 (yeah, I burn high). 49-50 degrees out, light to no breeze, overcast.

Cool conditions. Ran into a few tri clubbers, both before the race, during, and after. We really need more cooler weather gear to wear, but that’s another story.

Forgot to lap time the miles as we went past them until mile 5 (0:52:06), and then there was no mile 7 marker. Sometime past mile 5 I felt like I had a rock in my shoe, so stopped twice (at about miles 6 and 7) to see what was up with it. Couldn’t find a thing. I suspect that somehow, no matter that the shoes have never done this, they were pinching the outside of my foot. Have a nascent blister developing, but no biggie.

Was running with two clubbers up until mile 5 when I hit that max heart rate and decided to pop back into the average range. I used to be able to run at 181/182 and that was about my threshold, but I think I’ve dropped back a bit to 179ish. Considering I’ve done no threshold training as yet this year, that’s not too surprising.

Was very glad I dumped the jacket at bag check as I heated up pretty well once we got running, and even more happy that I’d brought it afterward. The wind picked up a little while we were out, and being soaked in a cool breeze at 50 degrees out is pretty chilly.

Maintained a pretty steady 10:30 pace, which was great. I was expecting to come in closer to 2 hours for my finish for it based on my training runs, so I’m quite pleased with the chip time.

The cherry blossoms are at peak today, and they were absolutely gorgeous. Little fluffy white clouds of flowers attached to the trees. A good part of the early and late race are around the Potomac and the Tidal Basin, so we saw some great ones.

Happy to have finally run this race, which was shaping up as my nemesis after sports injuries kept me out the past two years. Was tons of fun, and great prep for the half marathon in two weeks!

Brr! It got cold again for this morning’s ride. Claimed it had dropped to 43 when I got home. Yuck. But, the cherry blossoms are just coming out, and are gorgeous. Also, saw a fox on the Potomac side of the Point. Big sucker, too. Very red, huge tail. Bet he loves the golfers.

Finally ordered myself a digital camera that arrived today. I’ve had a hand-me down one for a few years, but it’s been dropping pixels, so it was time to upgrade. Got one that’s relatively hardy, water and shock proof so I can drag it out biking. Still learning how to get it to work, of course, but so far so good. Need more memory for it so I can take more than 10 pics at the high resolution, but I have time for that. Looking forward to snapping photos.

Work’s starting to pick up some more of late, but so far I’m staying afloat. Several small things have popped up and I’m hoping those will get resolved in short order so I can get back to some larger projects, but one never knows at the BGA.

I’ve become one of those people. One of those sick, twisted, depraved individuals we all loathe so much. You know who I’m talking about: morning people.

I’ve been aware that I’ve been leaning that way. The signs were all there, going to bed early, feeling tired by 9, 9:30 in the evening, but I’d been trying to deny it. The revelation hit me full on this morning, though, when I was watching the sun rise over SW DC while running at Hains Point. I was remarking to myself how lovely the few brave cherry blossoms which have bloomed were in that morning sun and how sad it was that most people wouldn’t see something like this when it all came crashing down on my brain that I’d become one of them. One of us.

And you know what’s worse? I like it.

The other revelation this morning was that because I don’t run or bike with headphones on, if I’m out by myself I tend to write entries in my head but then never end up posting them. Either I get too busy when I get back inside or they end up disappearing from ye olde braine by the time I sit down to a computer. That’s a shame, some of them are quite fun.

I alternate between really bored and really excited about projects at work. There are two long-term things on the desk that I absolutely dread working on because they’re just terribly dull, complicated, and seemingly never-ending. Then there are some more fun projects that I keep trying to get to, that are equally important as the other two dull ones, but which never seem to be able to come to the top of the stack, despite ongoing talks with various folks about the status thereof. I need to just knuckle down and kill off the dreaded tasks, but they always manage to sap my will to live.

And they wonder why I don’t want to be a manager.

Did finally manage to motivate myself to hit the grocery store and pick up a few foodstuffs on the way home. Had meant to yesterday, but came directly home, had something simple from the cupboard, and crashed semi-early after doing a couple of things around the house. Slept really, really well, and really, really late (for me), but needed the catch-up from the weekend and the return to work.

Haven’t touched the uberlist yet for this upcoming year. I’ve thought about it some, but not put thought to file just yet. Soon. Oh, and I’m debating a change in my normal new year’s day routine. Normally I go on a run, commemorating my return to running from 2000 after having mono. Just me, no electronic devices, no watch, nada. Just a run. But this year my club is having a ride that morning at 10, and I think I want to go do that. I joined the club so I’d have folks to train with, and part of moving down to Southwest was to get over to Hains Point and practice with them, but I’ve not really taken advantage of the proximity like I had intended to, so I’m thinking it’s time to get out and practice with them. Still could run, but I suspect a slightly more social beginning to the year should be in order.

I can’t tell if it was a sign of how long it had been since I had last been out doing serious wine shopping or if I’m just a wino, but with J’s help I just picked up three cases of wine from Pearson’s (one mixed, two complete). Probably a little of both. But now I’m set for months. Or at least I hope it’ll last months.

I found it quite nice to be able to shop for spirits on a Sunday. Normally shops that sell both wine/beer and harder liquor have to close on Sunday in DC because of our antiquated Blue Laws. The place was hoppin’, about as busy as I normally see it when I’ve gone in the evening during the week or on a regular Saturday. The clerk allowed as how they’d been that busy all day. Anyway, because Xmas day and New Year’s Day are on Mondays, DC’s liquor laws allow liquor shops to stay open the Sunday before. There’s no real reason they can’t be open 7 days a week normally (aside from outdated hopes for moral suasion), but one lives with the law one has, not the law one wishes one had. Nonetheless, it felt like a bit of a stick in the eye to those ridiculous laws to buy alcohol until my heart was content.