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

Been neglecting my two-a-day workouts for far too long, so in addition to the long run this morning I swam this evening, putting in a shorter overall session, but including a 1k yard set in there. That’s roughly half of what I have to swim for the race, and it didn’t kill me, so I’m feeling better than I was this weekend about my upcoming big race, then Diamondman HIM (half ironman).

Also, heaven help me, I was looking today for information on the Chespeakeman race, a local (Maryland’s eastern shore) ultra triathlon, aka an ironman distance race, but without the sponsorship of the official Ironman organization (which carefully controls the logo and naming rights). It appears to be much more low-key, and much easier to get into, than one of the branded races, so I may seriously consider that as my first IM race. The timing isn’t the best for me, given it’s at the end of September (one of the crunch times for me at work), but I think it may be doable. Not this year, but maybe next. I’ve been saying I wanted to tone down the amount of races I do next year and concentrate on only a couple, with the goal of an IM the following year, but it might work to do Chespeakeman next year at the end of the season, with an earlier HIM race. Decisions, decisions.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to do more than one, but I do want to finish an iron distance race at least once.

I don’t think it’s a portent for the day, but when I got into my office this morning and went to change out of bicycling clothes and into work drag, I managed to step right on top of a purple jelly bean. Good thing I keep extra napkins in the office.

Got in a long ride this weekend, but no long run, so went out and did 7ish miles this morning before work. Was well behaved and kept my heart rate down in a semi-decent zone, rather than my usual overdoing it. I suspect I’m going to have a couple things I want to focus on after mid-september’s races, including some fat loss, weight work, and practice staying down in heart rate zones one and two. Might go for broke and get myself one of the new garmin heart rate monitor/gps units, too. BC just got one, and I was pleasantly surprised at how multi-sport friendly it was, unlike my nice, but kludgey, polar unit – it’s good for single sport training, and will give you great info for each sport, but you can’t do multi-sport workouts or races and keep the data in one file, which is a major weakness in my opinion. Perhaps a birthday present for myself this year. Probably better for me in the long run than, say, a Wii, too.

Not that a Wii wouldn’t be fun, as seen Saturday night when we were out at a friend’s house and played Wii bowling. Good job, Nintendo, even if it is still easier to get crack in DC than it is to find a Wii on the shelves in the area. Cheaper, too.

Thank you to my f-list folks from MN who checked in to let us know you were okay.

I decided to take a first stab at getting through the backlog of books and magazines I have in the house by cancelling daily delivery of the Post. I only get to skim the paper as it is, and daily comics aren’t worth the hassle. They, of course, tried to do everything they could to keep me on, reminding me of the specialty sections, offering to lower the rate, &c. No dice, switch it back, thanks.

Now maybe I can work through the stack. Since it’s bad when you’re getting your mail and your first thought upon seeing a magazine is “oh look, another magazine I’m not taking the time to read.”

It seems to be the season for folks’ iPods to die, based on my blog/LJ reading. Not to miss out, my heaven-knows-how-old 3rd Generation iPod is currently giving me fits. The battery’s been shot for ages, but that’s not a big deal; I only use it on a platform speaker at work (where it’s charged as it plays) or in a car (where, again, it’s plugged in to charge). I use a 1st generation shuffle (the gum stick sized ones) if I want to listen to stuff while I’m out and about, since for the most part I don’t need to see a screen to listen on the Metro or while out walking, I’m not sitting on Metro that often to need to watch things, and I’d rather lose a hundred dollar piece of equipment than a multi-hundred dollar piece were I, heaven forefend, to get robbed.

So, true to the trend, the connection with the platform speakers at work seems to be cutting in and out, which is very annoying. I just want the current iPod to keep playing as it does now, without needing a real battery, and just as a big hard drive to keep my music. Grr.

Haven’t been sleeping well this week, I think it’s the usual August heat and our AC not quite keeping up. The joys of aluminum architecture. I suspect melatonin is getting ingested this evening as I’m really not ready for another sleepless night, and I really need to be able to train, which doesn’t happen (or doesn’t happen well) when I can’t sleep.

…

There are times I want to talk about work, and times when I’m glad I can’t. Let’s just say that it’s a scary world out there, boys and girls, and leave it at that. And I don’t even get to see the really scary stuff, yet, since my big ole clearance hasn’t come through yet.

Been busy otherwise. BC and I are seeing each other usually once during the week, and then a ton of time on the weekends. He might be buying a house waaaaay out in the ‘burbs, so I shall be investigating transportation options out that way. I know I can bike it, but that’s not so viable when it gets cold out. We’ll see. The joys of not owning a car, sometimes.

Oh, and speaking of such things, I got the payoff info for one of my sub-loans from the more expensive of the two variable rate student loans companies today, so a check is going out tomorrow to pay that puppy off. A minor victory, but a victory I’ll take. Every little step like that is a step closer to being debt-free, and will help accelerate the rate of repayment on these things, so huzzah for that.

Still letting this weekend’s talk settle in. Had lots of communications back and forth in various forms with BC, which has been good. He’s easy to talk with, and we’re both still in that pleasant stage of “wow” at the moment.

Work was pretty much all spent reading over the conference report for a major bill. 410 pages. I read it on the screen rather than printing it out, and I had one killer headache by the time I finished up around five. Tomorrow it’s explaining the various policy decisions that senior leadership have to make on a section of law we’re implementing, so it’s suit time. Yuck. I mean, I like how I look in suits, but I hate wearing ties with a passion. They always make me feel like I’m being strangled, even with a decently fitting collar.

Forty more days until the half iron, and I’m feeling a bit underprepared. I know I can do the distances in all three sports, it’s the combo that’s the key. Hopefully the club’s doing a brick this weekend so I can get in another of those workouts. I feel like I’ve been slacking too much, but that’s as it will be. Definitely going to focus on fewer races next year, but for now, I just want to get through the next two big races.

It’s dangerous being home with a new(ish) cookbook, a lot of time, and the desire to cook something. I think I went a little nuts about dinner for BC tomorrow. Tomato salad’s done and marinating overnight, and there’s a coffee granita in the freezer and chocolate espresso balls in the fridge. The entree is fairly simple to put together tomorrow night over pasta. Should be a good meal, though I am disappointed my oven’s not reliable enough to bake bread or I’d have done that, too.

So, why home? Because my newbies ran their goal race yesterday up in NJ, and I wanted the extra day for recovery from traveling. It was a fantastic time, everyone finished, and we continued the tradition from last year of one of ours being the last finisher on the course, with yours truly meeting them on the other side of the finish line with their medal.

Glad I took the extra recovery day, it was nice not to have to get up at o-dark-thirty this morning, as I had the previous two days, nice to get in a long run on a Monday, and nice to get out to the grocery store while it was still relatively quiet. Should’ve gone swimming, too, but one can’t do everything. Started the write up for the ride the previous weekend, but not done yet. Have to get that up this week, but not tonight. For now it’s off to bed so I can ride in the morning.

Photos from this weekend’s ride. I’ll get more details up later.

Headed out here shortly for the Food & Friends ride. I’ll be without ‘net or email, so will catch up with everyone later (will have the phone & text messaging). Have a great weekend, y’all.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have helped me raise $2,195 (so far) for Food & Friends. I’ve now managed to exceed my fundraising goal thanks to these generous contributors:

Thom
Jerry
Joe
Greg
Richard
Roger
Lea
Kevin
BC
John
Daniel
Doug
Jon
Frank
Mom & Dad
Dave B
Michael

Thank you very much!!!

Practice swim with my newbies this morning and two local coaches. Headed out to Sandy Point early to get in the swim before it got too hot. We swam, off and on, for about an hour, practicing swimming in the swells and going around the buoys set out to mark off the swimming area. It was very helpful to get out there, and I’m glad we do this.

This was the first time I’d hauled out the wet suit since last year. I was a bit worried
about getting into it, since it had been a little over a year since I’d used it. It fit just fine, no worries there. Whew. It was warm out – the wet suit wasn’t strictly necessary (borderline water temps for using it), but I wanted the practice in it. In the water it was fine, it was standing around listening to the coach that was warm.

Got the drink bracket installed on the bike this afternoon. That definitely makes it a lot easier to mount the water bottle on the bike (much, much easier than the rubber bands – well worth the $10). I’m hopeful this’ll encourage me to drink more water while out riding.

Mostly recovered from the work week as ‘acting supervisor.’ It was relatively quiet, and I’m glad nothing big was needed. I think it cemented quite firmly that I’m not quite ready to be a supervisor. I’m a specialist, I do my job relatively well, and I’m not ready to start herding other cats. At least, though, we know I can do it if needed when my team leader needs to go out of town.

Off to a party with BC this afternoon, then another long ride tomorrow to try out the water bottle before next week. I should run at some point, too, but I suspect that’ll be on hold until after the Food & Friends ride.

Stretching, a shower, lots of food, a lie-down (not really a nap), more food, and I’m starting to feel human again. Four hours and about 20 minutes after I started I got home from today’s bike ride out the W&OD trail, about 62 miles. Went out to mile marker 24, which is somewhere in Loudon county near Sterling. Stopped briefly, stretched some, then turned around to head back.

The ride out was great. The trails were well marked, and I had no problems switching from the Mt. Vernon Trail to the Custis Trail to the W&OD. The way back, on the other hand, I never saw a marker to get back on the Custis, so I ended up riding the W&OD all the way down to Shirlington, getting a little lost as there are NO signs worth crap down there, then finally finding my way to the Four Mile Run trail and back to the Mt. Vernon and home.

Wore a sleeveless jersey to try and even out some of the sun on my shoulders. So far, so good.

Overall I liked the W&OD. There were a tad too many stops when you ran though areas like Vienna and Herndon, but there were also some good stretches where I was able to get down onto the aerobars and relieve pressure on my neck. Not too many kids out, though I had one heart-attack inducing moment when I thought one little girl was going to turn out into the trail right as I came up beside her. Thankfully her mother, running behind her, intervened. I suspect that’s where my max heart rate reading came from for the ride.

Have to get the center water bottle set up for this upcoming weekend’s ride – I didn’t have quite enough water with me, which was really annoying when I was lost in Shirlington and couldn’t find my way out. Basically this just involves trimming the straw down to a height where it won’t annoy the hell out of me, but I’ve not needed it to date, so haven’t hooked it up.

Probably do a repeat of this ride, only a bit further out. Pretty much ready for the Food & Friends ride next week, just doing some last minute testing.