You might remember my BEFORE kitchen...we'll wait while you go check it out.
And in case you don't have the patience to click, here's a few before shots just to refresh your memory:
Shudder.
Oh, look away!
Kitchen is EMPTY.
OMG NEW CABINETS!
OMG NEW FLOOR!
MORE CABINETS! and MORE FLOOR!
STILL MORE CABINETS!
Total cabinet tally: 7, Home Depot in-stock: $1,000.
But just wait...wait til you see the final product! I could perform surgery in this kitchen! In fact, I'm making Number One Daughter scrub before she's allowed to set foot (that would be a bootie-covered foot) in this inner sanctum!!
Stay tuned for the finished, final, granite-bedecked kitchen that I want to sleep in. Watch this space!
Enough fooling around, it's back to the fitness front (and front is the correct word, because it certainly feels like a war): Saturday, I ran 4 miles in the a.m. with the HIPsters. This might not sound like much, but I must confess, since the 10k debacle I have been REALLY mad at running. No kidding. I boycotted it for 10 straight days. (Which, for the record? I don't really recommend.)
I gave in to its whimpers on Wednesday, running 3 miles in the rain, and it was back to its usual tricks of letting me know that it would take another 10 weeks to regain what I'd lost in 10 days. Another 3 on the treadmill on Friday morning brought me to a whopping total of 10 miles last week.
Saturday: Pre-Mothers' Day:
Number One Daughter was out of town, cavorting with some astronauts down at Cape Canaveral on Mothers' Day weekend, but sent me a mysterious e-mail with these directions
btw...3:45 pm Saturday you are going to this address: 2471 18th St NW (between N Adams Mill Rd & N Belmont Rd) Washington, DC 20009 (202) 320-0250 BUT don't look up the address or anything ahead of time! i just watned [sic: we're authentic here at NBTR headquarters] you to have it in an email!
Fun! I adore surprises! Was it botox? Liposuction? BACHELOR #3?????
Even better! It was a massage, from here. Hot stones, and a masseuse who worked on my shoulders and neck until I thought I would cry. In a good way.
Sunday: Happy Mothers' Day!
Then it was early to bed so I could get ready for an 8 a.m. clip-in, to ride the Eagleman bike course, some 2.5 hours away in beautiful Cambridge, Maryland (land of the Tobymeister). What better way to celebrate Mothers' Day?
There was a 37-mile option, or a 56-mile option. My longest ride to date has been 30 miles...and that was just last week! Of course I chose 56-miles. (I have a blog to write, people!)
Things were good for 30 miles. I hung with the pack, we practiced drafting (this is actually hair-raising) we were talking, laughing, taking in the sights, nature, osprey, butterflies, frogs, turtles, peacocks. Life was good. Except for the wind.
It was windy.
OK, I know people say "It was REALLY windy," and you know, they mean the wind was blowing.
This wasn't like that.
This was the kind of wind that makes you wonder WHY THEY AREN'T EVACUATING people. But don't take my word for it, let's ask Tuan, who can actually, you know, ride:
The ride was a 56 miles single loop ride on as flat roads as you will find. The wind was just relentless. Is it possible for the wind to blow in 4 different directions at once ? There were parts where the headwind was so strong that when I turned to my left, the headwind followed my head to become a left crosswind. I turned to my right and it followed me there too. I turned around to look behind me and you'd guessed it ... son of a gun was waiting for me. It was like getting bitch slapped by four women at once.
Like that.
We all had cue sheets (bike talk for "directions") but there were also bright pink fluorescent markings on the pavement all along the route that said "EM thisaway" or "EM thataway" ("EM"=Eagleman, "thisaway"=arrows pointing the way). At 30 miles the cue sheet said turn RIGHT, and the pink fluorescent marking said LEFT. Some of us went right. For 4.5 miles. Until ONE of us (THANK GOD—and SHANNON!) realized, um, this is the wrong way.
Oh, how innocent and carefree we were pre-mile 30!
And then there were four. I was still OK, amazed that I could even turn the pedals. Still in relatively good spirits.
It's amazing the panoply of emotions one goes through when stuck in a (somewhat) desperate situation. Resignation, denial, acceptance. Bargaining with God. ("Please just stop the wind for a minute and I promise to join a convent!")
And tell me please, WHY I had to have the refrain from this song playing ENDLESSLY in my brain? For four solid hours.
I started wondering whether it was possible for the wind to actually read a map. I mean, maybe when man created roads, he altered the wind currents. It's a theory I entertained while riding along (the appropriately named) Egypt Road for 7 long, endless, slogging miles, where I think I entered another realm. No matter which way the road went, the wind came directly at me. It was ALIVE!
I fell way behind. I couldn't take it! But I had the best bike buddies ever, and they had all waited for me as I made the long Exodus out of Egypt (Rd). We had 10 miles left. I almost wept for joy. My thoughts turned to pancakes. And crabcakes, chocolate milk and ice cream sundaes.
I don't know how but I finally made it back. I peeled myself off the bike, anxious to see which parts of me would remain on the bike. Luckily, everything was intact.
We high-fived. Some crazy people went for a run. We drove to Paneras and I got a PB&J sandwich and chocolate milk off the kids menu, and then suited up for the long long ride home.
It was the best day of my life and I can't wait to do it again.
So, I went and hired myself a swim coach, and she's awesome. We meet at 6:00 a.m. Monday mornings, and for 45 minutes she tells me stuff like: press your "T", rotate from your hips, watch your breathing, don't cross the midline, TRY KICKING EVERY NOW AND THEN, and? Move the water! "Can you FEEEEL the water??," she asks. "You need to FEEEEEL the water!" It takes every bit of control to resist saying, "I'm in a POOL."
I crack myself up.
My second swim lesson was yesterday morning, and I don't know what I was doing all last year, but I'm pretty sure I was not swimming because holy mother of god, I'm getting introduced to muscles I have never met before.
Apparently I've never kicked before in my life. Apparently all those books that say triathletes should not worry about kicking? I took them a leetle too seriously.
And? I don't pull. At all.
So yesterday I learned to kick. And pull.
I was sore afterwards but in a good way.
I could NOT wait to get in the pool today to try my first HIPster*TM pool workout using my newly acquired skills. Not only had I learned new skills, I had also learned how to read a workout. It's like a foreign language:
Just for kicks I timed my 100s and they were all in the 2:30 range which is quite thrilling (if still sucky) since just 2 weeks ago they were in the 3:30+ range.
Afterwards I went to work and ate a bunch of crap because I was so proud of myself. (Way to reward yourself, Jeanne.)
But today is Tuesday and that stands for track with a capital T and that stands for Trouble.
After my awesome swim in the a.m. and my awesome (if screwy) race on Saturday, I had completely convinced myself that I deserved to take tonight off. But the fear factor kicked in just in time. I came home and before I could think about it changed into running duds and off I went.
6x800 at interval pace = 5:00; plus 2x200 at race pace = 1:05.
WE DID NOT FEEL LIKE DOING THIS. WE DECIDED WE WOULD JUST DO 4x800 and go home.
I ran with two girls who slipped away from me because their recovery and threshold paces were the same. I was honestly going to throw in the towel, if not throw up, just because I deserved to, when another chick, Jenn, came alongside me and said she was doing 6 repeats and well, that was that. It takes so little to talk me into things. Don't ever offer me drugs, k?
GOAL: 800 @ 5:00
1) 4:46 2) 4:56 3) 5:00 4) 4:57 5) 5:13 6) 4:47
200: 1:05 200: 1:05
Tomorrow is spin class. Too cold to ride outside at 6 a.m. Although eventually I will have to actually get on a bike again. I'm guessing.
I was asked to join the volunteer coordinators at the NTP Orientation last Saturday. and just "talk about your experience."
So we all know that fear of public speaking ranks before fear of death, right?
Right.
Though I was a little nervous beforehand, I felt like I knew my subject—me—pretty well.
So here's an abbreviated version of what I told them, in no particular order.
I told them that the club president, answering my general query about the NTP, talked me into doing the Olympic distance race that the program was training for. How other people believing in you can make YOU believe in YOU.
I told them I got an "F" in gym in high school. That I had run for a few years. That I was 52.
I told them that last year was hands down the best year of my life.
I described my journey to my first triathlon, the Philadelphia Insurance Sprint, and how I almost cried at the start because I thought my life would be ending soon—that's how scared I was.
I told them that I am the shyest person on earth (quite possibly true) and that I forced myself to go to things where I didn't know anyone, and how scary, but crucial, it is to do that.
I told them about the first "bric-nic" I went to, which I had to drag myself to because I didn't know anyone and had a crap bike, but how I went anyway and had So Much Fun It Should Be Illegal.
I told them that it takes guts to finish last.
I described the misery of being the last swimmer out of the water at the New Jersey Tri., racing to the bike racks only to see them empty, riding that long course by myself, running 10k in the 200F weather, and having to run past the finish (at this point my co-presenters started clearing their throats. What, you don't think this is a great sales pitch???).
But I eventually got to the punch line, which was: Coming back down the final leg of the run, down the hill, convinced everyone was gone and I was last, only to see and hear my NTP peeps had all WAITED FOR ME and were rushing the net cheering MY name.
I told them some other stuff too. How much help they would get from other triathletes—even Ironmen rode 12 mph with me, helping me out. How they'd be their own best mentors, to show up for stuff, to put themselves out there and take risks.
Kind of like I did standing up in front of a roomful of strangers.
Up at 5:30 on Saturday, drive to Vienna (that would be Vienna, Virginia) to meet up with my homies: L-R: Greg, Jason, Carolina, Rachel, Catie, Sandy, Julia, Casey, me
for a nice, leisurely 45.8 mile ride.
It was leisurely because a) we have this little ohmygodwhathaveisignedupfortri coming up in two weeks, and b) we had a "training" tri on Sunday (which is in the running for the Most. MisNamed. Event. Ever.) so my crew was taking it easy.
We went out on the W&OD trail, which intercepts with many cross streets, so has many stop signs on it for several miles, so is a) great practice for clipping in and out (hi greg!) and b) makes it hard to go too fast.
W&OD elevation map; also? It was downhill most of the way out.
Which meant? My peeps went slow, and—I got to pass them! I got to pretend that I was faster. I was even out front at some points. It was some kind of serious excitement for me, since I've never been first ever EVER EVER!! IN ANYTHING!!! (OK, so they let me be first. I will take what I can get.)
We rode out to Leesburg, where I had to beg everyone to dismount and get their photo taken with this sign. I guess they are shy. Soon enough though they were tripping over each other to get into this historic shot:
There is one difference between these photos. Can you spot it?
The ride was planned with two stops in mind: beer and ice cream. Not necessarily together.
There's a sign on the trail with an arrow pointing thataway to a brewery. So we followed the arrow, which led us to a lovely industrial park, where we rode around for a while, in search of a brewery. If only we could see SOME clue that there actually is a brewery around here.
Finally found it, but there was no place for the bikes, so we wisely made the decision to carry on to the next stop: Dairy Queen!!
Jason and Sandy vie for the cutest award. Catie is a third contender.
We are some badasses! Don't mess with us! Yum, Blizzards!
Casey is totally hardcore.
Next up: My "Training" Tri Race Report. Don't touch that dial.
Contributions to the "buy jeanne a new tv" fund will be gratefully accepted. Although I honestly think you people should not be ENCOURAGING me to watch TV. C'mon!
Pouring rain when I awoke at 6:00 am this morning. But accuweather.com said "clouds" for the rest of the day. Liars.
The deal was: Haine's point, 3.0 mile run, 16 mile bike, 3.1 mile run.
It was warm (65-ish), and drizzling. About 20 people turned out; they waived the $5 fee cuz they said this was going to just be a training session, not so much a race.
There were only two other New Triathlete Program (NTP) members participating, but some other NTP-ers who were (smartly) volunteering.
Off we went on the run. I wore a light windbreaker over a long sleeved technical T, and was instantly hot. I had all kinds of crap in my pockets: keys, iPod, gu, energy bar. It was annoying.
Drizzling soon turned into pouring.
Finished the run in 29:17 (but later checked with my car and distance was actually 2.8 miles), which is 10:28 / mile. I felt OK. I was not DEAD last in run #1!
I changed into another jacket, hoping for some kinda DRY, and took care of some bizness behind a bush. Transition time: 5 min!
Off I went to do 5 loops of Haine's Point.
That's a lot of loops. In the rain. The pissing, pouring rain. While wearing glasses. Which get so wet and foggy, just so you know, that it's actually impossible to SEE.
Did I mention it started thundering? And lightning?
It took me 1:20 (12 mph). People were passing me like I was standing still. Somewhere in loop 3, a volunteer told me that run #2 had been canceled. I whooped. Even though I felt OK, I could NOT imagine another run.
As I started loop 4, people were already on the run. The CANCELED run. The poor, wet, cold volunteers asked me what loop I was on, desperately hoping I'd say "Five." Sorry to disappoint!
Finally started loop 5, totally soaked and unable to see, but other than that I felt OK (although I was tempted to call David and have him deliver my SAAB to me). I was the ONLY person still biking.
Finally finished loop five. As I pulled into the parking lot, the organizer said "no run #2", even though about half the folks there did finish run #2. But because I felt SO BAD for the volunteers, who were now waiting ONLY for me before they could leave, I cut them a break, and bagged run #2.
My first DNF!
You never saw so many people pack up and leave so fast.
I drove the course after I had wrangled the bike into the back seat of the car, and saw one valiant gal still out on the run. I toyed with the idea of waiting for her in the now-vacant transition area, but my head hurt and I was cold and wet, and I guess, let's face it, I'm just not that nice.
But you know who IS nice? Every single person who passed me (that would be everyone) either on foot or on bike and called out "Good job," every single time.
Shudder.
Oh, look away!
Kitchen is EMPTY.
OMG NEW CABINETS!
OMG NEW FLOOR!
MORE CABINETS! and MORE FLOOR!
STILL MORE CABINETS!
