Tri-ing again

I lopped off (and donated) my luxurious locks last weekend right before I did my 2nd ever triathlon. The haircut was the more gratifying of the two experiences.

Pre

During

Post

The tri was a full-immersion (pun intended) in the sport and the reasons that I waffle between respectable and bad with momentary flashes of brilliance. I did pretty dismally.

I learned the hard way, coach John and I postulate, that "drafting" in triathlon means "being in the same time zone". I deserved the penalty, admittedly, for not reading the race bible. I thought I was done with those things? However the drafting penalty is just a theory because they never tell you why the penalty. I guess that they applaud introspection. I can live with that.

Barring the penalty, I would have been the 10th overall woman. I consider this logic not like the usual bike racing excuse, where people say "if only I had a good wheel in the last turn" or "I ran out of water" or "that jerkface from [insert rival team name here] chopped me" or "I was chasing all day". This was purely beginner's ignorance, and not a lack of skill on my part. Just a lack of reading the race bible. A mistake I assure you I shall never make again though it pains me to dip my toe into the water of geekdom with that pledge.
Of course I made smash on the bike (thank you, Bear Cub, for the siiiiick Zipp disc wheel), and didn't get a lick of benefit from "drafting", if indeed that was the penalty. I remember a time or two being a few bike lengths behind someone who thought they could pass me (wrong answer!), but otherwise felt rather alone. Drafting where I come from is 5 centimeters, not 5 meters. When in Rome...
Lesson learned: check
Regarding my penalty, I don't imagine I could have done anything illegal in the swim except nearly drowning and causing inordinate stress for the guys in the lifeboats. I was so bad I just floated on my back the entire time. I panicked when I jumped in the water and started inhaling underwater and exhaling when I came up. The wetsuit kept me buoyant but I was unused to it and felt even more helpless. I just got into a rhythm of "gasp, backstroke, gasp, exclaim 'holyjebus'/’holycrap’, gasp, backstroke". Notice how there was more gasping and exclaiming than swimming in any direction.
I ended up 14th overall in the women (that includes my time penalty) and had the fastest female bike leg by far, coming in 32nd overall in that. I humiliated a bunch of dudes when they downloaded the results to their little spreadsheets on Monday (and you know 80% of those guys did).
I am not much of a geek but this sport could turn you into one. You have to piece together a good race with so many separate parts. The pursuit of said physiological patchwork is addicting.
In the spirit of that, here is what I need to improve:
1. Shave 20% off my swim. Not a bad aspiration, considering I am starting from panicking and hyperventilating and swimming on my back. Do that and I’d be within striking distance of the top women in the whole field. Mind you, this is the DFW metroplex we're talking about, not all free nations of the world). Remember all the while that my training in a pool does not at all equate to an open-water endeavor. Not even close.
2. A 5k in a triathlon is not a 5k in training (well, in my training, anyway). I’ve been putting in 7:20-7:35 miles on the treadmill and on my self-imposed death marches around Pleasanton. If I’m running next to an athletic man, I put in sub-7:00 miles on account of my ego. Could I have done that in this event? Not a chance, apparently. 8:21, which is like crawling compared to what I’m used to. What if I could shave off even 2 minutes from my total 5k?
3. Transitions kill you. Mine were in the mid-pack, and probably shaving 45 seconds off my total 3:45 of transitions would nudge me from (albeit local) mediocrity.
Put it this way: making those three improvements alone and I would have plunked my size 9.5 feet on the overall podium.
Man, this sport is both easy and hard at the same time. wouldacouldashoulda can fill up some hours!
Maybe I should just switch to Olympic distance so I could no longer flirt with single-digit placings…Then I’d still suck and do so for even longer!

Evidence that all things come to an end:

Post-race was followed by the traditional (all two times a tradition!) nap in the backyard in a Lisa Lozano bikini w/ kitteh. This time Brutus accompanied his Mama.

Happy Mardi Gras

Brutus says: "show me your ta tas"

Wheeee! It's March already...?

Greetings dear readers! Before I begin the barrage of apologies and trite statements that usually follow an admission of absentium; let's skip that.

I have just emerged from a cold snap in Dallas. There are daffodils blooming voluntarily in the backyard. Things are good, so I rewarded myself with a few hundred bucks in leeway this season after living like Scrooge since I graduated from Darden. Precious few dinners out and plenty of bitching at Gato to keep expenses in check, much to his chagrin. Hey, school loans ain't gonna pay themselves off.

In light of my good behavior, I have decided I deserve a break in the form of:

- $57 of Pacifica goodies. Mexican Cocoa, Tibetan Mountain Temple, and Indian Coconut Nectar (a new fragrance I'm trying based solely on Brook's description). Whatever makes me smell like freshly-baked-yet-oddly-mysterious cookies. I have been in love with Brook's company since I bought my first Indian Chai candle in 1995. Vegan and 100% Natural with beautiful packaging. It's my guilty indulgence. Some girls have reality TV. I have Pacifica.

- $7 on my former employer's new tinted lip balm in Honeysuckle. While it's odd without the signature peppermint tingle, it does feel nice. Barely any color so dudes could wear it.

- $5 on Burt's Bees old faithful Cocoa Lip Shimmer (hell, I helped name it!). Can't lose with this subtly steely shade.

- $21 for a dynamite eyebrow waxing. I admit that this is a product of living in Dallas. This city is full of "look-at-me" indulgences. So once in a while my inner prissy princess has her way and lets someone sculpt her brows in a way the proletariat wielding tweezers cannot.

- $42 at Crate & Barrel on a cool glass thing. I ordinarily hate "home decor" stores, instead preferring to create my own style that isn't dictated by a catalog. But one of my colleagues has this on her desk and I just had to have it. It's big and heavy and looks rad on my (okay, Chrissa's) coffee table.

- $7 at Starbucks on Knox. That particular location makes me hate all of suburban humanity with their $30,000 millionaire lifestyles and leased Infinitis and baby joggers. But it's right next to Crate & Barrel and I was cold.

- Is a trip to H&M in the offing?

So, if you had $100 more to spend, what would you do?

Oh, and buying bags of new Frito Lay flavors (did someone say Tapatio Doritos????!!!!????) doesn't count as extravagance. That goes in the "Necessity" column right above car insurance and gas heat.

And lest anyone berate me for not donating all of my allotment to charity; slow your roll. Non-profits get plenty of my after-tax income as well as volunteer time and brainpower. Doesn't make me a saint but doesn't make me suck.

Christmas reading

I plowed through 4+ books over the week I was home for Christmas. Might I add the ranch was mighty lovely during this time?

Hunting Unicorns by Bella Pollen: a lovely British lark. Good fun with intriguing "voice". 3.75 stars out of 5

The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn: told in her imagined voice by the author. Very captivating for fans of her lyricism. 4.5 out of 5 stars for Dickinson-o-philes. 2 out of 5 stars for those not in that club. Make that 1 out of 5; you will want to shoot yourself in the head out of confusion.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: won a Pulitzer. Quite a feat. A lovely, slowly-flowing tale of life in a coastal New England town. 4.5 out of 5 stars. Be sure not to miss the final pages of the volume!

On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: a Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King: tremendous book on the elusive and addicting process (I forgive for the double semicolons in the title). I had much respect for him as a storyteller beforehand. Have even more now and inspired to read more of his work. Fortunately I've already read quite a few so I look forward to marking off the list. 6 out of 5 stars. Absolutely delightful, even if you don't aspire to be the next voice of [insert generation type here], check it out!

Lastly, Culinaria - Spain by Marion Trutter. Okay, so it's a cookbook. But more of an historical jaunt through the homeland from where half my blood hails. Made me hungry in SFO and was sorely disappointed by the contrast on the pages to the airport fare (pun intended?) available.

I also picked up A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin but was intimidated by the multitudes of maps (don't get me wrong, I LOVE MAPS) that would require great attention to detail. This of course held no interest to my Christmas Vacation Brain. I will try next time, Sarah!

More to come after that pesky ball drops on Dec 31. For now I am analyzing market share reports. Go Frito!!!

The last 6 weeks

Have been occupied with me trying to overcome my fears.
1. of water
2. of no longer being a real athlete

3. of generally falling into mediocrity
Jonny believes that I came face to face with item #2 & #3 on Sunday. I'll let you decide.
---------------
Stonebridge Ranch Sprint Triathlon. My first ever...5 weeks after learning to swim
---------------
#1: I finished and did not drown. Amazingly. Could've fooled the guys in kayaks, though. They thought I was near-death.

#2: I am definitely doing it again.

#3: I will decimate my prior performance.

Here is how it went down.

The night before
Given that nearly every bike race I’ve done has been a “sign in before the start and get your number” kind of thing, I expected the same from a triathlon. How wrong I was. Apparently you people are three times as anal as bike racers and have to hold multiple pre-race packet pickups and expos and speakers and pasta dinners; all of which are located in suburbia. Where I neither live nor frequent if I can at all avoid it.
So that is annoying.
The night before the race (correction, approximately 10 hours before I was to stage), I meander to the website and find that not only was I supposed to get my packet somewhere north, in the wilds beyond I-635; but that I had to pay an additional $20 to pick it up on race day. That sounds like something along the line of the fees my bank charges me for sneezing. Lame.
So I warn Jonny (who was miraculously in town for the weekend) that before he went out to hammer some beers that we needed to be out the door at 5:30 to get my packet before 6ish. I forgot that McKinney is nearly in Oklahoma, but I give myself credit for looking at the website at all. I mean, really. I checked in for A WORLD CUP BIKE RACE IN MONTREAL an hour before the start. C’mon.
I packed my race bag twice and checked again for my gear. I bought an ankle brace for my bum ankle/foot (thanks, co-ed soccer) so I had to make sure that was in tow. I toyed with my wardrobe and decided on a sports bra and Zoot shorts for stealthy intimidation. Who wouldn’t be afraid of my skinny little arms? I packed an El Gato long sleeve jersey to look pro as I stood around before the start and pretended I wasn’t nervous.

The morning
Jonny had stumbled in sometime around 2, and my alarm went off at 5:20. The cat was sleeping on my ankles so I had to nudge him off, then nudge Jonny. Jonny pretended to get up but was totally faking. Thank god he’d loaded my bike in the car the night before or I would have never gotten out of there. I grabbed my leftover Garden Café omelet and began driving. Jonny snoozed, probably deep in a REM cycle.
I arrived and grabbed my packet, got a temporary USAT license (which is good for 365 days from issue, instead of USA Cycling’s communist policy of expiring at the end of a calendar year no matter when you buy it), and staged my bike. I did as Coach John instructed and found a support post on my rack, set up my gear, and acted generally pleased with myself.

The waiting
The Olympic distance went off around 7…I had to wait until 9. Might I interject how annoying it was to read the race website and see the athletes doing the Olympic distance referred to as “Olympic athletes”? Okay, people. It may be semantics, but there weren’t any Olympians schlepping about that I could see. Having done an Olympic trial…you know them when you see them!
But I digress.
After fueling Jonny with coffee and donuts from the 7-11, we stood around. Jonny gave me endless crap about how I was launching my new career of “being good at exercising”. He has a point. It was hard to do a sport that my former sport of pro bike racing had made so much fun of. I used to laugh right along with everybody when we said “tri-geeks can’t corner”. Jonny shared a photo of me standing in my El Gato jersey with the Tweetosphere and we amused ourselves with our bike racer friends’ comments. They were numerous and expectedly obnoxious.Swim
We queue up for the swim. Gold caps and all. We are all rather adorable. The girls next to me talk with some embarrassment about being the few with toe cages on their bikes. I ask them to do me a favor and not look down too often. Don’t want them to ram into someone from behind. I’ve seen it. Head-down riding never got you anywhere except scraped up. They ask me how I know and I tell them. Their eyes get wide. But then I mention I just learned how to swim 5 weeks ago so they won’t see me again. I was wrong but it made them feel better for a little while, I guess.
We all jump into the water and tread for a minute or two before they count down. It’s freakin cold outside (waaah. 70 degrees) but the water is much warmer. Now, to do something about the muck.
I do as you advise and wait 15-20 seconds. I notice that my ankle brace has come unlaced and have to reach down and try to remove it without drowning. The pack is pulling away from me so I breaststroke to keep up. I try to swim freestyle but inhale a bunch of water. Thinking of the massive amounts of duck poop in my sinuses, I go back to the breaststroke. Forgetting everything you ever told me about being competent. I just couldn’t function as in the pool (I knew it would be the case) so I switch to survival mode. I breaststroke, freestyle a few strokes, flip over onto my back (surprisingly soothing). Anything to generally move forward. I make it to the first sighting buoy with less than 1 quart of pond water in my gut. I carry on. The gold caps are receding into the distance, but a few girls are still behind me. They must be really struggling if little Mandy is basically doing water ballet en route to buoy number two.
A few kayakers ask me if I’m okay. I must really not look okay. But I am okay. I’m calm. I’m sucking and slow. But I am calm. I forget trying to do much freestyle and just try to go forward. I am not tired, which is encouraging. Buoy number two and the corner. I swim straight for it just as Coach John taught me. I make the turn and try to freestyle again. Sucking again. Float on back and feel calmer. More kayakers ask if I’m going to die. I tell them “No. I just suck.”
I see the orange caps heading toward me of the wave after me. I make it to the final 250m before they catch me. Doing the math in my head I think that they started 5 minutes after me. Oopsie. I am burping up pond water and generally grossed out by swimming in the toilet of thousands of aquatic and avian creatures. Cow crap I can handle. Bird and fish poo I’m not used to.

Finally
I finally make it out of the water (swimming all the way to the ramp, just as Coach John instructed), and laugh and jump out. I am seven minutes or more off the leader in my age group. Hilarious.
I run up the muddy slope, thinking about cyclocross. I miss having a bike slung over my shoulder and maneuvering up a muddy run-up with thousands of screaming, beer-saturated fans surrounding me. Those were the days.

Bikin
But these are different days. I haul a$$ to the transition, do a slow transition (I find out later), and motor out to the course. I pass everybody I see and keep going. A courageous UNT kid in a flappy jersey is attempting to keep pace with me and his gumption is admirable. He’s about 85 lbs and “givin’ er”. I love to see that. He has no aero equipment, only heart. I pass him many times and he claws his way to pass me again. We part ways when he finishes his final lap and I begin my second. I grab the Hammer gel Jonny has taped to my top tube; rip it off, and down half of it. In true pro fashion, I stick the remainder in my leg seam. A few minutes later it’s seeping down my leg and I remember it’s chocolate. Looks mighty suspect so I waste a few seconds trying to hose it off with my water bottle. Vanity strikes again. Don’t want to look like I had colon issues out there. You never know when you’ll be photographed ;-)
I am not tired at all during the bike, which isn’t a good sign. I definitely went about 70%, and know now that I need to have some data in front of me. I generally go by feel, but have done plenty of training with a PowerTap, splits, and heart rate. It might be time to dork out again.

Transitioning…again
I make my transition to the run and rewrap my ankle brace. I put my socks on (sorry, Coach), and head out. Number belt and everything. $9.99 for a reflective stretchy thing. Man this sport is expensive!
I don’t let anybody pass me on the run though my foot is killing me. About a mile from the finish a 43-year old zooms by me and I figure this is a good rabbit. I follow her in and put in a time that isn’t shameful (8:16 mile) but I know I can reduce that significantly with a little determination. It would help, too, if I were to finish the swim anywhere near the front, as my position in the bike and run leg merely made me the tallest midget. Time to get up with the big girls.

I was not at all tired, which means I didn’t go hard enough. Wouldacouldashoulda. "Almost" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Final placing: 3rd in my age group, 15th out of the 92 women, and 109 overall
Swim – horrendous. Something like 249 out of all sprint competitors (311). It felt like an hour.
Bike: only two women in the entire sprint event beat me on the bike. And I wasn’t even trying. Honest!!!! So, I’ve learned that the bike isn’t the most important part.
Run: not bad considering my gimpy state. I think I was 13th out of all the women or something. No more soccer.

I tried to scrub the numbers off my biceps and calves. It worked. Jonny laughed at me and said something about being able to scrub off the ink but not the shame. Ah, bike racers. He means well.

So yeah, now I’m obsessed with beating my past performance (clearly not difficult) and applying energy to training while maintaining a sane life. This will be a new twist. I’m excited to learn a new sport and look forward to doing a few events with you guys!

After loading the bike into the car, I went to Donna Romeo's house down the street for a yummy brunch, then home to lay in the backyard in a totally-not-high-performance-but-brand-spankin-new Lisa Lozano bikini (yeah, the Lozano family is incredibly talented) with Zipper. Life is good.
And my foot hurts.
PS: This report is written mostly in jest. If I offend you, I don’t mean to. If I don’t…I am clearly losing my edge.

Whaaaaat?

damnit. i was starting to believe.

Who owns who, here?

I'm reading Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. It's a quick, entertaining read and I'm excited to watch Choke with Mary Beth sometime soon...now that I'm on this brief trip of loving Portland authors.
My favorite quote from the book thus far:
"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug.
Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."
I love it.
It reminds me of my resistance to permanence.
I would like to think that I can walk away from all my possessions tomorrow if need be. I won't be "that lady" on the lifeboat, clutching armfuls of photographs, clothes, jewelry, etc. Nope.
I'm not sure I'm proud of this, but it simply exists in my brain and it might be a good thing to investigate.
So I did. I noticed a theme. All my life I've been preparing for some inevitable apocalypse:
- I won't get glasses. What if my plane crashes in the Rockies, I lose my eyewear, and can't lead the survivors to safety?
- I won't fix my front teeth, which I broke learning how to ride a bike in First Grade. They would have to file them down to pegs and then cap them. What if the caps fall off? OMG.
- I won't buy new housewares. Something akin to imprisonment comes out of it. Suddenly I'm working my big fancy job just to pay for the shiny new crap I bought at Ikea. Hence my love of Palahniuk's quote.
- I want to build a self-sustaining house completely of re-used and biodegradable materials. Satisfying thought to leave it to the earthworms, beetles, and varmints when I'm gone.
Hmm...What apocalypse is coming...?

And why do I want this chandelier for my stairwell so badly?