Baby We Were Born to Run

I was swimming with Don the other day and we were just talking about our lives, since I had no goggles and we were stuck aquajogging. He got serious for about a minute and told me how proud he was of me for the last two weeks, and "not just about bikes." He added that "it seems like you're kicking ass lately."

It made me very happy, and it made me think about that- I have been doing really well lately, and knock on wood, life is pretty awesome. Got a $1000 scholarship for health and science journalism, Triathlete bought my article, I'm getting a lot of good feedback and interested people with my tri club idea, and even though I've had a lot of problems with racing in the past couple of weeks, I haven't let them get me down or effect my willingness to keep racing. And I'm doing the marathon on Sunday, and even if I don't finish it, I'll feel good knowing that I gave it my best shot. My plan is simply to go until I can't go anymore, until I can't even walk. Til then, I have no intention of stopping. I know my body and I know that even if I cramp so badly that I can't walk, as soon as I get to rest for a few hours and let my creatine kinase levels go down, my legs will be fine. I just wish I could figure out what causes that increase!

The last two days have been fun- sleeping in until 9:30, seeing Paul Baribeau and Ginger doing Springsteen covers and singing along to Born to Run and Thunder Road like my life depended on it. Remembering how fun basement shows can be if you're with good people. Hanging out with Matt and Cristian and talking about racing. Actually getting home to Hunterdon County really late and feeling like I was 17 again and sneaking in late from a show! Kinda nice every once in a while to get out of "athlete" mode for a few hours.

Anyway, today was pretty decent, back to athlete mode. Woke up, did 30 min on the stepper to warm up my muscles, then 30 minutes of work with 10 lb weights and a bosu ball. Then, realized how nice it was outside. I knew I shouldn't run much, so I decided to go for a relatively hilly ride. It's the loop my dad and I used to do when I first started really riding a couple years ago. A year and a half ago, it took me 37 minutes to do the loop. Today, 22 minutes. So I did it twice, with the total time being 44 min. It's great because I wasn't really even pushing it. Nice to see serious progress!

Then, ran for 30 min just to check in on my knee. My stomach bugged me a bit and my knee felt funky, but not bad. I was really fatigued for the first half, and I'm not really sure why. But picked up a bit on the way home. Maybe it was listening to Springsteen that helped...

Robbie's 19th birthday today and we got Pizza Hut for dinner. Not healthy, but whatever. Ate a ton of pizza and cake, watched Justice League cartoons for hours. Great way to spend an evening!

On the way home, I was thinking about stuff that I really really want for cycling/triathlon:
1. a skinsuit. Right now, my jersey is entirely too big for me. That and skinsuits look sick as hell.
2. better sunglasses. As in, not $5 ones from Rices Flea Market.
3. new goggles. Nicer ones made for more open water type stuff that won't leave ridiculous goggle lines.
4. a wetsuit. Because it's gonna be COLD at Black Bear Lake if I ever get around to signing up for that half Ironman.
5. a transition bag. My messenger bag just hurts my back and shoulder and doesn't have any way to organize everything.
The list goes on and on, but those are the major things that I would very much like to own.