M.I.A.

I've been a little preoccupied over the past 10 days or so. Or "obsessed" might be a better word - I've been a little bit sort of very obsessed with a big project, and it's evident here in my half-heartedly tended blog.

I have a few things to say about it:

1. Sorry!

2. I'm almost done with the project? (Although according to Greg I've said that so many times that he's stopped believing me.)(But really I am almost done.)

3. Check back tomorrow (or possibly the next day)?

Love,

Courtenay

Rode Around the Lake

Greg and I moved to Tahoe 8 months ago, and yesterday I figured it was about time I rode my bike around the lake. It's a 72-mile jaunt with ~4,500 ft of climbing and plenty of nice views - weather yesterday was clear and sunny with temperatures in the mid-60's and pretty light winds, so it was the perfect day for it!

I made sure to take a few photos, because I became unsure of when I would do this ride again... The stretch leading into and out of Emerald Bay there are really steep dropoffs on the side of the road and no guardrails. I've never been good at this type of terrain. There is even one part where the road is on top of the ridge, with steep dropoffs on both sides, and still no guardrails!! I was riding pretty gingerly on the very center of the yellow line. Pissing off all the Saturday drivers, but I was vertigo-stricken and terrified! Otherwise it's a really lovely ride, and a good length for me right now in my preparation for the two half-iron races I am doing this summer, so soon I might have to suck it up and face my vivid fears of tumbling in spandex down a mountainside into a freezing cold lake, so I can do the loop again.

Attack of the Singing Lifeguard

I really do wish I had a few photos to go with this post. Ah well.

Anyhow this morning I swam at the indoor pool (the outdoor pool opens at 9:30 a.m. this week, and I start work at 10 a.m., so I can't start swimming in paradise until June 1 when it starts opening at 6:30). I walked out of the locker room and onto the pool deck and there is one other swimmer and one lifeguard and the mysterious sound of Celine Dion (or maybe Whitney Houston, I get their stuff confused) a cappella really loud.

It was the guard.

For her entire 30 minutes on duty, she paced around the pool singing the best of 1990's Soft Rock. Apparently earlier in the morning, a few patrons asked her to stop. And apparently, it didn't work.

Also, the *creepiest* thing is that she is up there singing and smiling down at the swimmers while she's belting out "I will Always Love You" or whatever. Yikes. She must be on meds.

When Greg's Away, the Cat will Play

Kitty when Greg is not around:

Kitty when Greg is around:

So Kitty has never really been a big Greg fan. I don't know whether it's Greg's 6'5" height, his tendency to be loud when he does basically anything, or the fact that he thinks it's funny to hiss and/or growl at kitty, but the end result is that 7 months after we adopted him, kitty loves me more than ever and runs and hides as soon as he hears Greg. He's actually turned into a bit of a watch-cat, he knows Greg is coming home before I do.

Going forward...

...I plan to inflict some serious ass-kicking on myself in the pool. I know, I know, I should have adopted this attitude a while ago. But somehow I slipped into the mindset that 1 or 2 semi-decent swims a week and 2 or 3 sessions of diddling around doing backstroke kick would be enough to help me improve. Plus I was getting so frustrated with bad workouts at our pool in Incline, and frustrated with my lack of improvement all winter, that I decided to just stop struggling with it and save the tougher workouts for Carson City, where it's possible to swim more than a 150 without dying. It's definitely helped my workouts be less stressful, and I have improved a bit over the past couple months, but it's time to get a bit more proactive and agressive about it.

The outdoor 25 meter pool here in Incline just opened, so that should help, but if I have to drive down to Carson three or four times a week then that's what I'll do. I'm really sick of sucking.

Also I have a bunch of new swimsuits and pool accessories arriving this week, a prize from my win at Silverman last year! (And yes I am secretly hoping that a new suit will help, my current suit is so stretched out and saggy that it's sure to be slowing me down, right?)

Basically Back to Normal

After a few days of being so very tired, I got my head and legs back on straight, just in time for the weekend!

So my training was actually pretty decent.

Friday was a nice run and a long course swim down in Carson, where I ran into an Exterra triathlete who lives in Incline just like me - we are going to try to start carpooling down there once or twice a week, since we seem to have compatible work schedules and 60 miles round trip alone is kind of silly. According to my mom, I can't afford that gas cost anyway (see yesterday's freakout topic).

Yesterday was just a bike day, 2:30 on the trainer with 1:45 of that being interval work. The time flew by, first due to *sigh* Jason Bourne (who BY THE WAY swims breastroke with scissors kick, JUST LIKE ME!!!! He's so great), and then due to my awesome new iPod. Why I ever defected from the iPod Classic to the measly Shuffle remains a mystery. I am glad I regained my senses.

Then today I swam in our gross dumb indoor pool here in Incline, although I was very happy to notice that they seem to be vacuuming it more these days, so there are way fewer hair clumps and bandaids than there used to be! Still a bunch of kids running around though, including two girls whose mom ignored the "no food" signs and let them open a tube of Pringles in the locker room which they promptly dropped all over the floor and a bunch of them shattered and started turning into mealy globs because of the water from the pool and people showering, then of course the trio hightailed it out of there without telling the front desk that they ruined the locker room floor for all the other patrons. Gross. Sometimes people with kids really amaze me.

And finally, today was long run day! I headed out for 90 minutes after my swim. I haven't done a long run since Wildflower three weeks ago, and technically my last long training run was 5 weeks ago, so it felt great to get out and run long after taking a break from it. I missed the feeling I get after an hour of running, when I start to feel really good and really efficient and a little dose of soreness from muscles working hard and adrenaline from knowing I still have a ways to run. Also the sun made an appearance so there were lots of tourists walking around on Lakeshore Drive taking pictures of the big houses and wearing goofy "Lake Tahoe Hyatt" sweatshirts they must have bought from the giftshop because they came here unprepared for the cold - kind of like those dinky "San Francisco" sweatshirts you see walking all over the city in July on people who are clearly out-of-towners who didn't do their research... "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Supposedly Mark Twain said that but there isn't proof that he really did.

Anyhow, so that's that. Now I am sitting here goofing off on the internet, trying to make a somewhat cool-ish website for myself because on a whim a couple weeks ago I decided that blogger was dumb and I am sick of having two blogs and wouldn't it be way better to have just one site with my journal and artwork and race stuff all organized so I dropped more $ than I should have on all that hosting domain-name nonsense. Groan. I am determined to make it look like I want it to but it's taking me forever!

Still Snowing

It is still snowing up here in the mountains, and it's actually starting to stick! Yikes! I am gearing up for a longish indoor bike ride. I'm kind of relieved about it, there's no need for me to sit and debate whether to try riding outside, the snow made the decision for me. Somehow cold+wet up here feels ten times worse than cold+wet at sea level... although maybe I am just looking at the Bay Area winters and rains of my past through rose-colored glasses!

Separate matter: I found myself chuckling yesterday about the $4+ gas freakout. I shouldn't be laughing, it's a serious matter I know, but I was thinking about how it's not like gas prices suddenly doubled or something. We've crossed the $4 mark here in Incline many times already, although we have generally hovered right below it. But suddenly gas is 10 or 20 cents more, and it's freakout time... OMG I can't afford to drive down to Carson to swim, OMG I have to combine all possible errands for the month into one trip, OMG OMG OMG. My friends, family, and TV are all reacting the same way - everyone is.

I did read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, I understand and agree with the concept and it certainly seems to apply here. $3.99 gas is annoying, $4.09 gas warrants revision of travel and vacation plans, slapping a "For Sale" sign on the Ford Expedition, and Freaking Out. (Seriously in the past week I have seen an exponential increase in the number of gas-guzzlers sporting for sale signs. I have also laughed at the commercials on TV advertising "deals" on Toyota Sequoias, Ford Turbo Truckmonsters, etc.)

For now, I am glad I have a fairly gas-efficient Honda Civic. But I am saving my pennies for an electric car.

And How Did I Look This Time?

Time for the Thursday-After-The-Race Photo Review... Although for Columbia, I did have the benefit of a couple of digital images that my mom took at the race, so I wasn't quite as anxious to see my photos as I was after Wildflower!


I generally like these photos, probably something to do with the 6:50 a.m. start and 9:15 finish, morning light is definitely more flattering than glaring mid-day light. I will say that I was disappointed that they only seemed to have one photo location for the bike, near transition, so there's lots of shoe-grappling going on in the photos and not a whole lot of wattage output! But at least you can see my nail polish if you squint...

You call this Beach Weather?

I really would not have believed you if you told me that on May 22, 2008, two days before Memorial Day Weekend ushers in summertime, I would be riding my bike inside due to snow and hail and general unpleasantness. It's supposed to be like this until early next week.

The good news out of this is that I am expecting the holiday weekend to be a fairly quiet one around here, not too many tourists and beach-goers. Last year, Memorial Day was actually my first trip to Incline Village, I headed up here to spend the weekend with Greg before driving North with Hutch to the Mt. Hood stage race. A year ago, the weather was good and the tourists were plentiful.

Anyhow, in other news, my new iPod arrived today! I just ordered it yesterday, and I got free shipping! How cool is that! Now let's just cross our fingers that a. it works and b. I don't go and introduce it to any major home appliances.

So Totally Tired

Something about/from the last three weeks has suddenly caught up to me and thrown a bunch of big rocks at my head or something. I am sooo tired. I am not that confused about why, it's been a long few weeks and I should expect to be tired. Two tough races, two trans-continental flights, erratic sleep pattern, stressing about one thing or another... But really life would be nicer if I weren't so tired!

If I weren't so tired I'd be working on some art this week. I'd have gone for a ride yesterday. I'd have swum this morning. I'd go for a run, I really want to. Also if I weren't so tired I wouldn't be tempted to fall back into a $5 a day Starbucks habit. I might not have convinced myself that dropping $200 on a new iPod was a good idea. I'd be writing all the overdue emails I want to send to friends, instead of sitting here re-reading blogs and reading race websites I've read 20 times already and dinking around on facebook oh and leaving incoherent comments on peoples' blogs.

Also I wouldn't be watching TMZ on TV!? Who really cares about Paris Hilton! God! But getting up and looking for the remote and picking out something else is just way too involved.

If I weren't so tired I'd order a GRE study guide and start working on practice tests. I'd be reading The Economist instead of the ever-disappointing Inside Triathlon. I'd remind myself that I am smart, at least I used to be anyway.

I'd be daydreaming of something more exciting than a nap.

I'd also be working on my swim, getting faster.

Bleh. Maybe tomorrow I will get some of this stuff done. Now I am just eking by, grateful at least that it's no longer thundering and lightning-ing outside. The storm scared Kitty.

That was fun!

Greg and I got home from to Incline Village last night, after a full day of travel. Southwest Airlines is sneaky with their "non-stop" flights, which would more accurately be called "several stops but you can't get off the plane so bring 2 days' worth of water and snacks and entertainment!" Thankfully we had plenty of snacks and entertainment so the 9 hours flew by. Literally.

Also, for those of you who are wondering about my new bike case, I successfully avoided the bike fee on the way home. After a bad lying attempt on the outbound flight ("um, it's equipment?") that didn't work well at all, for the return flight I brushed up my lying skills and kept my $50 thank you very much.

I will be needing that $50 because my mom and I broke my iPod shuffle this weekend... It had a very short 4 month life! First I put it through the washing machine by accident, then my mom put it in the toaster oven to "dry off" and it exploded! Now the debate is whether I should replace it with another shuffle or with a proper real-deal iPod that can hold my 40+ gigs of music and playlists. I am leaning towards the latter, I don't work out much with music anyway and that's the true purpose of the shuffle.

Speaking of my mom Sal and silly things, on Sunday, my aunt Glenn came over for dinner with me and my mom and Greg. It was tons of fun, in part because she brought over a photo album from the mid-1950's that had lots of photos of my mom, my grandparents, and my mom's six siblings in various stages of coolness and ragamuffin-ness. I look a lot like my mom but so does my sister. Also we had some wine with dinner. As Glenn was leaving with the album:

Glenn: Well, I'm glad [the album] was what it was...
Sal (interrupting): It is what it is...
Me and Greg: AHAHAHAHA

The two sisters, using basically the same meaningless catch phrase that topped the San Francisco Chronicle's list of dumbest phrases of 2007.

I am heading back home in 2 1/2 weeks for the family reunion. I am looking forward to it! Maybe I will get on a horse I hope.

Columbia Triathlon Race Report

I need to stop leaving races before results are posted... Yesterday I raced the Olympic-distance Columbia Triathlon here in Maryland. I was really pleased with my race and was curious about how my times were compared to other women, but it started to rain right after I finished and with 2000 participants, the race was a total mob scene, plus I was of course starving, so we opted to get out of there pronto and just "check results on-line in a few hours." A "few" turned into many which turned into me waking up several times in the middle of the night to hit refresh... finally saw the results at 8 this morning!

I had the 3rd fastest woman's bike split of the whole day (all divisions) at 1:09:14, 2 minutes behind Amanda Lovato and 1:15 behind race winner Rachel Wassner, and ahead of the rest of the Pro and Open and Age Group women. Woohoo! I thought I had a good ride but I didn't know it was that good! I am excited because since switching to triathlon last fall, I have focussed my cycling training solely on time-trialling, and it seems to be working. I feel much better about this ride than my ride at Wildflower, where I finished the race feeling like I went too conservatively.

I felt decent about my run yesterday too, there were 4 women in my Open division who ran faster. My time was 42:48, I wish I could say I ran faster than that but I have to remind myself that I have been training my run since only this past August. I have already improved a lot and I am actually really excited that I feel so good with my run at this early stage of my multisport career!

As for the swim... I swam a 29:33, which was :27 faster than my goal of 30:00. Oh and my wetsuit zipper split apart 8 minutes before my wave start! Thank god my aunt Glenn and a very kind stranger helped me get back together, I would have swum without it but I would have been a bit cold and I definitely wouldn't have made my time goal.

So my overall time was 2:24:48, good for 10th in the Open division. I am psyched about that, I knew that in such a strong field I would not be able to make up my swim deficit so the goal for the day was to have a good-for-me swim and then tear it up on the bike and the run. Also to have fun, which I totally did, especially thanks to my mom and my aunt cheering for me and taking pictures, and Greg greeting me at the finish.(Me with Aunt Glenn)

Anyhow, I really like the Olympic distance, and I can't wait till my swim improves even more and I can feel even faster out there! My next race, Battle at Midway, is another Olympic distance race and I am really looking forward to it.

More Barnyard Video Footage

Munchie gets to eat grass for an hour or two a day. The spring grass is really rich and ponies are prone to laminitis, a hoof disease, and nutrients in the grass are a direct cause. So Munchie's grass is rationed, and his feet are healthy.

Anyhow he gets pretty pumped for his couple hours of grass.

My Mom and Her Tractor

I was laughing way too hard when I took this. It's a bit blurry because she was mowing really fast, like 20 mph. But then I felt bad for laughing, so I went out and picked up sticks that were in the way.

Home [from] Collage

I got home to my mom's house in Maryland last night. I feel like I have been here a week already, we did so much today! Put the bike together, visited with friends, visited with other friends, said hi to approx. 7 horses and ponies and the same amount of cats and dogs, swam, went to a bike shop, rode the bike, hung out with mom, watched Sarabi's flatwork, etc. Oh and had several conversations about where I am going in life. Thus even though it's been a good 7 years since I've come home from college, something about this trip is making me feel like I am a slightly aimless 22 year-old again. Anyhow here's a sampler of the day...

Here is Home, view from the bottom of the driveway.

Here is My Main Competition this weekend: Sarabi. Or in this case, Slobberabi. Again, I say to my mom that the choice is OBVIOUS!

No, they aren't twins! They actually aren't even related, although both are Thoroughbreds. On the left we have my perfect angel Sijui, who my mom got for me when I was 13 and she was 8. She is Sarabi's mom. On the right we have my mom's incorrigible monster Fox. Actually he is not a monster, I kind of like him, he and I spent 3 months together in Charlottesville before I moved to San Francisco and now he is my mom's and she lets him get away with murder because she thinks it's "cute".

Speaking of cute: Munchie goes for the good stuff.

My Blue checking out the scenery from the porch.

Munchie munching on more appropriate pony food: grass!

Also for those of you who are curious, my mom is still leaving notes all over the place especially in the laundry room.

One of the only reasons why I hate Maryland: developments are growing like weeds. The potentially funny thing about this site, which is about a mile from my mom's house, is that much of the 69 acres which was zoned as agriculture but somehow got to be sold for housing because of a state law that allows parcels of land exceeding 50 acres to be subdivided, anyway a lot of the land is very swampy and therefore has drainage issues, so there is debate as to how many cookiecutter plots of 4-car garage ugliness they will actually be able to put there.

It's Me or the Horse

Now we all know I love ponies. And horses. But when my mom says "I don't know if I can watch your race on Sunday because Sarabi is competing that day," I temporarily don't love them. (Sarabi is her horse).

Are you kidding me?!?!?!

She wasn't kidding me.

Nevermind the fact that I am her first-born daughter. Nevermind the fact that this is the only race I am doing all year that my mom can attend. Nevermind the fact that is the reason I have been planning to do the race for the last 6 months. Nevermind the fact that even though it's going to be a great race, there were definitely plenty of events much closer to Lake Tahoe than Columbia, Maryland that I could have chosen for this weekend. Nevermind the fact that she can cheer for me but you are not supposed to cheer during dressage. Nevermind the fact that Sal goes to see Sarabi all the time!

GROAN!! I can't believe this is even an ISSUE or a QUESTION! I am the OBVIOUS CHOICE here!!

After I questioned my mom's rationale about this, she pulled a typical let's-overcommit-myself-even-more maneuver and "maybe" she'll "come watch me start the race" and then hightail it 75 miles down the road to Fair Hill. If that's my only option though, I'll just tell her to go play with her pony. Having her there staring at her watch waiting to leave after seeing me leap into the water like an overstuffed whale isn't my idea of quality time with my mom OR of fun stress-free racing. Or of her watching me race for that matter.

I'll let you all know how it goes of course.

Some Lessons

Today I learned two great lessons that I'd like to share.

1. Splish says that their white suits are not see-through, because they use a liner. So if I decide I want a white birthday suit to race in, I will not be indecent!

2. Pomeranians are vicious and apparently don't like bikes. They are also embarrassingly fast over short distances... one tried to eat me today on my ride and I only barely beat it to the top of the hill. (I was laughing while sprinting though, if that counts for anything).

In other news, I am basically just plugging along, getting ready to race again this weekend, and relatedly, getting ready to fly with my bike for the first time since Nature Valley last year (incidentally, I laughed as I just re-read that post... wow, the foreshadowing. I really didn't know it at the time that I'd be sitting here nearly a year later with exactly one bike race on my calendar). I got myself a spiffy new Akona Biospeed Bike Case and this will be its maiden voyage. I predict that I will be quite pleased with it, with my bike inside it will weigh less than my old case did when it was empty! I am crossing my fingers that this slim little case will help me shirk the bike fee. We'll see. I think it's totally bogus that they charge for bikes but not for golf clubs, so I have no moral dilemma here about whether or not to lie at the checkin counter. I doubt I can convince anyone that my bike is golf equipment but I might be able to say "massage table" or "paintings and art supplies" and get away with it. I will let you all know.

Additionally, I just realized that mathematically speaking, even in the *totally unlikely* event that I swim as un-stellarly at Columbia as I did at Wildflower, I will still get in under 30 minutes, which was one of my early-season goals: olympic swim in 30 mins or less. Because 39:39 for 1.2 miles is the same as 29:46 for 0.9 miles right? Yes I did take Calc BC... God if my teachers could only see me now, the 1996 GFS Top Scholar (girly version of Valedictorian), twelve years later she's pursuing an athletic dream and occasionally thinking on the side.

Maybe I should volunteer to visit the school and give a school talk about Your Future After Boarding School, I wonder if the administration would take me up on it ;)

Happy Mother's Day!

And that's all I have to say about that. Thankfully my mom sees Mother's Day for what it truly is, a marketing scam courtesy of Hallmark, Hyatt brunches, and 1-800-Flowers.

Today I swam short-course down at the Carson pool. I did a set that I last did about 3 weeks ago, and was pleased to note that the intervals seemed easier and I finished the set way stronger. That was a nice way to start the day, especially considering I was up for two hours in the middle of the night with some weird chest pain that made me afraid to go back to sleep in case if I was having a heart attack (I wasn't). Then I went to Target to return some of the clothes I bought Greg and to buy a bunch of stuff for myself. I got two new hoodies! Naturally I forgot a lot of the stuff I wanted, I got bogged down in the creams and moisturizers section for a good half an hour and started seriously running out of steam so I busted out of there, forgetting blank CD's, dish soap, razor blades, and toilet paper.

Then I went to Trader Joe's and again I regret my newfound aversion to list-making because I got all the way home and realized I didn't get pasta or pasta sauce or sweet potatoes or eggs.

But I did get wine. Two bottles. Also at Target I got a fancy cat-scratch post for Kitty. As of now he is avoiding it but I hope hope hope he starts to like his present.

My Birthday Suit - UPDATED!

With Greg still on the east coast, I have a lot of time on my hands. Favourite activities seem to be photographing the cat, talking to the cat, doing Sudoku puzzles (yes I know they are so 2005) and planning my Birthday which is 4 months from this past Wednesday.

When I registered for the LA Triathlon which is the same day as my 30th birthday, I was dismayed to see that the entry form didn't have any of those nosy questions that I typically leave blank because I think they are annoying - "is this your first tri", "are you any good and do you have any notable results", "can the announcer say anything interesting about you", etc. That would have been the perfect opportunity to tell them that race day is my birthday and I'd really like to hear them announce that at the race. Multiple times. But no, I had no means of making such a request.

So I'll have to inform everyone in LA myself that it's my birthday.

What better way than to wear a super cool custom-designed birthday suit?! Here's what I have come up with so far:


I am open to suggestions. Keeping in mind that the main objectives here are 1. to tell everyone in sight that it's my birthday and 2. to not look bad (i.e. to look good).

White might not be the best color choice, I am not sure. Since it's basically a one-off race suit though I don't need to worry too much about it getting stained or dirty. I did a version in Black but it looked a little severe. I also did one with the big lettering in Blue but that one failed in objective #1 (not too easy to read).

(Side note: Why doesn't splish have a balloon graphic?!!? Or customizable graphics??!)

What do you all think?

UPDATE:

O.K. thank you to everyone who pointed out how, um, appropriate white would be as a birthday suit. Or inappropriate as a race suit! I'm not interested in being see-through on my big day, so I redid the colors. Here is the latest version:

A Note About Swimming

My plans to unveil a wicked fast swimmer (me) next weekend are already feeling a bit foiled. The Carson pool has a big swim meet this weekend, so no long course at all till next weekend. They actually said Monday was a "maybe" but I have learned not to count on "maybe" under any circumstances, be they swimming or can-I-get-a-puppy or otherwise.

I also called the Arundel Swim Center, a big 50-meter facility about 15 minutes from my mom's house in Maryland, where I'll be next week. "Long course?" the guy sounded way too confused to be a real live employee but he was indeed a real live employee. "You mean like 50 meters? No we don't never do that. We got diving boards and stuff all in the way." Why would you build a 50 meter pool but have it permanently set up short course? Is there a real reason or is it just a mixture of redneckness, laziness, and low demand?

I even looked into swimming here at my [sort of] beloved lake. Current Lake Tahoe water temperature is in the mid to upper 40's, depending on where you are. That's a bit cold for me in the context of a quality workout.

Oh well. I can still get in a decent short course workout. I just like the long course for longer sets - for one thing I am much less likely to lose count and get confused! (This is yet another reason to be permanently mad at my mom for not putting me into a swim team program as a child. Swim team kids know how to do long sets.)