I’m back at home today. It’s good to be back.
Last night I ate Dairy Queen for dinner. The usual post race Blizzard with cookie dough and peanut butter cups. I think Bree Wee probably just barfed. Sorry girl but if I were king it would be DQ for dinner every night.
While I was away my darling husband farmed out dog sitting responsibilities to his sister Meg Meg. This gives me a great deal of hope for when we have children. I am not sure what happened but I suspect Boss spent the weekend in the city raving all night long because today he has gone from crate to dining room floor to deck to take a nap. He also has not barked in over 12 hours.
I slept in this morning. It was nice to wake up to the sound of the highway rather than chickens. And for the record, if you thought roosters just clucked at dawn think again. Race morning they were clucking at 2:53 am.
I have spent the morning cleaning the house. Kudos to my husband for keeping things under control here this weekend. No beer and potato chips to be found anywhere. There was a strange smell in the kitchen but it seems to have gone away.
Speaking of husband congratulations to him for doing a duathlon last Saturday in the pouring rain and 40 degrees. There’s another reason to stay in Illinois. The good news though is that it was called the peanut butter duathlon. The bad news is that he didn’t bring home a jar of peanut butter. What kind of nonsense is that? You can’t name something after peanut butter and then not give a jar away.
Speaking of race giveaways; I was looking at my finisher medal from St. Croix and noticed it said SPRINT FINISHER. I am not sure if I should find that highly insulting or hilarious.
I caught up some blogs but got abruptly halted when I read that Rachel Ross gave up coffee. It killed my drive to catch up on everyone else so if you did some amazing this past weekend I apologize for not chiming in about it. I blame Rachel for throwing out these disturbing words, no coffee.
You know it’s time to get new bike shoes when you have to say to the woman that is searching your suitcase at customs “my suitcase stinks because of my shoes.” It was wretched. Stinky shoes times two – cycling shoes and race flats. I tried soaking my shoes but then the house started to smell like dirty shoe and soap. Does anyone have a remedy for stinky shoes?
In other post-race news, I never did tell about the awards banquet. The awards banquet was really nice. They called up to the top 10 pro’s and I believe one of the most exciting moments of my life happened that night. Being called up first, I then got to shake hands with each woman as she took her place on the stage. World champions, ITU medalists. WOW. And then when Mirinda Carfrae came up, she shook my hand and said well done. I’m sure to her it was just another hand and something else to say….but I’ll always remember that. Looking at a world champion and hearing her say well done, well, that meant a lot to me.
I received a lot of nice e-mails about my race. Stories about other crazy races where people crashed or got off course. My favorite was from Janelle – about the woman that ran into a bear at a course in Colorado. All things considered I realize my race or any of our races could always be much worse. I want to thank everyone for writing such nice notes to me. I read all of the comments and hope that as I honestly share what happens or how I feel in training and racing that you will realize that when things don’t go well or do go well for you on training or race days…that you are not alone! We all go through things – good or bad.
It’s 1:08 pm and Boss just barked. I guess the day has begun!
