Daily life has become oh so daily again.
Chris and I returned home on Saturday night. We picked up Boss from Grandma Janet’s house. Like any guilt-ridden parental unit, we took him immediately to the pet store, bought him four new toys and a bag of minty breath bones. Then we feasted at Whole Foods. We are slowly realizing that for the price of one meal at Whole Foods we could easily have a fancy sit down meal at a real restaurant. But it wouldn’t be nearly as fun to pick one of everything off their fantastic salad bar.
Sunday rolled around with a trip to the bagel shop, Trader Joe’s and the mart of Wals. Grocery shopping with Chris is always entertaining. Do we really need that is my response to most of what he puts in the cart. And then it was you cannot buy beer before 12 pm on Sunday when I found him making his own six pack. Come on, we are not on Ragbrai anymore. The mart of the Wals was just starting to explode in crazy people when we arrived. So we quickly got our things and high tailed it back home.
The rest of the day was filled with sorting laundry and putting things away. Boss got a bath. Then he found and chewed apart a bottle of Purple Extreme which meant I had the pleasure of shampooing the carpet. Again. I was hoping I would get to do that since it had been over a week since the last shampoo when he barfed up burnt toast on to the carpet after that miserable day where he found and ate burnt toast in the field then got stung by a bee all before nearly getting sprayed by a late night skunk. Back to Sunday, we went to masters at 3 pm proving you can lose everything you have gained in the pool after just 7 short days. Then we had a long run. When I was still running at 8:45 pm I realized it had been also a very long day.
Monday was my birthday. I’m not fishing for compliments or gifts but will accept either in any case. And let me tell you – turning 25 for the third time feels just as great as the first time. I spent most of my birthday talking to my athletes – getting ready for a race, talking them down from a tree, telling them that fatigue is a normal part of training for Ironman. I ate about 6000 calories all before 4 pm and then went out and ate some more. Someone recently asked me how many calories I eat in a day. I don’t know how you would quantify “lots” but that’s where I’m at. I hate to go hungry and I love to eat. Chris and I have a king-sized bed because we both plan on being very large one day. And I’ve already called dibs on the idea that after age 70 if I make it that far I’m going on a reverse meal plan diet – where every meal starts with desert then we take it from there.
I thought about swimming on Monday but decided to take the day off instead. I was supposed to take Tuesday off but decided Monday would suit me better plus it was my birthday and I didn’t want to spoil it with a clock that added 1 second to my 100 time for every day I didn’t swim. In my defense, I tried to swim in Iowa but Iowa didn’t want me to swim in its pools. Seems that most outdoor pools were really just playlands for salty tired cyclists. I did swim in a pool one day and made my own open water course through the people standing around in 2 foot water. But after scraping my knuckles and pissing off a few people I thought it might be safer to just visualize swimming instead.
My birthday was made complete with dinner with my mom and Chris. I chose and Italian restaurant and a fabulous bottle of wine (Garnacha and Tempranillo blend – exquisite). After one glass I was feeling a little tipsy. After two glasses Chris was downright drunk. So drunk that his face turned bright pink to match the he calls it salmon I call it pink shirt he was wearing (why does his grandmother insist on buying him clothes?). We got back to my mom’s house, deemed him too drunk to drive his own car back home so I drove instead. Then we went to the grocery store because what is the elf’s birthday without a giant piece of cake? I had no room in my stomach but shuffled aside some earlier couscous and zucchini to make room for cake. Chris got cake too but was shutdown after about one half a bite. I picked up the slack and ate most of the other half.
At home we took Boss for a walk. Chris let him do crazy laps in the dark which is twice as exciting as crazy laps in the daylight. Back inside Boss chewed obsessively on his bone while Chris watched Futurama in a cake/wine/food coma on the couch. I suspect with Ironman training coming up I will find him like this more often. I am also worried with Ironman training I will put on Ironman in training pregnancy weight. Is it possible to have one in the house training for Ironman without the other one gaining weight from all the “I earned it” slices of cake and “I’m too tired to cook” meals out? I guess I will find out.
With Chris too weak to fend off my attempts to stab my fork into his cake so I ate more of his frosting then called myself officially full for the day. Full and tired. My legs are sore. My eyes are heavy. Tomorrow I am back on the wagon – the workout wagon, the no more is it my birthday wagon, the anti sugar wagon – all those wagons with all those rolling wheels. For now there is more cake to steal from Chris and Futurama is still on.
Tuesday I woke up and decided of all the wagons I will be on today the no coffee wagon will not be one of them. I made coffee in the French press, a sharp yet hearty roast that one of my athletes sent me from Coeur d’Alene (I know my athletes read this so I will make a formal announcement that I accept all forms of gifts but I’m quite partial to coffee beans). I alternated drinking it and pouring it out when it became too cold only to fill the cup up again with piping hot coffee.
I went to swimming after breakfast and went between fits of anger (how could swimming betray me like this) and fits of it will be ok (it will come back quicker than it left your arms) after realizing that still I am slower by nearly 10 seconds per 100 in anything longer than a 200. For the duration of practice I declared swimming no longer my friend. Then to piss it off I raced the guys in the lane next to me. Afterwards I stopped for more coffee because I felt I hadn’t quite met my caffeine quota for the day. Went home to eat my new favorite lunch – spinach salad with chopped hard boiled egg whites, avocado and a scoop of greek yogurt. I’m telling you it’s good. Not as good as cake but….is anything anyways?
On Wednesday I woke up excited to swim bike and run again. I thought I had to do an easy spin flush followed by a short run off the bike. I thought wrong. Or looked wrong. Because when I checked my schedule I noticed I had 5K intervals on the track. Excellent – you see I had waited until 10 am to do my easy workouts. But instead they were not easy. So that meant a trip to the track in the 90 degree heat with 90 percent humidity. Note: these are perfect track conditions. Note: that is a lie. The first 4 were ok. The last 4 were not so ok. The run home was downright bad. Crossing the street I actually got honked at. I guess my 5 foot 2 inch frame capable of running over 12 mph for about 100 meters on the track before passing out did not move quickly enough for the 12 foot vehicle capable of moving over 100 mph. My bad.
Later that day I went for an easy ride and then for my third and final workout I went to the quarry for a swim. Right now it is the color of limes and tastes like pee. There is also a lot of hair floating around. After about 100 meters you will feel – in Tonya’s words, these are scientific terms mind you – like you have the heebeejeebees. I think that’s how it’s spelled. Every time I show up at the quarry I say to myself I am a fast swimmer and I will swim right on your ass. I’m not sure whose ass I am referring to but on this particular night it happened to be my husband. I guess I got a little too close because when we hit the wall he yelled in front of the entire team that I had hogged his personal space. I laughed then told him if I was too much on him he might have trouble convincing his 2000 friends at the start line of Kona to give him more personal space. And he might want to learn how to say ‘back off’ in a few more languages.
Wednesday night and time for dinner. About 9 pm which is standard dinner time. Tomorrow Rachel Ross touches down in Chicago and we are bound to have good times. She will be doing some training with me and has already warned me that I will get sick of her. I told her not to worry – I’ve found most sicknesses only require a little bit of coffee for a cure. Together our goal is to overload our coach’s blackberry with e-mails about rivalries and catfights. I can’t wait. I told Rachel to be sure to include puppy nap time each day. Turns out puppy naps are excellent for recovery and help make 3 workouts a day feel like…..next to none. Lie. Anyways, during puppy nap time we all get out our little carpet squares, turn out the lights and take a short nap.
Thursday. A swim. A meeting over coffee. A bike ride. Oh yes. The bike ride. I decided I would test my Ragbrai legs at the group ride. The big boy group ride, the one I got dropped at a few months ago after 3 minutes. That one. Well, thank you Iowa because I held on the entire way. Not only that but if it is possible to spend 80 minutes in zones 4 – 5 then I did. Rachel called after the ride. She was trying to convince us she cannot swim. Jen and I declared her a sandbagger. Rachel confessed she was more excited to meet Boss than me. Then she said some not so nice things about coach Paul and the pool. I’m keeping notes for Paul. And plan to send them on Sunday.
Friday I woke up late. Shoved a bar in my mouth and went to the pool. Got out of the car and saw a sticker on the car in front of me that said SWIM. I get it. Walked to the gym and a man held the door open while saying “Get in there and work!” I get it. Handed the clerk my gym card, she looked at the clock (seriously), looked at me and I said “I know, I’m 5 minutes late.” I GET IT. Got into the pool and was told to swim in my own lane because it was a “faster group” today. I FREAKIN’ GET IT. Know what I did? Refused my own lane – thank you – swam just fine – thank you – thought about nothing but coffee the entire way.
That was oh so daily life for the week. Friday is here, it’s noon and I haven’t had my coffee. As you can tell, I need it because the week is not over yet. This weekend is a swim race, long run, long ride, brick run and another swim. And meeting up with Rachel Ross. You bet there will be a few blogs about that. Until then, back to my daily life. But really what I’d like right now is my puppy nap carpet square.
