Sleep

If I could sleep enough every night I would be a happy person. I AM a happy person but I'd be happier if I got enough sleep. I'd like 7 hours of UNINTERPRETED sleep every night.

I was able to babysit yesterday evening, its such fun to play with the kids. Pasha is going to be 6 next week and she beat me at Chess.

Seriously, she beat me. I was going to let her win but not that fast! She insisted that we finish the game so I lost again with the remaining pieces.

I ran a mile with Lan yesterday morning so I could try out my new Timex GPS watch but I didn't get it figured out at all. I have the patience of a goldfish. I do know it was a faster mile than I'm used to (besides the fact I rarely run at all) because I stayed beside Lan the whole way and he runs faster than my slog. I'll guess it was a 9:30 mile. I'm good with that. And I could be exaggerating by a minute or two.

Back at it

I've taken way too much time off since Ironman Coeur d'Alene. I knew I was going to slow down & do horses all summer but I didn't plan on taking 6 months off from serious IM training. I've gained weight & lost all muscle tone.

 

Today we had my 50th birthday party & I was given 2 pretty pink Timex GPS watches. I'll take one back to REI and get Linda something really nice because she got me one of them & Lan got me the other. Shes going without her arthritis medications & spending $99.99 on pink watches for me & I feel bad. But I did give her a jacket she really wanted the other day when we went shopping; I said I was buying it for me.

I'm not really 50 until 3:53am Tuesday, December 11th. Then I can forget things and be mean to kids.

I'm going to get up that day and weigh in, take measurements of my whole body and take photos. I'm going to look worse than I did last year, ugh.

With my age comes a new age group too, I'll be competing against all older women. This theoretically gives me an advantage but if I don't do well I'll look silly.

Updates on races:
Race for a Soldier- I had to work so Amanda Arr ran with my bib. My new PR is 1:38:37 for the half marathon!! and its going to be a bitch to ever beat that time again, lol.

Seattle Half Marathon- Ran/walked this with Linda. Shes on new meds and they help but not enough to allow her to run. She had BAD pain in her left knee for more than half the distance so we decided to just walk and have FUN. We took a lot of photos and had good times with many people we knew. We finished in 3:29:14.

Jingle Bell 5k- That was last weekend and I did OK but no PR (got that last year running with Lindas bib, 29:21) this year finished in 31:14. I'm ok with that since I haven't run at all.

I want to try my new watch out so Lan & I are getting up bright & early to go for a run around the neighborhood. I've got to be back before 9:30 because the farrier is coming.

Oh, let me introduce you to Mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze06pT6d0co&feature=plcp
He is a 5 year old TB gelding that started race training but never raced but he got a bad habit of taking off when an inexperienced rider would raise their hands too high, then squeeze in fear. Mark belongs to my FIL & I found a trainer for Mark, got him looking good thru her riding & training & a decent diet. His hooves are current and hes been wormed.

Markster, September 30, 2012

This was 'Bubba' before I changed his name to Mark. He is 16hh. In this photo he had been at Terrys for a month, the trainers for a month before than & doing nothing the whole time. He lacked muscle so looked very awkward. I could see that with riding his back would come up, flattening his topline, rounding his croup, filling out his neck & deepening his chest. I don't have current conformation shots but he looks SO good now, can't wait to get some taken so I can share.

All my horses are fine and I can't wait to start riding again.

Black Diamond Olympic Race Report

Black Diamond Olympic Race Report: This was my second Black Diamond Olympic distance race (also in 2011); I've also done 1 Sprint (2010). This is the first race that didn't include rain.

The swim started normally for me,

an inside freak out that lasted until just past the 1st buoy then I was able to continue on for the rest of the mile mostly fine. It took a long time to do but I knew I was going faster than last year. It also helped that there was another woman in front of me that I was trying to catch and pass. I didn’t, she was standing & walking up the ramp when I was just touching the bottom of the lake.

Swim time: 42:16 Last year 45:28. I thought there was a bigger difference than this but I was wrong.

T1 starts at the lake shore then you have to go up the hill & into transition,

it’s a couple hundred yards. They’ve got it carpeted for the worst of the rocky part. I got my wetsuit halfway down before I got into T1 so all I needed to do was remove it from the waist down, take off goggles & head stuff, put on biking shoes w/o socks, helmet & glasses and was on my way.

I beat 6 people in the swim.

T1 time: 3:31

Last year: 4:21 Difference must be that it wasn’t raining, didn’t need a jacket & didn’t put on socks.

My bike ride was nice and went by faster than I thought it should. I’ve ridden the course a couple times before so I kind of knew it but didn’t have it all memorized. At one at spot I thought I was passing people behind me but they were in front of me instead but it gave me targets to catch. No wind or rain so it was a much nicer ride than years past. I only passed a few people on the course, maybe 10, one of them a guy, on a hill, I FLEW past him! Came into the park feeling really good.

My bike placing was 117, I beat 41 people on the bike, and I was in 134th place overall after the bike.

Bike time: 1:26:51 Last year: 1:38:13 There wasn’t wind or rain and I’ve had more training & have a better bike.

T2 Starts at dismount, run a hundred yards to transition. Shoes, helmet, glasses off, socks & shoes on, grabbed hat that had food & sweat bands in it & ran. I put the hat on after I was out of T2 & running so I wasn’t wasting time standing there. I use elastic shoe strings so all I have to do is pull them on, no tying involved.

T2 time: 2:00 Last year: 2:24 Way faster this year, considering I had to put socks on this time. Maybe it was the rain before that slowed me down??

The run was not fun and I didn’t have any time that I felt ‘in the zone’ at all. My shins were burning for the first couple miles.

It didn’t feel any better to walk than to run but walking didn’t beat on them. At the 3 mile mark I started running alongside Marianna, another TriBabe. We walked/ran the rest of the race together and finished side by side.

One thing I noticed was my head was hot with a cap on so I either need good running sunglasses and no hat or maybe try a visor.

I beat 5 people in the run.

Run time: 1:17:02 Last year: 1:09:28 Last year I ran the whole time and felt good but it was cooler weather.

Total time: 3:31:41 I was 8/8 in my division (women 45-49) and 142/158 total finishers. Not my best race ever and I felt a lot better after last years race.

Good News

Yesterday I received some really good news: I'll be working at the Bremerton Ferry Dock starting September 23rd, all the way until June 23rd, 2013. Coincidence? I think not.

I thought about it long and hard and kept coming up with the same answer to my question of if I should change docks or not: YES.

I'll have more time to workout because I am now low man on the totem pole of seniority and with the shortened fall/winter/spring sailing schedule there will be less hours available.

At Fauntleroy I had 4 people below me and I would be working almost 40 hours all winter. I can go back next summer if I want... IF.

I should be able to get to the gym or get an outdoor workout almost any day too because the dock is only about 4 miles away from the Bremerton YMCA. How convenient is that?? VERY. I'll catch the Masters swimming lessons so much easier.

This last week I once again didn't have enough time to workout much but I did get out to the lake once and this morning I did a spin class. Torrey is no longer going to lead them at the Gig Harbor Y, Dana will do them and shes a freak. Shes OK for Pilate's because she makes sure you've got good correct form but shes no good on the bikes.

This weekend I've got the Black Diamond Olympic tri in Enumclaw, did it last year in 3:39:55 and I hope to hell I can beat that time this year, even if its just by 5 seconds.

Things will be different this time around

How is training going? Good so far.

I'm getting back into the swing of things, gearing up for an intense 10 months of hard training. My nutrition will be more structured, my training is going to have more aspects to it and I'll FOLLOW THROUGH.

I'm going to purchase and use Hammer Nutrition products. I've got some information from them and have spoken to actual athletes who use them and I like what I'm hearing. I'll start using gels and LIKE them. I'll learn what, how much and how often to feed my body during workouts. I'll keep track in writing of this information so I'm not just winging it.

I'll TRY to quit eating all the crap, or at least most of it. I'd like to lose some weight but a little of that will happen as I progress and I'm not at a bad weight anyway. I'm planning on having some nice muscles at the end of this and for that I'll be doing some weight lifting so I could end up heavier. Who knows at this point.

And if I say I'm going to do a workout I'm GOING TO DO IT. No more plans being broadcast all over town & then me changing things up to make it easier on myself.

Now if I could just figure out this website; its being all goofy and difficult with me.

I've been on vacation from triathlon training

Bucket List

When I was in high school back in the late 70's, King Tut came to Seattle. I think I was one of the only residents of the state who didn't get to go see it. Our Social Studies teacher was too busy with basketball to make arrangements for our class to go on a field trip. (I've held a grudge for 35 years)

I've always wanted to go.

This is Seattle's Pacific Science Center

Lan took me on a date here last Friday, it was to make up for us not running in the torchlight fun run the weekend before. This was one of the most awesome days of my life, in the top 100 days of my life, for sure. Not as high up there are feeding Seattle Slew a carrot or jumping out of a plane though.

We rode the Bremerton-Seattle ferry over Puget Sound in the early morning.

Parking in the city is hard to find and expensive but if you look around a little and are willing to walk an extra block or two it can be a lot cheaper. Across the street from the center it was $15 for the day. We paid $1 per hour for 4 hours since we knew we wouldn't be there all day. And walked an extra block. Ha.

Seattle Center is pretty big, colorful and loud; I've always enjoyed going there. There are a lot of things going on at all times and some of my best teen memories are of concerts in the now Key Arena, previously called the 'Coliseum'.

So we found our way to the King.

But first I had to get a photo of Lan with the dino's.

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These statues were the first things you saw as you walked into the exhibit. They were close to life size but I did notice they had extremely big feet; for a body about 5'6" tall there were size 14 feet.

At this point I wasn't thinking about taking photos with the info but its got his name right there on the side of his seat.

This was a female queen. Someone took the jewels out of her eyes.

Stela of Any in a Chariot

 This commemorative stela from his tomb shows Any, a scribe and steward, returning from an awards ceremony where he received from Akhenaten the "gold of honor" that he wears.

Colossal Statue of Amenhotep IV

This is about 8 feet tall and made of stone.

Wooden casket of a queen

This wood is 5000 years old and in magnificent condition. The paint is still bright in color and up close on the back of the casket you can see teeny carved feathers on her back, all up and down, like wings.

Golden Mask of Psusennes I

 This was amazing to look at.

Its life size and was fit over the head of this pharaoh. It goes around in back and obviously is hollow but you never see the back of it. So I took a photo for your viewing pleasure.

This is King Tuts bed. He wasn't very big, just about 5'6" tall and this is a short bed. Obviously he slept alone too. The bed still has its woven rattan or whatever it is and the legs of the bed have feline feet.

He didn't always sleep alone because they had a wooden box with two golden mini caskets that held the fetuses of his daughters.

This golden Canopic Coffinette is about 18" tall and gorgeous.

This is a replica of King Tutankhamen. The shape of his head is alien-ish, maybe due to the fact his parents were brother and sister and they were offspring of incest themselves. Royalty thought it would make them smarter if they married siblings, uncles and close cousins.

 This is a poster of the real mummy, on the bottom left is his father. 

Parenthood was verified in 2008 by DNA testing.

 Lan and I spent a good 2-3 hours in the exhibit. I read every plaque and spent a lot of time looking at every item.

I thought it weird that they included a toilet lid.





After we left King Tut we wandered into the rest of the Science Center and played around on the kiddy things.

Here we are with the Space Needle. It costs $20 each to go up in it now-a-days so we didn't go. Its cheaper to go into the Columbia Tower and that's way higher.

The goofy mirrors made up laugh.

Lan the Troll, with his 2 wives.

These round balls were a "Stoners Dream", according to Lan. There were about 20 balls that you could roll into the bowl, they would spiral around, around & down, then you do it all over again.

We did it, over and over again.

After 4 hours and a ton of fun we left the center and headed into Seattle to see bike shops & eventually rode my ferry home. This was one of the nicest days ever.