Brick

1:30/:30 brick this morning. Went well; managed 24/3. Missed running over a squirrel by about 1/2 inch, little bastard. Legs were still Jello-y at the start of the run, but managed to get my "land legs" back after about 10 minutes, so it's all good.

My sister, her BF, and my nephew are visiting for the nephew's birthday. We took him swimming (where I managed a mild sunburn on my back/shoulders, despite a liberal coating of SPF45,) I napped when we got home, ate a tasty dinner, and had a deeeeelicious SpongeBob birthday cake. It's all about the icing for me ;)

mmmmm, buttttttttercream...

Pics coming soon!

Official 70.3 Pre-Training Kickoff

Since I hadn't been on my bike since the Suncoast tri (like, six weeks ago,) Linae decided that I needed to ride today, so I met her about 12 miles up the road in New Port Nowhere and we rode part of the Suncoast Trail and through Starkey Park. We saw two deer (I don't think it was the same one twice) and the biggest effin' grasshopper I've ever seen in my life. We have some weird @ss bugs here. I ran through a mini-swarm of lovebugs the other day. I knew they were lovebugs because they were "hooked up," the gross little fornicating ba$tards.

Anyway, I slowed the injured fast girl waaaaay down (y'know, so she wouldn't aggravate her hip further. Riiiiight...) I have a LOT of work to do. 18.5 miles, which is as far as I've ever gone on two wheels. About a mile before we hit the parking lot, Linae turns to me and says, "By the time we finish today, you'll be 1/3 of the way there!" (For my non-tri friends, the bike portion of this race is 56 miles.) My reaction: Holy sh!t. My butt hurts NOW. And I'm slow. She assured me I'd get faster if I actually RODE THE BIKE once in a while. Hmmm. I suppose it's worth a shot....

And so begins 70.3 training.

Thanks, Dr. Pusher! :)

PORN - 12 miles in the morning

Mondays blow

Rode the bike today for an hour. No big whoop. Nothing exciting. Still look like a dork, butt still hurts, just another day, blah blah blah.

Ordered a new pair of running shoes this morning. My shins are starting to twinge a little, which usually means my shoes are wearing out. It's time--they have over 400 miles on them.

Song of the day: "Come a Little Closer" by Dierks Bentley. Mostly because I saw the video this morning. Crazy-hot song/video. Mmmmmm, Dierks.

Brick

Did a brick today, 10 miles on the bike, 3 mile run, which is what I'll be doing next Saturday. Took me about 1/2 mile to get my "road legs." The ol' stems were pretty Jello-y for a while. And since I'm still ambivalent about the bike, I thought I'd focus on the positive aspects, like I did with the treadmill.

*It's doing awesome things for my legs
*Hills are more fun. Well, going DOWN hills is fun. Going up still sucks. But not as much as running up them. At least there aren't any ginormous hills around here. Except for that one.
*Spitting off the bike is pretty fun (Yes, I spit. Get over it.)
*The neighborhood kids think the bike is cool
*Not ALL drivers are discourteous. Some actually leave for work early enough that they don't have to run over you to make it on time. Golfers late for their tee time, however, will run over any old lady pushing a carriage full of babies and puppies to get to the clubhouse (our subdivision is a golf course community.)

But my butt still hurts and I still look like a dork in my helmet :)

Now, I'm relaxing for the rest of the day. Going to the movies (by myself, yet again) to watch my movie star crush, Will Ferrell, which is mildly disturbing. What can I say? I've got a thing for funny, goofy guys. And tomorrow morning, it's 18 miles at the ass-crack of dawn. Yay. A Labor Day marathon in Mississippi was a FABULOUS idea.

Song of the day: "You Look Good in My Shirt" by Keith Urban. Just 'cuz it rocks :)

First Open Water Swim EVER

Here's the photo Linae took of Pass-A-Grille Beach, the site of my first open water swim. Being a techno-idiot, I couldn't get the photo any bigger, but you can still see how gorgeous it is. Her CrackBerry takes a mighty fine-quality picture, eh?

I was kind of nervous as Linae and Joe led me out into the water. I wasn't worried about sharks; I know for the most part, they don't care about me. Jellyfish and those stupid Portugese man-o-wars that have been hanging around WAY too close to the shore (and have been getting a lot of press lately) were another thing altogether. And I really didn't care to see a stingray, either. But I saw no critters that wanted to bite/sting me. Just some little fishies that darted away whenever you came near them.

We waded out to the sandbar and swam parallel to the shore. Just like when I run, I pull to the left when I swim (which causes me to believe one side of my body is shorter than the other, lol) But Linae gave me some sighting tips, and I didn't go as far off-course the second time. We swam a bit further than what I'll be doing in the tri, and Linae said I had a good, long line in the water, so I think I just might survive this new arc in my Circle of Crazy :)

Thanks, Dr. Pusher!

When I got to Linae's house before the concert on Sunday, she handed me a gift in an adorable wine gift box. It was a triathlon training kit she had put together for me, including all of the stuff in the picture below as well as tri top. The tag on the gift box said, "To Shawn, From The Pusher. You can never leave The Firm! :) " lol

sigh. I guess this means she actually expects me to do this now.

Swim training starts in 21 days.