Happy Holidays

Hope you had a good holiday break!

Today I learned how hard running on ice is. I'm in Minnesota visiting my dad and fam and insisted that I wanted to run outside so I could have "oh yeah, well it was all snowy and icy and I went running!" bragging rights.

Running on ice is HARD.

We ran for like 40 minutes and I bet we only went like two miles. I was reduced to shuffling like an old lady so I wouldn't slip, and even then I still fell on my ass.

So we sat in the hot tub tonight.

I get to come home to regular weather and running tomorrow, so I'm pretty excited.

Have a good New Year!

Some day I will learn...maybe

I'm leaving my house at noon tomorrow to get on a plane to the North Pole (Minnesota) and still need to do laundry. As soon as I finish this very important blogging-about-nothing-while-listening-to-Harry-Potter-in-the-background business I will get right on it. Never mind that it is midnight. It won't wake anyone up (and besides, one of the roommies is currently passed out on the couch with the TV on). Yeah. I procrastinate.

On Saturday I went for a run after work. I was all excited to run which is like snow in Morocco. It just doesn't happen. So I loaded up my iPod with some new (terribly terrible but I still like it) music and headed out to do a little streetlight-assisted out and back from my house. I ran in the dirt because it was easier on my feet. I managed not to break my ankle on the uneven stuff. Very near my house, I was running on the smooth, neatly groomed tan bark next to the paved path and was suddenly on my face in the mud. WTF!?!?! Who did that?!!? I jumped up, checked that no cars were in the immediate vicinity, and found a loop of black sprinkler line sticking out of the ground. Tricky fuckers! I wiped the mud of my clothes and iPod and finished the run. Now I have a bruise on my ankle from the makeshift tripwire. Someone totally did that on purpose.

I was supposed to ride up Mt. Diablo yesterday but it rained so I drank tequila at lunch instead. I think that's a fair trade.

It's going to be really really cold in Minnesota.

Really really.

Lopsided and Backwards

My computer is alive again!!!!! Hooray!!!!

It died about a week ago when I shifted it on my lap to answer a phone call at work the ended abruptly when the guy called me stupid and hung up on me. It's all his fault.

So I channeled the powers of the mighty Blackberry and had my emails sent to my phone. It worked out ok since people seem more than happy to resend files that are trapped in your computer if you tell them the computer ate the original. Everyone loves to hate on the computers. And I didn't really want to work on the 12,000 line Excel file I had going when it crashed, so really I just had a very handy excuse.

And I have Facebook on my phone which might be a little obsessive but Elliott constantly has his on his computer and he doesn't even have his own account so I think I'm ok. And it made me not feel like a hermit, so it's all good.

Today my ex bf set up a Facebook account and tried to add me as a friend. I hit "ignore". I feel a little bad because I am actually friends with him, but things are still a little sticky between us and I didn't want him to know all my stuff and see this blog and stuff so I think I made the right choice. It just felt weird to think of my Facebook page as being personal space, you know? (And yes, I am well aware that it is FAR from personal, which is why I keep the pictures of me stealing kittens from old people off my Facebook page. Or something.)

Also today I went to a PT-ish appointment where I think we figured out what's wrong with my leg (and by we I mean "he" because I pretty much just stood there). Basically I'm lopsided and my right side is doing way more work than the left and is noticeably bigger and is getting over use injuries. Because of my stupid lazy left side.

So I got a massage and foam rollered and he's making me a program of stretches and exercises to release the right side and strengthen the left side so I can be a normal girl and ride my bike without it hurting and not wear compression tights to bed all the time. And today my leg didn't hurt at the end of the day, which I think is progress, people.

I forgot to eat lunch today too. I had a yogurt in the morning (a Light one even) followed by a cookie (carb-loading), two tiny pieces of peppermint bark at work, a teeny handful of nuts at like 5:30, and dinner when I got home. This is very disturbing behavior. I'm well-known for eating 1500 calorie burritos with chips and guac literally every day. And being very grouchy and non-functional if I have to wait too long for my food. I might be dying.

When I got home from work I had a conversation with the annoying roommate. About relationships. And it wasn't even annoying. Plus he fixed my computer. Then the non-annoying roommate came home and proceeded to be incredibly annoying talking about his Nazi tri team. I found myself wishing for something sharp to stick in my eye so I could change the subject. And I started texting people to tell them how annoying he was being. Ugh.

My roommates are backwards. And I'm lopsided. WTF.

Climby Climb

Today we rode Mt. Hamilton again as a substitute for our usual Sunday ride. I think I beat my last climb time by like 45 minutes (think because I don't know exactly, but it was between 30 and 45 minutes faster. It was pretty sweet. I took off with one of our usuals, Casey. Elliott caught us pretty quickly, and Casey took off with him. I rode alone from mile 2-ish to the top. It was fine, I get along pretty well with me. I sang songs in my head. Sometimes out loud. Someone told me about seeing a mountain lion the other day, so I freaked myself out a little that one was following me. And the other day I had a dream that I was being hunted by coyotes. My boyfriend from high school was there too in his pjs. I threw a coffee mug at one of the coyotes and tried to walk briskly (so as not to elicit a chase) away, but there were more and they had us circled. It would suck. Didn't do much for my not-freaking-myself-out strategy to think about that. So I went back to the singing.

When we got to the top we went inside the observatory and the lady that works there gave us a tour of the big telescope. It was really big (57 feet I think she said). The floor lifts up so that people can get to the eyepiece. It was sweet. Mr. Lick (that the place is named after) is buried under the floor. We saw a bunch of space pictures and old construction pictures and stuff. Definitely the most interesting mid-ride break I have had lately.

I brought a dollar and got Skittles. They were kind of hard, but still delicious. I was going to get something more "healthy" like trail mix or something, but the Skittles won the mental debate. They were Tropical. I shared them while we were sitting on a heater inside the observatory.

On the way down I got passed by a silver BMW convertable that had been at the top. But I caught him again when the road went from crappy and slow to moderately crappy and swoopy. The two baby climbs on the way down hurt more than they should have. I ate the rest of the Skittles in the car while I talked about people doing a Deca-Ironman (IM distance x 10) with Elliott. He thinks it's stupid. I have no desire to do one, but I think I would want to crew for someone. You'd see some messed up stuff, and I'm weird like that.

When I got home I made food and my stupid roommate and his stupid kid came home. They are excessively loud. Yesterday when I got home the kid started whining about wanting to watch Harry Potter on tv and there was nothing on that I wanted to watch so I let him have the tv in the living room while I holed up in my room. Today I was finishing my food and watching CSI when they got home and the little shit came over and tried guilting me into giving him the tv. I said no, and that he should probably go in the other room because the show is too scary for him (he's 5). He gave up the guilt trip and straight up told me to go in my room. I told him to go in his. That kid sucks. I'm staying on the couch out of spite. Ha! He should go play outside anyway.

Things and Stuff

Someone just offered to loan me their 'Toughen the Fuck Up' bracelet. Some people are such givers!

There's not really anything exciting going on lately. On Monday I "officially" started training for Ironman. So really I have ridden my bike a couple times and gone running some. It's quite cold so swimming probably isn't that smart, even though I kind of want to.

I told my friend about a stalk-ish incident I had a couple weeks ago and she made me promise never to be in a room alone with said stalk-ish-er.

My leg is pretending to be better every once in a while, so I'm beginning to think amputation MIGHT not be necessary. I'm finding that electrocution helps, courtesy of my customer that likes to give me stuff like a Powertap and an e-stim dealy. And he wants to pay me to play with his kids, which I do for free already.

On Sunday we are riding Mt. Hamilton again, and I will bring dollar bills for the vending machine at the top. Hopefully the snacks in it aren't all old and gross.

My dad requested a Christmas list from me so I made him a Powerpoint slide show. I'm told it is quite funny, which is what I was going for. So that's good.

I ordered some picture books from Snapfish for Christmas presents for people who might want to see pictures of me. I paid for four. A few days later I got a package and was all excited and opened it to find someone else's book (singular) full of pictures of a baby. They live in Virginia. I emailed Snapfish and got a response a couple days later that I should wait longer as my order was in the mail. Only they were full of crap, so I called them at work the other day and sat on hold listening to an HP recording for like twenty minutes until an Indian lady that barely spoke English got on the line and I explained to her like three times what happened so she said she would resubmit my order and 2-Day Air my books to me. Hopefully it works.

But really, nothing exciting has been going on.