Everybody is high maintenance and it really should stop

I started to cry a little at work today because I had reached my capacity for asshats and apparently today was asshat day. Ugh. Stupid people. Yelling at me over the phone is not a good way to get me to kiss your ass.

So instead of spinning I sat in the fit studio and bitched which was kind of funny because my boss told me someday I will find a good guy that's not intimidated and I kinda sorta maybe have a new official boyfriend. Tee hee!

I think I want to go bowling. But mostly because I'm watching tv and they are bowling.

I went for a ride on Sunday (in the middle of the day and it was 96 degrees and it almost killed me) and had some old dude ruin it a little for me. I came up on him and passed him, which was apparently not ok, so he cranked down on his downtube shifters and got on my wheel, explaining that he was just resting before he went on his way. Then I passed him on all the little rollers and he passed me on the little descents because I was doing an easy ride and was just coasting. Eventually I just sat in behind him because I was tired of passing him but it was slow and it ruined my view of the reservoirs and I felt kind of weird about riding with a stranger so I left him for a while and thought I was free. Sadly he found me again and told me a bunch of crap about how I have a smooth cadence and a steady pace and I just wanted to ride alone, dammit! My solution was to do extra climbing, which worked quite well.

It's still really hot though. And all the windows are open and the AC is on, which amuses me because my roommate is a tightwad and he's the one that opened them and turned it on. But then again he has a new girlfriend so he probably doesn't want to appear cheap. Gross.

Oceanside 70.3 Race Report

Here it is, in all it's overly-detailed splendor!

I drove down to San Diego on Friday morning at 5:30am which hurt a little bit, but was much better than sitting in traffic all day. I had lunch with the Ex in Irvine (and made him work on my bike) and then got to Oceanside a little after noon. I wasn't nervous until I could see the ocean, then I freaked out a little. Picked up my packet, hopped in the car, drove to Solana Beach to visit Dan at B&L and pick up a bike for work, then drove to Pacific Beach to John's house where I took a fatty nap. It was delicious. When John and Tracy got home we went to an adorable little Italian restaurant where I ate my weight in pasta. Went back to the house, packed up my race stuff, and went to bed.

I got lucky in that John had to be up at 4:00am for something he was doing later in the day, so he had oatmeal waiting for me when I woke up. Such service! After breakfast I hopped in the car and drove back up to Oceanside. Happily, I have mastered the art of shoving all my stuff into a small bag for transition, so the ride from the parking lot to transition was a lot less awkward than it could have been. I found my rack (in what might have been the longest transition EVAR) and set up my space. Talked to a bunch of girls, got partway into my wetsuit, stood in line for the bathroom, made friends in the potty line, watched the pros come through, wished I had thought to bring some shitty socks to keep my feet warm while I waited around, got into line with the rest of the purple caps to start.

Swim:

Favorite thing #1: my neoprene squid lid.

The water actually wasn't that cold, but my head was so toasty-warm with that thing on it was all I could think about. My wave was fairly small and the start area was pretty wide so the beginning-of-the-swim beating was minimal. I caught a bunch of women from the wave in front of me (4 min ahead of me) and the wave before them (8 min ahead of me) which was encouraging. I did a much better job of sighting than I did at XTERRA, so only got a little lost. Could have gone faster I think, but I felt fast and springy when I got out of the water, so I'm not complaining.

Bike:

Favorite things #2 and 3: Perpetuem and BBB cages.

I had decided to try something a little different for my nutrition on the bike. I had been using Perpetuem on my training rides so I knew it wouldn't screw with me (a la CarboPro 1200), so I made a bottle with five servings of powder instead of the normal one to two. And it was AWESOME. I carried that bottle and a bottle of water and it went down smooth and I felt strong and energized and never had my blood sugar crash with accompanying dark, twisty thoughts. No tantrums for me! Also, my BBB bottle cages kept my bottles safe and sound so I didn't launch any like I saw tons of other people do. Yay!

Overall, I felt really good on the bike. My position felt dialed, legs felt fresh, I stayed relaxed and took it easy on the first half per E's instructions and was fine on the climbs. Had some fun picking people off in the later miles. Only issue I had was some nasty chafing in my - umm - sensitive regions. Seeing as I had almost the same thing happen at Big Kahuna last year, I think my race suit may become an XTERRA-only suit so I don't have it happen again. Ouchy.

Run:

Favorite thing #4: Learning how to distract myself

I was definitely tired coming off the bike, so the shuffle started early. I tightened my shoes too tight in transition and my feet were completely numb for the first five miles (ish...I kept thinking that they would come to, but it never happened on its own). Eventually I stopped to loosen them and loosen my timing chip strap and I regained feeling. I walked the aid stations, ate or drank at almost all of them, and learned that if I repeated the lines to the song that was stuck in my head, I could ignore the parts of my body that hurt and just keep going. The Ex was there taking pictures (he was there on the bike too, I just forgot to mention it) so it was nice having someone cheering for me - even with all the people cheering for Amys (there were a ton of girls with my name) and with people having their names on their race numbers. In the finishing chute a lady edged past me so we ended up sprinting for fun. She hugged me and thanked me for the extra push and we got our picture taken. It was fun.

Post race I made a beeline for the food tent and ate four pieces of pizza. I found one of my customers so we talked for a bit before I went and packed. The Ex was waiting and congratulated me, then I got on the phone with E and the couple of customers and got congratulated and was told my splits. The result:


22nd place in AG in swim
23rd AG bike
23rd AG run

23rd out of 62 in age group

Overall time 6:06:26

Run time: 2:07:51

Reasons why this is awesome:
1. I have NEVER been that consistent in a road triathlon. Ever.
2. I have never been in the top half of the finishers in my age group in a road tri. 23/62 is definitely upper half.
3. Overall time was a PR, set at an easier race.
4. Run time was a PR, previously set at a half marathon, not a triathlon.

Yay for me!

Now I get to be all sunburned and peely, and I even have my number and age burned onto my body. Wonder how long that will be there?

Blah, blah, blah

I'll get to the race report in a minute. I have to vent.

Dear Guy I Know,

You need to be less annoying. I know I made a bad decision or two in the past, but when you ask if I want to be left alone and I say yes, that probably means you should leave me alone. It doesn't mean you should come back to my work (that you only left from a couple hours ago, after getting tired of yelling at me) to ask what I mean about wanting to be left alone. When I say I don't want to hang out, I'm tired and need to get groceries, I mean just that. Go home. Quit being so needy. Oh, and by the way, I don't have major issues about the way I look, but you mentioning that I need to learn portion control and shit like that is not going to make me like you. It just means you are an ass.

Sincerely Annoyed,
Me


*************************************************************************

In other, less annoying news, I am totally a model. I'll be able to prove it to you this summer-ish. So that will be cool.

I went to charming(ly meth-riddled) Colfax, CA for the past two days to do a photo shoot for the Specialized 2010 catalog. Hopefully I don't look retarded. It was pretty fun, except for riding in the rain and then having the rain turn into snow. That was cold and it made my fingers hurt. Also, the eating candy all day and then getting a little car sick wasn't great. But it was still slightly awesome.

Ironman California 70.3

It was really really good.

I'm too tired to blog right now, but I wanted to let you know that it was good.

Night!

Mini Race Report #1

Last weekend I raced my first tri of the year, in the form of XTERRA Real in Folsom. It was pretty cool. I got third in my new age group and took a major chunk off my time from last year. I'll take it. I'm tired and want to sleep, so here's my mini race report:

Swim: was cold. I forgot my squid lid, but it wasn't too bad. I got lost a bunch so should probably work on sighting. I felt like I weighed 200 pounds getting out of the water. Racing is fun.

Bike: I felt GOOD. Ass-kicking good. Except I forgot to grab my food so the second lap sucked a little. I passed a girl in my age group and never saw her again. That was sweet. Getting on my mountain bike after not touching it for five months didn't feel weird at all.

Run: I was tired. Probably from not getting any calories in. I pushed myself more than I usually do, so I'm happy about that.

Gold star for me, now getting ready for Oceanside.

Sleepy.....

Birthday Haps

Again with the blogging-under-pressure. I'm supposed to be in a dress ready to go to my own pseudo-party in a half hour. I am also possibly exploding pasta sauce while I blog. Fun!

Ok, so, I had the best birthday EVER. Yes, EVER. It was that awesome.

Usually, my birthdays suck and I'm all alone because my friends were lame or I have a party and someone gets in a fight and I have to break it up, so my "good birthday" standards are pretty low. But still, this one was cool. It went like this:

1. New boy came to my work dressed all cute to build my wheel for me on Wednesday (the day before my birthday). Wheel building turned into a big fiasco. I apologized profusely and new boy told me to stop, he didn't care, he wanted to build my wheel for me for my birthday. New boy also gave me a picture of the track wheels he ordered for me that didn't make it in time. New boy rocks.

2. New boy took me to dinner at my favorite chinese restaurant, then to Chevy's for my requested birthday Sunday.

3. New boy bought me breakfast on my birthday because he wanted to buy me breakfast on my actual birthday.

4. Some regulars of the shop brought me a little cake.

5. My chiropractor called and majorly stepped up, allowing me to continue treatment without going broke.

6. The bosses took me to lunch.

7. The bosses gave me a raise.

8. Another customer of the shop insisted that we have a pseudo-party, which I am going to tonight.

9. I got a bunch of birthday cards and some much-needed birthday cash.

10. Elliott's kids made me cupcakes and got to stay up until I got there are were all snuggly and cute.

I love my people. Thank you for the awesome birthday!

My birthday is in three days.

It is. And that means I will now commence my yearly bug the hell out of everyone sequence because it's almost my birthday.

For some reason I only seem motivated to log into my blog when I have somewhere to be in a short time. I have been thinking about blogging for a week, and only just now logged on when I need to be at the shop on my bike in half an hour. Maybe I just work better under pressure.

My first race is in less than two weeks. Holy effing crap. And, I seem to be freaking out a little more than usual. Stupid. Who cares how I do? It's just training for IM CDA. I'm a little skeptical about my fitness as I have sucked at training because of my stupid leg (which is MUCH better, but still not great). My swim coach has been annoyingly in my face about training, and I'm not sure if it's because I suck right now compared to last year, or because he's feeling threatened (for reasons I will not go into because it's stupid and I hate it). Dumb.

Soooooo, my idea for making the race in two weeks less scary is to see if I can do a race in one week! TOTALLY makes sense, doesn't it?

I want to go to Folsom next weekend to do the XTERRA they have out there for a couple reasons. I am working on my pitch to my coach, so I will list those reasons here for your reading pleasure:

1. I have done this race and like it, so it will let me clear out the racing cobwebs before the bigger race that I haven't done and am scared about.

2. The race will take a couple hours. My coach has be down for a multi-hour ride followed by a couple days of intervals next week, so I could race and do all of that at once.

3. I have to do 2 XTERRA races in my region to qualify for Nationals, and if I do this one and the one in Arizona in May I will have them out of the way so I won't have to do the one 1 WEEK after IM CDA. I think that is a huge plus. Not having to rely on that one would be good. And then I'll still have one more available in August in case I DNF at either of the other two. Insurance is good.

4. It could be my birthday race. Because it's three days after my birthday. :P

And I promise to take it easy and not kill myself or make myself sick so I will still be able to race at the scary race. It will totally work.

Oh, and my favorite customer Lori just raced at the Singapore 70.3 (half IM) race last weekend and got third in her age group and qualified for the 70.3 Worlds!!!!!!! I'm so freaking proud/excited for her!!!!!!!! I hear she had to deal with jellyfish stings on the swim, naughty jumping waterbottles on the bike, and a possibly fractured foot on the run (that she did like a month ago but didn't tell anyone about because she wanted to race so bad)! Bad ass!!!!!! Love her.

Alright, off to layer up to go ride in the wind with Patty.

Later!