Oooh...aaahh...Dingoes Dodging Fireworks in July! - Page 3

[Nickarolaberry]

Sparkle, Sorry things are hard right now. I can relate. Hang in there, mama. We've got your back.

Jo your wedding ideas sound so great. Have fun planning! 

Dimitriz, congrats on your tri! That's terrific!

Real, as usual you are a total rock star.

Other personals....sigh. I can't remember what I was going to say. I am having a morning. No run today, yesterday was my long run. Lately my long runs have been hang-on-by-my-fingernails difficult. Could be the heat, I guess. I don't know. My pace is off, my mojo is off, and despite much body glide I'm chafed in several uncomfortable places and they keep being re-irritated every time I run. I'm having major anxiety over handling it all in the coming school year.

But I also decided this morning, or at least entertained the idea of , learning how to say NO to people (politely) and standing up for myself in interpersonal and business communications in a way that does not get me run roughshod over but also (hopefully) maintains civil discourse. I just feel *done* with being the nice one all the time. 

[bec]

I have fallen so far behind.  I haven't even had a chance to catch up!  I'm starting to enter race anxiety, taper madness insanity!  Just to amp up my anxiety, I was going over my hotel reservation (for the room that I'm sharing with another lady), and see that it was made for the WRONG day!!!!!!!  WTF!  It's for Friday night, not Saturday night!  So, now, I don't have a place to sleep, I've displaced another person as well!!  AHHH!!! 

[Plady]

Oy Bec!  What a PITA!  That's like a pre-race nightmare come true!  At least it's not the night before but still.  I hope you can get it all resolved easily. 

Nic - Have a good run in the mystery kicks!

RR: Nada

NRR: I've got my theatre day camp happening this week and next.  This week I've got a nice group of kids so I think it will be fun, I just wish I could kick a cough I've had for weeks now.  Dd1 has one too, though hers is weird.  She doesn't cough frequently but when she does it sucks all the breath out of her and sometimes she throws up.  I wonder about whooping cough since there is an epidemic in WA now but most of the time she's okay and not coughing at all and has no other symptoms.  Any btdt?

[1jooj]

Oh, bec! A thousand hugs, mama. I hope you have a couple tricks up your sleeve, and that you can solve it with relative ease and not a lot of worry. 

Plady: I would call the triage nurse at my doc's office, and maybe meantime make sure to keep her away from infants? And I hope it does clear soon. Sick sucks.

sparkle, I have thoughts sometimes along similar lines. I am not in a place anywhere near my own vision, and some days it makes me feel really deeply blue. I have so very much good in my life that is beyond my imaginings, and I'm grateful for it. I hesitate, though, to make an accounting of the costs and look them in the eye. And when I think of it, I pray for a long and vigorous life, with much courage for the years beyond my anticipating.

Nic, what kind of shoes? How are they? I hope the study involved in prepping for the fall is rejuvenating. I certainly imagine it could be, in a way that only lots of pressure can be, I suppose. Thought of you a great deal on my run this morning.

Wedding-R: OK, so the venue is open and I think I have a day picked. Waiting to get the guest list back from dh and add to it, and then finalize reservation, make plans with the tent people, and go from there. Going with disposables for sure, but not potluck (religious dietary restrictions could wreak havoc), as much as I would love that. Hoping dh agrees with the venue and activity ideas--which include animal petting, hayride and bonfire all at the same time as a self-serve buffet dinner. Does this not sound like exactly the thing that suits us?

Ramadan-R: Just 9 days left before fasting begins. It is going to be a challenging fast with such short nights, but I SO need the downtime. Getting our study materials ready for a special daily reflection practice and additional Quranic Arabic practice, trying to envision a daily timetable that gets us all a little exercise, too. Will be doing yoga with my friend and hostess, but also hope to squeeze in 3-4 miles a couple times a week, at night, of course. Headlamp probably needed.

RR: 7 miles this AM, mostly run (!), at an average pace of under 13-minute miles, in VFFs. Threw in the highway overpass twice for good measure. Forgot to use inhaler, but did OK. Nothing like a cycle Day 1 run for me. I don't know, I am Wonder Woman when I get my period. Must be some kind of yay-I'm-not-pg exhilaration. 

[sparkletruck]

edited to Delete.... totally didnt mean to post that!
Edited by sparkletruck - 7/10/12 at 4:08pm

[bec]

Well, the other ladies that are rooming at this hotel have invited us to stay with them.  PHEW!!!!  If luck is really with me, there will be a cancellation and no change from our original plans.  And, YES, I could have found out about this after dinner on Saturday!!!!

I am so fraught with pre-race jitters right now, though!  The good news is that it is helping motivate me to get some things done that have been weighing on me (dr. appointments for the kids, eye exams, girl scout annual financial statements).  So, now that I have those done and off my plate, I KNOW the anxiety is about the race!!!!
 

[Nickarolaberry]

Sparkle.   So sorry the f*&^face called you a name.  Ugh. I have had those days, many such actually. You know, you have been through a major life transition recently and although everything went fine eventually and it was a good move, it still leaves ripples in your life. Try and breathe and have compassion for yourself. 

Bec, glad you worked it out at the hotel! Seriously that's like one of those pre-marathon bad dreams where you realize at the starting line you don't have your bra or shoes or something. Yikes.

Jo, I can't say what the shoes are but I'll let you know after the trial period is over in September. I will say they are of the more 'minimalist' ilk and so I have to be a bit careful not to do too much in them at first. I am anyway having some pain in...ahem...my right bum which is annoying me.

RR: 6 miles this morning on a beautiful, not humid and not too hot day. I actually swam 40 minutes or thereabouts (with breaks) yesterday. My butterfly is woeful. I haven't done it really since I was on the swim team at age 13...um...30 years ago?! Jeesh. But I can see how good for the core it would be so I may work on that a bit. I totally lost track of my laps. I can't imagine how anyone actually keeps track. I saw a guy swimming with an mp3 player and thought that would be so nifty if I actually did it regularly. Unfortunately I had to use dd's goggles since I don't have any, and a latex swim cap, so my head and face kind of felt pinched.  I definitely looked like a pink pinhead. Ha.

[Dmitrizmom]

Official tri time posted: 2:11:46.5  (swim 0:11:08.2, run 0:41:52.4) I finished last in my age group, but I finished.    400 yard swim, 15 mile bike, 5K run.  I am hooked and will be doing this again.

Race report after class tonight.
 

[1jooj]

ETA: Dmitrizmom, totally impressed, and so glad you loved it. Way to go, mama!

I was on fire in this dress. But it won't fly without a jacket of some type.

Dh thought I meant rubber barn boots.  Imagine that dress (in cream) with some really excellent boots and a sweet little shrug or jacket. Found something similar for dd, but 2 straps, also chiffon, in cream with a persimmon sash. Damn fine.

[poppywise]

I'm so late to the conversation! Jo - can I knit you a shrug? like this or this ? Or am I off track...man I need to catch up. When is the big day? And how cool is this going to be!

OK let me go back and catch up....
Edited by poppywise - 7/10/12 at 6:17pm

[1jooj]

Poppy, that would be absolutely dreamy. 

[poppywise]

how much time do i have?
are you on ravelry? if not, i will give you my username/password and you can browse wedding shrug patterns to your heart's content til you find one that sings to you.

[MelW]

It's beautiful, jo. I can't wait to see photos :)

Plady, the lingering cough sound kind of asthma-like to me. But my head is so entrenched in allergy stuff right now that I see asthma and allergies everywhere. How's your air quality? We have Colorado smoke/haze here now...

bec, you are strong and amazing and going to rock your race. Chase the jitters away with a terrific mantra. The one I make my students say all the time is "I am confident and competent". Though one woman came to me at the end of class one day and said "can you remind me of the real mantra, because all I can think of now is 'I am corpulent and cognizant'".

It has been a brutally hard few days. Saturday evening I replaced the fill valve on the kid's bathroom toilet during bathtime. I had done the other toilets earlier in the month and thought I had a handle on how to do the repair. Unfortunately in my distraction I tossed out the washer that seals it and with the wet floor from bathtime didn't notice the leak until it came through the dining room ceiling the next morning. Insurance will cover the water damage (drying out under the floor, new vanity, mouldings, lino in the bathroom and re-painting the ceiling) and I'm responsible for the "cause" of the damange (aka- finding the missing washer and fixing it) plus the deductible. Phew.

Then I had a horrendous day at work with a challenging student, plus all of the added phone calls, emails and paperwork at the end of a 10 hour shift to deal with it yesterday. Today was better, but I'm still scrambling to get all of their preceptorships in place by the end of the week, plus way too much miscellaneous other work. My mantra of the week is "I will not drown". Tomorrow is the last teaching day of the week, so hopefully I can get work done Thur/Fri and have a lovely sunny weekend.

[Realrellim]

1jooj--I wish the first-place woman could have won too. I looked at the results and she missed it by 5 seconds. FIVE!!! (1:36:48 vs 1:36:53). She is awesome though.

sparkle-- Moving is hard, as are a number of other things.

DM--congrats!

tjsmama--when is the Courage Classic again? (Yeah, I'm sure I could click "1" here but that's work...). In other words, how much longer can I procrastinate before I need to donate to your cause?

mommajb--good for you on the eating! I think I've reached a point where it's time to cut back on the comfort foods, but I'm still lacking motivation.

MelW--hope the leak didn't damage the floor.

Nick--I often have that experience, and it's usually anxiety-driven. It's hard to have so much unknown, especially when it's hot.

bec: ugh! Hope it resolves easily. And ugh!

Plady--asthma? Are there triggers, like laughing or running around? Or weather triggers (smoke, approaching thunderstorms)? Strangely, my asthma has been acting up with increased humidity. :?

RR: 3 miles at J's bedtime, pushing J, in an attempt to get her to sleep before 10. It's now 9:46 and she is crawling around the living room. Le sigh. Also rode about 8 miles pulling the trailer earlier today.

NRR: R finally got her long-arm cast off! It's been 5-1/2 weeks, so I'm glad thing finally looked good enough to take it off. She's now in a kind of halfway cast. It's not a short-arm, but it's not as high as the long arm. She has some use of her elbow, but can't fully straighten out her arm. The plan is that she stays in this for 2 weeks (2-1/2 because we'll be in NY in two weeks) and then she goes into a custom-made splint that she'll wear for 6 months (or longer because mama never wants to deal with this arm again...).

I have stats for the Middle Park Half Marathon:
Official 1:59:26; time from actually crossing starting line: 1:58:23

34/84 overall
10 out of 44 women
4 out of 10 F30-39
And one picture from mile 7, which is probably an accurate representation of me working hard to pick up the pace and catch people.

The course is very hill, especially in the first four miles. There's about 400-500 feet of elevation gain in those first four miles, and then it's rolling hills. The last few miles are mostly downhill, but they added one more nasty hill just before the finish line as we came into town. That was kind of harsh, but then it was a completely downhill stretch to the finish line about a half-mile away. Total elevation gain is around 850 feet. My basic strategy (which, granted, didn't assume that I'd oh, manage to be late to the race) is to run the first four miles at a "comfortably hard" pace and then really push it after that, especially on the downhill stretches. I mostly did that. Like last year, I felt really slow and sluggish around miles 2 and 3, but that might have been a fueling issue. After that I really picked up the pace when I could, all while worrying that I wouldn't be able to hold it (and then reminding myself yes I can because I have previously).

I really wanted to finish sub-2 (1:59:59 would have been fine), and if I did that I figured whatever happened with age group stuff was luck of the draw. That didn't stop me from examining the runner in front of me to try and figure out if they were in my age group though. Or thinking, while I was passing a bunch of male runners, "where are the women? Passing these guys isn't going to help me." (One benefit & problem with being late to the start was that I passed 48 runners.) It worked as a strategy. The last runner I passed was someone I'd targeted around mile 10. It took me a mile to catch her and pass her, and as it turned out, she was in my age group. It was also pretty awesome to finish fourth in my age group, having beaten said runner by about a minute.

OK, crazy 2yo is still awake at 10:06 She did this last night too.

[bec]

Real - Amazing race!  You look so intense!

MelW - I think I am going to be telling myself for 70.3  that I am corpulent and cognizant!

I think I drove my manager a little crazy at work tonight.  And I think they are all glad that I am not coming back until after the race!  My race nerves were making them all a little bonkers.  But, it did make for energetic organizing of the store!

[Geofizz]

RR:  2 mile walk to report, swim across this lake in between.  1000' elevation climb in 0.9 miles, starting at 6400'.  Just enough to remind me why I like this professor gig.

Totally dingo cool on the shrug, Jo & Poppy.

Great race, Dmitrizmom!

OK, to bed with me so I can run part of the rim trail in the morning.

[1jooj]

MelW, shwew on that water damage, but it was so not needed right now. And for whatever reason, corpulent and cognizant will probably be haunting me, too. And I hope the student challenge settles down. If it were just that, and not the whole system drag it creates, right?  You, however, are confident and competent.

Real, awesome, awesome race, and great photo.

Geo, gorgeous! And it looks c-c-c-cold.

Poppy, I have until 22 September. Just tried, and my username and pw still work, though I have not been on in longtime. I will FB?

Did I mentioned I told dh I wanted to wear boots and he freaked out? Turns out he thought boots like my polka-dot rubber barn boots. So I sent him a link to a $600 pair of Old Gringos and he was like, "Oh, OK, go ahead."  Riiiight.

Going to walk and yoga after coffee this morning. Yesterday turned out to be very productive, since dh cleared the dress (with shrug) and wants from this point to be surprised. Today's tasks include invitations and convo with caterer. I could have this whole mess mostly planned in a few weeks. Thanks for listening, Dingoes. 

[sparkletruck]

Jo - that dress and both shrugs are soooo beautiful, and I can see you in my minds eye with that adorable hair-cut and some boots. Per-fect!

RR: nope

NRR: I think its a full-blown depression. All the signs are in place, but I dont remember the last time this happened, and then I think there was a pretty big event that preceded it. Its hard to attribute this to moving. Ive moved 14x in the last 17 years... but yeah, i can see some it's contribution (ironically, including the fact that I wont be moving again for the foreseeable future). what I type here might be tyhe most I say to anyone all day this past week, including to dh. he's waiting it out....

[kerc]

hello dingos.

it's been a wild few days, weeks, months.

Most recently: fabulous beach trip with my family to North Carolina shore. Fabulous. All except for the part about feeling yucky about how I look in a swimsuit. We drove halfway home to Cleveland and dropped our kids off with gma and gpa. Then drove home. Since then, my dh has been rather self-absorbed. Enough so that today we had planned on hiking 2-3 hrs north of here and he forgot. And forgot his phone. And went out to breakfast with friends after his normal tri training, not returning home until 11ish. When I told him I was disappointed he said, well if I had had my phone...to which I said "you know my number. borrow a phone."  I think he knew I was upset. Anyhow.....moving on. Tomorrow we drive south again to Madison to collect the girls (its a bit less than half way back to Cleveland -- ~6hours).

Workout related: just about a month ago I ran a half marathon. I've run a few times since then, biked like a mad woman and swam a lot in the ocean. But I feel hopelessly out of shape. So I decided to bump it up a notch (too hot for running for me now) and try the 30 day shred in addition to my normal routine. I break it out today for the first time, don't realize I'm supposed to have hand weights. I decide to do it anyhow. I'm seriously not able to complete the beginner 20 minute workout without feeling like I am going to DIE. What gives?  On the other hand, I need some new workout clothes. Went to go buy a few tank tops and tried them on. Decided I looked terrible in them and need to workout more to get in better shape to buy them. Buy hand weights and going back at the 30 day shred in the morning. In the meantime, an hour walking and I've sweated off about 2 gallons of water.
 

[Realrellim]

Geo--sounds like an awesome hike!

ETA: kerc, sorry about your dh being a dope. Also, I think Jillian Michaels is evil. I think I'm in decent shape from running 25+ miles a week, but her 6-pack abs video is still a challenging workout. There are times I quit early or refuse. My "excuse" is that it's late and I'm tired and I'd be able to do it fine if it were 9 am instead of 11 pm...but um, I'm not sure that's true.

ETAA: I think I mentioned that I'm working on some stuff for our district's mill/bond on the ballot this fall. I was writing a story today and needed some quotes for the superintendent so I called the district and was surprised to find that a few people there recognized my name. Keep in mind that we're the largest district in Colorado, with 86,000 students. And then when the superintendent returned my call, she apparently has read some of what I've written and said I was a really good writer. It was kind of cool. You'd think I'd be past that sort of thing at this point in my life, but even now I'm sort of glowing from the positive feedback from an authority figure. She has a PhD, I have a PhD, I have a scholarly article in publication (as opposed to the well-written but fairly basic journalistic-type fare I'm churning out for this project), and here I am: "oh wow, thanks!" (These projects are keeping me from my beloved dingos, so I apologize for the delays in posting these days!)

Gear question: my Garmin Forerunner 305 is falling apart. The plastic cracked where it holds the spring pin in, and then the strap falls off. I've superglued it twice, but DH gave me the go-ahead for a new one. I'm debating between the 610 and the 310XT.

I use it mostly for running (duh!), hiking and biking. I plan to do more triathlons in future years, but the running, biking and "other" option for hiking are most important.

Thoughts?