I Pea-ed on the floor

We're 36 hrs away from the start of White Rock marathon...

This week there have been a few key thoughts on my mind;
1) no matter what the pace, it'll hurt for the last 10K. --> push hard and smile
2) everyone has stress before a race and at the end of the semester. --> try to shake it off


Today's plans got a little messed up since Michael was feeling a bit under the weather. We made some adjustments and ended up heading home early.

As I was in the kitchen cooking up food I accidentally reached over and grabbed the hot lid for the rice. I quickly dropped it and opened the freezer to grab something cold. Apparently the bag of peas I found was already opened and in my zealous motion peas flew out of the bag all over the floor. The big clump is easy to see but if you look closely you can see peas all over the place. Michael quickly remarked, "you just pea-ed all over the floor."

I get clumsy when I'm stressed. Even with the best intentions it's hard not to fret about an upcoming race. Thankfully I've got a lot of friends who have called to wish me well and a husband who still has a great sense of humor when he's not feeling great.

GO MG!

Subjects Wanted

I'm collecting subjects for my master's thesis. Here's the text from my recruitment poster if anyone is curious...

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Subjects Wanted For a Study on the Dynamic Stability of Walking

Researchers in the Nonlinear Biodynamics Laboratory in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Texas are studying how dynamic stability changes when walking if a perturbation (gait interruption) are applied.

Participants will have their movements recorded while they walk on a treadmill across a range of moderate speeds for 10 minutes at a time, for up to a total of 60 minutes.

The experiment will require each subject to complete one visit. The session will take ~3 hours to complete. Subjects will receive financial compensation for their time.

Men and women of all ethnicities are eligible and encouraged to participate.
If you are a healthy adult between the ages of 18-36, and would like to participate, please contact me

The lost FL pictures

After returning from an air race today, Michael realized there were a few pictures from FL which had slipped through the cracks. I couldn't help but add them to the blog, with a bit of explanation.

As we can see above, Michael is preparing for old age all ready. He's all decked out in his tube socks, t-shirt, and TYR swim suit to go riding. What you can't see from this picture is that his bar end is actually the top to a soda bottle. I'm sure it must have been funny to see some girl in her stream-lined bike clothes drafting off this guy. The best part of the ride was when we got back and Michael realized his bike shoes were in the bag on the back of his bike. He'd been riding with sneakers and carried his bike shoes along for the ride.

The 2nd picture shows off my new favorite laundry detergent. How could I not like this stuff; All Small and Mighty. It's supposedly 3x as powerful as the same quantity of other detergents. I can't believe they named laundry detergent after me.

Red

I see red.... today I learned that I don't always need to catch the red ahead of me. The EAS 10-miler was today and I found myself caught up in the excitement of the first mile. A large group of J&A Jerseys all passed the 1 mile mark at ~6:50. Angie and I had said we'd go conservative and try to do the first mile closer to 7:30's. That didn't quite happen and I quickly learned why I always tell myself to start conservative.

Going to hard at the start caught up to me as soon as I hit an incline. That incline was at mile 2, just about the time Jack ran past me. For some crazy reason I'd actually thought I might be able to outrun Jack if I had a good day. I had to set my ego aside and go with how my body felt. Hopefully I'll put my head back on straight and I'll run smarter at Dallas.

Maybe I needed a day to put things into perspective... at least I didn't get passed by anyone pushing a baby jogger with 4 kids and a case of beer. In the grand scheme of things a good time at a 10 mile run is still less delightful to watch than a sunset over the ocean.

Only in Kona

Trisha told me that while she was attending school in Hawaii the tri team had a rule, you can't leave the race site with your race gear on. Apparently this guy didn't get the memo. Not only did he leave the race site with his gear on, he kept it on all the way to the airport.

BTW, Garel pictures from IMFL are up on Picasa web

http://picasaweb.google.com/av8rmichael/IronmanFlorida2007

Total Waffle House past on the drive from Austin to Panama City Beach = 30.

Michael, Diana and I visited one the morning after the race. It was the first visit for each of us. We encountered a rude A-type triathlete waiting for a table but our overly kind waitress made up for it.

Later that night we went out for dinner and our triathlete friend from earlier happened to be at the same place. As they were leaving his friend was taking pictures of some girl's behind, these guys seemed like real winners. It's amazing what you witness after the race.

Super Heroes

I saw something new while watching this IM, people in costume. That's usually reserved for running races but apparently it's caught on for triathlons too.

During the swim, some guy had a florescent pink wig on over his swim cap. It was funny but a little humbling too, he was swimming at a faster pace then I would've been w/o a wig.

We saw a few people dressed in costumes during the run. The most notable were the two guys featured in this picture. As they ran by I cheered, "Good job super heroes.

The guy in front replied, "Technically I'm just a beer keg, he's the super hero."

I'm not sure if that line had been used multiple times before or if it was a spontaneous response but it was quite humorous.

Blogging from I-10

"It must be nice to be a Garel" -- or maybe Jackson meant to say "It must be nice to be a Geek" I am blogging as we are driving down I-10, heading over to Panama City Beach to watch our Austin friends in another race.

I just spoke to Keith. He and Jackson have about 10 min left to check in for the race on Sat. They hadn't found the host hotel yet. If that were me, I'd be spazzing out. When we were at CDA I was getting my race gear ready and realized my special needs bags weren't included. That was 1hr before registration closed and I was going nuts. I only needed to find a couple of plastic bags but it still got me worked up. I guess Ahmed wasn't joking when he said Jeff is much less worried about this Ironman.

For some reason those guys didn't seem shocked that I was looking up the hotel address while I was driving. I told Keith the computer connection is slow on I-10 and he didn't even respond. Maybe they're still tired from their drive down... it took them 15hrs. I'm hoping we make it a bit quicker.

Note: Just passed a Waffle House. My goal for the trip is to keep a tally of the mecca for Southern truck drivers. I think there are at least 5 of them in Panama City Beach.

WF_Count = 1

wait... no... WF_Count = 4 (just talked to Diana and passed 3 more in about 5 minutes)