monday musings

                                              

today is Memorial Day. a day in which we celebrate those who have served in our armed forces. did you know that Memorial Day became an official national holiday in 1971. although Memorial Day has been celebrated for over 100 years, it wasn’t until 1971 that it was declared a national holiday. so to all those serving in the armed forces and those who have served, THANK YOU!

my mind just isn't feeling like typing out paragraphs today and since i haven't posted since thursday, i'm afraid i might be sitting here a long time busting out way too many words, words that frankly, i don't have the focus factor for today. so today's post will be done in bullet style, it will be very random in topic and in no particular order because that's how my mind is rolling today. i also only have 20 minutes before i have to go wash this gray right outta my hair so time is of the essence here.

• i tried the mint chocolate flavored Gu for the first time this weekend on my long ride. it was really YUMMY! thanks to Scott at Outside|PR for sending me the Gu Performance Energy Sampler.

i have been testing out bits and pieces of it here and there. i had the j-man be my tester for the Gu brew and he loved it. so far, my favorite flavor of Gu is the espresso love and you already know how i feel about the Gu chomps...they pretty much rock the house.

• i'm really hoping the color i just put in my hair doesn't go brassy on me. i hate when that happens and it happens a lot. fingers crossed that it turns out okay.
• we rode 84 miles in the hills on saturday. it was me, the J-man and Le-Roi(aka: the squirrel whisperer). we all agreed that it was one of the best rides of the year so far. interestingly, we started off with about 90% humidity but by the time the ride was done it was about 50%. that drop in humidity made the heat not feel so bad.
• i bought the triathlete's training bible last night at barnes and nobles. a good read so far. i'll keep you posted.
• i find that the more free time i have, the less i get accomplished. why is that?
• i went to swim on friday and right as i was getting done with my first set of 500 meters, the lifeguard started blowing his whistle to let us know we needed to get out of the pool asap. good thing too, because the storm of the century came barreling thru within 15 minutes and the lightning was frightening. needless to say, i did not get all of my planned swimming done. thank you mother nature!
• yesterday we did a strong 50 mile ride at out favorite park. like clockwork, the weasel found us. the weasel is this annoying guy on a mountain bike who likes to wheelsuck but never take his turn on the front. he never says anything, he never asks if it's okay for him to ride along with us, he's just a rude weasel.

• today's ride was great too. same ride venue, same distance, but no weasel this time.
• why is it that every apple ipod that i have, from the shuffle to the mac daddy of them all, crap out so quickly? i just think apple has such a great product but the durability is crap. i have to now make an appointment online to go to the nearest apple store so they can give me a new shuffle. mine won't hold a full charge for more than 10 minutes. i've done all of the R's that they tell you to do and none of them fixed the problem. do i have time to go to the apple store? NO. it doesn't help that both apple stores are at malls and i hate malls, all of them. i avoid them like the plague. i'll pay someone to take it for me. any takers?
• my hair turned out just fine. no more gray and no brassiness, just a lot of sassiness.
• congrats to Annie on a great 5k run (the Astros Race for the Pennant 5K) in the Texas heat and humidity this weekend. she is Jeff's other half from team dangle the carrot. he was kind enough to be her pace bunny even though he says he's a competative a-hole...i know, hard to believe. great job to both of you!
• big daddy diesel and his lovely bike, Mercy, killed the aquabike this past weekend in Ohio. he placed 1st overall!! the swim portion was in a wave pool and it looked like pure craziness from the diagram he posted. thanks for explaining to me what a wave pool is BDD.
• congrats to Cynthia O'h who rocked the Toronto woman's only 5K. she busted a move and placed 10th overall and 3rd in her age group with an awesome time of 22:24. i'm glad you don't live here Cynthia...you'd give me a run for my money on race days. actually, i bet you'd make a great training partner. also, congrats to Melanie who also did the same event but did the 1/2 marathon and got a really cool finisher's necklace. i think all half and full marathons should give all women finishers necklaces and not some gaudy medal.
• Tri-James did a very interesting "race" on friday. he did the pump and run challenge at his gym. this is where you bench press 70% of you body weight as many reps as you can and then run a 5K as fast as you can...and he WON!! he won the whole thing! 45 reps and a sub-20 5K = FIRST PLACE.
• Tonya at racing with babes ran the Autism 5K and got herself a nice PR, 11th overall and 2nd in her AG. way to go!
• i want to say welcome to a few new "followers." that word followers sounds like some kind of cult thing. hi to Heather O, the other half of team staying strong and positive! there are a few of you that i can't figure out if you have a blog or not, so if you do, leave me a comment with your blog addy so i can follow you too.
• just had some wonderful sushi for lunch. my favorite roll...the phili roll. scrumptuous salmon, melt in your mouth cream cheese and a piece of avocado. to die for!
• the rays are pissing me off. bj upton and carlos peña please, please, please get out of the slump you are in.
• does anyone else have crazy dreams after eating spicy food? i had some garden salsa, sun chips over the weekend and man did i have some wild dreams. i mean insane kind of dreams.
• on my ride today, i heard a big pop and felt my front tire go bu-bump...i ran over a frog. it was nasty. next time around i got to see the carnage i left behind. so gross!
• i bought the garmin 310xt with all the goodies...heartrate monitor, cadence thing-a-ma-jig, pretty much all the extras you can get. i should have it sometime this week and then the hard part; figuring out how to actually program it and use it.

ok, i think that's enough randomness for today. i'm planning on getting back on the focus factor train tomorrow morning for a nice, semi-long run before work. 

much love and peace out!