Forward-Thinking Madness

Adding more miles & yards…No, I have not been keeping up with logging everything on here for the “IDC”, but the story is the same: My knees are sore, I’m tired, my hip flexors are screaming at me & what does not kill me shall make me stronger. There you go. That poorly formed and uninspired sentence sums up the past six days. I spent 78 minutes on an elliptical tonight. I vowed to stay on it until I started hallucinating, but my right knee woke me up from my delusions of grandeur. My theory is this: I am trying to complete 1.5 (plus) triathlons in one month. I should feel like I am truly expending as much as effort to make it seem like a real day-long triathlon. I’ve watched the Iron Man in Hawaii with people falling off bikes, vomiting in the road, running with severe back spasms….somewhere along the line I am hoping to share in part of the misery/triumph of completing a triathlon, albeit it a slower pace. (Thirteen days with one day of rest…it’s a good kind of pain. I say that with almost all of my sanity in tact. Bring on the vomit and spasms.)

I have a long weekend and I shall enjoy it thoroughly. The itinerary is as follows: leave for Melbourne on Friday, meet up with V, who I have not seen in two years, visit with dad, who just returned from a month-long trip to the Philippines, and get my hair cut. All of this must be accomplished while still logging….miles & yards.

Running & biking = miles
Swimming = yards

My days are quite similar in nature and I am OK with this – I’ll accept the mundane for now with hopes of something far more interesting looming on the horizon. (And hopefully I will be able to meet this something interesting on the horizon without further injuring my….injuries.) For now, I’ll end this here before I start to make even less sense.

P.S. miles & yards, yo.

My first day off, but I still logged some time at the gym (core conditioning & Body Combat.) Perhaps tomorrow will be an actual rest day? I’m just over 1/3 of the way through one triathlon..I’d really like to go for 1.5, but we’ll see how the knees hold up.

I’m also beginning to remember why I hate swimming so much: public indoor pools filled with ridiculous amounts of chlorine. My main concern: my hair drying out. Ha! How superficial of me. Thankfully, Aveda has a solution for that sort of thing.

P.S. It’s been terribly cold here in Florida – the past couple nights it has dipped below the freezing mark. I awoke to a car covered in a pretty good layer of ice, not frost. I heard whispers of the chance of flurries this weekend. I have to say it is really difficult to drag yourself out of bed at 7 AM on the weekend to get to the gym when it’s freezing outside.

I logged 5.1 miles for a running/elliptical combo and 850 yards of swimming. Had to take advantage of a day off and get two workouts in. I stopped in at the gym that my coworkers go to, LA Fitness, to redeem a 7-day workout pass to use their pool but instead received a pushy salesperson who made me a bit nervous. He seemed quite flighty. He apparently used to work for LFF, the gym I frequent, and knows my roommate. I was going to swim there today, but wanted to dart out to get away from the flighty salesperson…there was just something not right about that fellow. So, I drove down to Seminole again. Tried out the new swim goggles – they feel a bit awkward, but at least I can now keep my eyes open underwater.

Day two total was 3.6 miles for running with part of that on the elliptical. I wasn’t feeling that great and decided to work out in the late afternoon when I should have ran in the morning instead. Day three was my first attempt at swimming – I logged 22 laps in a 25-yard pool which is about .31 miles. Not too bad, but I was definitely exhausted after that. (Plus, I’m a lousy swimmer…not very efficient.) Monday was day four and I did 3.2 miles on the elliptical after Body Pump. (We are allowed to count elliptical miles toward our running total, but I still want to run 75% of my total miles logged. I need to be cautious and only add 10% each week to my running miles to be sure I don’t re-injure my right knee.) Today, day five, I did my standard spinning class at approximately 45 minutes. Logged 13.5 miles. Tomorrow I plan to run,Thursday spin, and then Friday will be a swimming day, or what I’ll consider a break day. Swimming doesn’t put any strain on my knee, which I am protecting during this triathlon challenge, so on my off-days, I need to log laps in the pool. I will take a day off somewhere – I’ll just let my body tell me when that should be.

It’s day one of my month-long triathlon challenge and I logged ten miles towards my cycling requirement. I actually went to the gym and did the two-hour long “Amazing Workout” which had about 35-40 minutes of spinning involved. (Yes, spinning class counts. You are indeed cycling…it’s just stationary..obviously.) I wish I had bike, but unfortunately even the entry-level hybrid bikes start out at around $500 and that does not include the equipment needed to ride. Anyway, I’m just going to “Spin” through the 112 miles.

Day one is complete. Tomorrow: RUN

I planned to sit down tonight and write a review of my year, but then realized that I just don’t have the ability to concentrate tonight. Here is my brief review…and synopsis:

1) January 2009 – I began running. I remember the walks down to the “Fitness Center” at the apartment complex I was living at. I remember all the usual suspects that hung out there in the evenings & the one treadmill that had zero shock absorption to it. It was like running on pavement. I also got my iPhone in January. J. had a drunken meltdown after an evening out and tried to smash it. I’ll never forget that night.
2) February 2009 – “We” were getting ready to move into a new apartment and I was training for my first 5k. Ran my first outdoor run (off the treadmill) at the Upper Tampa Bay Trail. Felt so great, I called my dad after to gloat.
3) March 2009 – “We” moved into the new apartment & I ran my first 5k. With an injury, I ran it in 34:31. Not too shabby for being in physical therapy at the time. Annie also came home one evening with J. But just as soon as she was home, she had to go back to the vet due to kennel cough.
4) April 2009 – Had terrible food poisoning after a trip to visit my family in Melbourne for Easter. Came home sick as a dog – had to go to the doctor & was on antibiotics. I was out of commission for a week.
5) May 2009 – Maria & Elizabeth visited from Melbourne. Had fun at the Florida Aquarium.
6) June 2009 – Ran my second 5k with a lousy time, but it was so dreadfully hot. Never run a 5k in the summer, especially in the early evening. I’ll stick to mornings. (But the after-race beer was lovely.) Things really started to go downhill for me with J. in the late spring/summer. I was really having my doubts, but had Annie around to keep me focused.
7) July 2009 – July has historically been a not-so-memorable month for me since my mom passed away. J. was fired from his job during this past July and I knew that it would fall apart from there..but a part of me was still in denial. I immersed myself in the gym – and continued running in the humid Florida summer.
August 2009 – J. still did not have a job. I started developing heart palpitations and hypertension again. I visited my family the weekend of J’s birthday to get away..I think he had some sort of party at the apartment while I was away as I remember coming home to the smell of cigars, or something, in the apartment. He denied it, but my keen sense of smell and my intuition told me otherwise.
9) September 2009 – The original plan was for J. to move back home to his parent’s in Palm Bay temporarily until he started work out of state. (I think he lied about having a job out of state. His lies were quite deep..I think he believed them.) So, we left the apartment, he went to Palm Bay & I went back to Largo. He said it was temporary…he said he would not leave me behind, but part of me, very down deeply, knew it was going to fall apart. And when I did break up with him, after he posted ads on Craigslist looking for sex, I was completely calm. I knew it was long overdue…but I really hated myself for letting it drag on for so long and letting such a loser drag me down. So, on 9/24/09, I told him to take a hike. I visited my family in Melbourne that weekend & ran another 5k, this time on the beach. It was a very freeing experience. Every mile I run, I run further from him.
10) October 2009 – Moved to a more permanent residence close to were I was residing with J – I could get back to my old routine! And what mattered most was being able to go back to my regular gym. Spent Halloween with my family & enjoyed multiple lemon drop martinis.
11) November 2009 – I struggled a lot during this month trying to make sense of things. My birthday was difficult. Everything was difficult. My subconscious would not allow me to dream of good things, but kept revisiting the past. But I kept moving forward. Thanksgiving was spent with my family in Melbourne.
12) December 2009 – The fog began to lift. The only thing that set me back was another move, but this one was for our offices at work. I can safely say I do not want to move again for a very long time. I started training for a month-long triathlon in January 2010 – and hey, that starts tomorrow!

Well, that wasn’t entirely brief..and it’s not the most well-written post on this blog, but it will do. I learned a lot this year – and I hope what I went through with J. was not entirely worthless. I’ve taken a lesson away that I will keep with me the rest of my life: I will never sacrifice my integrity for anyone. I tried on his life, his friends, his views – and they never fit.

Here’s to 2010 being a much more productive and positive experience, and may my body continue to support my athletic endeavors without more visits to a physical therapist.

I did it. I registered for the month-long triathlon starting 1/1/10. I must bike 112 miles, run 26.2 miles and swim 2.4 miles. Oh dear, what have I gotten myself in to? Ha! Great way to begin a new year.

I wish there was a protective blanket of snow surrounding me. I miss falling asleep to the sound of the snow plows – their flashing lights echoing on my bedroom walls. I clearly remember how those winter nights felt & what they sounded like – there’s nothing like the peace and quiet of snow falling. I didn’t decorate for the holidays this year. On Sunday I plan to bake cookies & biscotti. I’ll be visiting family for the holidays..but I still feel like it’s not Christmas without the snow.

So, I’ll pretend it’s snowing as the wind is certainly cooperating in that regard as it’s howling outside as a cold front passes through. I hold enough memories in my mind to recreate that protective blanket, minus the bone-chilling cold.

I had an interesting conversation with a neighbor this evening I shall not soon forget. It involved her beliefs that Barack Obama has Muslim ties (mainly, you know, because his name sounds Muslim), the country will be taken over by Muslims (JIHAD!), Obama does nothing but travel around apologizing for America, and his wife, Michelle, is a racist. My favorite is the tidbit that if “something happens” to Obama, “the black people” will have an uprising. However, she had to interject that she is not a racist because she “has black friends.” She apparently also has Muslim friends. At that point I looked around for the cameras as I thought I had seen and heard this type of thing on the teli recently. Was this actually happening? Somewhere in the bushes, I think Glenn Beck was laughing at me. He scripted this, right?

I’m not necessarily a bleeding-heart liberal and I actually have Pro-life tendencies, but I find some of the current Conservative Republican beliefs a bit far-fetched and delusional. I found myself staring at her in disbelief for a moment with mouth agape. I mean, really – did that conversation happen, or did I have a brief lapse and imagined it? Please tell me the latter.