Thursday, March 15, 2012

Racing, Modern Family & The Bachelor.....3 things that have SO much in common.


Keep reading & this too shall make sense.

I’m typically a good blogger but I’ve found that when I’m not training for anything “big”, I tend to slack a smidge.  I feel like I need to give myself a little break though.  As I’ve mentioned before, I have a new role at work and from November – early February, I was doing two jobs. 

So I didn’t do a race report for The Woodlands Half.  While I met the goal of beating my Houston 2012 time, I didn’t beat it by as much as I should’ve…still a victory just not as sweet of a victory.  NBD, I was still happy.    You’ve run a certain time at a certain distance in the past and can’t get back there.  To those outside the tri/running world, who cares about time?  To those in that world, there is so much more focus on improving and getting faster and getting better.  We’re a bunch of A type personalities!  I like to see improvement.  I WANT to see improvement.  I just have to remind myself (more often than I care to admit) that I AM seeing progress from where I was this time last year.  No, I’m not running like I was in 2008 but I’m not the same person or the same runner I was in 2008.  I have no doubt I will see a 2:10 half marathon again and am still holding out hope I will be faster if even by a small amount.  So there you have it, a half-ass half-marathon report!

So what else has been going on?  I’ve officially signed up for 3 sprint distance tris….May, June & July thank you very much!  My training is moving back to a tri focus so I’m running a little less (or at least it feels that way) and getting back in the pool more and on the bike more.  I had the “pleasure” of swimming next to a real d-bag the other day.  I hadn’t been in the pool in a little bit as my work schedule was nuts and Ana was kind to me and had me focusing on running.  I was a little rusty I guess.  The first few hundred felt like I was swimming through a vat of Jell-O or sludge or something other than water.   I felt slow but when I started swimming my main set, I saw I wasn’t that far off my normal splits.  Not bad.  As I finished my workout, I sat in the water at the end of the pool when Aqua Man (I will call him this b/c he clearly thought he was pretty awesome and did appear to be a good swimmer) looked over at me and asked me if I was an “aspiring triathlete” with a bit of a snicker.  I thought for a moment and responded with, “actually, I’ve already done an Ironman”.  Aqua Man chuckled what I still believe was a very condescending chuckle and said, “well, I should’ve asked if you were an aspiring swimmer”.  I looked at him, sneered and then got out and dried my butt off with my awesome Ironman towel.  I thought about this the rest of the day and even tried to convince myself I was over-reacting but I’ve been assured by EVERYONE I’ve told this story to that Aqua Man was in fact being an ass.  Good to know.  Aqua D-Bag Man.  It is now my mission to go to the pool every single Saturday at 6am until I run into him again.  I don’t know what I’ll do or say but I’m sure it will be awesome.  Maybe I’ll wear my Wonder Woman swimsuit and ask him if he’s an aspiring d-bag and then say, “oh never mind, I can see you’ve already accomplished that feat”.  


I’ve been in rare form this week thanks to something I won’t get into here as I know my male audience will never forgive me. I think it’s safe to share that Keith watched Modern Family and now thinks it’s funny to ask me if I’m MONSTERating vs menstruating.  I think he wants to die. I love Modern Family, don’t get me wrong, but I think they are sending a very dangerous message to men.  If you live in Texas, you really don’t know if your wife/girlfriend/significant other is packing heat so to repeatedly bring up MONSTERating is a whole lot like playing Russian roulette. 

I used to write a Bachelor recap but haven’t done it in a few seasons as I just found I didn’t have the time anymore but more importantly, because the women were getting so ridiculous.  Well, I really should’ve watched this season b/c I feel like I would’ve had so much awesome material to pull from.  I watched a couple of episodes and just shook my head over & over.  First of all, Ben was a terrible Bachelor.  Unattractive, boring, unattractive, stupid, need I go on?  Overall, I didn’t find the girls to be super attractive.  They were all skinny & tan which for Ben, was clearly enough.   There were a few who seemed somewhat intelligent and “normal” but the rest….not so much.  So we all know Ben picked the swimsuit (or whatever type of model she is) model, Courtney.  I’m sure him skinny dipping with her had absolutely no influence whatsoever on him.  I’m not going to bash this girl b/c Lord knows it’s been done enough BUT….she was terrible.  From the way she talked to the way she behaved.  Yuck.  I am certain her family is embarrassed.  And while she appears to feel sorry for how she behaved, we all know she is just sorry that everyone else saw her for what she really is…..a hungry model who just needs to eat and everything will be ok.  So that’s my half-ass Bachelor recap.

Since this blog is about training, let me tell you I’m excited for the rest of my workouts this week!  A couple of runs, some more time on the bike, another trip to the pool.  It’s going to be fun as long as the weather holds out!  I hope all of you are having a great week and I’ll be back to blog about my (mis)adventures soon!