Triathlon

I am a blog slacker. . .so shoot me.

I just finished my second Tri of the season. I finished in 3:13, a PR (personal record) for me. Triathlon is a bit of insanity, a bit of addiction, and a whole lot of fun. I have pushed myself mentally and physically beyond anything I would have ever thought possible. It has been a mind opening experience. In less than 2 weeks I will race in my first ever Half Ironman Triathlon. I am nervous. . .CRAZY nervous. . . but I will show up to the race, and I will give it everything I have. With luck, I will finish. . .with better luck I will not be DFL (dead-fucking-last). . .but I'd rather be DFL than DNF (did-not-finish) or DNS (did-not start).

A doctor who finishes medical school DFL is still a doctor. Someone who goes to medical school but doesn't quite make it still tried, but to not even start on a dream is a great loss.

Triathlon is the reason I am in graduate school finally. I didn't want my life to be a DNS.

Geez

Time flies. What the heck happened. No post for a month?

Well, I finished my first term at Des Moines University in my MPH program. Straight A+ all the way. Who knew? My second term is almost 4 weeks gone and one class will be done on Friday. Classes this term are a bit hedgier than last. I am not enjoying my Social and Behavioral Health class so much. Plus, at the same time I am trying to have a life, and train for races. That's a lot.

I turned 40 last week. I feel great about it. I am one hot 40 year old mama!!

And my garden grows as well.

Motivation

To get out and do either a run or a bike ride tonight is waning. I was thinking I would do my grueling bike hill workout, but it is like 45 degrees, cloudy and windy making it feel like 35. I think NOT. I will get up and run in the dark and the cold tomorrow, but I just can't stomach the wind and the hill tonight. This means I need to commit myself to do the PRC Training Duathlon on Thursday night at Big Creek. I am not wild about this, but my son is babysitting so I would have to be there anyway. I will just suck it up and do that. Looks like Weds and Thurs will both be low 70's but then colder for the weekend. This spring is getting to be depressing.

All my plants think it's spring, but I am afraid they may get too cold tonight and get frosted. That happened last year and some of the plants can't take another spring like that again. I was out working in the yard a bit yesterday afternoon preparing for some tree planting next weekend and I noticed a few spots where there was some ground heaving (not nice) and a few plants that didn't make it through the winter.

Luscious

I love forsythia.

ran the Drake Relays 8K road race today. A respectable 51-ish minutes. I tried for a bike ride afterwards but the wind and cold temps killed me so I cut it short.

I have a training session with a swimming coach on Monday. I hope he can help me get faster - go Mel, go!

SockQuest - I'm dead

These lovely socks made by Eli and Brenda slayed me last weekend.

School is fantastic. Who would have thought that I liked school?

Wednesday night ritual ride was a blast last night http://www.punkrockcycling.com/.

SPRING

A month since I last posted. That's sad. It's mostly spring, but still cold. Socks are being knitted for SockQuest, and classes are being taken by me. I believe I got an A in my first class. YAY! I am still over my desired weight, but the Half Ironman training started last week and is going well.

Go Hillary

While we were driving all those many hours in the car going to and from vacation last month, we listened to a lot of public radio. We also listened to a lot of right wing Republican extremists. Man, was that an eye opener. Good Ol Rush Limbaugh is at the head of the hit parade, but he is followed by many maniacal boors of similar mind set. I heard a lot of negative crap about Hillary and Barack. Oddly enough, because they are SOO far right, most of these guys don't like John McCain much either. Good for that - let's have dissent and division in the Republican party so we can get a democrat in the White House.

While Barack spared no expense to let us know that he hadn't lost much ground by losing Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island last night, it does light a charge under Hillary's campaign. Let me be one of many to say "hot damn!" http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/05/march.4.contests/index.html