Sunday, September 25, 2011

Now that IM is over, what am I gonna do with all that free time???

Well, the answer to this question is quite simple. Returning to suburban life means that I'm inundated with children's activities and schedules. Carpooling, cooking, cleaning, visiting with friends and of course, back to work at school! But then again, the cessation of training and the absolute avoidance of structured workouts gives me a little time that I forget I sacrifice for the love of sport and fitness. Take today, a lazy Sunday afternoon.  I've just finished a crochet tank that I've been working on all summer:
Doris Chan, crochet goddess pattern

and now I'm organizing patterns, thinking about unfinished projects, and, of course, as all passionate creatives will tend to do, I'm starting new projects left and right!  Cathy and I are trying to brainstorm what we can do with wine bottle corks (I see the use of a hand drill, here). But today I bang around and lo and behold, before I know it I'm following a Russian pattern for a bikini top (in Russian!). There are no limits to the possibilities of new dreams and new dream time.
How cool is this!!!!!
And in case you're wondering if I'm bragging or if there is a kernel of advice here, let me share, or proclaim my advice: take time to let it all slip away. Take time to loll around the house in PJ's, take time to exercise that hobby that sometimes lies dormant.  Take time, even, to lie in bed and watch the sunset after a really hot bath.  I stared out the window last night and let my mind wander through all the emotions and occurrences of this year. When we're so caught up in our routine, no matter what it is, it's so difficult to cherish the odd thought.  Especially those of us who work and/or live with other people. Our thoughts are so often smooshed into a small space as we make room for the ideas and chat with others.  So let go! And maybe you'll be following a Russian pattern, also!!!!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

How to maintain a life while Ironman training

Dear friend and fellow blogger Kim asked me how I managed to look as if I still had a life while training for Ironman this year.  She loved my response so much I figured I'd post it right here, while I'm enjoying the lunch of champions out by the schoolyard:

How to Maintain a Life While Ironman Training:

1. Ask for help and never turn it down.
2. Live with chaos, especially in regards to tidy house and yard.
3. Accept that projects will take forever (or never) to be finished.
4. Embrace humility come race day...all those extra glasses of wine may not have helped me, but they sure made life more fun.
5. Work out around kids' schedules, even if it's not an ideal training session.

LF: did I miss anything?

Scrambled eggs, brown rice, red pepper and onions, along with fresh squash soup loaded with cumin and cayenne.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Well???

13:14. I'll take it. I'm already feeling rested and energized. Went back to work today and back in the thick of suburban motherhood. Let's bottom line this thing:
swim: beautiful start, gorgeous sunrise, friend Jack sang anthem before jumping in water, too crowded in water, it ended without incident after 76 minutes.
Bike: gorgeous morning, no wind, bike felt fine for about three hours.    Beyond three hours, there was that nagging stomach ache, sore toe and increasing heat. I started to wonder about running at all.
Transition to running: wonderful to see family as I ran out of the area.

leaving transition area...ready for a marathon, huh?

Mom! Do this!!!!

Peter and Karen chasing down one of the many women out on the course.

And there I go.
 Run? This, as often happens to ironfolk, is where things started to fall apart. I knew from the get-go that my run wasn't going to be exceptionally fast, and I managed an adequate two and a half hours for first thirteen, by walking aid stations each mile.  But it's never great to go from bad to worse and I spent the day thinking my undoing was my own, when in actuality it was a hot run and my body was struggling to maintain systems. However I slice it, I knew I didn't want to destroy myself, and planned to finish healthy, so I did what I needed to preserve myself. Proud, satisfied, tired, sore.  What a training cycle and year it has been.  While I wait for some real IM photos, here are some memories of the season:

our beloved Newport State Park...summer at it's best
climbing camp!
How hot is it today???
Climbing camp!
yippy yo yippee yay snoop's in the house....
sister love. I'll take it.
Cha cha cha...looking good is number one. Taper time!
Green Bay, Crochet, tan, kids on the sand.  I'm done.
Mom!!!! Take pictures of me!!!!
Now we're talking baby!!!! Fun. Fun. Fun!!!!

scenic training rides...
A prince among men. Quiet as it's kept...lucky us....

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Madison is...

The biggest farmer's market in the country & places like Graze, for a nice big pre-race meal!  Check out my eggs benedict, all local & organic! We got to talking about I'M and me not drinking a Bloody Mary...my bar-man said he'd make me a virgin one, minus the beer chaser.  Chaser! I can take that!  And by a mile, the best BM with organic cheese curds and hearty jerky with a New Glarius Moon Man chaser! Go Team!!!











It's also the day of the Badgers vs. The Beavers!  Go figure!!!! When I see anyone wearing OSU colors, I give a little shout. It shocks them, because they are so outnumbered by Wisconsin fans!  Picture of me with two big OSU fans coming soon, it's on the camera...
 And then on to Robert and Ellie's house for a wonderful afternoon of chitchat and relaxation.  Sitting across the street from beach, lake, sun filled garden and house....ironman? What Ironman?!!!!
Street view from Bob's house

Word has it that Georgia O'Keefe lived here for a season

Fellow athletes enjoying a fabulous afternoon together
 And so it goes. Now it's getting later in the afternoon and there's no turning back.  Bike is racked, gear is in transition rooms, all we have to do is get up early in the morning, find swim attire, hike to the swim start, and let it all happen. The hardest part is over. The logistical nightmare of a full season of Iron preparation is complete.  Now for the day that we anticipate, all year long.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Honk to Recall Walker

Street scene at State & Johnson...they're honking! Honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk beep beep beep beep! Beep!  Honk Honk Honk Honk!  Clap Clap Clap. Honk honk honk!!!!

Overheard from triathlete: "He's the one who cut collective bargaining." And who says triathletes are self-absorbed somethin's?


Madison Here I Come!

I think I may have forgotten something.
The much-anticipated weekend is here!  This feels a little less momentous than last year, when I luxuriated on the Beach in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia as a means to prepare for Ironman Canada, but in my attempt to become a perennial Ironman, I need to be able to wake up in my own bed and routine a mere days before the big event.  Today I saw Peter and the kids off before I finished loading the car and left Oak Park.

Hmmm....any other triathletes around here?





Then to Madison, a beautiful city, surrounded by two gorgeous lakes and the Monona Terrace Convention Center, designed by FLW himself, which is pretty cool.  I knew well enough to go ahead and park in the convention center, and proceed to the check-in area. A line to baffle the most endurable souls, but alas, this is Ironman and Ironman does as Ironman sees fit.

swim course and bike path, helix shaped parking structure in distance.

Any Ironmen around here?
 The lakefront views found from the convention center are impressive, as is the bike path that circles the like and, egads! oodles of people using the paths and bikeways (sigh) around town.  The triathletes aren't hard to spot, with their high end bicycles, look of anxiety in their eyes, and carrying wetsuits around, ready for a pre-race swim.  Yes, LF, I thought about working out myself, but I'm more the kind to cherish the time to myself. After all, I'm in Madison, Alone! This won't last. I can work out any day, besides, I've got to get away from all the triathlon nervous energy and get some food.  So I head over the the Willie Street Co-op, where I find suitable lunch and groceries to bring to the motel.  All in life is good:
Great stuff. Good local baguette, goat's milk brie, cucumber salad (somebody forgot the salt) and sundried tomato pesto.















But the best part of my morning came when I was heading back to the car.  I encountered a woman wearing the most wonderful granny square skirt I've seen in a long time!  I stopped her and praised the high heavens for the work which most likely was vintage.  She hadn't made it herself, and her companion commented that this was the first time she had ever heard the reference "granny square".
This is vintage craft. I'm in AWE!!!!!


 Now, we can tackle Ironman, high crochet has been discovered, we have patronized a great co-op, and all the work is done. What else, besides pushing aside the exhaustion I'm feeling, sitting here in a quiet motel room right off of State Street, wondering how I can endure Sunday?

Monday, September 5, 2011

I do it because I love it!


I worked the people and beach earlier this summer.
 Or: "She's a Puzzlin' Blogger!" (title credit: Addie)



I think, LF, that I may have alluded to the fact that taper translates sometimes into fun and recreation (taper field trip, a week ago), and I may also have alluded to the fact that taper involves obsessive attention to detail. Well, my friend, what better combination of leisure activity and obsessive detail than a jigsaw puzzle! 
This ain't no disco...


 If you haven't experienced the joy of working on a Ravensburger Premium Puzzle, I strongly encourage you to take the time to indulge this pleasure. And don't, my friends, stop at the pretty little 100 or 200 piece children's puzzle.  Take it all the way, with a 500, or in my case a 1000 piece replication of The Singing Butler, by Jack Vettriano. The pieces are simply lovely, and what's the point of squandering  20 or so hours of your life away if the object of your lust doesn't feel great beneath your fingertips?
It was this or Planet of the Apes with the family.




 I can honestly say that this is the toughest puzzle I've worked on in a very long time.  The background, although seemingly different shades of grey/green/blue/brown, is compleletely blurred on our dining room table. Time to employ the highest level of obsession: I sorted pieces according to their notches and have been plugging away, trying to fit one piece at a time.




If only all of life were this easy to sort and shove into place.
One might wonder (say, all of my housemates, for example) how I can justify such a monotonous practice for such great amounts of time. It is, after all, tedious, and hardly rewarding as time creeps by and the wheels of progress roll forward.
So close I can almost feel it.  Will we finish it in time?  Who knows.
 But of course the answer lies in the explanation of why I'm rewarding myself with downtime this week, at all.  It is the mundanity of puzzling which so strongly reflects the tedium of sitting on a bike saddle for hours on end, or shuffling along the streets in a walk/jog/run fashion for hours at a time, or even banging back and forth in a pool, year after year after year, never getting any faster (or even better). I do it because I love it!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

One week to go...

This is about it...
 Time to drag out the gear and get organized. The unfortunate side effect of racing only once a year is that this process is particularly daunting.  I've been fussing  over such things as: the condition of my race wheels, whether or not I have enough CO2 cartridges in working order and where I'll carry them, the condition of my "aero" helmet and cleanliness of my pearlized cycling shoes. I've donned my race running shoes and decided that they will be functional on race day, although I'll bring along my daily running shoes. I've received reports of unusually warm water temps, so I'm bringing two wetsuits, one with and one without sleeves. Unfortunately my sleeveless suit is riddled with holes and the sealing compound that I've used in the past to mend holes has dried up.  Race attire, which needs to be supplemented by some cold weather layers, in the event of cooler than usual temps, an abundant supply of nutritional powders, gels, and so on.  Hat for sun, selection of socks, prescription sunglasses with a selection of tints depending on the quality of light come race day.  It's good to start organizing this stuff well in advance, particularly due to the fact that there is no shortage of nervous energy and that I'm not supposed to be training much these days.  Add a dose of unseasonably warm air, and I'm happy sitting on my porch, organizing my toys.
Now, put these on without falling and hurting something!

Race Motto: Be Here Now.

Now we're talking.  Ironman meets badminton.

Coffee. Eternal friend.
Photos courtesy of Peter.