Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

I made my last big purchase, post-move, today. Finally went and bought a wetsuit.

Was intending to buy a different one, a two piece system, but when the company’s out of them, and there’s no time to order and wait, you get what you can. As it is, I’m happy with the purchase I made, it fit well, was comfortable, and should last quite a while. I look forward to using it.

Nice weekend thus far. Club event this morning, bbq afterwards. Came home, changed up, ran this afternoon. Wasn’t my best run, but no calf pain, thankfully. Afterwards I ran out to get the wetsuit. Tried on several, this was the most comfortable by a hair, but the easiest to get out of overall, which ultimately was the deciding factor.

It’s a gorgeous day in DC, was perfect for running, and for the first brick workout for our new triathletes. Was good to have such nice weather for this important workout for them, but then again, this spring has been absolutely lovely for pretty much everything exercise wise. They’re been very lucky this year.

But with this purchse, my major purchases are now done. Table, chairs, the apartment itself, and now the wetsuit. There are some things I’d still like to get, but no necessities, those are done. Which is just fine with me.

Finally got a chance to taste/use the little Cliff Shot Bloks I’d picked up at the Cherry Blossom expo, and I’m hooked. It was so much easier on the bike to fish one of those puppies out and have something to actually chew on, rather than having to tear open a container of goo one handed and then worry about where to put the little container when you’re done. Definitely going to be the calories of choice for the bike portion of my upcoming race (since I don’t seem to do well with sports drinks when exercising). Used them on a nice 2o-ish mile ride this morning.

Then this afternoon I swam, did 3 500 yard repeats after a long warm up. It went well, so I’m feeling okay about the swim portion of the race. The bike will be tough, but definitely doable, and the run, if this calf doesn’t get better this week, will be torture itself, but overall I think I’ll survive it.

Managed to get up to Dupont for lunch with a friend, and back down to the Y for the swim and then home again before the rain really hit. It’s going nicely now, a good, steady, relatively light rain. Enough to keep the kids indoors, not so nasty that I have to close the balcony doors. Is a nice, quiet counterpoint to my tapping on the keyboard. Should take the nice, quiet time to do some more cleaning, but I’m feeling cleaned out after yesterday’s straightening and getting the chairs unpacked and set up.

Obviously working out was not meant to happen this morning. Didn’t feel like biking in the cooler temps & wetish weather, still resting my yet-again pulled calf muscle, so no run, & swam last night, so that’s a no-go, too. Couldn’t find the short bike workout DVD, so was going to go with the 50 minute one, but that one seems to have crapped out on me – won’t play on the PeeCee, won’t play on the iBook (caused me to have to reboot the iBook when it wouldn’t eject, in fact). Ugh. So, Tuesday is this week’s rest day, or at least the morning is, we’ll see about getting something to work tonight, though I think I was supposed to do dinner with a friend tonight. Ugh.

The calf pain returned briefly this morning. It happened after I had to run in place at an intersection, waiting for the light to change so I could cross. After walking a little bit I was able to pick it up again, but that running in place (as opposed to running to move forward) would be the cause of the pain jives with my prior experience of pain after running on a treadmill. Made sure to stop at intersections and not bounce up and down (aka running in place) and it seemed to do fine. Mental note: no more bouncing, at least until after the June race.

Didn’t run this morning, but did run this evening, same long loop I did on Sunday (since I’l really supposed to be doing Very Long Loops at this point in training). Will attempt an hour on the bike in the morning if it’s not too cold/nasty tomorrow morning. Otherwise, long swim instead.

Work was in one of those “everything is flowing as it should” rare moods this morning, knocked out two long time problems, then lunch arrived and all my mojo went out the window. Oh well, at least I killed two projects before it fizzled.

Trying to start finalizing plans for race nutrition and the like, pick up those last things I need to get (um, wetsuit?) and make sure I can stomach the food I want to have on the bike and run. Gotta plan this stuff out in order not to kill yourself in the race, so I’m trying to ensure I have a plan and that it’ll work.

Skipped out of the board meeting early tonight (yes, the cult co-op had a board meeting the day after a membership meeting) because I was too hungry, post-run. Dinner was good, some fake sausage, light salad, hummus. This was about an hour after the run, and I had already had a recovery drink and a protein shake before that. Food is good, and good fuel is better.

Just got out a psuedo contentious meeting of the membership of the cult co-op. We were amending the bylaws, and we just left the meeting room at 11:30, after starting at 8.

This is why I stopped doing city government stuff; I couldn’t take the long meetings late into the night.

It will probably totally kill my chances of being awake enough to run in the morning tomorrow, but we’ll see how that goes. Grrr.

I was out running this morning, about 20 minutes or so in, was rounding one of the three corners around Hains Point, running on the grass, when I passed under some of the many cherry trees there. It was misting lightly, and some last few hardy blossoms were coming down in the rain, falling nicely across the path. Very pretty, very zen, very cool. And then one of the petals found its way into my mouth.

Nothing like spitting out cherry blossom to ruin a mood.

The good run (an hour, no calf pain!) was had despite sleeping in late, having been out late last night tricking. Tried water sports successfully for the first time (had an abortive attempt once before) and I have to say it did absolutely nothing for me. One set of initials checked off the list and in the ‘nah, don’t need to do that any more’ column. Along with that I also fisted the guy, and again I don’t think it does much for me. Is interesting in an itellectual sense (anatomy, displacement, etc.), and a sensual sense (control, texture, etc.), but it’s just not a very sexual act to me, in the sense of turning me on, because it just doesn’t. I won’t rule it out if a partner’s really into it, but I just need to realize that it’s silly to seek it out because it’s just ‘blah’ on the continuum of turn-ons for me.

Other than that I shopped, a lot (Homo Depot, Target, Pearson’s liquors), got a lot of things for the house, and generally got my money’s worth out of the rental car I had for the weekend. Have a fresh case of wine, replenished the liquor cabinet, got the aforementioned kitchen sink aerator, and got rid of 99% of the stuff that was left at the old place. Still have to haul off the old Kirby vacuum cleaner, and get my flour and stuff, but the big stuff that was being donated is now gone, which I’m sure Richard is glad of.

Is it bad that I bought a bicycling helmet that was fancy expensive enough to come with its own carrying case? Needed Wanted a new helmet for racing & to train on the tri bike, plus I needed beaucoup hydration equipment (read: I left all my water bottles at the old place), so it was off to the bike shop yesterday evening on the way to the club happy hour to pick up a few things. Was a successful trip, getting their last between-the-aero-bars water bottle, the helmet and a couple regular water bottles. Did forget to pick up arm warmers, but hopefully they won’t be needed any time in the near future.

Ran this morning, another successful run with no calf pain. Went out the same way, along the marina and up to L’Enfant Promenade to zip across the Case bridge, but this time I popped down into the park and ran around the Washington Channel and back that way, so a more varied loop than Monday’s run, and about a 1/3 of a mile or so longer. A lot of concrete out there, which is going to take some getting used to.

I set my old roomba loose on the floors this morning (since I’ve yet to swiffer them *whistles innocently*), and it seems to be running just fine. It didn’t like the old place, but I suspect we had too many obstacles set up for it to run well. Now that most boxes are out of the way, and I have no carpets down yet, it seems to be happily bumping it’s way through the bedroom, sucking up dirt. Let’s hope it helps with some of this dust that’s all over the floors.

I’ve determined that I’m never going to be a good gamer. I’ve not picked up the DS but once or twice since I’ve been here, and that was to place Advance Wars or Sonic Rush. I don’t think I’ve been to Animal Crossing in a couple weeks now; all my ‘neighbors’ will have run away and the place will be overgrown with weeds again. Ah well.

Nothing quite like having your hair stylist ask if you want to have her trim your eyebrows. This after a morning spent plucking the odd long hairs out of my ears. Ah, the joys of aging.

In happier news, I biked a couple loops around Hains Point this morning on the tri bike, nice 40 minute ride (seriously, seriously have to get more water bottles and soon). After getting ready I decided it was time to try biking into work. Commute time, door to door: 10 minutes. 7:40 of that was actually riding (1.3 miles), the rest was getting down in the elevator, locking up the bike and getting up to my office.

It’s hard not to gloat about a 10 minute commute. Oh, who am I kidding, I’m gloating. Full-on, doing the happy Snoopy dance gloating. Gloating with my shaggy eyebrows.

Having food at home is a good thing. Cooked yesterday (just some frozen pasta & sauce) for the first time, and made a good salad this evening. Starting to feel like home, finally, with some food in the fridge & cabinet (and my belly).

Work’s been odd this week, with absolutely no one in the office on Monday when I got in, which is really, really bizarre as I’m usually the very last person to get there in the morning. Easter Monday, go fig. And otherwise it’s just been a strange mix of busy and not-busy. And of course the last place I want to be is at work, preferring to be at home getting things together. Whee.

Calf is still okay, so I’m hopeful it’ll be okay when I run tomorrow or Friday (haven’t decided if I want to run or bike tomorrow). Swam this evening, pretty good swim, and not too busy in the pool, which was a pleasant change from the mornings. I still want to check out the two closer pools, but if an evening swim would be less crowded, that might be a better option (since I do like the YWCA facility overall).