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

No pictures yet, but I finished sock #1 of the set I’m doing from the Braun’s Woods colorway. Fairly pleased with how it came out – the fit is really good. The way the colorway came out was a bit odd – I get a nice spiral up the leg, but the foot alternates between some light striping and two big chunks of pooled colors. Hmmm. I expect the 2nd sock (which has been cast on) will come out about the same.

Dug through stash to see what I might have for some quick hats for the two younger nieces for giftmas. Given my brother’s job situation they’ll get a check from me as the main gift, but something tangible for the little ones is good to do, too. Hopefully the bits of stash I’ve identified will be enough for two hats for them. Oh, and may I say that I am very, very glad I got a ball winder, as that’s making re-packaging yarn to carry with me much, much easier.

Nice weekend here. One of my body electric brothers was in town and crashed here, so got in lots of walking around, playing tourist. I need to go ahead and join the Smithsonian as a supporter of the American Art Museum – I always end up taking people up there rather than the Mall! I especially love some of the crazy folk art stuff on the first floor; we ‘Mericans have managed to come up with some batshitcrazy stuff (as well as some seriously good art, but the batshitcrazy tends to catch the eye). ‘Twas good to catch up with him and reconnect, and I always enjoy playing tour guide in my little city.

Up a bit too late to run this morning, so will do so this evening instead. Will have the advantage of being warmer then, too. Made plans with Mike to head up there the first weekend of December. He’ll be down the weekend after next, so I’ll get to see him soon! There’s a game day that weekend, too, so I get to show him off as well. The holidays will be a little bit crazy, and we briefly toyed with the idea of a visit “home” to his parentals, but it’s a bit soon for that yet. We talk a lot, more than I normally ever like to talk on the phone (friends will confirm I’m more of a texter than a talker), but it’s not felt forced or anything. Still smitten, obviously.

It’s about time for me to go through the Uberlist for this year, catalog what’s been done, what’s yet to be done and is still doable, and what’s completely out. Not quite sure how I’ve done – I haven’t kept up with the list that well this year (in terms of looking it over), but I suspect I’ve done a bit more than I thought I might, realistically. But that’s another post.

Starting to get back into a routine now after a couple of weeks of head cold, travel, complete abandonment of exercise, etc. Ran Monday and this morning (much to the chagrin of my legs), went to the men’s knitting group tonight and got another inch or so done on the leg of the latest sock, cooked a good meal last night, getting into the groove of the new fiscal year at work, etc. A return to semi-normalcy, which is very welcome.

Part of cooking last night was using my microwave convection oven for the first time as an oven and not just a microwave. I knew they didn’t take as long to cook, but didn’t expect quite how much faster it would be. The little 3 lb turkey breast that the label said should take 2.5-3 hours in the oven took 45-60 minutes in the microwave convection oven, and came out quite nicely. Color me impressed. Add to that the butternut squash, roasted in the normal oven, and some asparagus to go with and it was a nice little meal, with some good leftovers. I need to cook more, and this was partly an experiment to see how easily I could cook up something like the turkey breast for taking into work instead of buying the deli meat sandwiches and all the filler they have in them.

Before heading out to the knitting group I raided my stash and managed to find the yarn I was going to make into a scarf last spring (improvised design, didn’t work). I have found a better pattern which is almost exactly what I was envisioning for myself, so was good to find existing stash for it. I should catalog the stash again, and add in all the new sock yarn from the summer, but meh. Also managed to find some stash for a couple of other gift projects. Score.

Spending time with Mike this past weekend was wonderful. Still very much smitten there, and looking forward to seeing how it grows. We just fit together well, and he makes me want to be better.

Running’s getting going again because I have a race in two months, and I will be prepared for this thing and its hills, come hell or high water. Fridays are going to start being hill workout days – heading up toward the Mall via L’Enfant Promenade (that dreadful monstrosity of I.M. Pei’s), and if I can get far enough, up around the ‘hill’ around the Washington Monument. This is the problem with having moved down to the river – it’s relatively flat here, and thus harder to train on hills without traveling. We’ll see how this Friday goes.

Friends visiting over the next three weekends, including Mike in early November. Busy times, and good stuff to do – will help get me out of the apartment, and back into a social groove. While I am doing the IM in August, I need to better balance a social life of sorts, no matter how limited, and settle back into a better pattern of living.

So, I fagged out this morning and bought the super-duper-mega-deluxe-expensive version of Our Lady Of Pop’s latest collection of music I mostly already own. I must say, I’m kinda enjoying having the vids on ye olde AppleTV thingey (since the TV is the best set of speakers in the apartment, this is a good thing).

(oh, and the champagne flutes she uses in the Music video? That’s my crystal pattern)

I’m also suddenly feeling the urge to knit a sweater. I think I must be getting feverish from the head cold. So instead tonight I’m going to work on the long-neglected sock I’m supposed to be knitting. I have to admit, I’m a little afraid of knitting a sweater. I’m not a fan of wearing them, and I’d be trying to make this to be at least partially fitted (as opposed to looking like a big lumpy sack cloth, like many sweaters do), with a really pretty pattern, but man, that’s a lot of yarn to buy and work with. I’m hoping the feeling will pass, but I suspect it won’t. Hmph.

I did get up and run this morning, so am obviously feeling better than I was this weekend. May bike in the morning if I wake up for it. It’s perfect running weather out there now – 50s in the morning. Not so perfect biking weather, but it’ll do. Better than using the trainer, which I’m not ready to do yet.

(okay, watching older Madonna vids, it’s sooooo obvious that she got serious dance training over the years, because the newer ones are so muh more technically competent than her early ones – I mean, watching Lucky Star makes me feel kinda embarrassed for her it’s so amateurish)

Managed to get through the last day of the fiscal year without major drama, mainly because I completely ignored one of our program offices. They can’t manage their own field offices, and I refused to play referee today. Made the day go much better than it might have otherwise. Of course, they’re trying to drag me in tomorrow, but I think I’m going to ask my management to intervene, both with the program people and with the field personnel who are a piecemealing their objections to what we’ve (HQ) told them to do. Tomorrow will be another day, and another year, and another set of messes. Gotta love it.

Not a lot of wildlife out this morning.

Very grateful for the trash cans on Hains Point, so I can toss my empty gel packs immediately.

Had a cut on the side of my lip for about a week, couldn’t figure out what caused it. Wrong place for shaving, not a cold sore, just a little cut. It became evident this morning – sliced the side on an energy gel last week. Grrr.

Ran the entire distance this time. No shortcuts, no walking breaks, all run (6.48 miles). Felt good.

Forgot that the beepy-thingey cuts off after an hour. Was on the waterfront and wondering why it had gotten so quiet – beepy thingey had done its thing and shut down. Do think it’s a good aid, though, for keeping the legs moving at the same rhythm.

Training, that is. Ran and swam yesterday, biked this morning, running a long run tomorrow. Definitely feeling it tonight; almost didn’t do laundry as planned, but managed to get off my butt and get it done (yay for clean sheets). It’s a good kind of tired though – good, honest physical exhaustion from exercise.

Work’s nuts, which seems par for the course these days. I wonder if all political transitions are this crazy or if the economy being in the crapper has substantially added to it. I’d prefer not to find out for a while. What would be nice is to stop stress eating (why couldn’t I be one of those people who can’t eat when they get stressed instead of the opposite? silly body).

Long run planned for the morning, first in a while. Was prepping things for it tonight (water bottle, etc.) and I think I need to hit Conte’s or the like and pick up nutrition this weekend – down to two gels and two things of shot blocks. Not enough to make it through training or the two races, by a long shot.

I don’t think I could’ve shown myself a more stark contrast this morning between running and cycling. I went out and did 20 miles on the bike just now, came back in and plugged in the heart rate monitor to download the data, and it turns out I was out cycling for less than a minute less than the time I ran yesterday (1:09:35 cycling cersus 1:09:43 running). Perfect way to compare the two.

The starkest difference, and the one that I knew was there but hadn’t had matching data quite like this, was calories burned. Now, I know it’s an average, a suggestion based on my height and weight and all that, but the running showed 826 calories burned, and the cycling showed 1,278 calories burned. Meaning in their estimate running burned only 2/3 as many calories as cycling did. No wonder I was losing all the weight last spring when I was cycling all the time! (and yes, the running and swimming helped, too, I’m sure, but still)

This tells me I need to stop staying up so late and get my tail out on the bike more often in the morning.

Finished the Lawyers Have Heart 10k this morning (an hour and 8 or 9 minutes – I forgot to hit the stop button when I zipped over the finish line and they haven’t posted results yet). Ran for the first 4 miles or so, then took some walking breaks. It was made pleasant for those first 4 miles by a young law student who decided to chat with me about triathlons (I was wearing a club shirt). She had a good pace and we ran pretty well together, which was nice. I finally let her go when I needed to drop down out of zone 4 and back into zone 3 with some walk breaks. Glad I did the race, I needed the experience, even if it did mean I didn’t go out last night.

One thing that annoyed me was that they used a new disposable timing chip system – as if Championchip’s resuable chips weren’t good enough. So now we all have a piece of miniature electronics and plastic to throw away. Ugh. I’m going to send a polite note to the race organizers expressing my displeasure over the waste.

Popped down to the parade this evening. Dear heavens but that took forever. The sun had been down over half an hour and floats and groups were still coming past the reviewing stand. Someone needs to work on their timing. Or start the thing earlier. Or something, because N and I finally gave up and went to meet the typing pool for dinner down on P street. Took a lot of pictures, not sure if any are worth anything. Did discover my backup battery had no charge (whoops!), so those are getting charged now and in the morning before tomorrow’s day at the festival. My plan is to spend pretty much all day down there seeing folks, chatting and what not. I always prefer the festival over the parade because the pace is more leisurely and it’s not such a logistical mess.

In the meantime, I’m going to try and get up and get in a bike ride in the morning, as well as hitting the work ATM so I don’t have to pay fees. Sunscreen galore for tomorrow, too. No sense getting more fried than I need to.

Did a final push tonight to ensure I can do Columbia on Sunday. Swam a little over a mile (3×500 as the main set, with about a minute rest between each), got home, changed, zipped out for a run of about six and a half miles (a little more than what I’ll be doing Sunday, though on flat and not hills like Columbia will be). Not bad, though I predict I will be a bit sore tomorrow. If nothing else there’ll be a small blister on the left foot from the new orthoses. I think next week will be time for new shoes, too. And hey, should sleep nicely tonight.

I got a pretty nasty little sunburn on Sunday while driving back from Tidewater. It’s fading, and isn’t quite as red as it was on Monday. I keep slathering it with aftersun lotion (and sunscreen when I go out), and no peeling, either. Yay moisturizer. Made an appointment for early June to get the mini’s AC fixed so I won’t do that to myself again.

I want to spend some time next week going through my uberlist for this year. Some things have been completed, and some have changed or been rendered moot. And it’s time for a review, after getting through this first race.

It’s reached the point in the year where frozen berries in the morning smoothie are no longer just a tasty addition (fruit! vitamins! flavor!), but a necessity (cold!). Better tasting than adding ice cubes, but still good at bringing the temperature down, post-workout.

I’m trying hard to be stoic about the fact that I live in an older building with a combined either-or air system that hasn’t yet changed over to cooling, despite 90 degree temps over the weekend and the next two days. I’m trying, but I daresay not succeeding terribly well. Let’s hear it for unseasonably warm temps after unseasonably cool temps. Not that I’ve run the heat in the past month, but hey. It’s made sleep somewhat elusive, as it does every year when this happens (and it does happen every year, which is why I’m trying to be stoic; I’ve had to deal with it for a decade now, so you’d think it would be easier). Hopefully the run this morning and a swim this evening will help with that tonight.

Speaking of the run, on my run this morning I saw: 1. lots of pollen; 2. the sun rise over the Washington Channel; and 3. a Decepticon sticker on the hood of a parked car.

Another beautiful morning for a run. A light mist, low 50s, quite nice. Stretched to 5 miles this morning, and was doing well save for a hot spot caused by the new orthoses. Forgot to put body glide on my arches this morning, and it showed at the end. Not, I suspect, a mistake I’ll often make again.

Set myself up for a massage tomorrow. Yay. Haven’t had one in forever (last summer?), so this should be a treat.

Started tracking my cash spending again after a year or so absence from it. The lack of phone/quicken interface has been a definite hindrance there. I miss having pocket quicken to sync up the two devices. So far, though, I’ve done pretty well in remembering where I’ve been spending cash. Is good to have that awareness again.

Swim went okay this evening. First time back to the pool in 2 weeks (thank you, allergies/head cold). Still did okay, though I’m pretty darned tired this evening. Should sleep nicely. Got a pointer about arm position from a club member who often teaches swim lessons at the pool while I’m there. Was an interesting change, and it actually felt pretty good. Something new to concentrate on while training (and while racing), and I think a helpful thing.