Mud Run Report

It's Tuesday and I'm just now able to lift my arms over my head. The Mud Run kicked my a$$! But it was the most fun I've ever had while getting my a$$ kicked.

It was a 6.2 mile obstacle course through mud. And when they say mud, they mean smelly, thick, suck your shoes off mud that varied in depth from get your shoes dirty to getting stuck all the way up to your belly button. They didn't mess around. I read in the newspaper that it took 21 days to create the course and they used tillers and bulldozers to create the 6.2 miles of pain. Thanks to the insane weather in Central Ohio lately, the past 21 days were full of crazy rain and storms so that made for not just mud but slippery and wet conditions.

There were 6 of us (3 are on my triathlon team) that stuck together for most of the race so we met up about an hour before the race to make sure we were in the right place and to get the clean, pre-race photos. It's probably pretty obvious but some of these were taken by The Pilot and his nice, clean camera and others were taken with a waterproof disposable camera.

We entered into the DGAP (Don't Give A Poop) category, which suggested that anything goes, including costumes. I figured that if I was going to run through the mud, then I might as well look good doing it. What, don't all 30-year old professional women own pink tutus?

We were in the 10:30 am wave and we all took off into the woods. While it was very hard to judge how far you had traveled since there weren't any mile markers, I would say we ran close to a mile before getting to any man-made obstacles. We spent a lot of time running through the forest, up and down ravines and across small streams (most of this was in mud that just barely came up over our shoes.)

I love how there is a perfectly good bridge to our right but the race arrows were telling us to run through the mud, so we did. :)

Just when we thought we were going to lose our shoes because they were so full of mud, we got to walk through a muddy stream to "clean off."

We finally got to our first man-made obstacle! This was initially a challenge for us shorter ladies because the top ropes were too high we couldn't reach! That's why there are so many of us on the same rope. It was the only one we could reach!

Next up was the first of two rope swings. I was really freaked out by this one so I waited to watch poor Bethany try it first. She looked great on the mount but then we all realized that the ropes were too short (joke's on us, Mud Run!). She ended up fully submerged in the drink! At least she was able to laugh it off! But then I realized it was my turn. Mine ended very similarly except I nearly landed in the dirt pile behind me instead of the dirt pile I was trying to reach.That's Bethany behind that blob of mud on the lens and I'm looking on in fear...

And there's me sticking the landing....in the mud.

Now these don't look hard. But what you can't see is the gravel that is under the muddy water that was digging into our knees. I also wish that this was smell-o-blog because the mud SMELLED!
It was then time to run around in the woods some more but we also found some random things we had to climb over. I'd like to point out that I'm only 5'3" so climbing up over this stuff was HARD! My wimpy arms had to work really hard to pull myself up and over some of these obstacles, hence the reason that I am only just now able to fully lift my arms, three DAYS later.
The Mud Run calls it the Stairway to Heaven. I call it scary! This thing was crazy high, wobbly and slippery from all the muddy people before us!

Once we all made it over, it was time for a real crawl through the mud. I'm sure the intention was to Army crawl under these ropes but again, it smelled and we were starting to get really tired and I don't think we were even 1/2 way through at this point.

It was back into the woods again for some insane ravines. We had to climb up and slide down multiple times. It was crazy hard and so exhausting. And I can't believe I'm going to post this picture but I'll take one for the team (or something like that) and share it all.

Clawing our way up

And then back down...

After we had to swim across the Olentangy River (see the video below for my reaction on that), we had to climb up a ravine, enjoy a cocktail (water) at the top and then had to immediately make our way back to the river. This is when it got a little ugly. I did not make my way down the ravine very gracefully. I lost my footing and slid down the.entire.ravine. on my back. I hit every rock and tree on the way down before I finally caught my right arm around a tree (I have the bruise to prove it), and flipped onto my front and got a mouth full of mud. I am awesome.

Here I am hugging a tree for dear life as I tried to regain my composure and spit out the mud. You can also get an idea of how steep the hill was that I slid down.

Luckily right after my graceful slide, we had to cross the river again. Before that though, I "brushed" my teeth with some muddy river water. Awesome. I could have done an Orbit commercial.

Walking on water

There weren't any other photos during the race mostly because we were too exhausted to take any more and the rest of the course was out in the woods and The Pilot couldn't get out there with us. I will tell you that I did skip one obstacle. I tried but the cargo net wall proved too hard for me. I made it about 5 feet up but knew I didn't have the strength to get the rest of the way up and then back down the other side.

I also faced the scariest man-made obstacle. The Leap of Faith is an 8 foot high platform with a pit of water on the other side. It seems so simple. You just have to jump into the water. Two problems. I don't think I've jumped off anything that high since I was 10 years old and didn't have any fears. The second problem was that the water was muddy. You had no idea how deep it was. My team mates all jumped and went under. I was still on the platform with Mark and I almost climbed back down. He told me we'd do it together so he counted to three and we jumped. Scared the bejeezies out of me! This was the obstacle that I thought I would want/need goggles for but I decided that I didn't want to carry them. I came up out of the water and couldn't wipe my eyes off (they were covered in mud) so I just had to open my eyes. All I could see was a film of mud over my contacts. Ouch. After Mark dragged me out of the water (I couldn't see the edge!), I tried to get a spectator to let me wipe my face on his clean shirt but he didn't seem down with that so I had to trudge on....right into the over and unders.

I did not like these at all. You are fully submerged and have to go under one log, then climb up and over another and then under and over again. My eye balls were on fire! Luckily there was a sprinkler going (to keep things nice and muddy I guess) right after the over and unders so I could at least wash my face/eyes with clean water.

Since there aren't photos, I'm not exactly sure of the order of things but I do know there was a hellish mile of nothing but running through mud. I'm talking thick, suck your shoes off mud for what seemed like miles and miles. It might not have been a full mile but it sucked! I'm a slow runner on pavement, so this was really pushing me to my limits. There was also another rope swing out there that didn't end up in a mud pool but just into a sloppy pile of mud (again, the ropes were too short....or maybe I'm just too short...).

The race finished up with a trench run. They dug a trench that was probably only 2 feet wide and varied in depth from 2-3 feet. And it was full of mud and water. And there were random holes to fall in and twist your ankles and knees. And sticks to scratch the crap out of your legs. It was awesome.

We started as a team and finished as a team. I don't think I could have done it without them! I certainly hope that they still will answer my e-mails when I suggest these crazy things....
They had a fire hose tied to a tree so you could attempt to clean yourself off. I think the water was about 33 degrees. It was an instant ice cream headache when you stepped into it. Yikes. I didn't get very clean. I changed my clothes but it took a very long shower and lots of scrubbing to get the mud off. I won't go into all of the details but there was mud and foliage everywhere!



My shoes and socks were sacrificed but my clothes actually came clean after two trips through the washer. My tutu even held up well! I can't seem to get the dirt smell off it but it looks clean!
It wasn't until I cleaned up that I realized I had a pretty good sized cut on the back of my leg and I had quite a few small scrapes and scuffs on my arms, legs and back (from my graceful slide no doubt). I also have a nasty bruise on my arm where I hooked myself on that tree....but I wear them like badges of honor! I finished the darn thing! All 6.2 miles of it....in a blistering 2 hours and 27 minutes.

My only gripes with the whole race were that finishers were supposed to get 2 beers at the finish but I never saw any beer. Just some hot dogs. Not that I really wanted a beer but we paid for it! Yes, that means that I crossed the finish line and got a hot dog. No medal, no beer. Oh well. Also, there was a $3 charge to check a bag. We paid $65 to do the race and then they were charging to check your bag? Lame. Especially lame since they shuttled us in from an off-site parking lot and everyone had a bag with their clean clothes for after the race. The Pilot was our official paparazzi so he carried my bag for me. And I didn't even have to pay him $3....I guess the lifelong commitment we are going to make in 60 days (!) gets me someone to take my picture and hold my clean clothes while I go running through mud. And someone to make awesome videos like this (Please forgive my mouth. I never said I was classy.).


And so this Gym Class Dropout is now a Mud Runner.

Mud Run Teaser

I ran in the mud and I think the mud won. Every muscle in my body aches and I have cuts and bruises all over my body. But I had a blast! It's been a busy weekend so my full write up on the Mud Run will be coming soon. But here is a little taste of the race...

Mud Run Prep Part Deux

Timing Chip? Check.
Goggles? Check.
Pink Tutu? Check.

It's time to get dirty!

Mud Run Prep

Following Rose's advice from over at Eat, Drink and Be Meiri, I tested out my intended Mud Run gear last night. She was my inspiration for signing up for this crazy fun run and she suggested that you try on the clothes you plan to wear and stand in the shower to make sure that once wet, your clothes don't fall off or get so loaded down with mud that you can't actually run.

Thanks to The Pilot for catching this gem. Yes, I always shower with my clothes on and with a surprised look on my face.

Soaking wet and nothing fell off! I think this is what I'm going to go with!

1345!

It was a swim morning. So that means I'm a hungry beast again. It's lunchtime and I've already consumed 1,345 calories. Damn. I did swim over a mile this morning (65 minutes in the pool) so I know that burned a lot but sticking to that 1,759 goal is proving to be very tricky on workout days. So tricky that when I tallied my calories while I was eating lunch, I stopped before I got to my fruit serving (organic apple sauce). That apple sauce went back into the fridge before I even opened it.

Technically I only have 414 calories left for the day. I might gnaw my arm off by the end of the day....so I just emailed my tri coach to see what he suggests. Maybe I just really need to change WHAT I eat on swim days. We'll see.

Here's what's been happening so far:

5:30 am PowerBar Protein Bar (300 calories!! Crap.)
7:45 am Peanut Butter Toast (the bread is whole wheat, double protein) (390)
8:45 am Medium Orange (75)
12:15 pm Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich (350)
Carrots (30)
Cheese-some German soft cheese stuff (200)

Tuscan Veggie Bake

Note to self: Just because it looks like lasagna, it doesn't mean that it is lasagna. I need to learn to read better. I had Kashi's Veggie Tuscan Bake for lunch the other day thinking it was a healthy lasagna. But what I didn't notice when I purchased it was that that no where on the box did it say lasagna. It did however, say VEGAN. Which is fine...but not when you were expecting lasagna....cheesy lasagna. This baby didn't have any cheese. Boo.

Doesn't this picture look like lasagna?


And I want to know why mine turned out looking like this....


I will say that despite the appearance and lack of cheese, it didn't taste bad. It was only 260 calories and because it was jam packed with veggies, it was really filling. I might get it again if it was on sale. It was a little pricey in my opinion....especially since there wasn't any cheese...especially since I Heart Cheese.

It was a Fit party!

I saw this cute sight when I left the pool the other day....the Honda Fits were having a party in the parking lot while some TNT coaches were having a party in the pool (errr...or something like that. I was partying so hard I wanted to puke on the side of the pool but that's another story.)

One of them is mine - "the blue roller skate"...and even though I lost my 26.2 magnet, my license plate makes it very obvious that I can do more than 13.1....but posting that in the bloggy world is probably not a good idea. I also don't know who the other cars belong to but I do know that one of them is a fellow crazy person triathlete based on their oval magnet.

They are so cute! Can you tell that I am easily amused?

I Heart Cheese

I had my first wedding dress fitting on Tuesday. It went pretty well. I felt comfortable that the seamstress was going to make the changes that I wanted. The only thing that troubled me was that it was pretty darn snug in the mid-section. I figured that I would be be down a couple pounds by wedding day just because I am doing a triathlon a couple weeks before the wedding and so we ordered the appropriate size dress. Well, I can get the dress on and zipped easily...I can even sit down in it...but it's not very comfortable. And I'm all about comfort. So my amazing seamstress gave me the deadline of June 29 to decide if I need to have the dress let out. It's not a big deal to let it out (there's enough fabric to do so) and I wasn't paranoid about her having to let the dress out because my a$$ is too big. I just didn't want to have to worry about (and pay for) the additional work needed to let the dress out.


That was on Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, I had myself in a complete panic. I don't want to look fat in the wedding pictures. I don't want to be uncomfortable all day. I don't want to faint on the alter because my dress is so tight.

Ok, pity party is over now. I'm going to take control over that wedding dress and my squishy mid-section. I'm not so concerned about losing pounds. I mostly want to tone up and thin out the middle. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to drop some poundage and according to those charts at the doctor's office, I still have about 20 pounds to lose. My own doctor (who is an athlete) told me that my genetic make up will make it very challenging to lose that though (don't forget that I am up to challenges from time to time.)



So this is what has gone down since my freak out on Wednesday. A friend sent me a wedding meal plan that I intend to incorporate bits and pieces of (making mine a little more veggiesauraus and with more calories because of my training schedule). I also shared very personal information with my tri coach (height, weight, astrological sign) and he helped figure what my calorie intake should be to either maintain weight or lose weight, based on my current activity level.

2259 calories/day to maintain my current weight.
1759 calories/day to lose about 1 pound per week.

That doesn't sound so bad.....riiiight? The challenge is eating the right combination of foods because I'm craving nothing but carbs and Dairy Queen (because that has it's own category, right?). I'm going to say those cravings are ALL because of my concurrent triathlon and marathon training. :) Lots of carbs (especially those tasty simple, white carbs) aren't exactly good for losing weight.

I've never counted calories. Ever. Even when I dropped 30 pounds a couple years ago. I read labels sometimes and had a decent idea of how many calories are in my snacks, but I've never added up a whole day. Yesterday was the first time. Maybe not the best day to do it considering I did 2 workouts (60 minutes in the pool in the morning and a 3 mile run/walk in the evening). That makes me a hungry beast. Yesterday was also my planned "eating out" day. I packed my lunch and ate breakfast at home every other day but due to my schedule this week, I picked Thursday as my day to not pack a lunch....excuses excuses.

I've still been tracking my food (even though I haven't posted it on here in awhile) and my steps (I'm almost to the company set goal and we're still about 3 weeks from the end!) but now I'm going to add up the calories for at least a couple days.

So here is the ugly truth of yesterday:

5:30 am- English Muffin with Olivio spread (180 calories)
8:00 am- Tim Horton's plain bagel with vegetable cream cheese (380 calories) with a small Pepsi (100 calories)
12:30 pm- Subway- 6" BMT on wheat with provolone, lettuce, green peppers, oil and vinegar (450 calories) with Baked Chips (130 calories)
4:40 pm- Yogurt Raisins (60 calories)
7:30 pm- Grilled Cheese (crusty bread, muenster and provolone cheeses) (565 calories-this took some research/guestimating since the bread didn't have a label), about 8 baby carrots (30 calories), a fuji apple (80 calories) and 4 slices colby jack cheese with reduced fat Triscuits (170 calories!! holy cow, that sucks. This is one of my favorite snacks).

Can you tell I was STARVING by the time we ate dinner? Obviously I know where my eating goes downhill. That totals 2145 calories. Which means I might lose an ounce each week. No wonder I've been stuck. I'm interested to see what today's calorie count will be since I'm not working out and I'm not a hungry beast. I am starting an 18-hour Relay for Life tonight so it's going to be a situation where making smart food choices will be a challenge. The Pilot is in charge of bringing some snacks for us so we'll see what he comes up with.

I also want to add a disclaimer that I don't plan to make this a weight loss blog. I'm saying it right here that I will not become a crazy bridezilla and start weighing my grapes and taking everything to the extreme. I just want my wedding dress to be comfy and I want to look nice in it! I'm also going to put it out there that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to eating. I can coach you to do a marathon and fuel yourself during a marathon but other than that, I have no clue what I'm doing. Feel free to give me feedback though!

Family Bonding

My future father-in-law sent an e-mail not too long ago and mentioned he might be interested in a 1/2 marathon on the Indiana University campus next spring. It got me thinking, what a great way to get to know him better....train for a 1/2 marathon together! The only problem is that he lives 2 hours away. Then it dawned on me...the Air Force 1/2 marathon is in September on the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. Dayton is about the 1/2 way point between my house and his house. And so....we are officially signed up for the Air Force 1/2 Marathon!

I put together a training calendar for the both of us. I'm not positive on whether I will be walking, running or doing a combo. I think that will depend on how the running portion of my triathlon training goes....and what pace my future FIL runs. If I can keep up with him, I might suck it up and run. :)

I did the full marathon back in 2007. It was an emotionally tough race for me. I was going through a very rough patch in my life but yet I was still training and trying to break 7 hours in the full (please remember that I've only been incorporating running into my training for the past year or so. I'm a race walker first). It was also my first race without Team in Training. I wore my purple jersey anyways but there wasn't the course support that I am used to. It was also HOT and there were probably only 20 people registered in the walk division. That means that I spent most of that race completely alone. I crossed the finish line in 7:03. While I had beat my previous time, I nearly cried at the finish line because I wanted so badly to get under 7 hours.

It was that race though that gave me the extra kick in the pants that I needed. I started training harder, dropped a lot of weight and was finally able to get under 7 hours...crossing the 2009 Disney Marathon in 6:46. And even as I type this, I can't help but want to do another full to see what I could do now that I've added running, cycling and swimming to my athletic adventures. But first I will do my triathlon. Then I'll get married. Then I'll bond with my father in law at the Air Force 1/2 marathon. :)

If my friends jumped off a bridge, I would too

So I let a complete stranger convince me that I should do a Mud Run. Rose did a blog post about her Mud Run adventures and she had fun so that means I'll have fun too, riiiight?

What is a Mud Run you ask? Here is the description on the registration page:
Course is a 6.2 mile, Military Style Obstacle Course with over 30+ obstacles for runners 12 years and older. Runners under the age of 18 must have waiver signed by an adult and must be accompanied by an adult during the entire race.

6.2 miles isn't scary to me (obviously) but I lack some serious upper body strength and with obstacles with names like Hole to Hades, Gorilla Ropes, Mine Field, The Wall, Web of Lies and Stairway to Heaven, I might end up crying at some point. I also might lose my contacts and end up going to work the following Monday with mud caked in my ears. Awesome.

Rose put together tips and tricks for a Mud Run, which I fully intend to use! But this post is really what sold me....look how much FUN! I've got one friend on board to do it with me so far and I'm trying to convince my triathlon team that they should do it too! If you are going to be in C-bus on May 28 and are interested in getting dirty, let me know! :)

That Evil Track Workout

My triathlon coach must hate us. Or he's trying to improve our speed. I'm not sure which. He's doing a 1/2 Ironman this weekend and a full Ironman in July. So he might be a masochist and he just really does hate us. Kidding....but I sure wish my abs and quads didn't still hurt.

This is what went down on Sunday afternoon (after I was full of Mother's Day cookout food):

1200 warm up (that's 3 laps around a track for the non-crazy people)
4 x 100
4 x 200
4 x 400
2 x 800

(there were 100 recovery runs in between each rep)

And here is some commentary on the above.

1200 warm up = Tough because I've only been running about one day a week right now.
4 x 100 = Hard but not sooo bad.
4 x 200 = My competitive streak forcing me to try to keep up with a team mate for one of the reps. Bad idea because I wanted to puke.
4 x 400 = Me hating the coach. And running. And tracks. And the world.
2 x 800 = Me wanting to cry and quit.

But I didn't cry. I didn't quit. And even more importantly, I didn't puke.

The Pilot tagged along to document the training. I had final decision over which photos were saved. I noticed a few things from the photos. I look just about as bad as I feel when I run. There are still some jiggly bits that hide my muscles so I still have lots of work to do. I also tend to be inflicted with a problem that Rose over at Eat, Drink and Be Meiri blogged about a couple weeks ago. Click on the link above because I won't repeat the problem since my mom and future in-laws read this blog. The future in-laws might wonder what on earth is wrong with the woman that their only son is about to marry. ;)

Hey, coach, you aren't supposed to beat us off the line every.single.time
to make us feel bad about ourselves. ;)
Also, I got the memo to wear a blue shirt like the other ladies but I must have missed the part
about wearing tight capris!

Why am I smiling? This must have been early on in the workout...or I was delirious.

Yes, definitely delirious by this point.
I was about 100 meters from seeing Care Bears like Tom Hanks in The Money Pit.

Thanks to The Pilot, we now have this glorious video to commemorate our team's first track workout....and me giving my sentiments on the whole thing at the end of the video.

I do have to point out that around :34 into this video, we were starting the 800 (2 laps around) so no one (except the coach of course) went bat out of hell off the line. It looks like I'm in slow motion...but really that's just my "long" distance pace. Wow.

OK, so I don't really hate the coach. And I don't hate running. But you could probably figure that out. And I'm sure the coach doesn't take it personal...do ya, David?? I do know that I got a crazy hard workout in and my abs (?!) and my legs are STILL feeling that workout. It's back in the pool tomorrow morning and I'm sure I will hate the coach and swimming tomorrow. See ya then!

It's not a competition....

It's been a busy seven days. I had a work event on Friday and Saturday that went really well professionally and for the step challenge. I got in 13,000+ steps just on Friday! No other workout is included. What it does include is at least a dozen trips across a hotel lobby/atrium/ballroom. There were several other staff on site and we kept checking our pedometers to see who was ahead. I must have been pacing because I seemed to keep a pretty strong lead.


Yesterday had a high step count also. I had 5200 regular steps plus The Pilot and I enjoyed the AMAZING/rare weather with a trip to Highbanks Metro Park for a hike. It wasn't strenuous by any means but our work challenge does give a step equivalent for hiking so that racked up 10,520 steps. We also planted a bunch of flowers in our bed out front of our condo so that equaled 7,860 steps bringing Monday's total to 23,380! (You can read more about the flower planting over at The Pilot's blog.)



I have to admit that even though it was a wonderful afternoon with The Pilot, the highlight of the day was at 11:00 am...

My mom went with me to pick up my wedding gown! It finally arrived (We bought it back in January!) and it was time to try it on and take it home. So naturally I had to spend a few minutes spinning around in front of the wall of mirrors checking out the dress from every angle. My step count should actually be higher since I didn't have anywhere to clip my pedometer on my wedding dress! I fell in love with the dress all over again and it's driving me nuts to keep it a secret from The Pilot. I am horrible at keeping secrets (unless I am specifically asked to not say anything, it eats me up inside to keep secrets!) and I don't have any secrets that I've kept from him. Luckily we are only about a little more than 2 months away from the wedding and I can debut the dress for everyone!

You'll notice that I skipped over any mention of my steps from Sunday. I did a track workout with my triathlon team so I definitely got a lot of steps in for the day. I did this post as my reaction from that workout. I'll probably do another post about the specifics of that workout since The Pilot was kind enough to take lots of unflattering action shots. I'm just waiting to do that post until I no longer groan every time I stand up or try to shift positions. I'm afraid if I blog about the details of that workout, it won't be very positive since I am still crazy sore. :)

Today's Track Workout

And this is how I felt about today's track workout.....

Squat and give me 200

There is a blogger that I started following and she cracks me up with her obsession for sweating and her "secret office fitness." She made a post today about doing squats and push ups in her office. There is a 100 push up and 200 squat challenge floating around out there and while I've seen it before, my curiosity wasn't peaked until Rose posted photos of herself doing the 200 squats. Right out of the gate this animal can do 200 squats. So all day I thought to myself, I've never really tried to do a bunch of consecutive squats, I wonder how many I can do.

Apparently I'm not sleeping again tonight, so I gave it a try.

How does Rose get all those pictures of herself??

Here I am, not squatting.

There we go!

100 squats before I felt like I was going to lose my dinner (which, by the way, was a bagel and broccoli cheddar soup) or I was going to fall over and land on a cat who couldn't figure out what the h-e-double hockey sticks I was doing.

Now it's your turn, how many squats can you do??

Randomness

My head is all over the place this week. It's an event week for me so my head is swimming with little tiny details. On Saturday afternoon by 1:00 pm, I can do a complete brain dump and start fresh. Because of all the things floating around in my head, I couldn't sleep last night. My brain was alternating between "did I follow up one last time with all of the speakers for this event?" and random wedding logistics like "how will we all get to the church but not end up with too many cars at the end of the night?"

The Pilot is away and because of my weird schedule this week and his always weird schedule, I didn't get to talk to him today. That always bums me out, even though it doesn't happen often. I keep thinking that I'm getting used to this airline lifestyle but then there are times when I just miss him like crazy and want him to be home.

I did get a great distraction for everything this afternoon though. I got an email from the bridal shop that said my gown is ready to be picked up! I haven't seen the dress in person since January when I picked it out! I wanted to jump up from my desk and drive straight there...but I'll have to wait until Monday. Boo! It works out though because I have the day off and my mom was available to go with me so she'll be with me when I try it on again. I can't wait!!

So in honor of my head full of random thoughts, I'll share some completely random photos.

The Pilot loves me and I can see his love for me in the twinkle in his eyes when he looks at me(do I hear a collective "eeeew" from my followers?). So I felt pretty uneasy when I saw that twinkle in his eyes when he wasn't looking at me. We were at the grocery. And he was looking at a display of Oberon and cheese. I think his favorite things in the world (Besides me of course) are Oberon and cheese. I'm jealous of the cheese.

Here is our dinner from Sunday night. The Pilot made Triple Corn Squares with Bean Sauce. His plate looked much prettier than mine so he took a picture of it. I had mine without cilantro and I'm a little neurotic about my food and I like my salad in a bowl instead of on the plate with the rest of my meal. You can read more about our dinner over at The Pilot's blog.

And this made me smile the other night when The Pilot was getting ready to leave on a trip. His and hers lunch bags. Can you tell which one is mine??

Which brings me to my eating and step update. I won't bore you with all of the details of the weekend but I'll fess up to the small Diary Queen Waffle Crisp Blizzard. That is heaven in a paper cup if you ask me. We also ordered a pizza. I ate at least an orange, an apple and a banana over the weekend. Does that make up for the Blizzard and pizza? Probably not. I'll keep trying though!

I'm going to be eating pretty random through Saturday because of my schedule. I should have thought through each day a little more on Sunday night when I had the time and planned out each meal. Again, I'll keep trying!

I'm at 3,500 steps so far today. The night isn't over and my foot just fell asleep so I racked up 500 steps by pacing around the office trying to shake out the pins and needles. Not a great count but I know I'll make up for it tomorrow when I head back to our main office for the day.

Saddle Time and A Port-A-Potty Update

It was a weekend full of time in the saddle! And my a$$ is feeling it.

My tri team had a group ride scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Knowing how slow I am and that not many of my teammates would be there, The Pilot tagged along to keep me company in the back. The first 8 miles were pretty enjoyable. Then we turned around....right into the wind. It also felt like it was uphill the entire way back. I kept falling further and further behind. Ugh. Finally, The Pilot realized how far back I was and pulled over to wait for me. True love, huh? To make it even more fun on the way back, I got a nasty cramp in my hip....one that lasted 5 miles. I really wanted to stop and stretch it out but I also really wanted to be done so I kept going. It was pretty slow, 16 miles in about 1:20 but that was the furthest I had been since last summer.

I was supposed to do a brick workout today (a ride immediately followed by a run) but due to time constraints and the cranky hip, we opted for just another ride. The Pilot and I headed out to the Rail Trail where I spent A LOT of time during my Goofy Challenge training. It's close to home, straight out and back and it's FLAT.

Before we got started though, I pumped up my tires and snapped the valve off the rear tire when I went to remove the air pump. Swell. Luckily it was holding air, I just didn't have a way to put more air in. So we headed out anyways and kept an eye on the tire. I'll have to replace the tube before I head out for another ride.

Yes, I was so thrilled that The Pilot captured me snapping the valve off my tire. And captured me wearing my Crocs. Yes, I am aware that they are ugly shoes but they are so versatile! I wear them to the pool and on my way to a ride before I change into my cycle shoes. I simply cannot be bothered with tying and untying shoes. :P
Like yesterday, it was a nice 6.25 mile ride out but when we turned around, it was right back into the wind. Boo. On our way out though, The Pilot decided to visit the world's cleanest port-a-potty. He provided an update for me. "It was last serviced on April 28 so it was pretty clean, but there is some weird mold growing on the ceiling." I wanted to ask why he looked at the ceiling but I decided against it. So while he was checking out the facilities, I was taking pictures of my feet and of The Pilot entering where it clearly says, Do Not Enter.
Our 12.5 mile ride took about an hour but that's also because The Pilot decided to check out the video feature on his new camera.



The weekend is coming to a close and my a$$ and my hips are sore. That's the sign of a good weekend, don't you think??

The bike rides plus the regular putzing around put my step count at 35,435 for the weekend!