Shameless self promotion

So....I got my business cards yesterday and am strategizing how best to wallpaper the city of Seattle with them to drum up some clients (schedule now, schedule now...like my subliminal messaging?). My pal, Shannon, in San Francisco, did the graphic design of my cards and created the little "RF" logo. He is a rock star and did a fine job, dontcha think? He also did them in my favorite colors, blue & green...I'm digging them.

Front of card:

I've signed a one-year lease for the new practice space with my classmate (and now business partner, how wierd does that sound?), Monica, and paid my first/last month's rent, so I'm set to get things rolling Sept. 1.

Tatyana, ever a member of my support staff, scheduled an appointment with me for September 1, so I've officially scheduled a paying client in the new space on my first day! A journey of a thousand miles...and all that stuff.

Until September (and yeah, I do know that's about one more week, deep breath), I'm trying to get a few more of my ducks in a row, calm myself down from intermittent freak-outs (holy shit, I'm opening my own business!), and well...allowing myself to enjoy the end of the summer a bit. Since wrapping up work on Danskin and the Portland Century last weekend, I've been swimming in the lake and on my bike a good bit this past week and, although I've been up by 7 a.m. every day, none of the wake-ups were due to an alarm clock...that's been pretty sweet.

Today, Seujan and I did a really nice 40 mile bike ride from Log Boom to Marymoor, down W. Lake Sammamish to Newport, through Bellevue, and over Juanita. It was a nice, sunny ride and she was cycling pretty mellow and, mercifully, didn't flatten me. Later, we're going for dinner and to the Storm game...nice weekend and great that she doesn't have homework this weekend and we can both relax a bit!

(schedule now, schedule now, schedule now...)

What happened to summer???

I'm getting ready to move back to the Shoebox after 10 days of dog sitting in West Seattle...although I think I've visited my apartment daily for clothes/gear/bike/etc., it seems like a long time since I've been there! It's been nice to be in a big house with cute dogs, a LOT of cable, and, well...having the housekeeper come on Friday didn't suck, either. But the back-and-forth running around can be a bit of a hassle and it will be good to go home.

Yesterday I biked to the finish of Seujan's 13 mile trail race up at Cougar Mountain (as in I biked UP Lakemont to the trailhead/finish line). I've been riding hills a lot lately, it seems, and yesterday was another great ride, despite the fact that I started with 2 shirts and arm warmers on...and in August that is really unacceptable. Seems somebody fast-forwarded the calendar from the blissful heatwave of we had going a week or so ago right through August and September and landed us in October. Um, can I please have some August back??? 60's, cloudy, blech...I don't love it.

Today I went for a swim at an indoor public pool in West Seattle...the weather was crappy again and I didn't feel like driving back and forth to Seattle to get in the lake, so I went to a lap swim. I haven't been in a pool in a few weeks now and I have to say I haven't missed it much. I got through 2,700 yards (a mile and a half), but it was boring, the water was way too hot and chlorine-ish, and I had to share a lane. Desperate times call for desparate measures and I was glad to have a pool option, but I really belong in the lake for another month or 2.

Later today Seujan and I have a date to go see the movie "Julie & Julia." I've been Jonesing to see it since the previews came out several weeks ago and, fortunately, Seujan has put aside her ambition to see the latest Harry Potter movie (zzzzz) to see this one with me. A friend of mine just posted this link on Facebook...a cool interview with Julia Child on NPR from 1989. Julia Child says that people are too afraid of cholesterol, fat, and food in general...I keep hearing that fat is not to be feared (including from one of my teachers at Cortiva, who is a naturopath) and, well, if Julia Child made it to a happy 91 years old, I might need to re-think my relationship with butter! TBD and movie review to follow...

Vanilla Boston Creme Pie...+ coffee?

Yesterday I was in a consumer focus group about coffee creamer...or, well, fake coffee chemicals that don't actually contain real creme, per se, but that people like me use in our coffee pretty much daily. The totally artificial stuff that Seujan and I refer to as "goop." Yeah, I've read the label and use the stuff anyway...and now, having been paid $80 to discuss the tasty toxin (ok, that's not proven, but it certainly can't be classified as a nutrient by any stretch) for less than an hour, my little habit has only been reinforced. Anyway, turned out that the objective of the focus group was to review some potential new vanilla flavors/combinations being considered by International Delight. There were a few that I might actually buy if they hit the local grocery shelf, but there were some that were just gross. Like Boston Creme Pie? Cheesecake? Vanilla cardomom? Chai Vanilla? Blech....I'll just stick with my hazelnut flavored corn syrup, please.

Other activities yesterday included doing hill repeats on the bike (only 3, but they kicked my butt) on Marine View Drive in West Seattle and going to a free seminar on Energy and Bodywork at Cortiva, presented by one of the best instructors I had this past year. Kind of fun to hang out at school as an "alumni" and get a little more free education. I had a little "awareness" moment when I got into the building and realized that one year ago, I don't think I had ever even been in that building...then I was there a LOT for several months...and now I've graduated. Pretty crazy what can happen in a year.

This morning was our swim group's annual bridge swim. Once a summer, Julie organizes us all and we meet under the I-90 bridge, swim a Looonnnngggg out-and-back, and then have a tailgate potluck breakfast. The last few lake swims have been pretty choppy, so swimming along the bridge (i.e. with the floating bridge as a wind buffer) made for nice calm water and a good swim, despite the cloudy lack-of-sunrise conditions. I was a little late getting in the water, but caught up with the group at the turn around...just in time to get dropped on the return trip anyway. I'm not exactly speed racer in the water this summer. We didn't go all the way to Mercer Island, but Duncan and I guesstimated that we swam somewhere between 2.5-2.75 miles. I was in the water for about an hour and 13 minutes. The air temperature has tanked this week, but the lake is still nice and warm!

Back after another blog-less month!

Looks like it's been another month since I've blogged...and, as of this weekend, I realized...it's been a full YEAR since I've done anything that required a bib number. Troika '09 was last weekend and I have not raced since Troika '08. Granted, I did a really great bike ride with Ann in North Bend last weekend (way fun) and I've got some other cool pieces of paper instead of bibs (like a massage school diploma/license and a business license), but...it's not the same. Sigh. Twice this week when I was wearing my Ironman sweatshirt, someone stopped and asked, "Did you do an Ironman??" out of the blue. I said that yes, I had done one 2 years ago...but it almost doesn't seem like I was inhabiting the same body when I did.

My stupid hamstring is still a pain in the ass...literally...and I'm pretty sure it's not just hamstring related at this point (the latest idea from my friend, Dawn, who has a similar thing is that it could be bursitis...who knows...the whole sciatic thing is a possibility, too...or maybe that I just haven't really really rested it...or trained through it correctly? Hell, I don't know). As per an idea from the coach (who I keep on retainer, but haven't officially consulted in way too long), I'm trying a little run/walk thing a few times per week on the treadmill. I'm running 1 minute/walking 1 minute, 10 times...with a little extra warm up and cool down I do 2 miles in 25 minutes. I can do the short run bouts, but it's not exactly comfortable (OK, it hurts). I know the whole thing is a little better than it was a few months ago as I can walk uphill now without having to walk backwards the whole time and I can do some parts of my bike ride in the aerobars, but...it's healing very very slowly. Last weekend's 60 mile ride with Ann was my longest ride of the year. A whole season of "junk miles" is, on rare occasions, kind of fun....but often it's just wierd.

Anyway...I think I've blogged less because it just makes me think about how I'm NOT blogging about training for anything. I'm cycling a pretty decent amount and have had some really really great swims in the lake, but there's no real training goal. Trying to see the silver lining, I must admit that despite the absence of training and races, there have been some other fun and interesting things happening. The big news of the last month was the super HOT record setting weather (whoo-hoo!)...I've been working on some cycling events including the Seattle Century-- which was a bit of a crazy day...I'm getting ready to launch my massage practice in September (spent 3 hours yesterday at the dept. of revenue learning about state taxes, giddyup)...and today I'm going to be in a focus group about fake coffee creamers ($80 to talk about CoffeeMate for an hour, sure, why not...pretty great that one of my bad nutritional habits will pay off).

I'm also dog-sitting in West Seattle for about 10 days, currently on day 7. This time I have 2 big dogs, Max and Zion. Max is an older yellow lab (apparently, I have a type) who lets me hug on him all the time--so sweet. The last time I sat for these dogs, Max was on a 2x per day feeding schedule and now he only gets fed once per day...of course, we know that I plan my own days around the periodic feedings of myself and Seujan (whether I'm training or not) and I find this one time a day bowl filling for Max a little tragic. Thus, I've been contributing to some bad doggie habits like allowing Max to hang out with me on the king sized bed watching "Nurse Jackie" on demand. He would prefer "All you can eat" food to all-you-can-eat cable, but he's getting through it and we're totally caught up on all of this season's episodes. With a few days left of HBO and Showtime, I need to maximize my opportunity and find some other trash to watch for the rest of the week.

Here are my roommates for the week....

This is Zion:

And this is Max:

I'm hereby re-commiting to more regular blogging...I do miss writing when I don't do it.