Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight...: 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: