You spin me right round

Yesterday we had our kickoff spin class for the group that are training for a half ironman in July, Musselman.  There are about 20 people in the group and we have a great cross section of people. I know a few of the ladies from Mommies in Motion and even Daryl from twitter signed up.   I have not done a ride on the trainer yet so the spin class was a great way to start.  It's weird though, it feels like I'm riding on cobbles or something.  Hopefully it's set up right.  I got a bit nostalgic when I was taking George outside, I was wishing I was going to ride along the lake.  I have one more week off so maybe it will be sunny and warm(er) one day this week, I've left the bike rack on my car just in case.

In other news the speedometer in my car is broken.  I thought it was odd that it was reading over 140 while driving a main strip in town but I got really alarmed when I saw that I was going over 200km in a school zone!!  I dropped the car off at Canadian Tire this morning, there was a huge lineup of people getting snow tires on, probably because it snowed yesterday.  Now I wait for a call to find out how expensive this is going to be.

Bryan's got his slick new blog up and running and he added a forum section which is proving to be pretty funny already. Because I'm the queen of stupid I started a 30 day challenge.  I need to face it, with the holidays and my birthday coming up I won't be able to eat perfectly but at least I can get my workouts in.  I decided to do 30 workouts in 30 days so that I keep moving.   Walking counts as a workout, the idea is to just get off the couch and make sure I keep getting off the couch over the holidays.  My tattoo should be healed enough that  I will be able to get back in the pool next week and I'm almost looking forward to a change of pace.  Almost.  The fasting part of the cleanse went out the window pretty quick but I have been eating smartly and am down about 4lbs which I'm really happy with.  I'm going to keep eating well and try to keep the festivities to a minimum.

Finally, I won that contest through Emz's blog, I won the Punk Rock Racing shirt and it arrived in the mail this week!! I don't check my mail often enough but when I went by this morning it was there!  It's awesome, I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!  It's my new kick ass training shirt and I can't wait to wear it.  In fact I have a run to do today and it will be one of my layers.

I need to get to a running store and find out how to properly layer for cold weather running.  Any and all suggestions and/or advice appreciated here.

That's all I got!

I'm a copy cat

Yup, I'm a copy cat..  not real bad just kinda bad.  I have seen people adding the 'link within' on their blog and I like it so I added it to mine and that makes me a copy cat.  I'm also here to admit that I have borrowed the image over there
<------------------- from 'icanhascheezburger.com' cause it's cute and I needed an image.  I realized that I prefer to read blogs where there is a big fat picture related to the post so I thought I'd start doing that except it's not easy finding an image for every post unless you take your own photos and I don't have a photocopier here OR a cat but I digress, what the hell was I talking about?

Ok so as promised yesterday I went out for a run. Wow, I am not smart.  When I left the house I realized the battery in my Garmin was dead, 10  minutes into the run my ipod battery died which really pissed me off cause I had some new music I had downloaded just for the run. Around 2km in my new shoes started to hurt and my left hamstring started to feel like it was pulled so I slowed down and walked it home.  Tomorrow I have my kick off spin class for the 1/2 ironman training group and if that doesn't get my butt back into gear, I dunno what will.

This morning over coffee I was catching up on some blogs finally and over at Life of an aspiring triathlete and there is a giveaway (go sign up) and a movie review for 'The Distance'.  I did not sign up for the giveaway  atlhough I should have cause I've had all the luck these days but I did go online and order the movie anyway. The review was good and I think the stories of real people will be good ones. I had bought a book before that was called "17 hours to Glory" and it was stories of people that completed Ironman. I thought that the stories of real people in the real world would be really good to read but was hugely disappointed that it turned out to be stories of all the champions.  Maybe they should have named the book '8:15 to Glory'.  Anyway I hope the movie will be a real life view of training.  As if I don't get enough of that view from the blogs but that is the most motivating part for me and usually the most fun to read/watch.

Since I'm still on vacation I drove into Toronto, not ALL the way in because you know I don't drive in the big city, to meet a friend for lunch and go for a walk.  She just got a new bike from the bike show and it's really purty and we are excited to do some riding together this upcoming season. She told me about a bike maintenance course that is held over a weekend, all day Saturday and Sunday where you can learn how to do basic repairs and maintenance and you can practice on bikes other than your own which in a way is good because I don't want to be pretend messing around with George.  It's reasonably priced and local, well fairly local and they have it every other month.  What does this mean for you?  Well you won't see any hysterical blogging or tweeting if I have to change a tire (god forbid) anymore.  I know one guy that will be happy about that.

And finally in more organizational news I have created a new email address to link to my blog, twitter and facebook.  It will be nice to have all the notifications for them (and facebook) to go to another account and stop clogging up my inbox.

I know you're jealous of my exciting life.  That's all I got.

testing, testing

Hi guys, can someone please comment on this post.  I have changed my email address to the blog and added it to my profile and I want to see if the emails from comments go there now.

thanks!

I'm VIP, true story

Today John mentioned on twitter that I had been quiet and he might be worried about me.  He also made a crack that 'I smell', wtf dude, I thought we were friends?  Anyway I thought I'd poke my head in for quick hihowareya.

In life news, as of Friday I resigned from my position at my present (old) employer as I had accepted another position.  My old company treated me well and I met loads of amazing people but this new position looks to have alot of good learning in it and I'm excited for this new challenge.  I'm less excited about commuting back to the city but I'll get over that bit.  So I'm on vacation until I start the new job on Dec 6 which means I have ALL  the time in the world to sleep in AND train AND catch up on blogs AND cook good healthy food, NONE of which I have done. To be honest the events of the last week have fried me a little bit and I'm feeling a bit sick at my stomach but I'm going to get over it and fast. The best thing I can think of to cure this is to get off y butt and do something, anything!  Tomorrow.. hahah I keep saying that but this time I mean it.  I'm even promising here and now on this blog to get out for a good run tomorrow.  If weather does not permit then I'll take a class at Millcroft but I think I'll be ok.

So instead of doing all that great stuff I have been puttering a bit around the house and getting some paperwork done for the new job and listening to far too much of The Heidi and Frank show. These guys had a radio show that I started listening to a few years back but then talk radio went to hell and they were off the air, then they went to AM which just sucked but now they are podcasting daily.  I became a VIP member of their site and have been catching up on the shows they have done since they started in October.  My new commute into work will work out well because I will be able to download their shows and listen on my ipod or iphone on the way to and from work.  These guys are highly inappropriate and make me snort coffee out my nose at least once a day, they are gonna love me on the GO train!

Then Bryan had his BIG announcement on his blog today, he's moved it here and it's the colour of beer!!!! He is charging a small monthly fee now but I would have to say, (even if I didn't have a free lifetime membership) that it's WELL worth the small fee he's charging.  I have been a faithful reader for almost a year now and my days are not the same if I'm not reading what he's up to, if only to feel better about myself.  I would also have to say that if not just for the blog but the comments are worth the monthly fee alone!  Anyway, if you don't believe me, he has over 1000 free entries  you can read through that are still available and then decide.  His best entries are the ones where he mentions me directly.. haha just kidding!  And if you think you won't like the blog because it's just about triathlon stuff, believe me, it's not.

So I have some running and reading to do tomorrow and I'm excited for our half ironman training kickoff ride on Saturday this week.

That's all I got!!!

ps, to those that copy parts of this blog, I guess one could say that imitation is the highest form of flattery OR one could say, get your own life... kthnxbye 

Fast fail, and I DO mean quick

Ok, obviously I did not complete 2 days of fasting so I thought I better hop on and just get that out right now.  Why obviously?  Umm have you met me?  Yesterday I had a salad when I got home from work which I think is ok.  They did list leafy greens, apple and almonds among the things you can eat if you felt too hungry.  Yeah yeah, so I morphed that into a pear and blue cheese salad but I went super easy on the dressing.  All in all the day was good though, I felt light and not overly famished and more in control.

Today started off well but landed me at another salad by noon.  I am going to continue with the cleanse, moving onto the shake days starting tomorrow.  There are two more non-food days next Thurs/Fri and I'm hoping for more success.  In the meantime I got some news yesterday and made a rather large shift in my life and that kicked off a flurry of events which I can't write about now but I can say it's all good on that front so don't worry.  If you really want to know what's going on, feel free to email me and I'll spill the beans.

Did I mention I'm on vacation?  For 2 weeks?  No where to go except out for rides on George and to Millcroft for some Yoga and maybe a bootcamp or two.  I would like some good weather please.

That's all I got.

I may not be smart

So last year I tackled a sprint tri and quitting smoking.  I succeeded at both, go ME.  We are still in 'last year' because last year is still this year but I feel like my year ended after the race, you get my drift. right?  I am 113 days smoke free, no small feat and thankfully I did not cave last weekend thanks to my awesome twitter and facebook friends but that's beside the point. 

Today's point is that now I need to tackle the weight. I would be happy to lose 30 pounds, ecstatic to lose 40. I don't even want to be a size 6 anymore, I want to be fit and HEALTHY and race faster.  I am an emotional eater, always have been, it's not pretty.  Now I am fit AND overweight, my worst nightmare.  Lately my stress levels have been high, work and life so my eating has not been great and worse it's just getting more and more out of control.  I need(ed) to put the brakes on.  Since apparently I am incapable of simply eating smart and clean for even a single day I decided a more strict effort is required.  So, I started a 9 day cleanse, go big or go home right?  Have you not seen my gigantic tattoo??   haha  Now before ya get all 'don't be drinking the lemon maple syrup drink' on me let me say, it's only 9 days and 4 actual days of fasting.  I fast for 2 days at the start and 2 days at the end and in the 5 days in between you do eat real food and some yummy(?) shakes. If you get too hungry they have a list of good options to choose from. 

 So I'm half a day into day 1 of the cleanse and I'm starving!  That is to be expected but just so you know, if you ever decide to do a cleanse, I do NOT recommend visiting any of the following sites:

The Pioneer Woman
Kayotic Kitchen
Trashy Eats

and for the love of gawd DO NOT visit The Daily Bacon dont' click it.. no don't.. oh wait YOU can, I can't.

We can all start to see why I have food issues right?  OY  So, for those asking I'm on the 9day cleanse by Isagenix, I have done this one before.  For those betting, I have made it approx 6 hours so far.  Is noon too early to go to bed?

You can bet that I will not last the full two days OR that I will flip out before the end of day tomorrow, it's a crap shoot really.

That's all I got.

oops, one more thing, I noticed that I have 40 followers which to me is just astounding that people would stop by to read and then take the time to follow me.  So in the words of Matty_O, thanks for reading!!!!  No really, thanks!!

American Beauty

I was out for dinner with a good friend, she's amazing. She's very zen and I learn alot from her. There's loads more to tell about her but I'll save that for another post.  We were chatting over dinner about what we've each been up to lately and the changes in life.  Maybe we weren't even talking about that very thing but in my mind it was the evolution of my life over the last year.  She makes all things in my life feel very zen.  I am surrounded by these thoughts constantly these days.

Driving home I realized I might be Lester Burnham.  You remember him from American Beauty.  Ok, I'm not Kevin Spacey and I'm not in an unhappy marriage with Annette Benning, but his transformation in the movie is how I am feeling in general.  You finally find the courage to just not care anymore, you do what you want and screw everybody else.  I'm not there yet but I'm in the car.



Except I don't smoke pot.  I'd try it but I need to lose weight, I don't need a reason to eat more!

That's all I got!

Did I win the bet? Did I win the bet??

Well who's betting?  It took less than a week and guess who's back?  Actually I'm not completely positive it's really him but I CAN confirm a Training Payne sighting today, earrings and all.  More on that later.

As you know I have been slacking something awful lately, SIU October turned into Sucky October and I've been on a downward spiral ever since.  Finding out about the cookie dough thing didn't help either, thank you Matty and Emz.  I have done a few training sessions but even those were lackluster.  Even my brand new tattoo is mocking me.   Thankfully I have some really great friends and a super coach and the fire is starting to come back. Today I did a spin class with Mrs. LoTC.  I met her hubby through Twitter and it's true, once you meet her love her immediately.  We have done a few spinning classes together and she's been really motivating.  I've had alot of fun and laughs getting to know her.  We are thinking about doing the same half iron this year, either Peterborough or Welland I'm excited to have a training buddy even though she kicks my ass.  My goal is to kick her ass on the bike at our half this summer, all in good fun, I expect to lose but I may have a chance if John stays firm and never buys her a new bike.

This morning we met for our usual Sunday spin, or what is becoming our usual Sunday spin, then off for some retail therapy and then to the Y.  I had to break a few laws to get in as I'm not a member of the Y but Bryan was there to be a guest speaker with the tri training group and no way was I going to miss out on that.  We all rip on Bryan alot and it's always well deserved but I have to say his talk was really terrific.  He brought his road to Kona book and told everyone his story, the pictures really put the points home.  I could tell they were all really interested in what he was saying, he's a great public speaker and was highly entertaining.  I kept my heckling mostly to myself but I did make him strip.. ok pull up his pant leg and show off the tattoo.  The talk and question period lasted much longer than usual, I'm not sure if the group were that thrilled because they were spinning through the whole thing.

I had to laugh at a few things, his first big piece of advice, "never DNF".  He swears he'll only ever be physically pulled off the course. This after talking about his DNF in China because of food poisoning. Way to scare the crap out of them Bryan.  Oh and my other favourite, when he said he only ever does 2 types of training in a day.  One girl said 'really?', I think she was a bit alarmed because the group do swim, bike AND run every Sunday.  WTG Bryan.. lmao

 I am happy to say that when I met Bryan this time I was not in the 'hurt locker' on sideroad one.  It was great to have time for a chat and next time there will definitely be beers involved.

Tomorrow I have spin and yoga classes lined up and I start a cleanse on Tuesday for 9 days to give me a kick start.  I'm drinking the last beer I have in my fridge right now.  I'm on the upswing folks.

That's all I got.

I'm IT!!!!

I got tagged, by Matty_O!!!  I have to admit I feel a teensy bit famous. 

If you could eat anything without any health repercussions or guilt, what would your meal be?
Oh man, that is hard!! Would have to be a steak dinner with ‘frites’ and red wine OR anything from here

If you could meet anyone living or dead who would it be and why?
I’d like to see my grandfather again. I was too young to appreciate him when he passed away and never got to know him on an adult level. I already know he was the best grandfather on the planet but I’d love to be able sit down and have a good chat over a beer and ask him about his story. 

Why did you start blogging and what did you expect when you started?
I have had a personal blog since 2004 on livejournal but it’s locked down to a small group of people, it can get racy. My blog here is of course, because I needed a fitness goal (thanks Tawnya). This whole idea of triathlons and blogging would have died inside of a week but then I found other bloggers (Bryan, Johan, Matty, Rodney and everyone else) and it’s been going ever since. Now I have an entire community of people that keep me motivated and make me laugh til I snort coffee out my nose.

What is the one book you could read over and over again?
Replay by Ken Grimwood. I dunno why I love it. After I read it the first time I bought copies for a bunch of my friends. It’s just an interesting story.

If you could travel anywhere, where would it be?
I hate traveling, I know weird right? I hate the packing and the getting there and coming home and the laundry. BUT I would like to go on an Alaskan cruise and I do dream of warmer places in winter. Lately I have been dreaming of running away in general, to a much warmer climate. Arizona maybe? Anyone got a job for me there?

If you could have a TV show on the Food Network, what would it be? 
Kitchen disasters” also known as “How to drink too much wine and ruin breakfast”

What was the best meal you ever had?
No way I can pick a favourite here but a good steak dinner is always at the top of my list. OR egg salad sandwiches, made by my mom (on white bread). 

Who has been the greatest influence on your love for food and learning to cook? 
My mom is a great cook. My sister and brother are also amazing cooks and I just try to keep up with them.

I was also tagged for another meme and I think I am supposed to include this pic but I'm not postive.




Here are the rules
1) Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to their blog...

Thank you Matty_O!!!!!

2) Share 7 things about yourself
3) Pass the award to other bloggers






Soooo here goes:
1) I was named after both of my grandmothers

2) I got my driver’s license (G) when I was 39 years old.

3) I start listening to Christmas music in October but I don’t decorate my house for Christmas at all. 

4) I love bacon and jam sandwiches. It has to be on white bread and strawberry jam. 

5) I bungee jumped on a dare, I’ll do just about anything if you dare me to, just about. 

6) I don’t like wet or cold feet. I will only wear sandals if it’s the height of summer and has been dry for a week. If it looks like there might be the slightest indication of rain, it’s shoes and socks all the way. 

7) I have a VERY weak stomach. You can’t talk about anything gross around me. I watch Grey’s Anatomy with both hands over my eyes and sometimes I have to sing loudly to drown out the gross sounds or dialogue.

Now I have to tag people for these but I bet everyone has already done it.

I have to tag Bryan even though he claims he's not blogging anymore
I  need to tag John and also tell him to BUY HIS WIFE A BIKE ALREADY!!!
OBVIOUSLY I have to tag Johan just because
And I want to tag Rodney cause I haven't seen a post from him in a while
And cause I hope she's reading this I have to tag my VAN AWESOME MIM pal.

That's all I got.

Whole lotta Rosie

I was going to title this blog a whole lotta nothing but that’s boring and I much prefer the AC/DC song so what the heck. Despite the lack of anything interesting going on in my general life re training or otherwise there have been some goings on in my world.

Hot on the heels of Winner Winner Chicken Dinner I won another blog giveaway!  If only someone would give away a million bucks...  This one was hosted by the amazing Emz. She had posted some cool prizes on her page and I commented on the post  to out Matty-O about the fact that he eats cookie dough by the tub and guess what, I freaking won!!  So I won the best prize ever which is a Punk Rock Racing t-shirt. How cool is that! This girl is hardcore!! She even ran a FIFTY MILE trail race, go read her race report, it's spectacular. In fact here entire blog is fantastic so grab a coffee and start catching up, TOTALLY worth the time.

In other news in case you haven’t heard, Bryan has announced that he is going to stop blogging.

He’s giving up blogging.

He is

GIVING

UP

BLOGGING

WHAT
THE
FUCK?

That doesn’t even make sense to me, how can I possibly start my day if he’s not posting something crazy or inspiring or completely inappropriate? I am really hoping that he is going to be the “WHO” of the blog world, you know, ‘say’ he’s retiring but then he’ll keep coming back anyway.  Or was that Cher?  A girl can dream and in the meantime there's always twitter.

Many of you have asked what my tattoo means. It's funny because I had the phrase translated to Finnish so that people wouldn’t know what it says but apparently everyone wants to know. Despite what ree_ti_ree googled, it does not mean “Cheap what is inside you”. Thank you typo… It does mean “What you want is in you”. For years I knew I wanted a tattoo and I knew I wanted a meaningful phrase but I had never heard anything that I wanted scraped painfully into my skin permanently. Then several months ago I was struggling with training, I do that a lot, but back then someone said this to me, “what you want is in you” and it stuck. If you dig far enough into my blog you’ll even find the entry. Over the months when something seemed hard or I didn’t feel like doing something I would hear this mantra in my head and it kept me going. I knew once I finished my first sprint tri that this would be the saying I would put on my arm. I had it translated to Finnish for a few reasons. Mostly I didn’t want the English words just hanging out there, don’t ask me why I just didn’t. My grandmother was from Finland and my grandfather was from Denmark so I figured it would be a nice tribute to them if I got it translated to one or the other. Well the Danish translation was UGLY so Finnish it is.   And by the way, yes it still hurts..  I had been contemplating a few other tattoos but after the pain of this one, I think I'm done.  Except when I do the half ironman, I'll get the unofficial 70.3 Mdot for that.

That's all I got!

Where'd she go?

Where am I?  I'm over here.  I've been struggling with just plain life.  Nothing earth shattering or worthy of this slacking but just the daily grind.  I can't seem to find any motivation whatsoever to get out the door and train or read twitter or even read blogs which is where I get most of my mojo from.  I just feel exhausted all the time. 

wahhhh wahhhhh wahhhhh

I'll be back.. sooner rather than later I hope. 

PS - I got my tattoo done and holy crap it HURT!  In fact days later, it STILL hurts and now it's starting to get itchy.  I'm sure it doesn't help that it's the size of a Toyota..  mid life crisis much?

Here is a tattoo pic for those that don't have twitter. :-)