Rumours..

it's ok, that's just money in his pocket

There was a rumour that John is going to build a bike for his amazing wife so they came by with a bag full o'stuff for measuring the Mrs on my bike. They arrived and we relaxed, chatted and ate some pizza. What else you gonna eat when John's around, it's been well documented that the man lives on pizza so who am I to complain.













Fran hopped on and John did the required measuring. My bike doesn't fit her (haahhah) but it was close enough to get the measurements they needed. John kept blurting out sentences much like a doctor during an exam, I wasn't quite sure if what he was saying was a problem or not. "Wow that is a big shanalanamara". I had moments where I felt poor George was not good enough, maybe George too was big and clunky like me but he's MY George and I think he's perfect.









Some things required even closer inspection but in the end it all worked out.

He even adjusted my seat because while I never found it comfortable it didn't occur to me that it was set at a very bad angle and that was the cause of my painful trainer rides, or at least one of the causes. I LOVE my new bike friends.












Even John hopped on for some racing action.

When all was said and done they had the measurements they needed, bellys full of pizza, my seat was adjusted and it was then I realized I am 80 because at 10:00pm on a Saturday night I was ready to go to sleep.  

I got my trainer ride in on Saturday before the Procs arrived however due to other issues I did not swim or run yesterday.

Spin class tonight, Mike is going to kill me.  I think I'll wear my Punk Rock Racing shirt so I feel extra badass.

That's all I got…

PS - Mrs. LoTC has a new blog, go stop by and give her some love.

I miss you...

Wow, it's been 5 months and 7 days since I quit smoking.  I believe this is the longest I have ever gone.

I smoked my first cigarette when I was 12, well I didn't 'smoke' it, I took a few drags and tried hard not to throw up. I wanted desperately to be cool and belong and from my viewpoint of the world smoking was my ticket. Considering how sick that first cigarette made me it's a wonder I kept at it but my desire to belong was strong, so what if I threw up.

By the time I was 14 I was buying my own packs of cigarettes with my allowance. I would hide them in my jacket pocket or stuff the pack in my sock as I made my way past my mom and dad, completely sure that they didn't know what I was up to. This isn't a post about how stupid I was back then, but suffice it to say, I was pretty stupid at 14 years old. Both my parents smoked, my sister smoked and I distinctly remember my grandmother having a single Cameo menthol cigarette every morning with her coffee. I would occasionally steal her smokes as well, thinking she wouldn't catch on either. Yes, I was dumb ok.

My sister could get me to do just about anything she wanted and pay me with smokes, or drags of smokes. She was 3 years older and than me and could smoke in the house, but I wasn't allowed to. Thankfully we spent most of our time in the basement so I could smoke pretty much anytime downstairs although hiding in my sisters room, smoking her cigarettes and listening to Peter Gabriel on her stereo was my favourite thing to do. If she wasn't home I pretty much lived in her room, she had the coolest records and it was the late 70's so there was alot of great music to listen to.

By 15 my mom had given up and let me smoke in the house. I had a part time job as a clerk at Consumers Distributing so I could afford to buy my own packs. I was free, no longer a slave to stealing/borrowing other peoples smokes or my sister's slave labour. From that time on cigarettes were always a part of my life, my best friend, a part of me. They were another limb, an appendage I was never EVER without. I loved my cigarettes. I loved the packs and how they smelled when you opened a fresh pack, how that first drag tasted and smelled. A cigarette with a coffee? Bliss! A cigarette with an alcoholic beverage, absolute heaven. I remember how panicked I would feel if I was running low on smokes and started buying them by the carton.

Over the years I tried to quit, but never really wanted to quit, hell I still don't want to be 'quit'. I quit once for about 4 months but all it took was a single drag while out drinking with friends and I was on the slippery slope. I KNEW I was on it and figured, screw it I may as well start again and so I did, really I spent months just looking for a good excuse. I was back to it, as bad or worse than before I had quit. My breathing was horribly laboured, I couldn't walk up stairs or down the street without my lungs burning. Still, I did not want to quit.  A part of me just assumed I would simply keel over one day from smoking. I thought about what my funeral would be like and hoped someone would remember to put a pack of smokes in my coffin so I could smoke in Heaven or wherever I ended up.  I also wanted my ipod buried with me too.

I did not die, obviously, and in 2007 I started working out on a more regular basis. I can promise you it's not easy to do a 60 minutes session with a trainer, bootcamp style and then run/walk on the treadmill or stepmill but I perservered. Even when I started this whole triathlon business I was still smoking. Of course my training was very laboured and the whole time I knew I would have to quit smoking but I put it off another day, another week. My race was in Sept and by May I knew that I needed to do something. It was too late to make any substantial training gains but maybe the 'burning lung' syndrome would go away or at least feel less painful. I would do 2 laps in the pool and my lungs were literally on FIRE. Normally when I make a deal with myself my follow through sucks, I just don't have any. I am a great joiner but I suck at follow through HOWEVER, I decided that I would quit on 'Monday' and if I started smoking again I would quit again on the following Monday and I would keep at this until I literally got sick of quitting and guess what..

It worked!!

Let's just say it took quite a few Mondays, some weeks I'd make it til noon on Monday and other weeks I'd go 6 days and start again on Sunday. By July 27 (which ironically enough is a Tuesday), I had had enough so my last cigarette was that Tuesday and I haven't picked it back up since then. This is not to say I've been perfect. I did smoke that 'woman's cigar' at the Kona party and I had a drag of a smoke two weeks ago but I have effectively been a non-smoker for 5 months, 7 days and some hours. I don't want to say I will never smoke again because that is likely not true but I really hope I don't. I still have incredibly intense cravings, today has been a bad day which is likely why I am writing about this right now, but thankfully the cravings come less often. About 6 times a day I think I might die if I don't smoke a cigarette immediately but I just try to ignore it and move on and then I don't think about it until the next craving hits.

I'm not sure why I've had success this time, this is the longest I have been quit since I started smoking regularly but I think training and wanting to be better has a lot to do with it. I know all of you at some point or another have offered support and kind words my way which help immensely. I still struggle, I have trouble being around smokers, not because I judge them but because I'm afraid I may tackle them for their smokes but overall this experience has been better. I am sad to say I was really looking forward to 'hocking up a puck or two of pghlem (sp?)' and feeling like I have more air when I'm training but there have been no pucks, no easy breathing. Don’t get me wrong, things are definitely better but I have been waiting for an epic difference in my breathing and so far, no epic. 

My nose runs more often.. Weird..

That's all I got...

fight.. fight.. fight...

snuggle up!!!

It's amazing how much time I waste arguing with myself. If I'd just shut up and do it, it, whatever 'it' is, would be done already. It can range anywhere from doing the dishes to gettting out of bed, to a training session. I'm equally ambivalent about anything that doesn't have to do with me just relaxing. Every morning I press the snooze an alarming (haha see what I did there) number of times before I finally drag my butt out of bed. I've been doing it for so many years it seems impossible for me to stop. Now this is not to say I don't make it work on time everyday and even when I'm running late I am arriving at the office before 8:30 yet every morning it's an argument with myself. Top that off with the fact that I intentionally have my clocks set ahead and I change it up so I'm never sure what time it really is.. Maybe I just like to do math every morning..

Alarm: beep beep beep
Me: jump out of bed, run across the room to turn it off, think to myself, OH MY GOD IT'S COLD IN HERE and leap back into bed, yes I LEAP back under the covers wondering what time it really is because while I know the clocks says it's 5:30am I know it's really somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes ahead. I also know alarms number 2, 3 AND 4 will go off soon. By alarm number 3 or 4 I'm sufficiently annoyed and awake enough to drag my butt downstairs to make a coffee.

I marvel at people that hear the alarm, get out of bed and stay out. I've seen people do it and some days they look tired but they keep their butts moving. I'm 45 now and unlikely to change but if I could change something about myself I'd like to be a non-snoozer.

When it comes to the dishes they get done every night before I go to bed, or most nights. The dishwasher is loaded and the other items are washed and drying on the counter and yet there's always an argument with myself as to 'when' I will do them. I make dinner and put the dishes on the counter. I think to myself 'you should just get those out of the way now' but I never do, or rarely do it immediately. I will putter around for a while, find other things to do and eventually make my way back to the kitchen and get them done. On the occasions where I don't do them at all and leave them in the sink how bad can it be, it's only me and it's generally one meals worth but why the 'self argument and bartering', it's just a time waster.

If I could change something else about myself I'd be an immediate dish washer.

I'm sure you can imagine how it goes for training sessions as well. Take my run the other night for example. All the way home, and remember I have an hour or so commute to discuss this with myself I talk myself OUT of my training plans. It ususally starts out by me thinking that I have too many chores to do and I will not do any training that night. Haha who the hell am I kidding? I'm doing chores? See the paragraph on dishes above.. As the commute continues I find 101 reasons NOT to train, well there's that phonecall I need to make, and I'm starving and really need to eat NOW and if I eat dinner now then I can't train on a full stomach. As I get nearer to home then I start with things like, ok, you know what, stop being such a loser, just get 10 minutes done, if you do 10 minutes and still want to quit then quit but at least do 10 minutes. By the time I got home I realized it's 'now or never', get changed and get out there, even if it's only for 10 minutes so I got dressed and headed out. With each passing minute I found reasons to turn back, on this particular day and run it was because I was freezing, not just cold but "holy shit what was I thinking" freezing but as the time passed I thought, 5 more minutes, you can do 5 more minutes. Honestly all this pre-talk and negotiating is exhausting and annoying!!

Screw it, I'd just like a new brain please!!!

That's all I got...

So I was.....



Happy Hump Day!!

Wondering if I'll ever get this running/layer thing right. Note to self, when you get home from work wearing a turtle neck, sweater and winter coat this does not mean it's 'gorgeous' out. I only wore 2 layers, didn't wear my headband or bring gloves. Hello cold!

Contemplating what I should buy for my shoes for outdoor running, yaktrax maybe? Darn near broke my leg last night wiping out on the ice, thankfully it was more of a slide than a fall.

Planning tonights workout, it's going to be a trainer ride. 

Thinking I need to call my dad and stepmother!! They are going to kill me.

Wishing I was feeling more energetic today. 

Afraid I'll never get out of the bathroom from all the water drinking. 

Allison's food for the day wins! 
How do we get her to cook for us everyday?

Laughing at the lunch wars happening at the office.

Searching for my access card for work. I can't get into the office but people keep letting me in, even when I beg them not to. 


Listening to something quiet on my ipod, I've got a teensy headache starting. 

Excited to get a postcard from @pedalmanTO. 

Scheduling an appointment with my chiropractor, I need an adjustment.

Reading blogs using my Flipboard reader (thanks Rodney), it's great except I can't comment. 

Selecting salad ingredients for my lunch today, we are ordering from Freshii.

Hoping it's a quiet day today.

Loving my new Reebok water bottle, it's like an adult sippy cup! Thanks Allison. 

That's all I got!

Questions in my head

I had this incredibly profound blog post half written when I woke up this morning. Seriously, I woke up and was writing it in my head as I drifted in and out of sleep, in between getting up and pressing the snooze button on my alarm. (yes I have to get out of bed to do this and yes I immediately dive right back into bed). I talked about a deep connection to this way of life, can I even call it new anymore? It touched on the layers of training and the layers of clothes and how I hide from life at times and then it moved into the whole 'why I won't have my picture taken' discussion.. Really this was good good stuff.. And then, I wondered..

Does anyone that buys the Magic Bullet *Blender* ever use it for anything else other than protein shakes?

The rest of what was in my head is really just blah blah blah blah blah so with that I'll save you the drama and just wish you good morning and Happy New Year.  I've got a run on the books for me tonight, I'll be happy with 30 minutes. In January I'm going for timed workouts, NOT distance. 

That's all I got (and you should be happy about that)

My bosses lunch.. he's eating the carrot as is!!