CafeChatNoir

Went and did the Summer Super Sprint out in Manassas today and had a blast.

All the gory details can be found here.

and other thoughts after a fairly craptastic week in the world.

- No more putting off training (or anything else I want to do for that matter) because I feel like I should be doing ‘more important’ things with my time – screw that – I realized I was letting other idiots define ‘important’. Today I finally got out and ran for the first time in forever.  It was ugly and painful, which I fully expected, but it also helped clear my head a little, which I very much needed.

- Don’t let anyone else define what is important in your life. If it’s truly important, you’ll know it. If it isn’t, it isn’t. If that gets someone else’s knickers in a twist, too bad.

- There are some seriously messed up people in this world. Maybe they could have been helped with very early intervention, maybe not. But, they’ve always been there in this world and they’ll always be there in the future. Personally, I’m not going to spend my entire life looking over my shoulder waiting for someone to snap. At the same time, take the time to reach out to someone who might need a shoulder to lean on or an ear to bend for a few minutes.

- Some people have way too much time on their hands and become petty jerks to justify their existence. Please, go find a real hobby.

- Some people will always confound me, no matter how hard I try to understand them. (And yet, I’ll still try to understand them.)

- AUTiger23 summed up why some folks are just jerks very well with this quote from Scrubs: People are bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.

- There is no such thing as having all home improvement projects finished. Ever.

- Earth Day can be incredibly annoying for a gun-loving, capitalist, beach-bum hippie chick. If you’re not hard core on either side of the arguments, no one wants to play with you.

- It’s 80 degrees and beautiful out today – which means it will probably be in the 50s and raining again in the space of a week.

All my IMAZ chickadees are off the bikes and on the run!!

My buddy Lane, who tried very hard to up and die on us last fall, is doing IMAZ today! (2.4 mile swim, 112 miles on the bike and a 26.2 mile run)

He did the swim (2.4 miles in Tempe Town Lake) in 1:10:17 – that’s a pace of 1:50 per 100 meters. Mine is around 3 minutes…

He’s gotten at least to the 37 mile mark on the bike – unfortunately, they don’t have another chip sensor until the end of the bike, at 112 miles.

Welshy went a little slower on the swim w/a 2:44 pace, but he made it and also has passed the 37 mile sensor on the bike. Jess is seriously rockin’ out on the bike segment, too.

I am so proud of them!!!

Registration for the Reston Tri opens on 2/15 at 8:00 PM. Last year this race filled 600 slots in approxmately 37 minutes.

Active.com has screwed something up and the registration is open now, and folks have been able to register.

So – do you jump on the early bandwagon or wait until it is actually “supposed” to open and just hope the organizers do something about the early birds and that it’s not already filled because of it.

Here are all the various and sundry details from yesterday’s race.

I am still high as a kite from the experience. If you’re going to do a marathon, MCM is a killer first one to do. One of my friends who has done it 3x said that every time he hit the 14th Street bridge, he was thinking “I will never do this again” and then ended up doing it again. For me, when I was in Hains Point wondering if I was going to make the bridge (some confusion over the cutoff time for the bridge), I was thinking, “I am going to HAVE to do this again!” and by the time I was on the bridge, I was thinking about all the little things I’ll do differently next year. :-D

Around mile 23, I was w/my friend Lane and asking, “So, you say the San Diego Rock & Roll marathon is a really good one?!”

Totally doing another one of these!

5:46:06 – absolutely loved it and will definitely do another one. What a ton of fun.

So, yes, it’s 12:44 (well, 11:44 really, the computer will set itself back) and in about 6.5 hours I’ll be hauling myself out of bed for what should be an interesting day! They’re calling for 15-25MPH winds tomorrow – yikes! Basically, the conditions sound like they’re going to be the same as Shamrock, so at least I know what I’m getting myself into and I know how to dress for it.

In keeping with the theme of “don’t change things for race day” yet again it looks like I won’t be going into it with much sleep, but I never do, so I’m used to it. Slept hard last night and got in a good nap this afternoon, so it’s all good.

Lane’s been a godsend – he’s done 3 marathons and has had lots of very good realistic advice and has done a great job of making me feel very relaxed about going out and doing this.

I’m thinking things will probably shake out to around 5.5 hours, which is a 12:36 pace, which I think is doable, but whatever gets me over the bridge by 1:45 works for me. I’ve got my race plan (walk 2 mins @ every mile marker) that should keep things in check and keep me from blowing up. Have my reeses pieces and gummi bears in case I get the munchies along the way. Have my Garmin, which has the average pace display, so I can make sure I’m staying under a 14 minute pace without having to try to do math and run at the same time.

Well, I’ve gotten my “good luck and go kick ass” goodnight phone call, so now I can go to bed. :)

Yes, it will encompass an entire weekend, not just the 5-7 hours I’ll be spending on the course on Sunday morning.

Tomorrow my buddy Lane gets here (he’s the one that got so sick earlier this year) and he’ll be staying here with me and doing the 10K. Chippy & Trixie are coming for dinner tomorrow night as well – nice that the baked potato soup makes a TON.

Poor Lane is going to get dragged all over town tomorrow afternoon, cause I realized once I got home, I missed a couple things for the soup when I did the marketing, plus I have to go by the wine shop and pick up a case of wine, and with 2 more for dinner than I originally thought, some bread might not be a bad idea.

Then Saturday is the traditional pre-race-day breakfast out, then packet pickup and the expo, then about 10 of us are meeting up for dinner Saturday night at some Italian place over in Arlington (thank god we were able to get reservations, otherwise there is a good chance I’d be cooking for all of them) and then Sunday morning, it’s off to the races!

Another great weekend for running – Army 10 Miler with a 10:49 pace!

Oh, and I got the “official” times from the Quantico half – ended up with a 10:48 pace in the end. Holy crap.