Baton Turner Overdrive

I forgot to mention this.

When I posted about the perfect baton for our team, I got an e-mail from Paul, the Wild West Relay race director, who sometimes reads our lovely little blog here.

He loves our baton. And he might actually start a baton contest this year. We're so owning that!

Not that he got the "bring your own baton" idea from me. He mentioned a relay in Maui where every team brings their own baton, ranging from Barbie dolls to dildos.

Hmmm, can the corn compete?

(I really hope the mention of dildos does not bring weird people to this blog. My post entitled "Indecent Exposure" brought a lot of google searches here, which is sort of creepy. The internet is full of freaks!)

My family is so smart!

I should have had the three year old son of my cousin help me with Jeopardy.

Rollin', rollin', rollin' down the river...

So tonight I finally went to the trainer session at one of my LBS. Steve, the bike store guy just lets people come and ride on their trainers at 9pm on Thursdays. It was sort of weird meeting in the darkened parking lot, waiting for Steve to arrive and open the building. Like this secret club.

Anyways, it's not a class, so it's free, and pretty much they just do a DVD workout. We did a DVD called "No Slackers Allowed."

Um, hello! I am the queen slacker! The workout was rough. My heart rate was in the 170s. My heart rate rarely tops 155. I thought I was going to die. Let's just say I pretty can totally sympathize with Little Miss Runner Pants' reaction to her first trainer spinning class.

But then after class, I did this:



Okay, I didn't really quite do that. But I did get on the rollers. That was sort of freaky to try. Steve held onto my seat until I was comfortable and then let go without telling me. Sort of like you do with little kids.

Earlier today, Steve was trying to convince me to do a roller race. In a roller race, you just see who can ride two miles on the rollers the fastest. The fast people do it in about 6 minutes, the slower people in 8-9. I don't think there is any way I could balance on that thing for 9 minutes! You lean a tad to the right and the whole bike swerves to the right. Scary! Anyways, the race is in two weeks, so I don't think I am going to get good enough at rollers in two weeks to race. Let me rephrase that: I don't think I am going to get good enough at rollers to stay on for 2 miles in 2 weeks. Race? What? I don't do that. I'm a slacker!

In other biking news, the RAGBRAI route was announced today. I am going to try and do the Humboldt to Hampton leg (~60 miles). With the Wild West Relay the first weekend in August, there is no way I can take an entire week off to do the entire thing this year. My dissertation research requires me to take data depending on meteorological forcings, so I gotta spring into action on demand. I might be persuaded to go all the way to Cedar Falls (another 60 miles). Anyways, registration for the lottery ends April 1st, so if anyone wants to do ride their bike across a chunk of Iowa whilst stopping to eat pie and drink beer, let me know!

The check is in the mail...

Oh, so I neglected to mention that I actually signed up for the triathlon. Money has been sent in. I am now committed. And it's in a week and a half.

Now, if some people refer to sprint tris as baby tris, this triathlon is positively fetal. It's indoors. And instead of having to complete a certain distance, all you have to do is swim for 7 minutes, bike for 18 minutes, and run for 15 minutes.

And because they are silly, they decide who the winners are based on total distance travelled.

So basically I don't even have to get in the water. But I will. And I get 7 minutes for T1, so I can totally swim in my bathing suit and change.

But anyways, only 40 minutes of exercise? Because of my marathoning memories, it almost seems like only 40 minutes on a Saturday morning (long run day!) means I will have to go to the gym after this is finished.

Oh yeah, and I ran one whole mile on sunday (in a whopping 13 minutes), but without any hammy pain, so yay! So I figure 15 minutes is no problem if I take it easy.

Well, this tri will totally be all about the bike. Since it is on a stationary bike, I actually need to go the gym and figure out my strategy - keep the resistance too low and you don't get as much bang for your buck; too high and it is like you are crawling up hills.

So my goals would be to swim 300 yds, bike 5 miles, and run 1.25 miles (I want to say 1.5, but trying to run too fast is what made my hamstring start hurting again after my last break). I am not going to be devastated if I don't meet them. The glory of this style of triathlon is that there is no such thing as a DNF!

In totally unrelated news, but because I just did this in the middle of writing this post, I just took the online test to be a Jeopardy contestant. I don't actually want to go on Jeopardy, but I just want to pass their stupid test as a matter of pride. If I actually got on the show, I would give a series of really stupid answers, even though I know the answers, and embarass myself. I embarass myself enough as it is, without doing it on national TV.

I'll admit that I sort of cheated. No, I didn't sort of cheat, I actually cheated. I told my roommate I was doing this and she said "I want to help!" And who am I to decline a friend? So all the questions I couldn't answer, she would either answer or quickly google (since you only have 10 seconds).

The funniest part was that the first question was a Bible quote and since Samantha has the whole entire Bible memorized that was a breeze (I don't think I have cracked a Bible since my Catholic school days). I don't think the Bible says anything specific about cheating on Jeopardy exams.

But I hang my head in shame as I could not think of Steve Carrell's name in response to who plays Michael Scott on The Office. I just had a total brain freeze. Same with the capital of Kentucky (Frankfort). I know that useless shit, damnit!

The Jane Fondas of the swimming pool

On Saturday, Kori and I attempted to go swimming after a core class at the gym. We get to the pool and there is a water aerobics class going on and unfortunately had just started. In this case, they block off all but one lane of the pool for the class and there was someone swimming in it. Since apparently we are incapable of swimming three people in a lane (oh, the horror!), we decided "Why not?" and we joined the class. We were by far the youngest people in this class.

Let me tell you, water aerobics is the most freaking boring thing in the entire world. I would rather swim back and forth and back and forth and back and forth any day. It got to the point that when we had to "power jump" in the water, I started throwing my arms up into the air on each jump in a mockery of joyous leaping.

Finally, the girl in the lane left and we got to swimming laps.

Someone has really got to give the water aerobics people a brief lesson in basic pool ettiquette. We were constantly being interrupted by old people who would just walk into the lane, right in front of us so that we had to stop. It's like the idiots who cross the bike lane without looking.

Just because you're old doesn't mean you get to be rude.

I'm talking to you, Joe ;-)

Will you need a cane now?

Today we celebrate as Joe enters a new age division for races.

Happy Birthday Joe!

They just don't get it

Conversation I had at work today:

Co-worker: Why are you wearing sneakers instead of regular shoes?
Me: My knee aches a little lately from running.
Co-worker: Why don't you stop running for a while? Then you can wear normal shoes again.
Me: I like running more than my job. Given the choice, I'd rather run than work.
Co-worker: [blinks a few times and gives me a "you're the short bus kind of special, aren't you" look that I seem to get a lot]

So that's what doing volunteer work gets me...

My roomate Sam and I mentor two girls at a residential treatment facility for kids with serious behavior problems (as in, they have been removed from their homes by the state). Every Wednesday night we hang out with them. They are good kids, but have issues. Anyways, tonight one of the girls had been bad today (she hits when she gets angry), so I had to stay on campus with her and hang out there in the unit where she lives (about 10 kids live in each unit and they have a common area and kitchen and dedicated staff).

So why on earth am I writing about this here? Well, in the middle of our Crazy 8s marathon, the woman who works there says to me "Make sure you use the Germinex before you leave. There's highly contagious influenza A and hand-mouth disease going around the unit." So thanks for telling me after the girl who was apparently supposed to be quaratined in her room with the flu spent five minutes looking over my shoulder and coughing. And after I spent an hour playing cards which I am sure are just riddled with kid germs.

I better not get sick. I am supposed to start to try running again on Sunday. It will have been five weeks by then! Also, I am actually going through with it, but I haven't registered yet. I know a battle with the flu will most likely make me wuss out, even though I already convinced Chrissy to do it with me. Also, I am pretty sure that if I get hand-mouth disease, they won't let me near the pool :-)

I have no clue how teachers survive being around germy kids all day.

All your baton are belong to us.

So at the Wild West Relay, the "baton" was actually a Livestrong bracelet that got passed from sweaty wrist to sweaty wrist (that's team solidarity!) But this year, I have found the perfect baton for us to carry, even though we don't need to:I guess you can't really tell, but that is a squishy stress ball. I just think that would be a riot to run (at least the first legs) with a corn cob. In Colorado, we would be representing for the midwest in the Flatlanders division. And if we do the GRR, well, we can be representing for Iowa. Because even though I know they grow corn in all those other states, everyone knows that Iowa is the quintessential corn state, at least from my East Coast perspective. People think "Wisconsin! Cheese!" And I know there are generations of detasselers that have emerged from Minnesota, but with all due respect, I hear Minnesota and I think of snow, lakes, and Lutherans (I admit that I listen to a Prairie Home Companion a little too much).

In other news, Lisa has recruited us someone who might even be able to up the badass rating of a group of scientists - her friend Andy who is a tattoo artist. So after the relay, we can all get our team name tattooed on our bodies :-) That's all I know about Andy except that he lives in the Grand Cayman Islands (which in my book must mean his side job is laundering money) and he mentioned the Canadian Death Race (which makes Canada seem a lot scarier than it is).

Please not that weekend!

Real Madrid has decided that they do not want to renew David Beckham's contract, so today, Beckham announced that he has signed a 5 year, $250 million dollar deal with MLS's LA Galaxy.

So why is he rambling about soccer on the running blog, and what the hell does the title of this post mean anyway, you might be asking yourself. Well, it has been also reported that Beckham's first game in MLS will likely be when the Galaxy face off with DC United at RFK, here in DC, in August.

I mention it here, because the game is just said to be in "late August" (the season schedule is not finalized yet). There are 4 dates that in my mind qualify as late August that the game could be on. One of them is Saturday, August 25, the weekend of the Great River Relay. (Last year, the Galaxy played at DC on Saturday, August 26th) I am hoping that it is not this date. It would be extremely cool to see this game, though since I would rather run, if I had to choose, I would choose the race.

Also, MLS Cup is in DC this year, so I will be going to that, too. For all you soccer fans out there, froth with jealousy!

Edited 2007-01-12: Rumor has it the game will not be that weekend; from what I've heard, it looks like I will be in town for the game. Sweet.

I fell in to a burning ring of fire...

I decided that since the last new thing on this blog was a comment telling us to throw away our science books or else God would cast us into a lake of fire, that a new blog entry was in order. That's the last time I mention being friends with an evolutionary biologist on this blog :-)

Anyways, so far I have fourteen people who are up for a relay this summer, and it appears that the Wild West Relay and the Great River Relay are the leading contenders and people are pretty much split between the two of them. I personally think doing both is totally doable, since the GRR is so close to here and the WWR is old hat by now.

I have to say that I am sad there wasn't as much interest in VT, since I heart VT, but on the plus side, I have more time for this hamstring to heal. And now that I am sorta thinking that a spring marathon is out of the question, maybe I'll actually do the Cornman Triathlon this year.

Whatever. I always wuss out. I just need to sucker someone else in to signing up for it with me - that'll make me do it...

GRR. Argh. This is totally going to be on our GRR t-shirts! :-)

Poll

Hello blogosphere fans of BoM,IaS!

We've begun deliberations regarding relays for this summer. So while the magic is going on behind the curtain, I am curious -- which race do you think looks the most fun?

(for the purposes of this informal survey, don't worry about considering dates and crap like that; just overall, which do you think looks the most fun)

• Wild West Relay

• Green Mountain Relay

• Great River Relay

Remember to vote early and often...

Who would run in this crap?

The other day, when I was trying to find a picture of my new running shoes on the Adidas site, I stumbled across their new line of sports clothes. Designed by Stella McCartney. The running outfits are ridiculous. Who thought this crappy idea up?

I wouldn't be caught dead running in any of these outfits! I mean, this girl is wearing a parka! She looks like she is running to lodge for a hot toddy! To admit my prejudice, I can't stand matchy matchy runners. Sometimes it happens by accident, like I like blue, so I buy a lot of blue stuff and occasionally it matches. But the pink Nike outfit?

I only won't make fun of you if you are blowing by me. And you know what? The women blowing by me are rarely all matchy matchy. Oh Adidas, I am surprised! At least your running line could be functional, even if fugly! On the website there is a girl running through the snow in a singlet and a girl running with a massive backpack on her back that doesn't look like it even has a waist belt.

I just had to rant about that. Happy new year!

Happy 2007!