seriously, i did. it was one of those moments where you could see it coming... and then it did. i don't have any straws, so i always drink my smoothie from the booster juice cup without a lid. this morning it was a littler thicker than usual i guess. so when i tipped it up really vertically and i could see the whole thing moving quite slowly towards me, i thought, "this could end up very bad." the next thing i knew it was all over my face and on my shorts. i think i still have frozen saskatoon berries up my nose! now i have to go change before my meeting in an hour. damn!

the only thing i don't get is why it didn't go on my shirt. up my nose, on my shorts, but missed my boobs. nice.

In case anyone wants to hear of how a race can go very wrong, read here. I heard that there were 16 flat tires on the 62km bike course.

cross-posted to my personal journal and trigeeks

Last weekend while in Manitou Beach after the canoe trip from hell, Luke got gas while Clifford and I walked down the hill to meet up with him. When we got there we were greeted from many barking dogs. I tied Clifford up to a pole while we went in the store to pay and get icy treats. So I stopped to pet the 6 puppies that were barking and generally causing a raucous. The man who was holding the dogs didn't really look very impressed that his dogs were barking. They were small dogs, big dogs, and everything in between... every kind and colour of dog you could imagine. So I asked him if they were all his and he kind of sighed and tiredly said, "Yeah, they are." I laughed and said that they must keep them busy (ie. his whole family was there). By the time we got out of the store they were gone. I can't help but wonder how they got so many dogs!

yesterday i bought clifford a lifejacket for our canoe trip this weekend.




AWWWWW!

okay, so i'm terrible. this morning i saw this infomercial for this awesome cloth called a "Shamwow" and i was like "this is so lame!" but the infomercial was really amazing and i was absolutely intrigued to see if it actually worked. so i ordered it! watch the video... if it works, it'll be amazing. if it doesn't, i will never buy anything off of the tv ever again.

usually when i hear the word "drills" i usually associate it with swimming, cycling, or running drills... you know, to increase speed and/or power. however, i am more than aware of the wonderfulness that is a power drill. while trying to put up curtain rods, i had to stop several times because my arms were tired. the curtains still aren't up. i need a drill!!!

this weekend was really good. i spent a lot of money at ikea and we had a terrible time camping. also, my race was kind of terrible. but somehow it was fun anyway. my race report is here .

my roommate and i had a great chat yesterday about anxiety and depression and our individual bouts with it. this morning she mentioned that inner ear problems have been connected with anxiety, which perked my interest, seeing as how i have had lots of inner ear problems, including lots of infections as a kid and adult and some vertigo last year. then i found this abstract for an article:

"Dizziness is a common and costly condition that causes significant distress and impairment yet often confounds appropriate diagnosis and treatment. Among patients presenting for evaluation and treatment of dizziness, rates of panic disorder are elevated to 5 to 15 times the general population rates. In addition, the limited studies to date of dizziness in patients with panic disorder suggest that panic patients frequently experience significant dizziness and often demonstrate evidence of vestibular dysfunction. In this paper we review studies investigating the relationship between panic disorder and vestibular dysfunction. Currently, there are three main explanatory models for the association between panic disorder and vestibular dysfunction: the psychosomatic model, the somatopsychic model, and the network alarm theory. Systematic investigations of the treatment of patients with vestibular symptoms and panic disorder are lacking, though prevalence, associated costs, and disability suggest that they are needed. Serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors are good candidates for future treatment studies."

i haven't done one of these for a while... here we go...

Theme: International Travel

1. You have the summer and plenty of money to travel abroad. Where all would you go?
A bike trip in Europe
2. What foods would you be sure you got to eat?
vegan food!
3. What landmarks would you be sure you got to see?
i would like to hit every western european country for my first bike trip. the eiffel tower for sure. i want to go to london, where the beatles walked!
4. What airline would you use?
preferrably no airline, but whatever one goes to europe
5. Would your knowledge of other languages influence where you went? (i.e. would you be more likely to go to France if you spoke French)
nope, but i would probably brush up on my french and spanish before i went.


Theme: [USA] Road Trip

1. Who would you take with you on a road trip?
luke and clifford
2. What states would you visit?
florida, new york, oregon, california, washington
3. What national parks and/or monuments would you go see?
a music festival!
4. Las Vegas: Overrated or a Must-See?
way overrated!!!
5. How long would you be gone?
depends on how much money i have and how much time off of work i have.

so yesterday my training buddy said to me, "you know, you should really sign up for ironman coeur d'alene that trevor and i are doing so that we can train together over the winter." i replied with, "yeah, but i really like ironman canada." but after some thinking, i thought, "it WOULD be nice to have a summer since it's on the 21st of june." so i talked to luke and he was into it, even though for him to get holidays would be difficult. so i went on the website today and signed up. just like that. i just clicked on some buttons, put in my credit card number and VOILA! here we go again. let the good times roll!

If you want to see my race report from last weekend, check it out at my website. Pictures are coming soon.

this morning at about 5:00, i awoke to the worst sound and feeling. clifford was yelping and howling in pain. i knew right away what it was because he has done it before... his paw got stuck in the side of the crate. i ran down the stairs and thought that i would have to pry his paw out, but he had gotten it unstuck by himself and was yowling at the door of the crate. at first i thought it was broken the way that he was holding it, but i felt around it and he didn't yelp when i touched it. i sat on the floor with him and petted him and massaged his leg as he laid there half-asleep; it was a little bonding moment for us, which i try to have with him almost every day (a time where i pet and cuddle him as opposed to playing or training). then we went outside for him to do his business and by the time we came back in, he wasn't limping at all. so we went back to bed and slept until 7.

he's fine now, but i don't know what to do about this crate. now i know why the crates with the solid walls are better, but i really like the idea that he gets light in his crate and that i can watch him sleep. plus, i spent a shitload of money on this crate and i had a hard time finding a crate that would be big enough for him (ie. that he could stand up in). awww, my poor baby.

i got a new wetsuit for a ridiculously inexpensive amount!!!! a brand new wetsuit for $200 - about $600 in the store. the running shop donated it to our club and they sold it to me (well, i bought it) because it fit me perfectly!!!!

i went from my "farmer joe" water skiing wetsuit shown here:


to this professional-ish wetsuit: (i'll have a picture of me in it after this weekend)

i just can't seem to get ironman out of my system. i want to do it again... especially after watching this:



maybe i'm just really insane, but i can't wait to sign up for next year!!!!

today is a much better day than yesterday. last night i spent some great quality time with luke, rescued a dog that came wandering into our yard without a person attached to him, and ate some yummy popcorn. this morning we was up at 6, on the bike 30 minutes later, and back, ready to make tofu scramble. biking this morning was awesome... there was a few of us and we had a good ride together. i haven't ridden in a pack in a long time. it was fun!

distance: 44.15km
time: 1:43:37
max: 36.8km/hr
avg speed: 25.6km/hr

my new heart-rate monitor is awesome. now that i pretty much know how to use it, i love it! there are so many thing i can do with it. it will definitely make training a little more fun for the next little while. :o)

this morning i went for my first rode ride of the season. clifford woke us up at 5:15, so we took him out and then i got ready to go. i left around 6:30. it was a beautiful morning, but the wind picked up for the ride home. i definitely didn't have enough food with me (only one gel) and i only ate a banana before i left. you'd think that i would know better by now. oh well.

distance: 70.12km
Time: 2:42:37
Max speed: 39km/hr
Avg speed: 25.9 km/hr
How I felt: Great until halfway through, bonked* on the way home.

*Bonking is when an athlete runs out of calories/sugar and the body starts to shut down and you can't really think and it is hard to pedal and all you want to do it lie down on the side of the road.

For some reason Clifford loves my old, big rocking chair. It's one of those ones from the '80s that is brown and is printed with flowers and trees and old buggies and stuff. It is so weird. His favorite spot so far is sitting right beside the chair and biting on the dust ruffle it has on the bottom. He especially loves the blanket I put over it to hide its ugliness. This morning he was actually trying to go UNDER it. My roomie and I canNOT figure out why he is doing this. We figure there must be something really great about the big chair that we just aren't aware of as humans. Maybe it just smells great.

So Luke and I went to get our lovely puppy that we have named Clifford. He isn't as red as we were hoping for, but he is so freaking cute that I can hardly stand it. Luke, who loves yellow because he's colour blind and it is one of the only colours he can see, said, "Ohhh! He is more like a YELLOW-red!"

The ride there was a little rocky at first because I was pretty grumpy from a few stressful things that had to happen before we left, but we sorted it out by Medicine Hat. We got through the border all right - they looked in our trunk at our dog food and made us go in while they "checked" both of us, then they let us go. We stayed at Columbia Falls:

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We picked him up at around 9:00 and were on our way at around 10:30. I sat in the back for the first couple of hours. He threw up once with me and once with Luke, but that was it. I was pretty surprised that he didn't puke more because of the windy roads, but he was really good. He didn't pee in his crate at all and went every time we stopped. He was very hesitant getting in and out of the car, but we just picked him up and made him go.

Oh my gosh... as I'm writing this, he is sleeping under the kitchen table and is so freaking cute. That's the thing with puppies, they do sleep a lot.

Last night we got home around 10:00 and Luke left right away because he had to work in the morning. I set up my thermarest just outside of Clifford's crate and slept with him there. We went outside every couple of hours, which seemed to work all right. He has only had two accidents in the house, but he has pooed and peed in the yard, which is awesome. I just have to pay closer attention when he starts squirming.

Today we have practiced "sit" and "come" as Jan Fennell suggested. I'm trying really hard to follow Amichien Bonding and I think it is working. He is picking up very fast on what he can and cannot do. He loves peanut butter in his puppy Kong and I am definitely going to use that when I leave for a couple of hours this afternoon. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do tomorrow when I have to go to P.A. for a meeting that I couldn't miss on my week off, but hopefully he'll be better at me leaving by tomorrow. Today we practiced leaving him in the crate and he whined for 15 minutes straight, but I didn't put the Kong in, so we'll see how it goes with that. Hopefully my neighbours don't get too mad (like they did before... that was awful).

Yesterday, I took a video of Clifford and we took lots of photos. Here is the video:


( Under here are pictures )

I do not understand why feet smell so bad when they are in sandals. I mean, there is lots of air circulation and I even take mine off while I'm at my desk... and as soon as I do I get a nasty whiff of my smelly feet. In general, I have pretty non-smell feet. Even after Ironman, my feet didn't smell very bad... and that was after almost 16 hours of being in my shoes. Maybe it's the leather in the sandals that make them smell like that, but I have found that the smell still happens even with synthetic sandals. All I know is that it's pretty gross.