Event: 2012 Houston Townlake Triathlon

So my olympic triathlon was a bust. The training was half-arsed. I never did a complete run through. I never even completed the distance for the bike nor the run portion. I practiced at a lake just one time. So sad and very bad. But i guess it's a good thign i'm an 'eh wutever happens happens' kinda gal. I don't care for time and i don't care if i look like a complete idiot. I really don't care wut other people think about me and that's both a blessing and a curse. Well, not really a curse but it really isn't always such a good thing. Even though it had been a scorcher for most of semptember, the race just happened to fall on a slight cool front. I was shivering while waiting for my turn to jump into the lake. For inquiring minds and well wishers, i drafted a synopsis of my race and this is what they got:

The weather was kinda sucky this weekend. It rained Friday and A LOT on Saturday. Therefore, the bike portion of the tri was CANCELLED. It was now deemed an ‘aquathlon’. Ugh. Seriously? This means that I will have to do this again so I know I got a real tri under my belly. In the end, I think it was a blessing in disguise. Someone out there was watching out for me because they knew that there was no way I would have been able to complete the bike portion and THEN run. I don't think I could have done it. My legs were so heavy and fatigued after the swim that I almost decided to quit right after I had just passed the 'run out' flags. Haha. Blah.

The swim:

I did not like having to tread water for FIVE minutes before getting the go. My plan was to stay in the back of the pack but instead I found myself in the middle of a sea of powder blue swim caps, which is prolly my least fave color by the way. So when it's time to start. I get thrashing arms and legs in every direction. It was chaos. I kind of doggy paddled until nearly everyone in my wave passed me up before I began to swim in my slow motion stroke. I can't seem to swim straight so I was all over the place. Plus, it was only my second time swimming in open water. I did not prepare well. I ended up being the LAST olympic swimmer to finish olympic swim course. Which meant that this guy in a kayak decided to follow me the entire time. It was a bit distracting. And because I can't swim STRAIGHT, I ended up running into the kayak twice. Or he ran into me. Or at least he could have moved out of the way! But I think he was only trying to help me stay on course instead going too far left and right. Every time I would lift my head up he would yell out 'THAT WAY! OVER THERE! Haha. There was also all this stringy plant debris stuff that I kept struggling to get off me while I was swimming. This usually happened when I swam too far to the right and got too close to the shore. I felt like throwing up half way into the swim. And then near the finish, I kept choking on all this water. The stupid sprint swimmers were creating all these waves in the water. I felt like I swimming towards and into a whirlpool.

Transition:

I took my darling time. 7+ minutes. Haha. There was .2 mile distance between the lake and transition area. UGH! I hate running! And I felt as if I were wasting energy having to RUN to transition. And my feet are super sensitive so I was like ow ow ow whenever I had to run bare foot on concrete. I was thirsty and so I decided to drink from my bike bottle. I must have squeezed a little too hard cos this hard stream of water went straight to the back of my throat and I start choking and coughing. I ate some gu. Decided to redo my pony tail. I was not taking this seriously anymore at this point. I fumbled what seemed like forever with my race belt. I think I need a bigger size. Or I guess I could always try to lose weight. Blah.

The run:

Since I was the last oly swimmer to finish. I ended up being the SECOND TO LAST person to cross the finish line. It was pretty sad. And lonely. And not at all what I imagined it to be. There was a big part of the course for only Olympics runners. I was literally by myself most of the time running the course. I took so long that the water stands were beginning to close up shop. I had to ASK if I could get some water TWICE. Haha. And then at the finish line, there were only a handful of volunteers cheering me on. A lone cowbell clanking. And my paul yelling out a few words of encouragement. Very anti-climactic. And then I find out that all the pizza and kolaches were gone. I felt like this girl here:

http://youtu.be/-oaa37C-PUQ

I finished dead last in my age group and nearly last of all the female competitors. I don't think I was ready for this. Haha. When I showered, I felt this burning sensation and there was this big gash on my boob that I hadn't noticed earlier. I assume it was from one of my overly competitive powder blue swimmers. I also got the most painful massage at the memorial hermann tent afterwards. I think I have bruises on my thighs! He gave me his card after and I was thinking to myself 'riiigghhhht'. I literally ran out of biofreeze yesterday trying to coat my entire body. I was so tired and sore that you would have thought that I didn’t train for this at all! Fortunately, I don't have an inferiority complex about coming in last place to keep me from doing this again. But! My sporting images. I look terrible. Those ugly photos of me might be enough for me to not do this again.

Girl. You are so much stronger than I am. It’s so awesome that you were able to do the WHOLE Olympic triathlon and with what I presume was a pretty good time. Do you know that I still had not run more than 4 miles prior to this event? Haha. So not prepared. Hopefully I will do better next year. Unless I have baby.

my times:
swim - 46:52.2 (3:07/M - slower than expected)
bike - X (i usually have an average of 15mph so my guess time is around 1:25:00)
run - 1:23:13 (13:25/M - just as expected)

Musik Mundi: Atlas Genius

Atlas Genius
Album: Through The Glass EP (2012)
Song: Trojans

The big condom company has ruined the word 'trojan' for me. It's not people of Troy. Nor unfortunate malicious software (malware!). It's all hehe blush giggle. I love the beat of this song. The music is really catchy too. I will put this song on my hype playlist to get me through 610/galleria traffic. Ugh. It's obviously gotten worse as the holidays near. Why do people go to the mall? HULLO! SHOP ONLINE! I hate going shopping. Sifting through crap. Lines. Parking. Walking. Haha. I'm just lazy.

Big poppa and i attended a birthday event this weekend and i just loved it cos it was so nice! Good food! The owner of the house has really good taste and i love the renovations and design. I also came away with another philly cream cheese combo. That and tabasco pepper jelly. DELISH! I couldn't stop eating it. Well, i love cream cheese so it's hard to hate anything with it in it. I bought some that same weekend and ate it every night. I actually have stopped liking it as much. Overkill. But i know deep down that if i saw it i would still go for it.

*photo courtesy of amazon.com*

Persona Grata: Ella G

Ella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh ... Ella's three favorite words of the day? mama. do-nut. hi. she's such a darling! you don't see a kid in a year and wham bam double the size. aren't her little harem pants the cutest! it was a gift from india. next time someone goes to india i'm asking for some harem pants. like REAL harem pants. not the ones mc hammer wore. it took a little bit but ella eventually warmed up to me. wut?!? u don't remember me ella?!? kids move around a lot. so hard to get pics. at least i got to sit and enjoy some talk time with croatia. i miss my old work crew. so many changes and transitions. i got us coffee and ella some donut holes. that's the reason why she kept chanting hi and donut over and over again. i bought her a dozen donut holes and she only ate four because i ate eight (homonym!) of them on the way to meet them. haha. so bad i am! croatia asked me what coffee drink i was drinking. iced cafe latte with two pumps of hazelnut. i wonder if she smiled a little cos she had gotten me yankee hazelnut scented candle jar. she also bought me cupcakes! it melted in the heat and was all sad and saggy but still tasted just fine! i took some of these images of ella and had it printed as an enlargement collage for her. which i haven't even given to her yet. but i will this saturday when we have our pinkberry meet-up! they don't know it yet cos i haven't even sent out the e-mail but i'm doing that right after i click publish.

Musik Mundi: Royal Teeth

Royal Teeth
Album: Act Naturally (2012)
Song: Wild

Houston really doesn't have many things to do besides eating. I know that when my mom has friends visiting, all that she does is take them out to eat. Ugh. So boring! So when buda and wonder woman asked us if we wanted to go the turkish festival, i was like YES YES YES! Of course, we mostly just ate there too. Haha. And i had me some turkish coffee. I've had better. You know how festivals go. Over-priced. But it was something different to do. And i love listening to that up-beat mediterranean music. They had this DJ towards the end of the night where it was like dancey mediterranean pop. I like it. Haha. Food was okay. I had a falafel sandwich. Big poppa decided that night that he does not like mediterranean food. This was fun. But it was about to get better! I got this e-mail earlier in the day about some market square park party. So we left the Turkish festival and walked the six blocks to market square park. Walking around in downtown houston! Once we get to the park. It's completely awesome. There are a bunch of people sitting on the lawn listening to live music from a band that i didn't recognize but turned out to be really good! There was wine and beer and a free photobooth. Fun! Big poppa got a beer and i got a tiny glass of nasty red wine. We found a spot on the grass and enjoyed the music. The band's claim to fame is the song wild. This song is on a state farm commercial i believe. Isn't that just super cool of them to perform for free?!? To play for the love of music. Very rare these days. There were a bunch of little girls dancing up a storm on the stage. Oh yeah, it's cute and funny now. Haha.

*photo courtesy of amazon.com*

Birthday: Gilles

Part deux of gilles drunken celebration. Let's see. I know gilles emptied the contents of her stomach. I want to say big poppa did too but i can't remember. He was pretty wasted for sure. I was just a little drunk. Super buzzed? There was a time when i had to finally accept the fact that what i thought was being buzzed was actually me being drunk. Omgoodness everyone was ordering way too many drinks. This is what happens when you go out with super generous and successful people. There are so many full drinks on the table that no one can keep up. Thank the lord i've rid myself of the selfish type who only buys drinks for themselves. I can't stand that! There's something about this group of people who bring out the best in me. I'm more fun and outgoing. And sometimes i'm so chatty and so obnoxiously loud that even i'm telling myself to STFU! You just can't help but be happy and positive. Fresh from my trip to paris, i made everyone give me bisous as we parted ways. You know, kisses on both cheeks. In spanish it's besos. I love it! Why can't that be a part of our everyday culture? It's so chic and mature. Some of us ended up at tantan for a post-party fuel-up. Of course it was the skinniest person in the group who held her liquor the best and was the only one that could drive. I needed to eat and sober up a little before i could drive home. Big poppa and i never really discussed who was gonna be the designated driver and so we were both drinking it up. By the time that thought occurred to me big poppa was already way ahead so i got pinned with the DD role. The next morning, big poppa was in hangover mode and asking if we had gone to tantan. I sarcastically asked him whose birthday was it again? It was gilles birthday and i was supposed to be the one who got sloshed. He stole my drunk from me! Anyway, gilles has become such a great friend. I've already told her this but i think she is a really great conversationist. The way she really listens to what you're saying and the ability to always give meaningful input. One of the things she does best is to always include others around her. I've been around some people who talk as if you're not right next to them. It's quite annoying and even rude at times. So if she's talking with one person, she'll take the time to explain to whoever might also be listening what they're talking about. It's a very considerate and thoughful gesture and it's also something that i always try to do. I hope gilles had a really good 30th bday. I think she did!