Treadmill Dumbing Down

(the pic is actual treadmill involved in this story)
I got a treadmill technology beat down today, and it was not pretty. Now, I consider myself an OK-smart person, one who is embracing of new technology and very math/science/numbers oriented. My highest grade in college was in my Calc III class and I was even a software engineer for a few years. So usually I can figure out how to make electronic things work.

But not today.

At lunch today I ventured to the YMCA for an easy 30 minute run on the treadmill. Ugh. But I was ready, iPod in hand and my new running visor to keep my focus straight (wearing a hat while running inside helps me be less distracted by pretty things in my side vision). As I walk towards the row of treadmills I notice a lack of obnoxious TV screens attached to the machines..yes. I hate staring at a blank TV one foot from my face. I find my treadmill but as I approach, I found out it was too good to be true...these treadmills have TV embedded in the front of them. And I notice they have gross sticky finger prints all over the screens (as in, sticky with Swine Flu germs, people sweat, and probably some snot too).

So I figure out how to turn on the treadmill. I play with the TV and nothing happens. It's a touch screen. I stand there poke...poke...poke...nothing. The menu will not engage. So frustrating. I had to ask the maintenance person, he comes right over, presses the 'button' and the menu comes up. Oh, it's Press not Poke. Ick, that means more time my fingertip has to spend on the germy screen.

So I press. And the TV gets stuck on "A Baby Story" on TLC. Really? The LAST thing I want to watch while I'm hammering hard on a treadmill. So I press some more. It gets stuck on a Soap Opera. I don't even know why I tried....eventually I figured out how to turn off the TV. Thank goodness. At this point it's still at 3 mph walking pace. Time to figure out how to run. I press the big speed-me-up handle and it jumps to 7.5 mph. Ha! Not for 30 minutes. I press again, 5.5. Not going to work. So I decided to try to use the touch screen again to do it 0.1 by 0.1 until I finally reach my desired 6.4 mph speed.

Ugh. In all this playing around, I manage to turn on the "time and miles" section. I spent 7:25 walking and trying to figure out how to use that silly silly treadmill. All I want to do it get on, get my speed, and stare at the blank yellow wall in front of my face. I don't want to watch TV...even if I wanted to I would be motion sick. Do people really run on those things and watch TV at the same time? Without falling off? I'd like to see that.

At one point I stood on the rails to switch my music. I knew to finish the last 5 minutes I would need a great motivating song. In the time it took me to find my other song, I see a message on the screen that says "no person detected" and SHUT OFF! It just plain 'ol turned off and stopped. Seething with frustration, by this time I'm an expert at controlling the speed so I just re-start the workout and go for those last 5 minutes. After 5 minutes was done, I pressed that big red "emergency shut-off" button. At least that's one thing that doesn't ever change.

It took me 40 minutes to run 30 minutes and I left that Y feeling a little stupider than when I arrived. Tomorrow I'm running outside, no questions asked.

Snow Day!

Well, it's here, our first big snow storm of the year, and this one is a REAL Colorado dump. In the past 24 hours we've gotten 2 feet of snow and it should keep snowing until the evening. We usually get two of these a year, so only one more to go! I don't remember even having a storm this early though, before Trick or Treating. There are going to be a lot of really cold people on the Naked Pumpkin run this year.

For those good at logical math problems: Snow + Honda Civic + living in the middle of a hill = Melissa being house bound. Today is day 2 of working from home, and though I did it for a long time in other jobs, I don't like doing it with my current job. I enjoy being in the office, with my co-workers and no matter how hard I try, I just can't get the cats or Sky to talk to me about cycling, coaching, or my relapse back into a Famous Amos Cookies addiction. Not interested.

Have you ever worked from home and watched your animals? This is what they did ALL DAY when they weren't trying to be on my lap:
Feeling the itch to get out, I decided to shovel the driveway. Of course now it has another foot of snow on it, but I've learned it's easier to shovel 1 foot twice than 2 feet once. I tried to engage Sky, but she was not interested. I guess if I had barely any fur on me I wouldn't want to be out in the snow either. I'm starting to wonder if she needs a cute dogie sweater for the winter?

Mission accomplished.
Michael came home for work and I had to snap a shot. This is what he looks like for work in a snow storm (yummy):

This is what I look like:
Under that blanket are my flannel PJ pants, at 4pm. I even put my snow pants OVER them to shovel the driveway. Is this what people who WFH full-time do every day? I can't even imagine. It would really cut-down on wardrobe expense. See how hard I'm working? Two computers AND the phone. Someone has to bring home the bacon! ;-)

Yummy, bacon.

After work I hoped on my bike for an hour and had a good workout. I'll probably do the same again this afternoon since running and swimming are not going to happen.

Or perhpas I'll snowshoe to the grocery store, we are out of coffee and chocolate...

Girls Weekend '09

"Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own places in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smiles spread across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends"

Triathlon brought the four of us together years ago, but it's our friendship and love that have kept us together through all the changes that time brings!

The fun has been had, Estes Park survived, and we had a great weekend. Our First Annual (because you know there will be more!) Girls Weekend is in the books. Below are the rated PG pics and descriptions. Oh don't you wonder?! We were very well behaved. After all, we've left our club hopping, dirty dancing, late night skinny dipping years behind us.

I think.

The weekend started on Friday with Sky getting the required de-stinking bath. Michael was out of town on business, meaning I'm on dog duty and therefore Sky gets invited to Girl's weekend. She is special, the other three ladies have female dogs and they did not get to come. I told her she had to be on her BEST behavior. And she was. Friday night we had pizza, drank wine, and stayed up until midnight...way past all of our bedtimes. We really know how to party. Like that graph? Yeah, the smoke detector was going off in the middle of the night. And not the loud "there's a fire!" but that intermittent "the battery is low" beep. I would say it's like sleeping next to someone who snores, and then you think it's going to stop, you hold your breath for a few seconds....and then it starts again. Lucky for me I had my handy ear plugs so I was the only one who missed out on all the late night fire alarm shenanigans.

On Sat morning we got up and took Sky on a walk. The cabin we rented was right downtown. On our way we ran into some locals:
Saturday was also filled with a run, brunch, and horseback riding. Saturday night was filled with more pizza, wine, a new battery for the fire alarm, and another round of late-night "the f*@king alarm is going off!" moments. Once again, I missed that entire event. What am I going to do once we have kids and I actually have to be able to hear important things? One night I even slept through our "Hazardous gasses" detector (part of our Carbon Monoxide detector, which goes off when we cook anything with curry or cumin, it's broken).

In the end, I think we all had a great time. It does not sound like a crazy weekend now that I read what I wrote, but it was just what we were looking for! No matter how busy life may get (medical school, IM training, raising kids), I have a feeling we'll be doing this years to come.

Next year: Vegas Baby! Even if I'm big and fat and 39 weeks pregnant, I'll be there.

Mom, I'm just kidding about that.

T-Minus-32 Hours

Girls weekend starts in less than 32 hours. In fact, IF I make it to hear Chrissie Wellington speak at Fleet Feet tomorrow night (I know...how cool is THAT?) it'll be starting in less than 24 hours! I am so excited I can hardly contain myself.

So here's the scoop:

Friday morning Sharon (assistant coach) and I are doing a hike with the girls from the CU Triathlon team, it's like a "get to know them outside of the pool" type outing. I'm hoping they bring along their swim suits so I can still identify them in real-people clothing, maybe attach them to their hiking backpacks or walking sticks. Here's the catch, it's at 6am and is going to be freezing cold and dark. I like hiking if it's at a running pace or done while sitting atop a mountain bike, but not so much actual hiking. I call that walking slowly up steep stuff.

All that aside, I'm looking forward to the social part of Friday morning!

After that, work, but then the official Girls weekend starts! Four of us, plus one lucky pink Weimaraner dog named Sky-Marie, spend a few good days in Estes Park. We might hike...again...yeah. Or we might not. That's the thing about Girls Weekend...we get to do whatever we want. I'm personally pulling for manicures, trashy magazines, wine, and some chocolate. What we do to fill the space between will be priceless, because whatever it is, we'll be doing it together and having fun.

BREAK

Racing in 2010 has started to creep into my mind because let's face it, I'm completely lost and crabby without something on my calendar, anything. I was working on being patient and not thinking about next year's races quite so soon, but I give up...it's time to mend the problem. I love the idea of doing a Bloggers Camp reunion type race, open to non-campers as well, just a fun group of people getting together!

My Own Book Club

This picture really has nothing to do with my post but I think it rocks and needs a place on my blog. So there you go.

Thank you everyone who gave me suggestions for books to read. Some of them I actually have and are in my big stack of "I WILL read these books someday" pile. You know the pile, you probably have one too.

I would like to announce the first book in my book club:
"Finding Your Zone: Ten Core Lessons for Achieving Peak Performance in Sports and Life" by Michael Lardon, M.D.

I was looking for a book on swim coaching when I found my ADD-self in a 'general sports' area and captivated by the book's bright yellow cover, big font, and # of pages. So I bought it. Has anyone read this book? Anyone? Anyone? I like this book because it not only related to athletics but also life goals.

Other books I'm reading:

• A Darkness More Than Night (Harry Bosch) by Michael Connelly - I'm actually listening to this book...addicted to the Harry Bosch series.
  
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell - I'm almost done with this one. I now know exactly what to do to pop out little hockey players that will grow up and be good enough for the NHL, or Austria's Olympic team. Hockey parents scare me though, so I'm rooting for something calm like a flock of little Schwartzy ballet dancers.
• The Fertility Diet by Jorge Chavarro - Yep. I'm reading it and drinking my whole milk like a good Midwestern-girl. It's interesting and easy to read. I like learning about baby making. Who knew there was more to it than 4th grade sex-ed class? No secret here, I'm a sponge for knowledge.
  
• Training and Racing with a Power Meter by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coogan M.D.-I have a Powertap on loan so I'm both learning how to use TrainingPeaks WKO+ software as well as what all that data means.
  
  
  
  OKdokey. That's it! My blog-approved list of books (there are more, but I have to keep some secrets to myself). I'm still on the search for a good swim coaching book. I suppose if there are people who want to read too we'll need a catchy book club name.
  

Hello Running, Can We Makeup?

(above: end of yesterday's ride. MAS is behind me, I'm kicking his butt! ha ha)
Many things have been on my mind lately. For one, I have a little guilt complex with not running much this fall. I'm trying to bike more, and I am doing it, but everytime I run I just want to keep going and going. I miss long runs, the kind that prevent you from drinking martinis on Friday night because you know you have to get up early Sat and run, and you can't fake a 20+ mile run. Then you wake up, load the iPod, and head out to welcome the day with a long run and some nice alone time.

I know, I know...I am my own planner right now, so here's what I decided today: I'm running again. Not marathon training but also not only running 30 minutes a time. I'll find a nice balance between riding more but also being able to do my sanity-preservation longer runs. I decided this today during my 1:00 lunch run, in the freezing rain, way under dressed, and happy as a lark.

One good thing that has come from my short break from running is that I've rediscovered mountain biking and loving it! Yesterday Susan got a group together to do a longer version of the ride we did last Saturday. Fun! We're going again next weekend, probably different route...unless the awful "S" word shows up as forecasted. Then I'll be inside on my trainer pouting.

My new idea of a perfect weekend is long run on Saturday, mountain bike and maybe golf on Sunday.

Other things on my mind:

• I am not buying coffee, breakfast, or lunch out for the entire month of October.
  
• I want to get the basement area set up for some great Computrainer riding with the TV and laptop. Someday it would be awesome to have a nice finished basement with an exercise room, but until we win the lottery that won't happen. The "S" is coming soon and no matter how much I hope that we get no "S" this winter, that's just silly-talk.
  
• Jay-Z's "Blueprint 3" is a great running album. Or I should say the first 4 songs b/c those are the ones I keep listening to over and over.
  
• Reading-doing more of it. Anyone have some good motivational sporty books to recommend?
• I am much better on my mountain bike when not wearing glasses.
  

That's it! Over and out!
-Melissa

Going Offroad

Thanks to not marathon training this fall, I've been hitting the bike more AND my mountain bike...and I'm having a great time! This past weekend Susan and I did a shuttle ride and I had so much fun! Just in two days of riding over the weekend (MAS and I went on Sunday) I can tell that I'm getting better. Or maybe I should say that I'm getting less-wimpy because let's be honest, that's really my issue.

I feel like mountain biking is a good strength workout for my legs, something that's a limiter for me in cycling.

Susan and I were supposed to spend our Girls Day cooking meals and then freezing them. But when we saw it was supposed to be an awesome weekend, Susan suggested we do the ride that goes from Boulder to Lyons. She helped build the trail a few years ago. I was hesitant at first but once she threw in post-riding Burger and Beers I couldn't resists.

To do this ride you have to drop one car off at the end in Lyons and then drive back towards Boulder for the start, thus making it a shuttle-ride. The ride starts on a trail I've done before called Heil Ranch. It's just hard enough to scare me and make me walk some parts (but not anymore, I can do the whole thing minus ONE little section now!), but not too hard to make me swear off the sport. After Heil you ride down Picture Rock all the way to Lyons. I have a special place in my heart for that town because that is where MAS and I got married. Yeah for us!

Below are pics from our fun ride on Saturday, with captions:

Photo above: Susan and me before the ride. That's my bike in the background next to Noodles (our truck, yes named after the restaurant), my seat is crazy-high and someday it's going to snap right off. The bike doesn't really fit me.
How beautiful is this?!? Looking back towards Boulder at the beginning of the ride. I love it here!
Susan had a picture of me looking 'normal' riding my bike, but this one is funny. I talk to myself (outloud) when mountain biking over hard things (there were rocks there, even though the trail looks smooth, I swear!).
On the "Picture Rock" part of the trail, looking towards Lyons. If you look at the picture closely you can see the place where Michael and I got married! You can also see the rock background that is in most of our wedding photos. I pointed them out on the pics. Case in point: a wedding photo and the same background.

Note: when doing a point-to-point ride it is important to leave your post-riding shoe attire in the destination car. Oops. Susan carried my stinky flip-flops the entire day! There was a very short period on the road, getting back to the car.


Susan enjoying a burger and beer after the ride.

In other news, there has been talk of swine flu around our house and that led to Michael finding a pic of his twin:
Doesn't that guy look like MAS? (he's wearing a swin-flu mask). Here's a pic to compare against (yes, that is my dear husband all dressed up):