Miscellany

I haven't done a good miscellany post in awhile...

Well to be honest, I haven't done a good miscellany post ever. But what the hell; it's what I've got today.

Last night, I went to a TriGirl happy hour/fundraiser for Safe Harbor. Safe Harbor is a fantastic organization dedicated to protecting women and children from abuse. As I may have mentioned once or twice, it is the 2007 TriGirl charity. I love that TriGirl picks a charity to support each year. As a bonus, it helps me justify wine-drinking on a Wednesday night. he he

I had a chance to catch up with Deanna L who is tapering for IronMan Florida. She cracks me up. We used to work together about eight years ago, and she always acted like her projects were too hard but she would always always nail them. And she's going to do the same thing with IMFL.

It was also great to see Grandison, Jennihoo, Melissa, Mary Jo, Debbie, Patti, Kay... man I hope I'm not forgetting anybody and I'm sorry if I am... Everyone looks so different wearing normal clothes and makeup. J, I missed you girlfriend, but I sure will enjoy those new sunglasses... HA! (I ransomed Jennifer's sunglasses that she left at my house last weekend - the only way she could get them back was to come to happy hour last night.)

I was well-behaved last night since I had to drive home in the dark and rain. And to be honest, I don't feel like drinking much wine after my all-out drunkfest last Saturday night. Did I mention Jennifer, my friend Michelle and I were the first people on the dance floor? Actually, the only people on the dance floor for awhile? Yeah, I was a mess early.

So I was able to hop up for a run this morning. Now I didn't get all nuts and go to the TriGirl run because, you know, that shit starts at 6 a.m. when it's dark and I'm sleeping... but I did run 4.5 miles after the school bus came at a more civilized hour. I recently read a training post by Melanie McQuaid (XTerra World Champion) where she wrote about doing one minute intervals and how much they helped her speed. So toward the end of each mile, I ran as hard as I could (hard being relative... it is me after all) for one minute, then I did active recovery. My interval speed was typically in the 7:20 min/mi range. After the first interval, my recovery speed was in the mid-8s. Cool! I thought. But then my recovery jumped to high 10s after the second interval. Overall, I ran an 8:59 minute/mile pace which is faster than anything I've done lately, so I was happy with that. Maybe I will focus on the run more in 2008 after dedicating 2007 to the bike.

Oh speaking of which, as I was looking for my old "tag" post, I read an old post from January where I wrote about how much biking sucked. I noted that never would I willingly ride 45 minutes straight uphill as we were doing every week in cycling class. How funny that not three months later, I rode the Blue Ridge? Willingly, even. Maybe I've come further than I thought on my bike because now I really enjoy it. Not 45 minutes uphill - I'm not totally insane - but biking in general that is.

I'll wrap up with a quick kid funny. My sister-in-law just had an adorable baby boy on Oct. 12. On hearing the news, Rainbow (who absolutely loves babies), sighed loudly, put her hand on her hips and said with exasperation, "What does it take to get a girl cousin around here?!?!?"

And that's all I've got... thank goodness...