I am Orca! or Almost Wordless Wednesday

I am orca!  Hear me roar!  

Otherwise known as 42-year-old-tomorrow-mother-who-just-tried-on-her-rented-wetsuit.  It works.  I float a little in it.  I can swim in it.  I can zip it up and unzip it all by myself.  I will not drown on Sunday.  I even peed in it today.  Shhhh.

Plank/pushup challenge update:
2:30 plank
35 pushups

I know.  I rock.  I should have flexed in that suit so you can see my pipes.

Almost Death and Soon to be Death

I hope the gods aren't trying to tell me something.... Crazy things are happening all around me all I can think about is the OWS I have coming up this weekend and how I don't want to drown doing it and all I really want to do is get out of that water as fast as possible and get to the bike.  Where I won't die.

Friday night we went on our usual thank-you-eye-doctors-for-referring-to-us dinner out.  Each year a large ophthalmology office has a big outing for the local optometrists and their spouses.  We always take a ferry to a different island in Casco Bay and have a lovely dinner with drinks and dessert and party favors and then take the ferry back to Portland.  It's lots of fun and a great night out and usually coincides nicely with my birthday week.  This year was no different except for the crazy-ass lightening storm that started just as we were finishing dinner. 

I love a good lightening storm and went out to the porch to watch the bolts of lightening hit the water.  Of course, there was loud thunder to match.  And rain.  Which was fine because we were inside. 

I thought it would pass before we were ready to go back to the ferry but, it didn't.  We ended up walking back to the dock in a lull in the rain with lightening flashing everywhere.  That was a little scary, but I didn't really think I'd get hit by lightening so I wasn't too worried.  I mean, really, I have a better chance of winning the lottery, right?

So we managed to get back to the boat without getting struck and we headed back to the mainland.  I really wasn't worried at all, even though we were on a boat in the middle of the harbor in a lightening storm, until we went through what was probably the center of the storm.  Crazy rain, crazy hail, winds, you name it.  And then the Captain cut the engine.

That's when I became scared.

Me in my head:  Why the f**k is he cutting the engine?  He can't see.  Why the f**k can't he see?  Doesn't he have weather radar and GPS to tell him where he is?  WTF?  What if he can't start the engine.  We are f**king dead in the water.  This was not how I envisioned my death.  Where the f**k are the life jackets?  Holy shit.  Open the window in case we get capsized.

The the captain comes on the intercom to tell us he is taking a detour.  Detour??!!  In Casco Bay?  Where the heck are you going to go??  All I can think of is this is not how I wanted to have my first OWS.....

We were on Long Island and needed to get where you see the picture of the ship which is Portland.  I'm guessing we went around Great Diamond Island instead of between GDI and Peaks Island.

Thankfully, after the "detour" we made it safely back to Portland and then back to Boothbay Harbor.  Phew.  One near death avoided.



Much to my annoyance, this past week has been Shark Week.  Great.  Thanks.  That's just what I need to hear about right before ocean swimming next weekend.  Woo.  Not to mention, my husband calls my wetsuit (which just arrived in the mail the other day), my seal suit.  Yah.  Thanks for that visual.  Guess I'll sit down and watch "When Sharks Attack".....

What I will look like to a shark.  Nice.

Thankfully, I'm in the Slow and Old age group, so by the time I get in the ocean, all the sharks should be pretty well fed from the pros and younger age groupers. 



To top things off, in the local/New England news this week and last week, were reports of two separate deaths in two different triathlons!  ON THE SWIM!!  Both of them!!  Wtf.  Two men died, one during IMLP and one during the Vermont Nationals this past weekend.  I'm so glad I'll have that in the back of my mind the whole time I'm swimming.  Not.

One good thing that I learned about the swim this weekend is that we only have to swim out about 100 yds to the first buoy and then we swim the bulk of the course along the beach until we reach the next buoy and then another 100 yds back to the beach.  I had envisioned the course going 1/3 mile out in the ocean, 1/3 mile along the beach, then 1/3 back in to the beach.  I do feel a little better about the swim knowing I won't be so far out to sea. 

Thank goodness for small favors.

InkNBurn Review

As you may remember from the Beach to Beacon 10K I just did, I had on a super rockin' running skirt that I purchased from InkNBurn.  I had been wanting this skirt for some time and the Beach to Beacon was a perfect excuse for me to purchase it. 

InkNBurn specializes in workout clothes that are different from your average workout clothes.  They are designed to stand out in a crowd, and really show off your personality.  This is exactly what I was looking for.   I am 40+ years old though, so I don't want to look like I'm trying to look 20.  Enter peacock skirt:

Just enough pop to be noticed but not so loud and crazy that people stare at you.

I bought this skirt online and it arrived in my mailbox in 2 days!  Now that is some fast turnaround!  I am 5' 6" and range from 138-142.  I went with size 6 and it was just right.  Initially, I thought it might be a tad too small, but since it had the skirt, it wasn't pulling in a weird way and when I ran it didn't move at all.  So size 6 ended up being perfect. 

Here are a couple of pics my daughter took:

There are two little pockets that are in the front of the skirt.  I didn't carry anything in them when I ran, but it seemed like it would be perfect for a gel.  They weren't big enough for a phone and I don't think a key would have stayed in place. 

I loved the shorties on the run!  They were so comfortable and didn't ride up at all.  Not once.  No riding up or falling down.  It is really so important on longer runs to have clothes to run in that you don't even know you are wearing.  There is nothing worse than thinking about falling-down-shorts or riding-up-panties while you are trying to keep a pace. 

I did get 4 different people commenting on my skirt as I ran!  Not that I'm looking for that attention, but it was nice to be complimented on my race outfit. 

Here I am at the start!  I look fast don't I?

The material was a little different than other running skirts I have, but I really liked it.  The texture was less silky, but I think that was why nothing rode up or down while I ran.  I didn't have any chaffing issues and it wicked the sweat away from my skin so I was quite comfortable. 

In summary,  I LOVED this skirt!  I would totally buy another one, and right now I am looking at the britney skirt.  Wow!  So cute!  I may also want to purchase the peacock tank, maybe not to wear with the skirt, but with black shorts.  The price is a bit high at $74.95, but the quality is there and certainly the style is nothing like what you will find elsewhere.  I probably won't buy 5 skirts at once, but one every 6 months might be in the budget.... 

If running shorts are your thing, there are plenty of those to choose from.  There are tanks, camisoles, tech-shirts, arm warmers and sports bras.  There are also styles for men and kids!  Take some time to visit this great company's site and tell them I sent you.  You will not be disappointed with your purchase, and you won't look like anyone else racing! 

Hump Day Happenings

1.  The first week back to work from vacation hasn't been too bad...  It's always an adjustment getting used to waking up at 6:30 vs. 8:30 but we've made the transition.  Good practice for school, which is in 3 weeks.  I must say I would probably rather be doing this:

But someone has to pay the bills.

2.  Asparagus for breakfast = instant weird urine smell.

3.  Jen from Running With the Girls and I have started a little friendly challenge.  We were twittering one night and all of a sudden we were challenging each other to plank for 75 sec and do 35 push-ups by the end of August!  Jen even went further to make it an official challenge on her blog with some prizes for those that participate! 

All of this challenging each other is contagious because now my kids are all trying to out-plank each other and even my husband tossed a challenge at one of his friends to see who could plank the longest.  I swear, you make it a competition and everyone wants to play. 

Right now I'm in last place:
me: 63 sec
sissy: 68 sec
hubby: 2 min 30 sec
princess: 6 min 35 sec
manimal: 10 min (but not the best quality plank for the whole time)

I see I'm going to have to try again tonight.  No way I'm staying in last place!

I'll keep you updated with the results.  Follow us on twitter too @ltlindian @RunningWTG!

4.  The Rev3 Maine Tri is less than 2 weeks away.  Yikes!  My rented wetsuit is scheduled to arrive tomorrow so I will have a chance to try it out this weekend.  I've never swam (swum? oh, my English is failing miserably...) in a wetsuit or in the ocean (other than playing around).  To say I'm a little nervous about this, would be the understatment of the year. 

I opted to rent a suit online and have them mail it to me rather than rent through Rev3 and pick it up at expo because they would send it to me right away so I can try it out before race day.  I thought that might make me a little bit more at ease if I knew it fit ok and that I could put it on and take it off.  Nightmare no. 1--wetsuit doesn't fit.  I can scratch that one off the list. 

I guess I need to get some Body Glide, right?

Do you have any advice on the swim part of my tri?

Join us for the plank, push-up and wall squat challenge!  See RWG for more details!

Liebster Award!

Last week Jen from Running with the Girls tagged me for the Liebster Award.  I have been on vacation and haven't really had time to write this post so now that I am home and it is raining, I'm going to get it done!

This Liebster Award is for up and coming bloggers with less than 200 followers.  I guess that is me--I don't know how up and coming I am, but I certainly don't have 200 followers.  Yet.... :)

Liebster is a German word that means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome.

Rules for receiving this award:
1.  Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
2.  Answer the questions the tagger asked, and then come up with 11 questions for the bloggers you are tagging.
3.  Choose 11 people and tag them in your post.
4.  Notify the people you have tagged.
5.  No tag backs.

11 Things About Me:

1.  I am suffering from plantar faciitis now and it really sucks.  My left heel hurts on and off when I run. During the run it's fine, but afterward, wow!  Watch out.  I'm like an old man hobbling around.  I got some new sneakers the other day so I'm hoping that will help.  

2.  I guess I'm going to be coaching the youth field hockey program at the local Y this fall.  I kinda offered because I wasn't sure there was going to be a coach and I wanted there to be a program.  Also last year the communication and organization of the program was not very good and I know I can do a better job with that.  As far as actual field hockey?  I never played at the high school level but it's pretty similar to soccer so I think I can manage.  At the 3rd-5th grade level it's really just about getting the girls to be able to control the ball with the sticks anyway.   I hope it doesn't interfere with my running.... lol.

3.  Thank goodness the Olympics are on only every 4 (or 2) years.  I would be a fat, lazy slob if they were on all the time.  I can sit all day long and watch the most random of sports.   Not good for my fitness.

4.  I cannot stand pork rinds.  I think they are the grossest (is that a word??) most disgusting things ever.  My entire family loves them and I just about gag and puke every time my husband buys them.  They all eat them and the smell just about sends me over the edge.  Gag.

5.  13 days until my 42nd birthday.  I cannot believe I am in my 40's.  

6.  There is less than 3 weeks until my first Olympic tri.  I still do not have a wetsuit, nor have I done an open water swim.  I guess I'd better get on the stick.

7.  I have never traveled out of the USA other than Canada and Mexico.  I would love to visit Australia, Italy, Africa (for safari) and Iceland.  Someday...

8.  I love having vacation, but I love coming home from vacation even more.  After about 5-7 days, depending on where I am, I am ready to get myself back home.  It is so great to sleep in your own bed, with your own pillow.  Oh!  And my cats!  I've missed my cats so much!!

9.  The other thing with vacation is the disgusting amounts of bad-for-you-food that you ingest.  It's even worse when we stay with my parents at camp.  It seems like all we do is eat.  I've had more junk in the past 4 days than I have had in the past 3 months.  

10.  I do not really like Mt. Dew in a bottle.  Mt. Dew in a can tastes so much better.  No idea why.  

11.  While running the Beach to Beacon last weekend, we ran through one spot and all I could smell was cigarette smoke!  Seriously.  What the hell are you doing at a road race smoking??  Why are you smoking still anyway?  Especially at a road race!  Have some common sense people.

My 11 Answers

1.  What is your favorite Olympic event?
My favorite Olympic event has to be gymnastics.  I have watched gymnastics all my life wishing that I could be that girl, with the perfect butt, doing double back flips.  

2.  Have you lost a toenail?  Did you just leave it or paint over it?
I have lost a toenail only once when I was 11ish.  I never paint any nails, toes or otherwise, so nope.  I don't paint.

3.  Running skirt or shorts?
I love running skirts, but they are cost prohibitive so I have more shorts.

4.  What is your favorite pizza combination?
I haven't had it in forever, but my favorite pizza is from Rosalie's in Bar Harbor.  Whole wheat crust, with hamburger, spinach and fresh mushrooms.  

5.  Do you write a menu for the week?  
Hell, no.  I'm lucky to have an idea for what dinner is to be that night when I get home.  Thankfully, my husband usually starts the cooking and I just help when I get home.  It's almost always some kind of meat, pasta or potatoes, and vegetable.  

6.  What are you training for right now?
Right now I am training for the Rev3 Olympic Length Triathlon which is coming up on 8/26.  After that, my next big thing will be the Maine 1/2 Marathon.

7.  Running shoes--what do you look for in a running shoe?  Do you have a favorite brand?
I am not really learned on the value of having many running shoes and having different shoes for training vs. races.  So really, I wear the Kinvara for everything.  I have learned lately, that I should probably have a training shoe and keep my Kinvaras for racing.

8.  Dream race?
Ironman.  Anywhere.

9.  Do you run the same race year after year or do you like to try new ones?
Both.  I love doing the same races to see if I can improve on the previous year, but I also love trying new races.

10.  Do you listen to music on your runs?  What are some of your favorite tunes?
Lately (in the past 4 months) I have not used anything on my runs.  But when I did use music, I want stuff that is upbeat and fast.  Lots of current pop and dance music.

11.  If you had your own garden, what would you grow in it?
Let's assume that I don't have a black thumb, like I do, I would grow everything.  Lettuce, spinach, cukes, peppers, broccoli, carrots, peas the works!

My 11 Questions for my Tagged Friends

1.  If you could live somewhere else, either in US or out of country, where would it be?
2.  Would you rather have wealth or fame?  Why?
3.  Would you rather be able to race really fast but be hurt afterward, or be slow but never hurt?
4.  What is your favorite drink?
5.  What is your dream job?
6.  Lake or ocean?
7.  Do you have a bad habit like chewing your fingernails?  What is it?
8.  I am a little nutso about recycling.  Our transfer station recycles everything so I do too.  Paper, all plastic, newspaper, cardboard, cans.  Do you recycle?  Is it easy to recycle where you live?
9.  What race are you most proud of?
10.  What chore do you hate the most around the house?
11.  Do you love a Disney vacation or somewhere less crazy?

My Tags:
Carrie at Maine Mom on the Run
Lisa at Getting it Done on the Run
Danielle at ooh breathe just breathe
Middle Aged Runner
Rachel at Running in Real Life
Trinity at HipFitFam
(not so)SuperRunnerMom
Terzah at BQby40
Niki at Just Keep Going

That's it.  Everyone else has more followers or hasn't been active with blogging for a while.  I hope you all have a great weekend!!

July Recap

Sorry, sorry this has taken so long to get together.  I am on vacation and my time to sit at the computer and formulate a post is limited.  In between watching the Olympics, eating (which has become an Olympic event for me), watching the kids swim, fishing and just sitting around looking at the lake, I just haven't found a moment to be at the computer.  I have managed a run or two and a couple of bike rides so I'm not going to head home as Henrietta Hippo.  So here we go--

Miles Run--41.4.  This is up from last month.  I'm not sure how, but I got in a couple more miles than June.  Not a big improvement, but still something.

Spin/bike minutes--420  Biking is up almost 100 minutes from June!  With this hot weather it is so much easier to just head to the Y at lunch and spin.  Plus, my friend Cheryl is meeting me again and so it becomes so much more than just spinning.  We get to bitch and chat and in no time at all, we've worked out for 40 minutes!  Exercise really is so much better with a friend.

Weight training--85 minutes  I kicked butt with weight training this month!  I think some of it had to do with the planks, lunges and pushups challenge I started the month with.  It really fizzled out the last two weeks but the first part, I really did keep up with it.  It's a good challenge and I may try it again.

Tennis--3 hours

Swim--6000 yds  I switched up my swim day and had been going Saturday morning while the family was out hauling lobster traps.  This seems to work better than the Friday.  Once school starts again, Friday will be much better but for now I just need to get my swims in.  This OWS is coming up pretty soon--like 3 weeks--so I need to keep my fitness there.  <says the girl who hasn't swam at all the last 3 weeks....>

75 minutes of field hockey played--which is basically 75 minutes of sprinting, gasping for breath, then sprinting again.  Excellent for me as I never sprint.  My ass hurt for 3 days.  If you can hook up with a local high school/middle school team and they are willing to let you play with them, you may want to consider it.  It kicked my butt!  And was a lot of fun.

Races--The Lobster Roll 5k.  A local race in Boothbay Harbor in it's third year.  I have run it each year so far and even though I didn't feel like running that morning, I went anyway because I'm going to see how many years in a row I can run in it.  I felt like it was a good race while running it, but it was not my best time.

Books Read--I read a couple of books this month that Terzah from BQ by 40 had recommended to me. River Town Two Years on the Yangtze is a book about a man in the Peace Corps who goes to China to teach English for two years.  Very interesting non-fiction book about his time there.  I learned a lot about China and it's culture.  Let the Great World Spin was another book that she recommended and I really enjoyed it as well.   I have a  couple more books lined up to read but really haven't done much reading while on vacation except for my Running Times magazines.

Current Annoyance--my plantar faciitis has been acting up on my left heel.  It hurts like hell sometimes after running and sometimes it doesn't.  I'm not sure if it's my sneakers or what.  I've gotten lots of advice from Facebook friends so I'm going to try a few things and hope that helps.  If I can immediately ice it and stretch after running, it seems to be fine so we'll go with that for awhile.

One other annoying thing was in the large race I was in this past weekend, The Beach to Beacon 10K, once again there was not one single professional race picture of me.  I swear to God, those photographers never seem to be able to get any shot of me at all.  I'm not even talking about bad shots!  I mean, any pictures whatsoever!  I'm always just behind another runner or you can see my feet but not my face, or half of me gets cut off.  I will buy this stupid-crazy-expensive pictures people!!!  Get a freakin' picture of me, will ya?

Current Excitement--In just 3 weeks time, I will be racing the Rev 3 Olympic length tri in Old Orchard Beach.  I am pretty excited to see how well I can do at this length, but scared to death of the swim part. I still have not completed an OWS in lake or ocean and I don't have a wetsuit as of yet.  I guess I'll just do it (as Nike says) that morning and hope I can get through it.  I'm pretty sure I can side stroke or back stroke the distance if I have to.

One other excitement was racing the Beach to Beacon with my friends!  What luck to find them at the race in a sea of 6000 other runners!  Thank goodness for friends with iPhones to take pictures!  At least I got some good photos that way.

How did your July go?  

August is looking to be a pretty busy race month for me, do you find you have a lot of races coming up?

Beach to Beacon 10K Race Report

Way back in April at 7 a.m., I somehow managed to get a spot in the coveted Beach to Beacon 10k road race.  This is the biggest road race in Maine drawing an elite crowd with a purse of $10,000 to the winner!  (which wasn't me, btw...)  Over 6,000 runners were on track to race so you can imagine what fun bib pic-up would be.

The pick-up was at a high school about an hour away from my house.  I headed directly down to be there right when they opened at 2:30.  We got there at 2 and sat in the heat and humidity waiting for the doors to open.  Mom, what time is it now?  Mom, how much longer do we have to wait?  Mom, is it 2:30 yet?  Why haven't they opened the doors yet Mom??   It's 2:31!  Here's what the line looked like at 2:25.

Thank goodness we were first in line!

We got in finally and since I knew my number, I went right to the table to get my bib.  Then off to the expo part to get my shirt and goodies.   Our local grocery store was a sponsor of the race so they had a table at the expo giving away fruit, cliff bars, shot bloks and $2 coupons to the store.  In line in front of me a woman kept grabbing more and more of the coupons all the while talking away like she wasn't actually hoarding the coupons.  She wasn't even racing!  It was her husband that was the racer....  She was told twice to put some of the coupons back so that others could have some, but nope.  She held right onto all of them--probably about $50 worth.

Someone straighten my ass out if I'm ever that cheap that I'm reduced to hoarding coupons at a race expo.

The expo was ok--I grabbed a few things and headed out.  One thing that did bug me was that they didn't give you a bag to put your stuff in.  The grocery store sponsor was handing out plastic grocery bags (you know the ones I hate?  that land fills are full of??  Yah, those ones) to carry your loot in.  B2B gets a D for being green and saving the Earth.

I did get some nice fruit though...

Race morning I got up and headed out at 4:45 a.m.  I was a bit nervous about making it there on time and having time to get to the start.  This race was a point-to-point race and there were shuttles to the start from the parking areas.  I arrived at the parking area at 6 a.m. and got the first bus to the start area.

We had about a 1/4 ish walk to the start from where the bus dropped us off and I took that time to start the text frenzy on my phone to try to find my friends.  Can you believe that in a crowd of 6000 the first person I saw who I knew was Jen of milesmusclesmommyhood??  Crazy huh?  Although, I will say she was pretty easy to notice in her super excellent Rev3 tri kit!  <just a little jealous>

As you can see, I opted for the most awesome peacock skirt from InkNBurn!  I got no less than 5 comments from random runners on that skirt.  It was pretty sweet and I felt spectacular in it.

I also managed to find my friend Bobbi and her husband and another friend from high school.

Bobbi and I waiting and waiting to start. 

 I love this photo so much!  We are mid-run and our friend Brent is to my left.  Our faces are priceless and my skirt rocks!

This was one pretty hard, hot and humid race.  I was trying to beat my previous 10K time of 58 something.  I was pretty sure I could do that.

My friends and I ran together for about the first 3 miles.  After that, I wasn't able to keep up with Brent and his friend and I think Bobbi and her husband dropped behind me.  I ran the last 3 by myself and it was not easy.  I guess all those runs I haven't done really made a difference in me losing pace.  I really need to work on going easy at first and hard for the end--not the opposite.

During the last mile and especially the last 1/2 mile, people were dropping left and right.  I passed at least 3 people that were getting attention from medics--I think they had passed out from the heat.  It was a little scary to see that and I hoped they would be ok.  One guy was .2 miles from the finish.  I kinda wanted to grab his arm and drag him with me to the finish.  I mean really?  Wouldn't you want someone to do that for you?  I would be so pissed if I ran the whole race, just to drop at the last .2 miles and not finish.  But he was already being attended to, so I just kept running.

I was one of the last runners that made it under an hour by the official timer.  I knew my time would be better than that because it was a few minutes after the gun went off before we even got to the start line.  My Garmin read 58:02, which I was not really happy with.  It did beat my previous PR, but not as much as I had hoped.

The finish was crazy and people were everywhere.  You had to walk up this longish hill to get your medal and then even further to get water.  I really just wanted to sit and die, but no!  You had to stumble your way up a hill, in the humidity, no shade, before you could get water and die.  This, I did not like.

Once you were out of the finish area, there was plenty of food and water and goodies to be had.  I got some snacks and rested for a moment and then made my way to the buses.

All in all a great race and lots of fun.  I disliked the humidity and how far the water was from the finish line.  I loved the spectators who lined the roads all the way, I loved finding my friends and running with them, I loved knowing elite runners were there (even though I never saw them....), and I loved that this race was in Maine.

Official chip time 56:52!  Totally happy with that!  Just about 2 minutes off my previous 10K time so I would declare this race a success!

A photo at the start to finish my report!