Thursday, June 21, 2007

A Day in the Life

I adore Elizabeth Fedofsky's writing. Just love it. Is it possible that anyone who has managed to find my site has yet to see her's? A slim chance, but if so -- check it out!

Recently she did a great post on a day in her life. And imitation is the highest form of flattery, right? Okay, maybe that rule is supposed to apply to monkeys or something, but you get my point. Here's a day in my life for all those either interested or easily amused.

___________

Tuesday
11 Days to Half Iron
82 Days to Iron


5:15 AM -- Alarm goes off. I look at it sternly. It fails to turn itself off, so I do it the favor. Hit the snooze button three times. Thirty minutes should do it.* Go back to sleep.

5:45 AM -- Alarm again. Damn. Do a groggy once over of my day in my head. Question: do I split my workouts today or sleep a little now and do a double tonight. Probably should hit the snooze once to think that over.

5:55 AM -- Decision made. Swim later. Sleep now. Zzzzz.

8:00 AM -- Rested and ready for the day, I roll to the shower (cause I roll like that, yo) and get ready for the work day. First day back from vacation -- should be fun.

8:37 PM -- Late for work since I decided to actually blow dry my hair like a real grown up. Won't make that mistake again.

8:45 AM -- Dunkin Donuts, my mecca. My recent resolution to cut all the "extras" from my diet in the (desperate) hope to shed a pound or two means no cream in my coffee. Large coconut coffee, skim milk, Splenda. Not the same thing.

9:00 AM -- Work day starts, where I save the world with my left hand and knit shaws for the elderly with my right. Okay, maybe just respond to some emails, dig myself out from underneath a pile of recent income, deal with a board crisis (again), and start planning my week.

9:10 AM -- Natural peanut butter on raisin bread. Discover ants in my big canvas work bag. Ants? How did they get there? Appears they have discovered the only uncovered piece of food, a peach. Damn. I was looking forward to that. Toss peach.

9:20 AM -- Put a post up on the blog about the vacation, including the recent discovery that I actually have developed a muscle during all of this -- my heart. Not in a warm fuzzy way -- in a bpm target rate kind of way. Yeah...progress.

10:55 AM -- Remember how ticked I am at Pearl Izumi about their stupid runner/jogger ad and shoot off a note to, well, probably nobody. Makes me feel better, so I post about it. Turns out it ticks off others, too. Good to know I'm not (the only) crazy (one).

11:30 AM -- Obscenely large bag of carrots.

1:45 PM -- Turkey sandwich on wheat bread (toasted) with horseradish mustard. Lots of turkey because, well, I roll like that. Research new tires and tire mounting services on line. Turns out we made it home from Mass on a wing and a prayer -- my back left tire is so bare I can see the metal radial around the rim. I'm no mechanic, but that doesn't seem right.

2:00 PM -- Fulfill my Active.com/registration addiction by signing up for local 5K on July 4th. Doing it with my 11 year old neighbor who is a peach. It's her first big "race" and we'll pull out the stops with signs and lots of cheering. $26 well spent.

2:01 PM -- Wait! $26? Email Active to tell them they missed giving me the member discount on the registration. Wonder if it's cheap to bother with $2 overcharges. Then realize that I want my two dollaaaaaaaaars!

3:00 PM -- Apple and handful of cherries. Decide I'm not coordinated enough to continue with the cherries and type/work at the same time without causing some Witches of Eastwick debacle. Put the cherries down for every one's sake.

4:00 PM -- Starting thinking about tonight's sessions and wonder why I didn't just get out of bed and hit the pool this morning. Call the bike shop to see if bike is ready. It is!! Yeah!!

5:00 PM -- Bolt from work and head to LBS to pick up Banana, with her fancy new cassette and chain. Spend some time gabbing with a fellow triathlete there about upcoming Philly Tri this weekend. He inquires after my races this year and I tell him. Feel like a stud. Leave with a big smile on my face, but $150 poorer.

6:00 PM -- Hit the YMCA for my swim. 2600 meters is a respectable start to the evening and didn't have to give any youngsters a black eye to keep my lane. Did watch a self-important jerk come in, complain about having to share a lane with the lifeguard, and then wait on a stool with -- I KID YOU NOT -- his girlfriend there to lend support. She was dressed in civvies and (i kid you not!) held his towel while he swam about 75 meters. He then decided to make a fuss about how sore his right shoulder was (!!!!) and departed soon after. Apparently I need a Cabana Boy for my next trip to the Y. Who knew?

7:02 PM -- Hurrily dry off and throw on clothes in the women's locker room. Wonder why all the ladies who are in the T/TH aqua-aerobics class always complain about everything. I mean everything. I suspect they are rather unhappy. Sigh.

7:15 PM -- Head home and chomp on a Balance bar in the car. Thanks to Jeremy, these are my new favorite snacks/treats/training excuses to eat a chocolate covered candy bar with caramel and not feel guilty.

7:18 PM -- Notice storm clouds hovering over D'town Holla in the distance. Wonder what the fate of my run will be.

7:19 PM -- Was that thunder?

7:30 PM -- Hugs and kisses with Mighty M. Hear about his day in the seriously crazy world of design (hey, I work in mental health and these guys are much crazier than my office!). Relay the story about the swimmer with an attendant. He's amply distracted by a big freelance project, but smiles at all the right times and calls me beebie. I'm simple like that.

7:45 PM -- Realize that it's about to rain and I should get my butt out there soon or I'll be soaked.

7:46 PM -- Wonder whether or not getting soaked is all that bad of an idea. It could be fun in this heat.

7:47 PM -- Begin search for a dark colored running shirt. No reason to make this run X-rated.

7:49 PM -- Wonder how one woman can have so many white running tops and so few dark ones.

7:58 PM -- Find my favorite new blue UA tee in the wash....the clean wash. But by the grace of God.

8:00 PM -- Tempo run here we come. And apparently the rain does, too. Lightening and thunder be damned. And life is good.

8:50 PM -- Return home soaking wet but happy. Life is good.

8:51 PM -- Realize that I completely biffed on dinner, aside from my Balance bar. Settle on a bowl of cereal to make sure I don't gnaw off my left hand in my sleep. Wonder whether Mighty M has resorted to chewing the furniture, but don't see any of the tale tell marks.

9:10 PM -- Make lunch for tomorrow so I won't gnaw my right hand off at work. Menu? PB sanny, yogurt drink, apple, large spinach salad with red pepper slices, shredded carrots, and almonds, and yet another obscenely large bag of carrots. I luvs me some lunch, let me tell ya.

9:25 PM -- Tell Mighty M all about my plans to do an open water swim (finally) this week and how the run was and how I'm getting my box of free samples from Hammer the next day and my excitement at getting Banana back...and then realize he left about a half hour ago to pick up something for the freelance job.

9:40 PM -- Make a game out of alternating between checking my email and Google Reader and standing in "my room" (previously known as the guest bedroom) staring at the mess of bottles, running clothes, bags of powders, heart rate monitors, gym bags, and generalized tri-crap on the bed. Do nothing to organize the mess in my room, but manage to stare at it a lot. Read some blogs, post some comments and send some emails.

10:00 PM -- Get me to bed. Day off tomorrow and a chance to get aero's adjusted on bike, so no need to pack a swim bag. A big bottle of water, a multivitamin, and a melatonin for sleep. Pretty face cream to stop me from looking fifty before I'm forty. And the tv remote.

Sometime after 10:20 PM -- Sleep, with Court TV or Bravo or something in the background. Probably snoring, although I can neither confirm nor deny this.


*
Btw, I have the coolest alarm clock. If you hit the snooze twice, it will snooze for 20 minutes. Four times? Forty minutes. Coolest damned alarm ever.

______________


That was fun. What are your days like?

5 comments:

Cheaper Than Therapy said...

Funny you should post this - I just started reading her blog a couple of weeks ago! And I agree, it is a very good read.

Right now, my day is something like study study eat study eat study train study study study train study study eat study sleep. Or, at least, it's pretty close :)

Jane said...

You're right - splenda and skim milk are not the same as real sugar and half and half....sigh. Just like baked chicken breast is not the same as fried chicken... I like your blog! What kind of alarm clock is that? I need one of those.

UltraMamaC said...

you eat very healthy lunches. I'm jealous and wish I found that kind of food appealing. Sigh. Another reason I'm nowhere near the *real* athletes around here -- I likes my pie and cheesecake too much.

I'm very tired now, thank you!!

Jeremy said...

Glad to hear you've taken to Balance Bars! Isn't it great how eating chocolate and caramel is guilt-free when it's associated with the words "energy" and "bar"? It's kind of like when I put the word "salad" after the word "taco"!

Dances with Corgis said...

AAAhhhhahahahahaha

I have officially fallen in love with you with the Better Off Dead quote!