Blustery days are good days to be sick...

Of course, I'm not smart enough to not try to go out and go run in the weather, furthering my crappiness feeling, and making me spend the rest of the day on the couch. But it's oh-so-cozy to sit curled up under a fuzzy blanket with hot tea while the wind goes crazy outside. I even learned something whilst on the couch: Kit Carson isn't just the name of a park in ABQ. He was a frontiersman and instrumental in "conquering" the wild wild west. He had two wives in his lifetime, one Native American and one Spaniard (not at the same time) and was multilingual without being literate. He was also instrumental in the Navajo Death March to the Bosque Redondo in NM, and was exploited (in my opinion) by the US Army for his knowledge of the language and culture of the Native Americans in order to control and move and to ultimately destroy the livelihoods and homes of the Native Americans, killing thousands. In order to "civilize" the west. The history of the good old USA is a bloody one, that's for sure.
Happy conquering.

Windy!

Here in Flatlands USA there's wind (surprise, surprise!). My ride yesterday was not terribly long, 3 hours, but the vast majority of it was into the headwind. I think the weather said that we had like 30 mph winds...so needless to say it was super slow one direction, and FAST the other direction. On the way back (I very smartly rode first into the wind, then turned around hehe) I was cruising quite fast, I didn't have a computer on my bike, and as soon as I started coasting I could feel the wind coming from behind, meaning it was still going faster than I was. So cool! Mostly because it was a great way to end a ride :)
My weekend overall was a bit lacking because Casey literally did homework ALL weekend. Boo to that. I'm always impressed that he can just keep working like that, though. I would have had a breakdown long before him. I'm just not that good at doing stuff I don't get, don't like, and don't care to.
Which is why I'm not doing it.
On the other hand, I'm stoked to start my official base work for next season, all in prep for 70.3 New Orleans in April, especially once I get over my cold (that I'm totally blaming Casey for) that hit me last night. Sniff.

FIT Time Trial

So I know this is a few days late (as in like 5 days) but somehow time just seems to get away from me. Saturday I went and watched the Fighting Illini Triathlon Team do a time trial of sprint/Olympic distance triathlon. The swim was in the pool, transition was out the nearest door, bike was out on the road, and the run was somewhere in the opposite direction of the bike direction (I didn't do it so I barely glanced at the courses). I just went to play with my camera. There was only a small handful of people doing the race, maybe 10? And of those I think 4 started the Olympic distance, while one flatted out of it. The swim start was at promptly 11:10 a.m....

...and continued for either 500 yards (maybe it was 750 or 800, I don't remember) or for 1650 yards, depending on the distance chosen...Then the transition zone was pretty informal. Especially since one of those not racing decided to "help" one of the guys who was by tinkering with his T1 setup:
Pool to T1:T1:
Out to the bike!While everyone was out on course, there was a floor show by the shirtless wonders...
I swear, any chance these guys get they're either A) shirtless B) in a speedo or C) both. And then there were the pictures that were simply taken for entertainment. There are a lot more racing pictures, too. A few are below, and more are on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aubrey_b-p/

I'll get out for a run here when Chuck and Kory are done installing our new front window...yippee!!

Happy Thursday!!

I'm Glad the Weekend is Over

Which is weird, I know. It's not a normal thing. Saturday was fun, we went mountain biking (and then spending the afternoon in the kitchen was cool too), but Sunday was, well, just weird. We woke up late, which is supposed to be nice, but to me it feels like I've wasted all day when I don't wake up till 9. I'm used to being out the door by 5:15 during the week, so my sleep in time used to be anytime past 6, and which usually fell sometime around 7. Which still left the vast majority of the morning to feel like I've gotten something done before the day was half over. Sleeping till 9 just doesn't do that. So Sunday I slept in late, took like two hours to get breakfast, which included another attempt at GF pancakes (and they came out pretty darn good, thank you very much), then laying on the couch for another few hours reading a Nora Roberts novel. It was a LOT of lying around and took most of the day. Thought briefly about going for a run/bike/swim/anything and didn't do it. It is my break time, after all. Then, whilst Casey was being productive in his way with homework and laundry, the dryer broke. Again. It faked us out before, but somehow managed a few more loads then quit again. We proceeded to disassemble the thing, thinking that maybe something was blocking the drum from spinning, only to find a whole bunch of lint. My nose is still plugged up from it, too. After some "diagnostics" which really was just cleaning out the darn thing and seeing if the motor worked with the load removed, we realized that it was in fact the motor that was dying. I began the task of figuring out how to take the dang thing out, and Casey went back to homework. I learned that if the fan and the motor of the dryer are "married" long enough, they will NOT come apart. So Casey came back and destroyed the fan so the motor would come out. Now after some searching, I realized that the most expensive component of the dryer to die happens to be the motor itself. Awesome. We did, however manage to find an awesome site that we could find a motor, fan, drum seal (because the old one has disintegrated completely), and belt for $103. Which is less than Sears wanted for just the motor at ~$110. Take THAT Sears. Now we'll be totally set if I can put it back together.

Got a bunch of strength/speed/etc testing planned for this week. After that, I guess I gotta get down and set up the plan for the 1/2 IM I'm gonna do in the spring. At least it looks I'll be able to go visit NM in January and possibly get some serious mileage in down there, on dry and warmer roads. And maybe some hills too! I'm really missing my old training groups at the moment, and definately the mountains, but that's ok. The weather here has been pretty good so far.

Call them Chimlirellenos!

So since leaving NM I've craved numerous items featuring the green/red chile that is so common (and OH so good!) in NM. The closest thing I've found here is the poblano chile, which is, to me, not even the same, but I found these yummies at the Urbana Farmer's Market for 5 for $2, and decided a relleno attempt would be good. Which was tonight. Now I can't have gluten so the batter was going to be different than traditional, and in this case it ended up being corn. It was kind of some of this...some of that...little more of this...ended up with 2 cups (??) worth of masa mixed with three eggs and enough milk to make it kinda runny. Filled the peppers with shredded chicken (not a traditional relleno, at that point, more like a chimichanga), jack cheese, then covered them in the batter and fried them.
They were dense, and I mean super dense. One filled me up along with the random Spanish rice I made for the side. And I made one MELL OF A HESS!! Casey was sweet and helped me clean up (OK more like cleaned up for me while I floated and tried to help with the gimpy thumb that I burned the crap out of trying to fry stuff).

But it turned out good. And there's three left :)

Two cool things(I'm sure having fun with lists lately):

1. Found a cycling group that rides through the winter here: www.wildcardcycling.org. Casey did an informal cross race with them last night, so I went running where they were riding and chatted with the Manager of the group. Only downside: I'd be the only girl. Sigh. I'll take what I can get though.
   
2. Successful gluten-free pancakes!! Up until this time, they've been more like pancake mush...

Yeah...

I haven't been very good at updating. I want to say it's because I've been busy, but I guess that's not really an excuse lately. Mentally busy then? I have been doing a lot of pondering. I by a lot I mean a LOT. Still thinking some things over too. What I have decided:

1. I WILL be an elite by the end of next season, if not sooner. This means a rough winter, as I'm starting a 40 hour job here somewhat soon, it however only runs for 8-10 weeks. So I can suck it up for that long. But it's November thru January-ish, so training is going to be in the dark and in the cold...yippee. I'm taking this year off school/career/whatever isn't conducive to training so that I can do this. So I'm gonna do it.
   
2. I am not going to stress over whatever anyone else may or may not think about me. This seems obvious, but I do it a lot. Ahem, ok, USED to do it a lot. It tends to really mess with your head when you do that.
   
3. I am going to get on the making jewelry thing that I've thought about doing for, um, 8 years now? I've seriously have been making jewelry for a really long time, I just never have done anything with it. This will give me an outlet without the accumulation.

Things I'm not sure about:

1. Should I take the GRE? The deadline for the paper test is this week, so I gotta decide soon. But the thing is I'm not considering grad school at the moment, and I don't see that taking it would do much more than keep that door open for the next year. But if I'm not even considering grad school then there's no point in taking the test until I am considering it. Right?
2. Should I pay for yogatoday classes? Ok that one sounds silly now, but I'm on a tight budget and even though it's only $10 a month, it's another $10 out the door. But yoga on my own usually consists of a few sun salutations, stretching my hips and calling it good. And it's not enough and I know that. So classes push me, and that's a good thing. But it's money.
   

There's more to the list, but sitting here makes me realize that maybe I do have more of a grasp on things than maybe I thought I did.

I'm getting used to riding among the corn and the flat here. The wind doesn't bother me. I am from Albuquerque, after all. That place is more windy than I've seen here. You give me 20 mph winds and I laugh. Give me the 40 mph winds with 60 mph gusts that I'm used to! Bring it! Now the cold is something I'm going to have to get used to I'm sure...