Monthly Archives: July 2011

2 Mile Open Water Swim

By Posted in Swimming Tagged , , , , 31 Comments

Okay so 8ish hour drive from home to New York City=finally stalking your lives and catching up.  I’ve missed you guys.  I have passed my lovely human anatomy class and now sadly I don’t have a date with Latisha every MW night.  So sad…

Anywho-so back to my daily musings.  I’ll begin with a race recap because it’s more interesting than food.

On Saturday, I swam an open water 2 mile swim in the NYC area.  I have actually been participating in this race longer than any other races-both running and swimming.  This year was particularly brutal but still fun.

After getting to the pier, I checked in where the race official/register simply calls me Potsdam.  Since I swear he can’t remember my name and I’m the only person in the world that goes to college at Potsdam.  I arrived and he was like oh Potsdam gonna drown today?

True life. 

Anywho, after getting all my crap and getting my race number drawn on, I shot the breeze with people and waited for the ferry.   I am still extremely bitter that I’m not in the 19> age category so I can’t be race number 1.  Sadly-I was 5.

The daddykins

The race actually begins on an island in the sound, so we have to take about a 15 minute Ferry there.  But first-guess who was racing too?!

Victoria!!!

I also met Beth who is equally as awesome and a kick ass athlete. Can you guys both do all my biking (they biked 20 miles after the race…I went shopping…)

(PS: force her to make you the greatest orange chocolate cookies ever.  I ate the entire bag in the car 5 seconds after getting into it.  True life..that is why there is no photo.)

Anywho-we got to the island around 7:45 and the race started at 8:30.

I did a nice warmup of about 10 meters  Please don’t think I’m joking because it’s not.  I don’t warm up for open water swims very often.  I get used to the water and call it a day.

The buoys were so straight...

This year the temperature was 72 degrees and when I got hypothermia 2 years ago, it was 71.

So it was cold.

The race was an out and back course.  You swim out a mile-look back and think oh dear god and then come back.  At least that is what I do.

There were some crazy waves that drowned me lungs with salt water.  I feel like I got enough of that.

I’m terrible at sighting during open water swims so I normally find someone to creep on and follow them.  It normally works out well but this race I creeped on the wrong clown.  He ran straight into the 5 foot buoy.  Like legit just swam right into it.  I nearly had to stop because I was choking on salt water already and then laughing at him did not equal.  I then decided that it was 600 meters to the shore and I could find it myself.

True life.  The hardest part of the swim for me was the 10 meter dash up the beach at the end.  I kind of limped my way up there and called it a day.  One guy fell-so I didn’t feel too bad for taking it slow.

Please enjoy my uncle. He is adorbs.

I ended up getting second in my age group (ha).  I finished the 2 miler in 1:01.  This is my first year over an hour but I’m not too concerned since it was so choppy.  This race has seen me at my best and worse.

I was the top female overall 3 years back, got hypothermia 2 years ago, 1 year ago I finished pretty strong and this year I finished.  I think it just shows how mentally exhausted I am of swimming.  I love swimming, don’t get me wrong but after next college season-I’m going to take a few years off and come back another time when I’m mentally fresh. 

Now that I think about it-I have been swimming for about 15 years.  I have had a few months off now and again with my shoulder issues but I was still at the pool.  Swimming is different from so many other sports, that there really isn’t a definitive time you are “in season.”  It’s all the freaking time. I also manage a pool.  I spend 16 hours during college pool staring at a damn black lane.  I teach swimming lessons periodically.  I seriously never get away from the pool. Swimming has seen me progress and grow up but in a year it’s time for a break. 

I say that now…but I also said I would stop buying gas station coffee and I would never run.

Well enough of Sally Sappy.  I’ll have more photos later, because my aunt and uncles love taking them but these are just the ones from my camera.

Jazzy Numbering System

By Posted in Breakfast, Food, Running Tagged , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

I am alive.  (Barely)

I will catch you all up on my training/injury again soon, because I know you really want to hear about my problems and all that jazz.

First for some fabulous news…

I have progressed.  From swimming and now Arctrainering!  Wahhooo.  Remember my photo?  Well I’m one step up on the ladder of uh doom.

Second,
I have a new man.
He asked me out and now we officially dating and in love.
Just kidding.  My idiot lifeguards left me alone when I was closing and he approached me and it was not okay.  He noticed Lorraine, and said oh I see your are used to life in the fast lane.  What a great pick up line.  I don’t date men from the Cav and it was real creepy so I said he should probably leave now (he was also quite old and creeps aren’t my jive either)…
I’m a heartbreaker…

Third-

I have a date with Victoria from District Chocoloholic on Saturday doing a 2 mile open water swim!  Love it.  I’m leaving in the AM for NYC.

Here is from last year.

Fourth-

I have a new phone.  So all my texting bestfriends text me but don’t expect a text right away because it is my first touch screen phone ever.
And I am slow and not of the new age.

Fifth-

I have been getting a lot of questions in the last month or so about being prediabetic.  I kind of stray away from the topic on the blog but maybe I’ll do a post about it sometime in the future.  I have typed about half of it up and how it effects working out, restaurant choosing and whatnot but I just feel like it’s really long, boring and somewhat serious.

Sixth-to the meat of the post.  Food and whateves.

Dark chocolate+Coconut=happy boss.

Where has this bag of coconut been hiding.

T-bone steak and corn

Wow someone stop my way with words.

It counts as a farmfresh salad because there is some veggies...somewhere in there.

More gas station coffee than I budgeted for the month of August.  Coffee or clothing.  Choices in my life…

 

Wawa Coffee is the place of the week.

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Question (Statement) for you.
Catch me up on your life.

My Life Just Continues to Get Stranger

By Posted in Personal Tagged , 24 Comments

Well now.  If I were to ask you in aDuBs and I’s relationship who saves who 99.9% of the time, I would say-Anna you are the level headed intelligent one and I am the clown.  Insert some other choice words speeding down the highway to get to another airport less than an hour apart.  Long story short, to continue to series of unfortunate bad events that only happen in my life-I went to the wrong airport.  The airports are about 30 minutes apart but when you arrive at noon and your flight leaves at 1:15-you realized what happened and are the wrong airport and then hit traffic.  Well let’s just say Anna continues to save my ass.

I did get there at 1:00 to check in.  After a patdown, and the shortest security line ever, I made it to the gate at 1:12….but that flight was delayed until 2.

So after that flight took off and landed, my next flight was delayed.  I think some creepy business man was trying to hit on me while I was sitting reading your blogs on the airport.  He kept telling me about all his business adventures (I don’t even think I looked interested FYI) but when he told me he was thinking about moving to down to VA Beach to start some shipping company thing-I literally was like “Oh kewl beans.”  He stopped talking to me after that.

I guess men aren’t into that phrase…so sad.

Moving forward into where my life gets stranger.  We board the propeller plane about 2 hours late.  No big deal.  The plane seats 36 people.  Mentally I just did that multiplication because there were 9 rows and 4 seats per row.  Actually 37 because the back seat had an extra middle seat.

The flight attendant informed us the reason that the 40 minute flight was delayed for so long because the bathroom wasn’t working.

Okay.  Whatever at least we were finally going, I figured it was the AC broken because I’m sweating a storm. 

So we take off.  Before we take off (because somehow I always get to sit next to either the wheel or the propeller), I literally said to the person behind me, the wheel looks really flat (little did I know he was a pilot).

We get into the air and all of a sudden the plane is shaking (and the AC still isn’t working). Not normal shaking from clouds or normal wind turbulence, shaking like even a small child would know something isn’t right.   The pilot puts the landing gear back down…the man behind me says hmmm that is strange and not good, not good at all.  I wish I had realized he was a pilot before we were back on the ground.

5 minutes later we hear some clenching noise (my teeth perhaps…or the vice grip I have on the arm rest?) and the pilot comes onto the intercom.

“Please pardon the interruption but the plane cannot go into a higher gear and we will be downgrading and flying back to our takeoff airport.”

Its times like these I wish I didn’t drive manual cars and didn’t know what getting into gear meant.  It’s also times like these I wish I was on the ground.

That next 25 minutes (because we just about halve our speed) was the freaking scariest thing of my life.  I don’t think I can even relate to you how scary it was.  We were seriously shaking (and not getting any lower) and the plane was making some craycray noises that god knows I was not okay with.  I am a very frequent flier but this was really scary.  I had a vice grip on both arm rests and was just telling myself 5 more minutes the entire time. 

After deboarding, they said they were going to bus us over the other airport (about 2 hours away).  They had room for one other person on the 8:30 flight (it was about 6 now), but that sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.  Don’t ask me why I thought it was a good idea, but me and four other plane besties rented a car and we drove.  Yes. I do realize it was an extremely poor decision but I wasn’t stuck at the airport until 10 and then taking a bus that got to the destination around 1am.

And I am alive to recap strange things in my life.  I really do think I could write a small collection of shorts stories with the things that happen to me.

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Question for you:

What is your best plane story?  Or worst I guess.

Socially Awkward Musings in the BCs

By Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , 17 Comments

Please enjoy how socially awkward I am and why I shouldn’t stay up past 10:00pm when I’m tired.  I would edit all my awkward grunting and weird noises out but that would take away from the atmosphere I feel.  That and we all know I’m not a major in the arts.

Question for you:

Are you socially awkward…can we be besties?

Swimming and Broski

By Posted in Food, Swimming Tagged , , , , , , , , 28 Comments

I suppose I forgot to tell you before you watched my vlog, it was still me just wearing my glasses because it was early.  I don’t put in my contacts a lot in the morning unless I’m working out.  In fact, I wear my glasses often.  I like to pretend I’m intelligent sometimes.  I think it confuses people.  But anywho-

Last night we made Crockpot chicken.  I didn’t even know there was such a thing until…well now.  I personally like chicken fat (along with steak fat) so it is easy for me to scoop it all out and god knows no one else wants it and thinks I’m disgusting so it works out well.  We served it over kale, random greens, eggplant, squash and mushrooms.  So good.

After an incredible journey with Anna up north to the train station (because our lives are so fun)-I came home and went to bed.

But not without having a chat with my leg.  Oh do you think I’m joking because my I frequently do.  I asked for forgiveness to the running gods of my ostrich ways and that I would rather go back to that bird style of movement versus my penguin walking.

Well my little tendon listened to me as now I walk a little bit normally.   As normal as I am though.  It was such a big day for me seriously with that because I am not supposed to be walking this well until later in the week.

But on today!

I slept in until 8:30.  I think I finally caught up on some rest.

Now here is the only negative Nancy part of my day.  I went to the gym to see if I could do some of those elliptical (or cycle I guess…) and they all hurt my knee.  As in if I did them, I would be where I was on Saturday.  It was rather frustrating since the doctor told me those wouldn’t cause me pain.  So after I cried and got all that jazz out of the way I decided I would just come back and swim when the pool was open.   Good thing I didn’t wear makeup today.

Like I said.  I’m not going to frill it up and say that this is fun or easy  and I’m happy and having the greatest time of my life.  I’m an emotional sap and I will cry when needed. 

But during my time of waiting for open swim and since I’m an art major, I made myself a motivational poster so that I can really see where I’m trying to go.  Don’t worry…if you ever need one.  I got your back.    For me, I need to keep telling myself workout hard now will just cause me more pain later.  Would I rather be in pain now or more pain later…

But then I went for a 5000 meter swim and I felt so freaking good.  I’m currently writing this blog 30 minutes later so it’s probably why I’m in such a good mood.  I really think it might have even stretched out my tendon a little more and I can walk even better.

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Anywho more updates on my familia front.  AKA the broski.  He called home yesterday for the first time!  He gets one 5 minute phone call each Sunday.  Sad story I will miss it next week but we are letter writing and he gets his laptop.  So more communication!  Matt-you have so much catching up to do.  Just kidding!

They seem to take a lot of pictures of you enjoying yourself Matt.

Can I just sign up for the boating portion of a military academy?

Incase you wondered, in Matt’s company of 36 people…already 10 have dropped out.  Holy schmee-I guess it isn’t all fun in games.  He is a little cray cray but then again so am I.  ;)

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Question for you:

  1. Do you wear glasses?
  2. Do you ever go boating?