Back in action

First off, thanks for the mad love everybody in celebrating my Racine race, and in encouraging my mom. What was it Megan said about being part of this bloggitosphere? An honest-to-god honor. True dat.

How I spent my week (well, 5 days anyway) off:

• My exercise consisted of evening walks with Dakota and the dogs. Period.

• I limped around some. Amy said, "why are you limping?" I said, "Because I'm getting old, and nothing heals fast anymore!"

• I indulged in way more Culver's than is appropriate. This included several custardy confections, but also 9/10ths of an entire family order of cheese curds by myself. Steve would be proud. Then again, I didn't eat all of that the night before a race, so he wouldn't be that proud.

• I watched 3 movies. Only one of which is really any good. In case you care, 21 is just meh, Shutter is awful, and In Bruges is much better than the marketing materials suggest.

• Oh, very quickly while I mention movies, if you haven't seen The Dark Knight, do. It's a pretty amazing piece of movie. No superhero geekery required. Just a really excellent film.

• And while we're on the topic, see Wall-E too. Fantastic. Okay, moving on.

• Pizza Pit delivered 2 boxes of french fries, a pound of boneless drummies, and an order or 4 breadsticks to my house. For us to share. Right. Share.

• Ironman woke up. Like, really loudly and suddenly - having this season's A race no longer on my radar, I suddenly became very excited for Ironman '09. Which starts by getting really excited for Ironman '08, even if it means I'm just volunteering. It's like Christmastime or something - a whole season that I just thoroughly love being around. Can't wait for Ironman Village to go up again at the Terrace, to see all the athletes nervously readying, to just feel the energy again. Awesome.

• I took 2 spacers off my headset, to get my cockpit on the bike lower in attempts to develop as aero a position as I can. I'm not sure how much that lowered the cockpit - an inch? Less, I think? - but it required stopping every few minutes on my ride yesterday to adjust the seat position, adjust the aerobars, etc, so it's really a whole new experience on the bike - and I'm not done tweaking yet. I'll ride like this for awhile, see how it goes, then remove a few more spacers to see how low I can go.

• I went for a 5 mile run on Saturday, officially ending my hiatus. It went okay. A little slow. The bike went a little slow too. I chalk it up to a bit of lasting fatigue from the Half Iron.

• I started to get a plan for the rest of my season, and even into next season (because that's how I roll.) The game shifts now for a 10 week intensive focus on marathon training, where, like everything else this season, I hope to race the distance for the first time, and not just survive it. I'd like to go sub 4-hours. I don't know if this is possible, we'll see. We'll see where my training gets me in the next 2 months, and I'll get a clearer picture from that. In the days just after Racine, I thought I'd mostly just focus on running the rest of the summer, but I just love triathlon too much to do that. So I'll be looking for some small local sprint distance races throughout the rest of the summer and early fall, to keep cross training healthy, to have a reason to stay on the bike that I love, and to continue to try and develop that aero position and see where it gets me in races. I'm also signing up for a local 5k or two, and maybe a 10k here and there. As my running fitness improves with marathon training, these shorter running races should be a lot of fun.

• Could somebody clue me in on Chisago Lakes Half Iron? Pharmie or Steve? Anybody? I'm looking for a Half Iron next season, no later than first week of August, with a bike course that's a bit challenging and a run that's not on grass or trails. Anybody have any ideas?

• I ordered some new Newtons. Not the dog. The shoes. They're kind of my secret weapon.

• I got restless, and fired up for the rest of the season. I generally have a sense of fatigue after my A race - not physical, but mental, like I'm ready for a break now. I don't know if it's because I had, like, no season last year for the injury, or if my "train smart, not hard" has kept any kind of burnout at bay, but I'm still very fresh. Ready to attack marathon training, and loving it if I can plug a race here or there into the schedule as desired.

That's all from me - shouting out and sending positive goodness to all my peeps rocking Steelhead this weekend!