Case of the Mondays

Because each day at work becomes more painful than the last, I did something stupid awesome today. I counted up the days I have left to daily persuade myself not to do anything rash, like respond to one of my countless daily emails with a big screw you.

Forty Five. 45. 15x3. 9x5. I think I prefer 3x3x5. This seem like less days than the other ones.

Anyway I break it down, it is manageable. Right? I am days away from parole and I am just trying not to get shanked or shank anyone before they let me out of the big house.

I have a headache. Maybe I will be sick tomorrow and have to work from home. Really I do.

Another year of ME.

Me rolling through the camping ground at the end of my first lap at Pueblo. This part of the course was always my favorite...right before the end, hammering allowed.
Photo courtesy of Ms. Behrens.

Hi guys!

Do you notice anything different about me? Nope, not a new hair cut. Well yes, my knee is more swollen than normal, but no that is not it. Ah yes, I do look older since yesterday was my 28th birthday. Good guess.

I had a good birthday, albeit very busy. The day started early when my lovely life partner got up and made me waffles in bed. What a great guy. Unfortunately I had to rouse myself out of bed to be at work for a early meeting.

After a full and particularly crazy day at work, followed by my night psychology class, I met up with some friends at a restaurant/bar last night to have a couple of birthday drinks. I rolled into bed last night at 12:30 pm and awoke this morning feeling every bit as old as my new age.

Another year bites the dust. Looking back over the last year, I realize how many good things I have experienced. It was a tough year with my schedule of working, taking classes, taking the GRE, volunteering at the hospital, applying to school, etc etc etc., but the good news is though that I am infinitely better placed in the course of my life this year than last year. New life path coming right up.

24 HOP Race Results

Chollas are abundent on this course.

I haven't had much motivation to write about this race because I am not quite sure what to say. My #1 overall feeling is disappointment in my own performance. My #2 overall feeling is that it was a lot of fun and I wish I could have a do over.

The rock drop...where everyone watches you hoping you will wreck.

Julie comes over the rock which is right at finish with a great first lap.

Sarah comes in fast off her first lap.

My team of four women got 7th place. I can easily see that we should have gotten 4th and even possibly 3rd were it not for my shenanigans. This is a tough pill for me to swallow, because if there is one thing I hate most in the world besides losing is actually letting other people (aka my teammates) down. That being said, the other girls on my team were real rock stars particularly Julie and Lisa who threw down some damn good lap times the entire 24 hours.

The two minute summary is that I rode my hardest for my first lap and realized very early on that my strength and fitness just weren't there. I blame my swollen knee and two week hiatus from riding and hard workouts for this. I improved my time by around 6 minutes from last year, but overall I really wanted to be under a 1:30 and I failed by 2 minutes at a 1:32. In my first night lap, I felt really ill, ultimately throwing up half way through the lap followed by absolutely blowing up and riding a ridiculously slow lap that was worse than my worse lap last year. I don't know why that happened. Fitness?

I couldn't feel better after that lap and had a hard time eating or thinking of eating because I felt really nauseous. So when it came time to ride again at around 4am in the dark and cold, I allowed my punk self to punk out of riding which ultimately led to a misunderstanding which had no one from our team riding for about 2 hours. This (along with several mechanicals like 3 of us losing lights during night laps) led to us dropping from 4th to 9th place just like that. Another teammate got injured, so our two resident rock stars rode some good laps the next morning to get us back into 7th. I forced myself to ride one last lap at 10 am and during the lap, somehow started to feel a little better. Of course then the race was over.

So where does this all leave me? Well I have to say that during the tough hours of the race, I just realized how tired I am of competing injured. There is so much compensation that goes on when you compete through an injury that you will never ever be satisfied with your performance because you always feel that something is holding you back. This mental struggle has gone on since April 15th, 2006 (my original knee injury) which is a long time to be in a holding pattern athletically. Maybe it is time for healing instead of training for awhile... I just don't know.

Overall though, I had a great time racing with the Zumbala women. Our team was great, our support and camp set up was great, as was the food. I laughed a lot, met a lot of cool people, and got to be part of the great atmostphere known as the 24 Hours of Old Pueblo. And yes, it was bloody cold again.

As an aside, Sarah, my partner in crime did her first 24 hour solo and pulled out a solid 7 laps for 10th place in a really competitive solo division. It was her first >100 mile race effort. Kudos to her...she is tough. My buddies Jack and BJ also rode 12 laps in the duo for a top 25 effort.

Pueblo here I come.

Well I am getting pretty pumped to race this weekend. Live results can be seen here and I am riding with Team Zumbala in the four person women's open division.

I will try to take some pics/video of the start because it is a crazy scene with hundreds of riders running down the road. Really if you get a chance to visit 24 Hour Town, it is worth it.

I shall now work on learning by repetition:
"My knee is just okay but my heart is strong...just do it."

Just what I was hoping for.

Photo from last year's 2008 24 HOP, credit Epic Rides

Last year, I nearly froze my ass off riding around in circles in the desert at the 24 Hour of Old Pueblo. It was freakishly cold and my 3am to 5am lap involved the presence of snow which needless to say wasn't fun. I signed up again this year with the warm knowledge that we couldn't have freakishly cold weather two years in a row...it just doesn't happen in the desert.

Sigh. I was wrong.

The forecast for this year is rainy, cold (high of 50, low of 30), and generally crappy for the entire 24 hours of the race. Yes I realize that your weather is much crappier and that 30 isn't that cold, but may I remind you it was 80 here two days ago. It must be karma for all my blog comments bragging about the awesome weather.

Bring it Thor...bring it.

Deliverables

[Upon rereading this blog, I will warn you that it is really quite random and may not be at all entertaining. You have been warned.]

Hello gang. I wish I could blog something witty or funny but my creative juices are currently being ravished by something known as deliverables. Do you know what deliverables are? A deliverable as a noun, is the evil corporate term for something that needs to be finished and put to bed. Not like a child, but more like a project which is complete and removed off of a task list.

They keep telling me to deliver my deliverables, but I really want to deliver the message to them that my deliverables are not fun and I don't want to deliver anything to them other a pile of dog poop. Too crass? Probs.

I am going to give my orthopedic PA a deliverable tomorrow in our appointment which will be to magically heal my knee through modern medical miracles. If she is unable to deliver on her deliverables, I may be forced to set up a task force to acertain why the deliverable has slipped its schedule and what we can do about it.

Very shortly (end of April), I hope to complete my last deliverable which will be to scrub my brain of all corporate lingo, TLAs*, and other business related terminology to make way for memorizing each muscle and bone in the body. Sweetness. Put a memo on that TPS report.** Bam.

*TLA = Three Letter Acronym
**Office Space...where have you been living?

Friday's Photo.

Okay time to get away from my controversial posts and get back to my more boring typical post. Guess what? It's FRIDAY!!

This weekend is looking rather nice with sunny 70 degree days and the Arizona Cards in the Superbowl. Tomorrow I hope to get a nice long ride in to get ready for the 24 Hours of Old Pueblo in two weeks. My team is in the four person women's division and I am going to be the slowest lady by a mile on my team of super studs. So I am practicing my jokes so that I can at least contribute to the humor and spirit of the team even while my lap times drag us down.

Just paid my acceptance fee to PA school...woohoo! I am locked and loaded my peeps. Now I just need to make it through Organic Chem Lab, Psychology 101, and a couple more months of work. The classes seem easy, the work...lets just say painful.

I will leave you with a photo that just can't help but make you feel warm and fuzzy. This is courtesy of the livestock market in Otovala, Ecuador starring little cute boy and his sheep.

Question of the Day

Last night I was asked a question that made me think. The question was this: What do you think is unpatriotic? Well after some debate, I went with the obvious: instant coffee. But really, in all seriousness, I think that Mr. Limbaugh's comments about hoping that President Obama fails is about the most unpatriotic thing you can do. Seriously. You would hope for the country to remain in a disastrous down spiral so that you can win Rush? Go take some oxy cotton and shut up.

Along the lines of American ideals is our ability to find ways to fight back and cheat the system. I heard the most astounding concept yesterday. Here the back story.

Here in Phoenix, we have had a very badly hit real estate market. In good centrally located neighborhoods (Chandler, Tempe, Scottsdale, etc) it hasn't been as bad, but in new developments that cropped up on the outskirts of town during the big boom three years ago for example Maricopa, Arizona, things are very very bleak.

As an example, a friend's house in Maricopa which was purchased for $225,000 two years ago, is now estimated to be worth $95,000. Ridiculous. Really what is a house owner to do? They can foreclose on said house to save their butt or keep paying on a house that may never recover to what they bought it for. My friend is choosing to foreclose, take 7 years of bad credit and move on with his life. These aren't bad financially irresponsible people, just people who are in an untenuable situation.

Then last night, I learned of the inguenity of the American people in this brilliant way of sticking it back to the man. A couple who had purchased a house in Maricopa found the perfect solution to this situation. The couple who are still very much happily married are going to go get a divorce. The mortgage is fully in the husband's name and as such will become his property in the divorce. He will then stop all payments and foreclose on the house killing his credit. His then ex-wife whose credit score will remained untouched will then purchase the same house from the foreclosure bank for a much much lower price than it was at previously. She buys the house, they get remarried and voila, they are back in business. As amazing as this story is, I think it could actually work in the right situation.

Is this amazing, idiotic, or ethically wrong? I am interested in hearing people's opinions. I for one think that while definitely ethically questionable, is one of the reasons that we as a public will make it in the end. Essentially, we are fighters and will take a lot to be taken down. What think u?

Today's Feelings..sorry.

Just in case anyone cares, yesterday's count for the BMI (bathroom mystery investigation) was dark stall: unflushed 2x and half light stall: flushed 2x. So we are still seeing the systematic odd behavior symptoms associated with darkened stalls and memory loss. Interesting.

In other news, we no longer have cable television but with youtube and Hulu's new HD streaming options, there has been no halt in watching essentials like whether Hillary Swank is hot or not on The Office. My vote is def. hot. Come on people, just cause she is muscular and atheletic and interesting looking, doesn't mean she isn't hot.

In other other news, my knee sucks.

It is a topic I have avoided bitching about because I haven't had the time or mental capacity to face the fact that that 1) There is still something wrong with it that may require fixing and 2) I just may have to live with how my knee is now.

A quick synopisis of my frustration. Swelling and/or Pain. Everything I do causes swelling and/or pain. Basically, I don't feel it when biking (although I do swell after I stop), but all running, cutting, and jumping activities cause immediate pain and delayed swelling which basically forces me to do nothing for 2 or 3 days until I can bend it again. I took a break from adventure racing to give my knee more time to heal because the running hurt. I am now worse than I was 4 months ago. I am trying to start playing ultimate frisbee league in about a month and when I go to practice, I make it about 1 hour before pain and limping forces me off the field.

I am not sure what to do at this point. I either need to give up on doing athletic things that require me to move faster than a walk or move without two wheels beneath me or I need to return to a Ortho Doc, get a new prescription for p.t. and shell out more money for a therapist to tell me to take it slow and give myself time. Is a year not enough time (12 months since surgery in Feb)?

Is this due to removing the meniscus (40% wacked in my last surgery)? Is is due to having two consecutive complete ACL reconstructions/meniscus repairs in 3 years? Is this all just part of the healing? Or is there actually something wrong with my knee and/or nerves in my knee that is preventing me from healing completely and causing massive swelling when I push it at all. Should I push through the swelling and pain that may be necessary before I retrain my knee to take pounding? I will say that waiting till it gets better and doesn't hurt isn't really working.

With my upcoming school program which will consume all my time, maybe I won't even care that I now feel like I have an 87 year old knee. Ya think? Thank you for listening to my feelings of which I have many.

A great mystery of life from the bathroom.

So I noticed something weird at work today. There seems to be a direct correlation between light in a bathroom stall and flushing the toilet. Random? Yes. True? Right on.

So due to our recent economic collapse and the subsequent tightening of budget, the bathrooms at my work have started turning off one of the two lights over the three stalls. That leaves one dark stall, one half dark stall, and one light stall.

Never fail, the dark stall (which is the closest to the door) is never flushed. I find this weird because you would think in an educated place with educated people, they would flush the toilet. The half dark stall is periodically not flushed, but mostly seems butt gasket free (the thing you sit on). The light stall is always always flushed as should be in a public restroom. It is so weird. Do people in the dark forget to flush because they can't see the toilet as clearly? I don't feel like lighting should matter in this situation, but I am proven wrong again and again.

Any thoughts? This is keeping me up at night people.