Running Shorts

Are you a mother? Someone's child?

24 hours worth of mothering in 2 minutes 55 seconds-set to music

This is hysterical.  My mother agrees.  Worth a listen or three.

Professional? Who? What? Me?

Today was possibly the most productive day of my entire life.  I didn't do schoolwork but instead worked on my different projects and jobs all day.  I'm excited because I'm starting to be able to actually contribute to the world!!  I've been in school for a while, which I love, but there is just something about working for real people on real issues that is more meaningful than staying up all night working on a memo about pretend clients.  I feel excited about what I'm working on now and think I've found some niches that suit me well as well as some young lawyers that challenge me and believe I have something to contribute.  It's cool b/c I feel like I'm finally doing stuff instead of just waiting to learn more to be ready at a distant point in the future.

I like what I do.

[i must save this entry to reread on days when i do NOT like what i do b/c i know there will be those too...]

On a nerdy note b/c I know some lawyers read this...Justice Scalia spoke at Georgetown Law Center and signed a student's laptop and the student is telling people Scalia blessed it for finals.

My mom left.  But she'll be back on Sunday.  We like spending time together!!  Well, she's really coming back to go to the doctor, but I will at least have the chance to try once more to drive her to our restaurant of choice.  I am now 1/4 for getting to our actual Boston restaurant destinations!!  We always end up eating somewhere else b/c I get lost.  Good thing I don't work on transportation issues...can we say zero credibility?

I need a red bathing suit

NOW I'm limping.  Sports massage.  Exclusively on hamstring and calf.  It was not a good kind of hurt. Apparently in my ignorance I was imagining scar tissue ripping apart each morning.  I was informed my various muscles are scar tissue free, but, rather, have spasms and are clenched up, which is exacerbated in the mornings when I get up without moving all night.  Hopefully the pain today is in successful pursuit of less pain in a couple of days.

One tip I found out are that since the "massage" (which has hugely different connotations for athletes than other people-this was not a warm and fuzzy Swedish deal) beats up your muscles you should try and schedule your workouts so that you run earlier in the day and not following the massage.

Mom and I are swimming later.  I swim for shorter than her (me, 25 minutes, her, 60 minutes) so I'll bring some school books with me.  The pool in my building doesn't have a lifeguard and she doesn't like to swim alone (can't say I blame her) so I am going to be the lifeguard!

Team bonding

On my lunch hour I like to approach random undergrad men in the cafeteria.  I passed some guy wearing the same triathlon shirt I have, a USAT trendy bag, and an Ironman hat and I thought, um, yeah, I need to get him on our school's triathlon team.  So I approached him and started babbling...hi, audrey, triathlon team...wait, Mike???  You look so different.  I was staring at one of my triathlon teammates who had shaved his beard off for IM Florida.  He was unrecognizable (it was a big beard).  But he was just staring at me.  Audrey.  Teammates.  Remember me?  I wanted to yell, HELLO, YOU FACEBOOK FRIENDED ME LAST NIGHT, but that's not really playing it cool, so I just starting talking more about triathlon stuff and noted-so, yeah, since you're already on the team...that's great...ummm, no need to join then.  And then I retreated to do my reading for class.

My team is clearly pretty tight.

I just had dinner with my mom.  I did a core workout this morning.  Tomorrow is my sports massage so that when I wake up in the mornings the scar tissue that formed in my hamstring the previous night doesn't rip apart.  It's not too painful, just generally pretty gross.

[Pause]

I'll be back blogging December 1.  In the interim I will be healing up my calf (grow together muscle fibers...grow!!), hosting my mom up in Boston, and swimming and mountain biking in lieu of running.  I may not go to my spin class tomorrow night though to A) rest my calf and B) avoid talking to extra people.  I am feeling particularly anti-social.

I want to start 08 all healed and healthy and I think 4 days of relative rest will do the trick.

Welcome to the pity party!!!!

My day was bad for a variety of reasons-including having to wear oven mitts to straighten my hair b/c my straightener broke.  Not to worry, I will not be detailing in excruciating, Audrey-esque detail the misery that was this Monday.  Blah.  On a positive note, I did get a good school locker.

The dog ate my homework

My Dad and I ran on K's home cross-country course this morning at 8 AM.  5k.  22 degrees.  Frosty grass.  Good times.

I have been gluten-free for 15.5 hours and I feel great!!  I do actually feel great, but I would not attribute it to a lack of gluten at this juncture since I've definitely gone more than 15 hours without gluten before.  :)  Also, I was thinking about how often I've overhauled my diet in the past 7 years:

Age 20:  out of necessity, since i was no longer growing and no longer playing soccer 2.5 hours a day, started eating normal portions of food for the first time and watching what I ate
Age 22:  got on my athlete/public health kick and started eating wheat bread, yogurt, fruit, vegetables
Age 26:  IBS diet which for me was very austere with lots of bread-but definitely no wheat bread
Age 27:  no gluten, which means, among other things, no "normal" bread at all

I have to relearn food AGAIN.  It's kind of ridiculous people!!

It also occurred to me that there are few reasons one of the women soccer alum would be in town, at the alumni soccer game, and not playing in said game, with the leading reason being:  pregnancy.  As you can imagine, it's pretty common among us and little kids even show up at the games once their moms are back on the field.  As I had such a weird reason for not playing..."well, I might get hurt b/c I'm a triathlete"...ummm, yeah...I hope no one thinks I'm pregnant!

Triathlon babblings

Post Thanksgiving dinner, after a couple glasses of wine, the kids in my family all decided they wanted to do a triathlon.  Here is the breakdown:

Audrey: The whole thing
S (25 y/o brother):  Bike relay team member
J (21 y/o sister):  Swim relay team member
K (16 y/o brother):  Run relay team member

It actually works out perfectly.  K is the cross-country runner, S has always liked to bike (and can't run a lot b/c of a knee ACL injury and reconstruction), and J used to be a swim instructor (and can't run a lot b/c of an ankle injury that involves some chronically loose ligaments).  And I wanted to do the whole thing myself (real team player, huh?!)

Because of our schedules we can't do the tri until September 2008 which is SOOO far away.  But we did find a sprint tri in NJ in which (we didn't pick it for this reason!) the relay team members are going to try and win the whole relay division and I will probably be competitive as well in my age group.  However, I offered, in fact, pleaded, with my mom and dad to be on a team with me (me biking, dad running, mom swimming) so we could be a second team of three.  I don't think they're interested.  I told my mom she has to be ready for the swim though-my sister needs an understudy in case she has school or something!

Also, seeking some new tri blogs to read?  The tri-blogger alliance has been updated (see right side of linked screen-you can pick blogs by state).

How to spend my remaining youthful sports years?

Choices were made.  I went to my HS alumni soccer game in jeans and a sweater with straightened hair.  I've been a regular at the game-as a player-for the last 8 years.  However, for the past few years...oh, about as long as I've been an endurance athlete...I've gotten hurt during the yearly games and was forced to takes weeks or more off from my training after each of the most recent games.  I can't sprint anymore!  My muscles are all tight from long distances so I usually pull something and one year I got hurt kicking the ball.  Something pulled/ripped in my quad.  So this year I chose triathlon and I didn't play.  My dad said, "You're not even old!"  My coach said, "I never thought you would stop playing!"  Feeling sheepish, I watched the game.  It wasn't nearly as much fun as being on the field.

Then I went to my coaches good-bye/thank you party.  He retired after 30 extremely accomplished years of coaching.  I looked at the scrapbook we put together for him which was an insane flash back to the past.

This morning was a group family trip to the gym.  I swam for the first time in a couple of months (I promised myself I could take two months off and then start again after Thanksgiving) [and this was not as fun as soccer], and my sister and Dad lifted.  Then I shot baskets for a few minutes with my Dad.  We're awful!

To return to the subject of putting soccer to rest, I've also been getting e-mails from leagues in Boston seeking female players and invitations from old club teammates.  I declined them....in pursuit of triathlon.  Maybe next winter and spring I'll forgo triathlon in favor of soccer?  I can't imagine giving it up forever.  But I know from experience (I get hurt in adult club leagues too) that I can't train for triathlons or running and play soccer at the same time.  For me, it is an either or choice.

Turkey Trot

 

K (21:09)
A (25:09)
D (27:30)