blame Canada

So first things first, a big congrats to Coach Mary for a 4:59 and a great race at Pumpkinman half-ironman in Maine. Also, to Mark O. for a 12:57 at the full Rev3 Cedar Point in his first iron distance race! And there was a big sigh of relief because although Mary's husband Curt crashed into a guardrail during the Pumpkinman sprint and broke his fork, he walked away from the crash totally fine (after a nice trip to the hospital)!

Syracuse 70.3 is in 6 days. I finally had a good run yesterday! It only took 7 weeks for me to work up the motivation to do some tempo work. The athlete guide is posted, waves are posted! My bib # is 1021 and I am going off in wave 13 at 7:48 am in a light pink swim cap. Last week I didn't care about the race. I didn't care how I did. I didn't care about a Clearwater spot. I didn't even want to do it. Of course that didn't last. I still want to do well. I guess I should have made that decision 7 weeks ago and then maybe I wouldn't have half-assed my training since Placid. Oh well!

So I have been absent from blog-land for a whole bunch of days. I was invited to go camping this weekend in the 1000 Islands by Adam to meet up with 2 of his friends from Ottawa that he met while in Italy (the kid gets around apparently). Now, I like to camp. I don't love it. I have a tent and a sleeping bag, but no other camp accessories. I forgot a flashlight. I don't have an air mattress. We had to sleep on the hard dirt ground - there wasn't even grass! His friends from Ottawa were much better equipped. They had a propane stove thing, and silverware, and a whole bunch of other useful stuff.

I don't do so well with camping because it mostly involves drinking, and I am not a good drinker. If I drink fast enough to get drunk, I pass out super early. If I drink slowly, I get a headache and then I want to go to bed early because I'm tired. I just cannot stay up late. But this was fun. I learned lots of trivia about Canada! I exemplified the Canadian stereotype of Americans as idiots who know nothing about the rest of the world.

After assembling our campsite and cooking/eating dinner, we were drinking some beers/wine/Johnny Bootlegger and chatting around the campfire. And this is where I realized that I am just not interesting if you take away the whole triathlon/Ironman thing (which had to be done in this case because I was there with Adam who does much crazier races than Ironman). I am just the girl with the job that is so hard to explain that people fall asleep while I try. I am the girl who watches her favorite TV shows over and over. I am the girl who talks about her cat too much. I am the girl who does the same race that thousands of people do, and the wimpier version of other races. And yes I am loud and excitable and sort of quirky and yes I hate SUVs (which I get called out on), but have I done anything crazy? No. Have I been arrested? No. I haven't even gone anywhere interesting since 2003 when I went to Ireland.

I'm not saying that I want to get arrested..

But most of my stories are lame. I try to stay out of trouble. I like to go to bed early. I'm pretty introverted. I like structure in my life.

My most recent "story" was:

I went to Kim's house last weekend to hang out and watch a movie and we were so busy chatting that we forgot to eat dinner.

WOW I FORGOT TO EAT! OMG.. so crazy. Oh wait, no. Forgetting dinner was probably the best thing I could have done for my pre-race taper. Haha!

Anyways - I am on a mission. Look for me in the back of a police car.