firework

do you ever feel like a plastic bag
drifting through the wind
wanting to start again

do you ever feel so paper thin
like a house of cards
one blow from caving in

do you ever feel already buried deep
six feet under, scream
but no one seems to hear a thing

do you know that there's still a chance for you
cause there's a spark in you

you just gotta ignite the light
and let it shine
just own the night
like the Fourth of July

cause baby you're a firework

I apologize for quoting Katy Perry (hey, at least it's not Ke$ha. or Beiber.). But I think the song has some major truth to it (and also I happen to lurve it). It always manages to make me feel good about myself and happy with my life. That no matter what happens or what you do, you just have to own it and be confident.

Anywho..

I'm sort of bummin' this week. I shouldn't be because I have a sweet new apartment with some sweet new furniture (thanks to mom & dad for that 2nd one!), but I am also recovering from this sickness and it seems to be taking FOREVER. After my 1 hour trainer ride today I coughed for what felt like 20 minutes. I was surprised to NOT see my lungs sitting down by my feet when I finally stopped hacking. Then I ran for 30 minutes (instead of 45) because I was worried I was going to start hacking again (exertion + cold air seems to trigger this - which did not make moving day very much fun AT ALL). On a good note - both workouts felt pretty good (minus the hacking of course).

 I also really want to finish unpacking but have been unable to do so due to several things. I am working evenings which means I have trouble getting up early. I have to fit these workouts in during the morning hours which doesn't leave me a lot of time before I have to get ready for work. And all my extra time this week is going towards cleaning up the old apartment so I can hopefully get my security deposit back. Saturday I should be able to finish the unpacking so that I will be able to find things.. such as pants, that are currently hidden away somewhere!

The new apartment is MUCH quieter than the old apartment. And there is no squirrel. However, there is an upstairs neighbor who I hear walking around and rolling around in bed (I really just don't want to know what he's doing up there). But this is made up for by having an actual bathtub, a dishwasher, my own private mailbox, the ability to regulate the temperature of the entire apartment, blinds that block the sunlight, no smell of lingering weed, a faucet that runs the correct temperature of water, and a parking lot that actual guests can use.. must I go on?

Once I feel better I will be good to go!

back from the dead

Hello blogland, I am alive. I haven't posted or even commented on anyone else's posts in over a week.

Reasons???

I have had the plague strep throat for the past week AND I moved to a new apartment this weekend. Between these two things I have had no time, energy, or motivation to post. When I wasn't packing, moving, or unpacking, I was lying in bed feeling miserable. I was definitely NOT training. I did keep up with reading blog posts though.. on my iphone.. while lying in bed. :)

The plague started on Tuesday. I was working C-shift last week and I woke up from my daytime sleep and felt like crap. I thought I had the flu because the sickness hit me so suddenly! I ended up calling in sick on both Wed. and Thurs. and I already had Friday off (vacation day to give me more time to pack). So now it's not even the end of February and I've used 3 of my 5 sick days up. Wonderful.

Friday I was feeling a bit better so I told my parents to go ahead and come to Rochester for the weekend (they were moving me with their truck). Unfortunately, I did not feel so hot on Saturday, but with the help of my parents and my friends Rae and Greg, we got the remainder of my stuff moved to my new place. Saturday was the worst moving day EVER - high winds, snows, bad driving conditions - but we made it through. We set up my bed and put together one piece of IKEA furniture and then my parents left to eat dinner (by this point I had had no appetite for 4 days) and I went to bed.. couldn't sleep due to a burning sore throat - which is when I decided to go to urgent care in the morning. I had thought that I either had a really bad cold or possibly the flu, but the sore throat was just getting worse and worse every day and I was getting really concerned.

I got to urgent care early - before it opened - and was in an out in under an hour. The doc did a rapid strep test which came back positive, so he sent me off with a prescription for a wonderful 10 day antibiotic which I am now on day 3 of. I am no longer contagious, but my throat is still a bit sore, my voice is hoarse, and I am still coughing whenever I exert myself.

Sunday and Monday were spent unpacking, putting together furniture, getting a new couch, getting some final supplies for the new apartment (curtains and bathroom stuff) and then getting the rest of the stuff out of the old apartment. My parents headed back home on Monday afternoon after my friend Ari helped us get my old couch and chair into their truck.

Missed workouts? There are a TON. I missed Wednesday and Thursday totally, did a pathetic hour on the bike on Friday (the day I was feeling more normal) and then missed Saturday and Sunday. After basically a lost week.. I am trying to resume my normal schedule. Today I had to bag a swim halfway through due to a coughing fit.

It is taking every fiber of my being to NOT think about all of the fitness I have lost.

All I can do now is try to get back to where I was.

As for the new apartment.. I am loving it. Everything is set up and there is just a little bit of stuff that I still have to put away. I only need a little more time at the old apartment to finish cleaning and then I can get the new place cleaned up and will have photos galore!

I heart my iPhone

So, in honor of the impending and ever-dreaded Valentine's Day, I have traded in my quest to find a husband  boyfriend  Valentine or any guy that will take me out  talk to me  glance in my direction  acknowledge my existence - for an iPhone.

My iPhone lets me talk to the people in my life that like me, it lets me stay connected and up to date with the Train-This google group and my facebook friends, I will never get lost while driving or cycling again because of its GPS, it's reliable, entertaining, cool-looking, has a pretty sweet case, takes photos, and as a bonus, it vibrates!

Just kidding. That's gross.

In all seriousness, my iPhone is DEFINITELY awesome. Any doubts that I had about the cost of the phone or the plan evaporated when I actually got it on Monday. I had it shipped to Kim and she brought it to yoga to give to me. Once I got home from yoga I pulled it out of the packaging and had it loaded with my contacts, apps, some music, photos, and had it up and running in an hour. I added custom ringtones to it on Tuesday (now, if you call me, I will be alerted by Paul Simon singing "You Can Call Me Al").

For all the people out there saying how much slower the Verizon 3G network is than AT&Ts, I expected webpage loading time to be super slow. It's not. I haven't tried to do anything like stream a movie on Netflix; although I'm sure I will play with that at some point. I'm still fascinated by texting on it, because it displays your conversation like an ichat screen! I can even get bars for the 3G network at work. With my old phone, which was on the regular, non-3G network (whatever that is.. 2G??) I could barely even get a signal at work and sometimes calls to my phone would just go straight to voicemail.

So, Happy Valentine's Day to my iPhone. I don't suppose it has an app that will buy and deliver flowers to me? Or snuggle with me so I'm not left to my own devices (snuggling with a giant stuffed unicorn). The iPhone had better prove its worth in other departments - because these days it may actually have some V-day competition (not from any man - or any living, breathing human being even), but from one of the following: my kindle, my lululemon yoga pants, my cervelo, or my cat.

At least the cat snuggles!

swimming, my eyeball, etc.

I have managed to surprise myself, yet again, in my swim test. So far my best 400 yd swim time was back in December, I think? I swam a 5:58. That was the first time I ever broke 6 mins for a swim test.

On Tuesday, things got even better.

5:49.

Yup. 9 seconds faster.

I am going to SWIM MY ASS OFF this year at every race that I do.

I am not a fish just yet. I don't know what kind of 400 yd time I would need to qualify for that sort of status. But I am getting faster. A LOT faster. I think I will eventually earn my gills.

So I am psyched about that..

At work tonight (currently it's 4:19 am on Thursday) I went to the bathroom and while I was washing my hands I noticed that my left eyeball was super red and bloodshot on the "outer side." Lately, when I have worn a contact in that eye (which I only do when I am working out or at yoga) it has been irritating me, but I have trouble with contacts in general and I figured it was just time to throw the old pair away and open a new pair.

What did I do? Normally I would ask my mom. But since it's not even 4:30 am and absolutely nobody is awake.. I am stuck. Instead, I emailed Mary and asked her for her opinion. She gets up at the asscrack of dawn an early hour AND she's a nurse so I figured maybe she will have an idea. Because I'm not sure if I should go to the doctor, an optometrist, or just wait it out. My eye doesn't itch or bother me at all - only when I am wearing contacts.

I haven't had "pink eye" in probably 20 years. Doesn't pink eye itch? I might be freaking out a little bit right now.

Way to ruin my rest week, eyeball.

weekly report

Rest week = nirvana for an Ironman. At least me. I'm not one of those people that despises rest weeks. I love them! After a REALLY solid 3 weeks of training, I hurt, I'm tired, AND I'm on overnights. A rest week sounds perfect right now, and I get one!

I tend to not do a "weekly report" because I doubt anyone cares. But I had a really good week training-wise so..

Some training highlights of this past week:

• I did a 3 hour trainer ride with Kim on Saturday morning which was probably the best trainer ride I've ever had. Apparently, having company REALLY helps! And I love Kim. And she supplied Cokes for us when we started to get tired. And she made me lunch. It was totally worth the pain-in-the-butt-ness of taking my bike and my trainer over to her apartment.
• I ran for 80 minutes Sunday morning which was rough. Anything over an hour is still pretty tough for me. This is starting to get frustrating. I try to be patient but I am first and foremost, a runner, and it's not normal for me to struggle with running like this. I am dying for it to be April so that my feet and legs don't get drenched with slush that is thrown off of passing cars and so that I can run without wearing 15 layers. I want my legs to feel the air again!
• I am LOVING the swim sets that Mary has been giving me. Lots of yardage, lots of longish repeats (800s, 500s). Less drilling. :)
• I had a 15+ hour week again this week. I know that hours are irrelevant, but I still feel pretty badass doing 15 hour weeks in early February.

News for this upcoming week:

• I should get my bonus check this week!
• My iphone should arrive at Kim's house TODAY!!!!
• Today (Monday - I get confused when I'm working nights) is a total rest day! I plan to sleep once I get home,  hopefully go get my iphone, play with my iphone, and then go to yoga.
• I have a swim test on Tuesday. I'm a little nervous considering I destroyed my last swim test. I worry that I won't be able to top it.
• I started reading "The Hunger Games" at the urging of Matt Curbeau. Can't. stop. reading.
• I get the keys to my apartment on Wed. Let the moving begin!

You can check out some updates to my blog on the right: a Train-This logo that links directly to the web page, and a coupon for a discount on Crankskins (check the website out if you're curious) that I put up at my friend Mark's request. That's all for now. Hopefully I will be able to come up with something more interesting to blog about in the near future!

snow day!

Yesterday, (after the busiest day of work at this job that I have been at for a year now) I was walking to my car at about 6 pm after finishing up my swim at the gym, and my phone started ringing. My phone has been ringing off the hook lately (due to my apparent popularity, hah) and I saw that it was my supervisor calling me.

Oh shit.

I answered.

Hello?

Mr. Boss Man: Alexa, I have some bad news for you.

*Oh shit. What did I do? I must have made a mistake. Am I going to get fired? Maybe something happened and I need to cover someone's shift. I don't want to go back into work tonight!*


What's up?


Mr. Boss Man: Well, it turns out they don't want to keep the factory running tomorrow in case we really do get hammered with snow because if people can't make it in, we'll end up with a lot of waste. So we're shutting down tomorrow. So you don't need to come in.


WHAT? (This has never happened before that I've ever heard of).


Mr. Boss Man: I know you're upset. I tried to fight it. (chuckles). But the corporate guys made the call. Enjoy your day off.


WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


So to celebrate, I bought a bottle of wine, then got home and realized that I had thrown my corkscrew away. I stayed up late reading instead. Today I slept in til 8:30 am and all I have on the agenda are some workouts to do and some cleaning. Oh yeah, and we only got like 4" of snow. I am embarrassed for the city of Rochester right now because everyone was FREAKING OUT about this alleged "snowstorm of the century!"

ironphone

The unthinkable is happening.. Verizon Wireless is finally getting the iphone! As a self-proclaimed Apple fan (I have a macbook and 3 ipods) and gadget-lover in general, I bet you can imagine how excited I am!

Pre-ordering the iphone starts at 3 am on Thursday. At yoga last night, Mary says "You don't get up at 3 am to order a stupid iphone. That's only for Ironman!" Mary hates the iphone. (Mary is crazy). For the record, I am getting up at 2:45 am.

I didn't get up at 3 am to register for Ironman. Oh wait.. I actually got up at 1 am to drive 6 hours to wait in line for 6 hours to register for Ironman Lake Placid.. and then drove 6 hours back home. But you know what would have helped to pass the time while sitting on a curb for 6 hours? AN IPHONE!!

I anticipate that this will be like online registration for IM Wisconsin.. staring at the computer, reloading the page over and over again because it's being overloaded by crazies.. finally getting into the system and then just typing in as much info as fast as humanly possible, only to hit send, pulse racing, to zap a large chunk of money through cyberspace, worrying that you might actually be crazy. $600 for a race? $200 for a phone? How did this happen?

I think the iphone will play an integral part in my triathlon lifestyle. If When I get lost on training rides, I can use google maps and the GPS in the phone to guide myself home. When I am traveling to and from races, I can check the weather, the race day schedule, and contact friends who are also doing the races (I can still do this last thing on the regular, boring, non-iphone cell phone that I have now). When I am REALLY traveling (like.. oh.. to say Idaho, or Wisconsin) I can use the iphone to navigate through the strange, new places I will be visiting.

I will never have to worry about being internet deprived for a week straight like I was in Lake Placid. When that happened, I carried my ipod touch around EVERYWHERE just in case I could find a free wi-fi signal.. and when I found one, I furiously checked my email and facebook page like some sort of cracked-out freak. Hi, my name is Alexa, and I am addicted to the internet. You know when you don't want to be internet-deprived? THE WEEK BEFORE AN IRONMAN WHEN YOU ARE GOING CRAZZZZY!! Never again. Thanks to the iphone.

If for some reason, I fail to get my iphone pre-ordered, I'm sure you'll get to read ALL about it!