Budget

Last month I spent the lion's share of my monthly budget on gear (including a new bike). This is a problem. I have decided that it's time I sat down and really hammered out a strict budget and kept myself to it.

Things I will be changing:
* Impulse purchases—Gear purchases will be planned out, and saved up for
* Eating out—I buy lunch every day at work, I should be making lunch at home and bringing it in.
* I'll be keeping copious records of my spending habits for at least one month. This is starting officially on the 1st of July, and is going to suck. A lot. But, it'll be good for me.

In direct correlation to this I will be keeping track of my eating habits, and trying to eat more healthy. Because I eat out so much I seldom have anything at home to eat, so when I do eat at home it sucks. And, eating out isn't particularly good for you. So, yeah, won't that be fun?

Budgeting, both in money and in food. Next thing you know I'll be budgeting my time spent on hobbies.

Nahhh...

Preparation

The key to any endurance event, athletes will tell you, is preparation. You don't have to be an athlete to be an athlete. You don't have to be Kenyan to run a marathon (though, apparently, being Kenyan helps you win marathons (grats to the recent winner of the Seattle marathon)), you don't even have to be in prime physical condition.

A bunch of my friends have recently trained for, and completed, a variety of marathons, triathlons, and (well, not so much trained for, but completed) century bike rides. This is quite inspiring, as very few of us are terribly athletic.

However, they trained and prepared, and accomplished their goal.

In 13 short days I set off on the most ambitious physical goal I've set for myself to date—The STP (Seattle to Portland bike ride). It's 202 miles of riding, spread over 2 days. I'm excited, I'm nervous, I'm scared, and I'm as prepared as I could possibly be. I know I'll do it. I know I'll complete the ride, that's just the way I am, once I set my mind to something, come Hell or high water, I'm going to do it, if it kills me.

This is probably not the best mindset to always be in, but it's the one that has worked for me thus far.

Wish me luck! I'm probably going to need it!

Terms of Endearment

I recently realized that I have slipped into using one of the same terms of endearment for Bill that Mumsy uses for my father. It's totally weird, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Oh? What is the phrase? Mumsy calls my dad "Mr. Girl," I call Bill "Mr. HisLastName".

Sunrise

As I sit here in the darkness, my living room illuminated by the harsh glow from my laptop, I can see through the crack where my blinds sit ever-so-slightly away from the window jam.

Through this crack i see the beginnings of dawn.

A bird twirls.

Another one joins in.

And I think: it's 5 o'clock in the morning, the sun will be rising soon.

I try to keep my eyes open, another 20 minutes, I tell myself, and then this task I'm monitoring will be finished. I type to keep myself awake, and to take my focus off the lack of sleep that I got over night. 1 hour? 2? I decide I was able to get two 1 hour long naps during the course of the evening.

I want my co-workers to know my pain. An email send at an unearthly hour usually does the trick. But, as the day breaks, and the minutes tick on unrelentingly, the hour is becoming increasingly more earthly, and, soon, it will just appear that I arose early. This will not do.

Thankfully, emails sent throughout the night will set stage for my abnormal tardiness at today's morning meetings. Am I sleeping in? If permitted by the sun, birds, and my upstairs neighbor, most assuredly.

Winning Me Over

I'm on this dating website. Why? Because, apparently, I'm not the catch I believe I am, and the only way I can find boys willing to go out with me is to sell myself on the meat-market.

Except, the kind of boys who are interested in me are either creepsters or looking to get laid (which aren't mutually exclusive, but I have put them in these two buckets, it's easier).

My recent favorites are:
1. the 19 year old who goes to a private religious university and hated it because he couldn't find anyone to hook up with. I told him I went to BYU, so his chances with me were even smaller than that on his campus. He took the hint and we wished each other well.

2. The guy who's email was attractive and witty and appealing enough. But, his profile revealed him to be 50. Yikes!

There Are Morments

when I hate my job so much I just want to scream at my boss exactly where he can take this expletive job and precisely how he can place it where. This week was filled entirely of those moments. Those moments, and a couple of very very very long nights. Like the night where I went to bed at 3 am. Yeah, that was awesome. Man, I hate my job.

My favorite event of the work week? Friday morning I announced via email my intent to do something Sunday night rather than Friday night. Someone on an external team didn't like that, so we exchanged a number of emails. At noon I sent him a very long email explaining why I didn't want to do what he wanted me to do, and cc'ed my boss.

At 4:45 I still hadn't heard back from the dude, or my boss, so I went to hunt down my boss to see if he had talked to the other guy and decided something but failed to let me in on it. This was the first my boss had heard of it (!), so he called the guy and the talked about it, and eventually decided that I was right.

When my boss came to tell me that Sunday night would work, he added, "In the future can you be sure to loop me in a little earlier?"

"I sent you that email at noon," I told him, the implied question being "how much earlier should I have looped you in?"

"Oh? You did?!" he asked.

"Yup."

"Ah, ok. Uh, whoops. Thanks." he managed to slink away hopefully feeling a little bad about implying that I wasn't capable of looping him in earlier enough to do his job effectively. Meh, whatevs.

Ctrl-Alt-Del

I really really really want this on a shirt, or something.

Canned--No, Not Me

I think I forgot to mention—Cyclist got fired a right before the Wenatchee ride. Turns out, not doing your work for 4 months, and then having a whole bunch of things blow up all at once is not good for maintaining employment. He is very Zen about the whole thing, and I'm sure he'll bounce back.

In the meantime, I'm stuck with Spazz and Brisk to keep me company at the office. Let me tell you—I really miss Cyclist.

D-ra-MA

2 dogs. 9 people. 9 bikes. 3 cars.

You'd think 8 engineers could figure out getting them from Seattle to Wenatchee. It took too many emails, but we got it sorted.

Once we got to Wenatchee the fun really started. How do you divide people up into rooms? We decided 3 people per room, with 2 people sharing beds in each. With 2 couples that left us figuring out which of the 5 people weren't going to share, and which rooms the singletons were going to fill in. Two of the guys didn't want to share a bed, and the other woman had a dog that was sleeping with her. That simply left me and Redneck who didn't care about sharing, to share. Done. One more problem? One of the singletons is in love with me. Now, friends, that just isn't ever going to happen for him. But, it also meant I didn't want to share a room with him.

Night one: my bedmate snored. I nudged him and that solved that problem. The dude who is in love with me also snores, so we later learned, and one of his roommates spent all night crying because she's kind of a Drama Queen and her bed was "so uncomfortable," that she couldn't sleep. He's a light sleeper, so he didn't sleep much, and when he did he snored. Which woke her up, so she cried, and... vicious cycle.

Night two: the great room reshuffle. Redneck and I switched rooms with the drama queen. Sticking me in the room with the dude who loves me/snores. He was pissed at the whole thing, which surprised me, since he whined that he didn't get any sleep, either. Well, with Redneck snoring, and me snoring he had a hard time falling asleep, and when he did, his snoring woke me, so I called out his name, which woke him up. Which pissed him off. So he went for a walk—complete with door slamming.

The next morning he complained that he didn't get any sleep.

That morning we went white water rafting. There were two boats, and to avoid even more drama two of us just volunteered to be in the other raft. When we hit the first class 4, every single person in their raft flew out, except the guide. After that, my roommate from the second night wanted out. (I should note that he was recently in a bike accident and hurt his wrist. I'm sure it's very sore, but, if I have to listen to him complain about it much more, I'm going to tell him to suck it up and deal with it like a man. The reason I mention this? He wasn't sure he was going to be able to paddle much anyway, and I think the swimming was just an excuse to get out of it.)

I would just like to say, if he was trying to win my heart, he failed dismally. I had to listen to him whine and bitch for 3 days straight. I am so done with him.

He's the newest addition to our group, and I really don't think it's working out. Honestly? I think everyone is pretty much in agreement. But, how do you fire a friend? Not positive, but it's going to have to happen quickly.

The Official Notice of Me Having Lost IT

Spring has arrived early in Seattle, and all of us outdoor nuts are loving it! This is what we put up with the 11 months of winter for.

A couple of weeks ago 2 of my friends ran a marathon up in Vancouver, BC, so 2 of us took our bikes up there to ride around the course and cheer them on. That was after I hiked 11 miles the day before. We had a blast—and it was a great way to get me back on my bike after my little accident...

Along with great weather, Spring brings snow melt, which means high rivers which are perfect for white water rafting. My friend (and Captain) has 2 white water rafts (and a kayak), and is frequently looking for a crew. I'm always game, so I get a lot of invites. In fact, with the weather, and her crew needs, I've managed to go out 4 times in the last 2 weeks. The great news is: I am not regretting the choice I made recently to buy a pfd and water-specific helmet (I love my brain).

All of this leads us to my ridiculous main event. After buying Teach's bike (yeah, killer deal) and upgrading to clipless pedals (yes, they're as scary as they look, at least at first) I went on a (short!) 30 mile ride one beautiful Saturday afternoon. Why did I go on a 30 mile bike ride? Let me tell you why. We call it the "Apple Century Ride." That's right, 100 miles, in one day. I had to prep for that, right? To be honest, 30 miles is not preparation for 100. But, it was going to have to be good enough! It should be pointed out, here, that I had my new road bike set-up less than 2 weeks before the ride.

The longest ride I've ever been on was 32 miles, so I was pretty positive that there's no way on this green earth I was going to be able to ride 100 miles in one day. The trail was 50 miles one way, and then turn around and ride the same 50 miles the other way. The good thing about this was I didn't have to commit to the full 100. If at any point I was sure that if I went much further I couldn't repeat my efforts I could turn around and be safe. With this in mind I set my goals in the realm of attainable: (1) make it to the 25 mile turn around (they had two events—50 miles and 100 miles); (2) make it as far as I could be certain I'd make it back. (Of course, all of this with the caveat that the event has a number of vans that ride the length of the course making sure people are ok, and if you can't go any more, or need help of any kind, they'll do what they can to help you, or take you back to the finish line if that's what you need).

After I reached the 25 mile mark I felt so good that I decided I would definitely go on. But, "until I can't go anymore" is a really lame goal. Thus, I decided it needed revising. 3 of my friends (Cyclist, Teach's husband, and Cyclist's old roommate, Redneck) had also signed up to do the 100 mile ride—and there was no question that they would do the whole thing. They are much stronger and faster riders than I, so they were long gone by the time I got back on the road. I figured we would pass each other soon enough. Thus, my new goal: ride until I passed the guys. That goal kept me on the road for another 18 miles. When I finally passed them I was glad, but—oddly—felt that I had enough to keep going. However, I knew there was this massive hill that I'd never make it up. (This, here, isn't self-doubt—it's realism. That hill was *terrifying*) I rode to the next mile marker, so I'd know exactly how far I had gone, and then turned around. All told, including the ride to the starting line from our hotel, and then back to the hotel afterwards (2 miles each way) I rode 90 miles Saturday!

I met and rode with some really nice people along the way. Some people I didn't even meet, but they encouraged me, including the guy who flew past me around mile 75 going double my speed who called out simply, "Looking good 5-1-2!!!" (the number on my jersey) I got a number of encouragements like that, and would have reciprocated, had I ever passed anyone.

However, my favorite riding companion was the middle-aged guy who followed me out of the last rest stop (we had 25 more miles left). He caught up to, said a few encouraging remarks, and then moved quickly in front of me. He was close enough to me, and I needed some company at that point, so I scooted up to him. We rode together for 2 or 3 miles before he dropped behind me to let a car pass. When he moved back up next to me he gave me some great compliments (nice cadence, good speed, good pedal strokes), and a few pointers on my technique (mostly, that I'm putting too much weight on my hands). Before I could get clarification on one point, though, he was gone. 20 miles later at the finish line, I was lying on the grass reveling with my friends about the ridiculous ride, when that guy came up to me, "Congratulations!!!" he shouted over the crowd, "you did it!!!" He flashed me a huge smile, and a thumbs up, and was gone again.

The best part of everything? I'm tired—like I had a really ridiculous workout—but I am not in pain. I was pretty much planning on not being able to walk Monday, but I was just fine. Ok, that's not entirely true. My bum is a bit sore (but only when I sit on hard surfaces). Do you know what they make bikes seats out of??! I'm not sure, either, but I'm pretty positive "hardness and pain" are on the list some where.

So, you ask, "what's next?" The STP, baby! Which, is really what this ride was training for. If I couldn't do 100 miles in 1 day, there's no way I could do 200 miles in 2 days.

Oh, and I totally need to figure out how to not lean on my hands so much. My left pinky is still numb/tingly, and my right wrist is sore.

The Great Wing Challenge

There exists this utterly Frat Boy challenge at my company. The rules aren't written down, but it works like this:

Step 1. Gather everyone at some random wing hut
Step 2. Each contestant must eat one of the following sets of items:
option a) 25 Buffalo wings + 5 more which have been dragged through the dregs of the sauce drippings
option b) 10 extra hot wings
option c) 100 celery sticks + 25 more which have been dragged through the dregs of the sauce drippings

That's pretty much it. Except, we learned when we started asking questions, that the only sauces allowed for this competition were butter-based. Well, that's one GranolaGirl right out. Upon further research we determined that pretty much the only option was an iceburg lettuce salad, which, since I had eaten a salad for lunch held exactly zero appeal.

I decided to walk the neighborhood and find a restaurant for takeout. Which also failed.

I got back to the wing place only to learn that the restaurant hadn't planned for that many people, and thus, run out of wings (there were about 100 people just from my company).

It crumbled into near disaster.

We ended up getting enough wings for people to have dinner, and I went out again and found a restaurant to get something to eat. When I returned, our intern (who can't eat spicy food) couldn't eat anything because they had closed the kitchen. Had we known that he could have come with me to get different food, but oh well.

Finally, the bill came. Because they were so overrun, the restaurant decided to just put our whole company on one bill per section. The table that got our bill had all been able to compete, and decided that we should just divide the bill per head. Which worked out to $25/person. Which would be awesome, except, I'm not paying $25 for 2 cups of water. Nope. Sorry. We reworked things and got it all resolved, but what a nightmare.

In the end, we decided to try it again soon. Probably next month.

I shall petition to have a vegan option available.