Distance Girl, Revisited

Wow.

Sometimes blogs and email just go by the wayside. For like, a week.

Anyway, I had an awesome week of workouts and spending time with JayZ. He had his shots on Tuesday--which was harder for me than for him, if that's possible--and is already 14 pounds. Dare I say that he's been sleeping through the night? From what I'm reading on websites it qualifies as sleeping through the night if we get a stretch of 5 hours. For the past week, he's given us at least 4 and the past two nights we got 6.

SIX.

IT. WAS. AWESOME.

It's amazing how much better you feel with sleep. Sometimes after I feed him around 7am I bring him to bed with me to snuggle for another hour or so. I know that I don't have much longer to enjoy this time so I'm trying to take every advantage that I can. I already had a little meltdown at 4am on Saturday morning after I put him back in his crib and wondered how on earth I'm going to leave him in January.

But I'll do it somehow, I'm sure. I think the anticipation of my first day back is going to be much worse than the actual day. Thank goodness I'm not dropping him off at the sitter's--I get to pick up. But I'm sure I'll still be a crying mess 1st period, nonetheless.

JayZ seems to just know that Mommy needs to run, and he is great at letting me do just that. So is my amazing husband who does whatever he can to let me sneak outside for anything more than 4 miles when he can. I'm trying to repay the favor for him, although he hates the cold and prefers the dreadmill. Ew. Give me cold and rainy over dreadmill any day. But, I'm glad we have the 'mill and JayZ will sleep in his swing while I squeeze in a 4-miler here and there. Thanks, buddy.

I'm also getting stronger in the pool, slowly and surely. My 100s at 75% effort this week were quite pleasing. Now, my 200s are another story. Ugh. But, it will come.

One part of my equation as a triathlete is sorely missing here. I know, I know. I'll get back in the saddle. It's just not as fun, and time is at a premium so I'd rather do what's fun at the moment. Not the best way to improve your limiter, but hey, it's working for now so I'll take it.

I watched Ironman Wisconsin on TV and got so pumped up. It reminded me of everything from my Iron Summer of 2006, and all the amazing things I got to do an amazing people I got to meet. It got me thinking about what I plan to do next year. Things are going well so far so I feel like I can start to really firm up some goals and state my intentions. I'd rather reach high and fall hard than not reach at all, you know?

From 2002-2004 I did lots of short course racing--5Ks, 10Ks, sprints and olympics. It was fun and I had a great time--mostly because of who I was with. My buddy Canada Jenn and I raced almost every weekend and often placed in age group, although I was almost always a good 30 seconds behind her. Speedy girl, that CJ is. I now realize that I built up my base from these years, and that's a good thing.

So I thought I'd just want to get back into that in '08. I wouldn't have time for the long stuff. It would be fun to hammer again. Maybe I can try for age group glory again.

But a funny thing happened on the way to basework.

I don't want to do that anymore.

I want the long stuff.

Now, I realize that this doesn't make sense on paper. Why wouldn't I want to do shorter things? Won't that be easier to train for? But I can usually place in age group in small, short stuff...and I ain't even CLOSE to bringing home any hardware in a half marathon, marathon, half-ironman, or IM. Why would I want to do it?

I don't really have an answer for that. When I was running my six miles on Saturday one of my favorite running songs came on the ol' iPod...

"The sun has gone down and the moon has gone up
And long ago somebody left with the cup...

...No flowers, no flashbulbs, no trophy, no wine
He's haunted by something he can not define..."

I think the only way to explain it is that it's just more me.

So that's what I'm going to do.

Perhaps I should state my intentions.

(this is a little scary, but I'm aiming high with the realization that if you aim high you might fall hard)

My A goals include the following:

May 18th: PR in the Cleveland Half Marathon. Ideally, sub-1:50.

August: Sub-6 at Steelhead HIM.

October: Sub-4 at a marathon.

There. I said it.

Let the adventure begin.