cleansing.

Mrs. McGuire (Buecker) and I decided to cleanse our bodies from the inside out, and have embarked on a journey known as the Master Cleanser or lemonade diet. This is day two and I have to admit, it's not that bad. I find a ton of other stuff to do besides eat...however I wouldn't recommend going to a grocery store...I had to get some tea from Central Market today and almost tackled an old lady for her ice cream. It's not that I'm super hungry, though - I just think "MMMMMM that would be SO GOOD right now!" but then I think about all the good I'm doing my body and how awesome that first gulp of soup is going to be in 8 days. I mean, you can do anything for 10 days, yeah?

I'm getting excited about the first week in August - I volunteer for a grief camp called El Tesoro De La Vida (the treasure of life). Last year was my first year and I am absolutely HOOKED.

this ain't no dress rehearsal

Last night I went to have dinner with my dad in NB - he's always been quite mystified by this whole vegetarian thing. When I told him I was going to stop eating meat, he asked, "So...what do you eat at you know...restaurants?"

Um...vegetables? Is this a trick question?

I was quite pleased that he decided to grill fish last night when I threw him the "please don't grill me a portobello mushroom" curveball at him. After dinner we got in the pool and hung out for awhile and chatted. On the way home I realized that I had a really good time, and decided that I'm going to stop feeling guilty for having a halfway decent relationship with my dad. When I bounced the idea off another relative of mine, they were really really negative about it, saying that I would only have a superficial relationship with him and my stepmom and I'm such an idealist and I HAVE to be a realist about the situation blah blah blah blah blah. Honestly, I'm just tired of the drama. Life is far too short to carry all this baggage around, and if I'm going to get hurt for being optimistic, then fine. There's no way it could ever hurt as much as it did the first few years, when I felt my world was shattering around me.

The thing is, he's going to be 60 in September, and I don't want to have any regrets these next 20 years. Also to be fair, he's not pulled any crazy stuff since the wedding, so why stir the pot? I just feel so...over it all...and wish to at least try and walk in forgiveness, which I think is a much harder road to walk than stewing in anger.

zoom. possible batman spoiler.

weekend was awesome, filled with family, gardening, a trip to the Dallas Aquarium (I'm pretty sure I have manatee mania - I love those sea cows.), and lots of quality time with the hubs. This was the second time I had to leave my house and I'm finding that parting is less than sweet sorrow when I have to leave my house. Part of it is that we moved in and then a couple weeks later I moved to Austin, and I get so overwhelmed with stuff to do around the house and there's so much to be done...sigh. Plus this was a bit worse 'cos I don't know if I'll see Kyle this coming weekend - we're both really sick of driving but staying put means keeping hundreds of miles between us, and that sucks as well.

The only thing that made stuff slightly better was knowing that at the end of my road trip I got to see The Dark Knight at the Bob Bullock IMAX theater. I thought it was quite possibly the best movie I've ever seen. Seriously. The Joker was definitely multifaceted in his insanity, and I found myself quite sad that it was such a powerful performance, and it was one of Ledger's last. Was anyone paying attention to all the Big Brother messages in the movie and the propaganda? I mean, call me paranoid, but it was totally obvious. (If anyone wants to have an extended conversation about this, Wanted, Wall-E, and the fact that the year that the Olympics are in Beijing is the same year that a Mummy Returns movie is coming out with the premise of little Chinese terra-cotta men taking over the world, I'm down. But I digress...) I was worried that I was going to get motion sickness but really didn't until the end when the Joker's hanging upside down and they move it so he's right-side-up on the screen, still swinging...it made me woozy. Actually, I was shaking and woozy after I got out of the movie, and definitely stayed at a friend's house.

I'm also definitely going to go see it again tomorrow. Rawk.

Tomorrow also begins mine and Michelle's 10-day Master Cleanser fast. I've already downed my lovely laxative tea and have a quart of water all ready to go for the morning. Wish me...well...I'm not sure luck is going to do it this time. Wish me...endurance.

I Smell a Rat...

...in my kitchen. Yes, ladies and gents, not only do I live in a house where I kill a roach nearly every other day (at least they're no longer the Chernobyl-flies that Kyle and I diligently killed the first two weeks I was here), there's a rat. I haven't seen it, but my two housemates have seen it, and various others. Blegh. After the exterminator comes Monday I'm hosing the whole damn place down with bleach.

I did Bikram for a second time and I swear my knees are getting stronger. I can't believe I like this stuff and subject my body to it at least once a week. I love it so much I'm contemplating cleaning the place for 2-3 hours once a week just to get unlimited yoga. The power is dizzying.

better every day

I've gotten so much done in the past day or so that it's mindblowing. All the loose ends that needed to be tied up for me scholastically are in the works - it took some biting of bullets and humility on my part, but it's better. I'm feeling far less overwhelmed, thank you so much for the awesome comments and love and such. I've also made a real attempt at cleaning my car out - you know it's serious when that happens.

Operation QFA.

Yes, friends. Operation Quit F*ing Around.

I went to Houston this past weekend for *yet* another wedding and had a fantastic time just relaxing and doing net to nothing all day Saturday with the hubs and good friends. PLUS I met sweet baby Caroline...we did some hanging out, smiling together, and I taught her how to stick her feet in her mouth. Quite a productive Saturday :)

Caroline's momma is one of those girlfriends you always wish you had, especially when the girls you've previously known have been not very good at being friends. She's always had a knack for keeping me honest...I think the first thing she told me when I met her was she threatened my life if I ever broke Kyle's heart (they've been friends since high school). We got to talking about how uber organized she's gotten since having the baby and I had a good two hours to chew on one statement: "I was always really organized at work so I realized that I was capable of it, I was just lazy in my personal life." It quite literally struck me how true that is for me, how I've gotten amazing at making excuses. I'm great at excuses. Late for work? Traffic. Always, whether it was because I woke up at 7:30 or didn't get to bed until 1am the night before. Don't want to workout? It's hot/humid/my knee hurts/I nearly barfed last time. Woke up late? Not 'I decided 30 more minutes was critical to my survival and the survival of the human race' but my alarm didn't go off. Seriously. If you've got a situation, I've got an excuse. I don't think I've ever told anyone that, and it feels kinda good to get it off my chest.

I have been frustrated lately because I do a lot of talking and not a lot of walking in a few areas of my life. I need to get my spiritual life back on track...it's been a zillion years since I've been to church and there is a aching, Jesus-sized hole in my heart right now. I could post on this for hours and hours, about how figuring out my own religion/etc. has been really interesting, especially since going to Spain, how different Kyle's and my upbringing was really different and how finding a church that satisfies the hippie in me and the conservative in him has been quite a trip. It all really boils down to me knowing and realizing that I have no doubt in my mind that I love God and Jesus and I always will, but listening to other people/books/opinions on how I should live my life just aren't really doing it for me. The problem is that the tools I used in high school and college aren't doing it for me either. So now what? I don't know.

Work-wise, I could be really digging in a whole lot more. I could be researching more, being more organized with planning my sessions, practicing more, reading up on psychiatric music therapy, and so on. I think part of this is realizing that this is my life's passion and I could be really, really, REALLY good at what I do, and it kind of freaks my crap out. Like, I want to be the brainy girl, but so many people throughout my life have doubted me, and that stuff stings. It's this crazy cycle of believing in myself, being confident in my instincts and being okay with making mistakes and then being wrought with doubt over every interaction, activity and written word...to the point that it nearly paralyzes me. And then it cycles back. Weird.

Also, I'm a disorganized piece of work, but just in my personal life, which is all kinds of frustrating. When I was younger my family shamed my "tail" - the trail of destruction I would leave through the house as I wandered through it during the day. These days I'm more organized, but I'll still lose things like my keys, my wallet, some important document so I can graduate. My friend Haley once asked, "Is it frustrating, being you?" The answer (as I'm sure I've written before in this blog) is YES. GOD YES YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

You might be wanting to shake me because I've got this misperception of myself, but trust me, I don't. My first inclination is to download yet another episode of gossip girl and watch it 'til I get sleepy, but I know I've got laundry to do, reading to take care of, and a journal to start.

In college I hit a rebellious patch where I would make excuses for my behavior based on the crazyness of my life. Kelli said a phrase yesterday that echoed what I said when I got tired many years ago of hurting myself and those around me: "I don't have to be that girl." I came home and nearly panicked because there are some deadlines I have ignored, important documents I have to find or else I cannot continue working on my thesis, and by golly, I freaking need some more work clothes, but have been too scared/lazy to face any of it and in the mean time have been running around having a fantastic social life in Austin but have been kind of ignoring the nagging feeling that something's off, that as grownup and awesome as I think I am, there's still a lot of work to be done. I guess this is what I get for praying for humility. Sigh. So, I made a list and I started crossing things off that list. I even went to Kohl's and bought some new black capris because my old ones are literally coming apart at the seams.

I figure that I can only go forward.

posting once a day is hard!

My allergies have finally caught up with me. I've not been sleeping well lately...on Tuesday night after my crazy yoga session I was so wired that I went to my cousin's show and stayed out 'til 2am. Thankfully I woke up the next morning like *BING!* I also stayed out last night, but this morning I woke up totally stuffy - part of the reason is that the mold in Austin is in the moderate range, I guess from the rain and such. Yesterday I went to Zilker to run (4 miles! Yay!) and then went BACK for Blues on the Green and started sneezing. \

I've never been much of a morning person but I find that when I get about 7-8 hours of sleep I feel like a zombie (K likes to go to bed around 10:30 and wake up at 6:30) but if I go to bed around midnight and wake up at like 6:30 I'm much better off. Does this make sense to anyone else?

Blegh.

have you ever...

done hot yoga with 49 other sweaty individuals in North Austin with a teacher guy who at the beginning of the class you thought "hey he's kind of cute in a granola-eating-hemp-wearing-kinda-way" and at the end of class contemplating running up to him in the middle of shivasina and ripping his too-big earrings out?

'cos I have. And it sucked. I made it maybe halfway through the class and I got really, REALLY dizzy so had to sit out most of it. I would sit, take some deep breaths, then try to get up again only to be accosted by MORE dizziness and at one point some blood pounding in my head so hard I couldn't sit up straight. Of course, there was a $28 for a month of unlimited yoga deal going on and I shopped like a woman ie: figured HEY! Isn't all Bikram the same (I looove my studio in Richardson/Dallas) and also an acquaintance of mine is launching an "assault on (her) body with (her) body" which sounds like a lovely idea to me...I'm tired of making excuses for my weight, tired tired tired of not liking what I see in the mirror, tired of saying "well maybe next year/month/week..."

What I should've said in the Fat Genes post was that Carlos and I discussed that we come from a fatty family. It's true - lots of my extended relatives have had what they call "the surgery" (gastric bypass) and unfortunately I have only heard of one who has really changed her life/eating habits/way of viewing herself as a result. I don't think I'll ever let myself get that far, but my point is that if I want to go in the skinny direction under my own power, I have all the tools I need right here...my hands, my brains, my legs, and my love of the outdoors. The thing that is most difficult for me is the eating. I know I must exercise portion control, I know that I must workout at least 30 minutes every SINGLE DAY or else everything goes to crap. Carlos let me in on the secret that we just have to work a lot harder than everyone else does at this losing-weight thing because of our fatty fat genes. I'm also convinced that our thyroid issues that run in the family also have something to do with it.

The other, kind of shallow thought that I have is that right now I weigh around 165. I just Googled "average pregnancy weight gain" and it's between 25 and 35 pounds and I just really REALLY don't ever want to weigh over 200 pounds, or anywhere near it. So here goes. Assault time.

this morning...

When your schedule gets crazy and you start doing things like locking your keys in your car, losing cell phones, etc., we call it "pulling a Bill" after my supervisor in Dallas who was prone to such incidents. I've been Bill-ing all morning.

First, I woke at 6am, determined to work out, shower, then catch the bus. The alarm went off and I got up, got ready, got to work, only to realize that it was a dream. I jerked awake at 7am cursing my imagination. Speaking of realizations, I had tried to remember to take my wallet out of Kyle's glove box yesterday before he drove back to Dallas yesterday but alas in a flash of comprehension right before I started tearing my room apart to look for it, my wallet whispered my name. Loudly. Because it was in Dallas. Shoot. I called Kyle to confirm and sure enough there it was in the glove box. I promised to call him from the car because I was at that point running a few minutes late for work when I discovered, yes, I was out of gas. Like, drove home with the light on last week after Michelle & Cody's wedding. Luckily I found a $5 which got me a whole 1.2 gallons and then came to work, eager to dive into a cup of French Roast courtesy of my supervisor. But alas, I had forgotten to dump out some coffee from last Wednesday, so all I saw when I looked into my cup were two floating roaches.

yeah. I threw that cup away.

Whirlwind Wedding Weekend

I am laying in bed at 4:30pm on Sunday, trying to decide if I want to pass out or get up and do something.  The jury's been out for at least an hour thusfar.  Sunday night I ended up staying out late at a bachelorette party and on the way home convinced Kyle that staying home instead of driving to McAllen for our second wedding of the weekend was a good idea...I was exhausted.  I knew he really wanted to go to the wedding though so we decided to reconsider in the morning...about 8 or 9am so we could get there early and get ready.  Well, I woke up at 10:15am and FREAKED out because we were running late - Kyle had decided to let me sleep!  I felt so ridiculously guilty that I started grabbing stuff and we got in the car and 5 hours later we were in McAllen! Why is communication so difficult sometimes?!

super wedding weekend!

Last night was Cody & Michelle's rehearsal dinner, tonight is the wedding - and I get to see Kyle and I'm stoked because I didn't see him last weekend - and tomorrow is one of my favorite holidays (due entirely to the presence of fireworks) plus a bachelorette party and hanging out with some girls I haven't seen in way too long :)  Then Saturday we're packing up and headed to McAllen for the Carter/Medina wedding!  We're staying down there that night of course, then we'll be back on Sunday.  Phew.  I'll post pics soon I promise :) 

I have a fever...

sometimes I get in super practicing modes - seriously, this is one of those times. I'm inspired by my supervisors because they all have mad guitar/frame drumming/drumming/singing/improvisational skills and I feel not that I'm so far behind but that I have so much to keep learning and learning and learning. I learned bar (barr?) chords this morning and am learning a song I've wanted to learn since high school (Jewel's Morning Song) because I now know a) how to play the guitar and b) my supervisor came in and threw down the chords for me. It was exhilarating.

Did I mention that I love this internship? Seriously.

Music Therapy Step 1: Plug in the CD Player.

It's lunchtime and I'm laying on my bed trying to relax for a few more minutes before going back to work.  I came all the way down south for lunch because I had to pick up my bridesmaids dress for the Buecker/McGuire wedding...too bad my dress won't be done 'til tomorrow...no stress.

My very first session of the day was way interesting - I've temporarily taken over for an art therapist who resigned so I decided to do some passive music listening with drawing to transition between art and music therapy.  In the first 5 minutes two patients got in a fight and one started screaming...I didn't think it was effecting me but I looked down and my hands were shaking as I tried to get markers from my bag.  Once things got settled down I asked them if they knew what Friday was (they mostly got it right) and I asked them to draw 4th of July pictures.  Then I went to put a CD of Whitney Houston singing the Star Spangled Banner and the CD player wouldn't work.  I pushed every button, checked the cords going to the stereo, everything.  My supervisor's supervisor, who was there helping me get settled in asked, "Well, is it plugged in?" I nodded yes because I had plugged it in when we first gotten there but it had apparently gotten unplugged in the chaos.  Doh.

Everyone participated for the most part...one person drew an eagle, someone else drew hot dogs and watermelon...the patient who usually draws inappropriate stuff was in rare form today and showed me all kinds of um...drawings.  The experience was definitely a lesson in boundaries - one of the patients got demoted a level for touching my bum.  I hardly noticed because the space is tight and I was scooting through some chairs. 

Anyhow - woohoo!  First session down. I also did a really cool one-on-one session with an elderly patient who has beautiful, gnarled hands, today who has problems talking but has a fantastic singing voice.  It was way inspiring for many reasons.  He sometimes has delusions and tries to say he's God or Jesus and the thought that struck me was "well...so what if he is?"  Loving the unloved/unlovable is part of the job description, yeah?

Post a Day

I'm going to see if I can post at least once every day in July. I know I haven't been writing much about my internship but it's mostly because I don't know what is okay to write about and what is not. Also, I've been learning loads about myself and am trying to work all this stuff out in other ways, like journaling, getting back in touch with God and of course, going out dancing as much as I can handle.

But I do know that if taboo crap goes down I can always have a Quote of the Day (too bad it's not May). So here's a couple to get you through your day:

(from last week)
Therapist: "So your brother is a preacher?"
Patient: "No, my brother is a heathen shit."
*you'd have to know the woman who said it to think it's as hilarious as falling out of a chair warranted, but I nearly did just that.

June 1st
"Awesome dead possum" - Educator Sub guy

Jason Mraz

No Bretteness, my cousin isn't Jason Mraz - I get weird enough looks from people when I tell them my cousin (the one on the left - your left, not their left) is super hot but I'm sure people would look at me like I'm downright crazy when I said I had a mad hott crush on my cousin because oh by the way he's Jason Mraz. I mean, that would be incestuous and totally gross. Totally awesome, but totally gross.

No, Carlos and the rest of the Grooveline is on tour as Jason's horn section. I was suprised to read on Jason's site that he's really influenced by Bob Schneider. It's all about the degrees of separation in the music world, seems like. By the way, if you like reading blogs, you should read his. They're clever and sometimes include little songs he writes.

fat genes

my cousin has me hooked on running at Town...er...Lady Bird Lake.

i like running with him - (did i just say "i like" and "running" in the same sentence?  my we've come a long way haven't we) we make each other laugh...i run like a turtle with asthma and he air drums solos.  i'm going to really miss him when he's on tour.

i think i broke my foot.

my left foot started hurting last weekend when i was wearing heels...shooting pains in my arch.  They were intense when I wore heels but subsided when I wore flats.  Tonight after running 4 miles I went dancing and in the middle of a salsa WHAM pain shot through my foot.  Should I go to the doctor?  Probably...

meeeelllltiiiiiiinnnnng

triathlon behind me (and I think I mentioned this in a previous post) my new goal is to become a stronger runner.  I'm starting from scratch, as per a borrowed book about marathon training for the non runner.  I ran Monday and Tuesday this week at Lady Bird Lake right after work. That's right.  5:30pm.  I've always been a super wuss about doing ANYTHING in the heat (except swimming) until I did a couple Bikram Yoga classes last month.  I figure that if I can do THAT in the heat, I can work out.  Also, it's not like races are held at 2am just so I can be cool and crisp as I cross the finish line.  In fact, the oppressive heat was a big motivator for me to get the heck off that triathlon coarse before I heatstroked.  So anyway, running when it's hot as balls outside is no fun, and I've given up drinking pretty much anything but water and tea during the day, with the occasional glass of wine at dinner just because I need to stay hydrated throughout the day.  I ran today too, just got back from it (BLEGH) and I am SUPER stinky.  I thought about maybe NOT showering because I'm going to go salsa dancing tonight but for the sake of my dance partners my stanky self needs a shower.

about that triathlon...

Part of me still cannot believe that I woke up at 5:30am to drive out to East Austin with Kate and swim/bike/run my Sunday morning away, but that's what I did on June 8th.  Thankfully, K was in town, which was a great big motivator for me :)  Somehow with both of us there we still managed to *not* remember the camera, so I'll try to paint pictures with my words.

When Kate and I drove up it was still dark, and we loaded up busses that would take us out to the tri staging area.  We got our stuff laid out for the tri (we had racked our bikes the night before) and headed over to watch the swimmer start, which is about when the nervous giggles began.  No, "giggles" is not at all the right word - I would burst into laughter every couple minutes or so because part of my brain kept nudging me in the ribs and saying, "dude.  you're seriously doing this?" and I would crack up at the absurdity. The butterflies in my stomach were quiet until about the time that Kate and I made it down to the water, when they started stretching their wings.

We spent a lot of time watching Sally Edwards motivate colour groups and give them an adjective to insert into mantras like "I am a lightning fast swimmer/biker/runner." Every colour group got their own adjective.  I was going for "bitchin'" but doubted that would be the word of our day and I laughed when Sally asked the crowd, "What kind of swimmer are you?!" and the lady next to me yelled, "SLOW!"  Kate and I did some warming up in the lake and then headed over to watch a swim exit, which was pretty uneventful until there was a huddle on the beach.  A girl clearly needed help getting out of the water and Kate and I both gasped when someone had to carry her out of the water.  We thought maybe she had hurt herself because her legs were limp as she was carried out of the water but someone turned around and said, "She's in a wheelchair."  I looked over at Kate and we both burst into tears simultaneously.  That shut the butterflies up - if she could do it, then certainly I could.

As we lined up behind the group preparing to depart, the butterflies had turned from itty bitty sluggish not-awake-yet creatures into giant, vibrant things, smashing their wings against each other as I inched closer to the water.  Our colour groups word ended up being powerful which would throughout the race prove to be the most inspiring thing I could say to myself.  It really was incredibly helpful to say to myself "I am a powerful biker...heck...I am a powerful woman!" in my moments of weakness throughout the race.

Kate and I had decided (stupidly) to start out at the front to get away from everyone at the start.  I quickly realized that there were lots of 25-30 year-olds who were MUCH faster swimmers than me.  I then also quickly realized that I was hyperventilating because I was so freaked out by the bodies churning the water beside me. I did some breast stroke and took some deep breaths and scooted over to the left side of the pack where there was much more room for me to swim.  Looking back on my time I was only in the water for 24 minutes, which was far shorter than my training swims, which surprised me.  The most difficult part of the swim was that the wind was blowing water into my mouth and I therefore ended up feeling nauseous as I ran from the lake to the transition area.  About the last buoy (i had to look that stupid word up.  booey?  boie? buyie?) I discovered that if I turned almost all the way over to breathe I had a much better time, but of course that was too late. I loved when upon clambering out of the water I grabbed the hand of a volunteer and he asked my name and then announced to the crowd, "CHRISTINA EVERYBODY!" and the crowd cheered for me :)

The transition from swim to bike was not too difficult...I tried to get most of the dirt and grass off my feet (I had a towel near my bike) before I put my socks and shoes on to not much of an avail. I had pre-pinned my number to the shirt Danskin gave us so in about 5 minutes I was ready to go.  The ride was pretty uneventful...I saw Sarah and K walking to the tri site as I headed out on my bike.  There was a fantastic tail wind on the first long stretch and I rode easily, burping lake water the whole way.

Then, I came to my first hill, who I lovingly refer to as "Sneaky Bastard" because you come to a sharp right and BAM there's a hill - pretty much straight up.  I giggled to myself as I heard fellow women turn the corner and mutter expletives that were not-so-ladylike as they came to grips with what was before them.  I made it halfway up and walked when I could shift no lower.  Thankfully a guy at the top had some yummy Clif goo for me to down which gloriously masked the lake water taste in my mouth.  That was the first of two hills I walked the last bit of.  Things that helped me get through the bike were singing Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle" to myself and my meandering mind.  I tried to make sense of why so many women (approximately 3,000 at this race) would be so insane to spend money to do this to ourselves.  I thought about what we as women go through and how good I felt on the bike after warming up on the swim and my will to continue was bolstered by the fact that a trying event had made me stronger and better on the current one.

But enough of the sappy allegories.

The transition from bike to run was a completely different story - by the time I got to my towel and changed shoes I could no longer feel my legs.  I was also ticked because I couldn't find a bobby pin to control my bangs so had to furiously gather my hair into a bun on top of my head.  Sarah and Kyle were there cheering me on and I grabbed Kyle and gave him what he describes as the most disgusting smooch of his life.  I grabbed some yummy Sport Beans which are also, by the way better than burping lake water, and trotted off 'til I was sure K and Sarah could no longer see me, then I walked.  I did SOME running - mostly interval stuff.  I was shocked that the course was cross-country, and tried to run as much as I could.  I was so FLIPPING exhausted at this point that all I wanted to do was stop but then women would run by and encourage me and I would start running again. 

The Danskin folks have a really sick sense of humor because there is a pretty massive hill right before the end of the race.  A woman I walked up next to said that she didn't think she could finish and I spent a good 10 minutes letting her know that if I didn't see her at the finish line I would carry her across myself.  Someone else then came to her side and I trotted off a bit and ended up walking with another woman who was in a red tri suit.  I don't even remember her name, but we started chatting and as other women would run past us and say "You guys are AWESOME!" we would turn to each other and say, "We ARE awesome!" and high five.  We were delirious at this point so we started fantasizing about strawberry margaritas and joking about how super hot we would look crossing the finish line.  About 200 yards from the finish she looked over at me and said, "How ya feeling?" and I replied, "Like running, you?" 

Now, at this point I feel like I should pause and say how uniMAGINABLY exhausted I was.  I mean, I had swam half a mile, biked 12, and nearly run a 5k, I could barely feel my legs and my brain was screaming, "You want to WHAT the last 200 yards?!?!" But we kicked it up and started running.  The announcers turned on some Salsa music (just for me, of course) and Kate, who had finished about 15 minutes ahead of me, came to run across the line. The photos of this are fantastic - we were all 3 laughing and high-fiving each other the whole way :)

I hugged Kate and then I hugged K and immediately burst into big wet weepy tears - I'm even getting a little misty-eyed thinking about it.  I had freaking done it.  I was officially a triathlete.  Get me some pasta. We were handed snacky bags but I got 3/4 of the way through a banana and nearly threw it up. The four of us packed up and headed out of the tri area, and K kept beaming at me and telling me how proud of me he was.  I was still kind of in shock that I had actually made it through.  Maybe I was stronger than I thought I was.  That's what I liked about the tri - that the whole thing was something that no one else could do for me, that it was something I had to do all by myself...and I MADE it!  I confessed to K that I was really glad I wasn't last (Sally Edwards is always the last woman across the finish line...she is awesome)...I finished way ahead of many folks, the whole thing done in about 2.5 hours.  

I went home and showered and we went to a friends house for a cookout, and I ate way more than I thought was humanly possible...then I drove home and passed out.  I slept very VERY well that night, of course I woke up and went to a free Austin Symphony concert out at the Long Center before seriously crashing out.  Kate and I went to Central Market and got lots of yummies and ended up slightly tipsy on 6oz of canned champagne that evening.

A million pounds of love go out to the wonderful Miss Kate for being my training buddy, for leading the way, and for always believing in me.  I wouldn't have been able to complete it nor would I have had nearly as much fun with out her.

So...that's it.  There's a tri on labor day that I'm thinking about either actually doing or training for.  For now I'm just working on running a few days a week and getting on my bike as much as possible.  If anyone out there wants to do the Danskin next year, I will happily train with you. Kate and I decided loosely that we're going to work toward a 5 year plan of doing an Ironman.  I'll be 30. That'll be a good enough excuse and I can do little races along the way.

Bring it.

starting over

my running totally blows, so I borrowed a book from Kate called Marathon Training for Non-Runners and am going way back and starting from scratch.  Tonight I jogged 5 minutes, walked 5 minutes x3, and will probably again tomorrow.  Next week is jogging 10 minutes, walk 5 minutes x 2.  I don't know that I'll ever do a marathon (unless I do an Ironman, more on that later) but from what I hear training is much better than actually doing it.

I'll actually update soon - I'm still kind of processing the whole triathlon thing.

In other news, I biked to and from work yesterday and need to take a pic of my bruise before it fades because it is MASSIVE!  I kept forgetting to clip out of my pedals and when I did would bonk into the side of the pedal.  The bruise is all kinds of impressive.