Odd, Wonderful Day!

I was supposed to do an open water swim race this morning, but my massage therapist, Mike, called me yesterday while I was tooling around on Clipless Fuck to tell me it was cancelled. I had suspected it would be cancelled, because we've had so much rain lately, and the geese aren't going away, so the bacteria levels in the Lake in the (fucking) Hills were high.

I was secretly pleased, because this would mean I could a) sleep in and b) swim at the outdoor pool during the day! Well, since I knew I could sleep in, and I wanted to get a good night sleep, I cracked a bottle of wine last night planning on 1 or 2 glasses, but that never happens, and I ended up drinking the entire bottle. I did a little dancing, a little record spinning, a little (almost) drunk dialing, and a little picture taking. All in all, it was 100% fun!

I woke up this morning hearing birds chirping, but wanted more sleep, so I turned up the fan in my bedroom, but on my sleep mask and went back to sleep. I slept 8.5 hours, which I haven't done in about a month, and it felt great! It was weird to wake up when it was already light out. I started a pot of coffee and immediately went outside to look around in my yard as it looked to be a gorgeous day. What should I see in my next door neighbor's yard but a deer! She was pretty big, too, and she just looked at me, and I think I said, "CRAP!" I tiptoed back into the house to get my camera, but when I got back out, she was gone. I assume she made it safely to wherever she came from, which would include crossing a busy road. That was really cool!

Then while putzing around on the Internets, I remembered there's a farmer's market and I can go! I am rarely around at 8AM on a Saturday during the summer, and all I could think of was tomatoes, but then I thought it was probably too early for the local ones. I also needed to drop something at the dry cleaners and also some books to donate at the library. I was preparing to swim at 11AM, and I thought I might be able to run :30 before as well, but once I got motivated to do my errands, I realized that I wouldn't have time to run before I swam, so I thought how nice, I could swim an hour, then run :30 from the pool, then go back in the pool to cool down!

The farmer's market did have tomatoes, but they are Canadian. Don't ask me how they are growing good tomatoes in Ontario now when ours are just green on the vine around the Great Lakes area. I didn't ask exactly how they were grown, but I bought a bunch of them, and the ones I've eaten so far (I'm a summer tomato glutton) are excellent. I also got some basil plants, as 2 of the ones I ordered from Burpee more or less disintegrated once I put them into the pots on my patio. So now I'm all set for boatloads of pesto later this summer, and that's sort of a tradition with me. My friend Matt also usually gives me bags of basil, and I'll need some of his since I'm not growing that much really.

I headed to the pool with all my crap, and lap swim was cancelled for some stupid swim meet. Crap! But someone said they'd have 2 lap lanes open at 1PM, so now I went with Plan B, which was to go home, ride for maybe 10 miles on CF, then do my :30 run, and then head to the pool to swim.

Riding was fun, but I could tell I've really been putting the hurt to my legs lately. I forget that 16-mile runs are pretty stressful to someone like me who doesn't run 6 or 7 minute miles. Anyway, riding was fun, and then I got ready to run, and I headed south into the headwind and uphill at the same time. I did this last weekend and about died, but today, even though my legs were plenty fatigued, I felt much better. I think I'm heat acclimating finally (it was about 82). I hadn't brought any Gatorade with me thinking I could deal with :30, but then I realized it was hot, and so I ended up running to this park where there's water fountains, which was a good thing, because I needed more water even though I chugged some Gatorade before I left my house.

Then I get home, drive back to the pool thinking I'm going to do 3,000 meters, and I get there and no lap lanes are set up. I inquire about this, and the young guards look at me like I'm crazy. Someone told me there'd be lanes, but they said nope. Well, it's a huge pool, so I figured, what the heck, I'll get my open water time in anyway. I only ended up swimming 2,000 meters, which was fine, because I was plenty tired anyway. I actually enjoyed having to go around people and a few times just dove underwater for a bit. I did achieve the Prime Directive, though, which was to start on evening out my tan.

I get home and messages are on my answering machine--one to remind me of my eye exam on Monday morning, and another from Cindy! Yeah--she's coming here and we're riding 200K tomorrow. Fuckin' A! We will have a blast all around. The forecast calls for a 40% chance of rain, but I don't care. It could change between now and tomorrow, and besides we'll be almost in Iowa anyway, so it doesn't matter.

I've mowed my lawn, now it's time to fix bottles for tomorrow, get the grill started and assorted other crap like straighten up my house. I warned Cindy about the triathlon bomb that's gone off in my house--she can deal with it.

Tomorrow is going to be a fucking excellent day. Cindy and I will be bringing the HARDCORE AGGRO HARDEN THE FUCK UP!