Brain dump … now downloading

I've read some great race reports in the last few days. Go read all about Lara's determination, VJ's marathon triumph, Dietgirl's very first race ever, and Lynne's seriously kick-ass adventure race.

I ran my own 5K this weekend. I wanted to do it because the route featured some inner-city murals. I ran with my camera, but it turns out it's pretty hard to run and take pictures, so I only got one shot. It was one of my favorites though. Here's a detail of a girl peeking at a piñata:

It was a muggy morning, and I ran 32:10, which is about a minute slower than my PR. After the race I went around to the front of the community center and took a picture of this tiled mural, made a few years back by a well-known local artist. It's a vela (candle) of the Virgin de Guadalupe; if I take the bus to work, it passes this vela and half the people on the bus cross themselves:

And then! Then! I won a door prize, which turned out to be one round-trip ticket to anywhere Southwest flies. Oh bejeesus. Let the agonizing begin!
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Thanks for all the nice comments on my previous post. I forgot to add that I was inspired, in part, by this crazy video of cyclists riding in some real traffic. I can't say that the cyclists in the video are exactly, shall we say, following strict safety laws, but clearly that's part of the thrill.
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I'm continuing to use the Sprint Tri plan as a loose guideline for my workouts, switching up days as needed. I also did a run last week using the Maffetone heart rate method, which essentially is intentional slow running with the goal of improving the aerobic/cardiovascular base. I like running slow because I have more consistent energy, but there is so much controversy about different heart rate training methods that I'm not sure if I'll use this one for any length of time.
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The last few weekends have been full of the best kind of summer play! My bathing suit has become an essential part of my wardrobe suddenly. And while my Tri plan calls for lap swimming, absolutely nothing beats swimming out of doors, in lakes, rivers and outdoor pools. God, sunshine makes me so simply happy, it's ridiculous.

I can't say the cellulite on my ass makes me equally as happy, but I refuse to cover it up to spare the eyes of the public or to perpetuate the idea that an imperfect woman should hide her body. (An aside on cellulite: I don't understand it. I see some women who are much more overweight than I with the smoothest thighs and backsides. And my mom doesn't have any. But you could probably take all the dimples on my thighs and ass and string them together and circle the globe for, well, a foot or so, but still, it's a lot. I don't think any amount of exercise will ever get rid of it, so I'm working on making peace. Though, I would kill to get my hands on a copy of a photo of Sophia Loren that I recently read about, in which her skirt had accidentally blown up and her pasta-loving, olive-oil slurping thighs were on display.)

I went tubing on Memorial Day. Y'all know what tubing is, right? Somehow I figured Texans invented it or something, but I'm sure people near other rivers have figured out the joys of flopping in a tube with some beer and floating down a river. The best part was getting out of the tube and kicking across some strong currents a few times -- I loved the physical challenge of it and how my heart pumped.

I went sailing this weekend with my Dad and niece on Dad's little two-person boat. I asked Dad to teach me how to sail, because I feel in some way that the skill set of my parents and grandparents will die out if I don't make an effort to learn some of these things. My dad grew up sailing on lakes in Minneapolis, but none of us know how. Just like none of know how to fish or recite limericks or poetry or sing the Norwegian national anthem or make preserves or cook without recipes or sew or cuss in Slovak. (Since I've turned 30 I've been feeling this panicked nostalgia for my extended family, none of whom I grew up near. When my parents die, will I ever have contact again with any of my aunts and uncles or cousins, most of whom I barely know? Will I be alone in the world? I suppose if it's important to me, I need to initiate some sort of ongoing contact with them.)

Regardless, the math involved in sailing absolutely defeats me. Dad will say something like, "you see how we're sailing at a 45 degree angle into the wind?" and nothing in that sentence will remotely make sense to me. I can't see the wind, and if I could figure out which direction it was blowing, there's no way I'm going to be able to visualize angles in my head and then steer the boat and change the sails, etc….I need sailing instruction for the spatially challenged.
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All this outdoor activity has meant that I've had the opportunity to watch a lot of young girls in their swimsuits and mourn for my pre-pubescent self. I swear little girls are pure muscle and so free with their bodies. They exist to play and run. They are frankly stunning.

Unlike most of my female friends, I don't have any strong memories of my own puberty. I don't remember when I got breasts or body hair or when the hair on my head went from straight to wavy. It just seemed to happen. But I do remember when I started to wear shirts over my swimsuit and stopped thinking that climbing a fence with the neighborhood kids was the height of fun. Probably around 6th or 7th grade.

I hope I can shield my niece in someway from that complete dis-identification with her body.
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One symptom that you are hopelessly bored with your job: an alarming increase in the time spent surfing for celebrity gossip and/or ordering trashy romance novels through the library's interlibrary loan system.
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A guy on the bus last week said to me "I just have to tell you, in case you didn't know, that you are one fabulous babe." The fabulous part redeemed his drunken ass in my eyes.
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My parents finally moved out of my childhood home this weekend. I forced everyone into a circle in the living room during the packing and admist much eye rolling, guided them through this brief activity (just the first bit, not the sage bit). I'm glad we did it, marking the transition somehow, because everyone has been a bit too practical for my tastes about the whole change. I really expected my father, who is a minister, to say some sort of prayer or blessing at some point, but I honestly think he's so keen on getting out of town and away from the various financial disasters that are my brother's and sister's lives that he has deliberately distanced himself from any feelings of sadness he may have about the move.

I know it's cheesy and all, but it made me realize that I wish there was some more ritual in my life. One of the dance workshops I went to a few weekends ago included a ritualistic choreography that I really enjoyed. The instructor taught us a basic choreography that represented sharing and collecting our own energy -- sort of like Tai Chi. Then we had to come up with three moves on our own that represented who we have been, who we are now, and who we want to be. The instructor turned on some music and the women in the class began walking around the room. Each time you made eye contact with another woman, you showed her one of your personal gestures and she showed you hers, and you moved on until you had shown someone all three of your private gestures before going into the energy choreography.

Even though you didn't know what the other women's gestures meant to them personally, it was a very interesting to wordlessly communicate something to someone and have them accept it unconditionally. It was like we each were greeting something important in the other.
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A residual bonus of my parent's move is that I now have a microwave for the first time in years. O god, the things I can now cook! The timing couldn't be better, as my kitchen has no AC and summers are always a bitch in terms of cooking.

My mother also bought me a yogurt maker for my birthday. Of course, this just gives me an excuse to make full-fat yogurt, as a higher fat content in dairy makes it easier to digest. Lactose intolerance, screw you I say!
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I have been gaining weight. Hmph. Not sure how I feel about this as I am not dieting, and don't have plans to diet even though I'd like to lose some weight (yeah, you figure that one out too), but I'd like to at least stay at my current weight. I've been eating homemade granola for the past month for breakfast. Maybe that's the culprit?

I have decided, though, to try and track my food for the next three weeks as an experiment, to get an idea of what the heck I actually do eat.
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Finally, I'm going hiking this weekend. Texas is so freakin' huge, that I'm going to be driving with some people 8-10 hours (one way!) and still be in Texas. I envy those of you who live in itty-bitty states. I'm going to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park to climb the highest peak in Texas. There will, of course, be pictures.