Huddle up campers!, but first some deep thoughts....

With afternoon highs of about 74 and mild humidity, you could not have designed a better afternoon for a run. Trihubby called at about 4 o'clock to announce he had finished work early, already swam for a half hour and was running the path back to our house. So, I strapped on my shoes and set out to meet him half way. It's so great when you live with one of your training partners (especially the post race massage part-the ewwwwww!!!! you just heard was Hyphen Girl, possibly Swinging Girl and quite possibly the in laws-all frequent visitors to the site) We met up and ran a couple miles together, then I handed off the parenting baton to Trihubby who ran home and I departed to finish the hour or so run my training schedule called for. This is going to be a long tri season, so I am deliberately taking a few weeks off from "mental" training, post half iron, and allowing myself to train at whatever output my body wants to deliver. That is probably what prompted some of my "deep" thoughts on my run.

I inevitably begin every run rehearsing my Ironman finish. I think it gets me over that initial 10 minutes of blah.

While I don't live my life for Ironman, it is the chief focus of my training this year, and therefore the motivator over every mental hurdle (Ironman will have some tough spots, better train to fight through them now and what better ammo than a looming finish line)

When I run with my ipod, I see the world as a music video

There are songs on my ipod that drive me nuts-I really need to remember what they are and drop them out of the rotation-I think I'll carry a sharpie on my next run to make notes.

Running trails with bathrooms are nice-fast food restaurants are great in a pinch.

I only "borrow" from restaurants I frequent

Will I get sick if I drink from the restaurant sink (ask me tomorrow)

Public bathrooms in states like California and Arizona must be mandated to have paper doilies for the toilet

Paper doilies are nice for people who live in warm weather states

Sweat comingled on toilet seats is just wrong in any language

Minnesota, for as progressive a state as it is does not mandate doilies

Toilet paper sticks to sweaty body parts

Minnesota ecology must trump public health-we love our trees

Weyerhauser is one of the largest paper companies in North America, located in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin doesn't have doilies.

How generous are we midwesterners to save southwesterners from sticky booty.

We are not quite so generous with our words-scandenavians are very frugal conversationalists

Therefore, we don't drop adjectives freely, and you will never find a highway prefaced with "the" The 405, The 505, it's just a paltry take 494 to 394 to crosstown etc.

No doilies, no "the's"-true conservationists

I finished my run chatting with my neighbor about World Cup Soccer. It inspired me to start a neighborhood pick up game this weekend-perhaps kids verses adults.

Now on to camp.

Soapinator is spending next week at horse camp. I don't suspect she will return as I anticipate her dream of transmogrifying into a horse will occur, and I'll be building a paddock in the back yard sometime in July. Standing Long Jump is going to accompany her to day camp, but he will follow the traditional route. He might very well not return either, but not due to transmorgrification, but rather he might just become lost in the woods. The compass he won at Family Fair night hasn't worked since it ran through the wash cycle. He is becoming so bull headed in following his own direction we might just find him in Montana some time next month.

Now, the truly amazing. Trimama gets to go to camp this year. But not just any camp. Triathlon training camp. Out of the very generous spirit of one of our tri club leaders, Paul Huddle is coming to town and setting up camp at the leader's house. Huddle is one of the truly great tri coaches, and will conduct a 3 day event for us. "Gunner" our faithful leader has generously offset quite a bit of the costs, so the camp is a sixth the cost of what it might be otherwise. There is also a rumor that his friend Luke Bell might show up. Yes I will bring my camera. While Trihubby has well inaugurated his Tri Geek uniform, I was saving my shirt for Florida. I might have to bend that a little, and fly the colors of The Geek" at camp.

Here is my training for next week, the start of the second season:

Monday: 50 mile bike with friend over rolling hills of south metro
Tuesday: 4th of July frivolity (Trihubby doing a 10K-Tribe a 2K)
Weds: Leave out of town with Trihubby-can you say post race massage
Thurs: Century ride with Trihubby
Fri: Camp begins
Sun Camp ends

Happy Training