What a day!

Oh my, has it been a while. It took a while to really get used to my new schedule at work, but they've been great about odd hours - I get there around 7 and leave at 4:30 so I can miss traffic and make the evening workouts, which is wonderful. I'm in bed by 10 or 10:30 every night, up at 5, actually have to dress nicely - which, if you know me, is hard - so I had to go on a little shopping spree and actually GET some nice clothes. Anyway, after a month or so of barely hanging on with the workouts I'm pretty back in the swing of it, and of course the season's ending! Ha! We have about three more weeks of tough workouts, then we start taper... I do so love taper.

Today was a combo swim/bike workout - those are my favorites. The swim was spectactular - warm sunny day, clear water, great group of people in my lane who all push me quite hard, and we had my favorite swim coach - Mike - who kicks our arses! There was a lot of descending sets (so swim four things, and make each one faster than the last until you're sprinting all out), and lots of discussion of swim etiquette versus learning to draft. I think my lane has no problem drafting, as they draft off of me all the time! That got a laugh, and the drafting got better.

After the swim, we hopped on our bikes. There's a group of people who've been requesting more intense workouts, so the coaches have been incorporating a lot of speed work and hills, which is great. Today, the speed workout option (or Performance Option Of Pain - or POOP, which makes us laugh every time) was a ride from Burgess Pool in Menlo Park to the top of Skyline via King's Mountain road. It was 2000 feet of elevation gain, 25 miles, amazing hard, and amazingly rewarding to get to the top.

I ran off the bike into the locker room to change into street clothes (no shower, oh yeah!) and head over to Sports Basement for our raffle! Oh wait, I crammed in a burrito in there too, because I was ravenous. Anyway, from 2 - 4 Geoff Gongwer and I cohosted a raffle and a 20% off shopping party that was hosted at Sports Basement - they provided refreshments that included BEER! Sadly, I worried that if I had a beer I would immediately fall over, so I stuck to Diet Coke and mania.

We sold tickets, raffled some stuff off, shopped (I scored an amazing new tri bag), and then - clearly I am having a manic day - I went a got my nails done. Notice, no shower in there yet. That's right! Sweaty manicure!

By now my nails look great, if the rest of me is a disaster.

I came home and put on pajamas immediately. I am now prone on the couch, watching The Kids are Alright (clearly Rob's not home), eating microwave popcorn, and thinking about going to bed. It's 8:34.

The raffle raised a bunch of money - not enough to get to my minimum, but I'm getting there - I've got a $400 match coming in and am trying to find someone who can double this with a match... Until then, feel free to donate or tell other people to donate! It's a really great cause, and the people are just amazing. It's money well-spent.

On a different note, I get married in less than two months. HOLY CRAP! I have the dress, it's getting altered, the veil came in but I haven't picked it up yet, wedding rings are present and accounted for, venue for post-wedding lunch is booked, travel to the lunch venue is booked, the menu sounds amazing (warm appetizers and champagne under the archway, lunch in the grand hall inside up against the best window with views of Florence, ravioli and ricotta with butter and sage, roasted salmon with grilled veggies, and "wedding cake" of flaky pastry/cream/chocolate flakes omg yum, red and white wines), I have no idea what we're doing the night before yet, I still have to figure out the morning schedule but my hair/make-up lady comes at 8:30 so maybe open the doors at 9 or something? WOO! Also, check this out:

YEAH! This is pre-altered so it fits funny. And clearly is too long.

And on that note, I have to go to bed. Yeah, it's 8:44 on a Saturday night. Who cares, I rode up a mountain today!