Tests, Plans, Weather and Other Non-Sequiturs

I went to college in Northern Indiana and many of my college friends have settled down in Chicago - as a result of, or maybe in spite of this, I have on several occasions given fairly serious thought to moving there.  Like to live.  Except the coldest I have ever been in my life has been in Chicago in February - so cold that I can still remember getting back to the apartment where I was staying, watching in horror as the person I was staying with struggled to get the keys out and the door open and when I was finally in the apartment, sitting there with my coat on wondering if there was a legitimate way to stay both in Chicago and in the apartment until Spring.  I think the horrific weather (and the fact that I'm not licensed to work there and my family is here and by the time I really was ready to maybe move there most of the people I would have wanted to be spend my days with were married) play a big role in why I never pulled the trigger on that whole moving to Chicago thing.  Anyway, when its gets so cold here in the East that its all they talk about on the news and walking the four blocks to lunch* leaves me so tired and cold that I just want to crawl up on the couch in reception and stay there until Spring, it makes me happy that I don't live in Chicago - it might be 15 here but its 15 below or something crazy there.

But, the weather gives me a good reason to stay in on a Friday night and blog.  And, if nothing else, I'm thankful that I wasn't standing in the Hudson River recently - when the plane crashed they said that air was 18 and the water 40 - only 14 degrees cooler than the water in this race.

Kind of crazy that I did the race in the first place knowing that the water was going to be that cold.  Crazier still that I'm thinking of doing the race again ... especially with this weather we're having -  the lake might be even cooler this year.  Anyway, for the spring/summer I'm thinking something like this:

• The Harryman (freakishly cold water) - olympic (more or less) distance - May 16, 2009
• Rev3 (super hilly) - Half IM - June 7, 2009
• Philly Tri - olympic - June 28, 2009
• NJ State - olympic - July 26, 2009
• Timberman - Half IM - August 23, 2009

I'll train with a fairly intense (for me) bike training group in March and April and train for a half marathon in October ... so it'll be busy (especially June) but hopefully fun.

I've been trying to be diligent about training and was super happy with my tests - I improved from all of last year's tests especially in swimming and running (I mis-recorded last year's bike test results so it was hard to know how this year compared to last) perhaps proving that even after all these years I'm still a good tester.  Over the next two weeks I'm going to do a new bike and run test and re-do the swimming test.  I'm looking forward to the swim test (in a sick, sick way) because I haven't missed a swim since the new year - with any luck I'll continue to be a good tester;)

I'm trying to keep this up while maybe fitting in a day or two of skiing (I feel like someday far, far away when I'm finally grown up and settled down, skiing will be a great thing to do as a family but I also feel that if I don't ski this year I might never ski again, so I'm going to try to fit it in) and yoga (in the next 2-3 years I'd like to become a yoga instructor - but I need to keep up my practice to make this a reality).  So overall things are good.  Busy, but good.  You might say I'm content.  Which is really more than enough right now, basically the wisdom to know the difference.

*  This was only the second time in two weeks that I went out to lunch.  I'm on a home cooking/clean eating/no processed food (she writes as she drinks a beer) kick and have brought my breakfast and lunch to work everyday (except for the day a false fire alarm in my apartment building caused me to leave sans lunch).  I admit that I was never really a believer in the whole you are what you eat logic until now - it seems that there might be something to it.  Maybe.

Anyway, stay warm kids.  Happy weekend.