Saturday, July 05, 2008

The wetsuit post

This is my favorite neighborhood yard, decked out for the 4th. It's what I imagine a New Orleans yard to be like... there are sculptures, lamps, a fountain and furniture all hidden around.

Ok, first, in case you get confused later: My 4th of July was awesome. I slept in, took a long bike ride, bought a wetsuit, made strawberry shortcake, went to a party, watched fireworks on the roof, and then had a private show of SERIOUS illegal ought out the "Athena" large sized wetsuit, which sounded sorta funny and Wonder-Woman-y and Greek, but, somewhat thankfully, it was too big, so I settled on the non-athena large suit in sleeveless style. I bought it right then and there, on the credit card, and cancelled my Sunday haircut appointment at the salon, because now I'm $280 more in debt than I was before. But it was worth it.

The kids did what kids do in the basement.

See, at 7am today in the maybe 64° lake, I wore the suit for the first time at my Ohio Street beach group session, and swam a 1/2 mile in it, and it was totally great! I mean, lake swimming still is hard as hell, and I had to resort to breaststroke some of the time because it still seems impossible to see where I'm headed, plus there were some waves, but as far as personal comfort and feeling like I could breathe, and that I could possibly complete the swim in the event, etc., this was a hundred times better than the other suit. I know it'll just get better if I keep practicing in the open water. Plus, this suit packs neatly into a little mesh bag and is easy to bike the 14 miles with.

The food was awesome, as always, and there were some thematic desserts besides mine!

Then today I went to the awesome community bike shop for open shop (my first time at an open shop - I was nervous!) and fixed the horrible squeaking from the deraiileur that my bike did yesterday and fixed the seat and oiled everything, and replaced the quick-release thingies on my tires with new, permanent ones. My bike is like supercharged and perfect right now.

There was even an awesome jam session in the front room. So lovely!

I practically sailed home on my rockin' bike, but stopped in at two - yes two - different Targets to look for these awesome running socks I bought last month that I want another 2-pack of - and although neither Target had the socks anymore, I managed to make it out of BOTH STORES without buying a single thing. I am extremely proud of myself.

Then we went on the roof to watch the illegal fireworks all around R's house!

And, to top it off, all that wetsuit-tryin-on made me realize how huge I am, and that I need to crank the training up a notch and lose some of the extra weight, so I impulsively signed up for a 5K race (my first race/event ever!) that's in 2 weeks. So I'll be adding some runs in this week, that's for sure.


Now it's not even 10pm and I'm so tired from biking all over creation and swimming at dawn that I'm going to sleep. Goodnight!

2 comments:

Churlita said...

That sounds like a great 4th. I can't believe how expensive wet suits are. When I lived in Northern California and swam in the ocean, I just borrowed my boyfriend's suit.

Poptart said...

I KNOW! Well, I got the surfing/diving one for like 29 dollars on ebay. But the triathlon ones are more hi-tech, an have to fit better for the race. If I'd have gotten the full-sleeve suit, it would've been even more!!