Kathleen's Adventures

Wednesday I met my friend Jill for lunch at Zoe's. Jill and her husband Bob adopted baby Sarah at the beginning of October. To say that she fell into their hands would be an understatement. They had been working on adopting out of Kazakhstan for several months and that journey did not have much of an end in sight. They had begun thinking about domestic adoption and had not yet even finished the paperwork when news of a new baby girl found its way to them one innocent Friday morning and by Monday they were proud parents. I had prayed for months for Jill and Bob, and that they would be able to be parents one day soon. I leave town to run a marathon and I come back and holy cow! they are parents! Sarah is doing awesome an passing all her milestones with flying colors - even more amazing considering her birth mother tested positive for cocaine when she was born. When I walked into Zoe's I saw a baby in the corner when I was looking for Jill and Sarah, but quickly spotted them, so ...

From Shellie: http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100234410&GT1=31036 She found me some new great food to eat on my high-sodium diet. If I look like a bloated whale next time you see me, don't worry, it is all your imagination.

Below is the fundraising request letter I just sent out to several friends and family. I would like to also extend it to my blog readers: On April 18-19 I will set out for my fourth MS150 ride from Houston to Austin . I will be joining over 13,000 other cyclists as we ride to support the fight against MS. I hate even asking for fundraising money right now as everyone has experienced financial hardships recently, whether large or small. Unfortunately, MS is still out there and is still killing people, regardless of what the economy is doing. My goal is to raise $400 (the minimum required to participate in the ride), and my hope is that several people can and will contribute a small amount to help me get there. If five dollars is all you have to contribute, awesome; that is five more dollars towards research and finding a cure that was previously not available. I am also contemplating once again participating in the Janus Charity Challenge to raise money for the American Cancer Society ...

is why I'm not hopping on the Ironman St. George bandwagon without second thought. Those are 2 huge, unrelenting, 30 mile climbs. I guess the positive side to it all is you wouldn't really have to pedal the 20 miles it takes to come down from that climb, twice. You could really call it about a 92 mile bike ride because I'm not sure how much effort other than white-knuckled braking will be required for the last 20. Then again, it might take that long to get over the mental and physical trauma of what just happened.

I'm not sure what, and I'm not sure I should ask questions, but something is going right. I have had a great training week, despite the fact that I got to the pool on Tuesday only to find out it was closed, thus no masters workout. No problem, only an hour of my life wasted sitting in traffic. I did a spinerval workout at home both Tuesday and Wednesday. I forget how good they are - far better than me being left to spin at my own pace. I turn the DVD music off and turn my radio on and I'm good to go, surprisingly. Wednesday night at track I had a good workout too. The workout was 6x800 at I pace with 2 minutes rest then 4x200 at R pace with 2 minutes rest. My vdot last year at this time was 39. This year I started at a humbling 32. My 10k a few weeks ago brought me to a stout 33 - watch out. As I was walking out the door on Wednesday, with my 33 vdot times in hand, I thought I'd check to see if my 2:03 half marathon time from the weekend changed anything. Sure enough i...

Here are pictures of the getup (aka "costume") from Sunday: http://raceshots.net/app/event/zoomPictures?eventInstanceId=17480&picture=4080572 I was not planning on losing the shirt. The stupid socks are plain hot. I need to seek surgical help in the stomach area before it gets too much hotter outside! No one needs to see my jelly belly the way it is right now.

So, I find myself in a bind, quite literally, with the compression socks. Here is what I have found so far: Zoot : bought them at Luke's Locker on tri night. They are women's sized, with a true left and right foot. I ran in them Sunday and loved them. The feet are very padded and super comfortable. Only issue here: they are very hard to put on. I am not sure I would even have the patience to put these on in an Ironman transition. Published compression of 18-30 mmhg ; retail $60 at every place I have seen. I was able to get 20% off at tri -night and have a regular 15% off discount at Luke's, but with tax, that still comes out to about $55. Beaker Concepts : Pink! But, sadly, not very tight at all. No published compression figure. Not surprised. I have not run in these yet. I could see putting these on in transition of a half or full ironman , but don't know if they would work nearly as well as the Zoot's as far as compression. I ordered these for about $30 with s...