Decided to make today a rest/catch up day. I've been having a few aches and pains here and there (my left achilles was even talking to me a little bit for the first time in at least a month) so I've been a little freaked out and hoping that I'm not over-doing it with the training. I know I've been stressed the past 10 days or so which is about when the aches and pains started to set in, so I just took it easy today. Got caught up on some work stuff that was stressing me out and I feel a lot better about that, and just took some time tonight to do some mindless stuff and sit around. I got a tennis ball and rolled my left foot (oh yeah, my plantar fascia has been feeling sore. Not acute pain sore but just sore muscle sore) so I rolled that out on the tennis ball and it feels a LOT better. Then I got Brynn's foam roller out and rolled out both my calves and both of my hamstrings, since my left one has been a little achy on kind of the outside, but not so far outside as to be encroaching on the IT band area. Just working out those muscles with the rolling techniques makes me feel a lot better, even if it didn't do anything to improve my overall achyness. My real concern is my knees, because I've never really had knee pain before. I've had pain in my quadricep tendon as I started back up training (it happens every time I go a long time without training and pick it back up again) but never anything actually inside the knee, which is what I feel like is going on now. Going to try doing a shortie run on it tomorrow, around 30 minutes, at an easy pace, and see how it feels. I'm a little concerned that I'm 9 weeks out and only running up to 5.5 miles and being wiped out after those runs. I know a lot will change over the next two months, but it's hard not to stress out about it. I don't have any goals for Kansas other than to train well and execute a good race. My real sights are set on the State Games and the Mayor's Tris. That reminds me, I still need to register for those. So I guess that gives me a little bit of flexibility in my overall training volume and intensity, allowing me to back off if I need to in order to just make it to the start line healthy.

Went a little easy on the running this week because my knees have both been giving me pause over the past several days. I think the active recovery (i.e. scuttling around the water park at Great Wolf Lodge all weekend) was good for them, I didn't have any issues on my ride today and I'm feeling good now a couple hours later. Hoping this is a trend in the positive direction! Might go swim tomorrow if I have time, might make it another off day because I'm busy. I have one order due tomorrow, a final due Tuesday, three due Wed, 2 on Thurs and 2 on Fri, with another 3 on Monday. Eek!

12:07AM and I am officially done! Going to go open the box with my bike in it and have a peek. I'll have time to take a nap tomorrow (today) :) --- The guys who boxed up my bike obviously knew what they were doing -- all I need to do is get a torque wrench that measures in single digit newton-meters to tighten everything down, then figure out the proper way/location to hook up the rear derailleur cable and I'll be off to the races! I think I'm gonna be riding this thing today! Super excited! --- We are getting completely blasted with new orders right now. Not only does the weather make it feel like July, the workload does too! In un-related news, I'm completely whooped from that bike ride last night. I don't know what the deal is, but I am in some pain today in my legs and feet. I think I'm going to be making today a rest/recovery day and try to do a 30/30 bike/run brick tomorrow before we leave for Kansas City. Taking the family to Great Wolf Lodge for Easter! :) --- Inspected a property today that is assessed at $1.3M. We'll see what the comps have to say about that. The area of the master closets (yes, plural) is larger than our master bedroom and bathroom combined. In fact, the master suite is probably larger than the footprint of our house. Then when I got home I went to Sears and got myself a torque wrench (measures in n-m as well as ft-lbs) and got everything on the new bike tightened down and put into place. I didn't hook up the rear derailleur because I haven't researched enough to feel comfortable with it yet and I didn't have time to put it on the trainer and figure it out through trial and error. But I did take it out and ride it up past the gas station and back. It felt good! Makes an interesting noise when riding on the road, kind of a hollow, ominous sound. I'm assuming that's just the carbon talkin'. Anyway, I feel like I might be able to be a real triathlete now. We'll see! --- D'oh. I hooked my bike up to the trainer and went to tighten down the shifter cable on the RD and in my infinite wisdom was able to lose the derailleur pinch bolt on my 2-mile ride today. Dumb! Thankfully Shimano's components are very similar to one another and I was able to take the one off my Trek even though it's a 105 and the Cervelo is Ultegra. Got it shifting smoothly as far as I can tell. I'll know for certain tomorrow when I take it out for my first true road ride. When I went to Bike Masters I was measured and Dave gave me a computer printout of where everything should be spaced for what should be my perfect fit. He came up with a BB to seat top (center of top tube) height of 791mm which is a little over 31 inches. So I put my seat at that height and double-checked my measurements, and it just feels too short. I checked my Trek to see how it compared and I was riding at around 32.5 inches--over an inch of difference! So I'm going to ride the P2 around with the new seat height and we'll see how the ol' body takes to that change in the fit. I've been riding over 400 miles this year with my seat at that particular height so I'm sure it won't be an easy adjustment. Then again maybe so if it was too high? +-+-+-+-+- I just did an internet search and found out that based on most peoples' responses to a thread on bikeforums.net my saddle height at 79cm is well within the normal range, assuming that the people who responded were fit well to their bikes (if they know their inseam and saddle height from center of BB then I assume they know what they're talking about). So I'm excited to test it out tomorrow!

I have about 12 hours of work that I need to cram into 8 hours of workday. Group ride is tonight and it's gonna be a chilly one, I think. High of 55*F currently 63*F. Doesn't look like it will be too windy though. The bike is here! Makes me wish I wasn't so busy so I could try and put it together before the ride tonight ;-) Then again if I wasn't so busy I wouldn't be able to justify buying a new bike, so... you know. ---------------------------------------- Dude, it must be "Hammer the appraiser with ridiculous underwriting requests" week at the banks or something. I did an FHA appraisal a few weeks ago and took a picture from inside the attic to show that I had inspected it. I got a request saying "Please indicate whether or not the attic was inspected." I said "I put a picture of the inside of the attic in the report, I'm not sure what other indication you're looking for." They said "We just need it in text along with the photo." I'm half-tempted to respond and say "Then I need a picture of someone holding my report so that I can be sure that someone actually read it, along with your requests in writing." But, no, that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it??? Exactly. Got another request for me to include a sale of a 1 year-old ranch-style (1-story) home in a report I sent in on Monday. Except the property I appraised was a 106 year-old two-story home. Why they wanted that particular sale in the report is beyond me. I basically told them as much and the rescinded the request. It's like, "Seriously?" I spend quite a bit of time doing these reports and trying to make sure everything looks good, and then they pull stupid crap like this. And this is on top of having several reports due each day this week so I don't really have time to go through old reports and make these ludicrous revisions, or even deal with the requests when they come through, because I'm also needing to schedule a few inspections because of new orders that have come in... Suffice to say we're a little busy this week ;-)

On Saturday my right knee was feeling a little funny under the knee cap on the bottom-right side when I would extend my leg, so I decided I'd play it safe and do my long run on Sunday and take Saturday off. I spent several hours outside cleaning/organizing the garage and installing some 48" fluorescent lights that used to be in our kitchen and dining room areas. It makes a world of difference! Our garage also has this weird closet room thing that the previous owners built and no light gets in there so I installed a pull-chain light for Brynn to be able to see her gardening supplies and stuff. Then Saturday night I tripped over a laundry basket and my right knee started to hurt in that same area. I was so frustrated. I felt fine on Sunday though and did my run. To my surprise my right knee didn't hurt but my left one did. It hurt yesterday too and is a little tender today. I'm going to plan on trying to hit the pool later for a long swim (haven't swum for a week!) and try to take it easy today otherwise. Tomorrow is the long ride with the group, temps are supposed to be in the 50s. Eek! Guess I'll have to dust off the ol' shoe covers :) ------------------------ Huh. Starting to get the pain in my right knee again. I wonder if it's because I'm sitting cross-legged? Going to keep myself from crossing my legs I guess.