Mad Manatees 2015.4 CLOSED (or Poptart/pet pic ticket)

Can I join if I offer a pet pic bribe? (File is too big but I can post it from work on Monday after I re-size it there or do it on my I-pad later.). Gets pretty lonely here sometimes!

Attempting to attach bribe now!





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Do you think these fins are good for swim training?  No matter, off  to run a 5K race.   Doctor approved.

 

 

Edited by MadMathemagician 2015-10-10 7:08 AM






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Anyone ever eaten squid ink spaghetti before? I was given a package of it recently, and I'm just not sure what to do with it. My husband, the Giraffe, does not like seafood, so I was a bit disappointed when I googled around and it seems this pasta is usually paired with calamari or shrimp. Anybody had it before and able to comment on the taste? I'm thinking about pairing it with a cream sauce...

I'd say their better for swimming than running. Bad luck on the fall, still, a good time for a old un like yourself

Stacey - The place I was running wasn't a designated park, as such, more a reclaimed area that has shared use paths along a river. It used to be one of the largest coal tips in Europe and was depicted in Lowry's "Bargoed"
http://www.thelowry.com/gifts-and-souvenirs/prints-and-limited-edit...

In the UK, we generally don't have leashed and non-leashed parks, more a general law where there is a sliding scale of accountability applied retrospectively. i.e. If your dog injures someone/another animal, or they think they are going to be injured by the animal, then it will be deemed as out of control. In this case, I could argue that I was worried that the dog could injure me by tripping me up, or attacking me. Think of it like this, if I had a dog that does not recall and runs at people, I would need to walk it on a lead when around other people. If I had a dog that is ok with other people but barks and charges other dogs, then it would need to be leashed when around other animals, which is what I do with Lucy. If the dog is known to nip/bite, then it would need to be muzzled. It is the responsibility of the owner to deem what level of control they need to apply. Unfortunately some owners are oblivious to how their dog is perceived by others.

Steve of course your vote counts.

Happy to have you on board Karen (even though you are a cat owner )

Okay....I'd think everyone knew me by now, but will try to give the short version:


NAME: Karen

STORY: I'm a 46 year old international teacher with a longtime addiction to running whose quest to get back into decent shape at age 40 somehow took a turn into triathlon. I've been running since age 10 (really), though not always competitively. Fairly serious about running until age 21, with decent but not elite times in 5K (17:03) through marathon (2:43:53). Have not come back anywhere close to that level, though (add about 20% to each time and you've got my current fitness!). Also some swim background as a kid and teenager. Not quite as fast, but I do have a distance swimming background (500 and 1500m), which is really useful for tri. After college, mainly recreational running plus some OWS when I went to Hawaii for grad school. (But, believe it or not, never got into tri. I thought all tris were full IM, had no interest in biking 112 miles or running a marathon AFTER that. I still don't, really!) Anyway, got into master's swimming while working in Vietnam, and then somehow into tri. Have been at it about five years now. I'm one of very few triathletes in country, and one of the only women in the sport here.


FAMILY STATUS: Sadly, single and likely to remain that way. (SE Asia is not a good place foe a 40-something white woman.) Two "fur children" as pictured in bribe--Smudgee (large cat, small tail) and Tomoko (small cat, long tail).

CURRENT TRAINING: My logs are public--anyone can look if they are interested in details.(They will be going private though as I am going to start working with a coach next month. That's going to be the first time in 25 years. I have gotten frustrated with always ending up sick before races and have officially "fired" myself as coach. Right now just doing maintenance--3-4 workouts each week in each sport, not much speed work or long stuff.

THIS YEAR'S RACES/EVENTS: No more serious races planned for this year. IM Vietnam 70.3 in May (5:56 something, wretchedly ill with flu), Toughman Half in Washington state in July (5:32 something), Tri at the Grove Olympic (2:34 something), Singapore Aquathlon (can't remember--hideous race). I don't race very often due to my location and difficulty getting leave from my job. Big goal next year is a strong performance at IM Vietnam 70.3. The rest still to be determined! Would love to get under 2:30 for the Oly before I get too old and decrepit to do it.

BODY COMPOSITION: Err...not much of one. I look like an elite runner minus the speed. (Like Yanti said at IM Vietnam--Look for the girl who looks like a pro--you must have meant runner, not triathlete-- and is not a pro, and you can find me.) This is actually NOT an advantage for tri, except maybe on the run. I can't think of any changes that my involvement in tri has effected. I like to imagine that my upper body has gotten more muscular, but this is probably sheer self-delusion. I certainly have gotten stronger, but it hasn't stopped people from asking if I'm anorexic (uh....no, and thanks for asking) or if I think I can handle the swim (Yes, can you?). Actually I can outlift most of the women and some of the guys at my gym. I'm just small. Grandpa was a blacksmith into his 80's and not much more "built" than me. We have weird bodies. Any further change in body composition would probably require steroids, or pregnancy.

Any more embarrassing questions?!

BTW Squid ink pasta--mild fishy taste. Brings back memories of one of my college teammates and I--we were always ordering weird stuff to bother our college coach. (Most of the girls on the team were always worried about their weight and ordered the same thing everywhere, and the two of us were rebels. Squid ink pasta was one of our more alarming orders.) It looks weirder that it actually tastes.

I can be your pet.

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Got up to check on defrosting progress of some scallops for dinner just now and it came back to me--what we had with the squid ink pasta. Scallops in a lemon cream sauce. There may have also been a bit of squid. (We would have scored more points for the meal having tentacles--we actually had a rating scale for weirdness. I credit this teammate with making a nice, slightly picky midwestern girl into a rebel and adventurous eater.) Very nice--it must have been if I still remember that meal 25 years later. And very alarming to nutritional purist coach and teammates eating their regular pasta with tomato sauce. CREAM SAUCE???? And you are having it over BLACK NOODLES? It was delicious, and so worth it to see the coach freak out over black noodles.

Sounds like a good vote to me! Cream sauce all the way. I'll post back with how it turns out.

Pumpkin toaster pastries??? Now I for sure need to take a trip to TJ. I also need Cookie Crack, um I mean Cookie Butter and their Mac and Cheese.

Meanwhile, on my run today I came across a 4 foot bull snake (it wasn't a spider so all was good). Usually I talk to the bunnies, field mice, cows, horse, and any dog that I see during my runs and bikes. Today I didn't want to talk to the snake because I was afraid people would think I was a parsal mouth.

20 minutes later I stopped at the car to refill my water and when I started up again I stepped off the curb funny and twisted my good ankle. But it's my knee that hurts, not my ankle. So weird.

Welcome Karen!

Thanks for all the warm welcomes! I do hope coaching works out. I have had some really great experiences and one pretty bad experience with coaching (for running) in the past, but that was all a long, long time ago. I just feel like I'm pretty good at working hard and developing my run and swim fitness; not so great at figuring out the bike or getting to races healthy and at my physical peak. Not deluding myself that I'm the next Rinny or anything, but I do think there's potential there I'm not realizing, even if I made no actual improvement but just got to a race healthy and put my three best splits together!

I do have a run background and something of a swim background and actually do some coaching myself (kids) but tri is just a different animal with three sports to balance. I also don't have the benefit of more experienced athletes, coaches, or tri clubs locally. (Last year, I hosted a party for the Vietnam athletes after a race, and seven people showed up. We all knew each other, and it was such a small affair that people were taking showers and naps in my bungalow, and someone even wandered away for the night leaving a Cervelo,, and I knew whose it was.) Even our club in Oregon fell apart after the tri shop it was associated with went under. Pretty much everything I know about tri I have learned from magazines or BT. Probably not that qualified as a tri coach--I deserve to be sacked!

WOW this is great! With only 1 page I feel all caught up!!


Welcome Karen!


Last week was a cluster at work and I think this week will be much of the same.

I did, however, start up with my new coach and I'm excited and scared she's going to kick my a$$! LOL I decided to run the Hartford Half marathon on Saturday - WTH I was there with DH who was running the full so why not. It was ok - to finish is to win! Beautiful weather though! WOOT!

Ok carry on. And I hope I'm not one of the ones that get's thinned out of the pod