Alive and Well very long

My computer got a virus from heck and just died on me. Gene managed to restore a lot of it but I am still missing chunks from my harddrive. Because my computer died I missed the e-mail reminding me to pay the 10 buck once yearly domain fee. They did not send it til the 11th hour (cheap company rotton service) and then the domain got eaten.. Which was great timing because with the friends boyfreind mess a lot of people worried needlessly. I suppose I could have had my husband log on and tell everyone I am fine but he has a tendancy to be so abrupt that it scares people more! Last year when I was in the hospital trying not to have JJ he sent out an e-mail that read: "Nancy is in the hospital for the next 10 weeks". As you can imagine I got a lot of phone calls quick.

Update on the training. I have really slacked on the running this week. I get up and don't feel like doing it. I am going to get 20 miles in but that is all. I am calling it my taper for the CRIM next week (10 mile footrace) and leaving it at that. I am not going to get into the mechanics of why I feel lazy about it this week but I strongly suspect I just needed some time off.

I am ahead on the bike. Out for 50 miles last week and this week and feel really good about it.

I have to fit all of this weeks swimming into one session tomorrow because the boys are going back to school next week and I had a couple of meetings (PTO and Curriculumn Night). I knew this was coming and I prepped for it mentally. I have been going hard for weeks now so being off a few miles this week is not horrific but I feel very guilty about it.

On another note I am no longer working with my training partner. I hope he does well and I mean that but I was feeling used and I know he was not happy with me so I stepped back for a while.

Last Saturday he was 45 minutes late for a planned workout. I am used to it but we were meeting my friend. When I told him I was upset about his being late he attacked me with stuff he had been holding back for years he found wrong with me. OK. I can deal with that. Last time I checked I was not perfect but the attack was pretty hard and horrible and desigened to make me feel really bad about myself. I let him get it out and just took a lot of it in and tried to own my part and let the petty stuff go.

We got out and he rode with us 1/2 way. I had told him my friend Julie was slow. She rides 13mph and I made that clear before the ride. He insisted that was fine and he would just enjoy himself. When we met up with Julie she was already apologising for how slow she was going to be. She just started riding and rides a Mountainbike. I told her that her bike was slower than ours and that we would be fine. My training partner looked her dead in the eye and said: "It's not the bike, it's the engine". I was not happy. While that is true to a great extent you are not going to be as fast on a MTB than a tri bike and you can argue with me all day but it is going to slow you down by 1-3 mph depending on a lot of things. I have seen gains on my new bike that indicate this and I believe it. She also has not trained like we have. She is not interested in racing, just having fun, which is why I explained that before I invited my training partner.

He hung with us through the lunch then took off on both of us without so much as a "goodbye". He called me the next day and I asked him what happened: "You both were so slow it was not doing me any good so I left". I was floored. I let it go.

On Monday he called and was complaining that "My running is not coming together". He gets shin splints. IMO he gets them because he goes to hard and is not building up but that is neither here nor there. I said "Maybe you could slow down". His response was: "I can't run as slow as you, no offense". I was pretty quiet and said. "well Mark I run a 11-12 minute mile and you are running a 13-14 minute mile". Mark: "If we raced tomorrow I would still beat you into the ground". I didn't even know what to say. I finally took a breath and said: "You know I have worked really hard for that 11-12 minute mile and yes you have better genetics than me. I understand that. Right now I am deeply offended because it sounds like you are just out there trying to beat me and if that is your goal then best of luck but I don't think I want to be your inpsiration like that. I will see you at races but I need a break" and hung up. What you are missing is that I was in tears over it. I thought we were working together because we both wanted to do something we thought was beyond us but there have been comments like: "I hate running but I am going to do this and quite and just bike" that have made me wonder what his motivation was. He often yells out "I HATE RUNNING" when he out walk/running with me. I finally just stopped running with him because his negative attitude about the run was making me hate it too and I love running.

So that partnership is over for the time being.

Other than that I am working along. 20 miles on the bike tonight.