The bike situation today

Big Shark called, my bike is ready to be ridden. I forgot that the Mo Dept of Revenue and Finance owes me $300 + which will greatly help my 'new bike fund' so I've decided to hold off. This month is going to be exceptional expensive with the trip to NYC so I'm ready to not have to break the bank. Ahhhhh bummer. I was really looking forward to sporting a new bike. At least when the time comes the decision will be a lot easier!

I think I'm going to skip spinning on Wednesday. We have to be at the airport (MLI) at 5 am on Thursday so if I go to class, that doesn't get us out of here till 8pm which brings us to bettendorf at midnight and then once we get TO NYC we have a full day so I don't want to go on no sleep (although we could sleep on the plane and in the airport)

I'm off to bed (yes at 9:30) it was a long day with the mean girls from work. I've got a lot to do tomorrow since I've got 4 days off comin my way.

On a side note, Evan's proposal went SUPER WELL today and I am starting to get really excited about the "next steps" for us. This was the first major step in actualy finishing his PhD (OK so it's actualy a DrS) and getting OUT OF WASH U!!! Wooo Hoooo. Next step, thesis defense! It's really just a "yeah OK you did good" type of thing. When he leaves the room he knows if it was good enough or not!

I'm so proud of him we should have celebrated but we had frozen pizza and a bottle of wine. We are boring, what can I say.

The training continues

I had a nice run on Thursday! I was actualy sore on Friday and still a little today. I did a little over 5 1/2 miles but I was working pretty hard. I can't remember the last time I worked that hard.

Yesterday I continued the bike quest. I went to Big Shark, turns out the owner is from the QC. Fancy that. He asked me if knew some random names, what like I know everyone there? Didn't help me much with a discount though. The bike I wanted to try was not assemb led in my size so I had to have them build it and they will call me when it's done. Felt F90 the best thing about this bike is the Carbon Fork. I'm beginning to think I must have this. I went to the Trek store and again, loved the guys there. They put me on practicly every bike there and then I took one out to the parking lot where I feel over and scrapped it up pretty bad. The good news is that I may not have to decide which bike to buy, I may have to buy this one! Evan says we are not buying a bike that I scrapped up out of principal. They should not have let me ride it if they were not prepared for me to fall and scratch it. I told him I was nervouse to use clipless pedals, he should have listened and not pressured me into trying it. Of course it's easy when the bike is on it's trainer. It's not going anywhere! The manager is supposed to call me today.

I'm getting overwhelmed again by all of this. I now want a grossly expensive bike and just cannot justify that right now. So, I'm back to thinking if I can't get what I want then I shouldn't get one at all right now. I'll see how I feel after I ride the felt. That one might be my best bet, but I really prefer the smaller bike shops than Big Shark and Mesa. SO MUCH nicer!

Spinning day II

Spinning was MUCH better tonight. I've been getting a pain in my foot. Instructor (Nicole) says it's from my shoes. Typicaly running type shoes aren't good for biking, the souls aren't hard enough. I think I knew this but didn't think I wanted to buy biking shoes a/because clips scare me, b/ aren't they expensive? The spinning bikes have clips so I think I may look and see if I can get some and try them out in spinnin only until I feel comfortable I won't fall on my face.

We cleared up the hour vs. 45 minute problem and today was definately 1hour. My God was it 1 hour. I wanted it to be over 10 minutes into it but, as spinning normaly goes, I loved the feeling I had at the end! Nothing in the world including running 20 mile training run, makes me feel like I got that good of a work out as spinning does. I think the Marathon did and the Tri came close but I LOVE the spinning feeling.

I'm off to bed! Long tired day.

I know I shouldn't but I want to

The bike I'm going to buy :)

Jeff from Touring cyclist called today to say that I never stopped by to try out the Fuji. Well, he talked to his boss and they will give it to me for an ADDITIONAL $50 off what he quoted me. Not that much more I know but it was already a great deal. I'm going to come up with the money somehow....hopefully......Lord willing.
I got one of those forwards today that I normaly pay a minimal amount of attention to. Here is what it said:

" Have you ever received something wonderful that you didn't >even ask for, like money in the mail, a debt that had mysteriously been >cleared, or a coupon to a department store where you had just seen >something you needed, but couldn't afford? THAT'S GOD knowing the desires >of your heart."

So, see, God wants me to get this bike (any way I can justify it, right?)

Bikes

I want a new bike. I should have never gone to look at new bikes because now I want one more. It's just the wrong time for a new bike
a/ we are leaving for New York in ONE WEEK
b/Evan, Jeane, Conrad, and my mom, the (new) baby all have birthday's with in the month, and then the Megan and Ethan not too long after that, and then Christmas. Not the right time to be dropping upwards of $1000 on a bike.

Oh but it is the right time for a new bike....all of the 2005's or on clearance and all of the bike shops are having sales! Plus the 2006 lines are more expensive this year!

Mesa has the Specialized bike I want, on sale, but not in my size. Their sale is only on in-store bikes. So, that tells me I should not buy that bike. They do have 2 other bikes I'm semi interested in but not as much as the Specialized. Bonus for Mesa, you get 10% of the value of the bike in store credit no matter when you buy. I could get some cushioned but pants, but I also want a heart rate monitor. So I go to Touring Cyclist next. They have 3 viable options, Trek, Fuji, and an off brand. All 3 of those are at least $300 off the Specialized price with out the sale. A bonus, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the guys at Touring. SO much nicer and more laid back. They have less of a selection and their store is not as "pretty" which actualy makes me excited because I'm not paying a premium price for my bike so they can hang it on a fancy rope from the ceiling. I still plan to go to Big Shark (although they were mean to me before) to try out their Specialized bike. If they have my size and I can get them to honor Mesa's price, I'll consider this idea again, although my gut tells me "no" and I'm trying to make better decisions on things like this, but how can I say no? When I do buy a new bike, it will be hundreds of dollars more expensive! I'm getting a bike next spring at the latest, Seem silly to me to put this off for 6 months only to pay MORE money, but I know that I really should. What to do, what to do.

Somethings to ponder

Events to consider:

St. Peters Triplex triathlon. Weekend of October 8th
10 Mile run, Holly Hills. Weekend before Thanksgiving.

TOE:(

I bet I have worn open toe sandals to bars at least a hundred times in my life not to mention the handful of girls I know that do also. This weekend in Chicago, some mean boy stepped on my foot and tore off my big toe nail:( He isn't mean because of this, he didn't do it on purpose, but he is mean becasue he yelled at me for getting blood on him. My bad, you stepped on ME and I got blood on YOU, MUST be my fault, right?


Jackie went to the bartender to ask him for ice and a bandaid and he got all freaked out that someone got hurt and came over to tend to me. He asked if I needed anything and someone said, yeah, something strong to kill the pain so he brought me 2 shots of a mysterious brown liquid. Luckily we had already rallyed the troops and were "ready to bounce" so no one partook in the shot taking, but the bartended at Excalibur on Ontario gets an A+ for effort! (and we managed to avoid the $12 cover and get in for free!). Successful bachelorette party complete with the after 4am roll in and 7 am roll out on Amtrak (leading to less than 3 hours of sleep)

I guess I'll take a few days of running for the toe to feel better and then see how it goes??

Spinning

Last night was the first spinning class... Registered through SLCC (Local community college) to take the class at Wellbridge, which is a very nice gym where Holly works out. There were only 8 ppl there last night, class holds 25 and it says it's full. It's supposed to be an hour long. I registered for it thinking it's an hour long (6:45-7:45)......It was 45 minutes. Teach said that she has a yoga class at 7:30 so it *can't* go till 7:45. However, she also thought the class was only 6 weeks long, it's 12 weeks.

I was diassapointed by the intensity but I will give it another shot. 1) it was the first class and since there were only 8 of us, she helped each person set up their bike and went through E V E R Y T H I N G with us, hand position, bike position, interval vs climbing vs endurance. 2) I thought it was an hour so on our first (and last) climb I was saving something for what I assumed would be a second climb, however there wasn't one because the class was over! Maybe next time a/ there will not be the instruction period to eat up time and/or b/ I will be prepared for only 45 minutes and get my work out in sufficently in that time. Spinning is only as good of a work out as you make of it!

Where have I been??

This summer just slipped right away from us. We started getting busy in July with a trip to Indiana to spend the weekend with Conrad and Abbie and catch a wedding while there. I have since switched jobs also. News of the impending lay off came in June and July was busy scouring the competition for new job leads and trying to figure out where I would be spending my days from here on out. We returned to Bettendorf the last weekend in July to run the Bix. Evan did GREAT! I was very happy that he was able to do much better than he (or I) thought. We stayed together the entire time and although I would have liked to do better, we were not competing on any level so we had a great time. Evan has also been keeping up running since getting out at least once per week to keep in some sort of shape.

The first of August I started a new job. My first week was cut short by a trip to Vail Colorado for Beth Lischer's wedding with was a wonderful time, aside from Evan's temporary illness which prevented him from having the best time of his life on Saturday but he did get to have lots of fun on Friday evening. After returning from Vail, Evan spent a weekend in Chicago with the guys and I enjoyed some much anticipated R&R only to follow the next weekend with my first (and hopefully not last) triathlon. Conrad and Abbie made the trip down from Muncie to participate with me and Chuck and Jeane and Evan spectated and cheered us on! We immensely enjoyed their visit. Friday night we had a great dinner and took C & A to some of our favorite establishments. Saturday we took the dogs to the river to swim a bit. We also drove the course which was not such a good idea since the course freaked me out! Saturday night dinner at PF Changs, one of my favorites but we had very slow everything. The event was pretty much what I expected....it sucked. There was some drama with my registration preventing me from starting where I would have liked but in all fairness, my swimming was really bad had I started where I wanted I would have been passed by anyone who entered the pool while I was in it. The bike course was the complete opposite of flat. I'm not sure it was flat at any point! The run had 2 killer hills but I managed to rip through them with only my desire to finish the race in one piece. C&A did very well. Conrad enjoyed his first experience and is looking forward to next season, as am I. I wish you could race in the fall. My concentration is to increase my endurance for swimming. I don't care if I'm fast, I just don't want to be completely wiped out by the time I get out of the water. I definitely want to do an open water swim next year and up the distance. I am also doing another triathlon in the spring so that should get me in great shape. I want to do this one right, I'm not walking at all during the training (where as last time I welcomed walk breaks) unless it's a necessity due to injury or some other un avoidable circumstance.

As for now, I enjoy leisurely runs when I can fit them in! I'm getting a new bike sometime soon. mostly I don't like the position of things on my bike. It is uncomfortable and heavy. I plan to keep it around in case I want to do any trail riding with Evan which is possibly if we are ever in St. Louis for more than 5 days at a time.

We hit the road again for the next 2 weekends for weddings, Evan in the QC, me in Des Moines, and them both of us Omaha. Next weekend it's off to Chicago for a bachelorette party for me and Evan enjoys some R&R at home. His thesis proposal is scheduled for Monday the 19th! We have 1 free weekend in there before heading to NYC/Long Island for, yep you guessed it, a wedding! After that the baby is here so I'll spend a few days in the QC to help Amy out with her girls as she adjusts to having another baby in the house. We only have 1 more wedding after that, the middle of October and a shower for Amy and they we are STAYING PUT until Thanksgiving. Mark my words! (unless we catch a hawkeye game in there).

Look for more from me now. I vow to update this thing with what's going on!

Cheers!
S