Pallas Athena

Today, got a quick 30 miler in. Damn windy, too. Managed to eek out a decent mph, due to the stiff push out of town and ducking out of it on the way back with some hills. Tomorrow will be another brick. I want to get going early to try to cut down on the wind. There are dictionaries sitting on the table that need names put in for the third graders. Procrastination is beginning to wear me down. Maybe I will get that done tomorrow.

Missed a swim last night, due to being on call. I will take call today also, as backup. Lately, the backup goes in about 90% of the time. We will see about a bike ride later today. On the bike, I have started to play with a few different "mixes" in my gatorade. There are more than a few good articles about BCAA's and maltodextrin. Have been using those with the gatorade, and it keeps me from running aground on long rides. This comes out to about 70 grams of carbs an hour. 70 g instead of 60? Easier to measure the maltodextrin. Now, there was an article in this month's running times about using fructose and glucose in a 1:2 ratio. Apparently, it boosts your uptake of carbs significantly over other combinations or glucose alone. Makes sense, when you think about all those metabolic pathways you learn in biochem. In the past, they were looking at glucose transporters, and 60 grams was all those pathways could handle per hour. Powerbar is the only one on boar...

Lately my attitude has been crap. Ornery about everything. Things that I have invested myself in, I am ready to throw the towel in on. I just haven't felt that what I was doing was appreciated. Case point, I requested addresses for our ANNA local chapter from nationals at the beginning of the summer, and twice more since. No response. The other day, I get this e-mail saying they have set up a "task force" to figure out a way they can assist chapters that are struggling. They would like me to take a survey to tell them what I think. ARGH! Are you kidding me? So I thought about how I would respond to this for awhile. Then I got mad and said some things in an e-mail that weren't very nice. I mean, it wasn't terrible or anything. It was professional. But it could have been said nicer. BAD KARMA! At work, we are striving to get Magnet Status. Some of the higher-ups have asked to interview me to discuss my involvement with professional nursing organizations and how it h...

Lately my attitude has been crap. Ornery about everything. Things that I have invested myself in, I am ready to throw the towel in on. I just haven't felt that what I was doing was appreciated. Case point, I requested addresses for our ANNA local chapter from nationals at the beginning of the summer, and twice more since. No response. The other day, I get this e-mail saying they have set up a "task force" to figure out a way they can assist chapters that are struggling. They would like me to take a survey to tell them what I think. ARGH! Are you kidding me? So I thought about how I would respond to this for awhile. Then I got mad and said some things in an e-mail that weren't very nice. I mean, it wasn't terrible or anything. It was professional. But it could have been said nicer. BAD KARMA! At work, we are striving to get Magnet Status. Some of the higher-ups have asked to interview me to discuss my involvement with professional nursing organizations and how it ...

Lately my attitude has been crap. Ornery about everything. Things that I have invested myself in, I am ready to throw the towel in on. I just haven't felt that what I was doing was appreciated. Case point, I requested addresses for our ANNA local chapter from nationals at the beginning of the summer, and twice more since. No response. The other day, I get this e-mail saying they have set up a "task force" to figure out a way they can assist chapters that are struggling. They would like me to take a survey to tell them what I think. ARGH! Are you kidding me? So I thought about how I would respond to this for awhile. Then I got mad and said some things in an e-mail that weren't very nice. I mean, it wasn't terrible or anything. It was professional. But it could have been said nicer. BAD KARMA! At work, we are striving to get Magnet Status. Some of the higher-ups have asked to interview me to discuss my involvement with professional nursing organizat...

My swimming sucks. Plain and simple. I am beginning to think about what it is going to mean when I don't make the swim cut-off time. This isn't something that I'm just not being realistic about. IM WI was in 2:04. No, the waves didn't slow me down. Think barge. Last time I was pulling my daughter in the raft, with no change in speed. I seem to be missing a gear. Fitness is NOT a factor. Got the bike and run down pretty much without concerns. Can ride century rides without soreness, now doing bricks of 75/5. Those are going very well. I have doubled and tripled the bricks up also. No real issues there. This time around, I am just avoiding swimming. It doesn't go well, the water is cold. The excuse list could be miles long. The only legit reason I have is that it aggravates my back. Too much extension in a swim position. It needs to be practiced, it will get better. Swimming has not been made a habit. The biking and running gets done, because I love...

Brodhead beat East Troy last night by at least 40/7. Don't know the final because we left with 3 minutes on the clock and we saw Brodhead intercept one as we drove away. On the way home, we got on the topic of running things over with the car. We started to speculate about what hitting an armadillo would be like. Do they just crumple up and die, or is it like punting a football? We have been northerners all our lives, and this simply isn't an issue we encounter. They look kind of cute in an armored-car sort of way, and seem harmless enough at the zoo. This discussion lead in to what do they eat. I thought bugs, but wasn't sure. When we got home, we did a little search on the beast. What disgusting rats with shells they turned out to be! They are unbelievably diseased! 53% have leprosy. Hell, if you saw one without a leg you wouldn't be thinking that was the cause. Yuck! Salmonella, tape worms, rabies. The list goes on and on. Armadillos are a common wild...

National Kidney Foundation and American Nephrology Nurses had our annual symposium today. We had 145 people there, and about 75 were nurses and dialysis technicians. The whole thing was incredible but tiring. My favorite speaker was Bob Hanisch. He has a degree in exercise phys and is a certified diabetes educator. He has competed in Ironman triathlons also and runs Peak Performance out of Brookfield. I want his job. We talked about training plans and implementing them for patients, along with some specifics for renal and diabetes. Funny, last year we had Shad Ireland. He was the first dialysis patient to ever finish the Ironman. Great speaker, but I bought his book and that wasn't so much. Yes, I can make my job about the Ironman...We are already looking to next year to figure out what to have our talks on. On the lighter side of things, this weekend was my cousin's wedding and then off to my brother in law's for the annual Packer/Lions Party. It was an awful lot...

Busy weekend, but awfully fun too. Mike and I volunteered in registration on Friday. Only 800 registered of the 2200 on Thursday, so we were hopping! All volunteers get a tee-shirt. This year, they have a cow on the front that strangely looks more like a goat. It is original, for sure. Saturday, Angie, Chey and I went up to deliver our course signs. Angie hadn't been back since 06', but the IM village is still the IM village. Lots of ways to spend your pennies. Sunday morning, we made church. Then I got a run in. Then off to the IM! Kids were checking the IM splits as often as I was, and they did not want to go hang on the course. So, they stayed home monitoring the computer. I met Mike after his shift, and we took mountain bikes down on the run course by picnic point. There we saw mostly everyone, except CJ. Got some pics too. Supper was pizza and then back on the course. One of our friends who trains at Princeton came through there, along with CJ. Course wa...

Well, for those of you who just cannot get enough fun out of a brick workout...Today I did a triple brick workout that I had read about in one of our numerous tri books. One hour on the bike, 1/2 hr on the treadmill, and repeat that twice more. Mike was along for the first hour of biking and then he went home. It was windy and cold, so the second lap went to my house for a sweatshirt. The workout went quite well. Surprisingly enough, it was much simpler to do this workout as a brick than all of the distance on the bike and then all of the distance on the run. The recovery was good too. Got home and made sure the 100 grams of carbs with 25 grams protein was in within 20 minutes. Got a quick nap before Chey got home. Got up and ate like a pig. My appetite has been unreal. I had a great ride out to Lake Ripley on Sunday. It was beautiful out. The SWAT team hung out and we did some grilling. Some of us swam. Kitty kept us all up to date on the members doing IM Kentucky. I to...