Squinch

I normally go to my Pilates class after work but today I wasn’t able to --- and so I hit the noon class. I was ten minutes late, of course (as I am ten minutes late for literally everything else in my life). I ran into the class, jumped on my machine and tried not to interrupt much.

The first move is called Beach Ball Twist. This is where you are on your knees, straight back, and take the handle of the Fit Former in front of you with “I Dream of Genie” arms and you twist at the waist. From 10:00 to 2:00, back and forth. It works best if you squinch your butt cheeks as hard as you can. So they say. So I squinched. And squinched. And twisted and turned from 2:00 to 10:00 to 2:00 and back.

The next move is Shot Put. This is where you take the same handle in your right hand and make an “L” – or half a football goal post. Then you TWIST and squinch your butt some more and then give yourself a “High 5” in the mirror. As I returned back to the half football goal post “L”  I happened to look over my shoulder at the person behind me.

Male Co-Worker.

Baffoon Bombs it on the Beach

In Cancun the water is pretty choppy and so in the swimming areas they have these great big giantic ropes so that if you start to get tired, or are swept out to sea you can grab onto one rather than trying to swim back to shore which won't work anyway and will probably kill you.

Anyway, one day I went for a run and happened upon a wedding just near a couple of the ropes. 

I jumped over the first one, turned toward the camera and threw my arms in the air in an attempt to photo-bomb a shot of the bride and groom.

Success! 

Hilarious!

BAM! 

...I forgot about the second rope and it got me right in the knees and I face planted in the sand. Hard.

That's whatcha get.

The Ring

It's that time of year again, you know where I get really in to my Fitness in some last ditch effort to look good in a swimming suit because it's too late in the season to even be wearing one. 

So I joined a Pilates studio near to my work and I've been going pretty religiously (as is my custom when jumping on bandwagons) and then at some point (as is my custom when jumping on bandwagons) I'll just quit and spend three months laying in bed watching and rewatching My So-Called Life and Keeping up Appearances.

Anyway, the point of this story is that on Thursdays I take a class called Barre which employs the ballet barre and also straps hung from the ceiling that can be used for all sorts of horrible strengthening exercises. Here's a couple pics of what it looks like:

Stolen from wellandgoodnyc.com

Stolen from fitnessnycblog.com

During the above exercise where you have to grip the handles of the straps, one of my rings was digging into my hand. Not wanting to disturb the class by walking over to my water bottle to put it down, I took it off and sort of lightly tossed it. It rolled across the room and stopped about three feet from where I intended and I made a note to grab it later. There were only six of us in class and we were all facing each other and so I assumed that everybody saw it and understood. 

After class, I could sort of hear some people talking about something (the music is SO LOUD it's really hard to hear anything) and here's what they were saying

"Well it was so big I just couldn't imagine who it belonged to."

"I saw it rolling by earlier too...so gigantic!"

"I walked past it...not sure if it's some man's?"

"But there's no man in here..."

And then I walked into this conversation totally late and totally ignorant going, "has anybody seen my ring?"

And then it was handed to me by a woman who said, "what FINGER do you wear that on?" 

Dumb-Dumb Bike Rider

I know you all love a great Kady-trying-to-bike-to-work story:

Today I rode my bike in to work for the first time this year. It was pretty much the first really nice day and that is how fair-weather (haha, the use of fair-weather is actually literal in this context) my biking to work has to be. Sue me.

I didn’t get lost and that was a plus. BUT: I did leave the zipper bag open on my pack and somewhere along the way I lost the following items:

• My car key (one of those $500 ones, of course, and not the scratched up dented one I've been using all year, but the nice new perfect one)
• My house keys with a gorgeous JW Hulme leather fob my good friend Heather made
• CoverGirl Mascara (irreplaceable!)
• Key card access for work (what a hassle they made outta gettin' that thing replaced. Jeez!)
• Make-up powder brush
• I don’t know what else, that’s just what I think I’m missing

THEN, I took a shower in the 2nd floor locker room at my building and was all the way done when I realized I had no TOWEL. I had to walk bare naked from the locker room out into the connected 2nd floor Women's bathroom and pray nobody came in while I waved my hand in front of an automatic paper towel dispenser frantically trying to get enough paper to dry my entire body and my HAIR, while it dispensed only just a small chunk at at time, ten thousand times.

Don't Be "That Guy"

When driving your car just after riding your bike, please remember to TAKE YOUR HELMET OFF.

Also, don't take pictures of yourself while driving. Bad. (I was pulled over.)

Triathlon? More like Sharknado.

This was BEFORE the swim.

Then the rain stopped and we applied our sunscreen. A creepy neighbor offered to take our photo. She kept saying, "keep rubbing girls...keep rubbing it in..." And then she took a picture with her own personal camera.

Going Out With a Pffffffft

Last year about this time, I participated in the MS150: a 150-mile bicycle trip from Duluth to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

As part of the gig, my team (Clockwork Active Media Systems) had to ride north to Duluth on a bus. One of the owners of Clockwork asked me to "emcee" the bus ride. I was incredibly flattered, until I realized that basically meant "read the rules of the ride to the people on the bus" because "nobody else wants to do it".

Give them what they want, I say. If you're going to do something do it well, I also say. I went to the front of the bus and took the mic (a CB piped throughout the bus speakers). The bus driver ruined all of the fun and told me I couldn't stand while he was driving. So I sat down.

Obeying Bus Drivers, Since 1977

The ride rules were stodgy and boring, but I "livened them up" by ad-libbing here and there. I had the bus in stitches if I do say so myself. I killed it, and they loved me! The more they laughed, the more I joked. I was just a little bit offensive, but not overly so. I used my typical schtick:

• old
• lonely
• would anybody be interested in spooning?
• dead grandmas
• etcetera

I was in my element. The problem was, I had not planned out the conclusion to my set. (I didn't even know there would be a "set".) On the fly, I decided the best way to end would be to "tell a joke". Everyone was already laughing...So I set up the following:

"What did the cannibal do after he dumped his girlfriend?"

Silence. (Perfect!)

"He wiped."

Crickets.

Nothing.

I silently returned to my seat.

And sat down.

That Kady. She always goes out with a...pffffffft.

They Call Me Curly

I got to go curling on Friday for a work function. Very fun. Very very fun. It's kind of hard to get the hang of, actually. You put your left foot on a "slider" and your right foot on the starter and then SHOVE OFF! And try to get your rock in the bullseye. The end.

 

 

 

One of my coworkers is a competitive curler. So she gave us lots of tips and told me when to sweep sweep sweep and when not to sweep. (I might be a hyper over-sweeper.)

 

 

There are hazards to curling with coworkers. In fact it's not all it's cracked up to be:

 

 

 

I don't usually let any buttcrack upstage ME...










 

 

Not So Great Idea

The weather up here in Minnesota has been a little bit all over the place and last week we had some 50 degree temperatures (that's Farenheit, btw). I got the bright idea to ride my bicycle to work and to do it every Friday from here on out. (It's 19 miles one-way.) Why the heck would I do that, you ask? Well, the weather! And I'm training for a few big athletic events (I'm a Super Athlete, you know).

Most people would map out their route in advance when attempting a new 19-mile trek across three suburbs and I suppose I did attempt to do that. Sort of. But I don't have a printer and so I just tried to memorize the route I needed to take. Basically up the River Road, across the worst part of North Minneapolis, onto a Parkway and then onto a Trail and then boom! In just two hours I would arrive to the gym next door to my office where I would shower and freshen up. Fridays are short days at my office and so boom! I'd ride home around 3pm and be home by 5.

Well. I did ride up the River Road and then across the worst part of Minneapolis and then onto the Parkway but the Parkway bike trail was pretty icy and gravelly and so I had to ride on the narrow road alongside cars and somebody threw a cigarette at me and another guy yelled out his window, "THERE'S A BIKE TRAIL!"

My first reaction was to scream back "AS SOON AS THEY SWEEP IT *DUMB-DUMB*!" but I didn't think quickly enough. He was out of earshot. I kept my chin up and rode on. At the next stoplight "Dumb-Dumb" was sitting there with his window still down! I rode up next to him, and calmly explained that I would be happy to ride the bike trail as soon as it was swept. I also expressed that I thought he looked way too cool to be yelling at bikers. He was a super-cool old hippie-type dude with  a great amazing long beard. I had him eating out of my hand before the light turned green and we parted ways with a greater understanding between bike and car. (I do what I can.)

ANYWAY:

I think that was around the time I took a wrong turn and ended up right by Lake Calhoun. Which is a 20-minute bike ride from my house. The only problem with that was that I had been riding for an hour-and-a-half already. I started to panic. I found a trail map and realized I was way off course (duh) and I needed to backtrack quite a ways to get back on course. So I did.

And then I ran smack dab into a trail. Which I assumed must be my trail, the one that would slide me all the way to Plymouth. I rode it for a long long time in a direction I assumed to be West. I stopped to read another trail map.

Still way off course.

Now I was two hours into my ride, and not even half-way to Plymouth. I texted work to let them know. I started to cry. (I think I have mentioned that I'm emotional and I cry basically all the time.) I finally dragged out my phone and entered my work address into my GPS. I wasn't getting any 3G signal. Then I really started to cry. I was in some guy's driveway and then from all the crying my new and very real Ray Bans (a present I bought for myself and a decision that I agonized over but ultimately decided to buy and probably shouldn't have. Who buys real Ray Bans?) fell off my face and landed lens-down onto the gravel and the lens got scratched. Then I REALLY started to cry. I couldn't stop. Ten cars passed me. Nobody stopped. That made me even sadder.

You guys. It's not like I mind a long ride. I ride all the time. I pretty much belong to a bicycle gang:

Hard core.

I've been known to ride the streets of Minneapolis in the middle of the night wearing nothing but this:

What? I thought it would be funny.

But I was late for WORK. At my NEW JOB.

Finally my 3G came back up and I found out I was still 8 miles from work but at least I got a map to follow. And I followed it. And I made it to the gym for a shower. And to work. Two hours late.

Boy did my co-workers have a laugh over the whole situation. And boy was I famished because before the three-hour ride I only had ONE BANANA. So I ate lunch. Then I ate second lunch. Then I went out for third lunch at Chipotle.

And then it started snowing.

I gave up and made two coworkers take me and my stupid bike home.

Later, I was told by more than a few people that the forecast had predicted the snow and everybody and their brother knew it was going to snow on Friday. I didn't know. I don't pay attention to forecasts. Is that a thing? 

If at First You Can't Do Math...Tri Tri Again

If you're a fan of this dumb blog, and obviously, you ARE...you'll remember that I once lived in Costa Rica and had a pool in my backyard and it was super hot weather every day and the only respite from the heat was a daily swim in that pool and along with that story came a story about how I'm really bad at judging distance in meters and thus I thought I had been swimming a mile every day when really I wasn't.

You'll also remember I'm a sucker for punishment and have done a couple of triathlons in my recent past. This year, I decided I hadn't been punished enough and signed up for the International Distance, which is like forever longer than the Sprint Distances of yesteryear and now I'm stuck trying to train for it. Well, I got nothin' else goin'.

The International Distance carries an almost 1 mile swim. 

I went to my gym today...*

*This was embarrassing: I was about to leave when two gym-rat dudes from my man-filled office were leaving to go to the gym, I presumed together. I asked if I could ride with them, but then realized after it was too late that they were driving separately. So I ended up riding to the gym with just one of them. Alone. Honestly the gym is so close we could walk but it's just a little bit too cold out still...

...with the goal of swimming maybe 400 meters which means I-don't-know-what in miles. But it's 16 lengths of a 25-meter pool. I set my goal pretty low because it would be my first time in the pool in a while. Well, I did that in 10 minutes. It's not that big a deal. It's just four lengths each of the crawl, the breast stroke, then the backstroke and then the sidestroke. So, I kept going. I thought maybe I could make 800 meters. And it took me a while, but I got that done too. Then I thought: (and what is there to do while swimming besides think? And count? And do math? And predict lengths? And convert meters to miles? And be embarrassed that I didn't just drive my own car?) I should just do a half-mile. "Well", I thought, "2.2 kilometers is a mile, and so 2200 meters is a mile. If I do 1100 meters, that's a half-mile".

And so I did. And it took me 40 minutes. This made me nervous, because during the triathlon I need to swim almost a mile and 40 minutes for a half-mile means an hour.twenty for a mile. Oh well, I'd work on my time later.

But I was excited to have completed a half-mile! My first time back in the pool! It made me feel like I wouldn't be so bad off in July for this dumb triathlon. Then I sat in the hot-tub for five minutes and then showered and...*

*This was embarrassing: I realized I had agreed to meet the dude from my office out front at a certain time for my ride back but I forgot to budget time for the shower after swimming and getting ready and of course was running late and there was no time for makeup or drying my hair and so I met him with goggle-eyes and wet hair.

...after I got back to the office I converted 1100 meters to miles. It was actually .68. In other words, I almost swam three-quarters of a mile today! My first time in the water in a million years. PSH! International Distance. Whatevs. I got this.

And for your information:

2.2 kilometers is NOT a mile. 

2.2 pounds is a kilogram.

DUH.

1.6 kilometers is a mile.

DUH.

Yes I wore the nose pincher.

The Red Gates in Kyoto

...or in Japanese: the Fushimi Inari. I was excited to visit this shrine not only to see the thousands of Red Gates, but also because it included a 4k round trip hike to the top of a mountain made up almost entirely of stairs. I was still 47 pounds short of my weight loss goal for the wedding I would be attending as soon as I got back home to Minneapolis, and I figured with this and a bike ride around Kyoto, I should have that covered.

I was told to expect 2.5 hours to make the loop all the way to the top of the mountain and back. But I didn't have that much time so I moved quickly. Much like most responsible Everest Summit groups before me (which I learned by recently reading Into Thin Air by John Krakauer), I established a drop dead turn around point. If I hadn't made it to the top by a certain time, I would have to start my descent, no matter how close I was to my goal. Fortunately, I made it to the top with time to spare. On my way back I came across many tired tourists on their way up as I ran, ran, ran down the mountain.

With a renewed surge of energy, I would taunt them (never even knowing if they spoke English) with such heckles as "What's the matter? No energy?" or "Tired already?" As I Sally-O'Malley-one-two punched the air next to them! and then kicked!

One kid laughed and laughed and then said, "you look hung-a-ree!"

A few photos:

Spectacular views of the city are not done justice with this photo.

Of course I had to do a #hexumhat

Posted with Blogsy

Evidentiary Proof We Got Off Our Lazy Butts and Did Something in Nepal

I had mentioned that Summer and I really lazied out and slept a lot upon arrival to Nepal. I tried to justify it by whining about how we had just spent fourteen consecutive nights in different places. Blah blah blah, poor us.

We knew we had to get up. And do something. Finally one day we did. We marched right across the road to a canoe rental place, paddled for 30 minutes to the other side of Lake Phewa, did some more marching up, up, up the stairs to the Peace Pagoda at the top of the mountain and then hiked right back down (1.5 hours round trip) and paddled back to our hostel in the dark. It should be noted that we still slept until 1pm that day, slowly had breakfast for two hours, and THEN rented the boat and went hiking.

 

Gorgeous hike. Just gorgeous.

And by gorgeous I mean WE were gorgeous.

 

Posted with Blogsy

MAD Runners

This morning I had the privilege of working out with the Maldivian Association of Distance Runners. At 5am. No joke. I woke my sorry American butt up and walked to a running track to meet with the die-hard group, who meet every single morning at 5am. Seriously.

I was feeling very nervous because I haven't run since I did that 7k in Berlin, and I was sure that these crazy marathon people would leave me in their dust. Fortunately for me, they were only set to do an "easy 6.5k" this morning. Fortunately again, three other women showed up. I started feeling better. And then I was introduced to our coach: Naseer Ismail, two time 800-meter Olympian (1996 and 2000). Yikes.

We started with an intense stretch and warm-up session, in which we hopped and skipped in place, did lots of calisthenics and that thing where you move your arms all around, and then we jogged a very easy slow 400 meters around the track. "I can do this..." I thought, but joked that I hoped the 400 meters counted towards our total of 6.5 kilometers for the morning. It didn't.

And then, we set out.

The city of Male in the Maldives technically a very small island (its the most densely populated city in the world), which has a ring road circumference of 5.3km. MAD does most of its training runs on this ring road. Including all of its long runs. It's just about 3 miles, and so if they want to do a 15 mile run, you got it: 5 times around the island. (Makes me appreciate the miles and miles of running track and trails back home in Minnesota.) Mercifully it's also a very flat city, Maldives boasts the lowest high-point of any country in the world. (7 feet above sea level.)

 

She's got three-year-old twins at home! She's running her first marathon!

 

It was HOT. My asthma started acting up, my face turned full flush beet red, and I thought I was going to die. Twice. After we finished running, we had to run yet another lap around the track before we were finished. And then I thought we were done. Nope. I expected to first die, and then to go home and sleep. Instead, Olympic Coach had us do three sets of thirty push-ups, sit-ups, and back sit-ups. And after that, more stretching (oh how I looooove stretching), and another warm-down lap around the track. I learned that we did 7.1k excluding the track laps. But I count every step and every track lap, and so in the end I'm calling it a total of 7.9k, or 4.75 miles!

 

 

Runners are the same the world over. They like to meet in groups, encourage each other, joke around, tease a friend for their brand new, too-bright shoes, (pictured above) and go to breakfast in their sweaty, sweaty clothes afterward. Here I am receiving a police escort:

 

He's a policeman! He's running his first marathon!

The Maldivian Association for Distance Running and their honorary guest for the day: Me.

 

I'm so proud of these guys, most of whom are running their first marathon in Singapore on December 2nd, and so grateful they invited me to join them on a training run.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Cheating with the Posting and the Pudding Pops

Just a little Cheat Post for you today -- check out Hobo Siren's post about what we're up to today:



I've done this race four times already.  Here were my times:

2006 - 2:21
2007 - 2:18
2008 - 2:31
2009 - 2:43

Odds are good I'll be pushing three hours for 2012.  Of course I'll let you know. 

UPDATE: 
2012 - 2:29. <---------I will not shake a stick at that.


Here I am in 2006 with my running buddy Brett:

In 2007 Alason got me cupcakes!  

In 2009 I ran with Anna.  Jeez I'd really love to see that 'armpit fat' turn a little bit more into 'side boob', but it just ain't happening.

Break my leg! I mean Break a Leg, Me! 

Whatever.

Grandma's Marathon 2007

In an effort to give up on shut down my Super Athlete site, I'm moving a few stories over here to A Lady Reveals Nothing. I wrote this email to my friends and family after having finished my second marathon, Grandma's 2007:

Well, I finished. Here are the official stats:

6980 People finished. I was 6388th.

2565 Females finished. I was 2251st.

My clock time was 5:39:19, but my actual chip time was 5:33:28.

These numbers are nothing to be proud of, but I told my nephew Miles that I won.

A couple of notable items:

• The female winner, Mary Akor, who is exactly my age (30), finished before I hit the half-way point.
• Last year when I trained for Twin Cities I logged a total of 314 miles. I finished that marathon in 4:53:01.This year, while training for Grandma's, I logged a total of 155 miles. (I wasn't able to train as hard due to some injuries laziness.)
• I got mentioned on KFAN on Friday. Not by name, but I was at Famous Dave's where they were broadcasing. Dan Barreiro and I were chatting and I mentioned that I had run Twin Cities and the last six miles were so emotional for me that I couldn't stop crying. I cried for the last six miles and couldn't stop. So, during his broadcast, he was talking about how runners always want to tell you about their bowel movements or gastrointestinal issues during the marathon. He said, "I just talked with a girl, who told me she blubbered the last six miles. She said she was sad, happy, emotional, in pain, feeling awesome, and it made her cry. That I can deal with. Tell me about that. Don't tell me about your poop problems." (or something to that effect.) If he only knew me, right? Also I met Chris Hawkey, he was running his first marathon and cohosts the KFAN morning show with Mike Morris. He was very nice and I actually got to have dinner with he and his wife and their kids as part of a larger group on Friday night.
• I got a signed copy of Dick Beardsley's book, Stay the Course. He set the course record back in 1979 I think.  2 hours 9 minutes! No one has ever beaten that record.
• When I got to the starting line I had to go to the bathroom, so I stood in line at a biffy behind about 40 people. When I finally got in there I tucked my sunglasses in my waist pack, and of course they fell on the floor. Right below the urinal. In a puddle of pee. Thank goodness I had a purell wipe or I would have had to throw them away.
• Entering the starting area was very surreal. There were 7500 people. People as far in front of me as I could see, and people behind me as far as I could see. This of course is when I jumped up and down to see, because just standing there I saw someone's back in front of me and someone's chest behind me. haha
• I ran the first six miles in one hour (or, 10 minutes per mile). So I definitely went out of the gate too fast - my overall average was about 12:47 minutes per mile.
• It was HOT. And SUNNY. The temp at the start of the race was 66 degrees and finished in the high 70's. I really like it to be in the 50's or maybe 60's for a long run.
• Burt Carlson is 81 years old. I saw him throughout the race, sometimes me passing him, sometimes him passing me. It was his 25th Grandma's, and his 287th Marathon overall. Still I felt like if I didn't beat him I was going to have to give up running forever. Well I did beat him. By like five minutes, too. Take that ya ol' sucker!
• I met Al Franken. I saw him along the course twice. The first time it was too late and I didn't get a chance to say hello, but the second time I saw him I was on the same side of the road as him. I introduced myself and we shook hands. That was pretty cool. I felt bad because his hands were like perfectly dry and soft and I was sweating like a pig, had rubbed vaseline under my armpits to prevent chafing, had wiped my sweaty nose (not the snotty part of my nose, but the sweaty part of my nose) a million times, had high fived about 500 runners, in other words my hands weren't clean. At all.
• I saw two ambulances, one lady down with people hovered around, another lady delirious and not able to put her shoe back on. I saw a guy running with the American flag, I saw a guy running backwards, I saw a girl with huge underwear over her shorts that said "granny panties". I saw two speed walkers. I saw a bunch of "50 staters" - guys who had run a marathon in all 50 states. It was such a fun, cool experience. I'm glad it's over though. A big Thank You to Marie M., who ran the entire race - every single step - with me and she never minded if I needed to stop and rest or stretch or whatever.
• My sister Kasey came to watch me, and she saw a guy whose shirt said "Phillipines". So she screamed at the top of her lungs "GO PHILLIPINES!" and then her husband Ben told her that his shirt actually said, "Phillipians 3:16".

Stop here if you don't like my potty humor stuff.

• On Sunday, the day after the race, Kasey and I went to the public hotel restroom quick and when we walked in were hit in the face with the most horrible stench you have ever smelled. We walked around the corner to find a pile of what looked like vomit on the floor of the first stall. Upon further inspection, it wasn't vomit at all. Somebody had to go number two and didn't make it. There was stuff on the floor, the toilet, everywhere. We went back into the hallway and informed a janitor, and he got on his walky-talky and we heard him say he had a "code brown" in the ladies room. How funny is that?

2012 Lifetime Fitness Triathlon

I did it! ...and I beat my time from 2008 by 17 minutes!

Final results:

2012:
Overall: 1 hour 43 minutes
Swim .25 mile: 9 minutes 43 seconds
Transition 1: 4 minutes 5 seconds
Bike 15 miles: 53 minutes 47 seconds
Transition 2: 1 minute 38 seconds
Run 3 miles: 34 minutes 17 seconds

2008:
Overall: 2 hours 0 minutes
Swim .25 mile: 17 minutes 16 seconds
Transition 1: 4 minutes 59 seconds
Bike 15 miles: 1 hour 2 minutes
Transition 2: 2 minutes 57 seconds
Run 3 miles: 32 minutes 36 seconds


Click here to read about 2008.

I'm not sure how she thought she was going to swim in that, but...

They write your age on the back of your leg.

I have to say, seeing people's ages on the backs of their legs is kind of a blessing and a curse. As you pass them, or they pass you...all you can do is look at their age and either congratulate yourself or beat yourself up. If somebody who was older than me passed me I was like, "aw HAIL no". But if a younger person passed me, I was OK with it.


This is what you get when you ask Summer to take photos for you:

Thank goodness I beat the 10-year-old.

...and the best part?

THE MEDAL IS A BEER OPENER!!!

A big thanks to my best bud Summer of HoboSiren for getting up super early, taking photos and cheering. It was great to see your face along the course, Ma.