That said? I’d forgotten how things that look awfully simple end up being harder than one imagined. I’d say that the people at the gym are going to get a good chuckle with me doing my squats or curls, but let’s face it, if you’re at the gym  you know how easily these things can kick your butt. (And part of why I like going to the TJ Community Center is the lack of judgmental people there.)

On an utterly different note, I am determined that this week I will finally dig everything out of the kitchen cabinets underneath the bar/countertop and re-arrange. It’s been in progress since… um… December. It would be nice to have that countertop back into something usable again. Fingers crossed.

Post-triathlon, though, it was still bugging me, so I took some time off from even my spinning class to let it get back to normal. After yesterday’s rowing machine session started bothering it (clearly it depends on just how much it bends, since rowing and cycling bend the knee much more), though, I mentioned it to my doctor today. Next thing I knew, after work today I was getting an x-ray at Virginia Hospital Center. (Weekdays at 6pm? No waiting for an x-ray.)

Tragically? So far as I can tell, I have not yet developed super powers as a direct result of the x-ray. I’m always a tiny bit disappointed on that front. I think comic books lied to me over the years. Hmph. (I’ll let you know if it turns out to be anything serious. I’ve also got some PT scheduled for starting next week to strengthen the muscle since it’s probably just a bad strain. But we shall see.)

When we signed up, you had to give them your approximate time for the swim portion of the race. I’d put down a ridiculously slow number, and then revised it earlier this week to a 9:45. Since the swim portion was in a pool, we would be arranged by our times there, with a new swimmer entering the pool every five seconds, and placed me at #210. It wasn’t until I was sitting on the edge of the pool (with 10 seconds to go) that I started feeling nervous. Fortunately, by that point it’s too late now. Just like a roller coaster, I got the nudge and that was it, I was in the pool. I did good until the third length of the pool, at which point I swam into a lane divider (oops) and then sucked down a lot of water. Fortunately, I didn’t drown, just flailed around for a couple of seconds and coughed. But then I was back off, and as the swim progressed I passed about a dozen people, which felt really good. (And got passed by two, one during my “try not to drown” moment.) When I pulled myself out of the pool, I looked at my watch and it was just at 8:52. Well, no wonder I was passing people!

From there I walked out to the bikes (others were running once they were outside, but I still had a bit of water in my lungs and was trying to get rid of it) and got ready as fast as I could. I’m sure the official splits will be different because the timing mat was outside and not at the edge of the pool, but by my watch between getting out of the pool and onto the bike and riding, it took 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Something to work on for the future! I know I was moving a little slow until I saw #211 (who had passed me during the choking fit) leave and suddenly I was like, “I need to get going!” And then, the biking. My weakest portion.

I knew going into this what I’d have to work on; being more confident on the bike. Our bike course was three loops, and each loop had four u-turns. And with each u-turn, I had to slooooow down and go through it carefully. Once I was back in a straight-away (or just a 90-degree turn) I was fine, but those u-turns killed me every time. I got passed a bunch in the first loop, which didn’t surprise me because those who were stronger in biking versus swimming could use this opportunity to clobber me. By the second loop, though, the number of people passing me dropped a lot, and in the third loop I even started passing some other people. (To be fair, probably people who weren’t on their third loop. But still, it felt good.)

My second transition was much faster, just 57 seconds, but then again all I had to do at that point was get my bike back to its stand, take off my helmet, and start running. But oh, what an experience that was. I now understand why everyone has said that your legs feel funny when switching from biking to running. Oof! Not a good start, especially since the sun was pretty strong at that point and there was almost no shade on the course. I ended up taking two short walk breaks (about 15 seconds each) and at the time I was annoyed at myself. But I was beat, and I felt like I was crawling. Imagine my surprise when I finished and discovered I’d run the 2.62 miles in just 21:58. A good pace for me (8:23min/mile) considering I’d just swum and ran. I thought I was moving much slower than that.

I also saw Julie a couple of times on the course; we waited together until it was time for our numbers to start, and I saw her on her first bike loop when I was just starting my second. Once I was done, I got to cheer her on in the transition area as well as early on in the run, so that was a lot of fun.

Will I do another one? Absolutely! But more biking is definitely required before I do so. And more practice bricks. As an introduction, it went pretty well.

On the bright side, though, some things are starting to line up. My swim class is going really well—we had three 25yd sprints at the end of Monday’s session and I even won all three, which was a nice little ego boost. Even better, arriving in the mail today were my very own prescription swimming goggles! Let evildoers beware!

Oh wait, that has nothing to do with evildoers. But it’s been a week for exercise equipment since I also have a new bicycle, which I loooooooove. It’s a hybrid, a 2009 Trek 7.3 FX. I figure it’ll be good for both biking around Arlington as well as for exercise purposes. And even better, I could (in theory) take the bus in with the bike and ride the 8-9 mile route home, which isn’t as bad in warm weather as running.

My friend Felicity’s in town this week for a convention, and it was great to go out to dinner with her and Charlie on Tuesday night. I often only see her once a year, so having her in town is a lot of fun; we’re going to do something or another on Sunday to be determined.

Tonight is deinstallation at Artomatic; it’ll be sad taking my stuff down, but I was also there a lot less this year because I was so busy with everything else. Then I’ve got to get cracking on several writing projects all due in the new few weeks. Eek. Hopefully once those are done, though, I can have a little bit of chill in my life… Maybe…

Only, the way she had her arms, it covered up the first and last letters of each word. So I spent the entire class looking up, seeing “THAC” and wondering why she had a t-shirt talking about THAC0. Boy, that’s a term I haven’t needed to know since, oh, 1995… apparently no matter how hard you try, you cannot remove your geekhood.

(I also suspect half of the people reading this will have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.)

Since then I’d gone for a few lunchtime swims, and with great success. That seems to have been put on hold, though, now that school is out. Julie and I went to the rec center on Monday and discovered that summer camp is now running from 12-3:30pm every day for about two months, taking up almost the entire pool. Ack! So, I finally buckled down and signed up for a lap swimming class through Arlington County’s rec centers and got the final slot; it starts next Monday evening and runs for eight weeks. So that should be fun, at least, and it locks in some time that I will get a good swim in.

I do find it a little funny, though, that now it’s summer the indoor pool that is suddenly so crazy busy. Shouldn’t people be flocking to the outdoor ones?

On a different (running) note, while I enjoy my old Garmin Forerunner 301, I’ve been starting to think it might be a good idea to upgrade it to one that holds onto a signal stronger. The new Garmin Forerunner 405 looks lovely, is nice and small, is supposed to be super-accurate, and you don’t have to plug it in to get the data onto your computer. It also, by all reports, doesn’t work if it gets at all wet. After reading a dozen reviews from runners who all started it with, “I sweat a lot when I run, and this thing is useless as a result…” I realized that the 405 is not for me. There’s the 305, which was the previous model, that I can consider. Much less expensive, but a litle clunky.

Alternately I’m half-tempted to go for the rather-inexpensive 50, which doesn’t use a GPS but a foot-pod instead and which is supposedly pretty accurate. If it is accurate, well, it would certainly make me not have to worry about GPS signals anymore, but instead I guess there’s always the worry that I might have a foot chopped off. (I suspect at the end of the day I will just stick with what I have for now.)

The dinner was, needless to say, ultra-delicious. My mom’s side of the family is populated with great cooks and the food we had this year was no exception; ham, scalloped potatoes, carrot souffle, scalloped pineapple, green beans, asparagus, and probably something else that I’m blanking on. Plus three desserts; banana pudding, a carrot cake, and lemon bars that I’d made and brought with me.

The bars turned out pretty good overall. Next time I need to make sure I really push all of the crust out nice and flat; it was a little high at one end and those bars had to get thrown out because they were almost all crust and no lemon. Also, I need to buy a lemon zester before I make this again because using a cheese grater is a real pain in the butt. Still, overall, they were good. (Jim, I’ll edit in the recipe under a jump when I get home tonight.)

This morning I finally got off of my butt and went lap swimming for the first time in approximately 20 years. So yes, I did indeed survive. If my counting was correct (and it may very well not be) I swam 20 laps (or 40 lengths) of the pool, which comes out to 1000 meters. With little rest breaks between each lap, mind you, with which to confer with Julie and Laura. It was a nice time, although I clearly need to get some goggles because everything is now a tiny bit blurry. Also, need to find my rubber flip-flops. It’s been a while since I’ve had to do the whole shower-at-the-gym routine. (My current gym is all of 5 minutes away, my old gym was a 2 minute walk around the corner.)

I’d originally wanted to use this spring to tackle a triathlon, but missing Philly back in November put a hold on that. But I might give one of the mini-triathlons from Tri It Now a stab. If I get the bike serviced I am pretty sure I could handle that right now with no problem. (Famous last words, I’m sure. I can hear Moose cackling at my naivety.) In the meantime, though, I just need to keep at it. Practice makes better…

Lemon Bars Recipe

Crust

• 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup confectioners’s sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Topping

• 2 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup lemon juice
• 6 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 12 x 18 jelly roll pan.

In a large bowl, on a low speed of a mixer, combine all the crust ingredients until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Form the dough into a ball. Spread crust evenly into prepared pan. Use a large piece of waed paper to firmly and evenly press down crust. (If it’s not even, wherever it ends up too high will end up being all crust and no lemon!) Bake the crust for 18-20 minutes until lightly golden. Remove from oven and let cool for 15-20 minutes before proceeding.

While the crust is cooling, in a medium-sized bowl, on the low speed of a mixer, beat the sugar, eggs, lemon juice, and zest until well combined. Pour over slightly warm crust. Return to oven. Bake 18-20 minutes until edges are golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool for about 20 minutes. Dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Allow to cool to room temperature, or overnight, before cutting and serving.

Saying that this is going to be entertaining? Understatement of the universe. I’m sure there must be a German word for when you are simultaneously looking forward to something and terrified of it, all at once. They’re good with that sort of thing.

On the bright side, new lighting for Artomatic is officially purchased. I suppose there’s a small chance it may somehow fail horribly and I’ll have to use the old one, but hopefully the first weekend of site set-up I can test it out and make sure. (But if someone out there wants my old lights, well, they’re probably going to need a new home.)

And I have told myself that in May, I have to get my old Wine-Book Wednesdays posts up and running again. All it will really take is a good hour or two to scan in about two dozen more images. So if there aren’t any new posts by May7th, feel free to nag. After all, it’ll have been a year since the last one. Yeesh.

This weekend Charlie and I are seeing Chicago at the National Theatre. I’ve never seen it before—on stage or for that matter the movie version. I know absolutely nothing about it. Hopefully entertainment is heading our way tomorrow night.

On the bright side, last night I did finally get to head back to my beloved spinning class (my last one was on October 29th); in terms of exercise I still feel like I am slowly getting back up to speed, but it is definitely happening. I also signed up for the Arlington Turkey Trot, although I joked to Katie and Blair last night that they might have to pick my corpse up on the side of the course after it’s over. A slight exaggeration, certainly. I suspect there won’t be a new personal record involved but it will feel good to at least do some sort of race this fall. (And also to use as a benchmark for how I am doing.)

I also got to give the new Animal Crossing: City Folk a whirl last night. It’s been ages since I played the previous incarnation on my DS, but I’m already loving the Wii version, if only because the tv screen is much easier to see things on than the little DS screen. (Catching insects with the net, for instance? A hundred times easier.) There’s something just so fun and relaxing about moving my little character “Gabriel” around his town as he hunts for fossils, goes fishing, harvests the fruit trees, sends little letters and presents to his neighbors, or just looks at the stars. Yay! (On the downside, Charlie is about to become an Animal Crossing widow.) I haven’t given the new “city” options a whirl yet, but hopefully this weekend.

(One amusing thing is that you can bring your DS character over into the Wii version. You don’t get your money or items, but you do get the same “catalog”—which is helpful—as well as appearance. I had forgotten that in a fit of boredom my old character now had pink hair with a gay Tintin flip in the front. I am continually cracking myself up as a direct result.)

Darn it, now I have the Animal Crossing music stuck in my head.

Anyway, they got out of their car, and I got out of mine and fiddled around for a moment with my work bag and such. As I walked by theirs, I noticed that the teenager had dropped the wrapper of his pop on the sidewalk, apparently unable to bring it another 45 seconds towards a trash can. Charming. I knew I had trash to empty, so I figured I’d just pick it up on my way back out in about 20 minutes.

When I headed back out, though, I’d been running late and decided to delay the trash emptying until today. So as I walked by the car with the wrapper on the sidewalk, I scooped up the wrapper—and tucked it under the windshield wiper of the car. Hopefully they got the message.

On a non-victorious moment, I hit the morning spinning class today because I already had plans for this evening with my family. And sadly, instead of Barb (who’s been filling in for about two months while they tried to find a new instructor for Wednesday mornings) it was a new woman, Barbara, who’d taken over the slot. And it seems that Barbara’s idea of a good time was playing Jimmy Buffett. As in, probably 35 of the 45 minutes of the class was Jimmy Buffett.

As I loathe Jimmy Buffett’s music with a passion, I have made a mental note that from now on if I know I can’t make the Wednesday night class, I’m re-arranging everything else to hit Monday morning instead. The instructor at that time slot and I have a much closer musical taste. Because, quite frankly, had we been on moving cycles I would’ve contemplated throwing myself in front of another one this morning, in an effort to stop the horrible music from lodging into my head.