Outside Looking In

Life is challenging for me these days. In many ways. So often I feel like I'm the outside, looking in. Alone.
When I returned from Douglas last night, on my bike, my neighbors were walking by with their new baby girl. (She's beautiful, and 2 weeks old.) They said they were returning from the block party. ?? Block party?? I knew nothing about it. Yes, they said, there were flyers put in mailboxes a while back. And another one yesterday as a reminder. ?? I hadn't received either one. It was an ice cream social on the other cul-de-sac. I felt bad. Yet another instance of feeling excluded, or at least not included.

I also discovered yesterday that I'm really not very good, or at least very fast, at anything. I rode up to Douglas for the bike time trials. I was very intimidated by the thought of the ride and decided not to participate, just spectate and take pictures. I also baked cookies and hauled them up there in a backpack on my bike.

Well, I'm glad I opted out. They were way out of my league.

I'm not sure of the fastest time, but at least one person rode the 19 miles in 46 minutes and most rode well under an hour. 46:something ... that's 24+ mph AVERAGE including that sweet little climb up Genoa hill, and all the rolling hills on the course. Wendy and Ann rode it in 50'ish minutes I think.



Ann

Wendy

Finish line crew

Under an hour for sure. Out. Of. My. League. I averaged 20-21 mph on my last tri, with no water bottle, but that was just 15 miles and included no Genoa hill. I feel very slow. And listening to the swim chatter, I discovered how extremely slow I really am in the pool. There's a local couple that can swim a 100 literally twice as fast as me. 1 minute. It's hopeless. You can't teach a 50-year old female to swim fast. I should have started when I was 5. And I have no speed on the run these days. But ... I am happy to be jogging. I will still participate in the Mpls Du (or a tri on the same day if I can transfer my number) on 8/28, but it will pretty much be a joke as far as time goes. Just fun, I hope. So, I'm outside the fast crowd, looking in. And wishing I was one of them.

Yesterday was Paul Melby's birthday. So I dropped off some cookies for Shelly and the kids.

I hope they enjoyed them.

Yesterday's workouts: 5 mile run/1 hour slow swim in the pool/lift/28.72 mile bike (including a trip up Genoa hill to take photos). Today: 13.81 mile run. 11.18 in the am before work, 2.63 running home after dropping off a car for service. The humidity was down noticeably, and it felt great. I saw LOTS of people out and about. Amos and Barbara driving to work. Jay running. Randy M (ran a couple miles with him.). Peter.

Randy R (downtown). Something else that gets me down a little bit are all the unreturned waves (on a bike) or greetings ("Morning!" on the run). Thank you to the person riding a bike on Salem Road wearing a bright neon jersey, silver bike I believe, that spotted ME first and waved. Made. My. Day. It's a little thing, but it means a lot to me. I will never understand how it could possibly detract from someone's day to return a simple greeting. You just MIGHT make someone else's day by doing it. Try it. As I was coming up Folwell for the second time (also went over Historic Hill twice), my friend Mike was working at the neighbors. So I chatted with him for a while. On my way home I remembered that I had 5 cookies left from yesterday. So I put 3 in a baggie and ran them back over to him.

Saved the other 2 for Matt.

As usual, I was playing around with my camera too.

Rochester Half Marathon and 5K needs LOTS of volunteers (8/27). If you are available to help, please email Jean at runintojean@gmail.com THANK YOU!! We of course need runners too!!

Well, time to get back to life as I know it. Which is a lot of work. Good night.