If you know anything about me, you know I love a challenge. I mean, why else does anyone sign up for something crazy like IRONMAN?

It was actually an easy decision when I did my research regarding the quality of the products and the support of the company. The final piece that fit into the puzzle was that I’d be able to keep the flexibility in my schedule. Even if I sold nothing (making it financially “worth it”), it was a challenge worth taking on!

So, without further ado, I am delighted to announce that I am a Style Consultant for J Hilburn.

If you’re a man who wears clothes or a woman who buys clothes for a man in your life, this pertains to you. Here’s what I have to offer:

• One-of-a-kind clothes.
• Quality workmanship.
• Incredible pricing.
• Personalized service.

In short, I can save you time and money. And, you’ll get to work with me all the while!

This also introduces the FASHION category on the blog (and explains the tape measure in my new header graphic). You can expect to find articles about things like how to match stripes with patterns, trends in fashion, and where J Hilburn has been featured — places like Men’s Health, Esquire, and Inc. Magazine.

I’d love for you to follow along on my Facebook page. I already talk about food, fitness, and other fun stuff — and plan to do so with more regularity. That page (rather than my personal page) is where I’ll link to articles related to men’s fashion as well. Like me there!

I’ve got over 20 clients who are delighted with their clothes and the process of working with someone one-on-one to build their professional and social go-to clothes that fit well and look great.

If you’re tired of spending your weekends at the mall and tailor and tired of what the standard men’s retailers have to offer, I’d love to work with you. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how easy and affordable it is to have a custom wardrobe. Even if you’re not interested in the clothes, you might find insight in the trends and “What Not To Wear” that I’m planning to feature.

Who doesn’t want to look like this guy? AMIRIGHT?!?

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So, Wildflower 70.3. Let’s break this down:

The outlook was pretty poor from the start. My knees were the main culprit, creaking all the time and causing pain doing simple things like standing up  from a seated position and descending stairs. Things were really looking bad as I considered running a ridiculously difficult half marathon after swimming 1.2 miles and biking 56 hilly miles. But my magical chiropractor evaluated me and said that it’s the scar tissue in my calves that is causing the issue. He gave me some homework that I have been good about and things are going much better. I did have a literal run-in with Miles’ 85-pound girlfriend Lola — straight to the side of my left knee — and that has me a bit concerned. I went to yoga over the weekend and it was sore in Warriors 1 and 2, but it was fine on my long run after that. I will keep icing everything and hope for the best on race day.

My swimming is going well. I am in the pool at least twice a week and everything there feels very consistent and good. I have to remind myself to focus on my form (rather than figuring out what I’m going to wear to work, for instance) and that helps my interval times tremendously. Go figure. I expect the swim will be my best event at the race. Update: my goggles and Ironman swim cap were never recovered. Karma’s a bitch, people. Watch out. Miles and I went for an open water swim on Friday to cool off and I went on my first real swim in the Bay yesterday. It wasn’t as fast as I maybe would have liked, but it wasn’t a disaster.

Cycling is what it is. And by that, I mean I don’t care. I’m just not driven this time around. I bike three times a week, two shorter mid-week rides and one long weekend ride. I force myself into incorporating punishment like hills and sprints. I know I will be glad I did when the time comes, but I’m not enjoying the process. I finally got on my tri bike on March 16 — the first time I had ridden it since Ironman on August 26. This expensive bike had collected a lot of dust in the garage in that time. The good news is that getting back on it was a treat. I am actually far more comfortable on this bike than my road bike. The bad news is that not even a fancy bike can make me fast like proper training does.

As for my running, I am 98% hill-centric. I have done the majority of my training on very hilly terrain that largely mimics the Wildflower course: hot, dusty, hilly terrain. I am doing almost no speed work. My average run pace is slow, but very consistent. I’m fine with that; I left this race last year saying I’d never do it again. I realize that everything is relative, and I want the suffer-fest to be relative as well. Slow and steady will win this race for me.

I don’t know what kind of race goals I’ll put together. I want to say something arbitrary like, “Just have fun!”, but who am I kidding? First of all, that’s not a measurable goal. Second, I’m competitive enough that I’m sure I’ll endure a fair amount of discomfort if I see a lot of people in my age group passing me. The best news of all is that I don’t have to train for a full Ironman once this race is over. It will be a blissful summer compared to 2012!

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(P.S. Click on some ads while you’re there, would ya??)

I enlisted the help of my friend and Beaducation coworker Mindy Proscia to update the look and feel of the blog. I launched this site back in 2010 and it was long overdue for a change. Mindy is an extremely talented photographer and designer  that was able to capture the style of my writing, the topics I cover, and my personality with the new site. I love it!

You may see a few things that are new and that seem out of place. Wait for it…!

What do you think?

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but I really want to believe that the question implied by this sign

was the teaser into a question that girls dream about.

Miles and I ran with a friend at Water Dog Park today and we came across these signs littering one of the upper trails. I glanced at them as I ran by… the “I’ve got a question” one first, and then the “Hey Alyssa” one. Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I want to believe that someone was waiting for Alyssa at the end of the trail with a marriage proposal.

And not something like, “Can you gimme a ride home?”

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We got home at 11 PM Saturday night so we could complete our long ride/run today. Clouds looming, both of us looked at numerous weather sites for hour-by-hour forecasts and set out on our respective rides. The forecasts varied from “sprinkles in the afternoon” to “0% chance precipitation.” Both of us got caught in a cold and windy down-pour. The afternoon ended with a co-ed trip to the hot tub, so all’s well that ends well…

Here are some pics I snapped with my crappy camera phone this weekend, the only ones we have to document our Tahoe 2012-13 season.

Greg and Miles had fun playing on the jungle gym outside Le Chamois.

Off-duty Snow Makers

Jen stopped by the van for 1000 CCs of red wine after working customer service all day.

This entire mountain is usually covered in snow.

One of the three creeks Miles found to play in this weekend.

Spring skiing = flare!

I went for a run around Donner Lake Saturday morning. 8 miles of solitary bliss (at altitude)!

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I exited the pool at 6:50AM and rushed through showering and getting dressed, running out of the gym without even brushing my hair to get to my car where my own phone was. (I could finish getting ready at the office.) I thought that I would perhaps catch him still at home and he’d hear his phone ringing and all would be well. I dialed him 10+ times before I resigned myself that he had already left. In the end, it was no big deal that Greg didn’t have his phone that day. I apologized, he accepted.

Fast forward to Wednesday evening. I put together my Thursday swim workout and started gathering everything I needed for the morning. Only then did I realize that I was missing everything else related to the workout.  I must have left it at the gym in Tuesday’s hasty departure.

I have a mesh bag that I take with me into the pool area that carries my my goggles, ear plugs, swim cap, and Ziploc bag o’ workouts. My training plan calls for specific workouts each day (I’ve been swimming 3x/week for the past few weeks) and I write them all down and then seal them in a Ziploc bag. It’s just a great way to go back and look at the workouts, especially in the off-season or when making up a workout. I was fussing about the time I spent writing them down as much as anything. Then there’s my goggles. I have a lot of trouble getting goggles to fit and “splurged” on this $40 pair in August.

The worst of it? My swim cap. It was the cap I wore during Ironman Canada. It had the IM logo on it, and it also had the Sharpie marker with my race number (2424) on it. It was a keepsake. A memento. A talisman.

Realizing what had happened — I could picture where I left it in my rush — I just knew it would be at the front desk in Lost & Found. I arrived there yesterday morning at 5:57AM with a sub-par set of goggles, ear plugs, swim cap, and brand new Ziploc bag with the day’s workout. When I explained my plight to the front desk guy, he looked in Lost & Found…. and nothing was found. Well, besides people’s dirty water bottles, yoga mats, sweatshirts, earbuds, and weightlifting gloves.

So disappointing. Mostly about the swim cap, but also about the workouts that told stories of what I had done before. And let’s not forget my fellow gym-goers! Why wouldn’t someone turn this in? I certainly wouldn’t put someone else’s earplugs in my ears, I would not dare run swim in this pool with a very specific Ironman Canada/2424 swim cap, and the goggles are wearing out quickly.

I plan to keep checking with the front desk when I’m there over the next week or so. Maybe someone picked them up, intending to drop them at the front desk and forgot on their way out. The front desk guy wasn’t that bright (or awake?), so maybe there’s another place to check… I’m not giving up home on the goodwill of humanity just yet!

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Now that training for Wildflower has come into full swing (two-a-day workouts, unlimited laundry, unlimited hunger and fatigue), I have been referring back to the photobook for some race day inspiration. It’s maybe working.

NOTE: I have friends at Shutterfly (it’s a Bay Area company), but this project was my own doing. In other words, I’m not being paid to say any of these nice things about the company.

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I woke up at 5:45 and was surprised to not find Miles wedged in between me and Greg. I found him on the couch, taking up as much space as possible and quite content. I laid down with him to say good morning and he greeted me with kisses. And then he began the unmistakable heaving that precedes vomiting.

I jumped up and said as quietly and convincingly as possible, “Let’s go! Let’s go! Outside! Outside! Outside!” He ran with me to the back yard and began the heaving again. Which produced this:

What, you don’t recognize it? It’s one of those mini tennis balls. It’s just that the felt material is coming off and the entire thing is beginning to disintegrate.

Labradors are notorious for swallowing things that get caught in the stomach or, worse, the intestines. Every vet loves to recount the cautionary tales of socks/underwear having to be  surgically removed. THIS IS A TENNIS BALL!! It clearly wasn’t going through the intestines, so we’re lucky that it came out the other way. The bullet we dodged has to be worth $5K and possibly our dog’s life.

Oh, did I mention that this ball has been bouncing around in his belly since February 16? Yeah, we went over to the beach in Half Moon Bay that day and he found this ball on the beach. Miles was prancing around with this ball + his two regular-size Chuck-It balls in his mouth. He “lost” this one and we figured/assumed/hoped he just discarded it somewhere along the beach because it wasn’t one of his favorites. Nope. He was carrying this tag-along for ~3 weeks before it came up.

I also am very grateful that what he vomited up was not cat poop or  some other vile matter, considering all the kissing that was going on immediately before it came up…

Unrelated: Doesn’t our fake lawn look so real? We love it!

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Every evening after dinner, I pack my lunch for the following day. It’s usually leftovers from dinner, which was the case last night — Thai Chicken Enchiladas. DELICIOUS. Seriously. Make these.

I fixed dinner, ate dinner, packed my lunch, and cleaned everything up before retiring to the couch with my glass of wine and dark chocolate peanut butter cup. Life was good. The alarm went off at 5:28 this morning and I dutifully rose and got myself to the gym for a 6 AM boot camp class. I got to work by 7:45 and got an IM from Greg at 8:45, asking if I had gotten his text message. I had not; my phone was still buried in my gym bag.

I checked my messages and my sweet husband had texted me at 7:07 AM to let me know that I had forgotten my lunch and he had dropped it off on the picnic table outside my office on his way to work. At this point, I was still working on breakfast and had no idea that I had forgotten my lunch. But I can’t tell you how pleased I was that he had taken this detour to deliver my lunch to me! I was especially pleased when lunchtime rolled around and I heated up these delicious enchiladas instead of going to the corner deli for a cold turkey sandwich.

This was a timely reminder to look for the good. Celebrate the good. Reciprocate the good.

Go forth and be kind to one another, my friends!

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Half Ironman training, to be precise. Today marked my first “real” bike ride. My first “real” climb since Ironman back in August. I guess it’s official that triathlon train has begun once again.

On all the “fun” rides I’ve gone on this winter, I’ve had to force myself to go. It hasn’t been enjoyable, even on the nicest days or the best routes. I just don’t care anymore. It’s a concerning feeling, going into training for the hardest 70.3 race I know of.

Today, I climbed Tunitas Creek. Greg and I stayed in The Van over on the coast last night, kind of on a whim. I threw my bike in the last minute, kind of on a whim… The idea being that I’d ride back home from the coast.

You know, forcing myself into it. No way out. One way home. UP AND OVER.

It was in the low 40s when we woke up this morning. Cold and overcast, but not miserable. We took Miles for an hour-long walk on the beach and I was delighted when the sun started burning through the fog. By the time Greg dropped me off south of Half Moon Bay, it was in the low 50s and mostly sunny.

The climb is significant, and I hit it just 1.89 miles into my ride. Luckily, I came upon another rider about a mile in. He’d never ridden Tunitas before and looked at me with bug-eyes, breathing hard, asking how long the climb is. It was with some veteran-of-this-climb pleasure that I informed him that Tunitas Creek Road is 9 miles from bottom to top. The serious climbing portion is about 4 miles, but the mental game of having to continue pedaling to the end of the road is quite taxing.

We made it up in reasonable time, chatting the whole way about our various endeavors and how much this sucked. I was certainly glad for the company. I can say with honesty that the entire ride was much better because I had someone along for those 9 miles. I burned a lot of calories today, I feel like I made a very big stride in my cycling training/fitness, and I will sleep very well tonight.

All good.

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