News Flash

I am WHITE. Not just caucasian, or fair-skinned, or a little bit honky. Full on Northern European, never meant to see the light of day white.

One would think I would be aware of this. And most of the time, I am. I don't inflict my bare midsection on anyone but my spouse, lest someone be blinded. I own many lightweight long-sleeve shirts for days when I would like to go sleeveless but I will be outdoors for more than, say, 10 minutes. I own no fewer than 6 different kinds of sunscreen.

And yet, every spring, my incurable whiteness escapes me in the form of small mistakes in the application of SPF 1,000,000 and UV-blocking clothing. There are chinks in my armor, if you will. And that, dear readers, leads only to misery and stripey red patterns across the neglected body part. Let's survey the damage:

There is a 1-inch stripe across each thigh where my shorts rode up after sunscreen application. I have matching crescent-moons on my shoulder blades and my chest where my jersey pulled down. This reminds me that I usually put on sunscreen before putting on my clothes, and again after. Yes, I have to slather up nekkid, plus put on more once I get where I'm going.

I also think I burned my scalp. This is interesting because I was wearing a helmet for most of my time outside today.

My face, there's nothing more to do. I'm not interested in adopting the (probably very smart from a skincare perspective) face-covering customs of desert-dwelling women in the Middle-East and North Africa. So it's just sort of pink all summer long.

The rest of me (or at least the parts that were exposed to the sun) is a pretty shade of pink, which hopefully will fade soon lest my father see it and give me a lecture on how some kid in Australia sunburned his whole face off.

I guess I should stop whining, though. I rode my bike 20 miles today, including one big-ass hill, and the worst injury I have is stripey legs. :)

Dead Leg

Warning: whining ahead!

Today I ran 3.5 miles, as per the Hal Higdon plan. But lately, around 2.5 miles, my right foot quits the program--it falls asleep even as I'm trying to use it to propel myself across the pavement. As you might expect, it is disconcerting, if not terribly uncomfortable, to run while you cannot feel one of your feet. So while I was planning an ambitious 6 min run/1 min walk interval, I ended up quitting that after the first 2 miles and defaulting to a run till foot goes numb/walk till it comes back schedule. I finished the distance in 49 minutes, which isn't going to win me any awards but I think is respectable considering. I already have an appointment with a podiatrist who specializes in sports medicine so I'll ask him about it in a few weeks.

I also tried out the new pedals, to great effect. I only rode around our neighborhood a little, starting and stopping often to practice clipping in and out. I only fell once, no injuries. Tomorrow we'll take her out for a real spin!

My one other complaint is, as always, about my weight. I've been pretty decent overall--eating tons of fruits and veggies, not too much bread or sweets, and certainly have been getting my exercise. And yet, over the last few weeks, I've gained weight. I generally just don't think about such things if I can help it, but my clothes don't fit particularly well right now, and a simple 5-10 pound loss would do a world of good in that department. Instead, here I am ~35 pounds overweight and gaining. It's a bit frustrating at the moment.

But regardless of weight, I did get C to take some awesome "Blondeez in her running gear" photos this afternoon. Here you go!

C always takes pictures while I'm talking. He never did take one where I was just smiling.

Demonstrating what I'm about to go out and do:

Hasta luego!

New and improved, with pictures!

Hidey ho blogger buddies, it's Friday night and you know what that means . . . Bike Repair!

Actually, usually it means lying on the couch as if I am about to die, watching tv until I fall asleep. But today it means bike repair.

So as you may recall, on Monday I put together my new shoes and cleats, only to foolishly attach my left shoe to its pedal, with no means to detach it. Here are the shiny new shoes, with left pedal firmly attached to left shoe:

Oops.

And here is my 1987 Trek Pro Series, in all it's retro teal glory!

It really is a great bike, even if I have been lusting after something better geared for my weakling legs.

Here is your intrepid blogger/bike repair novice and her array of tools:

I soon discovered that the old pedals had not been cleaned or oiled in quite some time--much longer than the approximately 10 months I've owned the bike. It took a lot of elbow grease, some WD-40, and my lovely strongman assistant C to get them off (I swear I did the first one myself, but I needed someone with more leverage for the second). You can see the remains of the broke toe cage on the one I removed.

Then there was the installation of the new pedals, which was actually quite easy despite the presence of a shoe attached to one of them:

Here is the newly freed shoe on my foot (why yes, I could use a pedicure!):

And the most excellent final product! I can't wait to ride, and probably fall on my face. But more importantly, ride faster with my clipped-in shoes and Speedplay Zero pedals!

Home depressed

I didn't get the stuff I needed to do done, workwise, this weekend. One might say "well of course, you packed it full of other stuff!" but really I had time and I just didn't do it. So this morning I woke up feeling sore (from the bike fall maybe?) and generally yucky, and decided not to face up.

I got about half the stuff I should have done while I was home today, so I'll go to work tomorrow. I also made a yummy potsticker and veggie soup, which helped with the sniffles that have been haunting me for the last several weeks.

I bought pedals and cleats tonight, and I did a stupid thing, and tried them out without attaching the pedal to the bike (by setting the pedal on the floor and stepping on). That worked great, but now I can't unclip it! I'm going to have to try to put the pedal on the bike with a shoe attached so I can get the leverage to clip out. Oops. Live and learn about the bikes, I guess.

Time to do a little more work so I can face the office tomorrow.