Wednesday 8/14 - 3/4mi swim

My delta was still crazy this morning but I felt I should at least di something so I headed to the gym pool to swim some very easy laps. 

I had a mile swim in my plan and just decided to swim a little bit and see how I felt. Luckily I didn't have to swim much because the water was gross!!  I mean so gross that I told the management when I left. I swam an easy 500, then 200 kick, 200-300 pull and then some more freestyle "cool down" 

Tuesday 8/13. Rest day (again!!)

My heart rate delta is still off the charts so Tuesday was another rest day. I was initially supposed to do two 1:45 runs that I swapped with a yoga day but didn't even do that.

After work, I went to the Spa on Oak for a facial that MB gave me for Valentine's Day. I never get facials and had to laugh when she asked me my "skin care regiment". It was a short answer:  "I wash my face with the soap they have at the gym or the facial soap I have at home (Neutragena?) and then input on eye cream and occasionally overnight cream when I can tell my face is drier than normal."  She went on to talk a lot of "when I exfoliate..." Which was funny since I didn't mention exfoliation at all so I really had no input on those questions. Maybe I'm the first person to go to an Oak Street spa that doesn't exfoliate?  I have no idea. 

Anyway, she suggested I take off my clothes and that's when I got really confused. To wash my face, I need to take off my clothes?!  Seemed odd but I went with it after clarifying that it wasn't a massage but a facial, right?

Then she got down to it and started rubbing my face and wrapping towels all over it and stuff. I was able to pick any facial I wanted which meant nothing to me since there was no menu and I had no ideas the options. I just let her tell me what I needed and ended up getting a microdermabrasion and oxygenating facial. Ultimately this cost me an extra $20 and we got on with it. 

I had always thought that microdermabrasion would be w and that shoots stuff at your face to make it smoother. No so. The have something the texture of my cat's tongue scrape your face while at the same time the wand is suctioning your face off. It didn't hurt but was odd. After that, a lot of goop (my eyes were covered) with a paint brush and after it "sunk in" she sprayed oxygen (?) all over my face. Twice. And then back to the hot towels (which were awesome!!). 

In the end she reminded me several times not to exfoliate for five days- FIVE DAYS- which, is obviously not going to be a problem...

This illustration cracks me up

I'm guy #2 and usually #9 on the list!!

http://blog.rateyourburn.com/blog/post/2012/08/19/20-types-of-athletes-you-ll-see-at-an-ironman-race-from-a-first-time-spectator-1.aspx

IronMANG

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http:/

Why is this the first time I'm thinking of calling myself "IronMANG"?!  It cracks me up...

Sunday 8/11 run with a 30 point delta

I got up and took my delta after my long ride and knee pain the day before.  I knew I was run down solely by the fact that my legs ached when I walked up my back stairwell to get into my apartment!

Unfortunately, I received an email from my coach after I had already gotten up at 6:30am and gotten to the gym which suggested I take my delta and rest.  Instead of doing the full two and 1/2 hour run, I did the the warm up and then continued for about 1.5 hours doing 5 minutes walk and 5 minutes run.  I did test my delta and it was brutal.... 30 point spread from laying down to standing still!

Afterwards, I got cleaned up to go to brunch with the gals from Urban Innovations with whom I used to work.  Kate met me in the Gold Coast and we drove to the South Loop and the new Brassiere LM restaurant.  The company was much better than the food and service, but it was so fun to see my pals and sister in from New York City.

After lunch, Kate and I went to get mani/pedis and then drove to the suburbs to have dinner with our parents in Wheeling before she got on her plane back to Brooklyn.  It was an incredibly long weekend and I crawled into bed around 7:45pm.

MB and I watched "The Newsroom" (well he watched the whole thing, I passed out) and called it a day!

Course preview: Ironman Wisconsin

This year is the 11th time IMWI is happening in Madison, Wisconsin.

Take a look at the course preview here:
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon-news/articles/2012/09/previewing-the-11th-ironman-wisconsin-presented-by-trek.aspx#axzz2brK8a8UA

This race is one of the toughest courses and sold out in 21 hours.

Monday rest day 8/12

I worked in the suburbs in the morning and had my car looked at on my way back downtown over lunch. I got into a fender bender in August 1st and hasn't gotten around to taking it in.

I had called my insurance agent and we talked about my options as far as insurance vs not and after today, it looks like I'll opt for a higher rate since we discovered that the bumper and grill are (obviously) messed up but the grill has pushed into the radiator and my A/C will probably eventually not work. He said it was safe to drive and the engine looked fine but it'd be at least $1,200-1,500 and with a $90/mo increase over 3 years & a $100 deductible, it makes sense to fix it. I called my cousin for some advice since he's also a State Farm agent.

After that, I planned to work remotely from home the remainder of the day but our server was down literally from 11:15 until (still) 9pm at night. Who knows what's going on this time!  I got 5-6 crazy spam messages this morning that were all caught in my spam trap (that I also permanently deleted) so I wonder if we all got that and it I overloaded the system??

Anyway, I did what I could to documents in the drive (the shared remote server was working, so it appeared to only be the email server) and checked in with the office several times to see if it was working yet. My phone was forwarded to my cell but I didn't have too many calls di my rest day did become easier too. I made breaded pork chops for an early dinner and MB helped me set up the soundbar I won at the golf outing last night too; it's awesome!!

He was able to insure it works for my radio tuner, AppleTV, and my regular TV and it sounds fabulous!  The cords were short, so we stacked my subwoofer between the DVD/cd player and the tuner and then I could stack the soundbar on top of the TV. This looked much better than just putting it on the floor or in front of the TV with all the cords hanging out. 

I have a swivel wall mount for my tv but I'm slightly scared to try and anchor it myself but eventually could mount both the TV and the soundbar on the wall. This way will do for now though!!