My Next Big Thing - Rewind

So back before the Marathon, I posted about My Next Big Thing. I talked about training goals and objectives, short term goals and long term goals, and specifically about Wildflower 2006. I even committed right then and there to doing Wildflower, perhaps one of, if not the toughest half-ironman distance triathlon.

Then of course, immediately after the Marathon I was all hung up on Marathons. When am I going to do my next one, spring? where? the states? LA? London? ooo - so many choices! London seemed like a fantastic idea - scheduled for the end of April, I could take it easy all of November and kick back into training mode in December / January. By going through a touring company, I could get guaranteed race entry & hotel for a fairly reasonable amount.

The best laid plans, they say.....

Then I got a phone call from my mom. "I'm engaged!"

Huh? You're what? Oh boy.... And the topper of it all is that she's set the date for her wedding for May 6, in Williamsburg, Virginia.

That pretty much kills London at the end of April, and definitely kills Wildflower. Oh well.

So I do believe that everything happens for a reason - clearly I wasn't meant to do either a spring marathon or Wildflower. I mean, I could still do a spring marathon, but I think we're going to dial back the training a tad, for now.

Tentatively, I would like to start doing Tris this summer. There's an Olympic distance tri in Moses Lake at the begining of June which should be a great place to start. And of course, the Pacific Crest Tri - with both Olympic distance and Half-Ironman distance is in Sun River, OR at the end of June. Both of those seem like viable options.

In the meantime, I've got my short term goals. And adding one more: to see how close to 1000 miles I can get for year. As of right now, I'm at 796.6 : just a little over 200 to go, with 7+ weeks remaining. We shall see....

It's Dead, Jim.

Note to self: you can drop-kick your Mini off the treadmill, but do not, I repeat, do not get it sweaty. You'll kill it.

At least, that's what I did. And it is dead, truly, inexorably dead.

So I have this arm-band thingy for my mini - theoretically it works great to affix your mini to your upper arm for such high-bounce activities like running. It's a far superior solution to the belt clip, which works fine, but doesn't keep your mini from moving all around should you be doing anything more strenuous than walking. Unfortunately, the arm-band bugs the shit out of me... something about it being tight enough to keep the Mini in place, but too tight to feel comfortable. It must be my massive biceps ... (yeah right...)

Anyway - my simple solution on the treadmill is just to clip my mini to the cup holder. Works like a chap. However, several weeks ago I decided it was a lovely fall evening that I should take advantage of. One problem: what to do with the mini? I had no pockets (it would bounce in there anyway) and couldn't even find my arm band if I did want to use it.

So smart me, I thought, "Why don't I just clip it inside my shorts - that way, the lycra from my shorts will help to hold it in place!" So I turned it around, and clipped the belt-clip inside my shorts, with the Mini facing my stomach. I didn't for a second think it would be a problem, and off I went for a gorgeous 45 minute run.

It worked like a champ! No bouncing, no problem.

That is, until I got home. I took my Mini off, and found as I set it on the counter, that only the forward & reverse buttons on the Click-wheel were working. "Hmmm" I thought, "maybe it got a little damp - I'm sure when it dries off, all the buttons will work fine again...". Except that when it dried off, NONE of the buttons worked. It won't charge, it won't be recognized when I plug it into my iTunes, nothing.

It's dead, Jim.

Chalk it up to a lesson learned. Good thing HP is fire-selling all their branded versions.....