Local Pool Finally Open!

It's that time of the year again -- when our outdoor pool is open for business! You have no idea how excited I am about this! No more having to wake up at a Godforsaken hour in the morning to wolf down breaky and then drive to Pincher Creek. Now, I can hop on my bike and buzz down to the pool. It is still CRISP outside that early in the morning, but I'm so delighted to be saving so much moolah on gas. :) :)

In other news...did you hear about my coach? She came in fourth at Ironman Brazil!! YAY!!

Let's see, what else has been going on...Oh! BIG NEWS!!

I reconnected with a long lost friend on facebook two days ago. We went to school together in Cold Lake and kept in touch for a few years before he just disappeared. I thought he might have died...It was my brilliant Mikey who suggested I try facebook. And Lo and Behold -- I found him straight away!!! He is married and has two kids, a puppy and a 3 legged cat named...."Julie." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

We were best friends for a number of years and I am so excited to reconnect with him!! Years ago, he was singing in a band, and I had to iron his long hair before he went out to perform. Hahahaha!! Oh man, the stories!!

I also sussed out another friend from high school who has just been accepted as a pilot for the Snowbirds! (I found out he creeps my blog and hasn't commented yet, so yes, Dano, this is a shameless attempt to make you comment! Hahaha!!)

OKAY...training news:

Swimming these days is all about "ELBOWS UP!" My armpits are on fire! And so are many more little muscles in my arms. Hehehehe! Plus, I've been doing these Pilate ball exercises to help imprint the proper arm swimming position. Me poor little arms. :)

I've been grimacing when I do a hard bike set -- just found this out yesterday when I had to do 6 x 5 min at Oly race pace. I think I might have been snarling when I turned around and was racing into the wind. I was making enough huffing and puffing noises to certainly do justice to the grimace. Hahahahaha! My coach had me drop my aero bars down a wee little more, and I am feeling even more comfortable on my Cervelo. He/She still doesn't have a name or a gender for that matter. I feel rather ambivalent about the whole bike-naming thing. My old bike (Magic Bullet then renamed B.M.F. -- Big Mother F$#^er) was easy to name, but my Cervelo is just great bike. :)

Back to the Pilates ball...Mike had purchased this ball for me a number of years ago as a Christmas present. I never needed it until now. So, after hauling it out of the back of the closet, I went about the task of inflating it. What a gong show!

They give you this cheap and ridiculous "pump" that technically you could use your foot to pump with...if the pump wasn't so cheap that each time you depress the pump the cheap connecting hose shoots off and other sundry pieces hit the floor and roll underneath the computer desk. If I were to use that stupid pump, it would have taken me two weeks to inflate that ball.

The directions specifically said not to use a compressor. BAH! I hauled my partially inflated ball over to my Dad's where he promptly inflated it for me. But this ball is a big pain in the a$$. The plug is cheaper than the pump, so if it isn't on just so, a little bit of air slowly leaks out.

Then, yesterday as I was rolling on the ball doing my swimming exercises, the plug came out and all this sand that was inside the ball came out all over the carpet. I'm sure there is some very good scientific purpose why my ball has sand in it, but at that point I was ready to throw the damn thing out the door and let it blow down the highway to Lethbridge.

I hauled it over AGAIN to my Dad's and this time we put on some snazzy red tape to cover the plug...And then it occurred to me! My ball wants attention! Here she was trying all manner of ways to get my attention, and I just kept ignoring her. I decided we had to make friends and I've been giving her all sorts of TLC. So far so good. No air leakage, no plug popping out, just good times for me and my ball. Funny, I have a name for my ball but not my bike...

Here she is folks, meet Big Blue.
She likes to sit on the kitchen floor and watch me blog.



Big Blue wearing my running hat and chillaxing on the couch...



Big Blue sitting on the deck enjoying the morning sunshine.



Big Blue out on the lawn catching some rays.



Big Blue tentatively making friends.



New friends, good times! LOL!!!