Courtenay Brown

And my head feels like it’s going to explode from the enormity of having to actually wake up.

Prior to napping for three hours, I finished my 3 hours of training for the day at 10 a.m.! This might be a case of me congratulating myself for something that everyone else thinks is no big deal, sigh. I know there are tons of early-birds out there in blog land and in real-people land, which is why there are so many freaking lap swim times and masters swim programs here in Seattle that are at like 5 a.m. I am going to try out one or two masters programs this week - somehow my swim at 5:45 this morning didn’t seem too awful at all and I have a newly nonchalant and cavalier attitude regarding inhuman hours for working out.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

In other news, I am getting the non-training aspects of my life settled here in Seattle. Friday was unpacking, Saturday was rendered unproductive by a ride outdoors in the cooooold grayness because “it’s not raining out so we have to go outside” (not my idea)(although it did wind up being fun), yesterday was laundry, and today is figuring out what the crap spilled in my toiletry bag and cleaning all of that up, and of course blogging, rolling my eyes at facebook (whoever invented facebook groups should be globally un-friended) catching up on email (I have gotten to the point where I *hate* email, wtf?!), and….

looking
for
a
JOB.

It’s all going awesome.

I actually took a nap last Monday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. OMG so tired!

Then the next morning I flew back to the West Coast, spent a couple of days in the Bay Area getting organized and having fun and taking a nap. OMG so tired!

Then Ben and I drove to Seattle! We got here yesterday, after some Denny’s and In n Out and an overnight in Kelso, Washington thanks to a snowstorm and us being sleepy. OMG so tired!

During the drive we read an article in a recent New Yorker about New York’s “hip hop cop”. In the article was an anecdote about a shooting last summer outside a strip club. One of the victims was killed because he tripped over his low-riding pants and was unable to get away. Sad sad, yes, because someone died, but I totally laughed. It’s right up there with poor Plaxico and his sweatpants (explanation follows for you non-NFL fans). In the waistband of these sweatpants he put his gun, which apparently didn’t have the safety on, and which then apparently shot him in the leg, in a nightclub.

Speaking of dumb things that make me laugh. I can’t get out of my head a scene from Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News from a few weeks ago, which by the way I was watching purely for research purposes because it’s helpful to see where the other side gets their opinions about global warming being a fiction, etc. Conveniently the topic of this show was in fact global warming and the related fact that liberals are very rash and they kill people, as exemplified by Nobel Prize winner Rachel Carson who discovered the harmful effects of the pesticide DDT and therefore was singlehandedly responsible for the death of 50 million people (because everyone in Africa got malaria after DDT was abruptly pulled from use), and BTW Al Gore is of equivalent evil since he also won a Nobel Prize. But the *real* thing I found amusing from this show was actually something Sean Hannity said…

“I care about the environment. I mean, I drive a hybrid!… A big one, it’s a Cadillac Escalade, but it’s a hybrid!”

God.

More soon, one of my resolutions is to make my blog awesome again .

Or, after my last post, I should say “What happened to last WEEK?!”. I’ve been silent on my blog because my mom is one hell of a social planner. We have had at least one function, often two, every single day since Christmas Eve, by which time I was not feeling well enough for egg nog but I had some anyway and it was delicious.

Believe it or not, after all these parties I am sooooo tired of talking about myself and how awesome I am. I am just exhausted by it. So, I will be sparing you any further Courtenay-talk in today’s post and instead I present you with my diminishing rear end (in the spirit of the New Year and buckling down for the upcoming race season!)

It disappeared, that’s what happened. Got eaten up by a stomach bug. I had grand plans of swimming and doing interval work on the bike and making cookies yesterday and instead I woke up throwing up and barely able to stand. I have thrown up 3 other times in my adult life so as far as I am concerned, puking is an irrefutable sign that I Am Sick. I have been told this is also a sign that I never go hard enough in my workouts or races, but really? That is so athlete-elitist, god. Anyway I managed to make it downstairs only three times all day, to get gatorade and a piece of toast. Ugh. I also managed to win a couple games of iPod solitaire, in between naps and complaints that “my EVERYTHING hurts” to anyone who would listen (mainly just the dog).

Now, because I am my mother’s daughter and my grandmother’s granddaughter, I am very interested in placing the blame on someone for getting me sick. But so far, really I can only blame myself because I am the one who has been traveling all over the place and feeling stressed and being susceptible to germs. Oh well, I’m sure I will be able place the blame somewhere for something before the holiday is over.

Then today since I was feeling better I spent 45 minutes getting geared up for a bike ride outside, but I only lasted 5 minutes. 30 degrees with cloudy skies and 10mph winds is AWFUL from atop a bicycle! I need some of Beth’s toughness, or at the very least some of her cold-weather gear. I am still trying to thaw! Then I will try to run. And, I plan to be fully recovered by tomorrow, my stomach is getting some Christmas Eve egg nog whether it’s ready or not .

Today I was supposed to go run a 5k at 8 a.m. (5 a.m. for me, I am slow to adjust from Pacific time) (and yes, observant reader, I did just race a 10k last weekend, but my heart-rate monitor malfunctioned so I needed to do another race and this time get the HR data instead of just trying to look cute for the camera).

But, lucky for me, we had rain and freezing temps and Maryland was in a fairly icy state this morning. So I didn’t go.

Instead, I spent the morning playing with my favourite dog and making gingerbread houses! My sister and I actually shared a house. Photos are below, I leave it up to you to figure out whose half is the type-A kitschy relic of 1989 and whose half is the cool fun awesome au courant half.

Then when the rain stopped and the sun came out, I made my sister come “help” me run my own private 5k race. Basically all she had to do was start and stop a timer and snap a couple of photos. In exchange, I promised to be nice to her all day and to not run her over in my hypoxic finish-line delerium.

Apparently I should have offered money or perhaps a hug or a new sparkly Santa sweatshirt, because her photos were decidedly less awesome than Ben’s, albeit better than they would have been had she done everything from inside the house like she wanted to. She did get a good photo of herself being psyched though, and she estimated that her margin of error with the stopwatch was only a couple of seconds! It’s a start. Thanks Scare!

One Half is Awesomeness

Isn't my sister cute.

Look at the camera Mikey!

Mikey gives good Wet Willies.

Wooooooo 5k!

I am so fast she missed my start.

Clearly focused on the task at hand...

That was totally so fun.

I’ve written and deleted like 3 blogs about my travels yesterday. It was a bit of a crazy day (preceded by several crazy/mundane days about which I didn’t blog either), but really it might be kind of boring. We all travel during the holidays right, so what’s sooo interesting about me running with 135 lbs of luggage for 1/8 mile because Smarte Carte stole my $3, or about my escalator steamrolling accident, or about 3 motionless hours on the runway in SLC during a blizzard, or about my sister waiting patiently for me at BWI while some old guy tried to talk her into believing in Jesus? Actually, I do find that last bit interesting. Apparently it’s OK for creepy-looking white men to trap sweet young college students in conversation so long as they are talking about the bible. The good news for me in this case is that my sister was sooooo happy to see me! Big hug and everything!

So today I will do a little bit of training, work on my suuuuper top-secret Christmas present projects, and take a nap. I always wish I could sleep in at Christmas but my room at my mom’s house doesn’t have curtains, I had a dream that I hung some beach towels up over the brightness and I think I am actually going to do that once I summon enough energy to get out of bed.

Oh, one more thing. I’ve pretty much decided that my contact lens is lost and gone forever, but the memory of Kelly helping me look for it is definitely not. Here’s me being Kelly being helpful, just to give you an idea :

I lost my contact in my eye last night, and it’s yet to resurface. Ugh. I have decided that my brain ate it. Ben’s suggestion is that it fell out in my sleep, because that happened to him once. Huh?! He sleeps with his eyes cracked open though. I don’t. Either way, I vote that is the first ditsy comment I have heard from bc dot org and I am relishing in it.

Anyway so today I swam masters with Kelly, it was my first ever masters workout and it was awesome! I’m definitely doing it again.

After that I took Kelly and her bike and its flat tire to her work in Sausalito. I am hoping she blogs about her string of flats, her ancient tires, the fact that she called Steve before me, the fact that she complained to Steve, the fact that he was like “soooo are you saying you want me to come pick you up”, etc., but if she doesn’t blog about it, that’s the synopsis.

THEN, after that, I went to Bike-Rx in Mill Valley to pick up my road and TT bikes that I had dropped off last night. I needed to get the cranks swapped, and apparently one of my chains needed to be replaced. Guess what my bill was? $98.41!!!!! Are you fucking kidding me. I mean, I know it’s super fancy Mill Valley and all, but come on, a hundred bucks for a chain and 15 minutes of labor? Do you guys have law and medical degrees or something? “Shop-owned” BMW’s to pay off? Other shops have never charged me more than $15 to swap cranks. I have recommended that shop to friends and other athletes because I know the guys who own and run it and they are generally cool and nice, but I can’t recommend them any more. I am taking them off my sidebar, AND I am NOT going to inform them that their headline for their website says “Triathalon” instead of the correct “Triathlon”.

God.

Anyway my major annoyance evaporated relatively quickly this afternoon because I went on a beautiful ride. I headed up from Mill Valley to the Pantoll Ranger Station, then down towards Stinson, turned south on Highway 1 to Muir Woods and then back in to Mill Valley. If I were fancy and special I’d post a map of this but I can’t afford a gps cause I spent so much money at the stupid bike shop. SO, this photo I took from 1 looking towards Muir Woods and San Francisco will just have to do!

I have more to say, but there is enough ranting and raving here for one post, and I need to go poke and prod my eye in search of my contact.

Yesterday, my 17-day weekend in Seattle came to an end. I flew down to Reno to pick up my car and then drive to Marin.

At least, that was my plan. But it was pouring with snow and I opted to stay in Reno overnight rather than digging my snow chains out from all the other stuff in my car and then figuring out how to get them on the wheels in the freezing cold pouring snow (ew).

So I went for a gorgeous run in the snow yesterday, and caught up on some Christmas projects on my computer. No card this year, I let other things like moving and finding a job and goofing off on the internet take up all my time, but next year, next year! (famous last words).

So yes, Reno loves me sooo much it held me hostage last night. I don’t love it back right now, at least not till it stops being 10 degrees outside and the roads stop being treacherous so I can hurry up and get down to the bay in time to train. At the very least, I’d like to be able to drive somewhere for some coffee and a nice big breakfast burrito, I am staaarrrvvviiinnnggg.

So yesterday I ran a 10k!

The race was good. I was supposed to do the 10k to sort of set a benchmark for the season, and get an idea of my max HR. I was freaking out because I hadn’t planned for it so I didn’t have race shoes and my outfit was totally weak (I had only packed one pair of running shorts and one technical t-shirt for my “Thanksgiving weekend” here in Seattle), but once the race started I remembered that no one but me seems to notice whether I look dumb/fat/etc.

The fun part was that Ben came with me! He had a tempo run on his schedule for the day, so it worked out perfectly, he ran alongside me and cracked a few jokes and took photos! See below. Way better than trying to photograph myself during the race.

I ran a 38:28, which I was pretty happy with because a. it’s December and b. that’s the fastest I have ever done a 10K. Also c. I won the women’s race, and I got a smoothie cup, and yes my face did fall at the prize table when I realized it was a giant plastic cup and not a pint glass.

Tomorrow, I leave for California, via Reno to get my car. Woooo back to reality (sort of). I am pretty sure “reality” is actually going to take place in Seattle for me really soon! I had a couple of job interviews here last week, one of which was awesome and the other of which was honestly the most bizarre “interview” experience I have ever had. I found myself wondering if it was a tryout for some cheap creepy version of Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader rather than for an assistant position. So I told them I required $30/hr salary, just to ensure they won’t call me and offer me a job I don’t want but will feel obligated to take cause my mom says beggars can’t be choosers, etc. Meanwhile I am deciding whether to send flowers and personalized custom M&M’s to the other job or just one. Don’t want to come off as too psycho, nor as uninterested, what to do…

Anyways, as promised, here are photos! Oh and that last one is from Chris’s holiday party last night, which was totally fun because it snowed AND we wore swimsuits!

Mile 4-ish

I'm the one in the pink shorts

Um.

Christmas in July in December

O.K., not really, but LCD Soundsystem has been in my head for like 3 weeks and I had a dream this morning that Pittsburgh Steelers’ safety Troy Polamalu (the one with the hair) was in my bathroom.

The funny thing about both of these, hahaha my joke of the month, is I have no home/bathroom to call my own!

So tonight Ben and I went to Herriott Sports Performance to hear Chris Lieto give a talk. He mainly talked about his company, Base Performance, and the four products they make. Which, I believe Chris that they are awesome, and it was cool to hear about them from a science-based perspective as well as an anecdotal one.

Anecdotally, I learned a couple of things tonight. For one thing, Chris talked about general nutrition, and about how it’s important to keep a detailed workout AND food log at least for a short period of time to make sure that you are eating at least as many calories as you are burning each day. When he did this recently, he realized he was at a deficit by almost a thousand calories pretty much every day. So: HE ATE MORE and then HE LOST TWO POUNDS.

Tomorrow, I am having seconds. Maybe thirds.

The other thing I learned is that visualization works. I kind of already knew this, I use it for racing a lot and so does Chris and so does Ben so obvs it works, but what I decided is that just because it’s the off season it doesn’t mean I can’t put my visualization skills to good use. For example, I would really like to have a job. Preferably in Seattle. So I am visualizing myself employed. Better yet, I am visualizing myself shopping for cute new outfits to wear to my new place of employ, which I am visualizing as an athlete-friendly place, with cool people, and I am visualizing going to my morning workouts with work stuff and then showering and putting on new cute lip gloss and trotting to work and talking to visualized clients about healthy lifestyles and whoa, getting paid for it, and then having money to try out some Base products.

(If visualization works and gets me a job, I am REALLY going to buckle down with my swimming visualization. I sent Jen some underwater videos of me swimming and OMG I got the hugest feedback email, it took me 4 tries to read the whole thing. In sum: I need to work on everything.)