Jitters

So I’m doing a Tri tomorrow. Not quite sure why, but I’m all worked up about it. Actually, I do know why I’m all worked up about it – the new junior engineer in the office is doing the race, too. She’s great – smart, attractive, picks up new stuff quick, etc, so on and so forth. And she’s 10 years younger than I am, which means that I’m getting stomped.

Not that I wouldn’t get stomped anyway; it’s just that this time I’m getting stomped by someone I know.

I don’t think it’d bug me as much if we’d run together before, but until lunch on Monday neither of us knew the other were into running, etc. And schedules being what they are – Monday she didn’t have shoes, Tuesday I had T-Ball, today was a wreck – it’s an unknown. So tomorrow’s the first time we’ll get to judge pace, etc, for each other, and I don’t want to seem rude. But I’m kind of nervous about the whole Tri thing anyway…

AND to top everything else off –

Congratulations! You have been accepted into the ING New York City Marathon 2005! We are so glad to have you joining us along with athletes from all 50 states and more than 100 countries. Sunday, November 6, is less than five months away, and all of us are working hard to ensure that your race experience is the best ever. Coming off an incredible event in 2004, this is a challenge. But we love challenges, and you can expect a number of enhancements this fall, such as a smoother start for the fastest runners and dozens of great live bands along the course. We’ll keep you posted between now and then, but in the meantime bookmark http://www.ingnycmarathon.org, our official Web site, and visit it often for the latest news.

Crap.

Now this isn’t just an exercise in theory.

Back to the question at hand, though: Item the first – any cyclist knows that the absolute last thing that you want to do the day before a huge ride is major work on the bike. So what do I do tonight?
1) Swap wheelsets – this is kind of justified, I was checking spokes, and the winter set had one spoke where the nipple wasn’t even finger tight.
2) New brake pads. Again, somewhat justified – the old pads were original from 2001, and were pretty well glazed. Not squealing, but I didn’t feel a whole lot of grab on Sunday’s ride.
3) New cassette – finally threw on the 12-23 SRAM I’ve been staring at all spring.
4) New chain.
Yeah. But being smart got me fat. Jeff pointed that out a couple of days ago. I think that’s my new motto.

Let’s see – blew off Monday as a rest day after Sunday’s epic. Ran 4-ish Tuesday noon-ish after spending the morning sitting the baby (Hey Jon – remember, “the sitter’s not supposed to sit upon the baby”) while Missy and Jake checked out Kindergarden. Jake was kind of freaked out about the whole deal, but there’s a bunch of kids from his pre-school in his class. Half day, afternoon – jeeze, I wish I had his schedule. Then actually got to play at the t-ball practice. The dad-kid ratio was about 2/3, and there were only about 5 kids at the practice. So we let them actually try to hit, and tried to keep the other kids entertained by playing catch. Good times, except I have no gauge on how hard I throw any more.

OK, back to tossing and turning.