Weekend wrap up and a look at the new week (a day into the week)

This is the fourth time I have attempted to write this post. I can not concentrate. It has started in paragraph format the first three times and then I deleted everything. I apologize for going bullet style again, I promise i Will not make this a habit (when I do this posts are longer and less focused).

• I can not think straight, it feels like I have too many irons in the fire right now, but I think I actually have less than usually.
• I am having an internal battle setting priorities right now (actually I am having 3 or so internal battles).

  -Priority 1a is taper week. My only real "A" Tri is this weekend. I want to go at it very seriously. It is supposed to have 800 people that is the largest tri for me yet. 

  -Priority 1b is to try and lose 10 pounds in October. This would mean I would end up having lost 50lbs in 1 year.

• This taper thing sucks! I want to keep pushing myself, but I know that I can't before a race (internal battle 2). My plan called for a 2 mile run yesterday. I turned it into 2 miles of hill repeats because after the last few months a 2 mile "easy" paced run was just that..too easy. I am still behind one long run and desperately want to make it up this week, but probably shouldn't.
• After an intense few month I am looking forward to my unstructured zero week.  However enter internal battle 3- I know I should recover but desire to lose the 10 pounds this month wants me to push interval runs and speed work (I lost weight the fastest when I was just running and it was mostly these workouts, although I have gotten in better shape and seen the most performance improvements while working all three sports). I know this type of training that week would be could lead to injuries, but I am at war with myself.
• I did my brick workout Friday as scheduled. 11 mile bike route with 2 miles as fast as I could and a jog of .6 miles to round out 5k. Even with the jog the run was sub 30 minutes and although I struggled at first, once I was in mile three I felt I could keep going. The bike was concerning because I felt I pushed myself the hardest I ever have, but I was slower than last week's time. Sad. Also, and most oddly it was the first time I was ever cold on the bike.
• I have been worrying fretting thinking about the fact it will be 49 degrees when I check in Sunday. Seems way too cold for me. Luckily, I am bringing insulation with me (24 extra pounds of it).
• I ordered a tri suit last Friday (shorts and top), I was hoping to fnd a bib style tri suit but had no luck. I hope it is here in time and fits. If I am lucky it will cut some more time off in the pool.
• Bought my first swim cap last Friday..it's so weird. I can't tell if my head is in the water or not. I did a 250m time trial that day and was 15s faster, not sure if it is the pool work or the swim cap but that means 45 seconds has been cut since 3 weeks ago. Still not the 3 minutes I want.
• I have been looking at the times for this event. I think it is really weird that the times from last year in the Clydesdale Division go from 57 minutes to 1:25 and then drop to 2 hours with no one in between.
• yeah, I'm Stressing!
• I've been obsessed about my bike every day since that is the area I have seen the least progress in, but weather and day light have prevented me from getting any extra rides in. 90 minutes scheduled tomorrow and 90 minutes more on Friday. I am hoping by the grace of the big guy upstairs I will have a new bike by Sunday. Everytime I ask, CB tells me I can't buy one. (yes I have to ask permission for things in that $$$ range) and it makes me more sad, but she says be happy for what you have. I should be, but it's hard.
• My younger sister in law wants to sponsor me to run the Disney Marathon. She's one of the sweetest 16 year olds I know, but she wants to make sure I am going so that she can come too! It makes me laugh.
• CB says the blog needs more pictures...ironically, she knows I don't own a camera.
• I had a job interview in Charlotte, NC to go into a position in probation/parole under what I did when I left. I have mixed emotions and am trying to figure out what the gut is telling me,
• Once I left the interview it had been 5 hours since breakfast and I had missed my 10am snack. I reached for it and it was melted. I had my lunch salad with me since I was going straight to work, but decided it was not going to be easy to eat it and drive. I stopped at McD's to get a cheeseburger and diet coke. I was upset when they gave me real coke, it sat funny in my stomach. That wouldn't have bothered the old my and it would have been a large coke with large fries and 5 cheese burgers. What has happened to me???
• CB has yelled at me because some of my clothes don't fit me any more. They are too big!! As good as outgrowing the clothes is she tells me we can't afford to buy ones that fit so I'd better stop losing weight.
  
  
  WARNING: PERSONAL RANT BELOW THESE ARE MY OWNS FEELINGS (TODAY) PLEASE SKIP IF YOU ARE OFFENDED EASILY OR ARE GENERALLY ARGUMENTATIVE.
• Today I have been emptying out my mind onto the screen and have one last rant- Last night I was on craigslist.org. I often look for odd jobs to make extra cash or to entertain myself with reading what people are selling for ENTIRELY too much money and reading the personals (the personals are the most funny, especially the ones for NSA encounters). Last night I found several adds similar to: "I'm a single mother and I'm pregnant and need baby stuff, please dontate. I have no ride so you will have to drop it off" or "I am poor and have no car, I want your old car. I have no money to pay but will take it off your hands as long as it runs". There was a third but I can't remember it. These annoyed me a lot. Mostly, because I grew up moderately poor (on government assistance a few times), after years of hard work in college and working for the state I have improved my standing to lower middle class (If me and CB didn't have student loans and vehicle payments we would have more cash than we need). Given what the level of hard work I have put in, these ads try my patience. The one for the car reminds me of the 6 months I spent driving a 1979 Oldsmobile (in 2007) I paid $250 for it. It had no air, heat, radio, locks, or working windows and had a screwdriver holding the driver seat in place. The adds also bothers me because as much as I want a high end road bike (and many other things), or even a $899 road bike, I have never gone to Beginnertriathlete.com and begged for one nor will I- I just beg my wife instead. I don't know what bothers me more, people begging for things or the fact that some people actually get handouts while others of us are stuck in downward spirals trying as hard as they can to pull up.
  RANT OFF
• The rant was going to be the last thing I wrote about (because it was the last thing on my mind) but it brought to mind something else (see my mind is working overtime today). I was to teach Surface Water Rescue again Sunday, but I had an obstacle. On the way to class a truck pulled up next to me and told me I had a flat tire. I pulled of the highway and my passenger rear tire was flat. I headed to a compressor to try and fill it up to drive home and figure out what's next. At the compressor I noticed that a tire I thought was leaking last week was low again (15 psi low), and my spare (on the truck in place of another flat tire I fixed earlier) was about 10 psi low. This was the most interesting to me because they were all checked Thursday when I had the oil changed. Two leaks fast enough to go flat in  3 days and two more that will go flat in a week.Spoke to Goodyear and they want me to take them to be inspected. I admit the tires have high miles, but having that many leaking tires is WAY to weird in my opinion.
• It's salad time. Hopefully, I will get a chance to catch up an everyone else's blogs today. I HOPE!