Jen- it was actually me that asked not either of the Mels. I do travel some(I typed that and then thought about me race schedule- the real answer is yes, I travel alot to race.) Most of my schedule is triathlons(swim/bike/run) with a few runs thrown in. Triathlons that require a plane ticket are in St Petersburg FL, at the World FL, and Ironman Wisconsin in Madison. Driving distance races are in ME, NH, and NY. Runs with plane tickets are the Minnie Marathon and WDW Marathon weekends and the Chicago Distance Classic. Runs within driving distance include the Boston Run to Remember Half Marathon next weekend.
I told a friend I would do her first ever 5k with her here in ME in June. It's a fundraiser for a scholarship fund in memory of a local Army Reservist Officer that was killed in Iraq. She and I are both Army officers too and she did her first runs of over 2 miles with me last summer when we were in TX for Army training. Since we are useless to the Army until we are full trained as physicians, we are in the safest position in the military for the next 5-7 years.
So another site I belong to(beginnertriathlete.com) had a post about some cool T-shirt designs. Some of them are raunchy and in questionable taste but many are ROFL funny and some are just plain inspirational. It's worth taking a look, the ones shown are cotton now but are going to be available in tech fabric soon. One of them even uses the word Fartlek.
http://www.gymskinz.com/catalog.html
My favorite would actually require some explanation but not alot for this group. It has in big lettering "16:59.59" and then in little letters something about "the promised land." The importance of that time is that any time equal to or faster than that is then followed by those all important words "congratulations- YOU Are an IRONMAN." The Disney sweep time is in the vicinity of 7 hours for the marathon; the Ironman North America sweep time for an official finish is 17 hours for 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles biking, and then an itty bitty little run of 26.2 miles. I've got 2 official finishers medals and certificates and I signed up for a third, planning on signing up for a fourth and qualifying for a fifth. I am officially certifiably nutso.
Just to show I do some training also in addition to posting about random stuff, I had a great long run today. It was only 11 miles but for the first time ever in training rather than racing I averaged under 10 min miles for a run in the double digits distance wise. I worked a little bit but my average heart rate was still just at the upper end of Zone 1 for the run and I'm allowed up to Zone 2 for steady endurance runs. The weather was low 30s and the winds were 15-20 mph. It wasn't even a flat course. I really suprised myself when I took the first mile out easy 9:56, second mile uphill still 9:56. Hmmm, what's going on? Next mile 9:25, and it continued from there. The average for the run was 9:40 min/mile.
I'm going to eat like a little piggy this week, not ride hard next Saturday, and maybe I'll have pleasant little result like a PB on Sunday. On that note, I think I need a bowl of ice cream with peanut butter. I've consistently got my caloric intake up above 2000 calories per day so now I need to work on getting closer to 2500/day. That hopefully will be enough to keep my weight stable and give me energy to train. If not, I'll have to up it again. I was 116 after today's run and that was after drinking a 16 oz recovery drink and drinking 20 oz during the run. That's a pretty good weight for a 5'4" endurance athlete even if I would like a little more muscle definition. I want it to come from building more muscle though and that takes time both longitudinally and in the pool.
Keep training hard.