A Month Later

I've been a bad blogger. It has been a relatively uneventful month, but there have been some goings on. Here is the recap.

Just after my last post, I did indeed chop off about eleven inches of hair. I was a big girl, and I did not cry. I actually like the shorter hair. It definitely doesn't get tangled up when I swim or run, but I also had some issues when trying to figure out what to do with it in the way of pulling it back. For the first two weeks, I looked like an Eastern-European gymnast with clips and pins everywhere. Now it almost all fits back in a ponytail, and I look like an American again.

Beyond that, the Boston training is in full swing. I got my first 20-miler out of the way earlier this week, and it went surprisingly well. Oh yeah, I forgot! It has also snowed approximately 14 times in the last month making running outside treacherous and biking outside impossible. The shoveling made for a good arm and core workout. I have been trying to swim 3-4 times/week and get on the stationary trainer twice a week. It doesn't always happen, but I think I can up the bike/swim times on the lower mileage running weeks. The biggest swim development was that I swam a mile without stopping earlier this week! It actually felt pretty fantastic, and I think I could have done more.

I did a 4-mile run for Haiti last weekend in NYC which was nice. No major speediness, but it was for a good cause. The weather in NYC was amazing if not a tad cold. Central Park was pretty with snow on the ground, and I had a perfect NYC weekend overall. I have two comments about the race. First, as I walked to the start corrals, they were playing "Everybody Hurts" by REM. Now, I realize that this was a run to support the plight of those in Haiti who are suffering tremendously. I also think that we all knew that and playing a song that makes most people want to curl up in a deep depression was perhaps not the way to go. Second, they had some women/children (hard to tell which) sing the national anthem of Haiti with a keyboard accompaniment. It was a nice touch, but I could not help but notice that the singing was in a variety of different keys, and none of the singers was really keeping in time with the keyboard accompaniment. I have one foot in my hand basket as I say that if these people can't even sing their national anthem together, how is any amount of money donated going to help make Haiti a viable country.

So there you have it, the last month of my life in a few paragraphs...kinda sad. I am going to listen to REM and cry now.