Surviving the Holidays - Karlage Style

I'm back in Memphis, but its not like Christmas didn't try to kill me. Seriously.

I drove home early Christmas Eve morning, though not as early as my dad would have liked it to be. Thanks for that text message at 4am, Dad. It was raining...HARD. I would rather drive in snow than rain. You see, 3 years ago in Kansas I was driving on K-10 towards Kansas City in a horrendous rain storm. Apparently my tires sucked because I hydroplaned and pulled a winning Nascar move; I spun across the approximate 50 foot grass median and by the grace of God landed going in the correct direction on the other side of K-10. I never found out how many times I did a complete 180, but I'm thinking somewhere around.....18. Anyway...ever since that awesome maneuver, I drive white knuckled with raised blood pressure in rain storms.

I got home about 3:30 and had to face the biggest wrestling match of all: Junior vs. the Great Dane. Junior loves other dogs, so he hopped right out of the car and sprinted towards Heilyn, my sister's new dog. So Junior is, what, a foot off the ground? Cute, cuddly, fluffy, etc. Heilyn is a HORSE. He's 120 pounds of big pansy dog. But when he plays, he likes to swat with his paws. Junior being 20 pounds didn't stand a chance. So Junior runs away growling. Neat. It took an hour and a half to finally get them comfortable around each other...then we progressed inside. We had bets on if the Christmas tree or new 48 in flat screen was going to tumble first.

That night was Christmas with my Mom's side. And that's where it started. BUCKEYES. COOKIES. DELICIOUSNESS. And I even found room for dinner that night. After being miserable, opening presents, and hanging with the fam, we went home for our Christmas. New tradition for the Karlage's...having Christmas on Christmas Eve! Usually we do Christmas morning, but all Dad had to say was "you'd get to sleep in an extra hour"....SOLD! Sign me up!

It was an AMAZING Christmas....I got way spoiled (I said it Mom). I was set up with new bike pedals and lots of winter cycling gear! Got a few other things...and lastly I opened THIS:

Yep...that's Junior. Not just a picture framed, no. That would be easy. This was months of slaving each night under fluorescent light and magnifying glasses (my poor blind mother). It's a cross-stitched pictured of JUNIOR! What better than my own pup-a-lup sewn into history. Or something like that. He's so darn cute. Then I got the whole story about how my Mother took this project with her everywhere and now everyone wanted to see the finished product. Pssh. You just want to see my awesome dog. Someone nominate me as President of the "Creepy Dog Mom" club...cause I just passed all y'all. Liz, this includes your shopping at Whole Foods for dog food.

Christmas Day arrives complete with an extra hour of sleep, and an aching back due to the futon I slept on. We headed to my Gram's house for the Karlage craziness that is Christmas. After gorging ourselves on unhealthy amounts of food (including goetta!), we opened more presents. CROCK POT! Yay for awesome gifts. Happy birthday 8 pound, 6 ounce sweet baby Jesus. I really did intend on running this day, but then Gram pulled out the buckeyes. And the slippery slope just turned me upside down. If you do not know what buckeyes are, then a.) I feel sorry for you, and 2.) google the damn things and BE JEALOUS. After consuming approximately.......too many buckeyes, I felt ill and decided running would not be a good idea. Christmas night was filled with yet another delicious meal and finally it was home to sleep all of the food off.

The next day was awesome, cause I didn't get out of my pajamas the whole day. Food hangover might just be worse than alcohol hangover. And that night, my body either revolted or I licked the wrong floor because I got the WORST 24 hour flu bug EVER. I will not go into details, but I lost 10 pounds in 18 hours.

So after no training because my body was shot after the food I consumed, and then un-consumed, I felt like total hell. What else would make a woman feel better? SHOPPING! Mama and I went to the mall and I spent some Christmas money.

That night, my sister, brother, mother and me stayed up until 1:30am playing rockband. I was the drummer and I got mad skillzzzzzz.

All the sudden, it was time to return to Memphis. I swear my drive was twice as long on the way back. Maybe it was because Junior hated me even more for making him do that drive twice in one week...I don't know. I finally made it home last night at 6:30pm. I may have lost a few battles, but dammit I won the war on Christmas.

Oh, I also found out that I'm infected. With the epstein barr virus...aka mono. COOL. I wanted to blame it on being a stressed, obese, broke, caffeine addicted dog owner suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but its just mono. Although, if it last for another few months, then it really will be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome! I don't know why that excites me, because it just means there really isn't anything they can do for me. Awesome. I'm taking stock in Rockstar Energy drink. Or coffee. Or both.

Return of the Swim Test

This week is test week #1 of the 2009 season.

I know what you're thinking...How does this work when it's still 2009? The answer to that? My coach has magic powers...or something like that.

Anyway, today was swim test day. You remember me writing about this before...10x100's with 10 seconds rest in between. At first glance, 10 seconds seems like a decent amount of time to rest, right? Well you do this damn test and tell me how 10 seconds feels. Yeah, that's what I thought.

I warmed up and already had a bad feeling about the test. Call me Miss Optimism. You see, until 2 weeks ago, the last time I had swam was the last stroke I took in the might Ohio during a little event I like to call IRONMAN LOUISVILLE. But I digress.

So here's a short recap of the test:

#1 - Ok, let's get back into this...I feel ok.

#2 - A little bit harder, and seriously? I have 8 more of these??!

#3 - Ok this SUCKS. Lactic acid is building and I hate triathlon...I quit. That's it.

#4 - GET WITH IT ROBYN. Nearly half way. Suck it up, you did a damn Ironman for Pete's sake.

#5 - Once I finish this one, I'll be halfway! YAY! Wait...ONLY HALFWAY?!?!

#6 - Ok over halfway, here we go. I wonder who came up with this damn test anyway? I'm going to ask Coach because - CRAP I was thinking so much to myself that I nearly swam right into the wall...must...remember...to...flip....SOONER.

#7 - What's this, like 75% done? Wow am I ever optimistic. I'm dreaming of my Brownie Batter Protein powder...yes that DOES exist.

#8 - Ok this one actually feels good! Hey, one out of ten isn't bad, right? Ok, it is.

#9 - Oh man, I'm about to DIE. My heart is beating out of my chest, I sound like a 2-pack a day smoker when I touch the wall, and it's kind of embarrassing for people to see the personal trainer nearly drowning. Am I there yet?

#10 - LAST ONE! Only 4 laps. Anyone can do 4 laps. Hell Junior could do 4 laps if there was a Tiny Squeaky Tennis Ball at the end of it (see previous post). Ok, now 3 laps left. HOLY HELL my lungs are about to burst. I hope that dude I'm supposed to take the body fat on isn't here yet...ok 2 more laps...a 50! I can do a 50! Keep pulling...dammit woman get your stroke together; this is highly inefficient. Last lap. Kick kick kick. I think I just dislocated something that shouldn't have been dislocated...and DONE!

As I leaned against the cool pool gutter (spitting into the drain nearby with people looking at me like I was disgusting even though there were not one, but TWO band aids right next to the drain) I was so thankful to have a large lung capacity. It took me so long to catch my breath and I felt so out of shape, but also good that I was finally done with that. More importantly, I was very very happy that my watch didn't magically stop like it had done last week during a swim.

So, thank you Coach for finding this ridiculous swim test that makes my head want to explode. Next up...bike test. Another super fun "try to kill yourself in 20 minutes and tell me how close your heart came to exploding" test.

P.S. This is what happens when you give your dog a bath when its like -385 degrees outside...you must swaddle him....in a pink blanket.

Tiny Tennis Balls

Apparently an Elf game of tiny tennis broke out in my living room.

Now, I know my dog is spoiled, but really? 8 tiny tennis balls between two rooms?

He keeps walking past them, sniffing them, and going about his merry way. I say "Junior, get your ball!" and he looks at me like "which one woman...damn there are EIGHT OF THEM!!"

You see, buying tiny tennis balls are like buying shoes, or travel coffee mugs, or socks...you can never have enough. The real reason is that Junior likes things that squeak. I buy the tiny squeaky tennis balls. I suppose I could buy the bigger ones, but really, the tiny ones are just too cute! Especially when he tries to fit two in his mouth at once because he REALLY doesn't want me to have one. But I digress.

The tiny squeaky tennis balls (which I will now refer to as TSTB) come in packs of three. We all know good things come in threes: three wisemen, three bean salad, three stooges, etc. Anyway, Junior has it down to a solid 4.5 minutes of desqueaking all three TSTB's. Once they're desqueaked, he looks at them like a car that has just been driven off the lot: they just lost half their value. Sure, he'll play with them. But I think he does it just because I had just bought them. Soon enough, they'll be laying around with the rest of the TSTB's, looking like a TSTB machine had been serving tennis balls to Barbie Doll's.

I actually bought a set of TSTB's a few days ago for Junior for Christmas. When we got home, he looked at me and gave me the look of "I know what's in that bag and you better give them to me so I can break my desqueaking record, or I will pee on your pillow while you're gone". Ok, so maybe he just looked at me like "are you going to play with me or what?" but I took it the first way. So, like any good I-stand-my-ground-no-matter-what doggy mom, I gave him the TSTB's. I'm not sure if it was a record, as I was not timing, but they were desqueaked in no time. Now, they are laying in the living room along with the 5 or 6 others.

I'm either going to take stock in TSTB's, squeakers, or enter Junior for the Guinness Book of World records for number of TSTB's desqueaked in under 5 minutes. The dog has a talent, and I'm going to profit from it.

Did you know...?

That Baby Jesus had a mohawk...

...And Joseph had a handlebar mustache?

Just ask the first graders in my Sunday School class, cause that's how they drew Jesus and Joseph at the First Christmas.

I mean, I guess we can't really prove them wrong, right?

zzzZZZzzzzzzzZZzzzzz

For some reason for the past two weeks, I have been tired. Let me rephrase that, for the past two weeks I have been MORE tired than usual. I get it. I'm a triathlete in training, who works odd hours and has a physically demanding job. I'm allowed to be a little rundown. But the past two weeks have been nothing short of ridiculous. Example a. Today, I came home from one early appointment and took a nap, for two hours. I went back to work from 10-12pm, came home, and fell asleep AGAIN for an hour and a half. Even then I had to drag myself out of bed, mostly because I was hungry.

Today, I took things into my own hands and googled "reasons for fatigue". Google has all the answers, right? I'm sure to find a reason for my extreme fatigue. So here is a list I compiled from a website as to why I may be tired:

Anemia. -I've been tested and retested since high school. Unless this is something you develop overnight, I'm not sure this is it.

Stress. -I can blame some fatigue on this, but really? My job is NOT stressful. It pretty much goes like this: Hi I'm Robyn, your personal trainer. Lift this. Lift it again. Repeat. Keep going. You get the idea.

Depression. -Don't we all suffer from a little depression? Ok, yeah the holidays are upon us and with the onset of winter, it tends to get a little worse, but again, this was an overnight change in fatigue levels.

An eating disorder. -Only if you count "I eat what I see so don't get in my way" as an eating disorder....

Obesity. -Well, according to the BMI, I am considered obese. Maybe I should check into this...

Malnourishment. -See two answers above...definitely not malnourished.

Poor eating habits. -I have my "cheat" days, and yes they may be more frequent than they should be, but I still get my 3-5 servings of fruits and veggies, which is more than apparently 90% of Americans can say. I read in Time this week that's the percentage of Americans that can't remember the last time they had a salad. SERIOUSLY?

Underactive thyroid. -I feel as though the thyroid is a scapegoat these days. When I have 3/5 clients tell me they have a thyroid problem, I begin to wonder. No, you cannot blame your holiday weight gain on your thyroid. Nice try.

Certain medications. -I know this becomes an issue sometimes, especially with allergy medications. This could be part of the cause, but I have had no changes in medications lately.

Infection. -Of what? Well, I do work at a gym with an average of 7,000 members. I'm probably infected with way more than I'd like to admit. BLARG.

Low blood pressure. -I actually am probably the only person in my family that can even admit to this. I do tend to have lower blood pressure than normal, but not low enough to make me incredibly sleepy.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. -I've been saying for years I have this. I'm still blaming it on CFS.

Financial worries. -HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Enough said.

Environmental pollution. -I do live in Memphis. Memphians are not necessarily #1 in caring about the health of the environment.

Hormonal changes. -Well, I'm not going through puberty, pregnancy, or menopause, so I certainly hope this isn't it.

Caffeine abuse. -Fatigue + caffeine = only slight fatigue. Fatigue + coffee + energy drink = energy, for at least a little while! Ok, I admit this one....

Lack of exercise. -Not even touching this one.

Divorce. -Not as of this time. I hope not in the future either (Boys, take note).

Small children. -Small dog, yes. Small children, no.

Certain illnesses. -That's a little too general for me. I'm going to go with no.

So basically, what I've come up with from Dr. Google is I am a stressed, obese, broke, caffeine addicted dog owner suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Damn. It's worse than I thought.

I give myself less than a week to live.

So true, it's not even funny

Best thing I've heard in a while.

My facebook status right now is "Robyn is drinking out of my Ironman coffee mug and it makes me very happy".

A friend messaged me and said:

"I purposely tried to kill myself and all I got was this lousy mug"

Like I said, so true it's not even funny.

Robyn vs. Pomegranate

I lost today. To a fruit. Well, technically in the end I won, but it was a hard fought battle.

I've always wanted to try a pomegranate. I have a thing for exotic fruits, even though I don't know how to eat them. I lost to a mango several months back, but in my defense, I believe I waited too long to cut it and it was just mush in my hands.

I was talking to a client on Monday about fruits and I was telling him how I wanted to try a pomegranate but didn't know how to eat it. He explained it to me and I came home and googled it as well. How did we eat fruit before google? My client told me he'd bring me a POM today (Wednesday) so I was so excited!

Today, I came home and began the battle. You cut the crown off and then score the POM. This is where I tend to have trouble, and where trouble did in fact begin. I probably should have scored it at, say, a place where the membrane was, but no I went right thru the seeds. With a brilliant hue of maroon on the wall, the score was Robyn - 0, POM - 1.

I got it scored (incorrectly, apparently) and put the pieces in a bowl of cold water like google suggested. Walked Junior. Came back and began taking out the seeds. I vaguely remembered google saying something about taking the seeds out UNDERwater (hence the bowl of water) but I disregarded that. Refrigerator and coffee pot are now spattered said shade of maroon. Robyn -0, POM - 3. DAMMIT.

I finally became smarter than the fruit and took the rest of the seeds out underwater. TWENTY minutes later, I had pomegranate carcass all over the counter, maroon splotches all over my hands (Robyn -0, POM - 4), but a de-seeded fruit. FINALLY!! Robyn - 1, POM - 4.

I may have lost the battle, but won the war on POM.

A few tips for next time...set aside a solid 20 minutes for prep and do not wear work shirt. Got it.

Triathletes do wear dresses!

See? I can prove it! Went to a cocktail party last night, hosted by the other lady in the picture, Leslie. She's the boss's (well, ex-boss) wife. It was a blast! I was just glad to wear something other than spandex, a bike helmet, or a 24HF shirt.
(For those who haven't met me, I'm on the right)

Trail Running

I just went trail running with Junior and I forgot how terrible hard it is! But also, how much fun it is! So much better than staring at chewing gum and random bits of car on pavement. However, now Junior smells like dirty park.

In other news, I picked up my Christmas cards today. It's a good one this year! If you're lucky enough to receive one, expect these in the mail next week.

Tonight is Brian and Leslie's Christmas cocktail party. I'm just excited to dress up for once, and now have my hair in a ponytail with a 24 Hour Fitness shirt on. Then I will be seeing Boy's band play. YAY for having some sort of life again!

I'm baaaaaaaack!

Yes, it is true. My computer is fixed!! Thanks to my mom's computer guy. He remotely fixed it from Kentucky on Saturday and I've been enjoying the 21st century ever since.

Everything is pretty much the same. Still working at 24 Hour Fitness, and, well, that's about it. I work, I sleep, I eat. Repeat. And Junior is still Junior. Currently he is growling at the vacuum cleaner because he thought it jumped at him while playing with his ball. I love my dog :)

This is an exciting and perfect time for my internet to be and for me to be blogging again. I started training again on December 1 for my tri season. Here's an outlook for next season:

LOTS OF CHANGES.

First off, I have a new team. Though I'm technically not a part of it yet (waiting until Jan 1, because that's when team dues are paid every year), I will be racing for:

I think this will be so much better for me than my previous team, because I will have people to train with (and race with) and they are involved in the community which I LOVE. I am excited to represent them!

Let's see, more changes:

NEW age group (not excited about moving up to 25-29);

NEW outlook on the season (now that I've done an Ironman, I'm a totally different triathlete...and person);

NEW races (hopefully I'll get to go to some new races that I've never done!)

Things that are the same:

COACH - Liz got me through the toughest thing I've ever done so I can't let go of her! She'll be coaching me all season to hopefully some very good finishes at one (or two) half Ironman races.

BIKE - Unfortunately a $2500 bike is not in the budget this year. Maybe it won't get cut next year....maybe.....

LOCATION - Still in good 'ol Memphis, TN. And there are currently plans being worked up that would guarantee me to be here for another 3 years. More about that to come....

Until then, I'm off. I'm getting sleepy and because I get up at the crack of dawn...I mean BEFORE the crack of dawn everyday, I must start getting ready for bed.

I'm happy to say I'm back to blogging :)