Rest in Peace Sweet Princess

Abby died. Very suddenly. What else can I say. She was "giving us the paw" for fresh veggies on Friday, limping Saturday, and gone on Saturday night after dinner. I worked all day Saturday so by the time I found a "pocket pet" vet for Sunday, it was too late.

And my laptop died on Friday so I don't have a decent pic for her obit. They are on the old hard drive. ROOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

She was only a hamster. But she was the.best.hamster.I.ever.had. She never bit anyone. Seriously. She just wanted to run around in her ball, eat fresh veggies and freshly cooked carbs, and....well...sleep all day. That's kinda what hamsters do. Isn't that every college guy's dream?

We'll miss your warm fuzziness, Abster. Abilicious. Abbywabbycabbydabyy. May you run in fields of fresh spinach, warm pasta, without any local birds of prey.

Rest in peace, Princess Abby,

Love Joe and Linae

Other things that are almost exclusive to Florida.

Sonic booms from the space shuttle Endeavor landing that rattle your windows and send 1/2 the neighbors into the street wondering what the hell happened. The shuttle doesn't always boom in St. Pete, FL when it lands in Cape Canaveral but it was very loud tonight.

FIRST PLACE!!!

Don't know how. Don't care.

I won first place in the women's 30-34 age group at the Armadillo 5K.
We didn't want around for the awards because 27 minutes hasn't earned
an award at this race in the last 4 years. I checked.

WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!

RR: Armadillo Run 5K

I slept through my alarm. My new job finally started which resulted
in 11, 12 hour workdays during the past 12 days. It's great to be
employed, the money is good, but my workouts have been limited to a
few trainer rides after work or early morning 30 minute runs. When
the morning sunshine woke me from my slumber, the first words in my
head were obscenities.

Thanks to a little speeding on my part, I arrived in time to register,
find Shawn (who promised home made brownies after the race), and hang
out with Bill the Slow Twin. Bill was running the 10K but he was nice
enough to pace me for the first part of my 5K.

This season is about going fast, having fun and gaining race
experience. Even though it's early in the season, this strategy has
helped me figure out the mental aspect of my races. I'm starting to
see that I don't do well going into a race saying "I'm going to PR".
So rather than worrying all week about how this was supposed to be my
5K PR attempt but my training has sucked this past month, blah, blah,
blah, I focused on heading out just to see what was in the tank.
Maybe try to race a little smarter. Explore the limits of my pain
threshold. Learn to hold a tough pace without freaking out.

The sustained 25 mph "breeze" was discouraging but that's OK. I'm
hear to do my best whether that means a PR or not.

Mile 1 - 8:35 with the help of my pacer Bill (who was doing the 10K),
most of this mile is into the wind. It's faster than I wanted but
let's see how long I can hold it.
Mile 2 - 8:37 on my own but staying strong, last half mile into the wind
Mile 3 - 8:54 major protest from my Bonine free intestines, eased up a
bit to avoid disaster, headwind until the final stretch
Mile 3.1 - 47 seconds, once I saw the clock there was no way I could
give up my sub 27 dream

Of course, I had to visit the porto potty immediately afterward but it
was so worth it.

Woohoo!

Linae
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Village Idiot, Ph.D., Ironman
writing from beautiful Florida
http://linae.blogspot.com/
If we werent all crazy
we would go insane