Finished BC’s hat this evening (the one to match the scarf). ‘Twas easier than the scarf, actually. I suspect that was so because it was a smaller project, as well as knowing the rib pattern already from the scarf.

Went to the podiatrist today because I had a scheduled appointment to get my foot zapped (aka “Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy”) to help with the plantar fasciitis, but in the end I didn’t get zapped. He had given me a 2nd cortisone shot the last time I was there, about two weeks ago, and that seems to have done the trick. Even after the 10k on the 14th, I’ve not had any heel pain, so it appears, six months plus later, that I’ve finally licked this one. Let’s hope so, this was not a fun injury. And I’m tired of sleeping in a night splint.

So, with no need to sit on my ass for the rest of the day recouperating (I took the day off), I went and ran errands.

You know you’re a triathlete (or other endurance athlete) when you go spend $40+ on “nutrition” and none of it is stuff you’d just sit down to eat. Powdered drink mix, shot bloks, gels, etc. All stuff I need and was completely out of it.

Then I ran up to Homo Depot and picked up more paint swatches than you can shake a stick at. BC has offered for forever and a day to help me paint my apartment and I’ve never taken him up on it. So, time to pick out colors before he rescinds the offer. Should be a trip.

You know it must be past time to vacuum the carpet when you get up from doing your post-run stretching and you have the occasional carpet fuzzy stuck to you.

One thing on the weights yesterday was that I forgot I have a 1G iPod shuffle (the kind that looked like a white stick of gum) that I used to use while doing weights (or running on the treadmill). Thing is so old I can’t even find anything but support references to it on the Apple site. Hauled it out this morning to charge and reload with music. Some of the music that was on it (I have it fill randomly from “my top rated”) was stuff that I’d removed from that particular playlist, so was happy to see it gone (mostly stuff I’d listened to far too often). I think I still have my 3G iPod “classic” around the place somewhere, too, though as I recall it won’t hold a charge and will only play when plugged into something that provides power (the result of playing it on a docking station at work for too long).

In other news™, BC texted me this morning to let me know he finally picked up the bicycle he was getting from a friend. The assimilation continues (he said, with an evil cackle).

Long runs in the evening are teh suck. At least, they are when I haven’t cooked and don’t have food ready and waiting to eat when I’m done. Did six and a half miles, relatively slowly (though the pace picked up as I went along). Heel was not happy with me as I got done, so I’m sitting in the night brace here, making sure I’m stretching the plantar fascia. I had gone to the grocery store yesterday with BC, so had food to prepare, but then there was the preparation part. Finally eaten, but was nigh starving before I ate.

Feel like I need a massage. I hope it’s not BC’s cold coming on, and is just soreness from the run. He stayed over last night and was burning up a good chunk of the night.

Not sure which project I’m going to do next, knitting wise. I think I need to do some samplers to learn a few more skills for the next ones (increasing & decreasing, specifically) before I get started on them.

I’m feeling, hmmm, unengaged at work these days. The Project From Heck is in abeyance, stuck in our front office for noodling, so I’m working on a variety of smaller projects, none of which are terribly interesting or engaging. So I’m just feeling a bit adrift. I’m sure it’ll pass, but it’s damned annoying while it’s there.

I’m a week overdue for my normal haircut, but have an appointment tomorrow evening. So looking forward to that. It’s too shaggy at the moment, so it’s time to get shorn.

Prescription goggles seem to be a hit or miss proposition. Most of them at my approximate prescription are fine, but the one which listed itself merely as “strong” and a pretty broad range of prescriptions seems pretty damned useless. With the others I can see, even on land, almost as well as with my glasses. These, well, might as well be regular goggles for all the good they do. Which is, of course, why I ordered multiple pairs to try them out, both for vision and for fit. Two more to try tomorrow (excluding the bad ones). I really liked the first ones, so these have a lot to live up to.

Spent some time adding people to the Wii and the two games there (see my LJ for the codes). BC and I spent most of yesterday together, over at his place. Bought some Birkenstocks so I have shoes to wear inside the house, as well as outside for pre-race/post-race wear. Damned podiatrist and his sensible orders not to go barefoot. Not pleased with it, but wearing them inside does seem to be helping. Which is even more annoying, that he was right, and that walking around barefoot inside was somehow a bad thing. Blasted flat feet. Did the mom’s day brunch thing with BC’s family. Came home mid-afternoon in the rain (ugh), played some, made some dinner & lunches for the next couple of days. Just chatting and being a bum here tonight before I crash.

Have to take the Mini in at some point. It’s got this neat trick where if I accelerate too quickly, the run-flat tires’ pressure sensor thinks the tires have just gone down by more than 10% pressure, so the warning light cuts on, which then cuts out the ABS brakes and several other lights come on, the car dings at me, and it’s altogether incredible annoying. I know it’s not that the tires are actually going flat, because Dad gave me a plug-in pump that I’ve checked them all with. So it’s a bad sensor. Grrr. It did manage not to do the trick until I got onto the bridge over the Potomac on the way home this evening, thankfully.

Of course, I mention this to Dad and his reaction was to tell me about the other trick it has of cutting off the AC if you accelerate too quickly with the AC on. That, thankfully, resets when you stop the car and turn off the engine, but not until then. Gotta love it when your car’s computer has to reboot itself.

Anyway, off to bed so I can run & swim tomorrow. Taper week, with the race next Sunday, but it’s still got to be done.

Tired this evening for some reason. Long day, but I got the (hopefully) final polish on The Project From Heck before it goes up to our front office to get ripped to shreds. Tomorrow is assembling the associated binder with all the cases and other materials we cite. Joy.

Went to a men’s knitting group tonight. All of three of us showed up, one of whom was way, way late. I stayed two hours, chatted a lot with my friend who showed up at the same time I did while we knitted, got a goof I put in the last time I sat down to knit taken out of the project (ripped out 4-5 rows to get below the goof, got it back on the needles successfully, and now there’s no sign of the goof. yay), and put several more inches on the thing. It’ll be done, eventually. Not like there’s a massive rush to finish a scarf now that Spring’s here (though getting the hot thing out of my lap while knitting will be a plus). It’s only once a month, so I can go again. Was nice to get out of the house and listen to the two-person band who was playing jazz/blues while we were there.

Short run tomorrow, and a swim after work, then it’s making potato salad and getting myself ready for a brick workout up in Columbia with the club. Get to test out the course (which I fully expect to kick my ass, since I’ve done zero hills this year), see what it’s going to be like in 2 weeks for the race itself. Get to see BC that evening, and he’s bringing over Tiger Woods golf to make me practice. I told him that’s fine, but I get to drag him into Super Smash Bros Brawl if he does bring Tiger Woods. I think that’s a fair trade.

Oh, and I almost forgot, called the student loan company to confirm that they credited the payment and I have a zero balance. Won’t get the official letter from them for another month to 45 days, but the helpful woman on the phone did confirm that it is in fact completely paid off now. Hooray!

Getting a tad better at the exercise routine this week. I’ve been trying to switch my schedule back to getting up earlier and getting to bed earlier. It’s gradually working, but not quite as quick as I’d like. So, it’s been evening workouts so far this week. And with another meeting with congressional staff tomorrow, the pattern will repeat again tomorrow, too - long run will be in the evening, and no swim for moi. Hopefully I’ll have the sleep back to normal next week and swimming can resume then. Hell, maybe I’ll be back to normal Friday. Who knows at this point. But it’s 214 days to the Ironman, so gotta get that set and fast.

I’ve been told asked by Mom for her old flatware back (so she can stop shuttling the stuff they have between the house and the motor home). I inherited it from them many, many moons ago when they upgraded decided to change to a different pattern. I won’t shed any tears of giving up the rose pattern, but it does mean I have to shop for the stuff, which I’m sort of dreading. I’ve looked at the stuff in the past, but never with any mind to actually buy. Now I suppose I should pick something out before I go down for mother’s day so I can present her with her flatware. Good thing she hasn’t asked for the old Pfaltzgraf or then I’d really be screwed. Though plates that weren’t vintage 70s might look nice.

BC should get back Thursday or so. Miss him a lot, it’s been a long week without regular contact.

Promised myself yesterday that I’d allow myself to sleep in this morning so I’d be better rested for the meeting on the Hill, and I’d head home and do my long run after work. Did the sleeping in, did the meeting (which went fairly well, all things considered), got home and almost wussed out on the run. Quickly decided that I wasn’t feeling blah, I was just feeling lazy, and that wasn’t a good enough excuse not to run, so off I went. Shaved 4 minutes off the 6.6 mile loop I’m currently using for my long run, which felt pretty good.

After the meeting on the Hill and subsequent conversations with my various supervisors, I feel like I have a better grasp on what I’m doing to tighten up this memo. Tomorrow is all about editing and tightening, so it should be interesting. I think we’ve tracked it all down, we just have to do more than just describe the law now (synthesis!).

BC arrived safely in England and seems to be happy to being visiting his relatives there. That was happy news via SMS this morning.

Hopefully it’ll be warm enough in the morning to ride.

Yesterday? Pretty much a waste. Between the heat, humidity, and the urchins I slept hardly at all, so was just in a daze for most of the day. Lots of mindless Xbox play, reading, and eventually some knitting and TV watching.

Today, on the other hand, I feel like I’ve biked half of DC. At least I biked the southern half. It was the first ride for our newbie triathletes today, so I was out on ye olde and venerable (and quite heavy) mountain bike. ‘Twas a lot of fun, and as usual I rode sweep so I got to have a good chat with the young lady at the back of the pack. We did an impromptu tire changing demonstration as well. Overall it went very well, and no one got lost or injured.

After that I zipped home, called the parental units, then it was off to Barracks Row for bike and LYS (Local Yarn Shop) shopping. I went a new route to get over there, which is slightly out of the way, but safer than riding across M street, which had been my usual route. This turned out to be a very good thing, as there is evidently a baseball game going on this afternoon, so there were tons of cars all around the stadium. That would have been most unpleasant to bike through. As it was, there were more cars on the “back roads” than there normally are, due in large part to the new temporary parking lots in that part of southeast DC. Strangely there were also a ton of cars unsuccessfully attempting to find parking on the southwest side where I live as well. I guess they didn’t see the “there is no parking except for the parking lots so take Metro, you idiots” advertising all over the place in the weeks leading up to opening day.

Finally home to some lunch and settling in for a bit. I hope to see BC at some point (dinner?) this evening, since he takes off to see his grandparents in England on Tuesday and will be gone until late the following week. Work has had us both stressed out like there’s no tomorrow, so we’ve not gotten together for a bit, not having a ton of energy left after legal writing hell for me and late nights fixing the bad accounting from his predecessor for him. Miss him lots.