Excitement

Aside from the awakening process that I've been feeling physically, I've been really excited mentally all week, which has had it's own share of side effects. Most notably, I went ahead and registered for two more events - the 5K mentioned to me by my husband and a mini-triathlon in July. I registered our daughter for the 5K as well. She is marginally interested, but I am hopeful that in time her enthusiasm will grow. Since she's working towards her own 5K - a practice one the first week of May and an official race on May 15th, I'm not sure that the allure of a dinky neighborhood race with her mother is too strong at this point. Running together will be a first for us, and I'm excited for that. She and I used to do all sorts of activities together, but adding another little person to the house has impacted those opportunities, and I am trying to get back on track (or as close to it as realistically possible as I can). The idea of the swim-bike-run is just something that I've always wanted to try, so after registering I have started putting out an all call to see if any other friends want to give it a go as well. Pretty much anything that can involve other people I know, and the chance to go eat afterwards, ups my commitment level.

The other consequence of my excitement involved my afternoon bike ride today. I haven't ridden much - still working out the pedals and car transport - but today was glorious and I had a window of opportunity between work and daycare pickup so I quickly changed my clothes, grabbed the bike and headed out. It took me a while to get going and actually manage to get both feet into the pedals. They aren't the clip-in kind: they have teeth and straps and flip upside down, and I was quite happy with myself once I was able to get moving. A few blocks into my ride I was going through a mental checklist - how to work the gears and brakes, the need to be aware of cars so I didn't get squashed, etc., and it occurred to me that in my excitement to get out the door, I completely forgot my helmet. The equipment business of all of this is going to kill me. I'm still really happy and excited to have the bike, but I really miss the days when all that was necessary was a pony tail, a pair of jeans, and some type of close toed shoes - unless it was summer, in which case sandals were usually just fine. Argh. But it was a good ride anyway.