I'm Still Here!

Yes, I know it's been forever since I have done a blog entry. I can explain. My laptop, over the past couple months, has been on the fritz for awhile. I had been getting the BSOD (blue screen of death) quite a bit and discovered through research and asking around that my hard drive was simply failing. I called up Dell to ask them to fix it, but it turned out my warranty expired on the 4th of December, and therefore I was not covered. :-(

So throughout the entire month of December, January, and early part of February, using my laptop was an adventure. It would involve turning it at weird angles to make it turn on, sometimes getting to use it for hours, other times turning it on and off repeatedly for an hour, to get all of 5 minutes of the internet. Yeah, it was a gigantor pain in the ass.

So in late January, I was in Greensboro, and when I tried turning it on, it would just cycle through the starting up point over and over, never officially booting up. My laptop was officially dead. Sad day. 5 years of a laptop that a computer guy told me was not designed to last more then two years. Thank you Dell for designing a disposable product at 1000 dollars. *end rant*

My parents agreed to get me a laptop for Christmas, provided I get it from their computer guy, who basically takes old IBM ThinkPads and restores them with the latest and greatest drivers. He built me an IBM ThinkPad T60, which in his words, is basically the most unattractive computer on the planet, but the true workhorse of the laptop industry. Based on the reviews I read of this computer, I think he's telling the truth.

Anyway, so I have a new lappy, and I'm back up and running with blogging! Yay! So let's see...you're probably looking for a January recap, right? I will get you that as soon as possible, like later today. I left my workout log at home, and I'm blogging at Starbucks right now (sorry Kris).

There was something else I wanted to talk about though, and this was what I discovered on a recent workout in Cleveland. I wanted to go for a run, but thanks to the ridiculous snow the midwest had recently received, that was not going to be possible, since Cleveland decided to not shovel their sidewalks. So I elected to hit the treadmill for the good ol' 45 MINUTE TREADMILL WORKOUT OF DEATH!!! For those unfamiliar with this workout, it's 2 minutes walking at a pace roughly about 3.5, 3 minutes of running at a pace around 6.0. Repeat 9 times. It's a tough interval workout shown to me back in my fat days by my personal trainer, Gray.

I started off with intervals of 3.5 and 6.5, which has in recent years become my standard. After 15 minutes, I was feeling really good, and was sweating pretty good. I decided to crank it up on the next interval to 6.8 and was able to hold that, so I went even higher on the next interval to 7.2. I was flying through this workout! I hadn't done the TWOD for a long time and it was like I hadn't even missed a beat. Is it possible my lifting/running over the past was making me stronger?

When the workout was all said and done, I had done 4.21 miles in 45 minutes. To put that in perspective, usually when I do it I cover 3.6 miles or so. That's an extra .6 miles, and I was feeling wonderful! The rush was something I haven't felt in awhile and was just a great, wonderful feeling.

The interesting thing right now, is that even though T and I haven't done a ridiculous amount of tri-specific workouts (i.e. swim, bike, or run), we've been mixing it up with a healthy dose of other workouts. The variety is keeping me on my toes, and for whatever reason, my hammies are screaming at me, which is good! The tri specific workouts will come in huge doses soon enough, so we might as well have some fun now, right?