Watch it kid!

The good news? I have ran 4 days in a ROW this week. 4! Whoo hoo! Plus, I have biked 3 times since Saturday. Yesterday I even did a gradual brick workout. I biked an hour and a half and chilled at home for an hour and then ran 3 miles to my ww meeting (yeah...back on the ww...don't wanna talk about it. Knee injury over the summer brought on a severe case of the jeans-don't-fit-any-moresies). Plus, after ww meeting I ran .8 miles to meet hubby for takeout at Panda Express (not exactly gourmet, but surprisingly low point options there). That means I worked out for over 2 hours yesterday. Hooray!

The bad news? I didn't have the guts to attempt Mt. Eden on my bike ride. Not quite ready for climbs yet.

As I was riding yesterday, I started thinking of the mantras I repeat to myself to get through a challenging workout. I find that a lot of them relate to disney or storybook characters:

Open water: Finding Nemo: "Just keep swimming." (particularly when I feel all alone out in the ocean and start thinking about the "S" word.)

Climbing awful hills on my bike: The Little Engine That Could: "I think I can. I think I can." (though, I think to myself: "I know I can. I know I can." Once I have any doubt on a hill climb, that is when I usually topple over)

The beginning part of the run after bike transition with legs like jelly: The Toirtoise and the Hare: "Slow and steady wins the race." (more like, slow and steady at the beginning so I don't bonk at the end).

Also, my getting back out there made me realize another thing: kids are so flippin' annoying. They don't pay attention and are oblivious to the world around them. When I am on a trail, I truly believe that the dogs on the trail have more common sense than the kids. In the past year, there have been 3 incidents where I have been almost seriously injured from a kids actions. TWO happened in the last week. Here are the incidents:

1) While biking home last spring I was riding on Homestead Ave, and a few high school kids were walking on the sidewalk. There were two boys and a girl and they were acting all...teenagery. The boy, who was a real winner, was probably trying to flirt with the girl and he jokingly pushed her. off. the. sidewalk. into. MY. bikelane. I screamed as I swerved my bike to avoid her and nearly ran into an SUV. The kids just started laughing.

2) Last week I was riding on Prospect road and realized I missed my turn. It was fairly heavy traffic time and difficult to make a left turn. I pulled into a high school to turn around. I was in the right lane in the school lot to get back on to Prospect Rd. and as I was going straight I saw a kid in an SUV making a left into the school. He didn't quite understand that his monstrously large vehicle needed to stay to the left when he got on school grounds and he crossed over into the right lane basically face to face with me. I slowed down my bike thinking, "He has to see me. He has to see me...dear god he DOESN'T see me!" Finally he hit the breaks when he saw me. I put the brakes on my bike and managed to not fall off. I faced him in his SUV which was a foot away from me. He just drove off with a blank teenage boy expression while all the kids who were outside just started laughing (WHAT THE HECK with the laughing? Are you kids so flipping descensitized by Michael Bay movies that you don't recognize the seriousness of POSSIBLE REAL LIFE CARNAGE?) and said, "Nice driving man." A concerned mom in a corolla who was behind him the whole time rolled down her window and asked, "Are you ok honey?" "Yes," I mumbled while the adrenaline wore off.

3) This week I made the mistake AGAIN of working out while youths are walking home from school. so dumb. I was running on Homestead darting past elementary school kids (luckily none of them had those backpacks on wheels thingies). And one boy must have recognized his friend who was 20 feet ahead of me because he sprinted past me to catch up to this guy only to stop dead in his tracks right in my path. I was going pretty fast downhill and wasn't able to stop in time and I wound up bumping into this boy (luckily neither of us hit the asphalt). And this, dear reader, is where I realized that I am truly an adult because I turned around and said, "Watch it kid!" like a crotchety old lady scolding kids playing in her yard.

Moral of the story: don't try to be near schools when kids have just gotten out. They are all giddy with the excitement of no more school and aren't as intelligent as, say, a golden retriever.