Roller Skating is for Tweens

How might I know this? Because 25 years after my last Tour De Coachlite skating party, I found myself at Skate City donning a pair of frayed laced, orange-wheeled rentals next to ski-ball machines. Sweet nostalgia.

Except it wasn't really sweet. It was painful. I realized my roller skating prime had passed when my primary concern was for bunion pain. It was far worse than stilettos. Think I developed some shinsplints, too. And to be clear, it's not like riding a bike. Trying as I might to channel Olivia Newton John in Xanadu, grace on wheels eluded me. The whole two hours was spent teetering with my arms out, trying not to fall on my butt.

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Get This Party Started

So what do you do when you're reclining in a hospital bed, Olympic beach volleyball on the TV and watching petocin slowly drip through an IV into your arm? You blog. As of 3:32pm, all is manageable. Ask me in an hour or two and the tune will most likely be different. Petocin scares the crap out me, but as long as it gets the baby out of me, I'm trying to not freak out. I woke up this morning and greeted the day as a normal Monday. After walking Trudy a few miles and spending 40 minutes on the elliptical, it dawned on me I felt a little crampy, for lack of a better term. And without getting too graphic, I started to wonder if my water had broken. (It was nothing like it's portrayed on television.) So I called a handful of friends and my sister to get some feedback. All signs pointed to yes, so I called my doctor's office which said just go to the hospital. I took Trudy for a second walk while waiting for Husband to get home and try not to overreact. At the hospi...

Adding Some Color

I distinctly remember my first encounter with food coloring. It was love at first chemical-laden sight. Mom and I were icing sugar cookies. We'd made a bowl of white icing. Then she broke out the food coloring. I was memorized by the bright colors and giddy at the thought of mixing them. Like most six year olds, I believed more was better. So the icing started a lovely pink after a few drops of red. Next came lavender with some blue. Then Mom turned her back just long enough for me to reenact the movie Cocktail with food coloring. Every color was going in and hell with a few drops, more is better. This is fantastic, I thought, as I created a rainbow in the bowl. I stirred with glee until I realized the rainbow was disappearing. The icing was turning a disgusting shade of gray-brown. This was terrible. No one wants to eat icing that looks like poop. So you're thinking, nice little story Jen. Way to point out that more isn't necessarily better. But that's actually n...

The Softride Has Left The Building

Today I bid adieu to my first triathlon bike – a Softride Rocket TT named Sally. (“Ride, Sally, Ride...”) While technically still mine until the ebay auction ends tomorrow, she has been dropped off at the bike store for clean up and packing. We’ll ship her off to the new owner this weekend and that will be the end of my beam bike era. A Softride is considered old school in the triathlon world and is mocked mercilessly by roadies. Sally has a carbon beam, no down tube and 650 wheels – basically the low-rider Cadillac of bikes. While it doesn’t have a stiff suspension or a brag-worthy weight, it has one thing – comfort. This is something I desperately needed when training for my first Ironman. Sally raced at Kona in 2001 and Wisconsin in 2003. She was dependable and attention-getting. Like riding a motorcycle, Softride enthusiasts also offered the casual hand wave when you encountered another one on the road. However, there are fewer out there these days. The Softride...

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