Things I Learned This Week

In no particular order, here are the revelations of the past week:

* When the organic farming books advise a scheduled regime for prepping a field - listen to them. Because I think you're really supposed to disc and wait a few weeks and disc again etc. to kill off the weeds that are germinating before you sow the actual crop. Last year my failure to follow this wasn't a big deal - a drought meant the weeds weren't all that aggressive. This year - different story. I'm about to be carried away by weeds.

* There's a reason there's a lot of aero bike equipment for sale. Because it works. There's nothing particularly aero about sweet Pippi, and while we had a grand time at the tri, we also spent some time watching people drop into their aero bars and ride away from us. Zoom.

* Got to find a group bike ride. I can climb with most of the people I was riding with, but then I lollygag at the top, enjoying the nice day and the end of the climb, while the people I just passed ride away from me. Got to find a group to ride with.

* Procut sunflowers do not mature on an exact schedule. So if you plant them a week apart hoping to have flowers on a regular schedule every week - good luck with that. Instead you might easily end up with a hundred sunflowers in bloom on the same day.

* Taking your seven year old to work with you every day is not exactly good for productivity, but very good for fun. Favorite part of yesterday - swimming around in the pond with him while I was supposed to be weeding. Also he cracks me up - after coaxing Clark into playing legos with him for an hour when Clark really hadn't planned on playing legos at all, Sam's comment was "the Force has advantages on the weak mind." Young jedi in training.

* Some people actually read this blog! After my race report I had a comment from Maggs, whose blog I love as an example of what can be done with a lot of training (for example, this weekend she rode her bike 115 miles, ran 24 1/2 and did some swimming - and while her blog does make that sound somewhat reasonable, I can't imagine the kind of base you'd have to have to support that.) Her comment was like a rock star sighting! Love that.

* I seriously need to figure out how to swim butterfly. Because the Masters group is a big fan of all of the swim strokes, and while I can kind of fake my way through breast and back, there's really no faking fly. Thought I was going to drown this morning.

* They make custom orthotics for bike shoes. And I know this because I now own a pair. From Foot RX, the newish running store in town that has an orthotics lab and "certified pedorthist". Turns out the biking *really* makes my plantar fasciitis hurt, so I'm hoping having some support in the show will help. Am going to test it out tonight.