So the friend I hadn't seen since high school?  He is doing his first full-length solo show in NYC next weekend.  I think it's going to be AMAZING, and I hope he has a full house for his show.  I'd encourage you to read the blurb before watching the YouTube clip--but trust me when I say you'll get a huge kick out of the clip!  (Most of you, anyway.)  It's very clever and very funny.  Here's the email promo he sent out to his friends near and far...if you have friends in the NYC area and you think they might get a kick out of this kind of thing, PLEASE encourage them to go!

---------------------------------------

Here's a little bit of what you can expect: Maddy's Sign Language Serenade (Avril's "Girlfriend")


Mann Seeking Man: Jesus-Lovin' Schoolgirl Seeks Soulmate

Everyone's favorite Catholic schoolgirl, Maddy Mann, is looking for love and she's got tales to tell of the cute guys she crushed on and the Christians who made her cry. After a lifetime of home schooling, Maddy is thrust into the cutthroat world of Catholic school. As a freshman at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, 13-year-old Maddy has her first true crush and her first true "in the spotlight" moment (both worlds away from her days performing in the garage for her dad's men's club meetings). Her indomitable spirit helps her push through heartbreak after heartbreak, letdown after letdown -- well, her indomitable spirit plus the love of Jesus and the tutelage of her father.
In Mann Seeking Man, 15-year-old Maddy, wise from her years of experience, shares with the audience her message of faith, love and the healing power of a good production number. There's self-mutilation, sign language, show tunes and more! Ryan Migge, creator and performer, brings to Maddy Mann his years of musical theatre experience and a devilish sense of humor. WWJD? He'd reschedule the Second Coming just to see Mann Seeking Man, a singin' and dancin' extrava-Mann-za.

Look at that! The official show blurb. But when? Where? How much?

5 performances ONLY! May 8, 10, 12 & 14th at 9pm, May 9th at 4pm.
At the DR2 - 103 East 15th Street, New York City (just east of Union Square Park.)
Tickets $20 ($15 students/seniors)
available through Telecharge, by calling 212-239-6200 or at the box office located at 101 East 15th Street, New York City.
(Presented as part of terraNOVA's 6th annual soloNOVA Arts Festival! Yay. We love them!)

Wow! How exciting! Even more exciting is the knowledge that tickets are on sale NOW!

So please come out and support this big FIRST in my life! And bring your friends 'cause it's a 99 seat theatre and I want to have full audiences (so sad to have a big beautiful theatre and an audience of only 4 people.) If you know anyone who went to Catholic school, bring them along. And anyone who likes watching adult gay men run around pretending to be 15-year-old Catholic schoolgirls. (You know who you are.) And if you're not in the NYC area, forward this to people who are! Please, please, please!

If these folks can vote, so can you!

NYC couple travels 9,300 miles from India to vote

Make sure you make time and cast your ballot!!

I was feeling minimally prepped for this race, between injuries and illnesses this year.  I finally decided to just go for it and see what happened...and boy am I glad I did!  My goal was "finish without hurting myself", and I hoped I'd finish around 2 hours or a little more.

Quick breakdown:
Final time:  1:53:56
Final place:  348 (out of 384)

Splits:
750m lake swim:  22:30 (343 of 384)
T1:  4:29 (yes, yes, I know...lots of room for improvement here!)
20K bike:  48:59 (302 of 384)
T2:  2:09
5K run:  35:50 (348 of 384)

General impressions:
Nice course, friendly people, well-attended, great volunteers.  I will say that the pre-race information, as well as packet pickup, was not well-organized.  (For example, the race website says that packet pickup was at the Race Expo, but nowhere did the website list the location of the Race Expo.  Go figure.)  The race itself, though, was very well-organized, particularly since there were nearly 800 athletes in four simultaneous races: sprint and Olympic triathlons, and sprint and Olympic duathlons.  All things considered, though, it's a race worth doing again.

The long report:

( pre-race concerns, travel, and packet pick-up... )

( the morning of the race... )

( um...exactly *how* many people are in this swim heat again? )

( T1... )

( an unexpectedly rockin' ride... )

( T2... )


( a gravity-challenged run and the finish... )

All things considered, I am THRILLED with my performance.  As always, there are lots of places where I can improve, but since I wasn't sure I'd be able to do this race at all, I'm just glad I did it.  My one and only tri for the season.  *sigh*  Here's to better health for next season!

Yesterday, as I was leaving Michigan, I saw a sign for "The Jerky Outlet."  The next billboard for it showed that it was, indeed, a store dedicated to dehydrated and preserved meats.

I missed this somehow earlier this week.  Thanks to vyseryn for posting the pic in his LJ...otherwise, I would've missed it completely!

Central Washington offers the ultimate act of sportsmanship

Even if you're not a sports fan, the article is worth a read.  Warm fuzzies all around!!

I got a message from a friend of mine the other day.  She's from Findlay, OH, which is one of the towns that's been devastated by the flooding this week.  Turns out her family got off pretty easily--they lost a bunch of stuff in a garage and a storage unit, but they've been building a new house and it was completely unaffected.  (The house they've been living in is actually okay, too.  It was on high enough ground that it escaped the flooding completely as well.)  Many of their friends and neighbors have lost everything, though.  I asked how folks could help, and her response was:

"Give and encourage friends to give to the American Red Cross. They can give money to the Disaster Relief fund, or even give blood. Blood banks here are down to a 1 day supply because people have been unable to donate locally."

So here's your encouragement.  The Disaster Relief Fund is a great place to donate even if you don't have friends in a flood-affected area...chances are good we will all someday know someone at some point who needs assistance from this fund.  If you've got even a few dollars to spare, please send some toward the Disaster Relief Fund.  And if you are someone who is able and willing to give blood, please consider that as well.

Please spread the word!!

Okay, I don't normally post these, but this cracked me up!!

<td align="center">tess_azure --
[noun]:

A person of questionable sanity who starts their own cult

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com</td>

I have a BRAND-NEW REFRIGERATOR!  It's so pretty, and it's so nice and cold inside!  And it has clear produce drawers!!  I hate opaque produce drawers, so I'm very pleased to once again be able to see what produce I have just by opening the door.  Yay!!  All of my previously thawed stuff has been refrozen in the past few hours since the maintenance staff here kindly transferred it all from the old freezer to the new one.  (Clearly it's all going in the trash...it's just food poisoning waiting to happen at this point!)

I'm curious about your thoughts, though:  the refrigerator compartment stayed relatively cool throughout all of this.  I'm going to pitch all dairy and egg products, but what do you think about condiment-type things like minced ginger, mustard, and soy sauce?  Keep or pitch?  I'll likely err on the side of caution, but I thought I'd see what your thoughts were...

Time to christen the beautiful fridge with yummy food!  Yay!

I just got back from a run, and while I was out I decided to push myself to see how fast I could go.  I have ANOTHER NEW SINGLE-MILE PR!!

Split 1:  0.53 mile in 5:16 = 10:01min/mile pace
Split 2:  0.48 mile in 4:11 = 8:42 min/mile pace
Split 3:  0.51 mile in 4:15 = 8:15 min/mile pace

If you combine that second and third split, you get 0.99 mile in 8:26!!  Even if you tack that extra .01 of a mile on and add two seconds, I JUST RAN A MILE IN LESS THAN 8:30!!! 

For those of you who haven't been around my career as a runner that long, let me give you a quick bit of history.  My first half-marathon (in '04) was at a 12:50 min/mile pace, and my second (in '05--two years ago this month, actually) was at a 13:00min/mile pace.  So for me to run even a single mile in under 9 minutes would've been UNTHINKABLE until very, very recently.  GO, ME!!

Did I mention that I <3 my Garmin?

What's that sound?  Oh yeah...that's me tooting my own horn a bit!  :-)

This year's Tri-for-the-Y on Sunday, May 6, 2007 was my second sprint tri, and I learned almost as much from this one as from the first one last year! 

Quick breakdown:
Final time:  2:18:28, nearly 7 minutes faster than my predicted 2:25!  (Okay, 6.5 minutes faster.  But considering the fact that I wasn't including T1 or T2 time in my prediction of 2:25, I'm REALLY pleased.)
Final place:  139 (of 154!)

Splits:
400m pool swim:  10:25
T1 + 15.7-mile bike:  1:13:34
T2 + 4.7-mile run:  54:29

The long breakdown:


 










 



Mom got some good pictures, and we hung around for a few hours to cheer for the other folks from my training class, which was a lot of fun.

Lessons learned:

--ALWAYS double-check the ringer on your phone the night before the race!!
--Carb-loading really does work!  I didn't get the shakes at all during the race.
--Listen to your body!  Finishing the other half of the bagel probably would've given me a nasty tummyache, and I wasn't hungry at all during the race.  I only had some Powerade to refuel in the middle, and I was okay. 
--And make sure to use Bodyglide at EVERY POSSIBLE SEAM where chafing might occur, even ones that you might not think of.  This was the longest distance I'd done in the tri suit, and the bike chamois rubbed a bit at the very back.  Fortunately, it was not (and is not now) uncomfortable, although it's a bit unsightly back there for the moment...

Two triathlons down, and who knows how many more to go!  Thanks again to all of you for your support and encouragement.  It makes all the difference.  :-)