Wow

So this week has been pretty crazy, moving in on Sunday starting work on Wednesday and needing to adjust my life to fit my training in. This will cover all of these topics in some fashion. I have already posted about the apartment, I still enjoy it, I have met some of the people that live around me by just being out on the porch and through orientation at work. Schools represented, Clarkson, Michigan, Michigan State, University of Dayton, and of course Notre Dame.

Starting work was very surreal, I still am having issues with wrapping my head around the fact that I am actually working for GE. On Wednesday we had our orientation all morning and then were dispersed to go meet with our mangers and get a feel or where we would be for the rest of the summer. The group of people in my orientation were wicked cool, and of course our orientation leader and my coop buddy, Nicole was great. After dealing with getting our badges so that we could get through security, going and having a drug test, and ensuring all of our paperwork was filled out we went out to lunch at Friday's. Nicole decided to make it a point to be the mom of everyone and tell us all to behave and we should not in anyway shape or form be the intern that breaks up relationships, then she continued to say that if we do have the need for summer loving make sure that you wrap it. I do love bluntness. So after lunch I went off to go meet my manager, it turns out I have 2 managers and then a person I report to daily, it is kind of confusing but I am going to try and figure out the ranking sometime next week hopefully. I am working in the Fuel and Oil Lab, which may sound kind of dull but it is wicked BA, I am being brought in on a bunch of different projects and really able to get my hands dirty. I have to remember a bunch of chemistry but that is not too bad because it leads to fun reactions like dissolving a silver ball bearing cage that costs a couple thousand dollars in Nitric Acid to try and figure out what is embedded in the silver coating that should not be there. I really do not know how much I am allowed to talk about with what I do, so I should figure that out too before I go and say much more. The guy I report to everyday is great, he wants to get me involved in as much as possible and make sure that I get introduced to the highest people I can be, he has been there for 20+ years so he knows almost everyone.

The plant has a fitness facility with a pool which is super because I had not really swam since I began finals week, but somehow my splits have actually dropped a little still need more endurance though. The gym is nice but it feels like a gym at an old peoples home, there are soo many white hairs trying to work out, which is great for them to still be active but it makes me feel really out of place. Luckily I have met some people that are going to workout there so I will have some people to lift and talk with while I am here. I am getting up at 5 everyday to drive over to workout in the AM before I have to be in at 730 but the nice thing about that is I get out at like 4 so there is plenty of daylight for long post work workouts.

Ironically, I guess you could call it I was sitting on my little balcony watching the sun come up this morning catching up on the blogs that I read before heading out for my workout today which I will describe in a bit, and I read this entry by IronWil. It got me thinking, in reality even though my race is only weeks away now I have really only begun my journey. When I was like 14 when I went to watch the Boston Marathon be run I said that I really want to run in that someday, people thought I was a little crazy, this pudgy little marshmallow of a kid, become an endurance athlete, sure. Back then i didn't do anything to prove them wrong I figured they were right and well I might as well not even try. About two years ago I watched the Kona Ironman on TV and said someday I am going to go race there, again people looked at me like I was crazy like there was no way I would ever be able to get there. Last summer I had knee surgery and said I am going to turn my life around and get to where I have always wanted to be, a true athlete someone people who used to know me will go wow you did that! In 11 and a half months since my surgery I have really come a long way, I have, but there is soo much more I want to do. I have changed who I am but I also realize that with this sport where most of the competitors are called crazy and weigh 60 lbs less than me, I am going to continue to change I am going to continue to be my own catalyst and I am going to do all of this not to rub it in the faces of the kids who called me fat, or the people who never believed I could do something like this (although that will be a plus), but I am going to do it for myself to show myself that I have what it takes to change from what I was, a marshmallow of a kid, to what I will become a powerful iron catalyst. Training has really changed my life in more ways than I would have ever thought possible, I am more confident in everything that I do from how I carry myself when I am walking to answering a question in work or class, I have this surety that I haven't had before. I am by far more healthy and less stressed, while everyone was stressing over finals, I thought that I should be too but I realized that in the end it will turn out okay I just need to do everything I can to prep for it just like my training. Those are just two things but I am sure anyone who has known me for a long time probably sees some of the other things I do. I love what I am doing and cannot see how I never found this love before.

So, I said I was going to talk about today's training. I had 3 hours of riding and an hour of swimming on the schedule for today but I knew that I was not going to be able to get over to the pool so I have been making up for that with extra time over the week. I am going to have to move any of my weekend swims to the week sometime to make sure I get them in because I won't on weekends. So in three hours I decided I wanted to go for 60 miles my goal pace of 20 mph, even if it took more than 3 thats fine I wanted the distance though to see something similar to my race. I went riding on this bike trail that is on old railroad tracks that runs for like 80 miles up into Ohio, it was the recommended place by the local bike shop. I reached 30 miles out where my turnaround would be and said ya know what its nice out lets go for an extra 20 you have time and lets see what we can do. Probably not the smartest idea I have ever had considering I planned for 60 so I brought food and water for 60. I kept a great pace for the 56 miles that is my race distance and thats when it began to hurt and things went wrong. I was going at about a 17.75 mph pace right up till then and right after I passed 60 miles I knew that was the distance I should have done, huge cramp in my left hamstring because I had to change my hydration strategy to keep going that entire distance. So after getting off and stretching for a bit I drank most of the Gatorade that I had left and continued on. I could tell I was becoming dehydrated and hungry because I could not concentrate on anything for the life or me, but I did come up with the idea of possibly tubing down the little Miami river sometime this summer with the interns. With 17 miles to go I get another massive cramp this time in both hamstrings. So again I am off my bike stretching this time I have nothing to drink left so I am SOL. I get loose enough to get back on and just decide to cruise the last 17 miles into the parking lot but go figure the last 10 miles were all up hill, not a big grade but just up the entire time. Needless to say I am kind of hurting right now and have not even looked at what my workout for tomorrow is because I do not want to know right now.

Well that is all for now, hopefully I find something to do tonight. Later everyone.