The Door County half marathon was #25 for me. Woohoo and shit. I thought it would be a bigger deal to me, but it just wasn't. It's not like I'll never run again, or I won't try to get faster...but I might be done with distance. 3-5 miles is nice. Fun. Something you can run with a friend on a whim. Training for a half when you actually train (like a communist) is time consuming...and no one wants to do it with you. And if people DO want to do it with you, invariably they never run at your pace (at least that's been my experience).
Here I am with my 25th half marathon medal. I dressed up fancy figuring that even though I still couldn't breathe easily without coughing, at least I'd look cute. But I don't really do "cute" so instead I just look like an asshole as usual.
Standard asshole, complete with asshole sunglasses.
So yeah. You won't be seeing running pictures. I know you're sad. You will be seeing squatting pictures. Sorry in advance. I set up my home gym and earned some more plates for Mother's Day, which means I've been squatting 3-4 times a week in the basement along with whatever we do at CF. I will not have a flat 40-year-old ass. And I WILL squat 200# or fucking die trying.
Maybe purple plaid isn't the best look.
My hair looks gray in this picture. It's not. It's teal. Why teal? Because I've been pussy-footing around fantasy color for a year. Because my hair bores the fuck out of me and if I'm going to keep growing it out I have to do something. Because my work now no longer allows make-up, nail polish, or jewelry, and my hair has to be up. Because it's just fucking hair and why the hell not?
Before. Blonde and fucking boring.
After. Motherfucking mermaid.
My plan is to eventually ditch the blonde altogether and go full teal, then as my hair grows out transition to blue and then violet. I love it.
I got my new look two days before leaving the country for my 10th wedding anniversary trip with fantastic husband. The whole "look like your passport photo" thing didn't cross my mind...fortunately it ended up fine.
Yeah. So I've been married 10 years. Fantastic husband is fond of saying I've given him the best 7.5 years of his life. I tell him that I'm happy every day. Not all day every day, but every day.
What can I say? Love is some sappy bullshit, yo.
Last year we went on a cruise with some friends and one of the places we stopped was St.Maarten/St. Martin. We went to Orient Beach, which has (among it's beauty and many recreational activities) as it's claim to fame Club Orient which maintains a clothing optional beach in front of the resort. It is not a *ahem* lifestyle beach. It's a clothing optional family resort. All beaches in St. Martin are topless, full nudity is only allowed in front of Club Orient. While we were there on our cruise fantastic husband and I said "fuck it" and went over to the nudist side. Flapping around naked in the ocean was fucking bliss, so when it was time to plan our anniversary trip? I found us an apartment in Orient Village (no, we didn't stay at the nudist resort) within walking distance of the beach.
I also booked us First Class airfare. It really wasn't much more than what checking bags and eating/drinking on the plane would've cost. Knowing that fantastic husband gets airsick and that we would be flying for 6+ hours, I decided to treat him. Holy shit is first class amazing. I've never flown first class in all my life. Kudos to American Airlines for the most pleasant flights I've ever had (aside from Qantas-they are still the best).
Flying first class to the islands called for an island themed look to go with my mermaid hair. Thanks to Athleta and Stitchfix for some supercomfy gear. Going through TSA (don't even get me started) I got told to empty my pockets.
Pockets? Bitch I ain't even wearing a bra.
Some TSA flunkie called me "sweetie". I fucking hate that. It was condescending as hell. "Right over there, sweetie". This isn't my first flight, asshole. You can feel free to call me "ma'am". If I wasn't afraid I'd get arrested and miss my flight I would've told him exactly where he could stick his sweetie.
We arrived in Philipsburg intact and on time. We picked up our pregnant rollerskate and headed out to Orient Bay.
It's so tiny I wanna DIE!
And then about a mile out of the rental agency we hit a pothole and got a flat.
FUCK.
We couldn't change it on our own, because even though we had a full-sized spare? There was a lug lock on the tire and the key wasn't with the tools. After waiting for an hour in the mid-afternoon sun, the Budget mechanic showed up with the key. We got the tire changed and were on our way.
Budget charged me for the tire. Then they tried to sneak a "miscellaneous charge" on top of it. I paid for the tire, but I'm really fucking bitter about it. An email will be written, and I will get my money back.
But we found our apartment, and it was perfect. No harm, no foul. We cranked up the air and went into town to find some basic groceries and dinner.
Here's a bunch of pictures.
View from our balcony.
I spent a bunch of mornings like this. Book, coffee, sunshine.
The beach bar at Club Orient. Cops like to be nude, yo.
Do nothing beach day. I got slightly sunburned and slightly intoxicated.
Or more than slightly.
Marigot from Fort Louis.
Gods, the pastries. Living 100m from a bakery would be deadly.
Fantastic husband brought patches to trade.
He accosted a couple of gendarmes and was fucking giddy.
Did I mention bakery? There are so...many...bakeries.
I got a harebrained idea one night on shift. I read a blog about an island called Saba that is a 10 minute turbo-prop flight from St. Martin. It's the tip of a dormant volcano, and you can climb to the top. Guess what we did on Wednesday? All my 3am ideas are good ones.
Shrouded in clouds. We climbed it.
It's the only real pocket of true rain forest in the Carribean.
It rained.
View down The Road in Windwardside.
Saba was an amazing daytrip. It has world-class scuba diving as the coastline is all protected marine park. Maybe we'll go back for our 15th and dive certify. The village was lovely, and the people are a really interesting mix of native Sabans, Dutch, ex-pat Americans (there's a medical school here), French, and anything else you can think of.
After returning from Saba we hit the grocery store (I love grocery stores. They fascinate me.) for some sodas and frozen pizza. Then we went home and watched a movie. It was the perfect end to a physically demanding day.
We visited 2 CrossFit boxes while we were on St. Martin. The first was outside. I loved it. The coach was really friendly, the set-up was interesting, and we could walk there from our apartment. I kinda wish we'd gone back again. Discover CrossFit if you're ever on the French side. Friday we went to Philipsburg to CrossFit SXM. The workout was long and ridiculously sweaty. It made me miss my home box.
Shirtless WOD. So sweaty.
The town of Philipsburg was underwhelming. It's a shopping mecca. I don't like shopping. Unless it's for activewear. So we walked around and then decided to go home.
We did go out for a nice dinner in the village. We had Thai food. There was a large table of Americans near us, and I heard a phrase that should never be uttered. "I love the Holocaust" I almost choked on my shrimp. I think the teenaged girl who uttered it meant the time period? But still...just...mais non.
Ten years. Son of a bitch.
Saturday we hit the beach, then did laundry and finalized our plans for leaving on Sunday. We went out for dinner, watched the locals play bocce, then headed home to snarf down some ice cream bars and enjoy doing fuck all for the last 12 hours of our trip.
I love huge chunks of unstructured time. That drives some people crazy, but I love having no plan, no obligations, no demands. I do this thing called what I want...even if what I want is not a goddamn thing.
Oh, a word on the nudity thing. I've had more than a couple of people express surprise that we did that. Honestly? It wasn't a big deal at all. I felt far less self-conscious out of my swimsuit than in it. When everyone's flaws are on display you don't really notice any of them. It's very freeing. I walked around with more body confidence this last week than most of my life. I wore short shorts, padded around the apartment in my underpants, sat on the balcony in little more than my skivvies, and felt utterly and completely at peace with my body. I've been at war with my body for decades...but not this last week. What an incredible thing.
Of course, now we're back and I'm back at war, how fucked is that?
No more pastries for breakfast. Not that this is a bad thing.
I was determined that the ocean water, sand, and sun wouldn't dull my new hair color. I ordered a product to help and I took some with me on vacation. I treated my hair twice while we were gone.
Smells like mint.
I treated it again today so it'll be bright and shiny for my first night back in the salt mine. Back in the salt mine without mascara. Goddammit.
I can't wait to try the deep conditioning treatment.
Of note, aside from eyeliner and mascara I didn't wear make-up at all the entire time we were gone and it was fine. But I will mourn the loss of the ability to wear mascara to work forever and ever amen.
So there you have it. That's what I've been up to. This morning I did a half-Murph and I ate enough veg to kill a small horse today. Tomorrow it'll be back to Costco to stock up on all the things I should be eating to fuel my goals for the summer. I have 6 weeks until I go back to Nutritional Healing for my follow-up BIA and I want to have some amazing numbers to show for it.
This was disjointed as fuck. Sorry. I'll do better next time.
Tomorrow is my CrossFitaversary I'll have to go in for a WOD.
