Elicit Substance

It was a pretty good week, starting right off with Monday (yes, Monday!) My husband came home from work, bringing up the mail as usual and asked, "Do you have a boyfriend named, Ben?"

All excited, I said, "WHY YES!! YES I DO!!! Did he send me a package?"

"Yes, he did."

"Oh, awesome!"

Can you tell we've been married for over 25 years?

All kidding aside, the package was from Ben from Becoming Timberman.

Ben is a frequent commenter here as we have about the same run times and have the same amount of fun trying to get faster which is to say, it's less than fun but we're always hoping to turn that around. He hired a personal trainer so I'm guessing he'll get on track faster than this personal trainer will.

He's a triathlete and chronicles his races, weight loss trials and tribulations, and stories about his beautiful new wife, Rachelle, and their newest addition - their pup, Stanley - on his blog. Ben is a very generous man who races for charities. This year, he's on the race team for the Eleonore Rocks Foundation which donates rocking chairs to birthing units in hospital rooms and NICUs. They also provide support to families that find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having their newborn baby needing the care that can only be found in a pediatric or neo-natal ICU ward.

In the tradition of raising money online, Ben recently held a raffle with a nice selection of prize packages and guess who won a Polar FT40 heart rate monitor!! It wasn't just the HRM either, along with the watch, strap and WearLink® transmitter, he put together a nice package from Polar that included a hat, t-shirt, stickers and heavy-duty nylon bag. The t-shirt is an XL so I gave that to my husband (who now knows what a heart rate monitor looks like). I generally have a rule of using as little tech gear as possible but working out without a heart rate monitor is like driving without a gas gauge - you never know how much fuel you have left in the tank.

Moving forward, Ben's ultimate fundraising goal is to raise enough money to donate 5 rocking chairs. To that end, everyone who donates in $5 increments gets an entry to win an iPad so if you're interested in a chance at winning an iPad by supporting a great cause, head on over to Becoming Timberman and check him out.

Oh, yeah... back to me (hey, it's my blog, right?)... I wound up subbing in a spin class again last Sunday at the very last minute - i.e., I received a call at 8:25 AM to teach a 9:00AM class! Yikes! My manager and I have received a lot of positive feedback on my classes this week and I'm starting to pull in some new people into my Friday class because of the exposure. I was just happy that the previous spinners came back after my first class!

In Road Cycling News.. Motivated by a woman at work who, along with her ex-husband, wants to go riding with me (with a nickname around the gym like, Edie the Animal, it rarely happens that anyone wants to ride with me which I don't understand because the name came from someone in my kickboxing classes,) I FINALLY switched out the tire and skewer off the back wheel so I could get on the road. After a thorough cleaning and lube, I also had to make a brake adjustment. I thought I was going to get out and do a quick 5-10 mile check this morning but when I woke up, it was not only raining, there was some snow mixed in.

SNOW!!! It was 80 degrees two weeks ago. What the frell is going on here?

I hope I get to ride with these people and show them I'm a team player before they hear about my aggressive reputation. Is it my fault some in those classes are slackers?