I live in a desert, that's my excuse.

I haven't been in a pool or done any serious swimming in 6 weeks or more. The reason, well the only pool available to the public in Artesia is the high school pool. I've complained about this before, but they have unfriendly hours - M-F 6:30 - 7:30 am and T&Th 6 - 8pm. I work in Carlsbad (35 miles away) I drop kindergarten kid off at his school at 7:30, and am in the office shortly there-after. So the 6:30-7:30am is not doable. The TTH evenings is what I've been surviving on since April of 2006, when the Carlsbad High school pool closed for a six month remodel job that has now lasted 1.5 years. They had to bus the Carlsbad swim team to Artesia last season, and if they don't hurry their going to have to do it again. Anyway, right around the beginning of school is when the problem really started. The high school aged life guards have their after school activities which means they can't work. That leaves two (on a good night) adults that only get paid $6 an hour to watch me and maybe a couple of other folks swim or water gossip, i mean jog. So they have been closed more than open in the past couple of months. I was able to snag about 40 minutes of swim time this morning because, a. its my day off, and b. my Mother-in-Law is visiting as watched the boys while I tried to remember how to swim, but really until the Carlsbad pool opens, I'm a dry-lander.

But if and when I ever move to Tucumcari, the pool situation may be worse. Tucumcari has one public pool, but its an outdoor pool so its only open in the summer, we'll see if they are friendly to us lap swimmers. We will be only 20 minutes from Ute Lake, so i can get some open water time in during the right times of year. San Jon is a little community about 20 miles from our soon to be house, and they have a pool, but we'll see what their schedule is and all that.

I guess I'm either going to have to be a duathlete or really improve my running and cycling speed to make up for my drowning swim legs. Hmmm.

In other news, my mental state is much better. Its amazing how much anger helps keep my depression at bay. Work - same, nothing changed other than I'm hoping my co-worker in Tucumcari can hang tight until I get up there and we sit down and have a serious discussion abut what we we're going to do if we decide to quit or not. He had a rough week, just more unpleasantness directed towards him.

Training has been consistent - I'm doing well with my running 3 times a week. Don't know if I'm improving or not, but I'm at least in a groove. Bikewise - I'm back on the indoor trainer at least once a week, but I may bump that to twice on the weeks that I know I won't get a long ride in. I'm hoping for a long ride this weekend - Jeff is home. Next weekend is a bust, but I'll be in Alb. to visit my folks and do the Balloon Fiesta thing. The following weekend I'll be in Tucumcari to close on the house up there - we may spend the weekend cleaning and such, then after that I don't know. Until the house in Artesia sells, we can't really move in up there, but there is some work that needs to be done so maybe we'll get that done before we have to move in.

I haven't raced since the Bottomless Tri in early July. I miss the races, having a goal to work towards, etc. I don't think I'm going to do the Defined Fitness Duathlon in Rio Rancho in November this year, because everything is still up in the -air. Although, Jeff came home and ate lunch with us today and was in an especially ornery mood. He was talking trash and made the comment that he could beat me in a dualthlon without any training. I'm half tempted to sign us both up just to make him eat his words, but I know that he was just trying to get my goose. I mean I know he could probably beat me if he trained for it, but to go cold turkey and run a 5k twice, with an 18 mile ride in-between. He plays basketball twice a week - that's it. He hasn't been on a bike since July and that was maybe a mile and that was to ride with our 5-year old who wanted to try out his new birthday present. The Duathlon is in Rio Rancho which is at a higher altitude, plus it will be hilly. Tempting, but not realistic. After writing this, I'm sort of thinking of reconsidering doing the race myself. I mean it is in my 6 week window (see explanation below), but I haven't hardly ridden my bike much in 2 months. I'd have to buckle down on the bike training. I don't know if I'm ready to do two 5k's. I ran 6.5 miles once back in July, but then fell off the running wagon, then gotten back on but only slowly... Ugg! What am I trying to do to myself.

Back to reality, I'm hoping to do the Polar Bear, but it depends. I only plan 6 weeks out at a time. I figure each day an offer could be made on my house. If an offer is made on the house and accepted, then it will be at least six weeks before we close... so every day its - well I know I'll be here for six weeks. And then there is the pool issue or lack there of. You people that live in urban areas, don't know how good you have it. Sure I don't have the crime rates, the traffic, the noise and all the lights - but you have you're gyms and various pool options, and running trails and biking trails, and running clubs and biking clubs, oh and even your master swim thingys, and sports stores that carry biking stuff and triathlon stuff, have brands of running shoes that runners wear - not just Nike. Thank God for the Internet.

Writing this is cutting into my nap time, so I'm off to snooze - thanks for reading.