1/2 Madness Weekend!

The starting line/ look for the Madness
Mark Dzubian, course marshall on his spiffy Vino scooter
Race Director, Danny
Pre-race, Carla was in charge of volunteers (yes that is a beer in her hand early morning, Megan was the lead runner escort on her bike




Multisportmadness put on the Batavia 1/2 Madness 1/2 marathon yesterday. I know many club members and friends worked very hard all year organizing this; congrats to them for putting on such a well run 1st time event. Trainingbible was a sponsor and the finish line had a big mat to cross and banners with Trainingbible on it. Very cool. I think there were about 900 runners who showed up to run. I had several athletes, many friends, 1 husband running, and I was a volunteer along with many other club members. A big heck ya, out to Andy Wellman who PR'd in the midst of his huge bike training to get ready for Fall Fling.

I have never volunteered at a race before. I have thanked many myself along the way at a zillion races I've done, and it was probably about time to volunteer myself. My job yesterday was chip removal. On a hot day, it was interesting. Mark Livesay, timing specialist of Ultramax events offered us surgical gloves to use. I raised my eyebrow, really? But once the finishers starting coming across, I quickly saw why. ( I guess crossing the line myself, I never noticed they wore gloves) Wow. Some people can really sweat. I had other people's sweat drip all over me. I felt like I needed a shower when I was done, but still had to run and ride myself. Even so, it was great to see so many racers out there giving it their all and having fun. From what I hear the course was really nice, with great aid stops.

Now this is true Madness..... keeping food in my house during Adam's Ironman training. He is in big time Hawaii training, and is always hungry, or always tired, or always hungry and tired! I can't keep food in the house. Help! I try to buy healthy food of course, and its gone fast because you can't buy bulk or it goes bad. I buy the junk food...gone even faster and expensive. I've gone domestic, even and made homemade cookies or brownies. He came home bonkish today after a big ride, the cupboards were bare once again. Nothing to fuel the bonk. So today I went back to the store, once again. 3rd time this week I think. I really dislike grocery shopping. I would rather scrub toilets, clean up dog poop from the backyard than go grocery shopping. But I have become very familiar with Jewel and Fresh Market lately and I love keeping my Ironman fed and happy :) But, have you noticed how many times you handle the food in just one trip the the grocery store. It seems so inefficient. You pick it off the shelf, then put it in the cart. From the cart it goes on the belt to check out, then bagged and into the cart. Then from the cart to the car and if your lucky they put more than 1 thing in the silly sack.( those sacks drive me crazy, yes I am a little bit "green". I think I buy too many things to use the cloth sacks. Once home you get to take it from the car to the counter, and then again, from the counter to the cupboards.

My friend from work uses Peapod. Now this is a great idea! I love it. She informs me they bring the food right to your counter for you! They give you the prices, deals and specials and the cost is apparently quite similar to going to the store. My friend however, lives in civilization. I live in Bumbleburn, land of corn. Peapod hasn't made it this far west yet. I am patiently waiting their arrival!!!!! I don't know if they'll make it out here by the end of Ironman training. In the meantime I'll look for ways to be a more efficient grocery shopper and haul my loads of "jewel sacks" back with me to try to re-cycle them. They have started spewing out of the drawer I store them in making it hard to shut!

I am open to any tips on more efficient grocery shopping or saving of jewel sacks!!!
Have a great week!