Two months until Vineman!

As you can see from the widget thingy down there, it's now 60 days until Vineman 70.3. My first half Iron distance.

I'm setting very, very low expectations, as I just want to finish, and preferably not dead last, but I'm actually feeling pretty good about it.

I've not gotten in the long rides that I probably should have, but the hill repeats are going nicely and I feel like the bike's doing fine.

The run is doing well - I'm still not going very fast (at the moment I'm averaging 10 minute miles), but I'm confident that I'll at least be able to finish.

I need to get in some long bikes, so I'll make an extra effort to get those in before the race, but I'm feeling pretty good!

The only thing that's worrying me is the logistics of parking at the race start and finishing 17 miles away. If I can hitch a ride to the start with someone so I don't have to leave my bike in T2 while I shuttle back to get my car, that would be freakin' stellar.  Or maybe I'll live rich and spring for a taxi, if I can find on in Napa at 4 am on a Sunday.

Also, of course, tomorrow is bike to work day and I'm going to have to drive because I'm going out to a site 30 miles from my house.

Oh, well.  I've been biking to work every day for almost three weeks.

The need to feed an addiction

I hate it when I get addicted to a product, and all of a sudden it's gone. It happens more often with bras (I'm hard to fit) and underpants that won't ride up, but this time, it's happened with sunscreen.

I've got very sensitive skin that's prone to burning (curse my Irish ancestors), so many of the sunblocks either don't work well enough or make me break out.

Neither is good, of course.

So when I found Scape, I was happy. They made an SPF 50 which didn't run into my eyes, didn't wear off and didn't make my skin break out.

Except that I'm out and I've had a horrible time finding it.

I checked all the usual places, and no one had it, but at Tri-Lab, they told me that the company  has simply stopped responding to vendors. They've been ignoring re-order requests and aren't returning phone calls.

Supposedly this has been going on for two months, and the assumption is that the company is out of business.

Dammit.

What the hell am I supposed to do now? The other sunblocks on the market either stink like death, don't work, make me break out, or cost so much I can't afford to use them.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

A peek inside my fridge and an interesting challenge

I've never been much of one for junk food. All in all, I eat pretty healthy (except the occasional slice of pizza and sake - not together, of course), but it's time to really step up to the plate, so to speak.

Can I, for the next 30 days, eat no processed foods and no sugar?

This is my own interpretation of the Whole 30 challenge - I don't want to do the paleo/primal version that's presented on the website, as I don't feel well when I'm on any sort of low-carb diet, so I'm going to modify - plenty of good healthy complex carbs, no sugar and (shocker for me) no alcohol.

Not even on weekends.

One month of eating in a truly healthy manner.

We'll see how I do when confronted with an empty afternoon and happy hour right around the corner. Right now, I'm enjoying one last glass of sake, and then it's on the straight and narrow for the next four weeks.