Freedom, caffeine and dresses!

It's officially Summer now! Thom finished the first year of his Masters yesterday. No more study for him and no more sitting around and letting him study for me! Now I can help him catch up with all of my fun and exciting stories, it'll be great! :D

So, in typical student fashion, we went out last night. Due to release obligations today, I abstained. Instead I had a lovely combination of coffee and soft drinks. This blend of sugar and caffeine kept me alert and active until 1am. Including making tea for Thom after the pub, because apparently tea is nice.

This backfired fantastically when my caffeine-soaked brain decided to wake me up at 6am. "No more sleep for you!", it said.

I think I made the most of it though, I got up at 6:30am and went to the gym! 'Twas a fine gyming session.. apart from the fire alarm going off in the middle of it, whoops! I felt bad for the people evacuated from the pool, dripping wet, still in their togs and trying to wrap aluminium blankets around themselves.

Judging by how my week has started, that'll probably be the last proper training session I'll be able to work in before the weekend. I made sure to work extra hard on my legs as I'll be showing them off on Saturday. We'll be visiting Thom's parents for a family gathering and I want to look my best! This is going to be achieved courtesy of the lovely Ms. Connell lending me the most *perfect* dress! I couldn't have gotten a better one after a month of shopping, she's so much better at it than I am :) I can't wait to be all girly and get all done up and transform into a wonderful butterfly, or some such. It's a nice change from the boring software programmer I portray all week long :D

All systems GO!!

We're in full swing in work today! The release is next week so (as usual) we're swinging into action! Code Code Code!! Although I do love my Java automation, I miss .Net coding, C-Sharp (C#) was fun.. maybe that was because I was coding in my spare time and that made it *more* fun. The whole software/IT industry means that you've gotta go where the work is, and currently my work is in Dublin and Java, and that's good too!

Now if only there was less debugging and testing to do and more programming! :)

Sunny weather!

It's hard to concentrate when the weather outside is so … DELIGHTFUL! :D

I've hunted out some Summery clothes and myself and Siobhan were just IM-ing with plans for the evening. Mainly involving getting out and getting some vitamin D!

Bye-bye rainclouds! Hello sun! :)

Let the pampering begin!

I've taken Siobhan's advice and booked my hair appointment in advance of the next wedding, and Thom's family thingie. I went to the extra effort of booking a manicure appointment too! Thank goodness for vouchers!

Maybe if I go in to Peter Marks in Stephen's Green and tell them that Mademoiselle Connell advised me to go, they'll think I'm a hotshot and give me a discount? It's worth a shot right? This is Dublin, "Mademoiselle" should carry some weight!

At least I get paid before all my pampering.

Running time is fun, but friend time is better!

That title may be a lie. It's been over three hours since I finished the race though, so the pain has faded and my breathing is back to normal. For a flat course, the Terenure 5 mile was tough!

I got out in loads of time, but I had absolutely nothing to worry about as Audrey and Michael were there before me and collected my race number and t-shirt, bless them! :) Once past the giant queue for the ladies, it was off to the race. Michael is a total speedster, so we bid him goodbye at the startline and searched for the sub-50 pacers. This was the last wave, but we didn't let that get us down! Audrey set us both up immediately behind the pace makers.. I moved us back a step or two when their pace balloons started hitting me in the face :)

For a sub-50 min 5 mile, you need to average out at a pace of 6:15 min/km. Judging by my Garmin, the pace setters went at 6:40, 5:45, 6:30, 6:00.. Audrey stuck with them and I struck out by myself to have a steadier pace which, it turns out was by staying about 2 metres ahead of them. Around 3 or 4km in, they suddenly upped the pace and took off! They left us both behind, it was sad :(

I really started struggling with 2km to go. It turns out that my fitness just isn't up for a 6:15 min/km pace. Audrey caught up with me, and didn't even look smug as I puffed and wheezed the rest of the way. I had just enough left in the tank to have a mini sprint finish and completed it in 51:09.

Afterwards Siobhan was the perfect friend, she fetched tea, coffee and scones while the rest of us sat in a sweaty heap waiting the results. No spot prizes for us :( Okay, that's a mini-lie, Audrey and Michael stretched, I sat in a sweaty heap :) We did get to exchange pics of our dresses for upcoming weddings though!

All-in-all though, not a bad day! :) Siobhan didn't even complain about the smell as she sat beside me on the bus back to town. I used plenty of deodrant first ;P

Fun filled weekend planned

Oh I'm so excited!! I can barely concentrate on work. Audrey convinced me to sign up for the Terenure 5 mile this weekend so, come Sunday, I'll be racing around the place! It sounded so much simpler when it was just an 8km race, 5 miles sounds like too much!

However, it isn't just the race that has me all excited :) Audrey's bringing along a blanket and Siobhan's coming out to cheer us on. So afterwards, Ms. Connell and Mr. and Mrs. P-P  and I are going to relax in the sunshine and sip our coffees and have a muffin or two! It's gonna be great to catch up! :D

Friends can be so cruel

My best friend, Siobhan Connell, is now slagging me for the multiple posts in one day. Apparently I haven't blogged so much since our Trinity College days and that's not how a "Software Developer" behaves. She just doesn't understand that I need my creative outlets! :)

Running

Oh, I never mentioned! I'm now into running! It's not as much fun as weight lifting, but I can sign up for races and compete with people. All good clean fun, until Aud decides to trip me up (preview for Sunday's race).

Getting back into the swing of things

It's been so terribly long since I've updated this blog. I even had trouble remembering my username and password!

Not much bloggable seems to happen really. I cycle to and from a great job in IT (I'm working with Swrve on Mobile Analytics) and give out about other road users. The usual ;)

In all seriousness though, don't any other cyclists believe in the rules of the road?!