New toy.

I will be 41 in (gulp) nine days. I might be ready to actually turn 41 by then.

Maybe.

My husband and kids gave me my birthday present already. This:

It's a bike! That folds! That I can carry in a bag!

I know.

When it folds out, it looks like this:

Is that not the coolest thing ever?

I've been wanting to bike for a while. I actually have a 10-speed that I got from my parents for Christmas or my birthday about 17 years ago. It still rides just fine, but portability has been an issue.

I like going places to run or bike. Running 20 times around my neighborhood to get 10 miles in just isn't the same as going to the park and running through trails and trees and getting in those 10 miles. Plus, when I go out of town for races, I like to park my car at the hotel and not have to drive the rest of the time I'm there. When I went to Galveston last summer for the Sand Crab 10K, the only time I drove was to the actual race site and back. When I went to San Antonio for the marathon, I didn't drive until I left on Monday morning. I can and do walk a lot, but having a bike would add another layer of awesome.

But bike racks and trailers are just a lot of trouble. I don't want to permanently attach something to my five-month-old car, and other options just seem flimsy.

Enter the Citizen Bike! My friend and co-worker Melanie has had one for a year or so and she loves hers. She's put a ton of miles on that bike and it is still just fine.

So a little birdie (me) put the idea in my husband's head, and my bike arrived last Wednesday.

There's a tiny learning curve on folding and unfolding it, but really, it's very intuitive. I took it to the hike & bike trail yesterday morning and unfolded it in less than 10 minutes, and it took about the same time to fold it back up and put it in the bag.

It rides well, has six gears and the brakes are very sensitive. This particular style (there are several) is designed for people who are less than 6'0" and weigh less than 220 pounds. Other styles can hold bigger people.

Now, this is not a bike to trail-ride on, nor is it a racing bike. It was designed as a commuter bike for those in large cities who don't have the storage for a bike. But for my purposes right now, it works perfectly.

I rode 7.5 miles yesterday morning in less than an hour at the hike & bike, with zero problems. I'm still trying to figure out a good routine to fit in all my wants: running, biking, weight-lifting and going to exercise classes. I need about two more hours in the day, I think.

The Web site offers a basket that attaches to the bike and I may look into that. I would like a place to put a water bottle and regular brackets may not work with this.

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This week is spring break. Some people may look at that as an opportunity to sleep in and relax, but I ain't got time for that, you know?

I'm planning on maxing out my workouts this week -- longer runs, bike rides, etc.

My new favorite quote (by Thomas Carlyle) is "I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom."

I'm working on it!

The Gusher, 2013 edition.

For four years, I've run The Gusher Half-Marathon.

And for three years, I've bettered my time, every year. Until this one.

According to my Garmin, I finished in 2:03:10, which is about 3 minutes slower than last year's time. I was fifth in my age group -- not sure how many women that was because I left before they put all the results up.

I'm trying to get upset about that, but try as I might, I just can't.

I will be 41 years old in less than two weeks.

Eight years ago, I weighed more than 210 pounds.

Eight years ago, the most exercise I got was literally walking to the refrigerator for more food.

Eight years ago, I would have laughed at you if you suggested I run or lift weights or ride bikes or take exercise classes. I would have called you a fool had you hinted that in a few short years, I'd be doing exactly that.

So I can't be too upset about my time. It's better than what I did in Fort Worth two weeks ago. It's better than what I could have done eight years ago. It's fairly consistent with my training runs and my Gusher run last year.

I am very competitive and I rarely fail at what I attempt. And while I realize that this is most certainly not a failure, part of me wants to call it that.

But I'm refusing.

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I know what I did wrong. I started off way, way, way too fast. I averaged a little less than 8-minute miles the first four miles. If I had backed off at the beginning, then I could have pushed a little more at the end and gotten in under two hours.

My baby brother Jason ran The Gusher Marathon, though, and he and I ran those first four miles together. Then I couldn't keep up any more and had to drop back.

I've never run with my brother. He took up running probably around the same time I took it up for the second time. (We were even wearing the same color shirt, so we were twins!)

So I'm kind of OK with the way that worked out. :-)

T minus 3 days!

On Saturday, I will run my second half-marathon in two weeks.

In doing so, I will also keep on keeping on my New Year's resolution to run a race every month in 2013. I missed January because I didn't think about the resolution until January, so technically I've already failed, but...I'm ignoring that.

The Gusher 5K, Half-Marathon and Marathon is my home race, and I've run it every year since its inception. It's great not to have to travel to race a half. I sleep in my own bed, get up and eat breakfast in my own kitchen, drive the back ways and park in my work parking lot, run, then go home.The course is mostly flat, so that's good, too. (Still having nightmares about running up the Main Street Bridge in Fort Worth two weekends ago!)

When I was an undergrad, a professor once mentioned in class that you could read Hamlet every year, write down your impressions, and over a period of several years, that was your story as a person. I liked that theory then, and now, I can see it in my race statistics.

2010: I finished in 3:11:40.7.  I weighed about 50 pounds more than I do now. The first race was in May, which is hit or miss temperature-wise here. It could be relatively cool, or it could be hotter than hell. That weekend, it was hotter than hell. I lost about seven pounds that day. I was running, but not consistently and not with any clear goals in mind. I think I registered for the race while I was still on a runner's high one random night. I finished 70th out of 82 women aged 35-39, and was the 616th finisher overall out of about 750 people.

2011: I finished in 2:20:05.9. Well, that's much better, right? September 2010 is when I decided that I was done being overweight. That's when I joined Weight Watchers to get myself straightened out a bit (it always helps in the beginning) and I returned to running a month or so later. The race was held in early March, and the weather was perfect for running. I finished 25th out of 53 women aged 35-39, and was the 244th finisher over out of a little more than 500 participants.

2012: I finished in 1:59:03.7. My goal was to finish in less than two hours and I managed, but barely. Good enough for me! Last year, I was sixth out of 38 women my age (I was still 39 then!), and I finished 121st out of almost 500 total.

This year, I plan to get under that two-hour mark a little more comfortably. Will I be able to do it? Honestly, I don't know. I finished in a little over two hours at the Cowtown two weekends ago. That course has a ton of hills, though, and I was running after battling a stomach thing earlier in the week. So maybe I can do it. I'm going to start with the 1:45 pace group and if I need to drop back a bit, I will. As long as I stay sandwiched inbetween the 2:00 group and the 1:45 group, I'll be happy.

Hell, let's be honest: As long as I'm running, I'll be happy!

OCD or just plain odd?

I am weird.

I like things the way I like them is a nice way of putting it. The not-so-nice way of putting it is that I'm an inflexible control freak who wants everything the way I want it. Any other way of doing something is just not right.

I manage to function OK in normal society, though. Over the years, I've learned to let things go. Having kids helped a lot with that; I can control a lot but not everything when it comes to them. (And if they ever realize that together they could physically overwhelm me -- hell, one of them could probably take me at this point -- well, my life is over.)

Nowhere are my little quirks more evident than in my running, though. Because I run alone all the time, I don't realize how odd my requirements are until I'm with someone else who runs.

Enter this weekend.

My best friend Michele and I ran the Cowtown Half on Sunday. We didn't run together, but we finished within 15 minutes of each other. I felt like I spent all weekend leading up to the race explaining my weirdness and being amazed at her normalcy.

I wear as little clothing as possible when I run. I buy most of my running clothes a little big because I can't stand them to be even a little snug because then they ride up and I cannot abide that.

Michele wears layers. It was pretty damned cold Sunday morning, but I was not about to wear any more clothing than absolutely necessary -- I ended up wearing my favorite running skirt and a long-sleeved pink dri-wick shirt (size large when I probably could have worn a small). Michele wisely wore a tank, a long-sleeved shirt and a fleece (although she ditched the fleece at bag check). Her clothes fit her properly.

The only jewelry I wear while running is a necklace that I wear pretty much all the time -- it sits close to my neck and doesn't flop around -- and tiny earrings. Michele wears her wedding rings. I think that probably shocked me more than anything. My hands swell when I run long distances and I just could not handle the feeling of the ring being tight around my finger.

Michele has a small light that attaches to her clothing that she wears when she runs at night. I have one, but I hate it because the flopping around distracts me to no end. One of the many reasons I loved my Bluetooth headphones so much was because there was no cord to bother me. I have only managed to deal with my new non-Bluetooth headphones because there is a small clip on the cord that I can attach to my clothes to help with the cord flop.

Michele wears a hat when she runs. I wore a hat once during a half-marathon, and about halfway through, I took it off and attached it to the strap of my top I was wearing. The flapping bothered me so much that I tossed it to the side.

As it became more obvious to me that I am just an OCD freak -- seriously, maybe three steps away from being Sheldon Cooper only not that brilliant -- Michele turned to me and said, "You're tough."

She could have said, "You're a freak," or "You are the weirdest person on earth," but she used the best word, the most tactful word, to describe me: "Tough."

And that is why we're BFFs. :-)

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I did my figuring this morning and I fell short of my monthly goal by about 30 miles. I got in 132.71 miles in the month of February. I needed to get in 167. Even with my +20 miles from January, I 'm still behind. I'll have to make it up somewhere...