Hop aboard this train of thought

Of late, I seem to have the attention span of a fruit fly.  I’m easily occupied, and equally easily distracted. A thought pops into my head, I follow it for a while and *poof* … gone. I come up with what I am certain are going to be great topics for a blog post and again… *poof*… idea gone.

I’ve got lots of ideas swirling today, none of which are worthy of a full post.  But surely I can come up with something worthy of a few lines.

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WTF winter?  Where art thou? I’m done with this crappy snow and the grey days. As far as I’m concerned it may as well all melt so that I can go play on the trails. We can get a do-over in 2016.

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It’s no secret that I enjoy social media.  It’s allowed me to connect with people, learn about new stuff, fill time in waiting rooms, etc. However, my feeds have been filling up lately with this Girl Power trend that is making my eyes roll deep into the back of my skull.

#sweatpink… #XXlikeagirl #fitfluential, etc, etc.

Yawn.

Listen, I’m all for gender equality and encouraging women to participate in sport.  In fact, I do whatever I can to talk girlfriends into trying new things, encouraging to get out there and so on.   But I can’t stand that all things “girl power/athletic achievement” have to be labelled as something special, just because they were accomplished by a woman.

You don’t see men posting “#sweatblue”, do you?  Cue the “can’t we all just get along” argument.

When I grew up, I got along and connected way better with boys than I did with girls and always felt more comfortable around guys. Maybe that’s why all these virtual groups feel so cliquy and exclusionary to me; essentially the opposite of what they are purporting to achieve.

I don’t want my daughter growing to think that in order to kick ass it has to be labelled as something special just because she’s a girl.  Perhaps this makes me a bad feminist but it drives me bonkers.

Personally, I don’t get inspired by your pretty Instagram montage showing me that you ran 4.3 miles in pink lipstick with your bestie. I’d rather see a shot of someone – woman or man – busting their ass and pushing themselves to achieve great goals.

A picture of your pretty sunset is nice, too.

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Someone please explain the attraction of strapping a GoPro to your head/chest/end of a stick. In some cases, I totally get it: you’re at the top of the half pipe in the X-Games or you’re Sunny Garcia and you smash your face on your board. That’s hard core and I can absolutely see how people would want to somehow share in this experience.

But if you’re Joe Public and you’re filming yourself skidding down some cruiser run or riding along some bike path for ages, you’ve lost me.  Do you go home re-watch what you’ve just finished doing? Do you sit your family down and subject them to your point of view over cocktails?

Seriously. Enlighten me.

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Toques and jeans in the gym.

Guy, aren’t you hot?? Isn’t your head supremely sweaty and itchy? I know I run hot and given the choice would prefer to train in as few pieces of clothing as is respectable but just watching you gives me hives.

Sidebar: do not Google “guys + jeans + gym”. I can’t unsee what I saw.

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The upside of training clicking right along is that it is making me positively itchy to get out and race. I don’t even care what kind of race. I’m planning things I won’t even get to, but that’s half the fun, isn’t it?

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Back in November, a few days (weeks?) past Hallowe’en, I was eating the kids candy like it was my job. I have a serious sweet tooth and it was getting slightly out of hand. Liz was feeling the same way – taunted by the candy bar at her office on a daily basis. A quick text debate led to our next challenge: give up sugar for 1 month. It was a spur of the moment decision and what do you know, it’s been the challenge we’ve done that has had the biggest effect (well, the #FP one was pretty good, too.)

That’s the trouble with being friends with me.  I’ll always try to talk you into doing stupid things with me.  At least this one wasn’t that stupid.

Sidebar: I was in the pool with a friend and our kids – lots of loud splashing going on around us – and I said “Liz and I are giving up candy for a month.” She heard “Liz and I are giving up panties for a month”. Needless to say, that elicited quite the funny look.

Now accepting suggestions for the next challenge.  Participants welcome.