be careful what you post...

I know, I know. I promised pictures. I am a Pirate of my Word...Plus, pictures = did happen. right?

I swear I wasn't scared off by this PSA about posting - but it did slow me down a bit. Surely you've seen it? Teenaged girl goes about her day confronted by all manner of strangers and creepy people who say, "hey Sara, like your new tattoo" or "hey Sara, can't wait for your next picture!"

eww!

I confessed that I initially watched the PSA and was consumed with curiosity - what did she post? Surely she didn't post her naked self online for the whole world to see?

And then it did occur to me that I could run into people on the street who would ask me personal questions about my personhood. Uncomfortable questions. Weird questions.

I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

So.

Here goes nothing...


Here is me, fresh and frisky from the Sandia Peak Snowshoe Race. Observe: hat by Turtle Fur, boots by Keen, t-shirt by the Mount Taylor Quad. Is it a memento? You're damn straight it's a memento!



Here is me wearing a BCBG Green sweater, skinny jeans, and tall boots. And makeup. Oh my god, Makeup. Wow my lips are shiny. If the makeup seems a bit much, it's because we'd gone from "day wear" makeup to a more dramatic look - just to show me what I look like, not as an everyday thing. On shopping day, I understood this sweater right away. I even understood the jeans. This was an obvious purchase at the time.



Here is me wearing a sweater by Kenzie, jeans by Michael Kors, and The purple shirt (Antonio Melani). If I look like I can't keep my eyes open, it's because I can't keep my eyes open. I was starting to get really tired by this point. I didn't really "get" the purpose of this sweater for awhile - but now it's a staple. It's not too long, not too short, and it really does go with everything. Welcome to the 21st century.



Here is me in a really really cute little short navy shirt thing that I love by DEPT. I don't have to explain, I just like it. And some pants (Kors) and a shirt I already owned. This little shirt is part jacket part shirt, kind of dressy kind of not. It has a tuxedo collar and tuxedo pleats up the front, and it was love at first sight. It was not on sale, it is not wicking. I did not care.


Behold, the Zebra coat.

Don't you love these red shoes? Born. Who'da thunk it?!

And the Jeans? I know. They are fabulous, no? Kors!

There you have it - fabulous before and after me!

Just so you know, Larisa is great, she's now linked my blog to her website for all the world to see. If you want to know more about her, feel free to contact me.

And if you are a random stranger and you run into me in the street, please don't be weird.

Thanks.

the fashionable pirate?

On the 25th day of Christmas, my mama gave to meeee: 1 date with an image consultant.

Yes. An Image Consultant.

Now, before I start getting distressed email...what? image consultant? whatever for? you are fabulous, you don't need to change a thing!

I totally agree, that is all true. I don't need to change...but it sure would be nice to look good. Most of the time I may feel really good, but I don't think I look good all the time. I feel kind of like a shlump.

I'd say my "look" (if you could call it that) is Urban Street Mom Who Doesn't Care. Hopelessly Casual. Refugee from a Gap Sale. This condition is not helped by my career choice: I am a professional woman, I work in consultancy, I'm an engineer. Engineers and consultants are notoriously fashion challenged. For me, fashion challenged = (jeans + t-shirt + Keens) x infinity.

I can hear all the guys out there saying, what's wrong with that? Which sorta illustrates my point exactly.

Somewhere around the time I had my babies, "fashion" became less of a concern. It's recently dawned on me that I don't need to give up on looking good. I'm in the prime of my life, I'm in the best shape I've ever been - so why do I go around looking like I don't care?

I am more than that!

So. An image consultant. Thanks, Mom!

The first date with the image consultant was jarring. I met her in my office. I was wearing some of my better jeans, and a cashmere sweater, and (of course) Keens.

I'm shocked when she swans in looking glamourous and smelling fabulous. She is Russian. I had pictured someone blonde, probably overweight, probably wearing too much make up.

Way back when I lived in Europe, I spent a month or so in Azerbaijan and got to know a little teeny bit about Russian culture from the Azeri perspective. While this is not a true perspective of what Russians are like, I do know that Eastern Europeans are generally known for being fabulously chic. Culturally, they are blunt. They swear a lot. They are fabulous swearers, artful polyglots.

The image consultant lady comes into my office and tells me, in the kindest possible way, that while I'm in fantastic shape (I should bloody well hope so) my sweater looks like crap on me.

Suddenly, my favourite $3 cashmere sweater goes from being a fuzzy warm thing to an emotional object. A favourite teddy bear. A woobie.

Did she just say it looks like sh*t? What does she mean it looks like sh*t?

She tells me I should wear makeup, and maybe cut my hair a little.

What's wrong with my face?

I tell her I'm open to a lot of things, but whatever she suggests will have to be easy or it won't happen. It's gotta be portable. I never know where I'm getting dressed in the morning - my house, the gym, the pool, it's a crap shoot. Ok, she says, we can do that.

I tell my husband about it. I ask if he's worried about this little process not that his opinion matters, but it does. He says he's not worried. He says, I'm pretty confident that at the end of this, you'll still be you.

sigh. I knew I liked that guy.

The second date with the image consultant was slow to dawn on me. She spent a couple of hours with me describing my colors for me. Basically, I'm a summer. Oh goody, I love summer! I'm a cool summer. I have red undertones. This means cold colours and muted tones are my colours: cold reds, cold pinks, pale yellow, charcoal gray, shiny silver, lavender, crisp white, and basically any blue.

As she tells me this, my brain goes completely blank. Huh? Colour? Whu?

She brings fashion magazines and circles items she thinks will suit me, but I'm distracted. I can't focus on what she's trying to teach me. Is that Katie Holmes? What in the hell is she wearing? She's like 9 feet taller than her husband, Mr. Shorty Cruise. He's super short. He married up. Heh. Married up.

Outfit? Surely she doesn't mean to dress me like that? Oh no. This can't be good...

She asks, bluntly, "what do you think of what I am wearing?" Of course, I'm torn. On the one hand she looks fantastic - but would that be a look for me? Not bloody likely. I don't wear heels. I don't like linen. It's so...girly!

All I can muster is, I like your jacket. It was a good jacket - red, alligator, shiny.

After she leaves, I tell my husband about her assessment. I worry that she will make me throw away my most favourite item of clothing: my jCrew cargo pants. My prized, specially distressed jCrew cargo capris. So what if the drawstrings are worn down to threads! So what if I've been slowly losing all the buttons! I probably paid an extra $20 for these holes! So what if it has a hole in the...oops...new hole in the crotch! Crap! She's going to say that they are not my colour and I'll have to throw them away, since browns are apparently deadly for me. My husband joked that she would really nail me on those pants..."Are you painter? Are you carpenter? Throw away."

Boys can be so cruel.

The third date with the image consultant was the one I was most dreading: the closet clearout. Oh Dear God, I have to let her into my closet to critique my clothes. For three hours, she and I went through my closet. She examined everything.

Everything.

She immediately exposes my vast collection of black t-shirts. "Here we have, black t-shirt...and here we have, another black t-shirt. And here we have..." What's wrong with black? I thought black was universally chic? No? OK, I can take a hint.

I am starting to get how those poor shlubby people feel when those What Not To Wear people tell them they can't wear their favourite sweatpants anymore. Talk about getting out of my comfort zone - this was like being asked to run naked down the street!

It wasn't like she forced me to give up any precious objects, it was more subtle than that. She would hold up items and say things (in a withering Russian accent)...

"Do you need this?" well, when you put it like that...

"I think khakis are lazy." Huh. I suppose I don't really need 4 pair of the same exact pants.

Her hand lands on a pair of riding pants, she asks "Are you riding horses?" well, not...specifically...but um...

"Do you wear this?" um, I used to, but um...no. I guess not.

"This is horrible colour." let me just..um...find a place in the trash for that then...

"This looks old." well, you know, it does. Now that you mention it, I have had that for oh, 12 years now...I guess I don't wear it...

"This is fine for weekend" Gee, I seem to have a lot of weekend wear, don't I?

"Is this memento?" what are you saying? Are you saying 1985 called and it wants its sweater back?

At the end of the day, she was right. I could defend nothing in my closet that she identified. She and I filled 2 lawn-and-leaf sized trash bags with stuff from my closet - much of which I had pretty much forgotten I had in there.

And after she left, I went through my vast t-shirt collection and filled another kitchen trash bag. And shoes. Truly, I was only down to a couple pairs of shoes I wear regularly (Keens), so it's OK to get rid of all the others.

What about my training kit? Now that is interesting. I was all prepared to fight tooth and nail for anything in the technical clothing realm, but she said right off the bat that she would not touch my technical gear. She said "you know what you are doing with that." Even so, every cycling jersey, every technical top, vest, etc. that she saw, she complimented. It was all in my colour family - happy cold blues and reds and pinks. I suppose it doesn't hurt that the good people at Pearl Izumi and Sugoi seem to make all their stuff in Guy colors -- blues, reds and blacks -- but it's nice to know that it works for me.

Or she was being nice.

Tomorrow's date with the image consultant: we shop.

According to my mother, the shopping is an endurance event all on its own - it will take fully an entire day. She's already been pre-shopping for me, I suppose to streamline the event.

Still. It's been ages since I've had a proper girly shop day.

Should be fun!


eep!

bra test part 2

Still test-driving bras, I cheaped out and ordered a new one on e-Pay because I'm a busy person with not enough time to actually go to a store and try one of these things on.

The new bra came today: a CW-X Sport-Support. There's even a Runner's World Review of it (and another CW-X bra) which says it "looks sleek and minimal, but achieves perfect tightness".

I've copied the review and the image that came with the CW-X Runner's world review to the left here. Can you see how this would support the idea of sports-bra perfection in my mind?

My Sport Support looks very cool, it's very light. It has patches of meshy fabric in useful looking places. The fabric is smooth and kinda silky, it looks sporty. It claims to have some kind of internal support system that vaguely resembles an asterix, which will (allegedly) keep my boobs happily in one place and not bouncing crazily in all directions. Certainly this would be a plus.

Admittedly, CW-X make a couple different kinds of bras which appear to have different levels of support (and their tights are WICKED AWESOME). This "sport support" bra is probably on the light side. However, reading their website nowhere do they say "this bra is good for washing pets" or "this bra is good for yoga" or some other statement that would lead me to purchase one of their products over the other for certain sport specific activities. Maybe I missed that part...

So I tried it on. I test bounced it.

Uh, this is a running bra? I'm a little reluctant to go running in this thing.

For comparison purposes, I test-bounced my day-wear (a standard Victoria's Secret underwire bra). The tremor factor was about the same.

I am not holding a lot of confidence that the CW-X Sport Support is capable of supporting the girls.

At this point, I'm not confident it would do a great job of supporting any chesticles, unless you are a man-person not afflicted with Gynocomastia.

This bra is probably suitable for pet washing.

Also, some of the ladies on Cool Running have said it's a chafer, and that would be a deal breaker.

However. I will withhold judgement and test-run it fer real and give it a true thumbs up or thumbs down...watch this space.

I realized, after writing previously about brassieres, that I have owned a Maia bra by Moving Comfort (this is also sold on Title 9 as their 2 in 1 wicking bra). I loved my Maia. I bought it way back when I first started doing anything cardio and keeping the girls down first became an issue.

The Maia bra does work great. It is heavy duty. It works so great, in fact, that I shrank - I lost an entire cup size wearing it. Now I can no longer wear my Maia bra (Anybody need one? Free to good home? Hardly broken in?).

Some have also suggested a bra called the Enell. Enell makes a bra for men with Gynocomastia. It sure sounds like they know a thing or two about chesticles. I have heard rave reviews about Enell. Title 9 sells it as their last resort.

Admittedly, if I had big ones, Enell would be the first place I'd shop. Ol' Enell there looks like she'd hold a sherman tank down. Oprah recommended Enell (that's an endorsement if ever I heard one).

Thanks to Maia, I no longer require anything quite as full-strength as Enell. I'm shopping for the sports bra that says, "I don't really need a sports bra, but this was cute, and well, you know..." Not (as 21st Century Mom put it) the bra that says "MY BOOBS BOUNCE WHEN I RUN, YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT???"

I think I want to try the Champion Vapor. As someone said on the Cool Running forum: "this bra makes my boobs look fast." But I think I'll go touch it in person before I commit.

..and after I test-run the CW-X.

patagonia gear review

I was gonna write this great review on the awesome bra I ran in today...Maybe I will.

I was composing the review in my head as I ran, and forgot it all when I got home. It was a fairly cool bra, I had such high hopes for it.

Before any male readers start with the TMI stuff, you should know that this is vital data for those of us who have bosoms who like to run. Many of you have wives or other women in your lives, and perhaps they have chesticles? Please understand that it HURTS when they bounce too much. It's a bit tricky when you have boobs and you want to run and you want keep the bounce/pain to a minimum.

Most of the cute activewear I have found seems to be made for chicks with little or no stuff up top - mostly B cups. This is because most active persons don't have this issue - low body fat usually means no boobs, because boobs are the first thing to go when you lose fat. You may think I am blessed. I think they are just boobs.

Hey when you've breastfed twins, all the magic goes away, OK?

Anyway. Because I am vain, I end up running in the cute clothes made for chicks with no boobs and then put a sports bra or two on underneath or on top. This is a good, inexpensive strategy - good running bras are not cheap, but uni-boob smasher bras are.

I learned this strategy, in fact, from a running store when I tried to buy a "serious" running bra. The young thing behind the counter said, "You don't want a running bra, they are expensive. Go to Target and buy two boob smashers - works just as well for less money". I figured she knew what she was talking about (she looked to be about a C cup), and she was right.

If you're like me and run 3 or 4 times a week, it means you might need 3 or 4 good running bras. So I'm constantly shopping for good bras, or cheap smashers.

Title 9 has the best bets for running bras which they will happily sell me - for a price. They have this great "barbell" rating system - the higher the barbell the more support you get. I love their bras. Alas, they are quite pricey.

About a week ago, I picked up a Patagonia Capilene Active Sports Top (bra) on sale. I was suspicious when I paid for it, I even asked the clerk "why is this still here?" after all, it was my size (34 C/D), and it was capilene, and Patagonia (or "patagucci" as I usually call it). And allegedly "high impact." And not a stupid color (it's Black). She said if it's defective I can bring it back. "No," I said, "you don't understand my question. Why is this still here? I mean, why hasn't someone else bought it? Is it a crappy bra?"

She didn't know.

Patagucci's stuff is legendary in my closet. My very favourite jacket from them is my R4 windproof fleece that refuses to die. I've had it for at least 5 years now. The seams gave out on me once near the waist. I sent it to them and they returned it to me re-stitched, good as new.

Well, I test ran their bra today on a 12 mile run.

I loved it when I tried it on, it's 1000 times easier to put on than my Danskin cross-back underwire Boob-Smasher. And what's not to love about Capilene? I hoped the wicking would translate to reduced chafing. It is stretchy enough not to mess with Monsieur Garmin's chest strap, I can wear the two without feeling those funny pinchy spots I get with my other 'serious' running bras.

Lately, for whatever reason, I've been getting the chub rub. Maybe it's because I'm wearing less now when I go out running (because it's warming up), or maybe it's because I'm a lard butt, I don't know. It's early in the season. I'm in serious need of anti-chafe devices. Me and body glide are starting to be friends.

It was a truly glorious day for a run. I had a good dinner last night and some breakfast with the girls, so I felt way more energetic than the last time I went out for a long run. After 2 days of rain we got lovely sunshine and just a touch of cool air this morning.

It was at about a third of the way through my run I decided it was a pretty decent bra - and it doesn't chafe. And it wicks like a sponge. Capilene really is the business!

I started out the morning wearing long sleeves, and at the turnaround, I decided to show off my new bra and took off my top, chub be damned!

Yes, I'm a little pink now.

About halfway home, I took a potty stop and started again with a decidedly more energetic bounce. It was at that time I realized that this new brassiere was less supportive than the boob smashers, I just hadn't realized it because my gait had gotten progressively flatter through the miles. Or perhaps the material, as it got wetter, got less supportive. Or maybe my longsleeve top was providing more support than I realized. I'm not sure.

Hrm. Note to self: No chafe, but doesn't keep the girls under control.

When I finished, I picked up the people and we all went for some food. At some point I caught sight of myself in the mirror and realized that the patagucci had made my front parts look like the front parts of someone considerably saggier than I am used to. Maybe it was the high neckline, or maybe it did smoosh them down - around my waist. Not a flattering profile.

I give it 2-3 barbells - awesomely wicking, and pretty cool looking until I saw my profile. Maybe if it were a cup size smaller it would give the support I need. Or maybe if I were a cup size smaller it would work better. For now, I'm afraid I'll have to put another uni-boob cheapie sports bra over the top of it to make it work.

Sigh. At least it was on sale.


(oh, and it was a really great run today by the way)

(and did I mention I swam 3000 yards yesterday? Three. Thousand.

Glug)