Courtenay Brown

The other day, my mom marched in from the barn and announced: "Courtenay. Sijui is BANNED from her STALL." (Sijui is my horse, I got her in 8th grade and now she is retired at my mom's house.) Why is she banned, I asked. "As SOON as I let her in to eat, she always PEES. It drives me MAD. I JUST cleaned it! She is BANNED." See technically, Sal and Sij are friends Then yesterday... deja vu. Sal marches up to make an announcement, hands on hips and feet splayed as usual... "Courtenay. Sijui is BANNED from her stall. ...

Eagleman 70.3 is now less than two weeks away. Today I did my last long run before the race, tomorrow I'll do my last threshold intervals on the bike, then Wednesday I'll do my last mile repeats. Actually the long run was supposed to happen yesterday, and the miles would be happening tomorrow after my LT intervals, but last week I did something dumb. I saw a photo of myself from the bike leg at Columbia, decided I looked retarded, decided I would look less retarded if I moved my saddle up 2 millimeters, did intervals on the raised saddle, then oh shock surprise my left hamstring got super tight and made my knee really sore. So, I put the ...

After four weeks at my mom's house, I have determined the most exciting word in the English language. It's "WELL." Spoken by my mom, preceded by a deep breath in, accompanied by a hand gesture of some kind, and most important, this kind of "WELL." is always followed by some form of "news". My mom loooooves her neighborhood news, she is on top of it and very analytical about local happenings and personalities. She actually apologizes on the phone to people when she has no news! But "WELL." means she has something really good. "WELL. She claimed that he started smoking pot so that's why she had an affair, but I know for a fact that the pot situation was a ...

OK, I have definitely moved on from my race this weekend, time for my blog to do the same! The new kitty (prematurely named Thor) is doing well. He's been eating and drinking and beginning to make friends with one of the other cats, although he is still generally hissing at them. The best is when he hisses at the deaf cats when they walk by... they can't hear you, little one! He's still really skinny but it's only been a few days. It seems pretty obvious that he was someone's pet and they dumped him off, which sucks because people suck and are dumb, but maybe he is happier here and will have a better life. He's been neutered, and ...

O.K. so just to clarify, from yesterday: I totally don't have a job. I just meant that since I don't have all the proper I.D. (god) I can't even work until at least next week, even if someone were giving me a job, which they aren't, not yet anyway! Speaking of: today, my mom called me. "Hi Sweetie!!! SO, what are you doing to find a JOB today?!" "ugh. nothing. napping." Somehow she's really good at eliciting very teen-aged responses from me. I identify with Jeremy from Zits really well. Anyway after that her mom instincts totally kicked in to roust me from my depression (really it was just that I had just finished all my workouts and was thinking about ...

Tomorrow is 80's Day at Ben's spin class!!! I get to work on his playlist while he's at his Biochem class. I totally got the fun end of this arrangement - the other night after class he was telling us about ATP and all I could say was "?". But spin class and playlists are right up my alley. I went to his spin class yesterday and it was really fun, I had planned to just tootle along at a high easy cadence but I got really into it and I'm excited for tomorrow. I am just worried about what to wear, it being 80's day and all - i don't really have many hot pink thong one-pieces ...

Today I was on the phone with my mom. About whom I'd like to say three things: 1. Her nickname is Adventure Sal, because she constantly doing something inspiring/exhausting. Here is a photo of her hiking the Milford Track in my U.S.S. Pelelieu hat that I insisted on getting in the 7th grade and then was too embarrassed to wear since it is pretty bright, and during my formative years I spent 89% of my time worrying about what people think (as opposed to now, when I am down to ~63%). 2. I know it's weird that I call her Sal. My brother and sister do it too. Occasionally we ...

My mom just said this to me on the phone when I mentioned something I was going to freak out about (there is always a lengthy freakout list so I can't remember the exact thing)... For all of you who know me and my mom personally: is this not a pot calling kettle black situation?!? Anyhow the reason for the call was that I got a slightly panicked "Hi Sweetie!" voicemail from her today, she was concerned because she hadn't heard from me in a few days AND on top THAT I hadn't blogged in a few days either! So where was I?! Was everything O.K.?!? (see what I mean about pots and kettles?) So I had to call her ...

Greg and I got home from to Incline Village last night, after a full day of travel. Southwest Airlines is sneaky with their "non-stop" flights, which would more accurately be called "several stops but you can't get off the plane so bring 2 days' worth of water and snacks and entertainment!" Thankfully we had plenty of snacks and entertainment so the 9 hours flew by. Literally.Also, for those of you who are wondering about my new bike case, I successfully avoided the bike fee on the way home. After a bad lying attempt on the outbound flight ("um, it's equipment?") that didn't work well at all, for the return flight I brushed up my lying skills ...

I was laughing way too hard when I took this. It's a bit blurry because she was mowing really fast, like 20 mph. But then I felt bad for laughing, so I went out and picked up sticks that were in the way.