Stormy Sunday at Lake Anna TRI

Check out the HOT ladies of TCP before and after the Lake Anna TRI...

The Ocho's electronic Buzz Kill

Ladies! The Lake Anna TRI is just 42 hours away! HP01, HP08, & HP09 are ready to rock Lake Anna, despite the chilly weather. The Ocho was kind enough to notify us of the water temp in the lake...."today it's up to a balmy 59 degrees." BURRRRRRRRRRRRR! That's colder than Sherando in 2005!

GO TEAM HOT PANTS!

The Great Flying El Gato Ocho!!!

Seriously, this cat is purring like crazy while Senor Ocho is doing this. Obviously HP08 hasn't been training which is why she's posting pictures of her cat.

El Gato Ocho

HP08 would like everyone to meet Rufus "El Gato" Tallent, otherwise known from here on, on this blog, as El Gato Ocho. He is completely crazy, but the Ochos love him! As you'll see, he like to sleep as close to your face as possible and prefers to travel by being carried around as opposed to actually having to do the walking himself. He is well behaved other than jumping on the kitchen table on Tuesday night and sticking his entire little white paw in to the Ocho's pasta bowl. Luckily she caught him before he ran red sauce all over the white carpet. So, enjoy the pics!



El Gato Ocho playing with his favorite toy.








Playing with in the Ocho's bags









Senor Ocho transporting El Gato Ocho










Big yawn from El Gato while he sleeps on the Ocho's neck.

The Member of the Ocho family

The Ochos are going to get a new member of their family tomorrow! No, the Ocho is not pregnant, but Senor Ocho and HP08 are going to adopt themselves a kitten tomorrow. Photos to follow, but the Ocho wanted the share the news!!!

Silent Siete Speaks

HOLAAAAHHHH! Indeed the '08 season has begun and the Siete has not only completed an event but has also resloved to blog with a little more fequency. Siete left mini-hotpants with Pico so she could go rock the Superbowl 5K at Wash Park. Though my training was not optimal, the temperature was ass-cold, and a unusual sideache that gave labor pain flashbacks emerged, Siete placed in the top 15 females and won a gift certificate (which could buy 1/4th a sportsbra at Runner's Roost). In true HP fashion, brunch with bottomless mimosas followed. Viva los hotpants!!!

Boo Yeah.

Heeeyyy HPs! Since I am the last of the original tri team to kick off the new year, I figured I should get something up so others will begin posting it up. I have very little to write in terms of training or even social antics, but I do have the cover from this week's TIME -- it's so fantastic that I feel it works. No jinxies.

First Blog, 2008!!

Happy new year, ladies!! HP02 thought she would pen the innagural blog entry for the new year, because she is rearing to get back on the wagon! January is bringing a whole new lease on life; 3 weeks of vacation in December and the ending of a dead end job (military industrial complex-employed no more!) means that HP02 is upwardly mobile, relaxed and refreshed, and ready to ROCK!
After Ocho’s LOVELY wedding in Tucson, HP02 drove down to Mexico with the only people she could recruit crazy enough to be spontaneous around the holidays: her parents. Some highlights from Mexico:

Hiking and rock climbing up a desert mountain with the craziest dude I know – my Pop. We found skulls, snakes skin, and a lion’s den. Yikes!











Every morning it was yoga on the roof and then breakfast under the palapa with a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice (just off the tree).



Jet skiing, sea kayaking, beach-combing, 4 wheeling in the desert, I'm telling you girls it is the perfect venue for an international HotPants cross training expidition!

As for training in 2008, HP02 is ready to hit the yoga circuit, and the pool. It is all about scheduled activites for this girl. Weekend bikerides and runs are a necessity, and as for events this year, if HP02 cant participate in the Bermuda Olympic tri going down in November, Cape Cod with suffice as an alternative. Thats right, destination triathlon! Yihaw!

Well ladies, its been a LONG TIME.

Girls.

Where does one start after one has taken a 2 month hiatus? Well lets start by giving a loud shout out to the ones who have been true to the basic requirements of HotPants-ness: the bloggers of the group. And by that I mean primarily the Ocho but also the Uno, both two busy, accomplished women who manage to find the time to honor their HotPants commitments. Truly inspirational, these ladies.


So in the spirit of inspirational blogging, HP02 offers her humble update. So its been 2 months and then some since HP02's last event, but she has managed to maintain an off season training schedule, despite the lack of tangible, near term fitness goals. Tuesday yoga with HP 08 and 09, Thursday tennis with HotPantsBusinessPartner, and weekend bike rides/hikes/shenanigans with the Uno and other various sordid characters. That and 1 or 2 visits a week to the pool for what I have discovered to be that other form of 'liquid confidence', swimming. Who would of thought it, but as fate would have it, HP02 loves that which she has feared and detested all her life- a public, chlorinated pool. Ew.


So in other news, I present to you Halloween. The costumes were impressive and the company top notch. Thanks and much love to SterlingHotPants, whose creativity and Halloween comittment produced this lovely "asian" duo. I love any holiday that entails a good spectacle...

The Home of the Knights.

This weekend the Ochos will head to the Great White North to visit HP08's alma mater, Carleton College. To be honest, HP08 is really looking foward to getting out of town. She feels like she needs some grounding, like she's lost her foundation a bit, and where better to find it than Minnesota, the Mother Earth of the US. She's not looking to return to her glory days, but just remind herself a bit of life outside the Belt Way. HP08 also plans on introducing Senor Ocho to her favorite College professor and stop by Hogan Brothers for some Peppermint Bon Bon Ice Cream (known to the outside world as Mint Chocolate Chip.) Unfortunately, Defeat of Jessie James Days are over for the year, but we'll still visit the museum down town. HP08 will bring back plenty of documentation of their adventures, but in the meantime, enjoy some views of the Ocho's old stomping grounds.

The Verdict is In

The Ocho talked to physical therapist today who had just spoken with her doctor and the verdict is in....HP08 and a torn abductor. The MRI results stated, "There is a high signal inferior to the left iliac crest, commensurate with abductor muscle tearing at the attachment of the gluteus medius muscle." The following chart shows the "gluteus medius muscle" in relation to the rest of the hip. I think the chart shows a right hip, so the muscle would be on the inside.



Fig. 1. —Illustration shows normal abductor muscles and tendons in coronal section as seen through hip at level of mid greater trochanter. a = gluteus minimus muscle, b = gluteus medius muscle, c = subgluteus minimus bursa, d = subgluteus medius bursa, e = subgluteus maximus bursa, f = zona orbicularis of hip joint capsule, g = superior neck recess of hip joint, h = inferior neck recess of hip joint, i = vastus lateralis muscle, k = iliotibial band.




So, all in all, this is a good new-bad news situation. The good news is that it isn't a tumor (which they didn't tell me was a possibility really until the ruled it out) and that I won't need surgery. The bad news is that they really can't do anything for me. I have to stop all activity that irritates the muscle, mainly running, and then slowly introduce it back in to my general routine. For now, I can continue swimming and riding my bike, but if that bothers it too, I'll have to figure something else out. (It's pretty much just hurting all the time now, so I know the running sets it off, but I can't distinguish between what other activities inflame the problem.) They've stopped my physical therapy too, because that apparently isn't really helping. I'm supposed to check back in with my physical therapist in a month. They said this thing could take months to heal. So, I'm happy that it wasn't anything more serious, but I'm a little bummed that there isn't something that can be done to directly deal with the problem other than "rest."
So, that's the deal. At least I finally know what's going on.

You better work... Work it girl, do a twirl! Do your thing on the run way...Work!

(yes, in case anyone is keeping track, this is HP08's second RuPaul reference of the year.)

So, even though HP03 will probably kill her, the Ocho has decided to post a photo of her modeling the bridesmaids dress for HP08's wedding. On Saturday HP03 and HP08 met up to figure out the best length for the dress, so you'll see the HP03 has is hiked up a bit. Trust them, the actual length was dowdy and TERRIBLE. It's not totally clear, but you get the idea...

Welcome to the Ocho's blog...

Well, it appears that HP08 is the only one posting anymore. Since that's the case, the Ocho will use this opportunity to air her dirty laundry and give an Ocho's life update. So, here you all go...

After much drama and work, the wedding invitations have been mailed!!! Whoo Hoo! HP08 won’t bore you all with the details, but the wild invitation ride involved $300 in postage and a massive/crazy person crying breakdown in the middle of a DC post office. Either way, they’re on their way now. My parents got theirs in two days, but a bunch of VA/DC people haven't gotten theirs yet even though they went out on Monday. Go figure. If they get lost in the mail, the Ocho is quitting her wedding.

In other wedding news, HP08 had her first dress fitting a couple of weeks ago and it went pretty well. It fit like a glove, though somehow she still managed to spend $150 on alternations. Ugh. Oh well. That’s ok, though, because HP08 will be using Sister Ocho's veil and she bought her hair decorations on ebay (thanks for the suggestion HP04), so that is some money saved. :) On November 5^th, HP03 will be heading back to the seamstress with HP08 so that they can “learn how to bustle.” We’ll see how that goes… Ok, ENOUGH WEDDING TALK!!!
HP08 has one piece of sad new. She had mentioned to a few people that she was looking at possibly taking a new job that would have been PERFECT for her. Unfortunately, even though the person that recommended her assumed it was a done deal, it didn't pan out. The Ocho was pretty upset when she found out (cried her eyes out for the second time in less than a week) and she's still pretty bummed, but these things happen and there are worse places to be than where she is now.

So, the Ocho has been a little distracted for the last couple of weeks and has been deliquent in her exercising duties. HP08 is trying to get her act together and pull herself out of wedding planning hell. She’ll be home for her first weekend in a month this week, so she's going to try to get her head on straight.
That's the update for Ocho's world. She hopes everyone is doing well!

-Ocho Out.

For a laugh...

Visit Niece Ocho's website and watch the video on top...