On to greener pastures

10 years ago I was having a really rough time in my athletic life – some influencing people were basically killing anything I enjoyed about running. I was finishing up my junior year, on a full scholarship, and pretty much wanted to quit and walk away from it. That’s how I ended up getting back into triathlons after having doing a bunch as a youth. My dad suggested participating in some of the central Florida sprints as a way to have fun again while competing.

I did have fun; a lot of fun. I met some new people, including a husband and wife that my dad had recently met. I was finishing up the run of the first sprint triathlon in Clermont when Wendy gave me a shout as she was starting her run. A local elite stud was cooling down chatting with her as they had gotten to know each other through some triathlon forums over the past year. She turned to him and asked if he was single – he was, and she told him that she knew a girl he should meet.

So yes, that was Marty, and we have Wendy to thank for setting us up. Her and her husband, Al, were so in love and such nice people – good people, genuine people.

I remember when I first met Wendy she said something that stuck with me. As I said before, I was going through a low point – as I was talking to her about what was going on she said, “don’t let someone so unworthy take up space in your head” I could really relate to that and tried my best to stop worrying about someone who was causing me so much anxiety.

Wendy lost her battle with melanoma last night. She was 50. She will be missed greatly by many, many people, including Marty and I.

Racing Weekend for All the Gaal's

Two years ago Marty and Tassie did the Umstead Coalition run. It's one of the few runs that allows dogs and she won for doggies. We couldn't do it last year because it was the same day as the 5280 open water swim, but this year they were on separate weekends. Since Marty was doing the Triangle Orthopedic Sprint triathlon on Sunday, it was me and Tassie for the run.

We got her shaved and mohawked-up and then dyed it pink for the run.


The run didn't start until 9:45 and I was a little worried because it was starting to get pretty warm. And Tassie was SUPER excited just being at the venue with all the other dogs and people. She didn't heed my advice of being a zen-doggie pre-race.

The start was a little dicey because there were a lot more people than two years ago, and you have to make a sharp right turn after 30 yards. Tassie was all over the place not exactly understanding what was going on. It took us awhile to get into a groove, and then we saw Marty which activates her ADD as evidenced by this video. This is what I imagine is going through her head: Run Happy! Happy Run! Love Running! Oh HI DADDY!




(I apologize for the poor quality of the video and pictures, they are off the blackberry as we seem to have misplaced our real camera once again)

We came through the 1 mile in 7:09 (it was a slight downhill). The 2nd mile had a big uphill and a dog passed us! I was all ready to pick it up but held back upon realizing that maybe Tassie was a bit tired and hot. See what a good mom I am? I can totally have kids. Anyways, we hit the 2 mile turn around and I missed our split because I was trying to get her to drink some water (they had dog bowls out) but she didn't want to waste anytime on that so we took off and she cruised on back down the hill and we put a bunch of distance on the other dog. He had obviously started off a little too quick ;)

We hit the 3 mile mark in 21:47 and then Tassie was on a mission to pick off as many people as possible. We passed so many people in the last mile (now with a slight uphill) and she totally gave these two guys we passed the "Lance Armstrong Look."



I am SO not joking about that! She seriously got some sort of second wind and was mowing everyone down. Marty was trying to run ahead of us here to get a good shot but Tassie wouldn't let him so that's why this is from behind.



There was one girl who was ahead of us (but she didn't have a dog) so Tassie and I were 2nd and 3rd women overall in a time of 28:45. Yup, we totally went sub-7 for the last mile! She beat me by a nose :)

So yes, she is doggie champion once again. And she got lots and lots of attention from everyone because she is so nice and had the punk rock mohawk.

Then this morning she got even MORE attention out at the triathlon. She's a regular celebrity in these parts.

I Got Something New, Too!

I know several people that either just got a new bike, will be getting a new bike, or are getting a new bike built.

Oh yeah, well, I got NEW BIKE SHOES.



So put that in your pipe and smoke it!

My blog moved

As Marty mentioned in the previous post, my blog moved. I don't really get all the stuff he explained to me. I started out trying to understand and then he turned into the teacher in 'Peanuts' WAH WAH WAH. My current blog address is http://www.martygaal.com/briblog/ or http://brigaal.com/ but now its something else. Or it's not. Which I guess if you're here than you found it. Or maybe you're tired of reading my crap-ola, which is also fine. But I'll still be here regardless.

So here is a screenshot of the old website - still out there, but I have no idea if anyone actually goes here to get to our blogs anymore.

There's A LOT of old stuff on here. All of our travel pics from "Trippin' 06" and the archive to our updates back then. We were keeping triathlon-related updates as well as trip-related updates during that time. Anyways, this website is all ftp based which is like old website stuff - all I know is it was kind of complicated putting up pictures and making updates on this thing. Blogger makes it all so easy. Our updates go back to 2003 - and if you dig around, you may find some pretty funny pictures. Like this one:

blog is moving

This is Marty. I have hijacked Bri's blog. Blogger is discontinuing FTP support for blogs so we need to move Bri's blog to briblog.martygaal.com (which will then go to a google host page), having some technical issues, so if Bri's blog disappears anytime soon you can yell at me.

Here is a picture of a goat.

Of Swimming and Vacuums

Big day tomorrow – first open water swim of our series, which is run in conjunction with the Beaver Dam Olympic Triathlon. I know a lot of people who will be out there racing and it will be a lot of fun cheering everyone on. I am not doing the open water swim or the triathlon – I’ve held steadfast to my belief that it is way too cold (for me) to do an open water swim race right now and I don’t believe that the water is actually 70 degrees despite what people have been declaring. Particularly since it rained last night (which washed a lot of the pollen away - thank god) – it’s now a wee bit chilly. I have done races where the water has been colder (59 degrees thankyouverymuch in Geelong, Australia), but this is just a swim and a swimmer I am not. Much less one who wants to get in cold water willingly.

In the afternoon we have a Master’s bbq/cookout. And then at night we have another party to go to – obviously we are not ones to turn down social gatherings.

And in the category of ‘how boring can I make this blog’ we bought a new-to-us vacuum. A second hand, not very used Dyson. And it is AWESOME.

Lame.

It has exploded

So last Saturday was all cold and I was bundled up on our bike ride. Not so this weekend, as I stripped down to trishorts and a sportsbra during the runs of our broken brick. And now that it warmed up all the trees rejoiced and have exploded their pollen all over. Our car is a dark green, not yellow: