Wilmington YMCA Triathlon Weekend

This year we rented a crazy sweet house on Wrightsville Beach with 9 other friends. We stayed all weekend and had a great time.

Marty and I drove down to Wilmington with plenty of time to pick up our packets and a bunch of pizza for the gang. Marty decided to do the swim/bike and just walk the extremely long way to T1 so as not to hurt his foot. Saddest thing ever - you get out of the water in 2nd place and then are passed by everyone and their brother. He said it took him 5min to get to T1, and unfortunately the mat for the swim exit was there.

Anyways, the weekend can be summed up like this: lots of yummy food, plenty of dessert, copious amounts of alcohol, beach, laughs, and a triathlon to kick things off.

Our house was maybe 2 miles away from the transition, so all of us doing the race biked down in the morning (except for Marty who deemed our 5:30am departure time WAY too early). I got all set up and then rode the trolley down to the swim start with Cari where I was very lucky and scored a chair to sit in since I had close to an hour before my wave went off. The crew hung out and the time went surprisingly quick. Tori and I got in the water that was regrettably not wetsuit legal to warmup, and after swimming out a bit we also realized there was barely any current this year. So much for a fast swim.

The first age group women's wave, 30-39, and 6th wave of the day, went off at 7:25. I took a great line and had a decent time. This swim is a curvy point-to-point and the buoys are just used for siting and you don't have to actually go around any of them. So it's a bit of free for all after the first long stretch and people are all over the place. I cut it close to an island that is out there and even hit bottom which forced me to do a couple of dolphin dives. Good thing we practice those at our open water swim clinics.

2 girls in my wave (and also my age group) got out of the water before I did, but I managed to pass one of them on the painful long run to transition (ouchie on the feet), and the other one I passed while in T1.

The bike went pretty well; got caught behind some slower cyclists on the 'no-passing' bridge, but who didn't.  I tried to work hard and never felt all that good, which I realize you really aren't supposed to in a sprint. I also didn't let the fact that I was passing a lot of men give me a false sense of security that I was going fast. I kept pressing the whole way. I'm not a huge fan of this bike course as the roads are kind of crappy and several times cars got in between myself and other cyclists causing me to slow way down and figure out how to get by safely.

The run was sort of the same as my bike. I never felt great but pushed hard. For most of this race I really felt like I was fighting for everything - not many smiles or waves to friends this time. I had to dig for it all. 

I ended up first overall female and was super happy with it (here are the full results). This is my last triathlon of the season and I am really proud of myself for coming back post baby and having a great season, even if all my races were local sprints. I remember being 6 months pregnant watching everyone at this race last year and I'm thrilled that I could be here this year and win the whole thing.

After the awards ceremony, we all went out to lunch and then half of us crashed hard while the other half went to the beach which was walking distance from our house. That night we grilled out and had a fantastic meal and delicious cake (it was Kari's birthday weekend) before the boys and girls split up. The boys went and hung out at The Lighthouse Brewery and the girls rallied late at night to ride the beach cruisers down to the bars and skanky club. It was really fun.

Sunday was a short, easy bike ride before more beach time.  Most people left sometime Sunday, but the Aren's and Gaal's stayed until Monday morning so we were able to beach cruise it down again for a dinner out and more beer. This week will be all about detoxing from beer and too much food!

Too Busy to Blog

We flew to Florida 2 weeks ago.

Logan met his cousins, Cate & Jamie.

He had a cold.

We took a family picture.

It was great seeing the Gaal side of the family. Florida is so stinking hot and humid! At first I thought the humidity was causing a bit of curl in Logan's hair, but they are still here. It's sort of funny, just a few random curls on the side of his head.

Also, rest in peace Baby Bjorn. On the full flight back from Tampa, completely frazzled with an extremely squirmy, not happy to be sitting on mom or dad's lap baby, we forgot to grab it from the overhead bin. Even though I immediately filed a lost item report, Southwest says they haven't found it. My bet is someone else found it and understood what a find it was with all the extra back support. I'm so depressed about this.

We do luckily have the basic version graciously given to us by my sister in law.

The next week at daycare, Logan got bit on the arm by some other kid who wanted a toy. We'll be working on his right hook now.

I won a 5k but the time was so horrendous I'm not even going to say it.

We went to the Triple A baseball championship held at the Durham Bulls stadium. This is what the Bull does when someone hits a homerun. There were lots of them.

Logan is a Durham Bull's fan, too. He's also 'soooo big!'

This week at daycare, he got hand, foot and mouth disease. Once his fever broke, he was acting like himself again. But before that - the poor kid. He still has some mouth sores and isn't eating as much as normal but other than that he's good. Marty and I are crossing every finger and toe in hopes that we don't get it as it's supposed to be horrendous in adults. We should know in a week or so, I suppose.  So are any of you reading this wondering why we still have him in daycare? Sometimes I do.

Besides that, he's an expert crawler and cruiser. I love this kid.

This weekend is the last triathlon of the season in Wilmington. I will be racing age group again (I raced age group earlier this year at White Lake) since the NCTS is super strict about switching categories during the year.  Which I totally don't understand since they give the series $$$ to whoever has the highest points, not just the Open racers. And it's only my 2nd race with them so I can't even qualify for series awards. Anyways, I'm off my soapbox. It probably has to do with the administrative work involved in switching people around all the time. So yeah, going to have fun regardless and not get too annoyed about the crowds on the bike, hopefully. We've rented a house on Wrightsville with a bunch of friends and will be staying until Monday morning. I can't wait; it's going to be such a fun weekend.

Mom-in-law will be watching Logan for us. She'll have Logan overload by the end of the weekend, I'm sure!

Of shavers and pens

On vacation last month, I realized I had forgotten to pack razors. When I went to the store to buy some, I was being budget conscious and selected a razor I hadn't used before. Big mistake as it hacked my legs up but that's not what I wanted to talk about. While probably looking for some reading material in the bathroom, ahem, I read about the features of said razor (just focus on the last 2 bullet points):

Key Benefits:

•Fixed head and triple-blade technology that delivers a smooth, close shave

•Polymeric and chrome cover to ease shaving in sensitive areas

•Twin lubricating strip with Vitamin E provides great smoothness for a comfortable and safe shave

•Long ergonomic handle that allows a better handling for a comfortable shave

•Elegantly designed handles with flowers decorations (sic) for an enhanced and pleasant shaving experience

•2 pink colored handles to suit your mood


At the time I remember thinking, are you kidding me? Someone was REALLY stretching for those. {big eyeroll and headshake}

So I wasn't too surprised to see this in the news recently. Oh Bic, how I would love to listen in on your advertising/marketing meetings.

Bic Pens For Her

Some updates

Bulleted list today, my friends. I'm feeling lazy.

• Every other Thursday we do a swim/bike brick out at Jordan Lake. This is great open water practice and we get a quick little bike ride in before heading to Tyler's Taproom for eats and drinks. I was semi-motivated and actually worked the swim. It was fun having my friend Alysia out there to push me in the water. She is moving away in the coming months and I have to bank all the Alysia time I can *sob*
• I took what just might be the cutest baby picture ever last week:

• Logan is very funny when he sees one of his stuffed animals - his face lights up and he immediately starts crawling towards them to play. But poor Tassie is so confused.  I saw her walking around with Cookie Monster in her mouth the other day and Marty found Eeyore on her bed. Logan also doesn't quite get it as I caught him gumming Tassie's disgusting stuffed turkey.
• We all went to Marty's first cross country meet this past Saturday. His team is really big. One of the parents said that the word is out at the school that the cross country coach is a lot of fun. Here is Logan trying to get away from me at the meet.

• After the meet we drove down to Ocean Isle Beach to meet up with Kari/Bobby and Alysia/Jimmy for some beach time.  After several beers it was discovered that we all have super powers that should clearly be written about and optioned into a movie. I don't want to give it all away, but here are just a couple of the main characters: Asper-Man, Voice-Boy & Food Face.

Another Local Sprint

We keep it busy around here. Friday evening we met some friends out at The Triangle Wine & Beer Company where they were tapping a bunch of different Sam Adam's brews (one's I had never had - like their yummy Chocolate Bock). Logan did pretty good in the Baby Bjorn and there were a surprising number of babies/kids there (someone was even carrying around their little dog, I guess that sort of counts). 

Saturday morning was the Harris Lake Nuclear Swim, our 4th of 5 open water swims in the Triangle Open Water swim series. We definitely appreciate when competitors thank us for putting these on as they are quite a bit of work - especially for Marty who is pretty much working nonstop right now.  I'm glad we can bring open water swim events to the area, and I hope they continue to be pretty popular. 

I didn't race since I was doing a local sprint the next morning in Fuquay-Varina.  Yup, that is the name of the city, and no you shouldn't be pronouncing a bad word when you say it. I know when we first moved here we were a little unsure, but it sounds like this: few-quay. Anyways, Tri the Worx (link to results) is in Setup's TrySports series. You can qualify for series prizes if you do 4 races and this would be my 4th. The top 3 in the series get money so that will be a nice little award to get at the end of the season. 

Another pool swim/time trial start and pretty much by myself for the entire race except for when Justin Smith passed me 1 mile into the bike. The run from the pool to the transition was about as long as the swim itself. The bike was rolling and short (11.4 miles) and the run, once again, was short. There's just no way I'm in shape to run a 18:30. Plus, they had a 2.5 mile mark and then we were at the finish line not long after. Marty whined, literally whined, when I told him it was short, "why can't I ever do these short races?!"

My calves both cramped at mile 2 and I'm hoping it's no big deal. They had been behaving so well the past month or so. So I was lucky enough to pull off another win which is always fun and I got some pretty good schwag to boot.

I know a lot of people who were off racing at USAT Nationals and 70.3's - much bigger deals then my little race.  I love competing and this year local races are where it's at for us.  Maybe down the road we'll be back at the big one's but for now we'll happily sleep in our own bed and tool around with Logan at all these NC races.

Logan 8 month update

Logan turned 8 months old yesterday. It really is true when they say time flies...it's an interesting phenomenon as when he was very little I was thinking that it was ALL LIES! But now I can sit here and think, I can barely remember him being that little! (FYI, we went to dinner with some friends who have a 2 month old). And I guess it's at this point when a lot of people start to contemplate having another. I can totally understand as I'm already not clearly remembering the first several weeks and gosh shouldn't Logan have a sibling?

The answer right now (from my end, anyways) is no. I do have a lot of guilt over this, though.

But oh yeah, this is supposed to be a Logan progress report of sorts. He is full speed ahead mobile.  For the past month he had been pseudo-mobile. Meaning, he was not able to crawl forward, but was very good at going in a circle because he hadn't quite figured out how to add his legs into the mix.  Then one day (Aug 1 to be exact) he figured it out. And the gloves were off. He is fast! And now all of the sudden he has started to pull himself up to a standing position (although he still needs some help with his balance). He really likes to bounce so once he gets into this position he collapses his knees in effort to try and bounce himself, which he obviously can't successfully do.

He has two teeth right now, and no others poking through. I'm glad because teething is not so fun. Plus, I love his toothless smile.

We've still been doing a bit of cry-it-out, but more for naps then at night. Marty started going into his room late (since he tends to stay up late) and giving him a bottle. This is commonly known as a dream-feed I believe, and it was working really well. He would then sleep the rest of the night and the dream-feed was very easy and he never really woke up. He's since experimented with not giving him this bottle and he does still sleep through the night, he just gets up a bit earlier. So I sort of like that late night bottle because that way he sleeps longer.  I doubt this is a long term solution, but it works for right now.

He's doing great with eating baby food, and loves puffs and mum-mums which keep him very entertained when we go out to dinner.  He naps well at home but not at daycare. I get his sheet every day and the kid barely naps at all. I think there is just so much going on there and he has too much fun. They also lovingly say that he is very nosey so I think he is intent on seeing what all the other kids are doing (and probably trying to do it himself).

They also told me he likes to hang out with the 'older' kids in his class and likes to pull the girls ponytails. The other day one of the teacher's told me they were taking pictures of the babies for the bulletin board and Logan was literally leaning into other kids pictures trying to also be in it. Too funny.

70.3 Raleigh

Ironman just announced a new 70.3 right here in Raleigh, NC. It sounds a bit logistically challenging with 2 transition areas, but they do this at a handful of races so I have to assume that it will run smoothly.  I say assume because you all know what that means!  Anyways, the swim is at the same venue as our Big Deuce and Little Uno swim races which is closer to Pittsboro than Raleigh, but the finish line is in downtown Raleigh.

Marty and I (after a very brief discussion - I'm talking like: Me - should we sign up? Marty - yeah.) are in. It's the first weekend in June of 2013, 6 years removed from my previous half iron distance race. Those of you who know me know that I enjoy the short distance races the most, but it's hard to say no to this way expensive M-Dot event. My first half iron was Duke Liver in 2004 (bombed), my second was Duke Liver in 2005 (bombed), and my last was White Lake in 2007 (nailed) - then I retired from that distance.

So I guess I'm coming out of my half iron distance hiatus. And I can finally also say I did a half ironman. Sheesh.