Lots going on

Things that have happened since I last updated:

• We bought a house – same general area but I am now only a 4 min drive away from the Kari Mayhew. Next up will be selling our current house.
• We went on vacation to the Jersey Shore, which I actually hate saying because everyone thinks of the awful MTV show.  We rented a house in Ocean Grove which is a quiet, super cute little beach town. It was lots of fun and Logan has said he wants a beach house. We’ll get right on that, kid. We might be able to afford that once you are no longer in daycare.
• I did a sprint triathlon, which was quite a disaster in reality, but at least I didn’t end up in the hospital or throwing up across the line as some others. 
• Logan gets more and more verbal each day and it’s quite amazing to hear what will come out of his mouth. Here are some recent favorites: 
•  What’s that? X 1,000 – literally, we have hit that stage where he asks what everything is.
•   What doing, Mommy? Or What doing, Daddy? Again, all the time.  He started saying this suspiciously to me last week when he would wake up from his nap and find me in the living room with cartoons on.
• No, my do it! – he is getting quite independent
• He calls any type of dessert item ‘Happy Birthday’ which is quite adorable (except when I ask him what he wants for breakfast and he responds with ‘Happy Birthday’ and then gets mad that I won’t let him).  On our drive back to NC on Sunday we asked him what his favorite part of vacation was and he said, “Ummmmmm, happy birthday!” I guess he did get a lot of treats during the week.
• He is obsessed with cars.  OBSESSED.  Other moms have said to me, oh yeah, so-and-so loved cars too, but I have yet to meet another little boy at this point that wants to play with cars as much as Logan.  Even at the beach he was constantly playing with cars, and every little kid would get a car courtesy of Logan so they would play with them. But inevitably, after a short time the other child loses interest and wants to do something else.  Logan is content playing with cars anywhere, which is really quite great sometimes for us.  If you begin to watch, a lot of pictures include cars in his hand.
• Today is Tassie’s birthday – 8 years old!!  
• And now, pics from our vacation:



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  At the bounce house

  
  

  

  Enjoying some happy birthday

  
  

  

  Burying legs

  
  

  

  The weather was great, the water was freezing

  
  

  

  Beach day every day

  
  

  

  Favorite beach game: throw the ball into the waves

  
  

  

  Some of the houses in Ocean Grove

  
  

  

  Getting ready to watch the last lifeguard competition: the very exciting Beach Flags!

  
  

  

  They all start face down, lying down. Whistle blows and sprint 60 yards and grab a flag. Like musical chairs, there is one less flag then people.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  On the Ocean Grove boardwalk looking toward Asbury Park (any Bruce Springsteen fans out there?)

  
  

  

  Heading toward the beach Saturday morning to watch Daddy in a biathlon (or aquathon)

  
  

  

  Lucky shot, right in the middle of the pic

  
  

  

  Marty ran super fast and was 6th heading into the water

  
  

  

  He finished in 5th place

  
  

  

  Logan and his trophy

  
  

  

  Dinner in Asbury Park

  
  
  
  

  

  Happy Birthday, Tassie!

Happy Father's Day

He really is such a great dad.

Raleigh 70.3

I kind of missed a lot of updating the past few weeks. But a lot did happen – we went to Bermuda for our 10 year anniversary which was awesome. I turned 35 (35!! I still can’t believe it). And this past weekend I did a relay at the Raleigh 70.3. Since I’m old now and can’t remember things, I will talk about the latest adventure since it’s still fresh in my mind.

I knew after last year I didn’t want to do the entire race again. I am not a long course athlete. Yes, I can do well at the distance, if I train properly, but I honestly don’t like ‘going long.’ I am happy doing sprints and Olympics and know myself well enough that I would not have enjoyed (again) the training involved.  Not to mention Logan is so, so fun and I mostly want to hang out with him when I do have spare time.  I luckily had some friends who were also not wanting to do the entire race (because they would be doing Eagleman next weekend) so bam, the One Step Beyond Babes were born. Back when we signed up I had good intentions of getting in really good half marathon shape and throwing down an awesome time, but blah blah blah, training for this went on the back burner and my longest run since the Myrtle Beach Half in February, was 11 miles.  Woopsy.

But let me tell you, doing a relay is where it’s at! You get all the hoopla without all the pain. And put yourself on a fast swim-bike relay team and you end up on the run course with lots of other athletes.  Alysia (swimmer) broke 30min and Mary (biker) had the fastest bike of all females in the race. Boom. Sorry guys, I really hope to break 1:50 but will be super happy with a 1:40.  Because although I’m a runner, I can have some spectacular meltdowns at the longer distances. And I knew I was under prepared for this so just didn’t know what would happen. Two things that were going to help me: 1) they changed the run course from last year so we wouldn’t have any BIG hills, just some smaller rollers that would be repeated, 2) the weather was about 1,000x better this year, topping out at 79 degrees with much lower humidity (90s and humid last year). It was a bit windy which made the run nicer, but apparently the bike much harder this year.

I also was experimenting a bit with my nutrition as I have had some trouble all year with my stomach and longer runs. I made sure to get enough calories the morning of in the form of two Honey Stinger waffles and a gel and then ate Sport Beans throughout the race. It worked! No bathroom troubles during or after which is huge for me. I was a bit hungry before I started but I guess I can deal with that if it means I don’t have to deal with bathroom issues.

When I got the chip from Mary I was determined, DETERMINED, not to go off at a pace that was in any way, shape, or form, uncomfortable.  Many of the guys that started off with me (who were doing the entire race) were running much faster than I wanted to. I stuck to my plan. And I saw most of them later on in the course :)  The run this year was two out and backs, run RIGHT by the finish line sort of deals.  Crowd support was awesome again and I knew so many people out there which kept it all interesting.  I stayed steady-eddie for the entire first lap and assessed the situation – I don’t feel bad at all. I had less than 1hr to go and figured I could start picking it up.  The first part of the second lap was definitely the hardest for probably everybody – it was now a little hotter and the hills seemed a little harder the second time.  My attempt to pick it up actually meant I stayed at the same pace, but compared to other splits I’ve seen, this was good. I hit the final turn around and now it was more of a net downhill which is how every race should end I believe. I didn’t have any ‘uh-oh’ moments except until I got to around 11.5 and I started to feel the distance in me (or probably my body was asking, wait, aren’t we done yet?!) I ended up splitting a 1:36:28 which I was very happy with.  Okay, I realize that this is way off my pr but in my current shape this is awesome.  So ahem to the person who looked at me and told me that was slow.

My relay finished 2^nd in the relay division (but of course 1^st for all females!) and my friend Kari absolutely nailed her race which made the day even better.  

I definitely feel like I win the pace-consistency award

The best babysitter ever brought Logan down again to cheer us on. It was awesome seeing him on both loops. I like this picture because of how cute the two of them look pointing at me. Please excuse my impression of a starving child.

My besties. Swim relay teammate Alysia and super fast girl Kari.

Local Tri Weekend

The Gaal’s had a solid weekend with Marty and I both bringing home the ‘W’ at two different triathlons, and Junior Awesome high fiving everyone along the way.  Marty proved at the TOA sprint that he’s not all washed up and old and won wire-to-wire.  Logan and I had a lot of fun cheering him on and listening to the announcer exclaim, “Here comes big Marty Gaal!  Old guy still got it!” I had originally thought I would also do this race and we even had an early morning babysitter lined up but this particular sprint is a bit hard and my undertrained self knew I wouldn’t have any fun suffering through it. Instead I opted for the Girls Run the World triathlon the next morning. This was a 250yd pool swim, 10mile bike, 2mile run. PERFECT!

The 7am start meant a very early wake-up. No matter, Marty and Logan still made it there to cheer me on when I got out of the swim.  The long run to transition made my sensitive footsies hurt, but I forgot about them once on the bike.  Mostly I tried to keep the snot off my face as my nose was extremely runny in the cool morning air and push as hard as I could.  I was most surprised at myself with how well I actually biked considering the hilly terrain and my lack of biking. I was in first place heading out on the run and tempo-d that through more hills.  Getting the overall win was fun, more so since my two favorite boys were there to see it.

And now, random pictures.

Trying to eat his piggies

Logan got his 2nd haircut last week

The end result

Riding his 'bike'

Enjoying his first Loco-Pop at a Durham Bulls game

I got some good schwag from the race I won

Jade and Logan hung out at the triathlon while their momma's raced

Jade trying to kiss Logan

They give stickers out at Trader Joe's and you never know where they will end up

Kari high fiving Logan on her way to an overall win

That's my Marty!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Egg Hunt

Logan's daycare held an Easter Egg hunt today for all the classes.  First, I prepped him with a little bit of competitive attitude leading up to it.

Grandma helped by getting him a very cute Easter Basket.

The morning was a little chilly (wtf spring) so Logan had to wear some long sleeves under his 'I can rock a pink shirt' and a Marty hat. Also, apparently this is his new stance when I ask him if I can take his picture.

Marty, his dad who was in town, and myself all went to help stuff eggs.  Marty wasn't happy with where the eggs were hidden (they weren't) so he went around the playground and tried to make it a little more difficult.

And they're off. Logan picked up the gist very quickly (although he definitely didn't realize there was anything IN the eggs until later that night when I opened one).

 Contemplating the Easter bunny.  At least he wasn't screaming and crying and trying to crawl into the teacher's lap like some of his classmates.