My First Tri and Some "Gifts"

The other night Andy and I were waiting for a table at Avec (great restaurant in the Chi) and I was looking through pictures on my phone. Andy and I have been together long enough where sometimes we don't talk to each other while out, instead we look at our respective I-phones. Sometimes, if he is being really sweet, he will text me while I am standing next to him, how romantic :) But, back to my point. I found pictures on my phone of my very first triathlon in August 2004. I had very long blond hair and, dare I say, looked a bit younger than I do now. Boo, I think I will stop looking at old pictures of myself.

I started thinking back to that first triathlon and I did not know much at all. I remember it took me 2:47 which I was happy with, I wanted to get under 3 hours. The bike took me 1:22. I was scared to death of having to make a U-turn, I was sure I would fall over. I remember coming out of my clips and probably screwing everybody else behind me. I was psyched with my run because I held under 9 minute miles and, like most, I was hooked and could not wait to sign up for my next race. Of course, there were a few speed bumps that included a marathon run while having strep throat, a stress fracture and then the subsequent rehab. However, I made it and did three races in 2005 culminating with my first half ironman down in Miami (MiamiMan). That was another race where I was slightly clueless. I remember being scared that two water bottle cages was not enough, I thought I needed 4. Andy talked me out of this because, there are Aid Stations on course, duh! I knew that I needed to refuel after the swim so I shoveled down an entire clif bar 10 miles into the bike in about two bites and continued to drink gatorade and take large numbers of Gu's. I got off the bike bloated and started running. I don't think I have to explain any further, most can figure out what happened during the run. Lastly, I got a huge cramp about a mile from the finish and was forced to walk for a bit. I wondered if I would ever be good enough to run the entire 13.1 miles without stopping! But, I finished, called my parents and said I can't imagine that people actually do Ironmans, scarfed down a ton of food and got on the plane to go home thinking about what races I would do the next year (said races did not include an Ironman). To this day, I still have not done an Ironman but I think my time is coming. I did what I call a 3/4 distance---2.4 mile swim, 80 mile bike, 18 mile run in November 2006. Consequently, someone told me that is the perfect distance because the 80 mile and 18 mile points in an Ironman are where it starts to get really tough.

In other completely unrelated news my cats had a fun morning in our backyard today. I heard a very loud bang while in the shower this morning so I jumped out and ran downstairs in my towel to find both cats stalking an injured pigeon in the backyard. I don't know if it hit a window and fell into the yard or if one of the cats caught and it ran into something trying to get away. So, before herding the cats inside I took a picture of the event so I could send it to Andy since I knew he would be proud of our children. Afterwards I got the cats in the house so the pigeon could recover and leave the yard. Neither of the cats were pleased with me at this point because I was ruining their fun. I eventually had to shoo the pigeon out of the yard through the back gate and then let the rascals back outside because they were making it very clear that I needed to let them back outside immediately with their whiney meows.

This is not the first time a pigeon has been captured, however, last time it was brought in the house dead and placed on the rug by a very proud kitty named Storm. I discovered it while enjoying my breakfast and after determining that it was indeed, dead, took a picture to again document for Andy.

That's all the excitement from here today. Can't wait for Oct. 5, back to some structured training!