Answering Some Questions

Dawn, an occasional commenter asked what the heck is a bunhugger? It's the name given to the tighty little shorts collegiate and fast runners wear in races. Here I am in a track meet in college in some bunhugger glory.



I drew the arrow lest you think I'm the tiny little blonde thing. I do remember outsprinting her at the end - giant versus the petite girl.

Truth be told, bunhuggers aren't a whole lot different than what a lot of people wear in triathlons, but if you are wearing them at a road race you'd better BRING IT. And another truth be told, there was only one girl who was sporting the true bunhuggers at the 5K this past weekend. The other two were wearing the slightly cuter, but you still better have a rockin' body to pull them off, boy shorts.

And here I am in the race, un-bunhuggered. Sorry mom, the pink shorts were in the wash so I had to resort to some black ones. Again, I drew an arrow lest you confuse me with a man.


And Courtenay asked for at least a description of the spider lady from the fair. It was a woman whose head was sticking out of this hole, and surrounding her head was a very bad spider costume. The trick was that the space below the spider body was completely empty, so it was just a really good optical illusion. That we all wasted $1 on.

Since I'm in a drawing mood, this is not really what it looked like but I gave it my best 6 year old effort.

So this Friday Marty and I will be traveling to the great state of Florida to attend the "Worlds Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" also known as the Florida/Georgia game. Except you're not supposed to call it the cocktail party anymore because some kids got drunk and died or something a couple years back. Anyways, we WILL NOT be cheering for the stinkin' Gators. Go Dawgs!

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5K

Marty and I were planning on doing a 5k on Sunday afternoon called the Monster Dash and people supposedly dressed up in Halloween costumes. I was pretty excited and was going to wear a genie costume I’ve had for years since it seemed like it had enough flow to run in. Although I would have to come up with something to keep the little headdress/handkerchief thingy in place. Marty has superman pajamas so that would be his costume. Don’t think too much on why a soon to be 38 year old man has superman pajamas.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, we were informed that the awards banquet for the NCTS was Sunday afternoon. Marty and I had both assumed it was Saturday night – but everyone knows what assume means. And we would’ve proven that definition had we shown up at the North Raleigh Hilton on Saturday night.

So we signed up for a 5K Sunday morning instead. There’s a bunch of road races in the area at this time of year (there was actually a 3rd one right by our house at a park but that one was also in the afternoon). Although some people don’t agree with us, we both like to do road races even if we feel like we’re not in tip top shape just because it’s fun to go out there and hurt a little bit. And haha to those of you who told me there wasn’t any reason why I still couldn’t dress up in my costume for this race.

Marty signed me up for this race and he definitely knows how to spell my name. I was so annoyed when I got my number and BRIANNA was typed on the bottom. Gah! That’s not my freaking name! 2 syllables – BRI-ANNE. Sorry, for this mini rant that I realize shows up on my blog about once a year, but after 30 years of having my name mispronounced I’m weary.

It wasn’t a big race but the fact that they had a bit of prize money meant that there would be some fasties showing up. We have too many good universities in the area and the post collegiates like to mop up any money that might be floating around at the road races. Sure enough, I saw the bunhuggers lining up before the start.

The start was typical – everyone goes off sprinting and I’m left behind thinking “You all just wait! Once I get up to speed I’ll hunt you down!” :) I ran my way into 4th place after a few minutes and the bunhugger trio was way up the road. I went through the mile in under 6 minutes and they were so far ahead I can’t imagine what they went through at. Just after the 2 mile mark bunhugger #3 was coming back to me. I passed her around the 2.5 miles and was in the money for about 15 seconds, before she unleashed that “I’m still 22 and can kick for 600 yards old woman” on me. And the $50 slipped away. Still managed to run 18:45 which I’m stoked about. The course was not hill-acious, but it was also not flat.

And anyways, I got me a nice little check later on in the afternoon at the banquet. “The Man” Dave Scott was handing out the awards and gave an interesting speech. Maybe I’ll use my winnings to buy some bunhuggers.

Not likely.

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State Fair

It's that time again when people all across North Carolina flock to the fairgrounds in Raleigh in search of the grossest fried creations imaginable. Besides the very typical fried candy bars, ho ho's, pb & j's and mac n cheese, this year they also had chicken fried bacon and fried butter. Disgusting.

Here are some pictures I stole from Kari's fb. Thanks, Kari!


We paid $1 to see spider girl, but they wanted another to take her picture. Kari tried to take one on the sly but it didn't come out, so I guess you'll have to come down and see her for yourself.



They wanted me to buy this t-shirt, but seriously people, if I get a Team Edward shirt it will be classy. This is not it. Duh.


Kenny can fry it, but he ain't that good of a spellur.



I brought my A-Game and decided to step it up a notch by dipping my fried oreo in cheese. It was really good.



Future Farmers of America. Or as Kari captioned this picture on fb "what did you do last saturday night? i showed my cow."



This was the one "ride" we did. I'm on the far right, Alysia is next to me and Kari is next to her.



And I totally kicked it's ass. I win.



Seriously, I love my friends. They are too much fun. We got there nice and early for the pig races (you have to get there 1/2 hour early to get a seat) and it was worth it. The last race of the night are the pot-bellied pigs and the owner (very big old redneck) picks old women from the audience to cheer for one of the pigs, and if your pig wins you get a prize AND you are named Pig Queen. Kari and I shot our hands up high in the air when he came to our section and he started making fun of us for being too young and not knowing which end is the right end of the pig (or something, honestly, I didn't get some of his jokes) but he pointed a finger at me and said "You!" So I jumped up all excited and he says, "No, not you, YOU!" and is pointing at Kari. I totally got dissed by the racing pigs owner. Oh how low can you get in your life?!

Here's Kari trying to become pig queen.



And a very funny video.




I rallied this morning and had a good 9 mile run at Umstead but was totally overdressed since I'm not used to cold weather.

And then it was lots of football today. Marty comes home tomorrow night. I miss my other half.

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Goings On

Into another week already! October is flying by and we actually had to turn the heat on this morning (a little different from my Florida readers I suppose - after hearing the grumbling from my family about how HOT it’s been down there).

Marty and I drove down to Pinehurst on Saturday to cheer fellow athletes and clients on. It was extremely humid and both of us were very glad we weren’t racing after just doing the run course. This is a nice race, but it’s very challenging and the elements didn’t help much. Every single person I talked to after the race had pretty much the same sentiment: “Ugh, that was really hard.” October is a difficult month to predict the weather here; sometimes that race is freezing and other times, not so much. It was not so much on Saturday, although Sunday was crisp as Marty and I headed out for a run and a little mountain bike ride after. The running was training, the biking was just ‘working out.’ Its fun to go on nice bike rides and just enjoy the scenery.

Saturday I was also pretty intent on watching IM Hawaii, tracking one of my good friends and reading her husbands facebook status updates. Brooke was solid throughout the day and ended up 5th in her age group (podium!). I am so happy for her!

I also just started to read the books that the HBO show True Blood is based on, to help satiate this new found vampire appetite I have. Marty is thrilled because he’s always loved anything and everything vampire, and one of my favorite quotes from him early on in our relationship was him trying to convince me to watch some horrible vampire movie: “There’s vampires in it! How bad can it be?!” (it was bad). But these books are pretty entertaining and we rented a couple of the episodes since we don’t have HBO, and they are also interesting.

And now for some Tassie antics. Last night when I was giving her her dinner (as she patiently sat and waited for me to pour the food – she is very obedient like that), I accidentally dropped a kernel into her water dish. This happens frequently but I just didn’t feel like getting my hand all wet to dig it out so I just left it in there. A little while later I heard bubbles being blown, and sure enough Tassie was dunking her head into the water bowl trying fish it out. I didn’t even know dogs could blow bubbles!

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Ironman Hawaii

It seems like these days almost everyone is talking about the Ironman World Championships taking place in Hawaii this Saturday. I was lucky enough to accompany Marty out there in 2005 and it was quite an experience. For those interested, here’s his race report. I always enjoy reading Marty’s race reports and I realize I may be a bit biased, but they’re not full of flowery language and “oh I learned so much about myself out there”, but more “this is what happened” with a mild sarcastic drip. I wrote a novel detailing our entire trip but it doesn’t seem to be on the old website anymore.

I’ve mentioned my dad before on here, and some of you have met him at the races – he’s on the board of directors of USAT and is kind of a big deal. Haha, just kidding, I just felt like getting a Ron Burgundy quote in there. Seriously, he has been around the sport for a looooong time and knows a lot of people, but this is his first time ever out in Hawaii to watch the big show. He left me a message last night saying he just found out that he, along with the mayor of Kona, gets to shoot off the cannon for the start on Saturday! It also pays to be nice to Marty and I because he was able to hook up some of our friends with some VIP passes which gets them all sorts of swag, entrance to pretty much anywhere, free tickets to the banquets, and who knows what else. It’s all about who you know. We accept cash, checks, bribes, and gear :)

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Lake Royale Spectator Report

I'm the proud wifey :)

This morning, Tassie and I cheered Marty on at the Lake Royale sprint triathlon. Truthfully, I cheered and Tassie whined when she saw Marty, apparently wanting to run and bike with him.

So Marty kind of sucked pretty bad at Wilmington and it was totally not indicative of his current fitness. He just had a bad day and really didn't taper which didn't help him at all. I knew he was going to do better at this race - way better, and he proved me right :)

I ended up missing the start because Tassie and I had to move the car to a parking lot that ended up being 2.5 miles away. We jogged back in, and saw Marty heading out on the bike in first place. Then we hung out with Angela and watched the mayhem that ensues when there is a hill immediately out of transition. I know I shouldn't laugh so much but people do the funniest things sometimes. I swear that is always the best place to watch a triathlon if you want some entertainment. We did inform a guy that he was missing his helmet (He touched the top of his head and then had a surprised look on his face after we told him, which made me laugh more).

Marty was still first coming into T2 and I yelled at him as he was running out that he'd better run fast! The run course was hilly (I know since I ran part of it from the car) but Marty stayed tough and ended up winning wire to wire. I'm so proud of my hubby :)

His races were all over the place - yeah I may have beaten him at Wilmington, but I'm sure if I had raced today he would've gotten me by several minutes. The good news is, we should now see a turnaround in the recession.

It was fun to hear some of the athletes later on talking about the race: "Did you see that guy who had that huge lead in the swim?" and "Man, that guy leading the bike was FLYING"

Here are a couple of pics from the race:

Marty coming in off the bike.



And heading out on the run.



First place!



Tassie chillin' before the awards.



Tassie's twin. Actually, that's a labradoodle. His name was Rufus.

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