Open Water Swim and Stuff

We co-hosted the Jordan Lake Open Water Challenge this past Saturday with FS Series. This was the first race in our open water swim series that we've been putting on for several years now.  We switched the venue this year and moved the date earlier so everyone could get a run through of the Raleigh 70.3 swim course. This is the same place we do our Big Deuce and Little Uno swims in July. Because of the popularity of the 70.3, we had over 250 swimmers signed up for 1.2 mile, and around 65 for the 2.4 mile.

This was definitely our biggest turnout (thanks, M-Dot!), and because of it, it took a bit more coordination and work.  I'm usually the sort-of in charge person at check-in and I can't thank our volunteers enough (our athletes - OSB rocks)  for their hard work. I was a bit more organized this time around and sent out an email detailing what each person would do and we luckily had enough people that I could roam around and help out where needed. Mostly this was answering questions and trouble-shooting. I also took over when people needed bathroom breaks and when everyone left since they were all swimming. I couldn't because there was just too much to do (schlep all the food out and get it ready for the swimmers afterwards, for example).

I'd say it all went fairly smooth, but I honestly often walk away from these wondering why we put them on since from my perspective it seems no one is happy. I realize I am typically dealing with people who are disgruntled or don't like something (that I have no control over) and I'm having to explain to them the 'why.' I also realize that we attract mostly triathletes who tend to be type-A, not-quite-ever-satisfied people, but even so it can be tough to be in this position all the time. I guess I'm throwing a bit of a pity-party over here. I do hope most people enjoy themselves out there, although I doubt they realize how much work goes into putting one on.

Doug waited around until the bitter end for me so I would have someone to ride with. Although I doubt HE realized how tired/slow I was going to be. Uggghh, that was definitely not a confidence builder. By the time I got home I was so exhausted. Marty had already gone home to relieve our awesome babysitter who came over at 5:30am, and I powered through and we all had a nice dinner with friends that night.

This morning a big group of us ran most of the 70.3 run course in downtown Raleigh. It's not flat, but I also don't think it's the hardest course out there. The greenway has some nice hills on it and running down Hillsborough in the heat will be tough, but I think it will be pretty fun since it's out and back and you'll be able to see so many people. We're all just wondering how hot the day will be after having such a cold winter and mild spring.

And now, Logan. He is so much fun - repeating new words each day, doing new things each day, it's so great.

He'll say "cheese!" now when you take a picture

Sitting with dada at a Mexican Restaurant on Mother's Day

Walking to dinner

Big boy sitting in a booster seat AND drinking from a cup, with Uncle Doug looking on

Some video of Logan saying a lot of "No" (one of his favorites right now), and some other words at the end.






And this one is of another one of his favorite words, "thank you"  I never get tired of hearing him say this when you give him something.

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I Thought It Would Be Warmer

Several months ago, Marty and I signed up for an organized group ride near us called the Raven Rock Ramble. We originally signed up for the 86 mile version. Obviously, I was under duress when this was decided since I've never ridden that far. Luckily, you can opt out and do whatever course you want the day of, so we did the 100K route instead. Which is actually 64 miles, not 100K, so why it's advertised as 100K is a mystery. They have 2 columns on their website: Route and Actual Distance, where they distinguish between what is advertised and what it really is. Okay.

We don't do a whole lot of these supported rides, but they are fun, particularly if you have a few people to do it with so you can have your own built in group within the great big group. I do love how these rides attract everyone from hardcore roadies to people on recumbents. And the stops usually have very yummy treats - like delicious brownies. I had two of those at one stop.

The weather sucked, though. We live in the south and it's supposed to be hot by now, not gloomy, super windy, and 56 degrees. This particular ride is really quite hilly (friend's garmin had 3300 feet of elevation gain) so we didn't really need the wind to make it any harder. But there you go and we survived. Not without a lot of grumbling among our group of 4 that rotated through most of the route. It was good natured grumbling, like 'omg this sucks hahaha what are we doing I want to be done we are so tough Marty quit your belly aching and get up here and pull us' type of stuff. Having friends with you to endure a workout like this really helps.

The last 15 or so miles were a tough grind, into the wind with lots of uphill/false flats. The 4 of us continued to rotate while a train drafted off of our group behind. We didn't care about that. But then we all cared a tiny bit when 3 of the guys who sucked our wheels for miles and miles surged in a clear manner to totally drop us all the last 2 miles, like it was the end of some stage race or something.

But despite all of this, it was a great ride and really fun and challenging. I'm glad we did it, and I'm REAL glad we did the 100k, err 64 mile version.

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Long weekend at the beach

Marty did the TOA Sprint Triathlon on Saturday, and since it had a very manageable start time of 10:00 am, Logan and I both went out to watch. They were running the Beaverdam Olympic distance race a half hour earlier and we knew a ton of people racing between the two events. Logan did great and listened pretty well when he was out of the stroller. We were in a relatively small area with different legs of the race pretty much surrounding us, but he was entertained by other kids, his ball, and generally running in circles. He did try and run after 'dada' both times he saw him. Marty did well, finishing 4th overall.

Later that afternoon we drove over to Wrightsville Beach for a long weekend/mini vacation with Marty's sister and her family.  Her husband has a bunch of relatives in that area of NC and one of the many nieces had Confirmation so they were all up there for that. We were looking forward to spending time with them and Logan's cousins, who he absolutely loves playing with.

Tim rented a sweet place that was almost directly on the beach, and they gave us the upstairs with this great view.

The problem was we had to dress like this to go to the beach:

It was so freaking cold! Some stupid front came through last Friday evening and made our temperatures dip back down to below normal. And out on the beach it was crazy windy. All day Sunday it was 25mph+. We didn't even get to go to the beach really because the weather was so crappy.

But we made do. Logan still had a great time with Cate and Jamie. And we had fun catching up with Anna, Tim and Donna (Marty and Anna's mom).

We went to the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher on Monday. Obviously, it's no Sea World, but for $8 I think they do a pretty good job and the kids had a great time.

Checking out the fishies

Logan and cousin Jamie

With Aunt Anna in a megalodon jaw

Snack break

We bought a goofy picture of the family - I took a picture of the picture with my phone, the original is great.

After watching Cate on the swing, Logan decided he's no longer scared of it

Stuffing his face with lasagna in his sophisticated bib

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5K Battle to the line

An epic battle took place at the Cary Road Race this past Saturday.

Held at the Koko Booth Amphitheatre, covered in a yellow dusting of pollen, it was a beautiful North Carolina morning.

This is what the typical car looks like in the Greater Raleigh area. Achoo.

The morning started with Logan beating Marty (again!) in the 10K.


Pick it up, Dad


Then it was my turn. Of course, being the wimp that I am, I chose to do the 5K. Scratch that. I got an email from Marty earlier in the week telling me he had signed me up for a 5K that weekend. Kudos to him for not even asking if I wanted to do the 10K.

As is typical at a local road race, the kids were out in full force. They all lined up in front, despite the announcer's pleas to move back, but it was no matter to me. I knew they would go out faster then I could. The trick was dodging the carnage after 400 yards.  I did pretty well, only running into one before I set my sights on the rest of the pack.

Flat-footed pictures while running are terrible, but this is in here because for some reason, my arm looks jacked

The last little kid was caught around mile 1. I figured I would drop him fairly quickly, thinking he had gone out too fast. 

Me: Cute kid. 
Cute kid: Imma beat you lady!


He had the last laugh, as he came barreling down the hill to repass me.

I'm just glad I finally got ahead of the dude in all black with a backpack from the 'my arm is jacked picture'

I re-repassed my adversary at the 2 mile mark and continued to hold onto the pace around the lake. Cute Kid could not be shaken. This was not good. I did not want to get into a sprint finish with Cute Kid. Not only would that probably not end well for me, I also didn't want to be the douche trying to outsprint a 10 year old.

I heard him breathing close, but he never made up the ground and in the end - winner goes to the lady! Maybe next time, Cute Kid. Maybe next time.


Breaking the giant tape across the finish line

Logan gave me the thumbs up for a race well run.


My time was not very good, but, I didn't have Mary to chase this weekend.

Later, Marty and I took a nap while Logan went grocery shopping.

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We got rid of cable

Last week we said good-bye to our souped up cable with HD and HBO and Showtime and downgraded to just the 20 regular channels you can get with a digital converter.  This saves a bunch of money each month with just basic cable and internet service. I truthfully don't watch a whole lot of tv, but there are definitely things I miss:

• HGTV - I love that channel even though I am not into remodeling or anything. But I will give my opinion on your redecorating, or house you want to buy, or how jealous I am of the dude from house crashers showing up at your Lowes. They have so many mindless shows on there that are great when you're folding laundry on the couch
• DVR - this is actually a big one.  DVRing changes your life, and then you don't have to watch commercials which is so super annoying.
• Game of Thrones and other awesome shows on the real cable channels.  We'll just have to be a season behind (this honestly isn't that big of a deal to me).

I convinced Marty to buy himself a Kindle Fire HD since I totally appropriated the Kindle Fire his athletes bought him for his 40th birthday. He himmed and hawed for just a little bit, but he actually listened to me and has admitted to being very happy about buying it. With the Kindle Fire HD, you can hook it up to the TV and the picture is awesome. We already have an Amazon Prime membership so we can get tons of shows and movies for free. We could also, of course, buy more current shows if we wanted for $1.99 (we haven't done that yet, because there's so much free stuff).

We also haven't watched any network shows online yet through our tv because something about downloading Flash or whatever, but that's another option to get the current shows.

So there really are lots of ways to watch tv cheaply. I suppose if you watch a lot of tv, this wouldn't be that enticing, but with how much Time Warner charges this was a good decision.  Maybe down the road we'll get more channels, but right now I don't even notice that it's gone. 

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White Lake Sprint Race Report

I decided to do the White Lake sprint triathlon about a week and a half ago, and Mary agreed to race and drive down with me. It didn't occur to me that the water temperature was going to be so cold despite the fact that we've had a very cold winter, and the week before the race was very chilly. White Lake is a fairly shallow lake and any temperature swings make a big impact.

(For those of you wanting to skip the blah blah blahhing, here are the results.)

So when I heard on Thursday afternoon that the water was 52, I was not super thrilled. Rumor was that it was actually 49 and oh those poor people in the half on Saturday. That morning was windier and choppier and many opted to do a duathlon instead. Some after getting in the water and saying, 'Aww hell no'. I was honestly so worried about the water that I couldn't even think about the rest of the race! The good thing about that was I wasn't nervous at all (except for freezing to death).

Saturday afternoon we had a party at our house for our Master's team. Because Marty might not mention it, he won his age group at the NC Master's State Championship earlier that day in the 100 fly! The party was fun, although I definitely ate too much dessert. But it's impossible when it's just sitting there begging for you to get it in your belly. It's not my fault.

I got to sleep at a pretty decent time. My alarm was set for 4:45am and I was meeting Mary at 5:30 to drive down to White Lake. Logan however, had different plans for letting mommy get a good night's sleep before the race. After literally months of him sleeping 12+ hours a night (not counting when we travel), he decided to wake up crying at 1:45am. Ugggggghhhhhh. After much cuddling, feeding and baby whispering between Marty and myself, he finally went back to sleep.

I was definitely bleary-eyed getting ready after the watch beeped. Mary was a few minutes late to our meeting spot so I closed my eyes and got a few more winks.  Luckily, we talked nonstop all the way to White Lake so I had no problem staying awake. Upon arriving I was not happy with how cold the air was! I had a serious bad attitude going for a bit. But I got myself together, did a warmup run where I felt terrible, and then started getting prepared to jump into the frigid waters.

They were saying over the loudspeaker, "The water temperature is 56 degrees! A whole 4 degrees warmer then yesterday! You guys are lucky!" I wanted to scream, willyoushutupalready!! And I was told later that a USAT official actually saw the reading as 52. But really, what difference does it make at that point? Under 60 is cold.

I have a sleeveless wetsuit, but wore arm-sleeves which helped. I also had ear plugs and a neoprene cap. I stood on the steps so long that one guy finally said, "You're still here?" Keep moving along, buddy. I'll get in when I'm ready.

Mary got in and started swimming to the other dock so I went for it. It was awful. My face was so cold it hurt and I couldn't catch my breath. When we got to the other side I definitely whiney-cried this to her and she told me some positive affirmations that I couldn't really process.

Bri: wahh wahh my face hurts its so cold I can't do this wahh wahh
Mary: smile positive statements smile laugh smile swim away from complaining Bri

It did get a little better once everything went numb, but I didn't want to warmup through the National Anthem which seemed like a rude thing to do so I got cold all over again. Then it was 2min to go and stand in chest deep water for the gun.

The swim itself was fine. I really was numb by then so I can't really complain anymore about the water temp. You're probably saying, how in the world could you complain MORE??  The problem for me was I honestly just couldn't tell if I was swimming hard or not - I was out of breath but this might have been due to the cold water. There is also a strong possibility it has to do with my overall low training volume.

Anyways, I finally made it to the ladder and getting out and running to transition was just frankly confusing. I was a little out of it and there was so much to get off and I couldn't find my wetsuit strap and I couldn't hear anything because of the ear plugs and neoprene cap. I usually love the long transition runs because I can make up some time lost from the swim, but today I just lost more time. It was slow and there was lots of fumbling once I got into transition. And thank you to the spectator who found my arm sleeve.

The bike was fine. That could literally be my entire assessment but I will give you more details instead. You're welcome.  So it's a two-loop, semi-bumpy affair around the lake. I was completely by myself the first lap and then had some people to pass the 2nd lap as other waves were now filtering onto the course. I tried to push as hard as I could and could barely see 2nd place off in the distance. Mary was in first absolutely crushing us all. I got a little tired towards the end so backed off a bit. Maybe in another post I'll talk about my actual training and balancing life right now, but full disclosure, I did the best I could with what I've given myself to work with.

Off the bike and onto the run, with a little fumbling to get my gloves off that I wore on the bike. I saw 2nd place heading out when I was at my rack, but the lack of time information from the spectators clued me into the fact that Mary was way ahead.  I honestly didn't feel super great heading out but just put my head down and chugged along. I caught 2nd fairly quick and didn't have anyone to focus on so just tried to focus on keeping the gas pedal pressed and not worrying about anything else. Finally I got to see the damage Mary had done at the turn around and it was significant. She had told me in the car ride down that one of her goals for the year was to win a race - so when I saw her I yelled a very stern: "You have got to GO" trying to get the message to her that she could win this race, but I was not going to let up.

I really tried to pick it up coming home and she was coming back to me. I was getting so close - to her and the finish line and in the end I was 10 seconds short. But honestly, it was so much fun trying to run her down. And I could not be happier for her for the win! I don't think I've ever been in a position when I'm trying to catch someone and come so close and also be so happy for their victory. It was awesome.

Afterwards we did a nice cooldown run, changed, and got our awards. I'm not sure that we stopped talking until I dropped her off at her car.  I'm so glad I did the race, because I'm pretty sure between the water temperature and Logan screaming I would've bailed if I hadn't met her to drive down together. And we had so much fun the entire time.  I'm also happy with my race. I honestly surprise myself a lot of times with what I can do on not a whole lot of training. Quality over quantity for sure right now for me.  Quantity is not available at this point.

We stalked the results a few times just to be sure that we did in fact go 1-2. You never know when a sneaky age grouper might slide in. But we did, go OSB!

Mary is obviously telling me somthing super important since it looks like I'm hanging on her every word.



Yeah, probably not.



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Happy Easter!

So far, Logan is not a fan of holiday 'mascots'

I know these are terrible in the sense of why do we do this to our kids, but they sure are funny. Both of these were at his daycare, and they said that his current classroom (The Waddlers) are the absolute worst. None of them liked the Easter Bunny.  But really, I've always had a problem with the Easter Bunny. I mean, Santa you sort of believe in even when you get old enough to realize that it is a pretty far-fetched idea. But you certainly don't want to fess up to your parents because what if that means you don't get anymore presents?!?! But the Easter Bunny? I am not totally sure I ever believed in that one.

We took Logan to Pullen Park which is an awesome park in Raleigh. We road the train for $1 each.

We weren't sure how Logan would like this; he loves it when the train goes by our house and will say "Choo Choo (too-too)" so we thought he might really get into it. Or he could've gone the other way and been scared and wanted off. In the end, he sat very stoically on Marty's lap taking it all in.

We didn't make it to the carousel, but that's on the list for next time.

When we walked up, this part of the playground was absolutely covered with kids.

I told Marty it reminded me of the previews for World War Z.

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