martygaal

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Monday, August 29, 2011

Earthquakes, Hurricanes and The Nuclear Swim

Posted on 9:25 AM by Unknown
Yup, I felt the earthquake last Tuesday. I didn't realize what it was because right above my office they've been doing construction on a lab for the past 3 months. Then when I found out it was an earthquake I wanted a re-do! Really, it just felt like some slight vibrations. Marty felt it - he was just lying down for a quick nap and thought that Tassie and her friend Mocha were going crazy downstairs.



We got a lot of rain from the hurricane and it was a bit gusty throughout most of the day, but overall it was just sort of a really crappy day out. I got lots done around the house - reorganized the kitchen, folded 3 loads of laundry, took apart the guest room bed and put together the crib. The baby's room is...I wouldn't totally say coming along since it's full of bags and random crap. But the crib definitely helps when describing it as a baby room.



Marty is also dealing with a bit of this:





But he is putting up with me like a champ.



And finally, we had our last open water swim on Sunday. Because of the massive amount of rain we got on Saturday the water temperature dipped down to 77 degrees! This race is notoriously hot but we got lucky this year (Thanks, Irene?). There were a few Miss Cleo's out there who actually brought their wetsuits, but the rest of us enjoyed the great water temperature. My age group ended up being the most competitive of the day and I didn't get an award...but the perks of being married to the race director is I got one of the leftovers :)



I didn't swim horrible, looking at the results I was probably 2min slower then where I would be normally, but I still came out with a respectable finish and even sprinted the last 100 yards since 2 girls were right with me. Bet they didn't realize preggo was giving them the smackdown! That sprint hurt since I'm barely swimming twice a week and doing nothing hard at all.



But it's nice to be able to still 'race.' I think it helps a bit with my inherent competitiveness (is that a word?). I've said before I really haven't missed racing this year, and I still don't, but being able to get out there with others and do events like this obviously helps and maybe I wouldn't be saying I didn't miss it if these weren't here. I think in the long run it's probably going to be a good thing for my body to have this extended downtime. I have no idea if I'll ever come back to where I was but it's cool. I'm looking forward to this new phase of our life - it will be challenging and hard and rewarding...huh, kind of like racing :)

Read More
Posted in | No comments

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

So Clever!

Posted on 12:17 PM by Unknown
One of our athletes gave us this at swim practice.







I love how it looks like instead of breaking the tape, toilet paper is coming out of his diaper :)





For comparison, here is the real logo:









We had a quick trip to O-town this past weekend. We got to hang out with our cute nieces and family. Anna hooked me up with some baby essentials, including a baby Bjorn which Marty is psyched about. Thanks, Anna!!





Saturday morning we went to Wekiva State Park which has trails (very hard to find in Florida) and an awesome spring fed swimming hole. It's a constant 72 degrees - what a great place to have when wanting to do some open water swims in the winter! A lot of triathletes were out doing swim/run bricks of some sort. I did a 45min jog/walk and then took a quick dip around the perimeter a few times. It was so pretty - so clear and you could go over big rocks that had crevices deep down where the springs came up and created a bit of a current.

























Saturday evening I watched the Margarita Mile with some other hecklers. I was supposed to be timing Marty in the fast heat, but I got so excited about a possible record breaking run that I accidentally stopped my watch on the first place guy...oops! Dan's record is safe though, and will live to see another year. I have the girls record - both of us realizing that these were our only running records still standing.



Then we hung out with the crew in downtown - late night for us. I did feel a bit silly walking around with my preggo belly in downtown Orlando while every other girl was half naked.



Read More
Posted in | No comments

Thursday, August 18, 2011

6 weeks later

Posted on 2:34 PM by Unknown
That title sort of sounds like a zombie movie. Anywho, today at work someone who I hadn't seen since mid May pointed at my belly and said, "Are you...???" She's the first one to outright ask! Yay! I have moved from the "huh, Bri has put on a bit of weight" to "yup, she's pregnant." I know it's a touchy subject and one that most know not to ask (never ask a woman if she's pregnant) but I was happy that she asked me.



I thought it would be fun to recreate the picture I took at 17 weeks, where I'm now 23+ weeks.



Here was the previous:



17 weeks





And here is today:



23+ weeks





Tassie heard a noise that scared her and she wouldn't move.



Read More
Posted in | No comments

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Still here

Posted on 11:06 AM by Unknown
Marty told me to update. So I'm updating. I just don't feel like I have all that much exciting stuff to talk about right now - but it's more that my focus has changed and so what I have to say is not in line with what my blog (and our website prior to 'blogging' -- can you believe I've been writing inane drabble since 2003??) has been in the past. I see these sorts of disclaimers on other girls blogs from time to time - if you're here for triathlon info, you're not going to see a whole lot of that anymore (some, but not a lot). So if that's what your interested in, check back in about a year.



See, if you're training 30 hours a week, your blog is probably all about how you did a 5 hour bike ride and a 45min T-run. I don't have anything like that going on right now, so that's not what I'll be talking about.



This is probably what I'll be talking about - baby, gaining weight, exercising for fitness, baby, cheering for people at races, baby.



Without further adieu, we saw Cowboys & Aliens the other week. Ha. You thought I would be talking about baby right away ;) It was entertaining although there were some definite plot holes I pointed out to Marty who thought it was the greatest movie ever.



While Marty was in Atlantic City this past weekend, my mom came into town and we did some preliminary baby registry shopping. This was overwhelming, which is why I'm enlisting the help of Heather and Angie (who have 5 kids between them) and Kari (who will be of no help but I like her) to go with me to actually register. I'm going to hand the scanner to H&A and they can register for everything I actually need. My mom and I went to Buy Buy Baby which has a huge selection of everything and the kitchen sink. We also went Target which has next to nothing. But here's the interesting part - almost everything that's at Buy Buy Baby is at Target Online, for around 10% cheaper. So I think I will register at both, and then switch things around when I compare prices. Pretty annoying, but hey, this crap is expensive!



Still swimming and running jogging. The weather turned nice this week - fingers and toes crossed that we are out of the woods that was our awful July. It definitely makes running a lot easier and helps keep my heartrate down. Swimming is nice but I am really slow. I haven't biked except on the trainer recently. Still on my tri bike although I pretty much stay on the pads of my aerobars now. I haven't had to add any spacers just yet.



I can also feel the little guy moving around a lot. I didn't start feeling him until pretty recently, probably within the last 2-3 weeks which I guess is normal for your first pregnancy. It's pretty cool but also weird and freaky. It sort of feels like something poking you from the inside, or like a little alien trying to poke it's way out of your stomach. At night I've noticed he doesn't like it when I sleep on my right side, because he gets all pokey in there (which is not good when trying to sleep) but if I sleep on my left he's fine (so far). Apparently, sleeping on your left side is the best when you're pregnant and sleeping on your stomach or back is not good. I've never in my entire life slept on my stomach, but I often wind up on my back after awhile. Then I wake up and think "Oh shit, I'm on my back!" Then I try to flip to my side real quick which is totally not real quick at all. It's something about stuff pressing into a vein and reducing bloodflow to the baby which makes sleeping on your back not a good idea. That is not the medical terminology, by the way.



Tassie wanted to say hi.



Read More
Posted in | No comments

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Beer Belly

Posted on 12:45 PM by Unknown
Marty told me I looked like I had a beer belly the other day. He said it very sweetly, in response to probably me wailing about how fat I am. I had just put on a t-shirt that we had bought from a brewery on our vacation and he thoughtfully looked me over and said, "no, it just looks like you are a normal girl with a beer belly."

Here it is - 21 weeks, 22 weeks? I can't remember, somewhere around there!

Read More
Posted in | No comments

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

New England Vacay

Posted on 10:47 AM by Unknown
The vacation was fantastic, but motivating myself to write about it has been difficult. Alas, a friend wanted a recap so I quickly wrote out an email to her which I now present to you (a bit edited) below.

One of the Gaal's ate ice cream throughout the week and the other drank beer all over the place. You can figure out which was which.Weather is awesome up there, I guess warm for them but compared to what we've been getting it was refreshing. Cape Cod is nice, different than Florida and even NC beaches, but pretty in a different way. When we drove to some of the towns it was cloudy and in the 60's! Martha's Vineyard is a tourist haven, but with upscale shops** instead of Wings. We had a nice lunch after biking between towns and then read** in a park. It was beautiful.

Boston seems like such a fun city. Wish we could've spent more time there. Stayed in a swanky hotel next to Copley Square, walked through Boston Public Gardens and then to Fenway Park. It's a very walkable city and much different then NYC. I just can't imagine going through a winter there.

Met up with our friend Sue the next day and she took us to Walden Pond (Henry David Thoreau...dust off your high school English reading). It was like 85 degrees and packed! Poor people don't know what to do with themselves when it's nice out. The park was actually closed because of capacity issues which Sue said she's never seen, but she gave a sob story to the little ranger about how we were from NC and really wanted to see it...blah blah she let us in. They have a 1.7 mile trail around the lake and you can go see the remains of Thoreau's cabin. I did 2 loops and tripped and fell on the second loop and totally skinned my knee like a freakin' 5 year old. Totally embarrassed, and lots of people around including a guy all decked out in hiking gear that exclaimed, "That root is really high!!" I got up in a flash and took off trying not to cry because even though it didn't hurt THAT much for some reason those things just set me off (I think it's more the embarrassment). Anyways, got back and changed into swimsuit to go for a swim in the pond.

This was AMAZING. You would've died, it was so awesome to swim here. The water temp was like 79. This lake was made from a glacier so it's shallow around the outside and then super deep in the middle (like 100 feet). And so clear. I could see Marty's feet the entire time, and the rays of the sun streaking down into the lake - this was so much better than any lake we have here and even better than White Lake. Too bad most of the year it's freezing. Marty spoke whale to Logan** underwater ;) Did a little sightseeing around Concord (Paul Revere -- dust off your high school history) and the shot heard 'round the world.

Then up to Maine where Sue's inlaws all have houses on the beach.
Another awesome beach, just different but so pretty. The water is seriously cold, I mean, they kept saying that it wasn't too bad, but it was probably 65 degrees. Maybe. You stick your feet in and you get that bone hurt immediately. The next day we went to another beach so the kids could boogie board and Marty could surf, it was hot, and the water had apparently warmed up a touch (one of the little girls said, 'it's warm!' poor kids have no idea what warm is). Most were in wetsuits, including Marty, but he shed it to swim because he did get warm sitting in it in the sun. I watched sitting on the rocks (not much beach to speak of). We also did a little kayaking in the afternoon. We both read a lot on the vacation.

Nice dinner in Kennebunkport, saw the Bush compound and then back to Boston to spend the night at Sue's house for our flight the next morning.

**upscale shops: The Black Dog is so overpriced and a big sellout now. You can find the store anywhere on Cape Cod. No, I do not want a long sleeve t-shirt for $58 thank you very much. No, I do not care that Bill Clinton bought stuff for Monica Lewinski here (get with the current century please).

**I read The Magicians by Lev Grossman and Marty blew through the first two books in The Game of Thrones.

**Logan Marton is his name. Marton is the Hungarian version of Martin, which is also Marty's dad's name.

And now, pictures.

Downtown Falmouth, where our bed & breakfast was.


Chatham beach - in the 60's and loving it!



On the ferry to Martha's Vineyard



Martha's Vineyard



We rented bikes and rode between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown.


Ice cream!



The Black Dog store. Bah.



Reading in a park in Edgartown.

Heading into Boston

Boston Beer Works next to Fenway


Boston Public Gardens


Fenway Park

They had the Cape Cod League All-Star game going on at Fenway - tickets were $12 and the game was exciting!

Walden Pond

Marty contemplating civil disobedience in Thoreau's cabin.




A little more Thoreau
Getting ready for the awesome swim


They have a serious obsession with Dunkin Donuts up there. But they call it Dunks.
A very old cemetery - 17th century
The shot heard round the world
Too late, redcoat, the patriot wins!

Maine beach



Surfer boy Marty

He's up!

Walking along the beach near the beach house. See? I got in the water.
Sue and I in Kennebunkport
Marty may seem all gruff, but he's a big softie.
Beer, beer and more beer







Read More
Posted in | No comments
Newer Posts Older Posts Home
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • An Update
    Things that have happened: I got a new job. This has coincided with a decline in my training - some motivational issues and some busy-ness h...
  • Doughman Quadrathlon
    This is going to be an epic race report for an epic race - The Doughman! Are you all tired of me talking about this race yet? The doughman ...
  • DC Weekend
    It was a fun, albeit wet, weekend up in DC. I had never been there (I'm not counting the time I was up there with my family when I was 3...
  • 1600 Meters
    This past weekend I flew down to Florida for two reasons. To see my mama and hang out with her and run in my high school's intrasquad al...
  • More Anniversary
    Check out Marty's blog for a photo tour. Here' a short video of us in the creek behind the house.

Categories

  • goats

Blog Archive

  • ►  2013 (48)
    • ►  December (4)
    • ►  November (2)
    • ►  October (1)
    • ►  September (5)
    • ►  August (4)
    • ►  July (5)
    • ►  June (2)
    • ►  May (5)
    • ►  April (5)
    • ►  March (5)
    • ►  February (4)
    • ►  January (6)
  • ►  2012 (51)
    • ►  December (3)
    • ►  November (3)
    • ►  October (5)
    • ►  September (3)
    • ►  August (6)
    • ►  July (3)
    • ►  June (4)
    • ►  May (5)
    • ►  April (6)
    • ►  March (4)
    • ►  February (4)
    • ►  January (5)
  • ▼  2011 (69)
    • ►  December (4)
    • ►  November (6)
    • ►  October (4)
    • ►  September (5)
    • ▼  August (6)
      • Earthquakes, Hurricanes and The Nuclear Swim
      • So Clever!
      • 6 weeks later
      • Still here
      • Beer Belly
      • New England Vacay
    • ►  July (7)
    • ►  June (5)
    • ►  May (9)
    • ►  April (6)
    • ►  March (7)
    • ►  February (4)
    • ►  January (6)
  • ►  2010 (106)
    • ►  December (4)
    • ►  November (7)
    • ►  October (9)
    • ►  September (7)
    • ►  August (9)
    • ►  July (10)
    • ►  June (9)
    • ►  May (13)
    • ►  April (12)
    • ►  March (8)
    • ►  February (7)
    • ►  January (11)
  • ►  2009 (26)
    • ►  December (9)
    • ►  November (9)
    • ►  October (6)
    • ►  September (2)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile