Some updates

Bulleted list today, my friends. I'm feeling lazy.

• Every other Thursday we do a swim/bike brick out at Jordan Lake. This is great open water practice and we get a quick little bike ride in before heading to Tyler's Taproom for eats and drinks. I was semi-motivated and actually worked the swim. It was fun having my friend Alysia out there to push me in the water. She is moving away in the coming months and I have to bank all the Alysia time I can *sob*
• I took what just might be the cutest baby picture ever last week:

• Logan is very funny when he sees one of his stuffed animals - his face lights up and he immediately starts crawling towards them to play. But poor Tassie is so confused.  I saw her walking around with Cookie Monster in her mouth the other day and Marty found Eeyore on her bed. Logan also doesn't quite get it as I caught him gumming Tassie's disgusting stuffed turkey.
• We all went to Marty's first cross country meet this past Saturday. His team is really big. One of the parents said that the word is out at the school that the cross country coach is a lot of fun. Here is Logan trying to get away from me at the meet.

• After the meet we drove down to Ocean Isle Beach to meet up with Kari/Bobby and Alysia/Jimmy for some beach time.  After several beers it was discovered that we all have super powers that should clearly be written about and optioned into a movie. I don't want to give it all away, but here are just a couple of the main characters: Asper-Man, Voice-Boy & Food Face.

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Another Local Sprint

We keep it busy around here. Friday evening we met some friends out at The Triangle Wine & Beer Company where they were tapping a bunch of different Sam Adam's brews (one's I had never had - like their yummy Chocolate Bock). Logan did pretty good in the Baby Bjorn and there were a surprising number of babies/kids there (someone was even carrying around their little dog, I guess that sort of counts). 

Saturday morning was the Harris Lake Nuclear Swim, our 4th of 5 open water swims in the Triangle Open Water swim series. We definitely appreciate when competitors thank us for putting these on as they are quite a bit of work - especially for Marty who is pretty much working nonstop right now.  I'm glad we can bring open water swim events to the area, and I hope they continue to be pretty popular. 

I didn't race since I was doing a local sprint the next morning in Fuquay-Varina.  Yup, that is the name of the city, and no you shouldn't be pronouncing a bad word when you say it. I know when we first moved here we were a little unsure, but it sounds like this: few-quay. Anyways, Tri the Worx (link to results) is in Setup's TrySports series. You can qualify for series prizes if you do 4 races and this would be my 4th. The top 3 in the series get money so that will be a nice little award to get at the end of the season. 

Another pool swim/time trial start and pretty much by myself for the entire race except for when Justin Smith passed me 1 mile into the bike. The run from the pool to the transition was about as long as the swim itself. The bike was rolling and short (11.4 miles) and the run, once again, was short. There's just no way I'm in shape to run a 18:30. Plus, they had a 2.5 mile mark and then we were at the finish line not long after. Marty whined, literally whined, when I told him it was short, "why can't I ever do these short races?!"

My calves both cramped at mile 2 and I'm hoping it's no big deal. They had been behaving so well the past month or so. So I was lucky enough to pull off another win which is always fun and I got some pretty good schwag to boot.

I know a lot of people who were off racing at USAT Nationals and 70.3's - much bigger deals then my little race.  I love competing and this year local races are where it's at for us.  Maybe down the road we'll be back at the big one's but for now we'll happily sleep in our own bed and tool around with Logan at all these NC races.

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Logan 8 month update

Logan turned 8 months old yesterday. It really is true when they say time flies...it's an interesting phenomenon as when he was very little I was thinking that it was ALL LIES! But now I can sit here and think, I can barely remember him being that little! (FYI, we went to dinner with some friends who have a 2 month old). And I guess it's at this point when a lot of people start to contemplate having another. I can totally understand as I'm already not clearly remembering the first several weeks and gosh shouldn't Logan have a sibling?

The answer right now (from my end, anyways) is no. I do have a lot of guilt over this, though.

But oh yeah, this is supposed to be a Logan progress report of sorts. He is full speed ahead mobile.  For the past month he had been pseudo-mobile. Meaning, he was not able to crawl forward, but was very good at going in a circle because he hadn't quite figured out how to add his legs into the mix.  Then one day (Aug 1 to be exact) he figured it out. And the gloves were off. He is fast! And now all of the sudden he has started to pull himself up to a standing position (although he still needs some help with his balance). He really likes to bounce so once he gets into this position he collapses his knees in effort to try and bounce himself, which he obviously can't successfully do.

He has two teeth right now, and no others poking through. I'm glad because teething is not so fun. Plus, I love his toothless smile.

We've still been doing a bit of cry-it-out, but more for naps then at night. Marty started going into his room late (since he tends to stay up late) and giving him a bottle. This is commonly known as a dream-feed I believe, and it was working really well. He would then sleep the rest of the night and the dream-feed was very easy and he never really woke up. He's since experimented with not giving him this bottle and he does still sleep through the night, he just gets up a bit earlier. So I sort of like that late night bottle because that way he sleeps longer.  I doubt this is a long term solution, but it works for right now.

He's doing great with eating baby food, and loves puffs and mum-mums which keep him very entertained when we go out to dinner.  He naps well at home but not at daycare. I get his sheet every day and the kid barely naps at all. I think there is just so much going on there and he has too much fun. They also lovingly say that he is very nosey so I think he is intent on seeing what all the other kids are doing (and probably trying to do it himself).

They also told me he likes to hang out with the 'older' kids in his class and likes to pull the girls ponytails. The other day one of the teacher's told me they were taking pictures of the babies for the bulletin board and Logan was literally leaning into other kids pictures trying to also be in it. Too funny.

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70.3 Raleigh

Ironman just announced a new 70.3 right here in Raleigh, NC. It sounds a bit logistically challenging with 2 transition areas, but they do this at a handful of races so I have to assume that it will run smoothly.  I say assume because you all know what that means!  Anyways, the swim is at the same venue as our Big Deuce and Little Uno swim races which is closer to Pittsboro than Raleigh, but the finish line is in downtown Raleigh.

Marty and I (after a very brief discussion - I'm talking like: Me - should we sign up? Marty - yeah.) are in. It's the first weekend in June of 2013, 6 years removed from my previous half iron distance race. Those of you who know me know that I enjoy the short distance races the most, but it's hard to say no to this way expensive M-Dot event. My first half iron was Duke Liver in 2004 (bombed), my second was Duke Liver in 2005 (bombed), and my last was White Lake in 2007 (nailed) - then I retired from that distance.

So I guess I'm coming out of my half iron distance hiatus. And I can finally also say I did a half ironman. Sheesh.

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Lake Logan

What started out earlier this year as a weekend getaway with friends and racing, turned into me driving by myself to race in the Lake Logan sprint triathlon. Here are the results.

I really love this race and venue. It's absolutely beautiful surrounded by mountains with a lake that is always wetsuit legal. There's something about western Carolina that suits me - when I get out there I get this sense of calm and wish I didn't have to leave. Much to Marty's shagrin, I don't feel the same about the beach. I like the beach, but I guess deep down I'm a mountain girl.

Quick race report:

I knew Gail K would be racing, and even in my best shape I have never beaten her. And we all know that I'm not in my best shape now so I was hoping for 2nd. Since this is a small race, the first wave was Open and all men. The swim was only 500 meters and I got totally clobbered at the first buoy. I'm not sure I agree with most of the wave's swim strategy (take it out fast and die, and hit whoever is in your way).

I struggled on the bike, no surprise there. And just to add insult to injury I had to stop twice to fix silly things - I didn't need this added time! First, my back skewer was coming undone. Thankfully, another racer who was passing me told me as he went by. That could've ended ugly. Then I had to stop again to open my back brake pads since after I adjusted the skewer the brake was rubbing. The back wheel on the Cervelo is such a mystery to me.

I felt good on the run, but the split time indicates to me that it was short. I have been tipping the scales with more favorable runs then the other way around over the past few weeks. I'm always happier when I'm healthy and running more.

And here's your token Logan photo.

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Back from Vacay

We had a nice time in Avon (Kinnakeet), NC last week. Marty put up a few pictures over on his blog you can check out. Logan enjoyed the pool, which was sort of the only 'activity' he can do at this point.

We took him to the beach for a short period, just to stick his feet in the water and let him feel the sand on his feet. I didn't want to actually sit him in the sand since I know that he would immediately try to eat it and then rub his eyes or something. He didn't cry, but he was definitely a little scared when the waves came up to him.

He's a lot of fun and very smiley and laughy. He's also a total ham when the camera comes out - case in point: on our way to the Natty Green's pub run last night I was trying to take a picture of his hair. Daycare had fashioned it into a fohawk and it was so cute. "Logan, look at me."

What a smile.

And you can barely even see his fohawk!

To answer a friend's question - yes, he definitely cries. I suppose I could take some pictures of him crying instead of posting all these - but believe me, he can get unhappy, too. Like when I change his diaper in the morning (seriously, you want to continue to sit in a bunch of pee and poop?) We're also going back and forth with what to do in the early morning when he'll start crying. One of us has usually jumped up to get him and feed him, but we're realizing that he's not eating a whole lot and he's probably not all that hungry. To cry it out or not - and if you do any research you'll quickly find that there are a lot of strong opinions out there and advice is all over the place.  Last night he cried right around 3am but we didn't jump up and he went back to sleep until 7am after crying for less than 5min. I doubt that's always going to happen but it was nice.

I'm racing this weekend at the Lake Logan sprint triathlon.  While on vacation I was able to run a bit and do 2 short swims, but overall training has been pretty half hazard the past couple of weeks so it should be interesting to see how I feel.

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