Kelly Times Two

My friend, Bobbi, had emailed me asking how our family did on our triathlon yesterday. Here's my reply to her. Hello Bobbi! Thank you for your curiosity and enthusiasm for our big race day yesterday. It was wonderful! I'll tell you more about it, but first want to show you an email that Lindsey sent to her last year's personal fitness teacher from school. It's really cute that she wanted to share this success with her coach. I am including some of my own comments in parentheses in the middle of Lindsey's email. I will italicize those parts too, to distinguish her words from mine. After re-reading this LONG email I wrote to you, I think I might cut and paste it to put on my blog. Enjoy, my dear friend! Hey Coach Fisher! I don't really like the shirt that I got from doing the triathlon, so I'm not going to wear it to school. (I think she must have coached the students to always wear their shirts after an exercise event to the school to show off what they'd...

Last night my family gave in to my coercion. They all agreed to do the Rockin' R triathlon with me in Gruene (pronounced like my favorite color), Texas! It's in four weeks and one day from now. I'm so excited that they're going to give it a shot. I ran 2.3 miles today and 2.6 miles yesterday. The run distance on this triathlon is just 3.3, so it's doable. The bike is 13.5 miles and the swim is 400 meters. Now the question is do I try to redeem myself from the awful stats I had last year by shaving off at least a half hour of my pathetic finish time or do I play mamabear to my cubs if they're needing some encouragement?

Here's the group of women (plus Kelley's husband, Mike) from my neighborhood that I bike with. On Saturday morning, we joined about 900 others on the most perfect day with sunny skies and pleasant temperatures, riding through country roads in Round Rock and Georgetown, beginning at Dell Diamond. We did the 40 mile loop, which in reality was 41.2 miles, and finished in about three and a half hours. What an awesome day it was. I hope Kelly will join me for next year's Outlaw ride.

This has been the longest stretch of my not blogging and I finally have something to say that I don't want to forget about. First, thanks for the encouragement to continue on, there are a few who seem to like reading what I have to say here now and then. Let me give a quick run down of what has been happening since I last posted about my fears just before doing the triathlon. As I've been spending far too much time on Facebook, I think the blog is a much better forum to keep track of happenings and to keep it all contained in one tidy spot. What a person can hit and miss on Facebook leaves a lot of gaps. And even though I did post something on my wall there, a quick summary of my experiences of the Austin Triathlon, it's way back in older posts and I haven't figured out a good way to scroll back and have it be a lasting record of my event. That's one excellent benefit to the blog. It sounds like this is turning into a pro and con discussion for blogging v. Facebook....

I'm starting to get nervous for the triathlon that's coming up on Labor Day. It would be so much better if I had someone doing it with me in my age category (40 and over) at the sprint distance who is at about the same skill level that I am (whimpy), just for the company. I have friends who are doing the race that are doing the Olympic distance so they will start at a different time. I'm excited but am having feelings similar to my friend, Bobbi, wondering what I've gotten myself into. I've been training here and there, so I'm more prepared than the last tri. The heat we've had here in Austin certainly hasn't been too helpful for the situation. It makes going outside and running or biking quite uncomfortable. I wish one of my sisters would come do the race with me! I even asked Julie to join me, and she said she would if I bought her plane ticket out here and I said I would. But then I looked at the triathlon online and the race is completely full and re...

On Memorial Day, I was a spectator at the CapTexTri, searching carefully for my neighbor, Liz, and for our friend, Dave, the only two people I know who were in it. This was one of many starts and finishes. Here goes Dave on the first of two loops around on his bike during the sprint tri. More water shots. I never did locate Liz, but she was on adrenaline after finishing well. There were so many in this triathlon compared to the wimpy one I did a couple weeks ago. I wanted to see what to expect when I do the next one in September in downtown Austin. Here's Dave, in the red shirt, after he finished. There were so many spectators and it was hard to take pictures. He did great, finishing 5th out of 76 in his 35 to 39 group. And that was after not feeling very well. I squeezed in to get footage of him crossing the finish line. My voice is shrill sounding. Nice job, Dave! I'm anxious to hear how my friend, Bobbi, and her daughter, Heidi, and son, Marshall, did on their triathlo...

This morning I woke up at about 6 am and watched the season finale of Survivor Tocachins, or what ever it's called, with Kelly as he's still trying to adjust his sleep schedule from being 13 hours ahead in Taiwan for two weeks. Next, I rode my bike to Trailhead Park with Christopher where he and the Boy Scouts were having a fund-raiser to help pay for their summer camp. I rode home, then rounded up Lindsey and Kelly, then we went to the pancake breakfast at the park while Christopher had fun flipping pancakes or holding the sign by the road attracting guests to join them. We came home, I dropped off Lindsey and Kelly, then headed downtown to experience the thrill of another triathlon, but this time as a spectator. It was a huge event compared to my little tri a couple weeks ago, and it was exciting to be there and see all the talent, strength, and perseverance, of the triathletes pushing themselves to their best abilities. I cheered on my friend, Dave, again as he zoomed by on ...

Are you kidding me? A triathlon and I have never belonged in the same sentence. It must have been time for something new! (The "BEFORE" race shot, with goggles and swim cap in hand.) What an unforgettable week this was! I actually DID enter my first triathlon, with the goal of simply finishing it. Take note of the emphasis on the word FIRST, because I loved it so much, that you can guarantee that there will be more. It was a blast. Seriously. My friends Lorraine and Robin had trained and signed up to do the event, which was two days ago, on Saturday. Three days beforehand, I heard about it and basically had a spontaneous urge to join them, so I registered. The only partial preparation ahead of time that I had been doing was cycling in the neighborhood here and there on my mountain bike with some other friends. And doing some micro-laps in our backyard pool. Our friend, Dave, was also there. The three of us women appreciated Dave's encouragement and support, as he's ...