Wowwzzzzaaaaa

Well what can I say. I haven't been on here in a while. I haven't really had much to blog about these days. Kinda crazy for me.

Well since July, I really haven't accomplished much. I've manged to pick up shooting a shot gun which I LOVE! I love trap and skeet shooting. I have my own gun and I have all the gear to look the part I'm just not that great. Better than the boys I go with but hey, that's a woman with a gun for you. We are just better :)

I've managed to go camping at Garner State Park twice. And when I say camping, I mean, staying in a full air conditioned cabin with full kitchen and bath rooms and beds. So I'm not roughing it.

We have started hanging out with some of the best people ever. Cliff and Jessica mean the world to us and I'm very grateful for their friends.

After much though over the last month and watching everyone finish Ironman Florida, Arizona and Kona, I'm committed to signing up for another half ironman in Galveston! That's right, and actual official MDOT sanctioned race! I've completed two halves before just not the official ironman backing it. So it will be fun to do. It isn't until the end of April, so I have lots of time.

I've also committed to running the Austin Half Marathon. I figure what the heck, I can do 13 miles in my sleep, ok I used to could do 13 miles in my sleep. But I think it won't be much of a problem. I'm just out there to complete it and have a good time.

As for everything else, I'm getting ready to put of the Christmas Tree (pictures to come), help with Christmas Affair in Austin with Hillary, travel to Tempe, Arizona for IMAZ, do the Turkey Trot and Thanksgiving, enjoy lots of food with the in-laws, shop, go to Christmas parties, travel home for the holidays, camping at Garner State Park for the New Year, travel to New York for my first ever Jewish Wedding for my dear penpal, Austin Half Marathon, Hermann Memorial Half Ironman, Bay to Breakers in Cali.

WOOWWWZZZZAAAAA...that is alot to do in the next 6-7 months but hey, it will keep me on my toes and hopefully help me lose my weight and get to enjoy some of the best friends in my entire life.

Been a while...but here it goes

So back in May I did two races...I did the Rookie Tri once again. I completely surprised myself with my time! 1 hour and 8 minutes! WHOOO HOOOO! I beat my time from the last two times I did this race. I had a good race and a good run.

Then came Bay to Breakers in California. This was the best race, funniest race I've ever done. I am going back out next year just to do it again! Plus I just love Cali.

In June I did Pflugerville Tri. I did good. The swim and bike were great for me and the run, well, it could have been better. It was hot and humid and I was just hurting. I had dehydration that week so I was going into this not feeling 100%. But I finish in 1 hour and 33 minutes. Not bad, That was my best overall sprint distance time.

July 5th, well, not such a good day. I was hit by a car on my bike. She was turning into whataburger and nailed me. Still nursing the scrapes and bruises, need to get the bike fixed but other than that I'm fine. Thank God she wasn't moving any faster than what she was. Stupid woman.

So I sit here now and say "Now What"? Well I'm for sure doing the Austin Half Marathon on Feb 20th. I'm also going to do Austin Tri to finish the season up. I can't decide if I want to do a tri in August or not. We will see what happens.

LoneStar Sprint Triathlon

Wow, what a weekend. Thursday night, my pen pal Leslie came into town for a bachelorette weekend with other friends. We were able to spend some time together which was great. Friday we dropped her off downtown and we headed to Galveston.

We get down there and of course the wind is blowing. Go figure. I have yet to be down there and it not blow it's butt off. Friday night I went to bed to wake up sweating at about 2am. The electricity had gone out. They were having 75mph winds that night. So 5am came early and quickly after that point.

I get up get dressed, eat and we make our way down to the race site. I set up my transition and meet up with Collin and we make our way down to the swim start. I did my warm up swim and get out and think well, it's only 500 meters I have to swim in this rough water, I can do this.

We wait around and it starts raining a little. Then the wind just gets worse and wave are rolling in now in the bay. They delay the start 15 minutes. Before I know it they cancel the swim and we all head back to transition to get on our bikes to do a bike and a run.

At this point, I'm mentally over this race. I pack up all my gear and hand it to Collin and get my bike and head out and make it back to the motel.

I came in FIRST...first one back to the hotel from the race I think as I just bailed. I didn't want to ride in the wind with those rookies and have my race wheels and the wind yank me all over the road.

So there it is. The no race race report.

Decisions...

Well I decided that I will be doing the sprint in Galveston. I want it to be over with quicker so I can enjoy my weekend :)

Finally some spring weather in the ATX!

I love this time of year. The time has changed, the trees and flowers are starting to bloom and it is starting to get warmer! I'm ready for some much needed warmer weather. This cold crap has lasted long enough here in Austin.

I'm ready to start racing some small triathlons. I think more than anything, I'm ready to get out there and have some fun and do some traveling.

I'm ready to spend sometime in my yard. I need to get out there and get some flowers planted and make it look better. I'm going to go with native stuff this year so it last.

Where has the time gone....

The last month and a half has just been flat out crazy for me. Work has been super busy with all kinds of fun stuff. I'm trying to get back into triathlon training mode. My teeth are finally feeling somewhat better. I finally recovered from a chest cold. My dogs are still a mess with medical issues. We had to Boston on Friday. I go home the first part of April for a wedding. The end of April not only brings my PenPal back to Texas but I also do my first triathlon of the season in Galveston.

I sit back and wonder what have I even accomplished. It sure hasn't been weight loss. I have managed to get work back under control. But everything else is still kinda lacking. I feel I should be working out more. I ask myself if that is the crazy ironman talk I still have inside me.

I swear...I don't know how I managed to do this all while ironman training.

2010 Winter Olympics

OMG! This has to be some the best winter Olympics I've watched. I'm a huge sports fan to begin with but give me some downhill skiing and some speed skating and I can be entertained for hours and wishing that my parents would have pushed me harder as a child and lived somewhere that had lots of snow for me to train for something like that. But since that didn't happen, I will sit back on my couch and cheer on the US Teams!

From the start, Apolo Ohno and JR Celski rocked the speed skating to win sliver and bronze. Shani Davis rocked the long track to take the gold. Lindsey Vonn was lighting fast on the downhill to take the gold and Julie Mancuso with the silver. Bode Miller took charge in the men's downhill to win the bronze and Shaun White, well he is the rock of the Olympics! You can't even come close to snowboarding against this guy. He tears it up every time he straps that snowboard to his feet. The women snowboarders showed they are strong also and walked away with sliver and bronze last night.

I can't seem to get enough of the Olympics. I wish they came around every year.

The US is standing strong with a medal count of 18 as of this morning. Congrats to TEAM USA!

Craziness in ATX!

So about 10am yesterday, a small single engine plane flew into a building here in North Austin. Of course these days, our first thought are well, and act of terrorism and someone wanting to do this intentionally. Well, we are all right. Some loon from Austin, decided to be pissed off at the IRS and fly his plane into a building. Why can't people just kill themselves without involving others? Really, we are still trying to fly planes into buildings for being angry? Those people in those buildings didn't do anything to you. How about you take responsibility for your actions? Try that for starters and suck it up and put your big girl panties on and just deal with it. I don't feel that anyone other than myself and God has the right to choose how and when I die. Call me crazy, but I prefer to leave that up to the big guy in the sky for that.

More tooth drama

So for the past 2 weeks, I've still been having headaches. WTF? Will it ever go away? So I call the oral surgeon and asked if this was normal. Well I guess not, as they wanted me to come back in. They determined there wasn't any infection. So they needed/wanted to take some x-rays to see what was going on. It looked like there still might be a small portion of my tooth that was in there. So they reopened the sockets and went to scrapping on my jaw bone and pulled something small out. Really, you didn't get it all out the first time? So they packed me for dry sockets and I was on my way.

Thursday I decided to work from home to make sure I could take my pain meds. Thank goodness I did. I was so sick. I was fighting off a cold or something and had some antibiotics for it. I took one and was sicker than a dog. My back and lower body was just in horrible pain. I took more pain meds and slept the day away.

Friday was a little better. And the weekend was ok. Monday night brought on some throbbing. Glad I still have my pain meds to take.

New outlook...

After sitting around and thinking about what I was doing a year ago, I have to say I'm very thankful that I'm not training for an Ironman. This weather right now, is terrible for Ironman training. I said that last year for about 18 weeks of non-stop wind and cold and well I was out there every weekend putting in the miles.

This year, I have a new outlook. I'm training for shorter races. My quality of life just means so much to me right now. I've missed out on my family, dogs, friends and God knows what else. I'm keeping it short. I will probably not be happy with my times that I will post but I'm bound and determined to have some fun this year.

I've started a new boot camp here at work with a gal pal, Mallory. She is kicking my butt every Tuesday and Thursday but I have to say I'm having fun and it is the best workout I've ever had. Regardless what anyone tells me, this is has to be the best strength building workout I've done to date. Mallory is great at was she does.

I'm looking forward to this season of triathlons. I feel like I'm blowing my wad all in May, but oh well. It'll be worth it.

On the up and up...

I went for my final packing of dry socket today. It taste awful and my tongue is numb. I feel like I could puke from whatever they put in those stupid holes. I still say that was the worst and most painful experience of my life I've had to go through. Thank goodness it only comes once in your life or I would never do this again.

I finally get to start working out again. A week of doing nothing has been long enough. I need to get my fat butt moving again.

Oh my aching tooth!

For about the last 2 weeks I've been battling some bad headaches due to my wisdom teeth still being in my head. Yep, 30 years old and I still have them. So I finally arrived at that point where I couldn't handle it anymore and I just wanted them out. I went in on a Thursday afternoon for x-rays and on Friday morning I was having them cut out.

Believe it or not, I was not one bit nervous for this. I'm usually a basket case when it comes to going to the dentist. We arrive and start the waiting game. Alison shows up so Collin can leave to head to work. We take a few pics and then head back to get me prepped.

They stick me with the IV twice, ask me a few questions and before I know it, I'm out. I guess they continued to ask questions and I answered with, "I only eat BEEF, and is this what heroin feels like?"

I wake up and don't remember how I got from the lethal injection chair to the recovery chair. All I know is I wanted my teeth and wanted to see them NOW! So they showed me. And I looked at Alison and said lets go, I'm hungry. I grabbed a ton of latex gloves(remember I'm out of it)and we head out.

On our way out of the building walking through some construction, I was trying to find Alison a boyfriend. And then once at the car, I tapped on the window of a truck and asked if he needed a girlfriend. She puts my drunk butt in the car and I start drunk dialing people. I have to say, it was freakin funny to hear the voicemail that Hillary saved.

We went for yogurt and I had it running all down my face, blood coming out of my mouth and God knows what else was going on. We make it home and we both crash in bed and take a really good nap.

Pain is still not bad, I'm still numb and kinda out of it. I continue on about my day and taking my pain meds. All I wanted for dinner was pasta from whole foods. So we left for some pasta and come back home to walk in the door to niki having another seizure. I didn't freak out. Poor thing. I'm just glad we were there when she had it.

Saturday the pain wasn't bad. I slept alot. Sunday, well, the pain was kinda worse. Monday I worked from home and slept and it was a good thing I did. I felt great on Monday. Tuesday was the worst day of pain. I made my way into work, took my meds and slept on the couch for over 2 hours until I was sober to drive. Made my way back to the dentist to find out I had dry sockets. So they start packing them and holy crap was that the most painful experience of my life. I needed an injection for that. And they offered it to me after the fact, hello, I'm done now, no need to do that. I cried and left. Finally some relief.

I walk in the door to find Niki had an upset tummy and had pooped everywhere! The smell was terrible. So I'm crying and cleaning. I finally finish and just lay on my couch hoping that the pain will go away.

Hillary came over and we went to do some retail therapy and I was home and in bed by 9pm. I woke up this morning feeling better. The pain is creeping back on my I'm taking my meds.

My Plans For 2010

I can't believe that a year ago I was seating here freaking out about training for an Ironman. I sit here here in this same spot at my desk and have a sense of calmness about not doing another one ever again.

So I've planned out most of 2010 for myself. I'm such a planner that I typically do this to begin with.

April 24th and 25th - Lonestar Olympic Triathlon
May 9th - The Rookie Triathlon
May 16th - Bay to Breakers in San Francisco with Kelsey
May 31st - Cap Tex Tri
June 6th - Danskin Triathlon with Hillary and Rachael
October - Nike Women's HALF Marathon
November - I'm going to AZ to with Ironman Arizona

I'm also hoping that I can score US Open tickets at Pebble Beach for June. I'm hoping to fly home Amarillo on April 10th to see a wedding and spend time with my family.

Tentative Plans:
June 20th - Pflugerville Tri
August 1st - Jack's Generic
Sweet and Twisted