Merry Christmas!

It always makes me sad that we say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and then POOF! It's all over. I try to not let it just come and go like that. For example, lets leave the tree up for another month. Seriously. I love the lights, Why not?

And of course still wishing your loved ones, family, friends and co-workers a happy new year and good health...does that have to end on Jan 2? I hope not.

Anyways....lotsa fun pics....Pre holiday swims: And I forgot my phone so you dont get to see this suit on me, but i love it. It has gingerbread on the butt ( um, and spritz and sugar cookies and m and m's and...oh wait... you know what i mean) and Peace and Happy Holidays on the back side too. I may even wear it this week again.

This is why we arent grilling outside. Or swimming, for that matter.

Where's Waldo? Scroll down to find Waldo ...

Yes under that white fluff is Waldo. Our pool. Sweet, just named the pool. I am all about naming things, makes them more personal. Notice the diving board and the grill. No, we arent currently grilling much.

We had family pizza on the 23rd and hung out with Ruby. She had fun..or we did. Dressing her up in my scarf, and laughing way more than was warrented. A year ago she wouldnt have gone for this, and we are happy to say we think that Ruby has forgotten her depression days as a RAGOM pup when she was in a kennel with two other dogs and never had anyone to love on her.

Finally she gave me the "Where is my mom?" look. Her mom ( my mom) was out to dinner and i think Ruby was crying "uncle." And really we werent abusing her, she just loves it when we get down on the floor and hang with her, so I did:)

Christmas eve was fantastic and full of extended family at my parent's house. Lots of good humor, fun, giggles and memories of our family members that we miss so dearly. We try to keep those traditions alive:

Orange Jello ( with cool whip)

Christmas tree socks

Chocolate chip cookies for dessert ( in addition to the sugar cookies of course)

Beef Tenderloin...wait...not this year! Honey baked ham won out!

Red wine...wait...Julia made Cosmo's too...Just call me the " Enabler" and my cousin Ann who introduced me to the phrase " I want a tiny --TINI" cute! Ok, got it Ann!

Me: Ann: Heide ( my oldest sister)

Ruby got a flashing necklace....

Sisters!

Chippy's au apair, Janis, is from Bogota, Columbia and has never seen snow like this before. She ice skated, went sledding, and gave Ruby her fair share of love. Janis is fantastic, Chippy and Heide are so lucky to have her.

Kitchen Aftermath:

So....xmas eve was a success...we woke up and did it all over again.

Crack me up: the boys cant contain their excitement for the gifts Heide brought from her international travel, Eyeflaps, ear plugs and likely some booties for comfortable travel. Chippy put his headlamp on to better get a view of the loot:

Joe has found a new way to make it thru the school day:

His mom is the cupcake chef. I sent this pic to her and said we had her son hostage and she had tobring us cupcakes or we wouldnt let him go. Hmm. We havent heard from her yet. Anyone else feel that way about their 6 and 8 yo son's?

Willie in the background thinks the idea of his older brother being kidnapped is JUST FANTASTIC!!!

Brunch back at my folks...lots of fun stockings and presents and then back to our place for Xmas dinner with Weisbeckers and Mairs. What a great day! I hope you all had a restful weekend and Santa was generous to you and your's.

Saturday's Shenanigans

What do you get when you put this:

In a bag, carry it up the stairs:

Put it in here: ( You know where this is going)

Sadly remove the down jacket, the Lulu shorts, put on the designated "warm" shorts and...

In we go...

But its too cold! I think the tap water was cold enough. Water shoes are mandatory.

This expression pretty much says it all: HOLY COW!

I guess taking an ice bath means that either I really did some work that required it, or we just have so much snow I figured why not. A little bit of both I guess. Working back to some lunges, squats, etc with the TRX coupled with some hard(er) rides and a few miles on the TM meant when i got up in the middle of the night to go use the bathroom I could barely walk! oops.

But maybe not oops. Now is the time to be sore I guess, even tho I wince thinking about increasing the strength sessions in the future.

So another exciting day in Minnesota.

The Aftermath and Cupcakes in a Jar

I Realized I should have done a vide of sunday, when it had stopped and It was light outside. But it was too cold, and even today i went out and took my mittens off and my fingers were so cold. It took me about 4x as long to drive what usually takes me 10 minutes. The sidestreets are nutz, people are stupid, they just stop and try to park in the middle of the street when there are snow drifts as high as:

If i had another person i could have shown you to scale that this is about 12 feet of snow.

But my other hand had this in it:

So far my quest to cut back on coffee is going ok. But when Caribou has $2 spicey mocha's, its hard to resist, even tho i dont really like chocolate. I get it home, sip it and go "ehh" and make tea ...I keep trying to love that chocolate. But not yet. I have lovely tea choices, So far my faves are green tea with mango, green tea melange and Jasmine. All loose leaf.

In other non weather and non caffeinated news:

The Dome collapsed.

Farve gets another day to pretend his SC joint isnt killing him and he is not in excruciating pain. IT makes me cringe to think of snapping that football when your SC ( Sternoclavicular) Joint is in jeoprady, but then again maybe he can pass it underhand, get a few shots to the joint and still keep his record, whatever it is. Kari, you know what it is dont ya? :) You are such a fan. NOT.

My sister in law had an emergency cupcake delivery saturday mid snowstorm. She gets a call asking for 6 dozen cupcakes in a jar. Lets back up.

CC in a jar =

1/2 a cupcake baked in a glass jar

topped with frosting

another 1/2 like a muffin top ( cooked separately) put on top of the cupcake and then more frosting.

They are then eaten with a spoon, out of the jar.

*** And having just seen the originial Gene Wilder "Charlie in a Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl, dont you think Aimee would be on to something if she were able to create a jar that then could be eaten? Like when they are drinking tea near the chocolate river right before the blueberry girl explodes?

Turns out she could only turn around 2 dozen in the short timeframe she was given, but the customer was insistent. So Aimee drops the 2 dozen CC in a jar off in a snowstorm saturday morning, and Mrs. #4 has her party favors for that night's party. Wonder if the party took place of she was trapped in her house with 2 dozen of the best buttercream frosted cupcakes known to humankind?:)

I rode my bike on the trainer alot this weekend. I mananged a short T run, and no butt pain. and when is say butt pain gotta just trust me it isnt piriformis and maybe i will write a post about what it is/was but for now its too long a post and too much that i will lose Kari, and i want her full attention since i have included all her favorite things thus far except

Yorks. There, now i did it.

YORKS are better than Junior Mints. I agree.

Ok that is all from the winter wonderland, but really this is going to make my outdoor riding a bit tough for the next few weeks.

What Did You Do Today?

MN Tri Awards Night Plus Dick Beardsley

Last night we had the MN Tri awards banquet. I have never been to one of these and was not sure what to expect, other than the promised good food and of course seeing some nice people. We were excited to hear Dick Beardsley talk about his 1982 Boston Marathon duel with Alberto Salazar. Wow. What an incredible tale, and vivid memory Dick has of that day. He said he remembers it like it was yesterday. I knew Dick had returned to his farm in MN and had a terrible accident with some farm machinery, that nearly left him dead. I also knew he had struggled with addiction to Pain medication and Narcotics. But until you hear someone recount it, you cant even imagine the grip that addiction holds on someone. If you want more information on Dick, or his foundation please see his foundation website.

http://dickbeardsleyfoundation.org/

Dick now lives in Austin, TX...smart guy. Funny that he comes back to talk to us on the coldest and snowiest night we have had all winter:) If you get a chance to hear him speak, by all means take it. He was funny, emotional, honest and most of all he is real.

As for the rest of the night, well there were alot of awards to be had. I was nominated for Master of the Year and Most Improved. Tho i did not receive either award, and I had some really nice shout outs from my peers telling me that i deserved one or both, it really is fine. Every one of us is deserving, and honestly? If you had told me in April, 2010 as i lay in bed in Galveston TX before my VERY First Ironman event, the Texas 70.3, FREAKING OUT, that i had no idea what i was doing....if you had told me i would be on the dream team TEAM MN or even nominated for either of the two awards i would have said " Ha, funny."

When i come full circle, I woke up today the same person, with the same little ache in my Right hamstring and butt, ( that is getting better btw) and the joy of having a loving husband, super nice friends that love me, and even some super nice friends i have met thru racing that i didnt know at all this spring. I would be lying if i didnt THINK i deserved to win one of those awards, but at the end of the night I was sure happy to be there to support Cathy, Julie, Jenny, and those people that attended. Men and Women, we really have a great talent up here in MN.

The Committee that organized it did a fantastic job and if any of you are reading this. THANK YOU!! WELL DONE!

So, do i have the inner fire now in my belly to come back and PROVE that i deserved to win? Nah, not really. That isnt what really motivates me to be honest. I have my own goals, many of which involve racing out of state and seeing my camp friends and friends i have met thru my fantastic coach Jen. It's all good, we have to remember that people. I can tell ya, how quickly running a certain pace seems like H- E- double hockey sticks right now. Granted the snow isnt helping. But my point is you can have it all taken away so quickly, so enjoy the ups and try to weather the downs as well. Hopefully we have alot more of the ups to come!

And i think we have more snow and sub zero to come so i am gonna have to wear my new bracelet the nice K Swiss Sisters gave me that says WYAO. Its not quite HTFU. But any guess what it is?

WORK YOUR ASS OFF

Is it December Yet?

Thanksgiving felt alot like Christmas. Part of it was this: SNOW.

And This: COLD. This is my cold weather look. The look you have when you wear a down jacket OVER your running gear and pack a change of clothing so your under armour sweat soaked top can quickly be removed when you transition from that 10 min of roasty toasty heat to the " GIANT CHILL" that sets in after 10 min and 30 seconds after you stop moving.

We ran the turkey trot at the Mn Boat Club. Happy to say that my sister Elizabeth took top honors and i ran with hubby Rich who pulled out his first sub 9 min mile 5k. Way to go honey, on top of it we ran on a trail covered in fresh snow with a temp of 8 and a windchill below zero.

On terra firma i think he could have pulled out an even faster time! But he didnt want to talk the last mile so i just chatted away to entertain ( bother) him:)

I dont really know the exact number, i kinda think when anything gets below zero its all the same to me really. It's just cold.

And where can you run a 5k and win a pie? Blueberry and Key Lime.

Now we are talking....

It also felt alot like Christmas bc my sister came home from Texas, with my nephew Chippy.

Chippy Long legs, here in the orange, is getting taller by the minute. They arent usually home at Thanksgiving so it felt like Christmas to have them here. I was ready to open presents when i realized i still had month to rally on gift purchases.

We did some family tennis, and that was a ton of fun. Of course my left forearm is sore, not the arm i use to play, but the arm i use to control my backhand so i feel a bit old and creaky lately.

Speaking of old and creaky, the running news is this. I am able to start running, as I have been a good soldier and followed my return to run protocol to a T. If anything i keep telling myself I dont need a winning run time in January. But it has been tough, not only the feeling that I am old and creaky but the fear. I know that as i run a bit more, even tho its slow, I will regain the trust and JOY i have for running, but it has been rough. I feel quite thankful for the good work I am having done on my body and back, and for the fact that I was wise enough to STOP before I made things really bad. I have had REALLY bad before regarding Hamstring Tendonopathy, and so I did NOT want to go there again. This week starts week 4, meaning i am up to a 20 min jog at 1 min/mile slower than training pace. I did not say Race Pace, I said TP. So that is all fine and dandy since the cold and snow likely help take care of that all by themselves. Weeks 4-8 are a gradual increase in time and mileage, which puts me right on schedule for my Xmas present to myself. 6 miles, rolling, pain free. Pace not observed!

Sorry if you couldnt read the article in the last post. I cant tell you why i can double click on it and expand it, and you cant, sorry:(

Fall Interview

The interview below was done in August and I didnt really get around to scanning it till now!

At at time when i am grateful for so much more than Triathlon it also was a positive thing for me to read this and see that this sport and my life is so much MORE than S B R.

So read on, laugh, enjoy, wish you didnt know me, wish you did know me, take up tennis or least tune in during the Slams....and either way give thanks for all you have in your lives! Happy Thanksgiving!

PS you can double click and it will enlarge.

Yawn

I seemed to have forgotten that i spent all of November 2010 either at Mayo, planning a wedding, getting married and then here:

So it was hard to remember why November can be a month that seems to DRAG on, with cloudy short days, cold days, snow ( too early for me) and well...not much to keep me feeling like i want to skip down the driveway.

Since i am not training as much, I have had some time to bake. Maybe not the best combo:)

My sister works for Xcel, so each fall/winter she invites us to skate at the Xcel Energy center, take a tour and pretend that we are Koivu or Backstrom or Cuttlebuck ( oops, sp? molly? help me) but ooops i spaced that i dont have skates and so i was the peanut gallery watching screaming " man down on the blue line...WATCH OUT." and other obnoxious comments.

And of course the most exciting was that i could barely stand my pony tail any longer.

So here you go:

4 inches off and no more braids. I dont need to braid my hair till the first OW swim race in???

Hmm....I am not planning 2011 till i can say I am healthy and thru with 2010. Progress yes, but its slow ( meaning pace and progress). I had better get my run form back soon so i dont destroy my lats.

Yup, This is how I roll in November.

IF....

A teammate of mine sent this to me. Not the Federer version but the original. It made me think about not only my challenges, but also my triumphs. And that if I keep my head on straight, that the lows arent so low and the highs arent so high and the middle ground is pretty darn nice.
Oh and I just like Roger. If you dont, then dont watch it:)

Happy Anniversary Rich!

Dear Rich,

There were times last fall that I never thought this day would come:

In Mid-September, after your routine colonoscopy( who am i joking, those arent just routine, I know) our lives took a different course. All the sudden we were seated in a surgeon's office, and we even had a full APR ( look it up) scheduled for the following week. A procedure that would change your life and your style of living forever. But we were told it was the safest and best way to be sure we caught all the cancer in your lower colon. The little tumor was placed just in the wrong place to resect it, margins and all, and this was the best bet.

I am so glad we found a friend in Dr. Pemberton, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Despite shock... I never doubted that you would be ok. That is the truth. I had so much faith in the staff at Mayo, that I just knew that you would emerge 100% at some point, I just didnt know when. And as for lifestyle change, I knew you would make it work, WE would make it work. And we did.

I was glad to get you out of there so that your arm would eventually heal and the brusing and scar tissue from the coumadin shots bid would STOP! I think that may have been worse than anything!

When we decided to go ahead with the wedding on Nov 7, 2009 I was so excited. My parents, who were celebrating their 50th, were so excited. We now had THREE reasons to celebrate:

1) Our wedding

2) My mom and dad's 50th

3) Your successful surgery!

Lets do it. Lets call everyone, not send out invites ( not enough time), lets hope that we can find a place for the rehersal AND the reception dinner, and lets just not worry about who is coming. We know we are going to be there, and all the people that matter to us and if we run out of food, well...oh well. ( WE did!) We have cupcakes, that is all people want anyways:)

I have had the most love filled year as well, Rich. It is love not only from you, but from the friends that i now call my friends, and the family that I now call my family. The First Light group is not blood, but they are family, on or off the bike. The love and prayers we had from friends and family, and even people we dont know ( yes my blog friends, the one's you say " is that a virtual friend, or a real one?" hahaha)

First Light Family: ( named such bc they ride at insanely early hours, with insanely bright lights on their bikes)

And what worried you the most, I know, was our plans to honeymoon. We were not going to miss the honeymoon! NO WAY. When Dr. P said, go for it, I think we both melted into relaxation mode. How appropriate to send Dr. P proof that we were relaxing. Just happened to be on the BadKitty booze cruise to the BVI:) ha!

Painkillers? Yup, Doc, we got em.

I have never relaxed as much or had as much fun doing nothing, just being with you, ( and swimming around in the lovely water while you swam with sharks, ahem) and listening to the rain pound our "hut" and somehow drinking all the rum they gave us even tho i dont like rum. We will go back, and tho we met many couples celebrating their 20th or 40th anniversary, we vowed not to wait that long to go back. I will remind you of that:)

The first year of marriage has been a total touchdown! I am glad you agree:

Here's to the new season and ongoing love and fun. I love you Rich!

PS and I was so focused on US that i forgot to wish my parents, happy 51st wedding Anniversary! Wow, pretty amazing you two. Love you both!