Thorn Birded

I've been walking around with my head stuck in a book the past few days. I know... it's so unlike me. But when a coworker (turned friend... love that!) found out that I had my very own 'priest scandal' in my family she was both shocked and appalled (no, not that there had been a priest scandal in my family but...) that I'd never read or seen The Thorn Birds. It's a 500 some page epic novel and a lot of it is a little Jane Eyre-esque in that there are just full pages of descriptive stuff. I'm more into books for the dialogue. Let's be honest, 97.3% of the books I read are beach read romances. But I just skip over the descriptive stuff. I don't really need 6 pages on the weather patterns of Australia. But I digress...

Said friend told me to give it to page 100 and if I wasn't hooked then I was allowed to just watch the mini series. But alas, I got to page 100 and have been forging on ever since. I'm totally smitten with Father Ralph for those of you who do know the story. I'm on page 319 and am hoping to finish soon because it's due back at the library in a few days. Oh the pressure!

But moving onto to food and stuff. I finally (kind of) remembered to do weekend food pictures! I had some good eats. And by good I mean naughty! heehee. Check them out here if you feel so inclined.

Triathlon #1 is less than a month away. It's on June 27 to be exact. Eeekads. Let's move onto another topic before I stress myself out too much. (Have I mentioned I haven't been on my bike since FEBRUARY?)

Yesterday I went to Sonic for the first time. I've seen commercials for this place my entire life. They run tv ads in Philly even though there isn't a sonic within 50 miles of where I grew up. And then I moved south where there are plenty, but I was always scared/intimidated by it because I didn't know how the 'drive up' worked. But it was really quite fun. The server even brought the food to our car sporting some sweet roller skates.

Tonight I'm hitting up the Melting Pot for half price cheese and chocolate fondu. Be jealous. Be very jealous.

Boot Camp has been going well this week. I have mastered balancing on the swiss ball. It's so fun to be the best at something there. Because let's be honest, other than the swiss ball I'm still the slowest at a lot of the stuff we do (especially running). Remember the night I actually cried at boot camp because I was the weakest and slowest? Well I may still be the slowest but now I use the heaviest weights out of all the girls! It's an amazing feeling.

And as for TV, is anyone else as geeked up for this season of So You Think You Can Dance as I am? I love this summer time show. I can afford to have a 2 night TV show in the summer since there's nothing else on. So tonight, after I indulge in a healthy serving of fondu I'll be watching that. It doesn't get any better than this folks!

It's Official!

My Christmas present from my brother was registration for the Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon. However, he didn't actually sign me up for it. He's been busy and I've sort of forgotten about it.

Until I just got the following email:

Dear Jean,

Congratulations! You have successfully completed the online form for 09 Philly Tri Registration.

This e-mail is to confirm that your submission has been received. Our records indicate
you have selected the SPRINT INDIVIDUAL option.

Please contact us at info@virtualroster.com with any questions.

We appreciate your business.

Virtual Roster

Looks like my brother finally signed us up! This is the scary one with lots of competitive people and BOYS! Why I'm so intimidated to race with them I have no idea. But I am. My dad is thinking about doing it as well though which would be a real family affair!

I guess it's time to really start training.

Any NC Readers?

I've decided there are 3 tris I'm going to do this year. So we can add this to my 09 to do list.

#1 - Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon - Saturday, June 27 - Men and Women (Yikes!)
This one is the same course as the SheRox Philly did last year... but a bit more competitive and co-ed. This scares me. Why? I don't know. But my brother, dad, and some friends are doing it. All of whom are boys. So I can't exactly convince them to do the SheRox. My bro paid my registration for this bad boy for Christmas. Woo!

#2 - Charlotte SheRox Triathlon - Date is still TBA - All Female
I did it last year and loved it! There weren't that many competitors as it was the first year for this race. The swim was in a lake (no current!), the bike was through country roads and the run was both on and off road and shady! Best part? There was BBQ at the finish line. Gotta love the south.

#3 - Charlotte Ramblin Rose - September 27 - All Female
I wanted to do this last year but by the time I tried to register it was full. It's shorter than a sprint tri... only 250 yard swim (in a pool I believe), 9 milke bike and 2 mile run. It will be a nice way to close out my 'season.'

All of that being said... is there anyone reading who lives in Charlotte? If so... you should sign up for one of the two races in Charlotte!

I'm also going to start looking for a 5k to sign up for. I need to start doing them and actually RUNNING instead of walk/running.

Amazing Stuff and Boot Camp: Day 3

Kari, over at Taking Back Control, saw my before pictures (from the Charlotte tri) and was inspired. I can't even begin to say how humbled I am by her post. I never thought a goal that I set for myself last Christmas would ever have any sort of impact on anyone else. BUT... it has! I was able to convince Carrie to sign up even though she'd JUST HAD A BABY - talk about heros (and it was SO great having her there in Philly!!). Then my cousin signed up for the 2 day Breast Cancer walk in NYC after cheering me on at my first tri. So not only has she been training for that, but she also raised a BOATLAD of money for breast cancer research (if you feel generous feel free to donate some more). And now Kari is going to do a tri! So go visit her site and cheer her on :)

Whew... that was a lot of links! But it totally made my morning.

In other news -- I got up again for Boot Camp this morning! Three days in a row up at 5:40! We had our "Standardized Test" -- but no, I didn't need a number 2 pencil. Teehee. It was a set course that we had to do and TB timed us. Then we'll do it again at the end of the 6 weeks to see how much we improved. The course was as follows:

- jog 2 laps around soccer filed
- 20 pushups (i did girlie ones on my knees)
- jog a lap
- 30 situps
- jog a lap
- 20 squats
- jog a lap
- 20 pushups
- jog a lap
- 30 situps
- jog a lap
- 20 squats
- jog a lap

Today I was the slowest person but only by about a minute. Though one guy finished like 16 minutes before me!!! Insane. But I was proud because I didn't allow myself to walk at all. I did jog every single lap. Granted it was a slow pace... but I didn't give up. My time was 28:11. I was hoping to do it in 30 minutes so I was happy! Hopefully in 6 weeks it'll be easier AND faster. We shall see :) I get to sleep in tomorrow and I'm going to the 5:45 PM session... woohoo for sleeping!

In other news, I have a date tonight. More on that tomorrow :)

As for the BLBE Challenge... I've been working out (hello boot camp), and tracking everything I eat. I've been SO proud of myself.... but the stinkin scale is moving UP! I will NOT let it de-motivate me. Screw you scale. I know I'm doing all the right stuff. (Someone remind me of this if I have a gain on Sat and melt down hah)

Before Pictures

I keep forgetting to actually TAKE a picture of me. So we're going to go with some pictures of me from my tri (last weekend). I don't think I look all that great, so hopefully the AFTER pictures will be better!!

5:30am or so, when it was still DARK!

Coming out of the swim

Bike!!

The run.... er walk portion

Finished!!

The sweetest thing

I got a call on Friday night from someone asking if I'd be home Sat morning because they had a delivery for me. It was something that couldn't be left outside so I had to be home. I had no idea what it possibly could have been -- especially since the only two people (my mom and aunt) who in theory WOULD send me something I had just picked up from the airport. And they both swore it wasn't from them. I tried to google the number to figure out the company name, and it was a biz out of someone's house. So all night long I was curious.

Then at 9:30 on Sat morning the doorbell rang and I was greeted with this:


Carrie over at Newlywed Girl sent it to me wishing me luck on the tri. Is she not the SWEETEST ever? Thank you SO much. And believe you me.... it all got gobbled up right away! My mom, aunt, cousin and I feasted on the fresh fruit and marveled at it's beauty. It was the best surprise ever AND weight watcher friendly :)

Tri #2

The results are already in for today's tri! It was an EARLY morning (I've been up since 4:20am) so I'm just going to throw my results up here... I'll try to write up a mini race report tomorrow morning.

The short of it is that the race went really well. I again just had fun the whole time. At no point did I feel like I was going to die, and at no point did I want to give up. I still need to work on the run... if I could just get that down I'd have a pretty decent time!

Rank: 350/383 (Hey, I wasn't last!)
Overall Time: 02:26:18
Swim: 00:21:44 (rank 261)
T1: 00:03:27
Bike: 01:11:04 (rank 319)
T2: 00:03:05
Run: 00:46:29

My time was 00:01:58 longer than the Philly Tri. But im my opinion the course was a bit harder, so I'm happy with this. I was shooter for 2 hrs 25 min, but I'll take my time considering I didn't really train at all after Philly!

I'm ready to kick some MAJOR ass next year at these SheRox tris. Woohoo.

I should also mention that I ate insane amounts of food this weekend. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get back on track. August and the first half of Sept have been a bit of a bust. Haven't really GAINED much, but am not losing. And it was a lot more fun when I was losing :)

Good and Bad

Let's start with the bad. My dinner at my work event tonight was cookies. I feel so sick right now. I think that's what I needed. A TOTAL OD on sugar. And so starting now I'm back on track. And thank you for all of the comments. I just got home and read them and you guys are totally right! Fruit is better than cookies for so many reasons!

The GOOD is this picture of me coming out of the swim in the tri. Oh my goodness I don't look like I'm going ot pass out nor do I look like a whale!!!! (Some of the other pictures I do so I'm just not sharing them teehee).

Race Recap

The weekend started with a LONG drive from Charlotte to Philly on Friday. I left the house around 7:15 am and got to my parents at 5pm. LONG drive. Maddie was a champ though. What a good pup.

I quick introduced my mom and the pup, showered and went to meet up with two of my friends for dinner. I didn't even pretend to eat healthy. I got a chicken cheese steak and fries. It was heavenly. And great to catch up with my girls.

After that I just hung out at home with my parents and the pup. My dad loves the little girlie. They played fetch for hours. Got to bed early on Friday and was up early again on Saturday. Time for the Race Expo! There were all sorts of vendors and some free goodies -- but most importantly I got my ride packet and free t-shirt. ha! I also met up with Carrie for the mandatory meeting. By the time I left the expo I was totally shitting myself with fear for what the next day would bring.

Saturday night we had quite the family party. My one cousin from Cali was in town and another from NY came down for the weekend. As well as my bro and his gf and my other cousin, his finace and their baby. My mom made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. HEAVENLY. It was REAL pasta. I loved it. And helped myself to some peach crisp for dessert. With FULL FAT Ben & Jerrys smores ice cream on the side. Talk about carb loading :) I was in bed Sat night by 10:30 with my alarm set for 5:15 and my bag packed for the morning.

I slept well on Sat night which was good. Only got up 3 times to pee (I worked hard to hydrate a lot the day before the race). My alarm went off at 5:15 am and I finally got out of bed at 5:30. Hopped in the shower to wake myself up. Got dressed. Let the pup out and fed her. And also had a light EM with pb and honey for breakfast. We were in the car by 6am on our way to the RACE! I was so excited.

I got there and saw two girls I went to grade school with right away. Not really the start to the morning I was looking for, but it was nice to say hi to them. One of them was doing the full tri, the other just the run portion for a relay team. I'm happy to say I beat the girl who was doing the full tri. Call me petty... but I really wanted to beat her! But I digress...

So my mom, dad and myself walked the mile or so from the car down a HUGE hill to the race area. I got all marked up (the one thing I was most excited about because it meant it was a real GROWN up race) with my number on my arms and legs and my age on the back of my right calf. I then ventured to the transition area and got set up. I really had no idea what I was doing but just sort of followed suit with everyone else. Got all my stuff out that I'd need and then called Carrie. Turns out she was literally right in front of me! Another acquaintance from high school was right behind me so we all hung out before hand.

After I got situated I hit up the warm up swim. I just wanted to get in the river to make sure I didn't freak out at the start since I'd not done any open water swims beforehand. I hopped in the river and was surprised at how 'normal' it was. It was like bath water and other than the fact that the water was completely brown it was fine! So I felt a lot better.

Pretty much after that there was just a bunch of loitering going on. The race started an hour before my heat took off - so we had to stand around near the swim start, but out of the transition area so the pros and other super speedy people could get into transition easily.

Here I am striking a pose while waiting for my cousin.


It was then that I starting thinking what a horrible idea this whole tri thing was. Seeing some of the pros out of the water in TEN minutes and hopping on their bikes like it was nothing had my stomach churning. But finally the waiting was over and it was time to actually GO! As soon as they let my heat (orange caps) get in the water I got in. I knew it would be about 5 mins of treading or so but this way I figured I'd be ready to go and totally acclimated. And to be honest -- I could tread water for hours. It's just not something that tires me out. So in I went! And anxiously awaited for the start.

Once we were off I decided to go with breastroke the majority of the swim. I didn't want to get too off course doing freestyle as my 'sighting' wasn't all that good. And doing breastroke I was able to keep aware of who was around me (aka make sure I didn't get kicked in the face). I was expecting the swim to be a lot harder... but the next thing I knew I was already at the first bouy making the turn... and then the second. From there it was downstream. I just sort of counted my strokes and kept going. Towards the end a few blue caps (aka youngins in the 21-25 yr old heat) passed me which sort of pissed me off, but what are you going to do? I was finally at the swim finish and knew I could do this. I got out of the water and my whole family was there cheering for me. It was an awesome feeling. I ran (yes actually ran) to my transition area and attempted to dry off to get my socks and bike shoes on.



I put on my helmet, grabbed a piece of gum and was off! All I know was that according to my watch I was on the bike at 30 minutes and was pumped about that.

The bike course was a double loop. There was one hill that sort of sucked but other than that it was pretty flat. I could have pushed harder on the bike, but I'm not going to get all bent out of shape about that. It was a nice smooth ride and I enjoyed it. Even passed a few people! And everyone who passed me was so nice saying keep up the great work and stuff like that. The whole race had that sort of atmosphere.



When I finished the bike portion and hopped off my legs were sort of like jello. I attempted to run back to the transition area, but being in my bike cleats and holding a bike and being tired that just didn't happen. So I walked as fast as I could back and started focusing on the last leg. The run. Ugh. I threw on my sneaks. Grabbed some water/gatorade combo, took a bite of a PB&J sammy and was off.



I ran to the start of the run... and then lost my umph. I started walking. It was a brisk walk, but a walk no less. I tried to do off and on walk/runs but my legs were just done. It was a sunny course and I started to feel a little tuckered out. Granted I wasn't hurting by any means... I just didn't push myself as hard as I could have. Out of the whole "run" I probably jogged just over a mile and walked the rest. There were plenty of other people walking, but still. So that's the main thing I want to work on for the Charlotte tri. More brick workouts and just work on running NO MATTER HOW MUCH I HATE IT. Because I do. I really hate it.

But before I knew it I was nearing the finish line. My cousin and bro were there to give me some sky miles (aka a high 5) and ran me into the finish. I felt totally FINE at the finish. I downed a bottle of water but other than that was good to go! Felt better than I do after working out with TB that's for sure. So I hung out with the family until my mom finished. Her and two of my ants did a relay and also did great. Considering none of them have ever done anything like this before I was so proud! And it was fun to have them around as well.

Here I after finishing!

Alive!

I survived the tri. It was actually awesome -- I loved it!!!! Certainly have room for improvement, but my goal was to finish and I did that so I'm happy! But I totally didn't RUN the run portion. I sort of shuffled/jogged about a mile of it the rest I walked. So for the Charlotte tri I need to get that time down. But I was really happy with my swim and bike times. Woohoo!

Full report tomorrow when I have time. But just saw that the official results were up. Here's my info. Also stop by Carrie's blog because she did it too and KICKED BUTT!!! The girl just had a baby and still rocked the tri. It was so fun hanging out with her at the race! So go tell her how awesome she did :)

I drove back to Charlotte today. Made good time but am pooped from so much driving and the crazy weekend with my family.