In Order

My little sister, Rebekah, is now is 5-ish weeks away from delivering my nephew, Nathaniel, to me. I am excited to say that her 3rd trimester hormones are much better than her 2nd trimester hormones (she hates it what I say that- don't ever tell a pregnant woman she is hormonal). We have been spending a lot of fun time together and having some good talks these past few weeks.

I decided post ironman that I am getting EVERYTHING in order in my life. I am getting every little penny a place in the budget. I am doing every single CEU so I can keep my physical therapy and counseling licenses. I am getting the yearly termite check set up and getting estimates on replacing the roof. And...I am cleaning out my closets.

Rebekah- aka Bookie- won't let me do this alone. She is the queen of cute, and I am the maid of drab. She bullied her way into my closet-cleaning and made my try on every single piece of clothing in my closet. I would say my clothes have a retention rate of 30% when my sister is involved. I don't understand why I can't keep certain clothes from college. So they are 15 years old and should be worn by a teenager? What, that is not me?

So we had 4 piles: keep, alter, give away, and then the costume pile (which I made up because I just can't bear to part with some things. I mean, I can make a costume out of that dress that is way too short, right?) Bookie does not agree with the costume pile, but I make one anyways.
Here is a beautiful example of a dress that has been in my closet for too long. The hot pink sports bra is a great look with it, I think. Guess which pile it went in? I said keep, because it is fun. Bookie said give away because it belongs at a high school dance. I tried to negotiate with the costume pile. I mean...can't we turn this into something? It ended up in the give away bag. You don't win much when going up against a pregnant woman.

The pregnant, clothing queen on her royal perch, forcing me to try on every item of clothing. My supposed best friends, Rooney and Cayenne, seemed to be on her side of every clothing decision.

So far I have only completed the closet and I have 3 huge garbage bags of clothes and shoes. My closet is only about 5 x2 feet. Yikes!!!!! I told you Bookie is strict!

I did find something to wear to my sister's baby shower the next day. No more complaining that I don't have any clothes.

And how did I reward my sister for her clothing expertise? She asked me to come with her to Baptism class next Sunday since Jon cannot go. And, you know what came out of my mouth? Seriously. I said, "But the Hawaii Ironman is going on right around that time. I might miss the finish!"

I backtracked quickly....awaiting a full lashing. But, like I said, 3rd trimester hormones are much, much better so I was safe. I am going to Baptism class, and she hasn't said a word about how I almost chose to watch a triathlon over saving her son's soul. Ha ha ha!!!! :))))))

(but can we move class to a different time? :)

***Edit! Julia just saved me. I got my dates all mixed up and now I can do it all! Whoo hooo!!!!! The 8th is on Saturday!

T3

I call this T3...the transition that comes after T1 and T2...the after-race transition.

I am a little lost puppy without ironman training. Most of the minutes I used to devote to training are now spent at work, worrying about work, planning for work, etc... With ironman training, I would work long and hard with my job and then cut it off and train. Now I don't have the built in excuses and reasons to leave earlier or say "no" to my boss. My days are progressively creeping into my nights at the office.

I miss the balance. It is amazing how much you can make happen when you are truly limited in time. How did I do it? I woke up at 4:45 am almost every morning to work out before work. I did workouts at 7:00pm after work. I said "no" to social engagements. I said "no" to extra work. I trained long on the weekends. It worked.

Now I have a lot of extra "work"...at my real job. And a lot of extra "fluff" activities that were not a part of my training plan, such as "sip and chips" at the Mexican restaurant with my co-workers (which is tonight, BTW). :)

Dave is happy to have me around a little more. I think he was extra happy to have me cook dinner on Tuesday night. I think it is my time to give back a little bit.

But I am looking for that next challenge. I haven't found it yet, but I am ready to get one or four on my calendar. I don't think I was made to stay in T3 for very long.

Rest and Debrief

**I want to give a shout out to STEVE COLE- my teammate and swim partner. He is the ONLY 11 time Xterra Regional Champ in history, and he just won his age group at the Xterra USA Championship. Awesome.**

Most of the time I do not want to return home from vacation, but I must say that I am actually enjoying my time back home just being me. I have finally had a chance to talk to most of my friends about the race, debrief a little bit with Tim, and just be my normal, post-race self.

I have had a lot of time to reflect on the race. I enjoyed the race so much and thought the day was incredible. I did have some mixed feelings about the bike after the race. But, when I had time to sit down and actually look at the results, I realized that I did have a good race. I tend to discuss the negative and shove the positive away in a dark corner as if it doesn't matter. It is really a personality fault of mine, and I have done that all of my life. I can win a soccer game, and complain that I messed up one play. Too negative! I am trying to stop that, so, here is the positive, out to shine...

I was one of the only people in my AG to actually get faster on the bike from the 2nd to 3rd sections, and I had the 4th fastest bike split in the 3rd section in the AG. I can take away the fact that as the race went on, I got better. That is great! While everyone else was slowing, only myself and one other girl were getting faster. I started to learn how to ride the course, and my endurance was starting to really shine. I still have a lot to learn and many areas for improvement, but that is GOOD! If I left the day with no way to improve, that would be bad. That would mean I had reached the end of my development.

On top of that, my time would have awarded me 1st-5th place in any other age group. Except 30-34. For this race, 30-34 was stacked, which I think is awesome. I was the first American woman finisher, but this American wants to learn to race like the Europeans! Light years beyond me! It is motivational.

So, with Wales behind me, I am now looking forward to perhaps some half-marathon training. I ran for 1 hour today with no problems (except that I gained 4 pounds over the past two weeks and I was out of breath at zone 2....). Dave just asked if I want to go get margaritas, and I said yes! Tomorrow is my sister's baby shower, which means more margaritas and cake! Looks like those 4+ pounds are going to be hanging around just a little bit longer.

So here are some post-IMWales pictures... a little tour of England.

Hanging with the Windsor natives...

A fantastic sign at White Hart Lane- it is about glory...

These were the best seats we have ever had in our lives. Too bad Liverpool had their worst game in 7 years...

Liverpool vs Tottenham. For 90 minutes, I was really, really missing being a soccer player. Dave was proud to say that I am the only female that he knows from here that has been to 3 EPL games. I was proud to see how Dave was able to talk football with all of the locals- he knew just as much as the Brits- every player, every team, ever trade. He is actually watching EPL right now as I type...

Our German travel partners, Hein and Christine. On this night, we celebrated with them their 33 years of marriage...

One of our favorite bars in Stratford: The Dirty Duck. After watching A Midummer Night's Dream at the Royal Shakespeare Academy, we found the actors' bar, and then gawked all night...

The day after the ironman and my first castle...

Several days after ironman, and my favorite castle. Notice how I am always wearing Los Locos gear? Well, I was so busy packing race-wear, I completely forgot to pack street clothes. I wore the same clothes over and over and had to wash my underclothes in the sink. Classy.

Yes, a little immature. I thought this was funny, especially after someone highly recommended we go visit the Brass Rubbing Center. If you look closely, you can see that I am starting to swell up. I had very little post race problems or fatigue, but then 2 days later, I had so much fluid retention you could not even see my knees or ankles.

A beer and a pub...

looks like I was on a roll in the UK! :)