Swim, Bike, Run, Done!

Yesterday, I did my own personal celebration of my third child's first birthday: I completed my first triathlon! It was an Olympic distance, so I swam 1.5k (.9 miles), biked 40k (24.9 miles), then ran 10k (6.2 miles)!
**Update** My official results (It turns out there were 5 women in my age group!):

I can't figure out the rankings--the number of how many people I was participating with seem to change in each category, maybe because of the relay, so I'll just post my times. I was not last in any event! The numbers do not add up to the total time because of the transitions.
Swim: 43:31
Bike: 1:44:56
Run: 59:56 (a 9:40 pace and my highest rank--good, since this is "my event")
Total: 3:32:34

Here are some things I learned:

1. Triathlons are fun! 
I especially loved the variety in my training workouts!

2. Slow and steady at least finishes the race. 

3. Bring extra goggles.
My goggles broke literally as I was walking into the water to start the race! Lucky for me, a friend and occasional running partner, Jenn, was in the crowd waiting for her wave (she was doing a different distance) and managed to track down some extra goggles for me before they said "go"! Unfotunately, they were too tight and gave me a headache and made me nauseous. I even threw up toward the end of my swim, but I never stopped swimming! I was really nervous about being able to finish the race at that point, but when I took off the tight goggles and wetsuit, I instantly felt better. I drank some good luck Gatorade from MaryAnne and had a huge grin through all 25 miles of biking, because I was SO glad to not be nauseous!

4. Be social!
To pass the time and to increase the odds that someone would stop and help me if I had something go wrong during the race, I was super chatty with people before the race (especially the 10 or so other women doing the Olympic distance). It made all the difference having people to wave at during the race and to congratulate afterward. Plus, one of them told me she had done an Olympic for her first Tri as well, which was comforting, since people seemed so incredulous when I'd tell them that was my plan. I also would not have known where Jenn was and she wouldn't have been able to help me with the goggles!

5. Bike more.
I got passed like CRAZY on the bike route! Why are all those speed demons only doing a Sprint distance?? Plus, the only thing that is sore today is my butt from sitting in the seat so long!! I was last in my age group on the bike, 2nd to last on the swim, and 2nd on the run.

6. Find hills to train on!
Rolling hills in the course description really meant rolling hills! It slowed me down on the bike, but I am not a biker, so it doesn't upset me. The run was SO much more hilly than where I train, though! I still had energy, but my legs were too tired to tackle the hills! I kept under a 10 minute average still when my usual average is around 9, but I was really expecting a stronger run!

7. I can do it!
I can train for and finish an Olympic triathlon and I can regain control of my body after having a baby!  I don't know when I'll have the time to train that much again, but I hope I will be able to do another one some day.
 

Special thanks to:

Dan for supporting me so much in training! He took time off work that he didn't have, told me I was looking good :), and came to cheer me on at the finish line.

MaryAnne for watching my kids more than anyone during my swims, running with me, not letting me even talk about potentially failing, my good luck Gatorade, and for cheering for me at the race (thanks to her family for joining her, too)!

Katie for running with me and being my cheerleader and sound board as well. Even though she's in Idaho now, she still was always willing to listen to me talk about my training!

Amanda, Necia, and Abby for childcare help as well.

Nicole and kids for the fun good luck photos they sent me!   

Everyone I know who refrained from smacking me or rolling their eyes when every conversation I had with them came back to my training. It kind of became all encompassing for me this Summer! 

The Pictures

Dan accidentally set the camera on Manual, so the pictures are a little off, but you get the idea!

Finishing!  It was not particularly impressive, but my goal was the finish line and I was not going to risk over doing it and having the experience I did with my first half marathon! Which, by the way, was finishing on a stretcher.

Claire was thrilled to see me and to contaminate my hydration efforts.

Medal #1

There were only 5 women in my age group, so I got a 3rd place medal! I passed one girl during the run, but she was running with someone, so I don't know if she was slowing down for him or not. Either way, I gained ground in the run! I really don't take any pride in this medal since my time really was SO slow compared to everyone else, but it was fun to get it.

Medal #2

They had another category of awards for the fastest first time triathletes. I was THE only woman who did an Olympic distance for her first triathlon, so I won! At first I just brushed this award off too, but there were about 100 first time triathletes there that day and I was the only woman out of them tackling the Olympic distance AND I was successful. So, now I am really proud of that medal! I also got a shirt with that award, but it has a sexual innuendo on the back about my first time triathlon which bothers me. The front will be a good addition to a t-shirt quilt someday, though!

The actual race shirt is a cool tech shirt with the Rochester city skyline and "Rochester Triathlon" on it, which in itself makes me glad that I got to do this race instead of the one I was supposed to do last weekend, which got cancelled 10 days before.

Do you think Claire likes me?

Here are 3 things to be proud of. Not the 2 medals and shirt, but the 3 cute kiddos. I was glad to have them there to cheer for me. Or, in Ruth's case, whine at me because she was tired of walking and got a bee sting. I loved that I got to alternate between a) pushing her on my bike and b) carrying Claire and pushing my bike while Ruth rode in the stroller because RUTH was so tired :) Eventually James offered to push Ruth so Dan could carry Claire. What a guy.

After the race I went home and laid down for an hour, then got ready to photograph a wedding for 4.5 hours! I think it actually helped me be less sore today since it was  a 4.5 hour cool down! Only a couple people commented on the permanent marker numbers I couldn't get completely scrubbed off!

Happy Birthday, Claire!

What a fast year this has been--time flies when you're having fun with such a sweet sweet baby girl. I got to try out my new camera and some of my favorite first-year photo shoot ideas on my "Claire Bear". We woke her up at 7am and drove to this spot less than a mile from my house so we could get the early morning light. Unfortunately, it was a little cold, but she still cooperated enough to get some great shots!

I've been looking forward to using balloons in Claire's pictures, but it turns out she's TERRIFIED of them! Oh well, they make a nice backdrop!

Her #1 favorite thing: Mommy. The other day I put Claire down with a bottle and the bottle rolled away. She looked back and forth between me and the bottle, then crawled to me. That's right. My baby loves me more than milk.

At 9pm the night before the shoot, I realized a flaw in my plans to acquire a cupcake stand, but with some late night calls, I managed to borrow one from a friend who left it out on her porch for us! I love how this looks compared to the traditional cake smash. My friend Jenna made the cupcakes for me and they were cute and delicious!

Notice that she traded in her cupcake for a banana. I guess she wanted breakfast before dessert!

James and Ruth were excited to get the go ahead to participate in the cake eating!

Look at that cute, cute, smile! I just adore her round little face, features, and limbs.

 I love this series, but included them individually as well so they can be blown up.

 This will probably have to appear somewhere on our wall. I love these 3 kiddos!

A look at Claire at one-year-old:

Likes:

• Mom
• milk
• lasagna
• bananas
• peek-a-boo
• her pink blanket at bedtime (she loves snuggling it)
• playing the keyboard
• climbing anything and everything--she loves our kitchen ladder!

Dislikes:

• balloons, apparently
• James' Spiderman punching bag (screams of terror when she sees it)
•  Ruth's patented squeezy hugs
• riding in the bike trailer--especially with a helmet on

Communicates by:

• Crawling across the yard to sit under the swing set whenever we are outside 
• throwing her binky adamantly on the ground if we try to give it to her when she's not tired
• saying, "ba-boo" for peek-a-boo, "uh-oh", mimicking "Dada" consistently, and occasionally mimicking "Mama". 
• Making noises like the Indian war cry noise where she makes an "ah" sound while moving her hand on and off her mouth, puckered kissing noises (although her kisses are still open-mouthed), blowing back when I blow on her, and, of course, screeching!

Mobility:

• Climbing everything (stairs, ladders, car seats, baby gates, etc). She is learning how to go down the stairs now too, but rarely makes it down more than a few steps before the steps looming before her beckon her back up.
• She does take 3-4 steps at a time to walk to me and is getting better at walking long distances holding just one of my hands. When she gets tired of it, though, she lets me know! She just picks up her feet and hangs there until I pick her up her let her crawl!

We love you, Claire Elizabeth!

First Steps and First Bob Cut

Claire took her first steps yesterday! Of course when I tried to video tape her this morning, she made me work for it! I made that dress for her 1 year photos and while I like it overall I'm not sure it is winning me over enough to be the one we use for pictures. Maybe I'll take a couple.I still have a day or two to decide.

Now that swim lessons are over and school is about to start, I finally let Ruth get a hair cut. She has been asking since I got my hair cut more than a year ago and she wanted it short like mine was. My friend Angie, currently a hair student, cut it. She did a great job!

I'm going to get a tiny flat iron like Angie's so I can actually get it to look like this sometimes!

Candy math

Grammy and Grampy's soda bottles + bottle redemption center + bulk assorted candy bins =
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Museum Flowers

After 5 years of visiting the children's museum, we finally explored the garden a couple of weeks ago. Of course, I didn't take any photos there because Claire was too busy insisting on cuddling with me since I had just met up with the family after some photo sessions. I did, however, try to take some pictures by the external fence. The kids did not have picture perfect portraits in mind (Claire kept crying if I put her down and the big kids were just goofy), but they're still priceless shots of what my kids look like most of the time anyway! Disclaimer that because it was a photography day, Daddy did Ruth's hair and let James wear socks with sandals, and black socks at that!. But Dan is getting better: he actually put a clip in this day!

Math with Ruth

Mom, can I have 5 hair ties today?

Sure.

How many do I have now?

2. So how many do you have left to do?

Um...3.

Good math!

Mom, is 5 + 6, 7?

No, 5 + 2 is 7.

No it's NOT!

Well, if I gave you 5 cookies then I have you 6 cookies, would you only have 7 or would you have more?

Mom, someday can you give me that many cookies?

That's a lot of cookies for one person.

Please, mom? Please? I really want that many cookies, etc, etc.


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Belated Tri Pictures

The "official" pictures of James' Triathlon were posted this week. Because he was in the last wave and then was a significantly slower swimmer (since he actually swam instead of walking like the other kids in his heat), he was the last to finish each event. That means the camera man did not get many pictures of him. I'm glad he got a couple of James after the race, though!

Perilous vocabulary

Ruth:

"Mom, that bucket of laundry soap is UNSTABLE! When I stood on it, it tipped and spilled all over!"

Well, the best way to enrich vocabulary is to experience the concepts, so I can be assured that she knows the definition of "unstable"!

Bless his little heart, james went up stairs and retrieved a second dustpan to help me clean it all up.


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Interior design by a 6 year old

Don't you like the accents of Lego and tball trophy?
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Some Summer Fun

My sweet Claire at a park Friday morning. It was a fun little playground with a large loop of sidewalk that James and Ruth enjoyed riding their bikes around for a little while.

This week, Claire started standing without holding onto anything. She only does it when she is distracted by something she's holding. If she notices that she is not holding anything, she slowly lowers herself down and crawls.

She is also able to push walking toys around now. So close to walking!!!!

She has two teeth on top now, but you wouldn't be able to tell by her disposition that she's been teething. She's as sweet as ever!

Claire loves climbing stairs and going down slides, but she can't figure out how to go backward. She was not crazy about James and Ruth helping her turn around, but I wanted to be at the bottom to catch her.

Waving, "hi"!

One of those rare sweet moments when no one is bugging anybody else.

Saturday, we went to a small swimming area that a friend recommended. Dan is out of town for the week, so it was a good way to make our Saturday pass more quickly.

It was a little tricky taking pictures while supervising all 3 kids near the water, but I managed a few. James could reach the bottom all the way out to the rope. Ruth could make it most of the way out. They had lots of fun in the water.

This small play structure was a surprisingly fun diversion as well. James was really good at playing with the older kids that came to play throughout the afternoon. I was very impressed with his extroversion (is that a real word?)!

The rocky beach was perfect for Claire: she loves playing in water and she loves eating rocks! 

Eventually I got her to fall asleep for a short nap and I got some time to read.

I love seeing this cutie sleep!

Not pictured. Later I was letting Claire crawl around in the grass. I saw her hone in on something and start making a beeline for it. I tried to catch her before she got it, but she beat me to it. She turned around and looked at me with a CIGARETTE hanging out of her mouth! It was perfectly situated as if she were smoking it! It was totally disgusting, but also hilarious. I cannot shake that image of my little 11 month old baby with a cigarette hanging out between her lips! 

We ended up staying at the beach for about 4 hours and I only convinced the kids to leave when I offered ice cream on the way home. Maybe we'll take Dan back next weekend!