May 29, 2009

Ah, the first day of summer. I tried to pack in as much as possible. I got up early and did an easy 5 mile run, my first run since the Bolder Boulder. My only goal was to keep my heart rate under 160. And when I got home and looked at my GPS data, I saw that I ran at a 10:33 pace at a 154 bpm. To compare, last year's Bolder Boulder pace was 10:31 and while I didn't have my heart rate monitor yet, I can say that my heart rate was in the bladder leaking range. So yay, finally some tangible running progress.

Next, I had a chiroprator appointment. And since it was the first day of summer and we had practically the whole day, we stopped by the park we sometimes killed a few minutes at. It's a weird little park, it only has 4 pieces of equipment, but the kids were fine for an hour. Ariel bossed around played with a 2 year old by Julian (not pictured).



And Alex and Adam did their goat impersonations and sat on the big rock:



Next, we had a mini-lunch of Jamba Juice and bagels before heading over the the gym. For the summer, I got a family membership (including Ariel) so the kids can be in 2 hours of daycare a day. I got them situated and then did a master's swim class. The master's classes in Boulder are pretty intense, full of ex-collegiant swimmers and professional triathletes. I was the fastest in the slow lane but I held my own and could do the 3000 yard workout. Again, a pretty big improvement from last year.

And after all that, I went home to prepare Adam's family birthday party dinner.

May 28, 2009

Last day of school for the boys today. Here's Alex on the first day:



And his last day of first grade:





And Adam at the beginning of the year:



And on his last day of preschool:





And his last day of riding to school with Daddy:



Ariel and I spent the morning on a bike ride. I tried to push the envelope and went 75 minutes, about 20 over what we've been doing. Apparently that is too long. I think she was finally tiring of the whole thing, so it's good that summer's here and this may have been our last ride. We did a different loop today and saw lots of prairie dogs.

When we got back, Ariel had a playdate with Peyton.

May 27, 2009

Today was the last day of school for Little Miss Ariel. Here she was on the first day of school:



And the last:





Looks like she grew a couple of inches this year!

Bolder Boulder

Practically the whole family decided to the the 10k Bolder Boulder this year. I got myself and Becky and Laura in the same wave:





Laura took off at about the 1/2 mile marker, never saw here again. Becky and I stayed together for about two miles and then I inched ahead. I had a goal of breaking an hour and I was 16 seconds over. But my average heart rate was in the mid-170 so I know I gave it my all. Still, I took 5 minutes off of last year's time, Becky took off 2.5 minutes. And Laura just walked it last year.

Dad took Alex down to the start and then Jeremy (who came home early from Breckenridge, woot!) took Alex from about the 1/2 mile to the 5 mile. I came back and walked the last mile with Alex. He did great. He didn't try to run, but he had fun and didn't complain.

Laura: 56:56.33
Me: 1:00:15.20
Becky: 1:02:55.50
Dad: 1:25:47.04
Alex: 2:03:59.50

Becky & Mom's Birthday

More May festivities - Becky and Mom's birthday.








The traditional chocolate cheesecake:

May 22, 2009

For the past four weeks, Ariel has been my Friday morning training partner. And she's pretty delightful (compared to, say, Adam). We ride the same 12 miles on the bike path and she either sings are points out sights along the way are is strangely quiet. She has no exceptions of the the ride (say, for example, asking how much longer every 30 seconds). Today we came across the Annual Noxious Weed Eating Goats, always a crowd pleaser.

Alex's Field Day

Field Day is a sure sign that school is almost over. Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but I seem to remember my field day being more traditional and a heck of a lot more competitive. Ribbons! Winners! Loosers! Alex's field day retains the spirit of being outside in a field, but in a much more inclusive, alternative way.

The "Picking Marbles Up with Your Toes in Soapy Water" event (no grand winner for most marbles found):



The "Run Water from Bucket to Bucket" relay (no team winners):



And the, "Roll Giant Ball into 5th Graders inside of Gym Mats to Knock Them Over" (no winners, but the clear satisfaction of creaming a kid 4 years older):



I didn't come back for the afternoon session, which I heard had events like tug-a-rope. Long live Field Day!

Adam's first endo

Adam had his first bike wreck today. He was riding home from school and all of a sudden his back wheel started shaking and he went over the handle bars. Poor guy landed right on his chin.



He's ok now and we gave him the bike pep talk. His whole family has had some pretty good wrecks and we all got back on the saddle. He's been wanting to just ride the tag-a-long this week but I think he'll be back out there again soon.

Summer Open Triathlon

Well, I've got the first triathlon under the season under my belt and it went really well. The Summer Open is a sprint with a 750 meter swim, 12 mile bike and 5k run. I was ridiculously nervous about the race all week. Mostly about the water, I heard it was cold and hadn't been in open water since last September. I kept having flashbacks to my first open swim last year, where I got about 100 meters out and hyperventilated and almost didn't even do the workout.

But the swim went remarkably well. It was cold, but not unbearably cold. I stayed very conservative and even though I didn't swim as fast as I can, I had no moments of panic and came out of the water feeling great:



Here's me in the left in the wetsuit running into transition 1. Right before I ran past my bike, twice. I think I confused myself with changing my towel, I was looking for purple and should have been looking for blue:



And coming back on the bike. I rocked on the bike, and most of it has to be the new bike with aerobars. My average speed went up 3 miles per hour from last race. This was also a coed race, and I had fun picking off a lot of guys out on the course:



Starting off on the run. I did a bit better than expected, especially since my last timed run was the Panicking Poultry last year that did NOT go well:



And sprinting for the finish:



Woot!



My final time was 1:22, which was 2 minutes faster than the same course last year (which also was a mis-measured shorter course.) And I also beat 44/164 guys. Or as Jeremy said, I girled them.

May 14, 2009

Wow, I really haven't updated in a while, have I?

Lots has happened in the last two weeks. Alex finally lost his first tooth. He was lucky enough to pull it at school, resulting in a tooth necklace and a special trip to the health room.



And Mother's day was Sunday. We had our traditional Mexican fiesta at Becky's new house. It was too much fun:



And on mother's day we took some new portraits for mom:





And some random bullets:

- Jeremy is messing around with bikes, leaving the bike he normally takes Adam to school on without brakes or shifters. So the past two days Adam has ridden his own bike to school and he thinks he's the bomb. He really is too cute riding his little 12" bike with his backpack.

- Alex's reading has been so neat to watch this year. He read Oh Say Can You Say last night, the whole thing.

- Ariel had another play date with Peyton today. They went to the dinosaur park. I went for a run.

- My first triathlon is Sunday, I'm starting to stress. It's only a sprint, but it is in open water, of dubious temperature. I do have a wet suit, but there's nothing you can do for a the face. At least the water experience should be over in 15 minutes or less.

And for other pictures and random updates, it's probably best to check facebook. Because it's just so much easier to do stuff over there.

April 29 - May 1

Funny how when one goes on vacation, one comes home to more than one left. Or something. Either way, I've been just too busy to blog this week, after coming home back from Maryland (more on that in a different post).

Wednesday - Ariel had school. I don't believe anything more exciting happened. Oh wait, I put canned pears in her lunch because as a good, responsible mother/babysitter I try to have at least one piece of produce in lunches. Even if it's just for show. And low and behold, she ate the pears. I should give her more credit.

Thursday - Ariel had her special drop off play date with Peyton (aka, my free babysitting scam). I got in a nice run (it really was hard to run at sea level with humidity, this run was fine!) and a quick grocery store trip. I picked up Ariel after I picked up Adam. They played a bit after lunch before Ariel took her nap.

Friday - I got Ariel a make up day for missing school on Monday. Adam had Kindergarten preview at 10:30 and I figured it would be more pleasant for everyone if Ariel was also not attending. And I was probably right, the preview had separate rooms for the kids and parents. I, as a parent, was pretty bored being that I'm a near expert on kindergarten. Except I did learn that I need to actually register Mr. Adam, I'll get on that. Soon. I crammed in a chiropractor appointment in before picking up Ariel, who had a so-so day at school (and did not eat her decorative strawberries). Her cough seems to have returned... or is it the swine flu. Is it???