I'm Alive!

Wow, how three months can fly.

In May, I had my bachelorette party...

The following weekend, I PRed the Geist Half Marathon...

In June, Ryan and I got married!

Immediately following the wedding, we took our honeymoon in Mexico...

 We returned from our honeymoon in July, and only a week later, we bought a house...

Two days after that, I told my work that I want to go part-time. I'm going to use the extra time to focus on my growing photography business...

Overall, It's been a whirlwind of a summer to say the least.

Oh... but you want me to talk about triathlons, don't you?! Well, I haven't done any. In fact... I haven't even been training much. I did my first swim last week, and did my first bike ride today. I have my first race, the Chicago Triathlon, at the end of August. Thankfully, I'm doing to sprint, and not the Olympic (which almost killed me last year).

My weight is holding steady for now. I gained (no joke) 8 pounds during our wedding and honeymoon. Ouch! But I lost a few when we returned, and now I'm back on the Weight Watchers wagon... aiming for that elusive 140. I only have 11 pounds to go.

Hopefully I'll be back soon! I'm still reading everyone elses' blogs religiously!

Two Month Photos and other Stuff

I hit my 15-pound weight loss mark today, and now my mom is bugging me to see photos. I took these on Saturday, which was officially 2 months into Weight Watchers.

First up is the face picture. Sorry I suck and wore my hair up the first time. That makes it hard to tell the difference...

But now onto the good stuff. Here is the side of me. Check out that stomach!

Lastly, is the front picture. Bulge-be-gone!


I totally wore the wrong shorts too... but I'm sure you can get the gist of it. Overall, I'm feeling great about myself. Yes, I miss gorging on pizza, pasta, and ice cream... but I'm loving how I look. All my work pants are literally falling off me. When all this is over, I'm going to need to do some serious shopping. I'll need all new pants and bras.

I'm halfway to my goal weight of 140. I don't think I'll reach that before the wedding (June 25th)... which might mean a slight set-back (there's no way I'm dieting on our honeymoon!). But I plan on reaching it eventually.

Training

On the training front, I've been pretty bad. I'm basically just working out once a week now. (Ouch.) I thought it was all fine and dandy until I saw my BuckeyeOutdoors account today, and noticed that this time last year, I was already full-swing into half-marathon training.

Eep! I need to get a move on it.

So training officially starts this weekend. Crappy weather or not.

Other

I've been so busy recently. Wedding planning has turned into invitation printing... which we are doing completely by hand...


And I've been putting a lot of thought into what I want to do with my life (isn't that something you're supposed to figure out in college?!). So there may be a career-change in the future.

I hope everyone's doing well. And fear not! Just because I'm not writing much doesn't mean I'm not reading all your blogs!

Happy New Year!

This post is sort of a New Year's tradition. Every year I take a look at how I did the past 365 days, whether or not I met my goals, and set new goals for the upcoming year.

Here we go!

Miles Run in 2010: 231
Miles Biked in 2010: 263
Miles Swam in 2010: 6.5 miles

Total Number of Workouts in 2010: 114 (only two more than last year!)

How I did on the goals I set at the beginning of the year...

Run more than 210 miles: I passed this goal by 21 miles. It's not a ton, but I've been slowly adding mileage year after year, so I'm pretty proud of this.

Complete an Olympic triathlon: I did that back in August. Yay! It was a rough race, but I survived, and had a pretty decent time to boot!

Run a 10K in under 58 minutes: I never actually ran a 10k race this year. I had the 10k during my olympic triathlon, but it was a disaster and I ended up walking a lot of it... so I'd rather not count that one. Maybe next year for this goal.

Average 17.5 mph biking in a race: I accomplished this goal at my last triathlon of the year (where I also got my first AG medal). I put new road tires on Reagan... so hopefully 2011 will be even faster!

Lose 20 pounds: Oh boy. I don't even want to address this one. Here have been my weights on January 1st for the past 3 years...

January 1, 2009: 152 lbs
January 1, 2010: 163 lbs
January 1, 2011: 170 lbs

So essentially, I've been slowly gaining weight every year since I started doing triathlons (what?!). That's totally counter-productive. But I'm working on this.

Goals for 2011:

• Run more than 280 miles.
• Do an olympic triathlon in under 3:49.
• Run a 5K under 28:00.
• Average 18.5 mph biking in a race.
• Weigh 155 or less by next January 1st.
  

Happy New Year everyone! Go sleep off your hangovers and get your butt in gear for 2011!

Bad Blogger!

Shame on me! It's been almost 2 whole months since my last post.

Here's what I've been up to...

• Planning our wedding (less than a year away!)
• Training
• Trying (unsuccessfully, of course) to lose the extra 20 lbs I've managed to pack on
• Winning a photography contest
• Freaking out over my upcoming triathlon
• Turning 25
• Receiving (and then learning to use) a Garmin Forerunner 305
• Buying my first triathlon outfit

So there you have it. A short list of poor excuses. But I vow, over the next week or two, to turn that list into new posts. I also have a race report from last week's sprint triathlon.

Valued readers, I will disappoint you no longer! Stay tuned...

I'm Drowning!

I haven't run in 8 days. Normally not a big deal, but I'm kinda sorta training for this little thing called a "half marathon". Eeep.

Problems:

• Last time I ran (7 miles... my furthest distance ever), my knee hurt BAD. I could barely walk afterwards, and it hurt for DAYS. To make things worse, it hurt in a place that is not normal for me. This makes me super nervous for the month ahead.
• I've been SO busy! Wedding planning, Ryan's parents visited, and we are moving... so my afternoons are filled with packing, packing, cleaning, and packing!
• I'm lazy and NEED down-time. I can't be one of those people who is go-go-go all week long. When I get a moment, I want to watch TV and eat junk food, not go for a long run.
• I still haven't figured out why my long runs are making me sick. It happened again last weekend, and I thought I was going to throw up while out to dinner with Ryan's parents.

So I apologize for the lack of blogging and lack of blog-commenting. But give a girl a break!

I need a vacation bad.

Houses, Shots, and Chicken Casserole

It's always hard to come back to your blog when you haven't written anything in a month. I've missed talking about so many things that it simply seems overwhelming.

Weight Loss

As punishment for losing the Weight Loss Contest to Ryan, I took Maggie out and did the dishes for an entire week. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be (plus, I think my awesome boyfriend was secretly loading and unloading the dishwasher while I was at work).

Maggie loved all the attention I was giving her.

The other thing Ryan won from our contest was a dinner made from scratch from me. Well, I'm not the best chef on earth (I tried to cook a whole chicken for Valentine's Day, and it ended up raw and inedible). So Ryan picked something pretty fool-proof: a chicken broccoli casserole.

Yummmm...

I was doing good losing weight up until this past week. Three of my college roommates visited this past weekend, so I ate (and drank) WAY too many calories.

Shots! At a dance club Saturday night.

Then, to make matters worse, I got a nasty cold which kept me inside with a food-filled pity-party for a few days. Ouch. But, I should be back on track soon.

Moving

We got notice in the mail that we needed to renew our apartment lease by March 24th. Ryan said, "You know... we don't HAVE to stay here." I had never given it even a moment's thought... but that was all it took to have me scouring Craigslist for new places to live. We love our current apartment... but we wish we were closer to downtown and the bike path. There is NO good place for me to ride my bike around here, and it takes a good 20-25 minutes for us to get from here to downtown.

We saw a total of 7 rental homes in a 2-week period. We have decided on an old duplex in the heart of downtown. It's an area filled with young professional couples with dogs (perfect). Our new place has 3 bedrooms and 1 bath (ouch) and is only 3 city blocks from the bike path (woohoo!).


Our lease isn't up until the end of May, but we get the keys to our new place mid-April, and we are very excited to move.

Half Marathon Training

Despite my week off from running, my overall training is going well. I am up to 4 miles, and the runs are pretty much a breeze. I do wish the weather would cooperate a little bit better. We had a few days with temperatures above 60, but this week has been chilly and rainy. My biggest struggle in training is motivation and time. I would MUCH rather sit and watch an hour of television than go run for an hour. Bleh.

Other

• I bought aero bars! I'll give a full review once I get them installed and try them out, but I'm very excited.
• Earlier this month, Ryan and I celebrated 2 years of dating.

The beautiful roses Ryan gave me.

• I dreamed the other night that I was doing an Ironman, then running a 10k the next day. I was going to pick up my registration packet, and it didn't hit me until then that it might be a REALLY bad idea... especially since I didn't even train for the Ironman! Woops. Good thing I'm smarter than that in real life.

I hope everyone is doing well. I am going to try to blog more in the near future, but I can't make any promises. We have a busy month coming up... and an exciting move to prepare for!

I've Lost It

I just signed up for the 2010 Chicago Triathlon. My Dad and I will be competing in it together (his 4th triathlon ever, my 6th). It was my first triathlon ever back in 2008 (a supersprint), so it'll be nice to return 2 years later and gauge my vast improvement.

But I'm not doing the Supersprint...

I'm not even doing the Sprint...

I'll be completing the Olympic Distance race (for all you non-triathletes, that's roughly 1 mile swimming, 25 miles biking, and 6 miles running). And I'll be doing it all at the world's largest triathlon in the middle of a sweltering Chicago summer.

Here's where my stupidity comes in: I've been going around telling people the swim was a HALF mile. That's what I thought. I swear I checked and double-checked. I think it's a giant conspiracy, and the moment I clicked the "Register" button, they made the course longer. And now I'm really nervous.

To put this in perspective, the longest I have ever swam without stopping was 875 yards. And that was in a pool. For the triathlon, I have to swim TWICE that far... in Lake Michigan... with hundreds of other flailing triathletes around me.

Oh... and boats.



Apparently there are BOATS I have to avoid also.

This was a horrible idea, but it's done and the money (an exorbitant amount) has been paid. So it's time to go big, or go home. Time to put my money where my mouth is... and all those other inspirational sayings.

I have 7 1/2 months to prepare for this, and a 5-month training plan to get me there. I definitely think I'll be putting off my intentions to cancel my Y membership. I have a lot of pool hours ahead of me!

Goodbye, Decade!

Wow, I've only blogged once in December. And I completely missed Christmas. Woops. Well, Merry belated Christmas everyone! (Training loot I scored: running shorts, 2 water bottles, a hat, 2 pair of running socks, and a gift card towards aero bars!)

December is over... and with that, 2009 is over, along with this wacky decade.

Miles Run in 2009: 183.6
Miles Biked in 2009: 217.4
Miles Swam in 2009: 3.9 miles

Total Number of Workouts in 2009: 112

Notes: I passed my goal in miles run by 13.6 miles. Phew, that was close! However, I passed 2008's total by a whopping 85 miles. Hurray! I biked 80 fewer miles this year than last, and I only swam half as far as last year. Ouch. But it's okay, because I was really concentrating on improving my running this year... which I definitely feel I did!

How did I do on the rest of my goals? Technically, I DID get my sprint time below 1:35, but mainly because the bike course was 2 or 3 miles shorter than a typical course. I did NOT get my 5K time below 27 minutes, but I only ran 1 of them (without much training, mind you). And lastly, do I weigh less now than at the beginning of the year....?

HA! In fact, I weigh ELEVEN pounds more, which brings me to my next bit...

Ryan and I are engaging in a friendly weight loss wager. This is how it's going down:

• On Saturday, January 2nd, he and I will conduct our official weigh-in.
• We then have 8 consecutive weeks to lose as much weight as possible.
• We are allowed to weigh ourselves during the process, but we may not share our progress with each other.
  
• After 4 weeks (the halfway point), we will have one official weigh-in to gauge how it's going.
• Then, on Saturday, February 27th, we will conduct the final weigh-in.
• The person who has lost the largest percentage of weight wins.

The Prize: The person who loses has to cook dinner from scratch for the winner. They also will be in charge of taking Maggie out for an entire week. I'm sure there will be other prizes added as the competition grows, but this is it for now.

My goal for the competition is to lose at least 8 lbs. Bring it, Ryan!

But it doesn't end there. Because THIS is the year that I cut the crap... figuratively, and literally cut the CRAP out of my diet. Plus, I'm going to try to make working out a routine. It shouldn't just be for when I'm training for a race... it should be ALWAYS. At least 4 days a week. So my ultimate goal for 2010 is to lose 20 pounds. Do you think I can do it?

Other goals for 2010:

• Run more than 210 miles.
• Complete an olympic-distance triathlon.
• Run a 10K in under 58 minutes.
• Average 17.5 mph biking in a race.

And I don't want to put this one on the goal list, because I'm not sure it's really possible right now... but I MAY possibly consider trying for a half marathon this year. SHHH! You didn't hear that from me!

So Happy New Year everyone! Drink a lot, eat a lot, take a cab, then sleep a lot. It all starts in 2010!

Outraged All Around

My dad completed his 3rd triathlon yesterday. Their swim took place in an indoor pool, 3 people per lane with similar swimming abilities. So my dad was the second swimmer to go in his lane and had a woman who started after him. He said she was trailing him pretty close and kept hitting his feet with her hands.

Now get this... when the swim ended, this woman comes up to my dad, angry, and says, "Why didn't you get over? I kept hitting your feet for you to move out of my way. You were supposed to stop and let me pass."

What?! She wanted him to STOP and let her pass. In a RACE. Right.

My dad said the organizer even told them "stay on the right, pass on the left" before their swim began. I would have been seriously angry if someone got mad at me for that.

________________________________

So my running has been slow (training-wise, not speed-wise (...okay, that too)). My 10k race is in less than 5 weeks, and all the training plans I find have me running 4, 5, or even 6 miles right now. That's just too much for me. I haven't run 4 miles since May when I did my marathon relay.

Thus, I'm taking it slow. And today, when I was supposed to be outside running 4 miles, I was instead curled up on the couch wrapped in a blanket (I'm sure you all heard... it's cold and windy outside).

________________________________

My weight loss has also been slow. I've been tracking calories during the week, but as soon as the weekend comes around, my numbers go out the window. On Saturday, Ryan, Maggie, and I were down in Indianapolis at a party (yeah, I'll say it...) getting drunk.

Well, beer + rum and coke + jello shots + cheese cubes + more beer = a lot of uncounted calories. My punishment for my lush behavior? Gaining 2 lbs. Ouch. If I really expect to lose any weight, I need to stop giving myself a free day (or two).

Being a Tourist

Six days until my next race. I'm a little under-trained, but I'm working hard this week, and I have good faith that I'll be able to finish just fine.

Ryan recently bought my Dad's bike (after 4 months and 2 triathlons, my Dad decided to ditch his hybrid for a cyclocross with clipless pedals). Having been ages since Ryan's owned a bike, we had to do a little shopping to get the necessities.

Ryan came home with a helmet, water bottle, and cyclocomputer. I came home with a pair of glasses...



And a new Ironman watch...



I'm excited to have a watch that can take laps. I just tried it out running 3 miles with a pretty nasty positive split.

Yesterday, our town held it's annual "Be a Tourist in Your Own Town" event. They open up 10 different downtown museums/attractions free to the public. So we grabbed our bikes and were off for the afternoon...



First stop, the science museum. I knew it was for little kids, but these types of hands-on places used to be my absolute favorite when I was younger. I just couldn't resist.



We learned all about physics, aerodynamics, optical illusions, and the human body...



And I got to be an astronaut!



Next stop was the botanical conservatory. They had some weird Wizard of Oz theme (which Ryan and I both agreed was a creepy movie)...



I'm sure it would have been nicer to visit without hundreds of other tourists crowded around. Ryan and I rushed through the hot greenhouse rooms pretty quickly.



Our inner tourists were spent. So we rode a few more miles along the river bike path then headed home for grilled chicken, corn, and roasted red potatoes.

My weight loss is going pretty pathetically. I thought it would be much easier at the beginning (last November, I lost 5 lbs in my first month of counting calories). So far, I have lost and gained back the same lb about 3 times. I would like to have someone to blame it on other than myself, but Ryan is counting calories also... and he's beating me!

Well, Maggie is bored because I'm blogging instead of paying attention to her. So off I go!

TGIF Photo Friday

I can't believe it's been a week since I've posted.

To answer all your questions (well... question, singular, since you all asked the same thing), this is what we bought Ryan's niece for her 3rd birthday:



It's a Fisher Price digital camera. HOW COOL IS THAT? Ok, maybe I'm a little over-excited, but I didn't have a camera when I was her age... much less a DIGITAL one! It's waterproof and practically indestructible (perfect for a toddler). I'm pretty sure she liked it. She immediately took a bunch of photos of all of us. Although, her aim needs a little practice.

We had a great whirlwind weekend on the east coast. It's crazy that Ryan and I have been dating for 1 1/2 years, but I had only ever met his parents.

It goes without saying, however, that I didn't track my calories while we were away. But I got rolling again when we returned, and I'm a WHOPPING 1/2 lb down. (I'll pause for your Oooos and Ahhhs...)

We are going on ANOTHER trip this weekend... this time down to Cincinnati for my college roommate's wedding. And because Maggie is on medication, and because we feel guilty boarding her, she will be coming too! Yay!

Training? What's that? There are 2 weeks and 2 days until my final triathlon of the season, and I've been lazy (or busy? Yeah... I'll go with busy). I've only worked out 4 times since my last triathlon almost 3 weeks ago.

So, I really don't smell any super duper PRs or anything. I'll just aim for finishing in one piece and not hating myself.

Happy Labor Day weekend, everyone! See you on Tuesday!

Thoughts From My Couch

I took a whole week off. It wasn't really recovery... it was laziness. But I think I earned it, so there.

I've got 4 weeks until my next race, so it looks like it's time to start moving again. I ran a little yesterday and was a bit sore afterwards (it was only a WEEK off!).

So, I'm watching the Today show right now. Hoda is talking about how her and Natalie are training for a triathlon. I think they are doing a sprint (although Hoda said "the swim will be a half mile or full mile... I can't remember", so I could be wrong). Now, I've had this discussion with my mom and boyfriend recently, but I'd like to open it up to the community...

Is it just me, or has the sport of Triathlon seen a major leap in popularity over the past year/ year and a half?

My mom thinks I'm just noticing it because I started doing them around that time. Thoughts? Opinions? Do you enjoy the attention the sport is getting, or does it bother you that people are making it into a "fad"?

You Know You're a Triathlete When...

... you don't even wait for the recovery period to be over before you're signed up for the next race.

I'll be doing the Fishers Area Sprint Triathlon on September 20. It's a 500m swim in an indoor pool, 10 mile bike, and 5k run. It should be a nice fast race to end the season on.

Yesterday was a rough day. I was tired and sore and had a headache. Today has been better, but I had to swap my 4" heels for flats during lunch. My Dad said he's been having really bad pain behind his knees. Ouch.

I'm enjoying my time off from training, but it's making me feel lazy. My mind has been churning about how I can improve for next time. I shouldn't let the run hurt my time as much as it did on Sunday.

One thing I forgot to mention about my race was how slow my transition times were. T2 was over TWO minutes. That's insane. I'll chalk it up to having to change shoes again. Before my next race, I'd like to learn how to get out of my shoes without unclipping. I'm sure I'll write an entire post about that somewhere down the road.

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I'm ready for Friday to be here already!

Tri Indy Race Report

We drove down to Indianapolis Saturday afternoon. Ryan and I met up with 2 of my old college roommates (yay University of Dayton!). I haven't seen them in over a year, so that made me really happy. Poor Ryan had to sit there and listen as we reminisced about the old days and told embarrassing stories.

We headed downtown for lunch and to check out the canal I would be swimming in (yes... a CANAL).

The canal is a decent size and about 4 feet deep. It's a little murky, but I didn't see too many weeds or fish.




Saturday evening, Ryan and I went out to dinner with my parents.



My pasta was delicious, but my stomach was being angry. It always gets that way before a big race (and staying in a different city doesn't help either).

My nerves kept me up all Saturday night. I got MAYBE 3 hours of sleep (is this an issue for other people??). I couldn't get my mind to settle. Even when I DID sleep, I was dreaming about the race and what could go wrong.

Sunday morning came quickly.

Good morning, Indianapolis!



Transition, ready.



Me and Dad, ready.



Maggie, ready to cheer.



The canal was an extremely unique place to swim. It allows race-viewers to walk along the swimmers and cheer them along the entire way.

There are a bunch of pedestrian bridges you can stand on that provide a great view.



Around 8:45, my heat was ready to go. They were sending us off by estimated swimming speed, fastest to slowest.

I'm the one in the middle grinning like a fool...



I was a little nervous, but the water was calm, my heat was small (about 30 people), and the canal was shallow.


My Dad's heat was about 10 minutes behind mine (he's below in the purple cap).

We were counted down and OFF we went!

The canal made it's intentions very clear...



To be honest, I've never had a race swim so good. I started strong, I stayed strong, I ended strong. It was 99% freestyle, .5% breaststroke, and .5% "did I just smack that girl in the face?".



My cheer squad walked along the canal and followed my progress. They said I passed a bunch of people and ended up at the front of my heat.



500 meters later, I was done.



Transition 1 was a little slow. I put my shoes on before my shorts (woops).



The bike went surprisingly well. I pushed it harder than ever before. Any time I got below 15 mph, I said "NO!" and made myself go faster. Yeah, it hurt. But I finished with my fastest race bike pace ever.



Before too long, it was time for the run (groan).



It was aweful. The crappiness of the run completely made up for the awesomeness of the swim and bike. It was almost 90 degrees outside, and there was zero shade. I shuffled along for 3 painful miles and runner after runner whizzed by me. I fought the urge to walk by imagining my head in a freezer, or my body in an ice bath.

36 LONG minutes later, I finally neared the finish line.



FINALLY!



After I finished, my body debated between collapsing and crying. Where is water when you need it?!

Overall place: 349/463
Age Group: 21/25
Swim: 13:47 (246)
T1: 2:50 (232)
Bike: 48:12 (274)
T2: 2:35 (351)
Run: 37:12 (372)
TOTAL: 1:44:38

Well, my goal time was 1:38, and I might have made it if I didn't totally bomb the run (but come on... 90 DEGREES?!). But besides that, I'm happy. Because I totally rocked the swim and the bike.

So I know what you're ALL wondering. WHO WON?



Well, once again, I'm sad to report that my Dad beat me (by FOUR minutes!). Man, I'm pathetic. How did it happen? He ran his 5K FOUR minutes faster than me. Sigh. Maybe next year.

Here is my final picture. It's my college roommates and I. Even though it wasn't their original plan, they decided to come and cheer me on this morning. They powered through the heat and stayed til the very end. Yay, friends.