Un, Deux, Done

I did my tri!  I can't believe I actually did it. 

It was a lot of fun, both before and the day of.  I think some part of me thought I would cross the finish line and the whole universe would applaud.  But really there was just a handful of people and they were very congratulatory and...then I went home and life went on as usual.  But that doesn't make it any less cool that I did it!

Boo Boo was very excited for things to start.

My favorite spectators!

I don't really know my times.  But here is what I know: my swim was the fastest it has ever been, even though I was one of the last to leave the pool (which I expected).  My bike was the slowest it has ever been and is a bit of a sore spot for me because it took 20+ more minutes that usual and I can't explain why.  My run was pretty standard but solid (no walking!).  I felt good when I finished.

Nope, I never got that bagel back.

Go team!

Overall, I'm glad I did it.  Drewbles was so encouraging during the whole process and Babycakes was obliging as well, happily playing at home with his Pops while I went off to the pool yet again.  I did something I never thought I could or would do and that is really the point, right?  

Un, Deux, Tri

So.  In February I signed up for an indoor sprint triathlon and since then I've been doing a lot of this:

The tri consists of a 750 yard swim (15 laps/30 lengths), a 12 mile bike ride and a 5K run.  I wasn't worried about the run or the bike, but the swimming, well, that was the daunting part.  Nevertheless, I steeled my nerves and ordered my suit, goggles and cap (from here).  That first swim was...not good.  For some reason I had expected my childhood swim team skills to still be intact (I have two very small TROPHIES!!!!)

But over the intervening weeks I have slowly built up my swimming abilities again, and I'm no longer afraid of the worst case scenario--drowning--being inevitable.  I may not do it quickly, but I will do it!  *fistpump*

It has been pretty fun doing all this training.  I like having a big, long-term goal to work on and, to be honest, the success of this goal is a nice distraction from less successful projects.  Plus the thought of doing it scared me and, well, it's good for me to do things that scare me, mainly because I'm irrationally scared of an irrational number of things.

Anyway.  Tri day dawns tomorrow.  And after that I can wake up in the morning without my first thought being "POOL."

A Board of Smorgas

Sometimes you think you'll write a whole blog post about something only to realize that just a sentence or two will cover it.  Hence the origins of this post.  Some might call this a "brain dump" but "board of smorgas" has, well, some kind of ring to it.

--I was going to do a whole 2012 year in review post, but really all I have to say is that one of my favorite things to come out of 2012 was Keane's Strangeland.  I love it so!  It inspires me.  Thanks, 2012.  (And Keane)

--The last couple of years I've come to realize that if I want Christmas to be awesome and festive, I must make it so.  My Mama won't just show up with all the fixins for Christmas magic, as was her job when I was a tot.  Holidays are what you make of them!  And this year I have to say, we did pretty great.  Here's a quick rundown of our festivities: we saw a hand bell concert at the library (free!) and The Nutcracker (not free, and which nearly killed me with discomfort and heartburn...still good though...), made paper snowflakes, made gingerbread, had hot chocolate, watched the Christmas devotional, walked in the snow, ate some snow, went to the TSO Christmas concert, saw the lights at Temple Square, saw the MoTab Christmas concert (Alfie!  Live!) went shopping at the mall (I like going for pure festiveness) and, you know, had Christmas.  Of course it goes without saying that we also ate a LOT of food and saw lots of family as well.  Okay, this probably could have been its own blog post. 

--I've been rewatching all the appendices on the extended LOTR DVDs.  While I know movies are not *important* in the way that, say, brain surgery or child rearing are, what I do have to conclude here is that making a movie on that scale is HARD.  Wear your fingerprints off hard. 

--I miss running.  I've started dreaming about it and it feels so great while I'm dreaming.  At least I still have Pilates and my little bike apparatus.  I'll see you again, running shoes!  In like...6 months...maybe... 

It's so nice to get all these things off my mind at last!  So now you can REALLY stayed tuned for the ~*~*~*giveaway*~*~*~ and, oh yes, for the scoop on this whole BABY thing.  That might involve some word vomiting, which is only suitable considering the amount of actual vomiting that has taken place. 

In Which I am Successful

Remember the magnets I made to improve my running motivation? Well, they were not *entirely* successful, but I did keep using them. It was encouraging to see a board with at least a few magnets on it, but my motivation for running was just MIA until last fall or so. Even so, it has been a good long time since my board looked like this:
5 days of running, 3 times with Pilates and one 5K! I'm hoping this will make up for not doing a lick of anything next week, and I'm also hoping this same motivation will stick around until the week after. It's so much easier to sit at a desk all day when I've been running beforehand.

And just because you asked, here are pictures from the 5K this morning. Drew's Pop came along too and both menfolk placed first in their age group. Drew also won a frisbee of all things. I got um...well, anyway, it was great and fun and very cold.

(Check out those guns!)

(It was so bright I thought my eyeballs would burn up.)
Oh, did I mention that there was a frozen yogurt walking around?

Magneato!

When did I become such a lazy blogger? I have no shortage of things to blog about, but I just never seem to get to doing it these days. Well, today I am doing it. Maybe it is a sign of things to come.

So, I like to go running. It is delicious. It's good for me. It's the perfect way to start the day. But I have this trouble with getting out of bed. In fact, more often than not I just stay in the bed. Yeah, I could run after work, but that involves two showers a day and dinner at 8:00. So morning is the time, but morning is for sleeping! But like I said, I like to go running and I know it's good for me, especially since I sit at a desk all the day long. But how ever am I to motivate myself?

The answer came to me last week: I must treat myself as a small child! When willpower won't work, one must turn to the time-honored system of a reward chart. But I wanted to make a cool chart, and I remembered Elise's magnet project. I am occasionally crafty so I decided to make cool magnets for my chart. I gathered the necessaries and pondered what pictures to use. For a while I thought I would make dumb magnets with different celebrity faces because the only magazines we have are Entertainment Weekly. Maybe if one of the issues had pictures of everyone from Battlestar in it that would work, but I would have had to settle for Miley Cyrus and the cast of Glee. No thanks.

But I had another moment of genius! We happen to have a stack of pamphlets, guides and brochures from London sitting on our floor, and they are bursting with tiny cool pictures. So I got out the duplicates and cut them up and 8 really cool magnets were born. Thanks, brain.

As I mentioned, my chart includes rewards also because nothing motivates me like getting stuff. I didn't want to make it fancy though or involve much money so my list of rewards are things like a pumpkin shake and getting to pick the movie on Friday night. So, week one of my chart plan has passed. Did it work?
Okay, so Mr. Graham still has to drag me out of bed (usually by the ankles), but now I am kind of willing and don't try to dissuade him with sleeping-in snuggles. Hurrah! Yes, I did make a Love Never Dies magnet--it was the perfect size!

On a totally unrelated note: yesterday we went to Walmart where they had this photo spot set up for How to Train Your Dragon. You could even get a free 5x7 print of your picture. Doesn't Mr. Graham make such a great Hiccup? Maybe next year we'll be Hiccup and Astrid for Halloween.