Serious times ahead

Thanksgiving is over and time to deck the halls. Halls at 104 Farriers Lane are almost decked and we look forward to celebrating Jesus' birthday! We also look forward to getting serious with our triathlon training. John and I have set out to do some indoor and outdoor triathlons this coming year. A great way to spend quality time together.

Training officially started tonight. We had our first swim clinic. Just in case you didn't know,I don't know how to swim. I am afraid. You ask why, as a child I was shipped off to Four H camp for a week during the summer. All country kids were. I guess is was our vacation, since we didn't really have those. Farms don't stop for the beach. So anyway, the first year I was there we go to the pool for swimming. You are told to jump in so they can assess your ability. I told them I didn't know how to and they laughed and said everyone knows how to swim. Well guess what, not everyone knew. I went straight to the bottom and wasn't coming up. They jumped in and pulled me out and I literally think I was almost dead. I couldn't breath, I threw up water and well lets just say that was enough for them to let me out of swimming for the week. I have not swam since. On Friday night we had our Tri Assessment. We met our friends John and Pam, that we run and bike with and set our to get our times. This required you to swim 50 meters and time yourself. Pam and I both are not swimmers so we laughed at this and dog paddled down and back. We are the fast dog paddlers you have seen! Made our way to the bikes and rode for 10 min. then ran on the treadmill for 10 mins. We had a great time and hope our times get better. If mine don't I will save my money and just not ever be an endurance athlete. Ok so back to the swimming. We get there tonight, I put on my swim cap, goggles and jump in the pool. I at least look the part. He tells us to do the breast stroke that is the easiest and we can certainly do that. Well easy enough for this 7 foot Michael Phelps to say! I raise my hand, teacher what do you do if you don't know how to put your face in the water. OK I didn't really say it like that, but might as well have. I think this guy really thought I knew something. He learned quickly he had his work cut out for him. Too many people for one on one. Lets just say I have good strokes but if I can't put my face in the water, I am not getting anywhere quickly. I might be the first dropout. I was deflated to say the least. I had really high hopes of going out there and just swimming. Didn't happen and now I have to work harder on learning to breath slowly. My wonderful husband says Rome wasn't built in a day and I am not going to learn to swim in an hour.
We have to workout 6 days a week and I am looking forward to the results all of this will bring.

Serious times here.....So remind me of that when I want to eat at the buffett!

Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving being tomorrow, I have been reflecting on being thankful. Sometimes, we as humans tend to overlook the small things in life that bring us pleasure and we focus on the "big picture".

I would like for each of you that read this to take some time to just think about what you are thankful for. I am actually making a list. I will just give you a sample of what is on my list and this comes in no particular order...... of course my family, but specifically, my husband, my kids, my father, my health. Even my job, yeah I know lame. But I happen to like my job most of the time. In todays economic times, I wouldn't want to be looking for a job so I am glad I have one and one that I actually enjoy. I am thankful for the really good friends I have. I think we often take for granted that our friends and family will live forever for us to tell them how important they are and the impact they had in our lives. I learned a few years back to never ever take this for granted when the one person I loved more than anything passed away. I kept thinking on that day did I tell her enough that I loved her and did she know how much I appreciated her for how she raised me. So, I don't want to be caught in that again! I vowed to be mushy after that...... but only a couple of times a year. So I will save all of you from it happening too often.

I am off now to pick up my pies and then home to start cooking. We will eat lunch with my dad, my stepmom and my brothers family. Then we will come back home and have dinner for us. So I have alot of cooking to do. If your in the neighborhood, stop by. I am sure there will be plenty to eat.

To all of you, I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. Remember to think about the people in your life that you value and thank them! To my friends and family, I love you and I am thankful for each and every one of you! Happy Thanksgiving. God bless you and your families.

I love a finish line!

Yes post have been few and far between since I am not running or training for anything. Oh I have tons of things I would like to write about, but would anyone care? Probably not! I think I will change the name of the blog though, since I will be venturing into Triatholon training soon. So watchout, a new title may appear or not. Haven't really decided yet......

Early on I had decided that I wanted to see my fellow running club members run their races. So a few weeks ago, Kay, Christine and I set out for Raleigh to see Tamara run. Which of course was wonderful, since I had trained with her for almost the entire time. I am proud of her. Then there was my weekend to run my marathon, which I think I spent in bed crying. No not really but I was sad all weekend. This past weekend, Kay and I went up to Richmond to see Keith, Dena, Chris, Pam, John, Christine and Angel run. Well in making plans, the two injured reserved decided that we were going to run the 8K. Do not ask me if I cleared this with my Dr., you already know the answer. Driving up in the pouring rain, we decide that we are going to bag the race if we wake up and it is raining. No need to hurt ourselves worse by running in the rain. Hilarious coming from the injured girls. So I wake up, look out the window and yes everything is wet and I think OH GOOD, I GET TO GO BACK TO BED! Of course I couldn't sleep, I call Kay's room and she doesn't answer. So I know to get in gear and get dressed. We go to meet my friend Jill who ran with us last year and moved to Richmond. We were going to run with her. Notice I say going.... She left us! We park and get over to our correal. I had no idea what this was until now. I like corrals. Well we start and there are so many people we walk across the start line. We get started and stay with Jill for awhile. She is better trained than us! We run for 20 min., walk for 2 then run for 20 and walk for 2 more. We finish on a downhill. Someone call Off N' Running and suggest this idea to them. Kay and I are stoked by our time. 54:?? min..... clock time was 57:03 (I think). You know I don't even care about the time. I ran, my foot didn't hurt and I finished strong!

After we finished, we walked around awhile. Funny thing is we were looking through the shirts and stuff tossed by runners. Found nothing. We find a street to see Christine and hopefully catch Angel come in on. Kay looked up and there was Angel coming up the street. We cheared and clapped like crazy women. Then Christine and the rest of gang came! That was fun. I wish I was running that kind of mileage and I am sad, but you know, it will happen. In time, I will finish the marathon. Until then, I will focus on learning mutli-sports.

I felt like I was on cloud nine. I had lost some steam but not alot and I finished feeling great! I cannot wait to run again this weekend! I really don't care what anyone says. I am going to run until I can't run anymore! Something about the finish line just makes me happy!

People can be down right rude!

I am learning that we live in a society of people who just don't care about their fellow neighbor. I guess this is something I knew but didn't pay much attention to until the recent weeks of having nothing else to do but people watch. I love to people watch by the way.

This past weekend someone stole the water cooler and Gatorade from my running groups stop. That person obviously needed it worse than the runners. Well Mr/Mrs/Miss LOW LIFE, no you didn't. Get off your dead a** and run 20 miles and see how badly you would of needed that water. How stupid of someone to take it in the first place. Was it yours, did you put it out? No it wasn't. Therefore it was not yours to take. This is the second time this has happened to our group. The time before when it was taken it was during very hot and humid weather when our folks really needed it! I just don't understand what people are thinking when they do something so stupid.

Since I can't run, this past weekend I rode my bike in a ride to help feed the homeless in High Point with John and Christine (from my running group). John took off with the cue sheet and me being a smarty thought I knew the way. Well I didn't and Christine and I got lost. Not so lost that we couldn't find our way back but we were not on the same path of the group. It didn't matter we still had a great time together. I think we found those relatively flat roads. On our way back we had the rudest driver you can imagine start yelling at us about getting off the road. Well it was alot worse than what I can write but those who know me, know I did not let him off easily. But to say the least I just have not ever experienced people like this on the road before. I really think if he could of run me over he would of.

Here is my note to the people sitting on their couches being lazy, stealing from others or trying to run them off the road, don't be haters because your fat and out of shape. Do something about it. Get up and go for a walk, run or bike ride, enjoy the outdoors. Maybe it will lighten your spirits and you won't feel the need to steal water from runners or run cyclist off the road. The same road you should by law be sharing!

I guess I should come out from under my rock and join the real world then I would not be so surprised that people do these things!