Time Flies

Eeegads! I can't believe it's been six weeks already since my last post. Time is just flying by! I promise I'll try to be better...but I won't make any guarantees
;-)

So much has been happening it's hard for me to know where to start. I guess I'll start with a video clip. This clip was sent to me by my dear friend and fellow triathlete Miriam! She is one of my biggest supporters and we did all our races together last year! I love how she keeps me motivated by sending me tidbits like this...I'm soooo pumped after watching this video. So I encourage you to take a minute to watch it and then come back to the blog...

IronMAN Video Clip
http://www.nasports.com/mediacenter/fordvideo/fordvideo.php
Now after watching that clip, I bet you all want to do an IronMAN too!

BIG THANKS to all my friends and family who have supported me in my fundraising efforts. I'm having amazing success with the Cabo Vacation raffle tickets. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU...your donations and support are helping a truly wonderful cause. Plus, they're enabling me to focus on my training rather than spending all my free time fundraising. Next Saturday, March 24th will be the drawing for the vacation. I'm hoping one of my tickets is the winner...I think my friends and family are the most deserving ;-)

Last week I trained with my team up in Malibu and the weather was absolutely AMAZING!!! Our morning started off with an ocean swim, and well, let's just say I was completely unprepared (mentally) for just how cold the water would be...it was soooooo cold, I think I only put my face in the water two times! In fact, when I got finished with my swim, I took my swim cap off and my hair was still dry!!! The upshot: Two of my teammates (Maria and Karen) and myself, were fortunate enough to be swimming right next to a pod of dolphins. They were literally about 5 yards away from us in the water. Needless to say, I quickly forgot how cold the water was and realized how lucky I was to be having such a unique experience!


My darling teammate Maria actually sent the team a recap of Saturday's events. It was such a great email, I thought I had to include it for everyone to read. My comments are in parentheses:

Hi guys -

I hope those of you that did Solvang had a great time! We missed you at practice. So just so you don't feel left out, here's a summary of what you missed =)

Everyone seemed to be running late for the 7 am swim, except for Karen, who was ready to swim, bike, run but got shot down by the trainer and Paul (our coach) who told her to sit out the bike/run. (Karen got knocked off her bike last week by the hurricane force winds we had to ride in, sustaining injuries to her knee and arm.) She was bummed. F-bombs definitely flew before the official 10 am start time. Matt (my smart-alek teammate) tried to help out by providing his completely uneducated opinion that there was nothing wrong with her and that she should get her butt on her bike and ride with the rest of us. Paul was not swayed.

The water was a warm 57 degs and it felt like we were putting our faces into a giant bowl of ice water. Karen, Jen and I bitched and moaned like true Ironmen on the whole "swim" out to the buoy. The only good thing about doing the swim is that when we got out to the buoy, there was a huge pod of dolphins just on the other side of a wave from us. cool.

Then we got on our bikes. I forgot to ask if that was a dead rattlesnake on the west side of the road, north of Zuma. Anyone??? (Yes in fact it was...ewwww)

Jen passed Matt, who was NOT going to let a girl pass him, so he gave chase and apparently dropped his chain just as he was going by. Classy.

The bike ride was pleasant - more for Jen than the rest of us. She picked up a guy out riding, who then waved us all by when Jen flatted and they were stopped to fix it.

The run was uneventful. There might be cameos of us running in the back ground of whatever it was they were filming at Point Dume.

Then we all enjoyed a healthy post-race snack of pringles and carrot cake cupcakes. Yum! Then we walked over to Howie's for sandwiches - leaving Jen in the parking lot to chat up her new boy. We all waved bye to her when we were driving out of the lot AFTER lunch.

The question I have for Jen is, did you have sunscreen on, or did you get burned standing out in the sun so long =) You go girl!

Oh! One final thing. Kate (our team manager), I think a cage match between you and the OC IronTeam campaign coordinator is in the works.....

see everyone on Tues!
maria.

Yep, I made a new friend on the ride...what can I say, I'm friendly! And yes, I got a wicked sunburn, but it was worth it!

In other news, I rode Latigo for the first time four weeks ago. I had heard about Latigo for a long time, but never actually knew where it was. Let's just say what I'd heard about it was scary, so I was never too concerned with finding out where it was. Long story short...it's my new favorite ride. It's up a canyon in Malibu and is soooooo gorgeous! You get this amazing experience of riding up in the mountains while having postcard perfect views of the ocean. I wish I could ride there everyday...it's like being worlds away from everything, yet it's so close.

All right, I'm sure that's enough for all of you right now! Thanks for reading and feel free to leave comments.

hugs, Jen