August 25, 2012

Tomorrow I will be competing in Ironman Canada; my first IM in 7 years. The last one I competed in was The World Championships in Kona in 2005. I guess you could say that I'm starting all over in the endurance field. I am nervous, excited, and ready to see what I can do with the training that I've put in over the last few months. I think my average cycling miles per week has been around 150 miles, running around 45-55 miles/week, and swimming 15,000 yds/week. The training has been very different having had Gabriel, who just turned 2 years old two weeks ago, and I am fine with that. This trip is the longest that I've been away from Gabey and thank goodness for video chat!!

My dad decided to drive up with me, so we've had a fun adventure so far. It took us 3 days (2.5 days really) to make it up to Penticton, BC, Canada. The first night we made it as far as Redding, CA and stayed in a hotel there. Day two we drove to Bend, OR and met up with my client who is also competing in Penticton. We did some training in Bend, which is a great place for exercise. We stayed there for about 3-4 hours, had lunch then continued our journey up to Vancouver, WA where Scott G. from Oomph helped us with finding a place to stay (Thank you Scott). We ended up at The Heathman Lodge. A beautiful place to stay if you are ever in the Vancouver, WA area. Day 3 we make a little bit of a round-a-bout detour to meet up with my friend Erin F. from The Dalles, OR for a run. It was great to catch up with her and I'm so glad she had the time to meet us (Thank you Erin). After our run we continued our drive through the Canadian border and to our home stay's house in Okanogan Falls, BC. Diane and Doug are wonderful hosts and very nice individuals. They are also housing a male pro from New Zealand and another female pro from the U.S.; both are very nice and I'm glad I have had the opportunity to meet them.

The town of Penticton is lovely and the people very nice. The course looks great and again I'm excited to see what unfolds tomorrow.

18 Months

Well, I believe it's been quite some time since I've written here and I finally have found some time, pending Gabey doesn't wake up yet from his nap. We've started to ween Gabey from nighttime feedings...yes, I was still waking up anywhere from 1-3 and even 4 times per night to nurse, which isn't the greatest if you have to wake up at 5am! For the past two nights I've slept on the couch while Gabey and Jay sleep in our room...yep, lucky them! So far, it's going very well and I hope within a few more days, Gabey will be sleeping through the night. I still wake up when I hear Gabey stir, but at least he goes back to sleep very quickly. Even Jay is getting better sleep and I think Gabey is too! The past two days his afternoon naps have been better as well.

Gabey is saying so many words these days and even started saying "mail man" the other day!! So cute. He loves putting trash in the garbage and recyclables in the recycle bin and says both "trash" and "recycle." He loves music; he has a ukelele, piano, wooden drum and I'm eventually going to get him a kazoo...just because it's cool!! One behavior we are trying to curb however is running the dog over with his push cart. Sprocket isn't too keen on being chased around the house by an 18 month old wheeling a cart at her and neither are we.

As for me, training is going well and this past week I actually hit over 200 miles of cycling for the week and just over 50 miles of running for the week. I don't think I've done that in quite a few years. I must say, I'm pretty exhausted today though, so am taking it easy and getting things accomplished around the house.

Long Time

It's been quite a while since I've written anything here. So here's a brief list of what's been going on around the Smith household. Gabey is almost a year and a half and is a great little boy. He loves the outdoors, playing with Sprocket, loves the water, runs doesn't walks, enjoys playing musical instruments and singing and dancing. We are still not sleeping through the night however, I hope that will be remedied soon as I really would LOVE to get at least 6 hours of straight sleep; I'd feel like Super Woman!!

I am back to training and hope to have a much better triathlon season this year than last! I still don't feel like I have the speed back, but I have my endurance. I think some specific interval workouts (which I have recently started) will no doubt get me in to race shape.