if there were any doubt that my kid is the cutest...

... i offer the following photographic evidence for your viewing pleasure.

race report - 5430 sprint triathlon...

sunday marked my one-year triathlon anniversary. and with it, a repeat performance of the event that introduced me to what will certainly be many years of triathlon.

leading up to last year's 5430 sprint triathlon at the boulder reservior, i was a well-trained tri newbie - meaning, i had trained but really had no sense of what i was training for. i'd spent the previous 6 months preparing for the event - running and swimming and (occassionally) riding the bike - and was in the best shape i'd been in since my collegiate crew days. this year - not so much...

for no good reason, i've been slacking on the training since - well, since the steamboat tri last august. i'm struggling to get myself to do real, consistent training - and when i have, i've concentrated primarily on running. swimming has been a bust: besides a couple late-winter pool swims, my only time in the water leading up to sunday was at wildflower. and save for a ride last weekend with carrie and my dad, my only bike time since september was also at wildflower. i haven't had the committment to training, and i have only myself to blame. and after sunday, that is going to change...

the swim. 750 meters. no big deal, i thought. i made it through double that at wildflower and felt surprisingly great. and i remembered my wetsuit this time. i positioned myself about four rows back in my wave, hoping to stay clear of the mass of flailing limbs that call the swim the worst leg of the event. the start, though, was ugly. sun in my eyes and bodies in every single direction, i struggled to find any rhythm for the first 200 meters or so. and in struggling to find any rhythm, i spent so much energy that - by the turn - i was gasping for air and doing far too much breaststroke. thankfully, about the same time i began passing a few swim caps from the previous wave, giving me a little more motivation to get out of the water. the good news: as opposed to last year, i was able to run out of the water to transistion (about 100m). and, at 15:59,i carved about 30 seconds off last year's swim time - good for a top 1/3 time in the race.

the bike. i actually thought the bike felt okay, although okay for me is a very far cry from the majority of cyclists in this event. boulder is a cycling mecca, and for whatever reason i haven't learned the "it's all about the bike" lesson pontificated by bolder. i simply cannot fathom how quickly some of those people can move on two wheels. and then there's me. i think i passed, literally, 2 people on the entire 17 mile bike course - and couldn't even venture a guess to the mass of bike-humanity that passed me. in the end, though, the bike was awful. to the tune of 3 1/2 minutes slower than last year awful. a measely 17-point-something miles an hour. and 2 seconds under an hour altogether - good for the bottom 20% in the race. i know now that i can't continue to ignore the bike in training...

the run. the run was my chance to redeem myself after last year, when i had to walk several times. i have some trouble with the transition from bike to run in guaging my speed. what feels like a slow plodding pace is actually a pretty brisk one, and i end up killing myself at the beginning. and that's why i have a garmin - to know where i am and control my speed and save energy for the middle and end. of course, in two of the previous three tris, i've forgotten to transition to the run with garmin in-hand. not this time, though, and this saved me. my goal for the run was to do the run - without walking, except through the aid stations in order to encourage the actual drinking of the water. goal accomplished. and that led to a minute and a half improvement over last year - 24:58, 8:02/mile pace. good for top 1/4 in the race.

overall, the bike killed me. i came in 30 seconds off last year's time. and i'm not satisfied with that. i can hang my hat on some improvement in the swim and a good run. but i'm motivated now to get my butt out there and improve. no more slacking, no more excuses. i'll never be a podium finisher, but i can climb my own personal ladder.
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there was some good to the race, though. the people. carrie and the kids came to cheer us on, which i appreciate so much - it means a ton to have someone cheering you during the race and at the finish. and david came along with his boys to spectate and cheer as well. of course, the venerable bolder was there at the finish (after smokin' me on the course), and i had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with sascha and trishannon as well. i continue to be impressed with the quality of the people in the tri-blog community - this is a genuinely great group of personalities. and i appreciate the opportunities to tag along...

one year anniversary...

it's been a quiet week around here. primarily because my computer at home crashed, and crashed hard. now, there's not a ton of critical, life-changing information on that hard drive. but it does hold all of the photos that i've taken on ian in the past 2 years, as well as my entire itunes library. if it's unrecoverable, at least i turned most of the good ian photos into albums and i can always re-burn the cds. but still. grrr...

on the training side of things, this weekend is the boulder sprint triathlon. last year at this time i was preparing for this race as well, but it was my first tri and i was nervous as hell. i'd yet to do an open water swim, i had no idea what to expect from transitions, and i'd never done a real bike-to-run shift (i'd gone from stationary bike to treadmill at the gym once, but i was about to find out that it wasn't the same as the real thing). i was proud when i finished, even though i had to walk during portions of the run and my swim wasn't exactly the recipe for victory. it was an accomplishment for me at the time...

this time around, there are no pre-race jitters - at least not yet. because i know i can do it. i know what to expect. i'm looking forward to the race, looking forward to a sunday swim and wearing the proper attire and better nutrition (although i am nowhere near having a handle on that aspect of triathlon). i'm just not nervous. and i guess that comes with practice and experience.
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speaking of proper attire, last night's run was - ummm - not my proudest moment. i got home from work ready to do one of the 6-mile loops around the neighborhood - a loop that begins running down the center of a shady parkway and along neighborhood streets for the first 3 miles followed by a loop around the park for the second half. i got my running gear out, put my shorts on, and decided to try running with the ipod for the first time (i haven't tried to run with the ipod because i wasn't sure if the earbuds would stay in). apparently i got distracted by the ipod get-up...

i saw several people along the run over the first couple miles, some who looked at me a little strangely. i didn't think anything of it - after all, i was lost in my music and trying to straighten out what felt like an awkward gait. at about mile 2.5, though, i looked down at my shoulder as i was adjusting the ipod strap and realized there was a sleeve there. except the shirt i had pulled out was sleeveless. which brought me to the embarassed realization that i'd never changed my shirt - and that i'd run 2.5 miles along city streets and past other runners and dog walkers wearing the same collared polo that i'd worn to work that day...

feeling like the world's largest dork, i stopped to take the shirt off, tucked it into my shorts, and completed the run. the only redeeming point that i managed to figure out my fashion mistake before i made it to the park and the height of passing traffic. thankfully, the run was much better than the attire. reminder to self - do not wear a collared shirt to the race on sunday...

making living more comfortable...

a few weeks ago, i complained that my house felt like less than a home - due, of all things, to paint color (and if you knew your way around the left hemisphere of my brain, you'd understand). so, due the careful planning of carrie, who managed to coax my family into helping me here while she introduced trijack to altitude, i managed to get two rooms painted two weekends ago. which significantly altered my mental state in this place. however, there still existed what was certainly the bane of my sanity here - ian's room...

(apologies to the celebrity blogger crew who has heard this story in great complaintant detail (and who i'm very lucky to have shared dinner with on sunday night.))

the chore for this past weekend was to paint ian's room. a chore i was dreading to no end, because it required a number of painting stages, of which i enjoy exactly zero. you see, the paint job we moved into in his room was worst combination paint nightmares one could imagine (okay - perhaps an exaggeration, but the point remains). a bright orange color, mottled and incredibly splotchy - covering every surface except for the floor. which meant priming everything - priming which nearly made me pass out in the small room with little air circulation. followed by two coats of paint on all the wall surface. followed by the taping of the freshly painted walls to prep for the trim painting. followed by two - and sometimes three coats of white paint on the trim and doors.

all told, the painting required the bulk of the weekend. but it's complete - and the only recovery i needed was the look on ian's face and the joy in his giggle when saw his new blue room. a room that no longer looks like a scary place to walk in to. and a room that makes this house feel more like a home...
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on a different note, if you haven't had the pleasure of meeting and spending some time with them, this post and this post tell you all you need to know about the kind of genuine people bolder and curly su are. i consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to get to know each of them.

on making a decision...

i have been accused at times of making decisions quickly. some may think too quickly. but what people don't understand is that into the decisions i make go weeks and months and years of internal contemplation.

seriously. my friends and family joke that i change cars like most change socks. and yes - i've gone through some vehicles in the last few years. but an auto loan is an auto loan - and the likelihood of me hanging on to a particular car for the term of a loan is, in a word, unlikely. so changing cars is not a life-changing decision. and recently it has been a checkbook-saving decision. but people don't get that.

i'll admit. i do tend to make decisions seemingly - what's the best word for this - abruptly. but that's because most of the things i have to decide upon these days are things that impact me and me alone. i'll buy a couch on what seems like a whim to some. but these decisions are hardly made on a whim. because i think about things for a long time before i even realize that i'm thinking about them. i weigh the big decisions - whether or not to spend the money, the time, or the effort - for a long time and almost completely internally. because at this point in my life, these are internal decisions...

and then when i've decided to do something, i do it quick. i know what i like, and it isn't hard for me to choose from the options. and to some, this may seem frivolous. but i am not frivolous. i am deliberate and contemplative. and i am responsible...

and in the spirit of frivolity and deliberateness and contemplation - i've signed up for the vancouver triathlon on september 3. yes, i made the decision quickly. but i've been needing a vacation for a long time. this one's for me...