6-mile island

It's official. Early evening runs during the holiday season are the best. The decorated houses and Christmas trees tucked into the front windows of neighborhood houses make this best time during the whole year to be a runner.

I ran 6 miles alone in the dark without my MP3 player tonight. It felt pretty lonely for a while. A cold front was in the process of cooling the area to the point of freezing. A light breeze was blowing the fallen leaves and the smell of firewood hung in the air. I kept myself entertained by checking out all the decorated homes around our neighborhood. Some of the displays are impressive. But then again - I'm a real sucker for all the Christmas decorating, holiday music, etc. Heck - I even like the crowded malls during the holiday season. There are few events that really get under my skin make me come alive: The Christmas season is one, the Olympics (summer or winter) a second, and well, geez, college football season.

The run tonight included 2 3-mile loops which start and end at the driveway. I put a couple of water bottles on the front lawn for a makeshift drink station. The first 3-mile loop was a dream. I was really in the zone. The second loop was, well, it took a lot more effort than the first. It was a great way to burn off the first day back to work.

Looking ahead - This next weekend is the last free weekend of the year. We're planning to hit the town on Friday night. T will be at home with a sitter, which means grown-up food and drink. I'm hoping for steak! Then, we'll spend some time Christmas shopping downtown. We've got 2 5K race weekends, ok - fun run weekends, coming up after that. It should be pretty fun. I can't wait to see how much my times have improved over my first 5K back in August. Then, Christmas and New Years.

Should be fun times. I'll keep you posted.

Thanksgiving 2005 in review

Whew! Again, Whew!!

Thankgiving 2005 is in the books. What a busy time. I'm gonna recap all of it in one post - sorry if this turns out to be long.

Thursday - Thanksgiving Day - Act I

The whole house was up early - partly because T was up super early - partly because it was race day!! We had a great time! Everyone was running super fast. I figured I would have a pretty good finish for my Age Group. Turns out with a personal best - I still managed to finish in the bottom half! I guess only the hard core running lovers show up for an early morning run on a holiday.

It felt great to knock out 5 miles before most of the world had gotten up to start the day! We saw Party Pat and Salsa in the parking garage after the race. He turned out some seriously fast time. Way to go Pat!

Here are the official results. Pictures of the big event below:

Yep, that's me in all white after eating like a wild boar all week.

Check out the monster hill that I affectionately named "The Pumpkin Pie Eater". This was the last hill on the course - probably in the last quarter mile. It was absolutely a killer hill.

Click here for the big pictures.

Thursday - Thanksgiving Day - Act II

After the race, we rushed home to get the big meal started. Amers started hitting the sauce pretty early, as the picture below shows.

Just kidding. Love ya Amers. She had an awesome race earlier in the morning. Her longest run ever!! Way to go!!

Dinner turned out great. M and I did most of the prep work. Rudy's provided the turkey. It was a good meal and we learned a lot. Christmas dinner should be fun!

Here are a few pics of the spread...

Thursday - Thanksgiving Day - Act III

The decorating began shortly before sunset. The event played out in front of a backdrop of football and leftovers. What a great time. The house looks GREAT!

Friday - The Day After

I woke up around 4 AM - again. Arg. Spent most of the day finishing decorations, watching football, and cleaning up. T really likes the tree. He took some time to chill under the lights.

We finished off the day by watching the best classic Christmas movie ever - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Saturday - Everyone Loves a Parade!

We all got up and headed back downtown to go the the Chuy's Christmas Parade - toys in hand. This was a great time. Roberto got us VIP passes so we had front row bleacher seats, coffee, pastries and even balloons for the kids! Check out the pictures.

We stopped in at Mesa Rosa on the way back from the parade. Yum! T slept through most of the meal, then flirted with the ladies in the booth next to us. He's such a ladies man!

The weather as predicted by *me* - was beautiful. I headed out for a 10 mile ride just to get the heart pumping. We collapsed around 8:30 PM and slept all night - T included. Great Day!

Sunday - Reality Bites

I woke up around 5:30 and headed out for a 3-mile jog. It was beautiful. I think fall is the best season for running. Later, the real world returned. Ug - back to the grind. We headed out to church and then to the grocery store. The rest of today will be spent cleaning house and catching up on all the other stuff the grind calls for. Maybe I can get in another bike ride before the sun sets - if not I might try to swim tonight.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. Thanks to everyone for making it so special.

Decorations

We started the yearly ritual of decorating the house with Christmas stuff today. First - the tree! I really enjoy decorating the house. It's a ton of fun. T seemed to be a bit confused but interested in all the goings on. He'll be surprised when he wakes up in the morning.

Amers sent me the COOLEST video today. Some dude went all Clark Griswold on his house. It's fantastic!

Check it out the WMV here (hosted at Engadget).

Happy Holidays!!

Turkey Trot Done!

We finished the turkey trot this morning! What a great way to spend Thanksgiving morning.

The whole clan (M, T, Amers, and the In-laws) piled in the car around 7:30 and headed down to Waterloo Park. We checked in and picked up our race packets and timing chips. We had about an hour to kill at that point so we walked around and took in the sights and sounds.

The race kicked off around 9:40 or so. With 8000 runners it took almost 4 minutes for our group to get past the start line. Amers and I ran the 5 miler - the rest of the crew walked the one mile leg. Amers and I got seperated about a mile or so into the race. I didn't see her again until the finish line. I managed to run a 9:11 mile pace! Very fast for me. Pretty slow overall - I finished in the bottom half of my AG. Arg!

I had a great time! This will be a yearly event for us from here on out!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, we made it! Thanksgiving 2005! Despite the 80*+ temperatures, the holiday season kickoff has begun. Today was M's birthday - lucky for her she had the day off! However, she spent the day running errands. The in-laws all made it in and we are fueled up and ready for the Turkey Trot at 9:30 AM tomorrow morning.

Whew!

I have lots of things to be thankful for this year. Let me run down the top 3.

1. Family - M, T, my parents, the in-laws. It is wonderful to have such a great family.
2. Triathlon - This has changed my life. I'll never be the same thanks to this sport.
3. Work - It's not always fun - but, it pays the bills and allows us to live very comfortably.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Birthday week

Birthday season continues around our house this week with 2 more big birthdays: M and Sister Steph. Today is Sister Steph's birthday. Happy Birthday Sis! Wednesday is M's birthday. At the end of the week, we will officially have frosting between our ears having celebrated 8 birthdays in 6 weeks. Whew!

M insists on having a "Birthday week", Which is totally cool. It's nice to spoil her over several days anyway. She doesn't ever really spoil herself, so I make sure to take good care of her during her birthday week. We started her Birthapalooza last week and we have several fun things planned this week.

T seems to have taken a cue from his first birthday and has suddenly started a whole new discovery phase. 1) The big one - walking. He seems to walk more and more on his own each day. 2) He can point to his head when you ask him. 3) He is quite the little clown. He likes to crawl under the table (or his crib) and pop out and surprise us. He seems to get a real kick out of entertaining us. 4) Teeth - We have counted 2 and possible a 3rd new tooth since his birthday. The holiday season should be a fun time for all of us.

Lastly, my 30th birthday is looming. Well, sort of - in February. We are planning to take the weekend and go to Dallas to celebrate with all my college buddies. I should be well on my way to achieving some pretty lofty training goals by then (1/2 Marathon in late Feb. and 1/2 Ironman in June). Which reminds me - I'm planning to finalize my race schedule, goals & training plan by this coming weekend. I'll publish it when done.

Happy Birthday everyone!

How 'bout them Texas Tech Red Raiders?

Texas Tech won their last game of the season yesterday afternoon. It was probably one of the best games I have ever seen.

Here's the breakdown:

Taurean Henderson scored the final touchdown as time ran out to end a 1:34 charge down the field. The touchdown saved the game.

Here's what it meant:

• A perfect home season for the Red Raiders.
• The first time the Red Raiders have gone 9-2 in conference play.
• The first win against OU since 1999.
• A probable spot in the Cotton Bowl.

I love Tech Football. Thanks for a great ride this year guys!

Catching Up

These are busy times.

Luckily, I don't sleep late anymore. I was up today, Saturday, at 4 AM. This gave me the opportunity to catch up on my blog reading and all the recorded triathlon shows on the DVR. It's been a couple weeks since I've had a chance to sit down a catch up on things.

Not much planned this weekend - thank goodness! We are planning to go to a birthday party today, then we have a big grocery shopping trip planned. We gotta get all the fix'uns for the Thanksgiving feast we'll host later in the week. I'm planning to get in a 5mi run and a couple hours on the bike at some point, but nothing heavy duty- thank you recovery week!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Cool Runnings

I went on another night run this evening under the moonlit sky. It was a great way to burn off some day-long steam. What a difference 30* makes - it was about 42* when I left for my run! The trees were quiet and hardly anyone was out at 6PM. The air was filled with the winter smells of burning wood and homemade soups. I cleared 4 miles in just under 40 minutes. I love recovery week. Nothing too hard. During my run I planned out the rest of my exercise for the week.

1. 1500M in the pool Friday morning.
2. 18 - 20 mi Bike to 5 mi Run brick on Saturday.
3. Sunday rest

Next week will be interesting - The Turkey Trot (5mi) happens on Thursday. I'm planning to take that run really easy and just enjoy being out and about. So I'm guessing that means I'll take Wednesday off (since Thursday is normally my rest day). That leaves Monday (a run day) and Tuesday (a swim day). Not sure about Friday - although I would love to get out and do a 50 mile ride / 7 mile run brick that morning!! I'll have a family-full house and turkey-full belly, so we'll have to see.

I'm off to bed. G'night.

Mall Rat

I stopped by the mall this afternoon to pick up our prints from the pictures we took at Sears a few weeks back. There were a ton of people there. I parked on the far side of the mall so I would have to walk the full length to Sears. I wanted to do a little window shopping and take in the Christmas season a little.

Sears asked to use a picture of our little guy for their wall to advertise Christmas photos. I asked if we received anything for allowing them to use the picture. They replied "No." I asked if I could have the picture when they are finished. They said "No guarantees." I replied - "No, but Thanks for asking!".

My route took me right by the mall Santa. Picture this.

Santa is sitting in the middle of the mall walk way. They have constructed a loose, velvet-rope barrier around the guy - I guess to keep all the kiddees from rushing the old guy. Or, maybe to keep him from running away. The barrier extends around behind the scene and turns into the line. Santa is sitting in a giant green chair - the chair is older than Santa. A cardboard room is propped up behind him and wraps around into a small fireplace. The fireplace contains a television set which is tuned into the "fireplace channel" and shows some burning logs. In front of Santa's living room, the CIA has set up the most incredible photo studio known to man. An agent disguised as an elf - complete with green shoes and drooping stocking hat stands at the controls of the photo center swiftly snapping photos of the kids sitting on Santa's lap, printing the photos, and burning them to CD. Once complete, he takes the $7500 fee and places it in a giant safe. Santa was holding a big storybook (of "The Night Before Christmas" - and it was upside down) and listing far to the left in his giant green chair. His worn red pants were held up by black suspenders and only barely covered the tops of his black cowboy boots. He had lost his jacket and cap sometime during the day. His beard appeared to be authentic.

As I stolled by, he was between customers. He leaned over the arm of the big green chair and gave me a smile and wink.

I felt like a kid all over again.

On his way

My son passed a major milestone toward finishing a triathlon today - 5 steps past to be exact. He’s been on the verge of walking for a couple of weeks, but something was different today. When I got home I was greeted at the door by the whole clan. The garage door gives me away every time.

T seemed to be very animated today talking and babbling away telling me all the new things he had discovered. As usual I carried him around for a few minutes. When I had finished greeting everyone, I set him down in the middle of the floor. He stood there for a few seconds and looked at me. Something was different. I took a couple of steps back and motioned for him come toward me. 5 steps later he was standing at my legs. He was very proud of himself. We were very proud of him!

In writing this tonight I started to get pretty philosophical about the first steps of any journey – blah blah blah. Then I started thinking about all the stuff that had to happen for him to get to the point where he could cross three feet of carpet standing up – yadda yadda. After writing and rewriting several times it occurred to me that none of it was anything new to anyone – but me! All in all, I feel pretty proud that I was able to stop my hectic life for 20 seconds and just be there with him. It was the best 20 seconds I had invested in any task all day.

The sprint to the starting line...

Mondays suck. We still haven’t recovered from the big party weekend and now it’s almost Tuesday! Whew! The mountain of chores was so overwhelming I took off for a 3- mile run tonight after T-man went down for bed. It was very therapeutic. The only gadget I took with me today was my HRM. No MP3 player on this run. Just me, my shoes, and the road. I needed some time to clear my head and get a plan worked out to get through the week.

It was a really weird run. At 6:45 PM the temperature was around 74*, a warm breeze was blowing and I could hear the bugs singing in the trees. I ran by a swimming pool full of kids, lots of folks out milling around their houses, lots of fellow exercisers. The full moon was out so I had plenty of light. At the end I was drenched in sweat. It is fall, right? There’s only like a week till Thanksgiving, right? For a long while I began to wonder if the last few months had been a long dream sequence and it was really still the middle of summer.

Then, I rounded the far end of my route and caught a glimpse of something that brought me back. A brightly lit tree was visible through the front window of a house. Yes, some folks already have begun the Christmas decorating. It is fall after all.

M and I have been trying so hard to push back the Christmas season till next Thursday – Thanksgiving Day. You won’t find a single Christmas item out in our house. It has actually been quite fun – the building of anticipation is really starting to bring out the kid in both of us. I think that’s exactly how it is supposed to be - especially with the little guy running around. What difference from our sleep deprived time last year!

We have a full day planned for Thanksgiving. We’ll be up early to travel down to Waterloo Park for the Turkey Trot. The in-laws will be in town and I’m planning to run the 5 miles with Amers. The rest of the clan is going to do the 1 mile walk. Afterward, we’ll head back home for the big dinner. We ordered a bird from Rudy’s. It’ll be a Texas style Thanksgiving!

Of course, after dinner, we’ll join the rest of the nation in a long afternoon nap in front of an NFL game that nobody cares about. Our dreams will be laced with Maddenisms as I’m sure John Madden will be jabbering away with his six legged turkey behind the wheel of his cruiser.

Finally, I plan to go kung fu on the house - Christmas Style. The tree goes up, decorations come out and I'll hit play on a stack of Christmas music. And, following an improvised drum roll by the family in the front yard, the exterior lighting ceremony will kick off the Christmas season.

Fa La La La La
La La La La.

First Birthday Party

The police showed up about 2 hours into the party. I guess one of the neighbors called when they saw several toddlers passed out on our front lawn with cool-aid mustaches- or maybe it was because of the loud Wiggles music blaring from our speakers. The street was littered with juice boxes and several of the cars parked on the block were streaked with cake frosting and ice-cream.

Ok - I made all that up.

The party went off without a hitch today. Much fun was had by all. The afternoon included lots of gifts from friends and family, T was covered with chocolate frosting, and we ate lots of great food. Thanks to all for coming. T really loved being surrounded by his friends and family.

Before the party we ran around like crazy getting everything all ready. I decided to get up extra early at 5 AM and rode 18.5 miles. I followed up with a .5 mile run - just because it felt so great!

Anyway - Birthday number one is in the books. We're exaughsted. Whew!

Busy weekend - mixed in with training

My Mom arrived for the big party yesterday. It's been so fun having her here and seeing her with little T. Dad comes in tonight - I'll have a football watching buddy in the morning! Woo Hoo!

We'll have friends stopping by all day and we'll be dancing around here like crazy trying to get everything ready for the afternoon shin-dig. I'm hoping to get 90 minutes of riding hammered out in the early morning before everything gets crazy.

Oh yeah! I ran 7 miles today. 7 miles!! That's my longest run ever and it was awesome. I took the day off today and started things off with a nice run while listening to the 2 newest Zen-Tri podcasts. If you're a triathlete and you haven't heard his show - you gotta listen in. I love how Brett records the shows while he is working out!

The run went really well. Thanks to a nice bottle of Gatorade Endurance! I love this stuff. Every time I include this drink in my long workouts it makes a huge difference in the way I perform and my recovery time. Every single race will include this next season.

So my big goal for next season was going to be an Olympic Triathlon. After my last few weeks of base training I'm starting to wonder if I may need to rethink these goals. I am still planning to run one but now I'm also considering the Buffalo Springs Half IM. If I take this on it would pull the Half IM goal up almost a full year from when I had planned to shoot for it.

I'm still working out the final plans for next season, but right now I think a HIM is a real possibility. We shall see.

Funny how things change. 6 months ago I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs with getting winded.

Anything is Possible

This is a great story!

Turns out this 18-year old kid won the election for mayor and plans to run the city from his bedroom. He registered to vote the day after his birthday and applied to be a write in on the ballot the next day. He's setting up an advisory board including a previous mayor and people from the local college. Sounds like he already has his head on straight.

Forgetting Stuff

Triathlon Training has been really great for me organizationally. There are only a few activities I have ever been involved in where you have to keep track of so many details while staying focused on the task at hand.

Let's talk examples -

• Running : Socks, Shorts (unless it's cold), running shirt(long sleeve if it's cold), HRM Watch, HRM Chest Strap
• Swimming : Goggles, Watch, LTF ID card
• Cycling (Oh Man) - Helmet, Glasses, Computer, HRM Watch, HRM Chest strap, gloves, Shoes, Pump, tubes, CO2, Water bottles

I'm sure I've forgotten at least something off each list. Funny thing is - in real life you have to remember all the other stuff that comes before and after a workout or race. For example, car keys, change of clothes (including shoes, belt, etc., etc.), Work ID Badge, laptop, kids, etc.

I seem to forget something just about every time I workout. Thankfully - I've never forgotten my kid. :-)

• Last week, I was almost out the door for a 5-mile run when I realized that I had managed to get my HRM watch on but not the chest strap.
• I've left for several 50+ mile rides only to have to call M to bring my water bottles which were left in the kitchen (so I wouldn't forget them). Yeah, I take a cell phone with me on any ride over 10 miles. I'm a geek.
• I spent many days at work with sagging pants while my belt hangs neatly in my closet after a morning swim at the club.
• Today I forgot my, well, *SIGH* - the stories go on and on.

I've considered using some form of list system to help me keep track of all the stuff I have to have before I leave the house at 4:45 AM for a swim -- But how geeky could I possibly get. Do I really need a management system for all my pre-training, training, and post training stuff. Don't get me wrong, when it comes to race day I am a total geek. List in hand - I pack and repack my bag. But, do I really need to do this through all my training??

For those of you paying attention. Here are the items I forgot from the lists above: Bike, Swimsuit, Shoes. Ug.

For the TriGeekDreams Team training for IMFL - I wish you all the best. I can't wait to hear the stories of how you plan out the trip and attempt to remember everything!

Happy Birthday Son!

Today is my son's first birthday. I can't believe an entire year has gone by already. A year ago today we arrived at the hospital at 5:00 AM - the first scheduled induction of the day for the hospital. Our day ended around 10 till midnight with a bouncing baby boy - the last delivery of the day for the hospital. It was an exciting day. Here's a few highlights to jog your memory...

• Hourly video diary entries
• Texas Tech Nurse!
• Forgot to hook up the IV?!
• Nurse Shift change
• Ouch - now it hurts!
• ... ten minutes later - I feel fine - I love you!
• Lots of phone calls
• A steel drum band
• Who turned the TV on the Food Network channel?
• New Stocking
• Dr. Phil?
• Nurse shift change - the nurses from this morning are back!
• Push!
• Sleep - kind of.

Ah! The memories.

Well, the T-man has already jumped into his first round of presents this morning. I posted a few pictures for those who want to check things out (click the picture):

BTW, Aunt Sue - he loves that football!

Looking ahead - I'm sure the next year will be full of lots of fun for our little family. Can't wait to see what time will bring!

Bilateral drinking

I arrived at the club this morning around 5:15 for my first of 2 planned swims this week. This would be the short one - 1750M. I'm kind of a slacker when it comes to swim training. I've always been somewhat of a strong swimmer having participated in many hours of lessons since I was knee high to a duck. So I always wait until I've got one toe in the pool to decide what the workout will be. I call this Just-In-Time-Training (JITT). Today I decided on a 250 warm-up followed by 500 (25 free / 25 pull), 400 (25 free, 25 kick), 300 (free), 200 (Hard), 100 (cool down) while staring down the swim lane from inside the pool.

Since I started triathlon training I've learned a lot about what it means to be a really good swimmer. Mostly I've learned I am not one. About 200M into the warm up I thought "This would be a good day to work on bilateral breathing." You see, in all my years of swimming lessons I either a) never learned bilateral breathing or b) learned it, forgot it, and permanently blocked it from my memory. I am locked in to breathing on my right side. This makes sighting kind of a challenge on "Left turn" swim courses. It also causes me to steer slightly to the right in open water.

I don't exactly know why I decided that today was the day. Perhaps it was part of the whole JITT methodology or something.

My body tends to go into autopilot mode when I swim freestyle. Breathing, kicking, arm movements, hip rotation. It's all pretty robotic which is great because I can sort of "stand back" and observe my arm entry, leg kicking motion and make small tweaks as I go. I flex my abs to force the air out and aid in the arm movement and hip rotation resulting in a last second turn of my head and inhaling a chest full of air. This autopilot mode, however, is not good while trying to learn bilateral breathing. My first attempt came around 150M into the 500M leg.

What a sight it must have been.

I brought my left arm over in anticipation of a quick head turn and -- GULP! I drank two gallons of pool water. This resulted in a quick, spastic move to get my feet to the bottom of the pool which then resulted in me shooting out of the water like a synchronized swimmer. Nice job.



The second attempt came at 100M into the 400 leg and 50M into the 200 leg. Both had the same result. Although, I don't think they were as graceful or entertaining as the first attempt. There were no further attempts.

I'm guessing that my overall form must be more prone to the right breathing motion than I had originally thought.

I know some of you out there are great swimmers. Help!

A glimpse

The bright lights hit my eyes before my ears could identify the engine roar. The Crazy Newpaper Man in his Red Beast Truck came roaring down the road toward me this morning. I haven't seen the Crazy Newspaper Man in a couple of weeks - even though I have a pretty steady schedule of running on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In what seemed like only 4 steps he was close enough that I could make out the orange glow of his morning cigarette. He steered the Red Beast directly at me. I quickly jumped from the street to the sidewalk. Then it started - "Slap! Slap! Slap!" - Three news papers hit the sidewalk. 2 in front of me one on the other side of the road. I heard the squeal of the Red Beast's brakes as I ran up next to it. He was stopped as I ran past. I gave a quick look into the dimly lit cab of the truck and quickly took inventory: Stacks of neatly rubberbanded newspapers filled the passenger seat and back seat of the truck, a pack of smokes lay on the dash. The Crazy Newspaper Man was distracted reloading one hand with another newpaper the other holding a cup of coffee. His head was slightly dipped and the truckers cap cast a shadow over his face.

"Missed me again - sucker!!" I screamed at him from inside my head.

Triathlon Training can be so dangerous in the suburban jungle!

A fun weekend

I had a great weekend. Took a little break (well, OK, a forced break courtesy of M) from my long Saturday workouts to have a nice pancake breakfast with the family. What a blast! After we had all cleaned up, we went out shopping for some new duds. M scheduled a late afternoon photo session with Sears. I bought some pants that fit (finally!) and a new shirt. M got a new skirt and a couple shirts. T made off with a new shirt. When we got home I turned on football and milled around the house catching up on chores.

SideBar: Poor Baylor - not a single point in 2 weeks. Texas gave them quite a lashing.

We headed out for pictures in the afternoon and stopped in at Party City to get the last of the birthday party stuff. Today begins T's first "birthday week". The whole event ends in a party on Saturday. His first birthday! Family from near and far are coming in starting on Thursday.

We finished off the night watching the Tech game. M and I had a BLAST watching the game. That girl is a football fan when she wants to be!

Sunday was dedicated to chores. I managed to polish off a short brick (10mi bike / 2.65mi Run) in the afternoon. It felt great to get out and sweat. Finally we had a nice dinner and played with T for the rest of the evening.

I have some good video of his pre-walking antics. I'll try to get it edited and posted sometime this week.

The family-in-law got back from Vegas yesterday. (Roberto, Kathy - how weird that they saw Tracy's group at the airport?, Amers) Turns out they nearly took down Mandalay Bay at the Roulette wheel. Those sharks! (Well, can you be a shark at Roulette? - Anyway...) Sounds like they had a blast. They won't tell us any details... something about "What happens in Vegas stays in..." well, whatever.

He sees you when you're sleeping

So Santa is already at the mall. Yesterday we went for a quick stroll through the mall after our pictures. There he sat. Cowboy boots and all. You have to be kidding me.

I have to admit, I'm so excited for Christmas that a small part of me kind of got into the whole Christmas at the mall thing for a short while. M and I actually considered dropping T in his lap for a picture just because the line was so short!

Ok, well, maybe next weekend.

Vegas Baby!

OK -

The parent's-in-law, sister-in-law, and my good friend Tracy all went to Vegas this week. Well, PIL & SIL went together, Tracy went with her Mom, I think. How fun is that? Hopefully one of them will hit the multi-million dollar jackpot and send some love my way. :-)

Maybe they'll post some blog entries about their crazy times?

Note: The sound byte is from the movie "Swingers" - I love that movie!

New Triathlete Link

I added a link to Desiree Ficker's website. She's a professional triathlete from here in Austin! I first ran across her name when she placed first in the Women's division at Jack's Generic Triathlon back in September. I ran that race too - it was my first triathlon. OLN has covered her racing several times this season too. It's pretty cool to have a hometown favorite to root for. I hope to meet her sometime - maybe next season at a race!

Training Update

I'm just getting around to my monthly recap for October....

What a great month! Swimming took a back seat this month but I did manage my first organized ride and put some serious miles down in running!

Here are the totals:

October:
Bike: 13h 58m 58s - 229.7 Mi
Run: 9h 40m 42s - 55.58 Mi
Swim: 3h 7m 14s - 9186.35 Yd

Double IronMonth!

For the Year:
Bike: 40h 50m 02s - 621.63 Mi
Run: 27h 2m 32s - 156.71 Mi
Swim: 15h 4m 11s - 40,748.25 Yd

Lots of fun this month. I'll probably scale back cycling and swimming a bit over the next 2 months until the hectic holidays are over. Can't wait for next Tri season to get rolling!

Other Sports update

Way to go Red Raiders! Outstanding game last night for the Texas Tech Red Raiders! They really put a woop'in on a&m.

A few games to note:

• Texas v. Baylor - Holy Cow.
• Tennessee v Notre Dame - Touch down Jesus!
• VT v. Miami - Holy Crap!
• Iowa State v. Kansas State - 2-40+ point games in a row!

For those Big 12 fans out there - check out this weekly breakdown. Funny Stuff!

BTW, Happy Nation College Football Day, uh, yesterday! Sadly, college football is entering it's last few weeks. Before we know it bowl season will be here. The e-mails have already started flying -- "If Tech goes to the Cotton Bowl we should go!". All I can say is heck yeah!

After bowl season the NFL playoffs start which can be fun to watch. Then, the mother of all boring NFL games, the Super Bowl. In Soap Opera news, the Eagles have suspended TO, again. I think all those soup commercials with his mommy have made McNabb a bit of a softy. I caught part of the story on SportsCenter - sounded like McNabb want to meet with his team to share his feelings. Wha?! This is football, right? Shut up. Not that I care much, but TO can play. If he helps the team win and puts butts in the seats - why would any team owner care what comes out of his mouth.

I hope everyone has been enjoying a short reprieve from the 2 longest sports seasons - Baseball and Basketball. You may (or may not!) have noticed that the NBA has already started up again. *YAWN* - reprieve over. And Baseball probably starts up again in - something like - 2 weeks? *YAWN YAWN*. Shaq knows how it works. As he normally does, he started off his first game with "an injury". Doesn't he always sit out the first 3 months of the season with an injury? I wonder if one of those Icy Hot patches might help? Ok, enough of that -please resume ignoring the NBA for the next 6 months until the playoffs start.

I caught part of an NHL game the other night. Welcome back boys. I think the league tooth count is up to four already this season - Way to go! Incidently, who the heck hired the sasquatch to play goalie for the LA Kings. Have you seen this guy Jason Labarbera? He's like 6' 3" and covers the goal like a front door! It kinda looked like a dad playing goalie for his little kids hockey team.

Anyway - Looking ahead. Next week has the following sports highlights...

• Texas Tech v. Oklahoma State
• Texas v. Kansas
• Ford Ironman World Championship
• Thomas's First Birthday party - an endurance event!

Blog 2.0

You've found it! I've officially moved the blog to it's new home. So, update your links and RSS feeds - I won't be updating the old at http://spaces.msn.com/members/AcrossTheWay/ anymore.

It's going to take me a few days to get all the links and pictures reposted - sorry for the mess.

OK - so the comments should be working on this site (without needing a Passport, too) so try it out and drop me a line!