awesomest weekend ever

followed by total sickness and self medicating with pizza and girl scout cookies...

not so sure

i showed this photo to seamus. she laughed and said it was a silly photo. i told her it was me and she said no it wasn't. i told her again that it was to which she said again it wasn't. then i asked her how she could tell it wasn't me. she looked and looked and thought about it and finally said, there is no watch in that picture. ... apparently, this is what i look like.
but duuuuude i have been packing on the pounds this past week. its been so bad. it started with thursday night going out to dinner and CHOWING down followed by out to dinner friday night where i CHOWED down again. we went to our neighborhood mexican resturant where they have the best ever tortilla soup which is what i normally get but noooo, i had to get the giant carne asada and chile relleno and i CHOWED down. then i followed that up with GIANT CHINESE dinner outtting on saturday where there was loots and loots of beer consumption and CHOWING down. out of control and that mixed with being sick mixed with missing some workouts due to sickness and weather ala crap, mixed with this being a rest week has all resulted in MASSIVE WEIGHT GAIN which totally bums me out but i am non stop STARVING.
poor sirus totally threw up at dinner tonight. i wasn't home yet but apparently he was at the dinner table eating dinner and then out it came. when i came home little guy was laying on the floor cuddle in pillows and a blanket. now he is up being all crazy but he was sick just then for a little.
i have a 1000 yard swim TT tomorrow. i told my coach i was a bit freaked out about it and she said she was glad to hear that since that would mean i am taking it seriously! i still have my sore throat but i hope it doesn't affect my time. i went swimming on wednesday and my shoulder seemed to be ok, but the throat, i just don't know what to do about that.

blowing mc blowerstien

so here is the deal. last week was a record week, but then this week was a record breaking week. over 22 miles of running, over 103 miles on the bike, but i think only 2.6 miles swimming, but still it was a good week. i skipped out on friday's swim since i have been kind of sick and i cut the bike ride on friday short by 15 minutes, too. throat is sore, there has been some coughing, what the hell and then the super what the hell my shoulder has been hurting. my left shoulder has always kind of hurt even with the tiny bit of swimming i had done last year it would hurt. when i met with the swim coach she helped me learn to rotate more and keep my stroke infront and that seemed to help then i think i slept wrong or something on it and now its been hurting all the time. it felt fine on saturday but then today its been killing me. i think carrying sirus around this morning didn't help it. my coach suggests that i need to stretch out my pecks and some other things and maybe that will help, damn i hope so. i think eric is just sabotaging me since i told him i might wind up beating him out of the water. here is a photo of where it hurts: but gosh i hope it gets better soon. i took today off and then i'm not going to swim again until wednesday. then she is going to have me do another 1000y tt on friday!! yikes!
eric did a 5k race on saturday. his first ever that wasn't at the end of a triathlon or while pushing kids in the stroller. he did great. he was 11th overall which was his bib number, too. but then he came in 2nd in his age group! this was his benchmark race so now he is thinking he might do some running training and see what happens!
the kids did the kids 1k race and wow!! they were both kind of freaked out when i told them i registered them. seamus was worried it was going to be a full 5k like the last one she did and was happy to hear it was only 1k since 5ks is a lot of ks. sirus was worried because he said he wouldn't be able to keep up with seamus but i told him it was ok and that i would run with him. but wow! he ran super fast for quite a while!! he was booking, i hadn't ever seen him run so fast but then he said his tummy was starting to hurt so we slowed it down and eventually we walked. he did run accross the finish like. he got a medal, too. it was his first one ever. he had gotten ribbons before but this was his first medal and boy was he proud. seamus had gotten medals for her triathlons and she was happy to get one for this race but sirus was so excited and wore his all day.
today we picked up a desk for sirus's room. we figured that maybe if he had his own desk he would start to draw some more or somethin. he was very excited and was more happy to have someplace else to drive his cars and trains...
today i had alreayd decided i wouldn't ride but then when i woke up it was snowing followed by torrential rain storm followed by sun and wind storm followed by hail followed by rain followed by snow, repeat, etc.

snow and hail

i liked swimming wednesday morning, ok the actual swimming was COLD but i liked it because it gave me the rest of the day to rest and then thursday was my actual rest day. friday morning i had thought that i would take it easy on the swim. i woke up and got myself there. it was 26 degrees out. i was freaking out because i didn't want the water to be like on wednesday. on the way to the pool i mentioned my concerns to one of the other ladies and she said that was very unusual to have it be so cold. i walked out side into the 26 degree weather in just a swimsuit and went over to the water. it felt nice. i got in and it was actually quite nice, thank goodness. i did my warm up and then started the actual warm up set. the coach guy was standing there looking like he was freezing - no hat, i don't think he had gloves. we did a kick drill with kickboards. he handed one to me and it was covered in ice. next thing you know i had completed 3000 yards. thats was more then i was planning for this "take it easy while swimming" day. the coach noticed that i am doing a way better job rotating, which i felt like i was totally getting down and i swam for a few hundred yards breathing out the left side. it made me a little dizzy but i didn't drown like has normally been the case. we did a bunch of backstroke which was kind of fun. except i smashed my toe on the plastic rope thing. later in the day i discovered i had smashed my hand into the rope, too because not only is my toe all bruised but my hand is all bruised and it looks like it was in a fight. real wierd. there is a little old man who comes to swim as we are finishing up. he wears a speedo and i always talk to him a little bit. friday morning he sat on the edge of the pool and said "nice water and pretty girls, what more could anyone ask for" or something like that. when i got out, my flip flops were covered in ice. that was a weird sensation.
when i got home i got on the trainer for 1:45. and then, eric made stuffed burges for dinner and i had 1.5 of them. totally delish.
today i went for a trail run. totally fun but my hand froze. i had no idea they were frozen until i went to get in my car and i had a tough time dealing with my keys. i had to stop for gas but couldn't get my credit card out of my wallet. because of this and the fact that it is pouring down a combination of slush, hail & rain, I am resolving to the fact that I will ride the trainer tomorrow. for 3 hrs.
this week was a record traning week. I finished up with 19.47 miles running. Its killing me that I didn't get to 20. Had i run on the road today I would have been over 20 for sure. I finished up with 98.94 on the bike. Grr, this kills me too, but i have no real reasons why i didn't make 100, but 98.94 is still a damn lot. I also finished up with a record 4.66 miles in the pool which is absolutly amazing and probably my greatest feat ever!!
the kids are amazingly adorable. seamus & sirus had a few sleepovers this week. they just get in their sleeping bags and crawl into bed. they are so good. seamus had school photos this week, too! can't wait to see them!

those jeans

i took them back. not only that but i wound up getting a pair of shoes, a shirt and a different pair of pants for less then 1/2 of their cost, so i was pretty darn happy. the pants i did get are less hoochy and eric only went "eh" to them, but i like them and they are a little bit more my age i think.
lsat night the kids were being funny. i was chowing down on a bowl of frosted mini wheats mixed with frosted flakes because as is many times the case lately i was STARVING and the kids were eating their raviolis and peas and carrots. sirus decided he wanted to put in his cup of milk and fish them out with a spoon. i said nothing since i needed a refill on the cereal. seamus went and stood next to him and he would scoop them out and feed them to her and say " here you go princess" and then he would take a turn. it was pretty cute.
training has been going well. i switched pool. today was my second day at the new pool - and OUTDOOR pool in washington in march. yes it was damn cold. monday wasn't so bad, it was like 51 when i got there and the water seemed fine. today it was like 37 when i got there and the water did not feel fine at all. the other ppl said that the heat must have shut off over night or something since it was way colder then normal. i contemplated that maybe this swimming thing was not for me but instead decided that it will just make me better prepared for ice cold race day water. it took a few hundred yards to warm up but it was good. part of the main set was a IM where we were to do 50 butterfly, 50 back, 50 breast and then 50 free. i told the coach i was going to do a different stroke for butterfly and he said ok. but then a set or two down the road it turned into the same thing but 100s. this time the coach told me i had to do the butterfly. yeah, not only that but he walked the length of the pool deck beside me making sure i was doing it! he said i did ok but needed to work on the kick. he said by the end of the length i was starting to get it which is funny because i thought that was when i started to drown.
new pool arrangement is way less expensive then the other. i was paying $15 a pop and going twice a week (i could have joined the club for $130 a month but i would have only used it to swim, so drop in was more flexible). but for that i got salt water pool 8 minutes from my house. now i am paying $55 for 4 weeks, up to 3x a week. i thought it was way far away but really its only about 20 minutes from the house and only then about 15 or so to work after. when i told my xterra coach that i could now go M-W-F, please pick which days you want me to go she replied with go all 3. I did not expect that but i am going to try. it will make me a better swimmer, i am so going to kick some ass this year. i hope.
i'm in a high volume week. i have one more next week then a rest week. but this week will wind up with a little over 4 miles of swimming, 100 miles on the bike and 20 miles of running, and hot damn, i feel awesome. that is the part that is amazing to me. i feel damn good. a little tired but totally awesome.
last week though was a different story. i went on the 5 pool tour and wound up with some issues. i had been a little sick, which corresponded with my last rest week which corresponded with eric's bday and some after work - work commitments. then the next week i was feeling better, like i thot prolly 90-95% until i went swimming at the club i had been going to. i started coughing and coughing like crazy, my chest was tight, and i had to drop to the back of the slow group. i wasn't sure i'd make it through the workout. i covered the distance but i just couldn't breathe. once in the locker room i started to feel better and the coach said the air quality was bad and there were issued with chlorine gas. man was i feeling it. wednesday night seamus got sick and was puking all night so i wasn't about to get up thursday morning. friday i met renee at a new pool which turned out to be pretty nice. but about 3/4s in my nose felt like it was being pried off of my face. and i wound up with a sore throat that lasted all weekend. i chalked it up to the tuesday experience and just not dealing well with chlorine. so i was worried about the OUTDOOR pool. on monday i got through the swim a-ok! no issues! the coach (who is 19 by the way) told me that the pool has less chlorine and is cleaner than the indoor pool. so i really do think that i must have a chlorine sensitivity.
sunday i met some of the girls for a 2:45 bike ride. it started out nice but with about an hr to go it started raining and it just kept raining. and i still had an hr run to do! the girls went home but i ran and felt great!! it was awesome! i am interested to see what happens when I start doing some intensity.