First Tri at the Beach

Tim and I came to North Topsail Island this weekend so he could race in the Wilmington Athletic Club Triathlon. It's a small sprint to get him "in the mood" so to speak. I'm actually not racing before White Lake 1/2...I may do my own "sprint" 2 weeks prior but I'm not paying to race.

Tim's parents have a condo, so they're letting us stay here for the weekend. Ryan was very excited about being able to watch daddy race this weekend...but last night turned south fast. Brayden only slept for about 30 minutes yesterday from the time he woke up at 6:45am until he finally went to sleep around 7:45pm. New places do that to him. Then I was up 4 or 5 times last night because he couldn't breathe. Little guy is pretty goopy today. So when Tim got up to leave at 6:15 I had to decline the trip, better not to take Brayden out in 53 degree windy beach weather. So instead I'm watching "handy manny" eating cheerios and blogging.

Hope Tim's doing well and feels okay when he's done because I've got a 9 mile run to get in before we head home.

The younger you start em' the better they are

We decided to enroll Ryan in "Little Kickers" soccer classes. They meet every Friday morning for an hour for 8 weeks. We thought he'd get a kick out of it, literally, and so far he absolutely loves "kicking soccer with my soccer team". At this point it's only about exposing them to basic balance, ball handling and the cones. I guess they do stuff with the cones so that the kids get used to them being on the field and won't play with them later.

This "little thumper" class is for kids 2-3 years old...they actually have "bunnies" classes for kids 18-24 months. I thought that was crazy because the 2 yr. olds can't pay attention as it is so I just couldn't image an 18 month old doing this...until today.

So I take the boys to the sportsplex and Tim meets us there (takes his break to come over and play). Brayden and I normally play on a different part of the field with the cones and extra balls...mostly he just crawls around and watches the kids, but today he had something different in mind. He was picking up the ball, throwing/rolling it, then crawling after it. He was mimicking the kids kicking the ball. So I held his hands so he could walk to the ball and he was actually kicking at it! HOLY CRAP. Unfortunately I didn't get a pic of the standing kicks because it's hard to take a pic with both hands helping the little guy walk..but I guess we're going to have to enroll him in the 18 month class when we can.

Too bad they don't have classes for 12-15 month olds. Hmm
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Out of Touch

Wow, I just realized I haven't blogged in almost a week. It's been crazy busy around here lately...training, house, kids, training, kids, kids oh and kids. Free time is spent doing dishes, folding laundry that's been in the dryer for 4 days while I wash 3 more loads only to leave the last load in the dryer for 4 days, putting said clothes away, cleaning house on the off chance we'll get a visitor and taking 20 minutes to use the bathroom and eat. There is no rest for the weary.

I had a great bike training week last week, my running suffered for it though. I took the weekend off to let my legs rest only to be back at it on Monday. I'm focusing on running and swimming this week. Speaking of which....long course or short course? Anyone have a preference? I'm torn. We usually have to swim short course due to all the swim teams and such around here, but last night at Master's class they had long course. I love it because it gives you a better feel for swimming continuous...but it's got a draw back. I kept trying to hit my 50's on 45 sec to get 15 sec rest in between and was having trouble. I thought my night was just going badly...always gonna have a bad workout every now and then. The fastest I managed to get my 50's was 50 seconds. We got done doing the 3000 and my shoulders were DONE after all the pulls we did.

In the car on the way home Tim said "man, meters sure does make a difference doesn't it?" HOLY CRAP...hello, it dawned on me that long course is meters and short course is yards. No wonder...if only I could still blame it on hair color (no offense, I was blonde when I was younger). So we typically do 3000 yards, but by doing 3000 meters I think it's something like 3300 yards...who would have known that 300 yards can make that much of a difference. Oh well, like I said, I do enjoy the long course.

Only 5 weeks till White Lake Half...so only about 3.5 weeks left of solid training. Oh boy.