Probably More than you care to read about Swimming, Cycling and My Life in General...

I don't blog here anymore...

2009-07-09T14:04:00.002-04:00

I'll let the title of this blog speak for itself.

I am in the midst of starting a new blog. A blog that reflects my new self.

I think Romans 6:1-4 sums it up and hits the nail on the head:

1: What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
2: By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
3: Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4:We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

So if you happened to stumble across this blog of mine, stay tuned. I'll have a new one up soon.

How much does Dialysis cost?

2008-06-22T15:01:00.003-04:00

Curious? How much does it cost to keep Rob alive?

Here's proof.

Rob's first full month of dialysis in February.

No, don't fetch your eyeglasses, don't reach for those Visine eyedrops. You read that right. 35,000 dollars. For one month's treatment.

When we first got that "bill" in the mail, I was shocked. I told Rob, "That has to be for more than just your dialysis. Maybe that includes your 5 day hospital stay at Duke in January?"

But no, I was sadly wrong. We ended up getting that one in the mail, separate from the dialysis "bills" - that 5 day stay was around 15K.

So here's the bill for dialysis during the month of March:

WOW-ee!

So a month of dialysis costs as much as Rob makes in a year. No wonder Medicare helps out, for people who don't have insurance. Thank God for our health insurance!

We can't wait to find out how much HOME dialysis will cost in comparison to the IN-CENTER dialysis (which the bills above are for). I'll have to post up when the bills come for that, if it's substantially more or less than 35K a month.

We can't wait for a transplant! And we hope one comes along soon.

We are now doing home dialysis 5 nights a week @ 30 liters of dialysate, instead of the old prescription of 6 nights a week @ 25 liters. This frees up another day/night so that we can feel more normal and less like a dialysis patient/caretaker.

Yay! Things are looking up for us! Now...to find Rob a new job that gives him weekends off, so that we can have more dialysis-free time together. And the ability to go on weekend trips together. Hmmm, someday...I hope.

A fun way to waste time on the internet...

2008-06-22T13:02:00.002-04:00

when you're sore, tired, exhausted from riding a very challenging ride at Beaver Dam yesterday.

Check it out. This is our beagle Taylor.

moar funny pictures

I'm addicted now. Gonna go make some more!

I feel like a kid again

2008-06-08T20:55:00.003-04:00

HOT! HOT! HOT! I think this is the 5th day in a row with 98+ degree temperatures, with heat indexes in the low 100's, ugh!

I bought one of those blow-up backyard pools from Target yesterday with intentions of using it to cool off/chill out in after a hot bike ride home from work or after completing some yard work. So I mowed half of the backyard (it's a pretty big yard, and it seems even bigger when it's 105 outside!) and then set up the pool. Even with an air compressor, it took about 10 minutes to inflate. I hate to think how long it would take with one of those crappy foot pumps the pools come with!

Here it is, all set up with fresh COLD water from the hose.

It was so cold that I had to inch into it like I was one of those water aerobics ladies at Campus Hills who always complain that the pool is "too cold" even when it's a steamy 84 degrees!

The pool is a nice 10 feet across. That means I can take one-half stroke and reach the other side. I tried to flip turn, but strangely my head hits the bottom. So then I tried an open turn, but my knees scraped the bottom and when I dropped my inside elbow, that too, scraped the bottom - reminding me of the pool we swim at in Greensboro every year!

I can't believe it! Only 528 laps in this pool and I've swum a mile!

I had so much fun swimming my half-stroke laps of freestyle in my new pool, that I decided to try a little backstroke.

Something's a little funky with my backstroke lately. Hummph? It felt like my catch wasn't deep enough or something? Or perhaps something is wrong with my kick? Maybe my swimming friends can check it out and offer suggestions.

Oh well, at least it doesn't hurt when I miss the flags and bump my head into the wall...

I'm so freakin' funny it hurts sometimes! :)

5 years ago today

2008-05-24T23:01:00.002-04:00

We said "I do"!

5 years, wow, it's gone by pretty fast. I guess that's just the way it goes - the older we get, the faster time seems to fly by.

To celebrate our 5 year mark, I bought a really nice bottle of wine from Wine Authorities - a 2005 Ladera Cabernet Sauvignon.

I'd been meaning to check out Wine Authorities for a few months now. I drive past it everyday on my way home from work, on University Drive. I was really impressed with the wine selection and the 2 owners who were very friendly and knowledgeable. They had a free wine tasting while I was there, so I sampled 3 great wines. I bought one of them, a wine from Northern Spain that goes well with seafood - 2006 Espelt Saulo.

For dinner, I went to Whole Foods and bought (for the first time in my life) some Veal Rib Chops. GASP! I know there's some controversy about the humanity of raising veal, but....it was on sale, and I found a great recipe for it, so I figured, what the heck, I'm buying it. It's gotta be delicious. And it was. The recipe was called "Wood Grilled Veal Rib Chops With Wild Mushrooms"

Did I say the Ladera wine was excellent? No joke, the wine brought tears to my eyes when I first tasted it at the wine shop, and again, at the first sip at dinner! Here's a pic of our dinner just before we dug in and thoroughly enjoyed every bite.

So now we're watching one of our favorite movies - Sideways. Dialysis will be done in another 90 minutes, then bedtime!

Happy 3-day Memorial Weekend!

Triangle Kidney Walk Report

2008-03-30T20:27:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, March 29, Rob and I did the Triangle Kidney Walk. In my last blog post, I wrote about how Rob's kidney disease had finally reached the "end stage" and that he is now on dialysis and waiting for a kidney transplant. On March 1, I finally sent out a mass email to all our friends, coworkers, and family members that said we were going to do the Kidney Walk and that we were raising money for it. We had an overwhelming response to the fundraising email! As of this blog entry, we raised $1243 for the National Kidney Foundation of North Carolina! Words cannot describe how we feel about everyone who donated to our fundraising effort!

We froze our butts off at the walk - it was a whopping 44 degrees, windy and looking like it was going to rain at 9:50. The walk began at 10:05 and a few minutes later, rain started to lightly fall. Rob ran to the car to get our umbrella, as did a bunch of other walkers. But many walkers weren't prepared for the rain. It took me about 10 minutes to "warm up" - my eyes kept watering and my nose was a faucet - but once I warmed up, the walk was much better. We were keeping a pretty fast pace as we had to keep passing slower people.

There were all kinds of people walking in the walk - young enough to be in a stroller, old enough to be retired, fit enough to be runners and/or other active looking people, un-fit enough to consider a 5K walk a substantial workout, and lots of four-legged furry friends (including 2 of the cutest GSP's I've ever seen)!

It was so cold, Rob put his kidney walk t-shirt on over his polartec jacket, then when he went back to the car to get the umbrella, on went another jacket on top of that. It just wasn't fair that the weather was so yucky. The day before the walk, which happened to be Rob's 37th birthday (more on that later), the temp reached 80 degrees. Then a little more than 18 hours later, the weather was a dreary 44. Ugh.

Here's a pic of Rob and I at the end of the walk.

Yes, I know, I look like a big time dork with my kidney walk hat on top of my beanie cap...but that should show you just how cold I was!

After the walk, we all gathered inside the RTP headquarters building where the Foundation's big whigs all got up to talk and thank everyone for coming out and raising money. We were hoping that we'd be recognized for our fundraising efforts because I was ranked in 5th place out of everyone for individual money raised. (See Triangle Kidney Walk home page)

Here's a pic of us standing with the Kidney mascot, who spent the whole walk dancing around to invisible music with hot 80's and 90's dance moves like the Roger Rabbit and the Cabbage Patch (oh those were the days, weren't they?)

I tracked down the director of the walk, Carina Montanari, to ask her about the "reward" we earned for fundraising more than $1000. Straight from the website, it says:

Apple Ipod Shuffle ($1,000.00 +)
Each individual that raises $1000 will receive a free Apple Ipod Shuffle, a Kidney Walk Baseball Cap, and Kidney Walk T-Shirt.

We found out that they will order the iPod rewards (for those who raised $2K or more, the reward is an iPod Nano) in a couple of weeks because they keep the fundraising tools open online for those last-minute donations that always seem to trickle in. So if you're reading this, and you meant to donate, you still have time!

I'm going to give the iPod to Rob when I get it. It will be an extra birthday gift for him. So Rob is 37 now, which puts him in the last year of his "mid 30's", as when he turns 38, he'll be pushing "late 30's"! Psssh, like I should tease...I'm the one who's sadly counting down the months, and eventually, days, until I turn the big 3-0. OH NOooooo! It's all downhill from there, right? ;)

I had to work like normal on Friday, Rob's b-day. It would've been nice to take the day off, but since I have a new nanny job (yes, newer than the one I wrote about 2 blog posts ago) I didn't feel right taking a day off so soon. So my new kids, Ben (will turn 3 in June) and Sophie (will turn 2 in October) and extremely adorable, fun, smart, and all that other cutesy-ness that I could describe, but I'll leave it at that, for your sake.

It's been an extremely trying work week for me as Super-Nanny, as Ben just started potty training and while he has had lots of successes (YAY! You went pee-pee in the toilet! You get a sticker and a high-five!), he's had just about as many accidents (it's okay, everyone has accidents when they're learning - said with a gigantic, warm, ooey-gooey "I love you anyway" smile on my face) So on Friday, I announced to Ben that when Sophie took her nap, that we were going to make cupcakes for Rob, and that he could help me decorate them and eat some. He was pretty excited.

The cupcakes came out awesome! The best I've ever made, I think.

We invited a few friends over to the house later that night for pizza, beer and cupcakes. It was a really fun night. For a present, I got Rob a nice pair of Wireless Headphones from Radio Shack!

With these headphones, he'll be able to watch movies at night after I've gone to bed (he sometimes stays up later than me) and keep the volume up loud enough for him to hear everything, without it waking me up.

Rob starts training for Home Dialysis on April 7, and it lasts 3 weeks. I have to be there for the 2nd week of training because I'll need to learn how to insert the needle and all that ucky bloody stuff that I don't like to look at. I'm sure you'll be reading blog posts about that when the time comes!

Thank you again to all of the wonderful people who donated to our Kidney Walk fundraiser! Have a great week!

1/4 plus 3/4...now you're caught up on my life

2008-02-24T14:33:00.007-05:00

...I finally got to the hospital around 10pm. I checked in downstairs, took the elevator up to the 7th floor and then walked around the maze-like floors that led to Rob's room. I was so relieved to finally see Rob.

Here's how he ended up in the hospital: He was supposed to work that day from 1 to 10, but at 10:30am, he'd called his doctor with the same complaints as he had from calling on Friday morning, too. On Friday morning, he was throwing up and just not feeling like himself. Same thing Saturday morning. But this time, the doctor said he'd better come in, to check into the emergency room, just to be sure.

Most of you reading this will know that Rob has PKD, or Polycystic Kidney Disease. But if you didn't know that, it's a genetic disease that he inherited from his Dad's side of the genes that basically makes your kidneys stop working, and then you need dialysis and eventually a kidney transplant. Many of the Newton aunts, uncles and cousins have it. More PKD info.

Here are some images from his MRI scan done on January 26:

So in this picture, you can see how big Rob's kidneys are, and how many cysts he has. This is a transverse view from the bottom. The kidney on the left (his right kidney) is much bigger than the other. When I first saw this scan my first thought was that Rob looked like he had a fetal pig inside him! (hey, if you can't laugh at the rough stuff in life, it's just going to suck more) The other kidney is big, too, you just can't see it in this section cut. Imagine sliding up an inch or so toward his head. Here's an image of that:

What you're seeing here is the result of a burst cyst. That blob above the kidney on the left is fluid from the cyst. The fluid is just floating around in his peritoneal cavity (I think? I was so fascinated seeing these images that I missed a few things the doctor said!) The fluid eventually caused a condition called "ileus", which means that there was a temporary paralysis of his intestines. You can't eat anything when you have this, except ice chips, but then again, when you're in a lot of pain like Rob was, you don't want to eat, you just want to sleep all day because the pain meds are so numbing.

Rob's liver is also enlarged and has a couple of small cysts, too. I don't know why, but many PKD patients also have these effects on their livers? Maybe one of my doctor or nurse friends will know the answer. Here's a view of the largest section of his liver:

Now, here's a view of what a normal kidney, liver, spleen, intestines, should look like.

So you can see that Rob's kidneys are about 4-5 times larger than normal size ones. One doctor told Rob that his right kidney (the big one) is about as big as a football. Yeah, a football. They're supposed to be as big as your fist. Wow.

So to conclude, Rob stayed in the hospital from that Saturday morning until Thursday afternoon. Rob started dialysis while in the hospital, on Wed. Jan 30. He will remain on dialysis until he has a kidney transplant, which could be a few more years. We don't know what caused the burst cyst.

But life is very different now for Rob, and me, too. Rob gets up at 5:45am every Mon, Wed, and Fri, for dialysis, and he's not a morning person, so this is a big deal to him. He drives to the Davita clinic (about 8 miles away) and sits in a chair with a 15 gauge needle in his arm for about 3.5 hours. He usually has Monday and Wednesdays off from work, because dialysis is very tiring for most people. Luckily, Rob hasn't felt that extreme tiredness, and he uses those days off for projects around the house or working extra hours with Scott. The dialysis diet has been the biggest change for me. I am cooking more, and cooking healthier, less-processed foods. Rob is losing weight, and that's a good thing. We hope to be able to transition to the at-home-dialysis soon. That will definitely free up some time on Rob's schedule, and he won't have to be around all those annoying people at the Davita clinic!

Well that's all for now. I have a feeling I won't be writing much about swimming, cycling and other fun adventures. And I'm okay with that. More updates later. Be sure to check back soon!

Three-Quarter Catch-Up....no, not the drill

2008-02-14T11:28:00.004-05:00

Wow, 6 weeks since my last blog post. Let me catch you up on things since Jan 1.

Jan 3: Started my new 40-hour a week job as a live-out nanny for a little girl who is 13/14 months old. (13 when I started, 14 now...huge difference, for those of you who may be reading this that are inexperienced with children and how they develop). Her name is Ella and she is a real doll, smart, not fussy, fun to play with and watch her learn. The mom, Teresa, works from home, in her office, door shut most of the day. The dad, Jason, works for the railroad as either a conductor or an engineer, I don't know exactly. I can use the mom's car to drive Ella around town to run errands or visit a playground, which is very nice. They live in Wake Forest and my 17.5 mile commute to work takes 22 minutes on a good day, 30 minutes if I get stuck behind a slow grading truck or school bus (grrr!) The pay is exactly what I need, and I can sometimes get overtime, which I can elect to either be paid for, or I can save it up and use it as vacation/sick time pay. Yay, I'm happy!

From Jan 3 through Jan 31: Worked anywhere from 60-70 hours a week because I was still "head coach" of DAMA. That's an easy 20 hours a week there (I mean, what I get paid for). Plus my 40 with Ella. And I worked overtime with Ella for about 2 of those weeks, since Teresa had a big work project to complete and she needed me anywhere from an extra half hour to an extra 4 hours. During this time, my house was a complete mess, but I made myself not care about it, knowing that once the month was all over, I'd be able to play catch up.

The extra money was nice. I was able to take a weekend trip with DAMA friends Kim and Jason to Asheville. They had a free pass for me to go to the Biltmore house, which I couldn't pass up, since I'd never been and I've wanted to since we moved to NC. Rob couldn't go with us, since he works pretty much every weekend from now until eternity. We left on Jan 19, around 9am. Started Biltmore tour around 2pm, after we had lunch at some nice cafe on the grounds near the winery, which was surprisingly not too expensive. Jason was my tour guide, as he's been to the house like 9 times before, since he grew up in Lenoir, which is less than an hour east of Asheville. It was amazing! You can't take pictures inside the house. But we got a good one of Kim and I goofing off around this lion statue right out front of the house:

After we finished touring, we found a cheap hotel room near the asheville mall. A couple hours later, we're eating dinner at the Chili's across the street, and we had quite possibly, the worst waiter (or was it Waitress?) on the face of the planet. Oh well, I still tipped "the minimum" (10%), since I have experience here as a server at restaurants in NC. They don't get minimum wage, they make something like $2.50 an hour. So that means, if you don't tip, you're treating them like they're less than a human being, that they're not worthy of at least making minimum wage. And I just can't do that to someone, no matter how bad the service is.

The next morning, we ate our free buffet breakfast, where I enjoyed a waffle, 2 sausages and a few sips of some really gross coffee. Then we drove up north a bit to the town of Mars Hill, where we went to the Wolf Ridge ski resort. I opted to snowboard, while Kim and Jason skied. Now mind you, the last time I went snowboarding was January 1 in the year of 2002. And that was the day I broke my ankle. That was at the Heavenly resort in Tahoe, with Rob. So I've been a bit leery of trying it again. I stuck to the 2 bunny slopes all day. I fell a lot, but nothing too bad. For the first half of the day, I could only snowboard on my toe-side because every time I tried to go heel-side, I'd fall right away. I was getting really pissed about that, but it eventually worked itself out and I could carve a semi-straight path down the bunny slope by switching toe-to-heel and heel-to-toe. I did have a ton of fun though, despite the falling down, and not having the nerve yet to go up on the big ski lift and try to "intermediate" run. Oh well, next time. I did catch a little bit of air off the tiny jump someone made at the bottom of the bunny slope - it was no higher than 9 inches maybe, but it sure was fun. Here I am halfway down the bunny slope:

Jan. 26: I went to the Charlotte Sunbelt Championship meet with a handful of DAMA swimmers - Derek, Marshall, Josh, Dave, Joe, Heidi and Karen. I didn't swim, since I had caught the worst cold after coming home from my Asheville weekend, and I was still on antibiotics. It was fun to go just as a coach instead of a coach/swimmer like I normally do. I left at the crack o'dawn with Heidi because she swam the distance events in the morning. All the others came later, when the afternoon events started. Here's a great pic of Heidi after she finished the 1650:

She swam her event so great. Neg split 5:53, 5:52, 5:51 - wow! Talk about a perfect swim! Then came the 1000, which she swam studly, too. I can't remember those splits. Then everyone else checked in, warmed up and swam great, too. I took some videos of everyone swimming, I'll have to put those up on YouTube later. Derek had a great swim in his 50 Free - he finally broke out of the 25's, so he was happy about that. Marshall's swims were good, all near his best times. And Josh, Joe and Dave all swam well.

Here's 2 more pics - the mens' relay and the mixed relay. Check out the buff-ness:

I was planning on having dinner with everyone and then heading home to Durham, but I finally got a hold of Rob, who had checked himself into the hospital around noon that day. When I first spoke to him, he said, don't worry, don't come home yet, I'm fine...etc. The second time I spoke to him, he said, yeah, I'm staying overnight - so I left as quickly as possible and safely sped as fast as I could to Duke. To be continued on the next blog post...

New Year's Day mountain bike ride

2008-01-01T22:32:00.001-05:00

It's been a long time since I went mountain biking. The few rides I have been doing occasionally have been in the Duke Forest or the American Tobacco Trail - pretty easy stuff. All the local trails were wet and therefore closed, and we didn't feel like riding the Umstead fire roads, so we decided to ride the Chapel Hill trails, which never officially close.

Marshall came over to our house and we drove to Chapel Hill in our truck. We still need to get a third bike mount for our truck bed, but with 2 bungee cords, we got Marshall's bike in just fine.

Both Marshall and Rob rode their singlespeeds. It was Rob's first "real" ride on his new build. Marshall built up his SS a while ago, maybe earlier this year? Anyway, here's a pic of the guys with their singlespeed smiles:

We skipped the first trail that starts just over the RR tracks from Seawell school because that trail is usually horribly muddy for a while after rains. So we rode over by that church/daycare entrance and picked up the Beaver Twister trail. Rode all of that in the normal order, passing only 1 other mountain biker the whole time.

On that first steep, rooty, tech climb where you drop in a little creek, climb up that super root-laden, twisty trail for about 20 seconds, then it levels off...get this: I MADE IT! I usually only successfully make that climb when I'm in shape from riding often, which I am so obviously not in right now! I guess I got lucky. But it sure did feel good to make it to the top, and to turn around and see the guys walking their bikes up it!

Most of the trail was in good shape, despite the rains we got a couple days ago. Chapel Hill drains pretty good. I slid out on one log crossing, and also on that 2nd steep climb that's less rooty than the 1st - I made it up until that dang-blasted root near the top made my rear wheel spin out.

We stopped a lot, keeping a pace that was for the most part, slow enough for us to be able to carry a conversation the whole time. Once we were done with all of Beaver Twister, we could've continued on and done that one trail that's super fun, the one that's a slight downhill the whole way...but we were tired and hungry, and as Marshall put it, we wanted a beer and to catch up on the football scores. (well, I don't care about the football scores, but I'll go along for the company - I feign interest pretty well)

Here's a pic of us 3 in the parking lot after the ride.

We tried going to Carolina Brewery for dinner, beer and football, but it was closed. A quick 411 call to track down Tyler's Taproom/Speakeasy and hooray, it was open! But only the Speakeasy side was open, so the menu was limited. Chicken nachos was my dinner (I know, not exactly healthy), but I'll start my healthful New Year-New Me eating/excising routine on Thursday, the 3rd - the day I start my new job. I find it easier to start a new habit during a new job. 2.5 years ago when I was starting my DAMA coaching job, I made flossing my teeth a new habit. I used to hardly ever floss and every time I went to see the dentist, they'd yell at me, and I knew I needed to, I just never made myself do it. So my new "habit" will be eating healthier (more green stuff, a few less carbs, more water, less eating outside of the house) and exercising before and/or after work (swimming, or riding, or working out at the gym we're going to join soon)

Wow, I really went off on a tangent...I'll stop now and write more later about my New Year's goals/resolutions/new job, etc.

But it was a good ride and a good way to start the year. Wow, 2008 already. In 10 months, I'll be turning the big THREE-OH! Yikes.

Christmas Recap

2008-01-01T11:49:00.000-05:00

Christmas was really nice this year. I was off work from Dec 24-26, while Rob was unfortunately only off on Christmas Day. I don't like the retail hours, but Rob is happy with his job and it pays the mortgage...so I guess I shouldn't complain.

My favorite part of Christmas is the shopping I get to do for other people. It's so fun to waste away half a day, or even a whole day if my work schedule allowed it, shopping. I shopped for gifts for our nieces Payton and Lauren, gifts for Marshall and Karen, my parents and Rob's mom, and Rob.

We made plans for Marshall and Karen to come over to our house for Christmas. Karen was home in NJ, and flew back into RDU in the early afternoon. Marshall and puppy Dumplin' came over around 2, followed by Karen an hour later. We watched "Superbad" on our new high-def LCD TV - which we love...what a step up from our old TV which my Mom bought for me at the Goodwill while I was a senior in college. Here's the new TV.

After the movie, Rob fired up the grill for these awesome steaks I'd bought at Whole Foods. I got 2 strip steaks and 2 ribeyes, and I made an awesome marinade that the steaks sat in for about 20 hours before cooking. I made some mashed potatoes and steamed some fresh green beans. Pretty easy cooking. But delicious.

Then we played Outburst for a bit, before they left to go home. It was a really nice Christmas.

Rob had to work the opening shift at work the next morning and he had to process a bunch of returns and exchanges, and a lot of people were using their Perf gift cards.

I loved the gifts Rob got me - especially my new purse. Check it out, it matches my laptop bag. I love my new Chrome purse!

The big gift I got Rob was a really nice pair of leather UGG clogs - Rob's been asking for clogs for a long time. He can't wear flip flops outside, at least in the winter, when he just needs to run outside for a quick thing like checking the mail or running to Food Lion for some milk. I had to special order them through Nordstrom - this guy who swims on DAMA, he works in the mens shoe dept there and he hooked me up.

Anyway, it was a really nice Christmas. Next blog: New Year's Eve Eve party Recap.

Now, I'm heading out to go mountain bike with Rob and Marshall. Hopefully I'll get a pic or two, or a video of something cool.

Bermuda Trip Diary

2007-12-18T15:02:00.000-05:00

this article isn't yet finished, but feel free to read it... I will add pictures to it later, and finish everyone's names that I forgot.

Ten Triangle-Area Swimmers Attend Bermuda Open Water Swim

As soon as the open water race announcement hit the inboxes of DAMA swimmers who’d participated in previous international open water swims, such as St. Croix and Bonaire, word spread like wildfire through our team email listserv about the Bermuda “Round the Sound” swim. Longtime DAMA swimmer and open water enthusiast, Gretchen Van De Carr, was the first to stir up interest. In a matter of days, we’d shared more than 20 emails amongst the team, all of us talking up ideas of sharing hotel rooms, sharing airline deals we’d seen online (as low as $240 with 2 stops from RDU airport) and other travel logistics. In total, we had 5 swimmers from DAMA that were attending – Heidi Williams, Tommy and Lindsay Gainer, Gretchen and myself.

In addition to DAMA swimmers, the THAT swim team had 4 swimmers set to attend – Elizabeth Nowak, Martha, Tommy, and ______, plus one of their coaches, _______. RAM swimmer, Billy Su, was also geared up to make it a swimming vacation that would not be soon forgotten.

The race would take place on October 21 in Harrington Sound, which sits southeast of the capital city, Hamilton. Five race distances were offered: 0.8K, 2K, 4K, 7.25K and 10K. The host resort hotel, Grotto Bay, was offering greatly reduced from normal rates. Gretchen and myself, along with our spouses/significant others, traveled to and roomed together in Bermuda. The following is a diary-style synopsis of our trip. I hope you enjoy reading it!

Thursday, October 18:

Gretchen, Jeb, Rob (my husband) and myself flew into Bermuda in the evening. Getting through customs wasn’t as bad as we’d predicted. We took a cab from the airport to the Grotto Bay hotel, which took all of a whopping 3 minutes to get to! After dumping our luggage in the room, we all went out to the resort terrace to join a good size group of swimmers who were already socializing. Randy Nutt, the race organizer for the U.S. based swimmers, appeared shortly thereafter and announced the location of the following morning’s swim. The socializing tapered off an hour or so later, and we left to explore the resort grounds.

As we walked toward the hotel pool, we happened upon 2 caves (hence the name – Grotto Bay), one of which was lighted and open to exploring, the other was dark, and only open during daylight hours. We were amazed at the cave’s geologic formations and the crystal clear water! It was so beautiful! After many posed Kodak moments and general ooh’ing and aah’ing, we found our way back to our room and went to sleep…

…or tried to, that is! With dueling snores coming from both Rob and Jeb, poor Gretchen wasn’t getting much sleep. Me, on the other hand, I’m sound asleep – I could sleep through a freight train crashing into my house! Rob’s snores were so loud that they woke up Jeb. After nudging Rob and notifying him of his snoring, installing earplugs and using pillows to sandwich her ears from the logs being sawed in our room, Gretchen finally got some sleep.

Friday, October 19:

When the morning sun shone and woke us, we jumped up excitedly, like kids’ on Christmas morning, eager to see the presents under the tree. We walked out onto our 3rd floor balcony, and fully took in the view. “Wow!” and “It’s so beautiful!” and “Let’s get moving, guys!” were some of the comments that followed.

A few swimmers, eager to test out the waters and stretch out the cramped-in-coach-class legs, joined in on a morning Pilates workout followed by a 2-3 mile swim. Everyone was making plans on how to spend their day: Gretchen and Jeb planned to go scuba diving, Heidi and others planned to take the bus into Hamilton to sightsee. Rob and I made plans to rent “pedal cycles” (a regular bicycle) from a local shop in town, and spend the day riding the old Bermuda Rail-Trail.

Our bicycle excursion was excellent. What a beautiful way to see many parts of the island! We passed through many perfectly manicured gardens, old military forts, naval shipyards, and lighthouses. After riding and exploring for 4 hours, we hopped on a ferry that took us back into Hamilton, where we returned the pedal cycles. From there, we hopped on the bus and returned to our hotel room where Gretchen and Jeb were getting a much needed nap.

Our hotel phone rang at 5pm. It was Heidi, calling to invite all of us to a night out on the town. Gretchen and Jeb accepted the offer, while Rob and I declined, instead deciding to make it a romantic night.

So we put on our best outfits – Rob in dress slacks, a crisp new button down and a handsome blazer, and I put on a black cocktail party dress, heeled sandals and … some makeup! It’s not often that swim coaches find themselves at places where such attire can be worn! Dinner was excellent, albeit expensive, but it was okay, since we’d be given a gift of money specifically for a nice dinner out on the town by my Mom. (Thanks Mom!) Afterwards, we took our shoes off and walked hand-in-hand, strolling along the beach front. Ahhh, how sweet! < cue cheesy love story music here >

We arrived back at our room just in time to have Gretchen and Jeb come back from their fun night with Heidi and everyone else. Oh, the story they told us about … let’s just say somebody had a couple more drinks than normal and … yeah, umm, never mind. Sleep was summoned soon thereafter, and I think we all slept pretty good that night.

Saturday, October 20:

After eating bagels or oatmeal in our hotel room, (we saved a lot of money bringing our own food!) we made plans to go snorkeling in Tobacco Bay, not too far from our hotel. All of us, which included Heidi, Billy, Martha, ________ (friend of ??? – she was an Ob-Gyn doctor at Duke?), Gretchen, Jeb, Rob and I. The nearest bus stop was in St. George, a town that was the original capital of Bermuda, so there were a few things of interest to stop and see. One such place was the famous “Unfinished Church”. The church was built in 1874 and was never finished due to constant disagreements between church members. Also, a storm caused some structural damage halfway through construction, so it sat, unfinished for years until being bought by the Bermuda National Trust.

We finally made the long walk to Tobacco Bay and snorkeled for a bit, maybe 20 or 30 minutes. We would’ve gone longer, but the water was a little cold. Don’t get me wrong, it was the perfect temperature for an open water race, but not so for gentle breaststroke sculling and fin-assisted kicking! We took a few pictures with Gretchen’s underwater camera, including some of the amazing schools of fish that seemed to border us all around anytime we remained still, and of the beautiful, huge coral reefs everywhere!

Back at the hotel, we caught the arranged tour buses that would take us to the race site, which was the Harrington Sound, near Palmetto Bay resort. At the race site, we finally ran into Tommy and Lindsay Gainer, whose flight had just come in from Boston. (Technically speaking, Tommy wasn’t a DAMA swimmer since he’d switched his USMS registration over to New England Masters since their June move from Durham to Boston.) Back at the race site, Randy Nutt introduced us to the local open water race director, Reeve Trott. This Bermuda local told us about the history of the swim and announced that this year marked the 17th annual race. He warned us about the 2 types of jellyfish we might see during our race; regular, mostly harmless “moon jellies”, and the rare, more dangerous, “spaghetti-like” man-o-war type of jelly. You could almost hear everyone gasp at the description, and mutter “I hope I don’t see any tomorrow!”

Then we all departed on separate boats for an ocean cruise to our start locations, where a local would help point out landmarks to use for sighting. For my race, the 4K, the big turn was at a rock named “No Name Rock”, which was a refrigerator-sized rock island a little ways away from the 2K start area. On top of the rock was a big wooden sign with a bright orange arrow pointing you to swim a 90 degree angle around it. Everything else about our race course was pretty mellow.

After the ocean cruise, we had a small social with free beer and wine, homemade dips and snacks, all provided for us by the local Bermuda swim team – the Dolphins. The locals were so awesome to have provided that for us! We really felt great generosity towards them, so a pool of money was collected for us to give to the Dolphins on race day.

When the sun set, we got back on the tour buses and went back to our hotel for the night, where we remained mellow, not drinking much of anything except water. Bedtime came early for us that night, and poor Gretchen could not sleep due to Jeb and Rob who were busy sawing down some more logs all night. Gretchen finally retreated to sleeping outside on the front door balcony, where she said she slept just “okay”.

Race Day: Sunday, October 21:

Elizabeth, Billy, Martha and I were doing the 4K race. Heidi, Tommy Gainer, Tommy (from THAT) and _______ (THAT swimmer, name I can’t remember) were doing the 10K race. Gretchen was doing the 7.25K race, and Lindsay was doing the 2K.

Our races had staggered starts so that we would all finish close together. The weather had been beautiful, mid-to-high 70’s, with bright sunshine, blue skies and few clouds on the previous 3 days, but today was different. The skies were gray, and the sun radiated bleakly through the thick, low-lying clouds. The temperature had dropped to the low 70’s. It seemed as though the rain would hold off for the race. But some wind had picked up, thus causing some choppiness to the water.

The 4K race started, and I started swimming at a moderate-fast pace, sighting every 9 strokes or so. It was fine until about 5 minutes into the swim. Then the choppiness started to eat my alive. I don’t have much experience with open water swimming (my first year, and this was my 4th race), so when the chop picked up, I had a hard time breathing. I had to stop more than a few times to choke out water I’d breathed in, but after a while, I learned to time my breaths with the rise and fall of the chop.

I began to feel lactic acid building up in my triceps from the lack of training for this race. My moderate-fast pace slowed down to a moderate pace, and my stroke form started to get ugly. When I’m tired, I begin to cross over my centerline, most noticeably on my left arm entry. Mix bad form with choppy water and sighting every 9 strokes, and the end result is swimming way off course. When I realized how far off I’d gone, I swam hard and fast back closer to the sound’s shore. There, I caught on with 2 men who were swimmingly a decent pace. I figured I’d use them to sight for me. It began to work until I noticed I was still crossing over and falling to the right of their feet! Frustrated at myself, I began to swim breaststroke for a bit, and found that my long glide timing matched the waves just perfectly, so in essence, I’d do an outsweep/insweep/breathe at the top of a wave, and recover/kick/glide as the wave would crash down and help push me forward. I did breaststroke for a while, and kept up on the 2 guys’ feet until my hip flexors and pectorals started to fill with lactic acid, and I got dropped.

I swam into the 2K checkpoint area and looked at my watch, which I’d set to run on stopwatch mode. I almost smacked myself in the face when I saw it report I’d already been swimming for 58 minutes! I thought to myself, “WOW! That was so slow! Those waves were fierce, and I sure did swim off course a lot! I better get moving!” So I took a drink of fresh water offered to me by the race volunteers, and swam off towards the finish line.

I went around “No Name Rock” soon thereafter, and had to switch back to breaststroke for a bit, since it became very shallow. If I’d stuck to freestyle, I would’ve ended up with coral under my fingernails! At this turn-around point, the water was much more calm – in fact, I don’t remember there being any waves. Sighting became easier and I was swimming better in a straight line. I was so exhausted by this point, that I was in auto-pilot mode. I wasn’t even thinking about technique or breathing, I was just letting things happen naturally and slowly. I thought about quitting, once, but then I remembered that I’m not a quitter, and that even though I may be swimming slow, I would still finish. I kept thinking of an image of a turtle and the caption…”Slow and steady finishes the race.” I also retreated to my tried-and-true mental imagery of The Little Train That Could. “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can – YES! I can!” I know, weird…but so much of distance swimming is mental, especially when you’re like me and never train at all.

Near the end, I saw one of those “spaghetti-like” jellies off to my left. It was close, maybe 5 feet away. I immediately stopped, dropped underwater and looked all around to see if I was in the middle of a horde of them. Luckily, the water is pretty clear, so I can see about 10 feet in front of me. I didn’t see any more, so with my heart rate at 200 beats per minute (ha!) I resumed swimming towards the finish. I kept my head position a little higher after that, just in case another jelly decided to swim in my path!

About 5 minutes later, I finally crossed the finish line. I looked at my watch – 1 hour, 37 minutes! Wow, so my first 2K took 58 minutes, and my last 2K took 39 minutes! And to think of how exhausted I was after the first 2K! If only I hadn’t gone off course so much, or I’d swum better in the chop, or I’d trained even a little bit for the swim…I would’ve done so much better! Oh well, it felt great to be finished!

The rain was still holding off, but the weather had turned colder, mid-60’s maybe. I bundled up in a dry towel, and hung out with the rest of the Triangle crowd, sharing stories of our swims. The best thing to drink at this time would’ve been water, but we couldn’t seem to find any! The only drink that seemed to magically appear before us was beer. So we “replenished” ourselves with dehydrating liquids, knowing fully that we’d regret it later. But…how often do we find ourselves on a beautiful island on vacation? Not very often. In fact, our last real glamorous vacation was in 2002 when we went to Cabo San Lucas. So “live it up” we did!

The rain held off until just before the awards ceremony. Five of the Triangle swimmers received awards for 1st through 3rd place:

Heidi Williams, 10K – 3rd place 20-39,
Tommy Gainer, 10K – 2nd place 20-39,
Martha Montgomery, 4K – 2nd place 20-39,
Elizabeth Nowak – 4K overall winner,
Billy Su, 4K – 1st place, 20-39

Once the awards ceremony was concluded, we jumped back on the bus back to the hotel. Immediately, showers began and plans were made for our social night at the famous Swizzle Inn, home of the Bermuda national drink – the “Rum Swizzle”.

Social at the Swizzle Inn – 8pm until 2am:

Holiday Hoot Swim Meet in Charlotte

2007-12-16T13:07:00.000-05:00

Mark Smith, Sonia Grego, Joe Caruth and I traveled down to Charlotte yesterday to attend the Holiday Hoot Mini-Meet and Clinic, hosted by MAC Masters.

I met Joe and Sonia at Starbucks at 7:30am. With chattering teeth, and complaints about the weather, we all ran inside so that Joe and I could fuel up with caffeine goodness. One almost-$5, venti no-whip, soy cinnamon dolce latte, and a venti regular coffee later, (care to guess who got the fancy pants drink?) - and we're off to pick up Mark in Chapel Hill near the Harris Teeter that's right off Highway 86. As we arrive at Harris Teeter, we look around for Mark's Prius, but we don't see it. Then my phone rings. It's Mark, he said he'd be there in about 5 minutes. So we wait, then somehow, Mark magically appears. He climbs in, we ask him, "Where's your car? We didn't even see you drive in." To which he replies, "Oh no, I ran here from my house, a few miles away. It's the only way I can really warm up!" Wow, it must be nice to be a true runner.

It's around 8am when we leave Chapel Hill, and the drive takes us 2.5 hours. We entertain ourselves during the drive down with "Airplane Yoga", conversation about religion, politics, Joe's love life (or lack thereof), and much to everyone's surprise, I kept my mouth shut for a lot of it. I know, strange, huh? I'm usually Miss Blabbermouth on car trips.

So we get there a half hour before the Start and Turn Clinic is supposed to begin. Joe and I still need to deck enter, so I find Patty, the head coach of MAC Masters and ask if the reg table is open yet. It's not, but she tells us that we can register later, in between the clinic and the meet.

We set up our stuff on the bleachers in exactly the same spot as we did last year. We watch the legendary, ex-Auburn-now-MAC "Center of Excellence" Head Coach, Dave Marsh, as he is finishing up a workout for his Olympic Prep Group. They are having these guys (and a couple of women) swim these sets where after they're done, they have to climb up this rope as high as they can, and then fall back in, and swim a 10 yard or so race-pace sprint, followed by some easy recovery swimming. Looks like fun! I need to ask Campus Hills if we can install some some ropes! Our ceiling is just a wee-bit higher than theirs...

The clinic starts a few minutes past 11am in the aerobics room just off the pool. Dave Marsh talks to us for about a half hour about how he teaches starts and turns, and he takes a few questions from the attendees. He uses the white board for drawings, erases with his hand (a big pet peeve of mine! it's comparable to fingernails on a blackboard - Aggh! STOP! Please!), and peppers in some stories of old swimmers he used to coach and how they sucked at starts and turns, and how he got them to improve. Basically, lots of repetition. And lots of plyometrics at the gym.

We all liked the description Dave gave about swimmers who enter the water on their dive as a "wet noodle" and how they should instead enter the water as rigid as possible, like a "broomstick" being thrown into the pool, because I think we all could relate a little to noodley-feeling of our own dives. After the Dave Marsh part, we went back out to the pool deck where most of the Olympic Prep Group swimmers instructed us on how they do their starts and turns and the drills they did to help them learn the technique. Then we all got in the pool and practiced, while the Prep Group swimmers watched and gave us feedback.

About my own starts, I realized that I wasn't tensing up with enough pressure with my arms on the block at "take your mark", so when I did start, it was slow. So I tried putting more pressure, and I blasted off so much quicker that my entry speed caused my normally-tight-enough goggles to fill up with water (yes, my head was tucked tight into my streamline). Tightened the goggles, tried again - Success! And it sure does feel good!

With my turns, I learned that my flip turns are okay, they could be tighter and thus faster, but what I really need to work on are my open turns. One of the Prep Group swimmers saw mine and just about flipped out. He told me to stop bringing my legs to the wall by leaning back on my back...I was just slowing my turns down by using my back as a big water blocker. So I tried tucking my legs in under me without leaning back, which was really hard, dangit, I'm so out of shape! The Prep Group guy said, "Okay, better...keep working on it." Yay...clinics are fun!

I deck enter. I'm so horribly out of shape, that it really doesn't matter what I swim, so I enter 3 events that were spaced out as far as possible. 50 Fly, 50 Brst, and 500 Free (only because I wanted to burn more calories so I could rationalize pigging out at dinner later!)

Here we all are cheesing for the camera before the meet starts. (Further proof that I would look horrible with a shaved head)

I'm the first to swim - I'm in the 3rd and last heat of the 50 Brst, not because I'm fast, but because me and another girl deck entered and the other 2 heats were full. For my seed time, I estimated a slow time of 42.00, knowing that my fastest Masters time in this event has been a measly 39 high. And lately, with being so out of shape, I'm averaging about 2-3 slower per 50 than my normal Masters times. So I swim a 41.7 or something like that. Faster than my seed time. Yay! I "won"! My first 25 felt pretty good, I felt I was catching and pushing the water well and timing my kick on target, but after my crappy open water turn, it all fell apart!

I don't remember all the swims and times, but here's what I do remember:

Sonia swam the 100 Back in 1:39-something. Her seed time was 1:50, so she was very happy about that. And we both know she can drop more time if she does flip turns next time! Check out her HUGE smile in this picture. (Mark looks anxious about his upcoming 50 Free) She also crushed her best time in the 100 Free - she went a 1:17-something.

Mark's 50 Free was a best time, it was either a 37 or a 39. His 100 Free was also a best time - I think it was a 1:32 or a 1:33. And his 500 Free was a best time again - somewhere around a 9:10.

Joe was pretty happy with a 36 in the 50 Brst. He also did the 50 Back, and he hates backstroke, so that was a big deal! He went a 26 in the 50 Free, and a 1:02 in the 100 Free.

I beat my estimated-for-my-out-of-shapeness time in the 50 Fly of 38.00. I beat it by a whopping one-hundredth of a second! So I'm 2-0 for beating my seed times. But it dropped to 2-1 after my yucky 500 Free. I felt good for the first 200, holding 1:25 pace with the guy next to me, but then slowed way down to 1:31 pace on the last 300. I had one absolutely horrible turn where I almost missed the touch pad - I had to let the turbulent water behind my turn float my body and pointed toe a few extra inches into the touch pad, where I pushed off with my big toe and immediately started stroking. Note to self: don't get jumpy when I hear the bell ringing for the lead guy on his last lap, and flip turn on top of the "T" - I'm not that tall and I'm not going that fast to get to the wall from that distance!

Since I was the only female swimmer in my age group, I automatically won the High Point Award. Here's the DVD I won:

We went to the same restaurant for dinner as we did last year after the meet - On the Border. We chose it specifically because we were so hungry, we wanted the free chips and salsa as soon as we sat down! While we waited 10 minutes for our table, we ordered a drink at the bar, and I was carded. That hasn't happened in a while. I'm guessing my still-wet hair could've made me look younger... Mark and Sonia weren't carded, but baby-faced Joe was!

More cheese for the camera:

This time I didn't take my tortilla chips and spell out "DAMA Rox" (see that picture on our bulletin board at the pool). No, I waited to do that until we were all heavily breathing in the car on the way home. Here's my 2007 rendition.

We shared more funny stories during the car ride home, like when Mark was 27 and did some "really stupid things" (his quote, not mine) which included juicy info about his love life in the year leading up to meeting his wife. And Sonia told me all about her "boring" hometown that's 20 miles away from Naples. Joe kept us entertained with his many complaints of stupid drivers who tailgate, or people who pass him, then slow down again...

Finally, one last picture to share. Sonia and I in the backseat of Joe's car. Why is it impossible to take a self-picture without my neck-skin bunching up into a roll? I don't have a turkey neck! Even when I was fit and in shape, I could never take a good picture like this!

Overall, the meet was fun, the clinic was informative, the food was great, the company was excellent, and the drive was safe. All in all, I'd say our day trip was a success!

I'm definitely looking forward to the next meet at the end of January!

Cooooo-Kieeee Monster loves making homemade cookies!

2007-12-02T14:48:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I whipped up quite a mess in my kitchen with my friend Josh. We had been invited to a Cookie-Swap party by Kim and Jason. I found 2 great recipes online:

a Butterscotch/Toffee cookie that Josh made, and a Rocky Road cookie that I made.

We had a lot of fun making them. Josh said he hadn't made cookies since he was in the 6th grade.

The Butterscotch/Toffee cookies took a long time to bake. The recipe called for an oven temp of only 300 degrees. It took about 25 minutes for the cookies to set enough. But they came out scrumptious!

Here's the finished product:

I didn't get any pics of the Rocky Road cookies, but let me assure you they were excellent!

I had to take 3 mini-marshmallows and roll up the dough around them, and no matter how much flour I put on my hands before, after 1 dough ball roll, I had tons of dough all stuck to my hands. Of course we made jokes about how gross it looked...

Here's Josh using his strong swimmer arms to mix up the batter.

It was a very fun day of cookie baking and socializing at the Cookie Swap party. Hope you enjoyed reading...

I just bought some SOCKS for my iPod

2007-12-02T14:25:00.001-05:00

What is this world coming to? iPod socks? Yes, you read that right. And they cost a whopping $29 for a package of 6 socks. I don't think I'd buy regular socks for my feet that cost that much!

So on Friday, I went out to Southpoint Mall to do some window shopping. I went into the Apple store to ogle at all the stuff that I had no idea existed! Not having TV means that shopping is adventurous. Back when we were TV watchers, constantly inundated with 18 minutes of commercials every hour, shopping was less of a surprise. I'd see things that were advertised or shown in sitcoms, or were featured on the discovery channel or was the subject of one of the prime time news stories (37 year old mom attacks a 60 year old grandma as she took the last Furby on the shelf...)

I went into the store specifically to buy a new upload/charging USB cord for my Nano, as I'd lost it about a week earlier. While there, a CSR asked me if I needed any help finding anything. I told her I was, but I wasn't sure if it existed. So I explained what I wanted - which is basically a holder of some sort that could be pinned/velcro'd/attached to my shirt, so that when I'm riding my bike and listening to my iPod, I could position it where I wanted, so that the earphone wires weren't in the way of my Camelbak straps and tube. I specifically said that I didn't want an arm-band style, since I sometimes mountain bike, and I really don't need branches or rocks rubbing up against my arm, and yanking my earbuds out... So the woman suggested the iPod socks. I saw them and figured, yeah, these could work, I can safety pin the sock to the inside of my jersey and route the wires up out of the neck. Then I looked at the price. $29 - yikes-o-mama! For 6 socks! What the?

Well, I gave in and bought them. Now I'm trying to sell the extras for a reduced price of $4 each, because I really don't need 6 socks, I only need one! I've "sold" one already to swim friend Billy, but I owed him money for the Carbon Leaf concert anyway, so I didn't collect any green for it. Darn. So, for all the millions of people out there that read my overly-wordy blog (Ha! I'm so funny!), you wanna buy an iPod sock for $4? Please? They're really cool, and they come in lots of colors!

As you can guess, I have no formal background in sales/marketing of highly overpriced, fad-of-the-century accessories. I'm much better at selling/promoting things like the swim team!

Gunnie likes turtles, too

2007-11-28T10:50:00.001-05:00

My bluetick coonhound, Gunnie, sure does like turtles. I found her one day in the backyard, trying to get this turtle to play with her...as you can imagine, the turtle didn't want to play, and I was getting tired of hearing her bark, so I brought the turtle in and filmed this video. I thought it was hilarious. Maybe you'll find it annoyingly cute?

I ended up putting the turtle in our front yard as a way for it to escape. A couple hours later, I saw it hiding out in our plants around the big tree. The next day, it somehow found its way back into the fenced-in backyard. How? Hmmm, I guess I'll never know. Gunnie was barking at it again, so I picked it up, and put it back in the front yard. It rained later that day, and I saw it hiding under the same plants near the big tree. Then I never saw it again. I wonder where it scurried off to?

I should've kept him as a pet. My childhood best friends had 2 turtles as pets - I remember helping them clean out their tank once a month. They were really smelly. Are all turtles smelly?

A few years ago, I found and kept a frog as a pet for 2 or 3 days. I even went to PetSmart to get him some crickets to eat. But then I realized that if I really wanted to keep him as a forever pet, I'd have to get a tank and spend a bunch of money that I didn't have. So I set him free.

Someday I'd love to have a tropical fish tank, and maybe a snake. Ahh, the wonder of animals! If I could afford to have a houseful of critters of all types, I would!

But for now, I'll just stick with my hound dog lover-girls. Gunnie and Taylor provide enough love for now.

Mountain Biking in Bermuda

2007-11-24T20:05:00.000-05:00

So Rob and I took a vacation to Bermuda last month, Oct 18-22 to be exact. The official reason for the trip was to participate in the Round The Sound Open Water swim. We went with our swim team friends; Gretchen and Jeb, Heidi, Billy, Lindsay and Tommy, Elizabeth, Martha and a couple others from the THAT masters team.

Anyway, this blog post is going to be about bikes, not swimming...

On our first full day on the island, Rob and I asked our hotel concierge where we could rent bikes to ride the Railway Trail we'd read about online. He offered this advice: "Well, pretty much the only place to rent bikes on the island is at Eve's Cycles...They're real nice and affordable and they'll take care of you...Let me call them to make sure they have them in stock." - and he proceeded to get us map, point it out, jot down the bus route we should take to get there and all that jazz. We crossed our fingers, hoping that the rental bikes were of decent quality.

So we get to Eve's Cycles and we pay $30 each for a full day rental for these crap bikes:

We actually refer to them as "pedal bikes" there, because if you just say "bikes", people will think you are referring to the other, most popular form of transportation on the island, bikes with motors - mopeds. We're pretty peeved at the crappy bike quality, but figure that with our own helmets and pedals/shoes, they'll at least feel okay and get the job done.

Danielle on her bike in front of the bike shop.

Rob on his bike.

So we hop on the Railway Trail that we read about here: http://www.bermuda4u.com/Transport/bermuda_transport_cycling.html

To keep the mopeds off the trail, they installed these barrier things at every road intersection. Only a few had a bike-able ride around option. So we were forced off our bikes too many times to count during the ride. At the first few crossings, I thought I'd be funny to perform a cyclocross dismount and running remount - but that got old real fast, and by that I mean TIRED, since our bikes weighed somewhere around 45 pounds!

We rode the Railway Trail in a westward direction from the bike shop in Paget. It was mostly flat, with a few exceptions, like this one:

Looks like it'd be fun on a "real bike", huh? On our rental bikes, we walked down it, not because we lack the skills to do so safely, no, rather I blame the geometry on the bikes. They were designed for the 62 year old retirees who appear in those magazine ads for Irritable Bowel Syndrome medications - riding through a grassy meadow, their backs straight and perpendicular to the ground.

This one was so steep that I didn't dare even walk my bike up this one. This trail led up to Gibb's Hill Lighthouse.

I bet that would be really fun on my Super D bike!

All along the trail, we saw signs like this one:

Every view was stunningly beautiful. We stopped a lot to just look out and stare at the water. One time, we even stopped to pick out our favorite house color in a neighborhood (I couldn't decide between the turquoise blue house or the salmon orange one).

When it came time to eat lunch, we stopped in a less touristy area, in the Southampton Parish. The first restaurant we found didn't take VISA, so we scrounged up the money we had left over from taking out cash at the airport. We had 11 dollars and some change. So we check out the menu to see if we can afford anything there, and much to our surprise, we can.

We leave the bikes parked out front, no lock, only our helmets snapped around a spoke and the frame. We figure they'll be fine, as long as we keep an eye on them. We sit at the counter and ask nicely for menus. We decide, we fold up the menus, and sit patiently waiting for someone to take our order. In the 5 minutes we spend waiting, 2 people come in separately and get their orders taken right away (they were locals, knew the waitresses by name). We think it's weird, but we don't want to be rude and demand service. We eventually speak up and ask, "Can we please place an order?" The waitress we asked replied, "You haven't ordered yet? I thought the other waitress had you?" Nope. She asks the other waitress, and she says, no, I thought you had them? Laughter on all ends takes place. We smile, and we explain that we were afraid that we'd pissed them off somehow, and that's why they weren't taking our order! So we feel better about the whole lunch ordering thing, but man, are we hungry! We had been riding for about 2 hours at this point.

For $11, we both enjoyed a homestyle chicken sandwich and some onion rings. Not bad for the price.

After lunch, we get back on the bikes and continue pedaling, in search of the end point at the Royal Naval Dockyard. We had no idea how far, how fast, or how much longer we had, but at this point, we were okay with that, as our "comfort" bikes hadn't yet turned uncomfortable.

There are lots of things to stop and see along the way, like the historic Fort Scaur.

Fort Scaur view from the top

Fort Scaur info

At some point in between the Fort and the Dockyard, my butt, hands and wrists started to hurt pretty bad. I should've brought a pair of cycling gloves from home. Even though I was wearing a decent pair of cycling shorts, my butt hurt from the seat. It was one of those huge, winged shape types with springs underneath. I guess it was just too soft. I don't know really though, as I've never had to ride more than a block or two on a bike of this price point.

Once we got to the Dockyard, we'd been riding for a little over 3 hours total. We did a little shopping at this indoor mall, buying a Bermuda t-shirt each, a candy bar and some vitamin-enhanced water. At this point, my butt and hands still hurt, so we decided to take a ferry back to Hamilton, then ride a short distance from Hamilton to Paget to return the bikes. Here's a short video as we approached the ferry.

Oooh, we're bad. We didn't stop at the stop sign! :(

Speaking of stop signs, early on in the ride, I forgot to look to my RIGHT for any oncoming traffic and almost got plowed over by a local. Oops. From then on, Rob had to remind me to look right at intersections.

The ferry ride was great! It was so much faster than the Ocracoke ferry I took earlier this year. I think I was just happy to have my butt off that horrible bike for 20 minutes.

Back in Hamilton, we stayed off the Railway Trail, and instead braved the traffic downtown a couple of miles until we got back to Paget and the bike shop. Here's the last video clip of the day, riding in traffic:

After that, we caught a bus back to our hotel, napped for a bit, and then....

I will continue my Bermuda story blog later. Promise.

Five Random Things

2007-11-18T11:18:00.001-05:00

So I was tagged to do this list of 5 Random Things by my awesome triathlete friend Alicia Parr. I'm still new to the blogging scene, so when I found out that I had to post up my list, and then tag other people to do it, I have to admit that my first thought was "Oh crap!" I started fretting about what the heck my list would include, should I try to be funny, or just be boring, who am I going to tag? Because who the heck even reads my blog anyway? Well, I know Alicia Parr reads it, so there's bound to be more...what the heck, here goes. I've always been a good story-teller, so I'll entertain you with 5 interesting stories you might not have known about me before.

1.) I committed my first crime at the ripe old age of 4, while living on Little Rock AFB. The bratty next door neighbor boy and I got the grand idea that we should sift through people's mailboxes on our street and steal the free sample packets of Sea Breeze lotion. We took the lotion packets, ran off behind our houses where there was a ditch that we often frequented during backyard playtime. I guess we apparently opened all the packets and smeared the lotion all over us, or at least that's the story my mom liked to tell when she wanted to embarrass me in front of high school boyfriends before jetting off to the prom. I do remember being in the ditch, seeing my mom's face looking real mad and being scolded. I'm pretty sure I got a spankin' for that one!

Side note: check it out - here's my old neighborhood there. You can still see the ditch in the satellite map image! 104 Montana Circle

2.) I once met a complete stranger on the internet and flew 2000 miles away to be his date at his fancy med school party. Okay...before you get any strange ideas in your head, let me explain the details. I was 21, a senior in college, and the vice-president of the Chico State Cycling Team. Anyway, the dude's name was Eric. He was a cyclist, med student, and he posted on the usenet newsgroup rec.bicycles.racing. I met Eric during my junior year when I got involved in a topic about sexy women who race bikes. Trying to be funny, I responded with a post that said "well I don't know about you guys out there, but I think I'm pretty sexy....!!! hee-hee!" So I got a bunch of responses to that (99% positive), some that went to the newsgroup, and some that went straight to my personal email. Eric replied with a comment that really chapped my hide. He was basically trying to flirt with me like a 4th grader does, you know, by pointing out things about me that were not so nice - and then relishing the attention I gave him in return. We ended up emailing each other for months, then talking on the phone, and he even sent me a birthday gift when I turned 21. Even though he knew about my long-term, long-distance relationship with my boyfriend back home, which was rocky at times, he never confessed to liking me, always pledging to just be my friend. So when he asked me to be his date because he couldn't find one, I said sure, why not. The only problem? I was a broke college student and I couldn't afford a plane ticket. No worries, he paid for my ticket - I remember being a tad scared upon arrival at the Peoria, IL airport, fearing that he could be an axe murderer, but my worries were relieved when he turned out to be a normal guy. He was the perfect gentleman during my visit. I slept in his bed while he slept on the floor, he took me to visit Chicago and I met his parents, and he didn't even try to hold my hand or anything during our real date to the med school party thing. We remained email friends after that for another year, but then lost touch.

3.) I have truly hitch-hiked three times in my life. Once in Chico during college: when I got a flat on my bike ride home from the University Farm, and I didn't have my pump with me for some stupid reason. I was going to be late for work if I didn't get home soon, so out went my thumb. Some nice, old farmer guy picked me and my bike up and dropped me off at my apartment. The second time was during my summer home in Vacaville when I was working as a swim coach/instructor/guard. I didn't have a car then since I'd totaled it in an accident early on in the summer. I was at work, but had a break and I needed to go to the doctor for some reason. The Kaiser clinic was just down the road, oh, I don't know, about 3 miles away. I was in great shape then, so I ran there, saw the doc, then ran back. But the trip was taking longer than I had planned. I looked at my watch about halfway back to the pool - I knew I'd never make it back on time to teach my next lesson. I didn't want to be late, so I stuck out my thumb. This time I was picked up by a minivan full of men who were stinky, construction worker-type guys. My 3rd time was just last year, when I was taking an anatomy/physiology class at NC Central. I was at the bus stop on the corner of Highway 98 and the street I live on, North Adams, waiting to catch the bus to school. This average-looking guy in a nice SUV stopped and asked me if I knew where Taylor Street was. While I was recalling to him where it was, the #13 bus whizzed by us, and I said, "CRAP! That was my bus!" So he offered to give me a ride, if I showed him Taylor Street along the way. Along the way, he asked me if I'd agree to go out to lunch with him sometime. I smiled, thanked him for the compliment, and told him that I was married. His last comment to me, as he dropped me off in front of my class was "Tell your husband he's a lucky guy!" (If my mom reads this, I know I'm gonna get a verbal spankin')

4.) I was a Girl Scout for a few years during elementary school. One time, we had a special event planned for a lip-sync/dance presentation. I was a mix between shy and outgoing, depending on the situation and who I'll be performing in front of. My mom helped me pick out the "oldies" song Lollipop, she dressed me up in a cute outfit with ribbons in my pigtails, bought me one of those giant lollipops that was all rainbow colored, you know, the ones that took you a week to eat... I practiced every day for weeks before the big event. My mom and brother were my audience during practice sessions, but I remember being scared about the big day, thinking that I'd mess up and everyone would laugh at me. In the end I performed it very well, and all I can say is, thank God this wasn't saved on a video camera. I remember doing that finger-in-the-mouth POP! sound as part of my performance! I'm getting red-faced just thinking about this.

5.) My last few races as a collegiate cyclist: This is a pic of me during one of my last collegiate mountain bike races in 2000 - this was taken by mom in Chico, as she had come up for the weekend to celebrate my birthday with me. This was the first bike race she'd ever watched, so it was real nice to have her there cheering me on.

A few days after this pic was taken, I drove up to Sandpoint, ID with 2 of my teammates, Brooke Henderson and Aren Timmel. The site of the Collegiate Nationals race was the Schweitzer Mountain ski resort. I wasn't in the best of shape that season, as I'd decided earlier that summer that I wasn't going to race my final year. I was tired of all the time my training took up, and I felt like I didn't have any extra time left over to just be a college student and experience the things I felt I should be experiencing. But in September, when school started and I'd met Brooke, I felt like I couldn't give up what I'd started, and Brooke would be a great training partner, so I changed my mind. Unfortunately, since it was my last semester in school, and I was only taking as many credits/courses as I needed, that meant I wasn't in school the full 12 credit hours that the NCCA requires for National racing eligibility. I think I was taking 9 credit hours. Anyway, I went up there to be race support for Brooke and Aren and the few others from my team. Once up there, I remember a conversation I had with our conference director who knew me from my participation in the past annual WCCC meetings I'd attend. He asked me if I was racing and I said no, and then explained why. Then he left, schmoozed and pulled some strings with the national director. The end result was that I was allowed to race, as they decided to make an exception for me. Yay! The next day I pre-rode the course, and hung out, cleaning and talking bikes with my teammates in our super-posh ski-lodge townhouse that we shared with a couple of other teams from around the country. Finally, on race day, I lined up with 60 other women, including my teammate Brooke. The race started and we took off. Over the next 24 miles, I climbed that steep fire-road ascent 3 times, cried in pain over my aching/sore arms and pinky fingers as I grabbed 8 fingers of brakes almost all the way down...and crossed the finish line almost 3 hours later. I don't remember the exact finish time, and I can't find the results anywhere online! It was one of the hardest races I've ever done. I ended up placing 42nd, just 1 place back from Brooke. I remember seeing Aren and the other team boys cheering for us as we were finishing, and looking back now, 7 years later, I think I will remember this as one of my best overall collegiate experiences. I did one more race the week after getting back home - the Stanford race - and I DNF'ed because I was just so dang tired, emotionally and physically tired from the driving, racing, studying, and lack of recovery time between the 2 races.

Hmm, this trip down memory lane is making me sleepy... I guess that means it's time to get up and get moving. I've got a staff meeting to attend in a little bit anyway. Wow, I love Sundays!

Dang - here comes the part of the blog where I have to "tag" 5 others to write their rendition of their 5 Random Things. I don't know too many people who blog, so here goes:

1.) Old friend from college days, Scott Pon
2.) Newest friend of mine, organizer of the Raleigh Rides group, Jennifer Lewis
3.) Friend and avid bike commuter in Durham, Phillip Barron
4.) Coaching friend of mine, who I admire a lot, Greg Earhart
5.) Some dude I went mountain biking with on Labor Day up in Michigan, Alden

Have a super day! I know I am.

Finally, an online quiz that wasn't a waste of time

2007-11-01T13:54:00.000-04:00

I just finished eating lunch. Red beans and rice sure didn't miss me today.

To keep me entertained while I ate lunch, I followed a link I saw posted on Rob's fark account page. Something called Stupid Tester. So I clicked it and took the test.

Turns out, I'm pretty much not stupid. It was actually an enjoyable quiz that made me think a little bit, so if you're bored, and don't know what to do for 10 minutes, I recommend taking the test. No annoying pop-up ads, no million questions to answer before you get your results...just a test and your score. Though you won't find the answers to the quiz anywhere. You either know them or you don't.

Have fun, I know I did.

Now, I must go do something productive. Yeeha!

October was a busy month!

2007-10-28T22:08:00.001-04:00

There's only 3 days left in October. That flew by fast! I was so busy with traveling, entertaining a house guest, regular swim practices, swim meets, social activities... whew!

My month of October started with a flight home from Orange County, CA. I had been there for 5 days to attend the Masters Swimming Annual Convention. I was one of two delegates for NCMS. We voted on a couple of big, important things, including the new structure for awards at Masters Nationals. It will now be scored in 2 different divisions: Club Teams and Regional Teams. In addition to voting, I sat in a lot of long, boring House of Delegate and other Committee meetings, ate out at fattening and expensive restaurants ($16 for a chicken Caesar salad - are you kidding me?) and schmoozed with some big-whig Masters swimmers (like Karlyn Pipes-Nielsen) and some really cool Masters coaches (like Tom Boyd)

Immediately after getting home to Durham, I had a couple of hours to snuggle with Rob before he left for work, and then I had myself a good 2 hour nap before I packed my bags again and headed to Asheville for a quick 30 hour trip. I had a nice bed waiting for me upon arrival. I met a bunch of new people, walked up and down hills in uncomfortable shoes, enjoyed a free lunch, coached a little bit, swam a little bit, and then drove back home. Yes, as you can tell, this was a job interview. I thought it went pretty well. I was extremely tired on the drive home, as you can imagine. I had to stop off somewhere just east of Morganton to take a nap. I got home around midnight, slept 5 hours, then got up to coach my normal Wednesday practice.

After practice, another nap, still trying to catch up on sleep deprivation caused from all the traveling and stress and poor eating habits while being out of town. Nap was cut short, as I had to get the house clean for my Mom's visit. She flew in around 10pm that night (October 3), and when I left to pick her up at the airport, I wasn't satisfied with the level of cleanliness my house radiated, but oh well, what could I do?

My Mom visited for a week. It was very nice to see her. My birthday (Oct 6) fell in the middle of her visit. I turned 29. My Mom took me to the mall so that I could pick out a cute outfit to wear to my birthday dinner. And the birthday dinner was great! We met at Tyler's Taproom in Durham, and luckily it wasn't crowded at all, thanks to the World Beer Festival being held that same night, so we had a huge table for all of us to enjoy dinner, beers, conversation, and a really yummy homemade cheesecake (made by Heidi's husband, the one and only, Master Chef Jeff!) There were 23 people at my birthday dinner - making it my largest attended b-day party ever!

After my mom left (Oct 10), I figured life would get back to normal. It did, but I was living in great expectation for the big trip to Bermuda, so I didn't get much done. We shopped and packed for the trip on the 17th, dropped off Gunnie and Taylor at the dog sitter's house, and went to bed, excited like a 5 year old on Christmas Eve, hoping to awake the next day to see a shiny new bike under the tree with a tag on it that says "From Santa".

Morning came soon enough, and after wiping the sleep out of our eyes, Rob and I met up with the 2 coolest people on Earth: Gretchen and Jeb (they fall right up there with the coolness factor of Santa, though). They are the ones responsible for us being able to go to Bermuda. There's no way we could've afforded the tickets and hotel on our own. They were so nice, they used their frequent flier miles to get us cheap tickets to Bermuda, and they said we could stay in their room for free. So went to Bermuda, swam an open water race, snorkeled a little bit, rode our bikes from Hamilton to the west end of the island, ate a really scrumptious but way overpriced filet mignon and lobster dinner, and in general, had a lot of fun. I've got a ton of pics, but haven't uploaded them all yet. When I do, I'll post up a slideshow.

We got home on the 22nd. It was not a good flight home - I almost had to use my barf bag on the plane - I'll just leave my description at that! 5 days after getting home from Bermuda, whoop-whoop, you guessed it, another big deal...Swim meet! At least this was a local event. We kicked some butt at the Hillsborough meet. Official results haven't been submitted yet, as they were having some technical difficulties with meet manager. But with us having 18 people swimming for DAMA, I have a good feeling we did pretty good in the team points standings.

I'm now gearing up for a big November - which won't have much traveling, if any at all, but my newest endeavor will be the addition of the new Tuesday and Thursday night practices to our schedule. That means I'll write 4 more workouts every week, be on deck coaching an extra 2.5 hours, added to my "normal" 24 hour work week. The extra hours will be nice on my paycheck, but in the beginning, I'm sure throughout the whole month of November, I'll feel strange going to the pool on Tuesday/Thursday nights.

There's always something new going on for everyone, I guess. But I do feel like October was a really busy month for me! It's no wonder that I haven't blogged in a little more than a month!

Sometimes I wish I could be a dog for a day - one of my dogs... sleep most of the day on a variety of cozy, cuddler beds strewn about the house, perk up at the sound of the back door opening, run around and chase squirrels in the back yard, bark at the kids coming home from school across the street, back inside for another nap, eat, drink, nap again...ah, that would be a nice day!

Perhaps I'm sleep deprived still from all the excitement I had during October? Hmm, maybe a good night's sleep will help with that...

off to bed now, thanks for reading!

Asheville swimmin' and mountain bikin'

2007-09-22T14:29:00.000-04:00

Wow, I'm finally getting caught up on my blogging. This feels good. And I'm getting paid. There's not a whole lot of traffic or phone calls coming in to where I'm working right now (Duke Faculty Club), but someone's gotta be here for those that do. So, umm, what I'm trying to say is that blogging is fun, especially when it doesn't feel like a total waste of time.

Click here for pics of the Asheville swim, and then my mountain bike ride afterwards.

http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r153/norcal2carolina/?action=view¤t=aadc5af6.pbr

So this is the 2nd weekend in a row where I've left my house before sunrise, driven a long distance, swam in a race, ate lunch, then rode my mountain bike, and then drove home. Whew. All this fun I'm having sure is tiring.

The drive to Asheville was so super easy, I'm not joking. Why did I think that it was a 3.5 to 4 hour drive to get there? Nah, it's more like a little tiny bit over 3 hours to get there, and that's to the west side, where the race took place.

The open water was held in Biltmore Lake, which I thought was going to be on the property of the Biltmore Estate, but sadly, it wasn't. Instead, it was the focal point of this fancy neighborhood with HUGE mansions, Range Rovers parked in driveways, perfectly done-up women power-walking and gossiping with each other (a bit like the Desperate Housewives show!)

The water was nice, just cold enough to want to swim fast. Dawn and I warmed up for about 10 minutes, then stood outside shivering as they did the pre-race meeting that described the course. 1 lap around the triangle-shaped course for a half mile (me), and 2 laps for those doing the 1 mile (Dawn).

Race was good. I started out way too fast for my sickeningly low aerobic level, so the first 7 minutes, I felt pretty good. But the last 7 minutes, that's another story. Let's just say that my arms felt like they weighed 50 pounds each. So I finished in about 14 minutes, not bad, since I barely swim.

I dried off, wrapped my blanket around me and stood around with Dawn's husband on the shore. When we saw Dawn coming in, I got my camera ready to take a pic - I love that pic of Dawn where she's smiling real big and her shoulders look huge and muscle-ly! Dawn was pretty happy with her swim. I think she did her 1 mile in about 27 minutes - great time!

For post race food, they gave us fresh fruit (some of the best strawberries I've had in a long time), nutri-grain bars, and Gatorade. They also had hot cocoa for us to drink at the ceremony, which was so nice!

At the awards ceremony, both Dawn and I got 1st in our age groups, so we accepted our awards with lots of excitement! The award was the hand-painted piece of pottery that can either be a coaster, or a paper weight, or a small trivet on the kitchen counter top.

After the ceremony, I said goodbye to Dawn and her hubby as they left for a few days of vacation up in the mountains. I left in search of lunch, buying a sweatshirt (I forgot to bring one, duh) and then I headed towards Asheville School for the pool portion of the meet.

My pool events, umm, they sucked. No other nice way to put it. I had that pain in my right leg, so when I bent over to grab the block on the start, it hurt. So my starts sucked (well, they always do, actually - I've never really been a great starter, except for relay starts) and I was off my normal swim times by 1 second on the 50's and 2 seconds on the 100. No big deal - I know I'm out of shape, so it didn't bother me. But, I was the only woman in my age group, so I ended up getting 1st place points for all 3 events I swum. :)

After the pool meet, I went in search of some nice singletrack to ride. I ended up at a small college nearby called Warren Wilson College. I found some great trails - a little mix of everything; climbs, flat spots along the river, descents, roots, rocks, mud, smooth dry dirt, bridges, etc. The views of the Blue Ridge mountains were amazing from the ride!

After I cleaned up from riding, filled up on gas, bought a Subway sandwich for dinner and a DQ Blizzard for dessert, I was off and driving back home. I was fine until I got past Morganton. Then I got really, really sleepy and I knew I had to pull off to take a quick nap. So nap, I did, for about an hour. Then I was rejuvenated enough to drive the rest of the way home. I think I ended up getting back home a little bit after midnight.

Very fun day! Very well organized open water and pool meet! I hope next year, more DAMA-ians will come out for the Asheville meet.

Pier-to-Pier swimmin' and Wilmington mountain bikin'

2007-09-22T13:41:00.000-04:00

Alright - another remix! This time, I've got pics from the Pier-2-Pier and my mountain bike ride at the Blue Clay trails afterwards.

Click here:

http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r153/norcal2carolina/?action=view¤t=18d33b18.pbr

I didn't get a picture of everyone who attended from DAMA - sorry! Altogether, we had 11 people representing DAMA! Yahoo! :)

The Pier-2-Pier was really nice. Perfect water temperature, clear blue skies, not a shark or jellyfish in sight! The pictures in the remix tell most of the story.

What it doesn't tell is that I left Durham at 5:45am to get there in time. And that by the time I was done with the swimming, hanging out with the team at lunch, riding my mtn bike, then driving back home, I was exhausted.

I definitely want to do the Pier-2-Pier again next year. This time, as a registered swimmer, no more bandit swims for me!

Hope you enjoy my pictures! I'm having fun with the "Remix" tool.

Now I need to figure out how to add music to it. Hmmm?

2nd annual DAMA E-O-S party

2007-09-22T12:00:00.001-04:00

Click below to see a "remix" of pictures from the 2nd Annual DAMA End-of-Summer BBQ

http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r153/norcal2carolina/?action=view&current=23535654.pbr

It was really hot that day - I don't know exactly how hot, but let's just say HOTT. Above 100 degrees. I had reserved the big picnic shelter at the West Point on the Eno park in North Durham - the BBQ started at noon.

Rob grilled the food, everyone brought something to share. We had all kinds of goodies - watermelon, cookies, pasta salads, some yummy dips and lots of Gatorade and waters.

After we ate, it was time to participate in the scavenger hunt. So I split the group up into 2 teams and pitted them against each other to see who could find the hidden items, answer the questions, and work together to finish first. This time, there were prizes for the winning team. (coupon for a FREE small LocoPop)

It was so hot that some people didn't participate in the scavenger hunt, and that is my only sadness about the whole day. It was just too dang hot to really enjoy ourselves.

The whole BBQ gathering lasted for about 3 hours, then we all went home to rest in our air-conditioned homes. I fell asleep, woke up dehydrated. Grrr. At about 7pm, I went outside and the temp had fallen to about 78, pretty nice for late August. I thought to myself, hmmm, maybe next year we'll have the BBQ at dinnertime? But I don't know if the park stays open after dark?

Someone (Greg?) got everyone to pitch in for a thank-you gift for me. So I got a really nice note full of "thanks Danielle, swimming with DAMA is so much fun!" and the like, and I got a super nice gift card to a restaurant called Four Square - which I've heard is really good. Thanks to all who pitched in to get that gift!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy seeing the pics from the BBQ. It took me forever to successfully publish that "remix" thing of pics - the site kept stalling while I was adding the captions to the pics. All total, I spent probably an hour putting it together!

Whew...who knew this blogging thing would take up so much time?

Catching up...finally! Too many activities, not enough time to blog them all

2007-09-17T16:58:00.000-04:00

Way back in early July, I took an overnight road trip down to Beaufort, SC (pronounced "Byoo-fert" in SC, and "Bo-fert" in NC) with Heidi, Karen and Derek. But Derek didn't drive down with us, as he had big plans to stay in Charleston with his new fling, Doranne, whom he met at the Charleston open water swim back in May.

Funny thing about the drive down on Friday night - us girls stopped in Florence, SC for dinner. We settled on Ruby Tuesday, which was jam packed and they quoted us a 1 hour wait for a table, to which we said, hell no, let's just sit at the bar. So we're eating our dinners, enjoying normal conversation, when this older man interrupts us somehow and starts asking about where we're from, where're you going...etc. So we tell him that we're swimmers and we're doing a open water race in Beaufort, and he's super interested in us, you know, being kind of flirty, in a dirty old man kind of way.

He's sitting next to Heidi, and he grabs her arm and says "Oh my! You're strong" and so Heidi feeds some more oxygen to his fire by flexing and smiling, and explaining that she's been a swimmer since she was 10 years old. By now, the old guy is practically drooling over Heidi, and Karen and I are enjoying the show. Heidi tells the old guy, "Hey, maybe you shouldn't be flirting with me, your wife is gonna get mad." The old guys replies, "Wife? Her? No, no, no...this isn't my wife. This is my best friend's wife!"

Okay, so this guy is full of crap, and he's just having fun flirting with Heidi, so we decide to play along. When he asks us what our names are, we give him fake names (I said I was Elizabeth - do I look like I could be an Elizabeth?) We kept chatting with this guy for the remainder of our dinner, which wasn't long, but it was still funny. Back on the freeway, speeding down I-95 along with all the others...really, no one does the speed limit here. I was pushing 78 the whole way and getting passed like Ricky Bobby on his first lap after his accident.

For dessert, we munched on some homemade chocolate chip cookies that Heidi's hubby, Jeff (he's so good, he's like the male equivalent of Rachel Ray), made for us. By the time we roll up on Beaufort and start reading our Yahoo Map directions to our hotel in Port Royal, it's around 11pm. We're tired, the sugar in the cookies is wearing off, we want to go to sleep, we just wanna find the hotel. So while Heidi's reading the directions to me, I drive past a Port Royal policeman who the immediately flipped a U'ie, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Crap! I look at my speedometer and I'm doing 45. I have no idea what the speed limit was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't 45.

So I pull over and respectfully follow the officer's commands and answer his questions. From the looks of it, he can tell we're from outta town. Heidi still has the Yahoo Maps directions in her hands, Karen is in the backseat half-asleep. We tell him that we didn't know what the speed limit was, and that we were looking for our hotel. I apologize to him, and smile (ahh, that dang blasted smile of mine, I know it softened him up!) He takes my reg/insurance/DL back to his cruiser and scans my driving history. He likely sees that I've only had 1 speeding ticket in my life, and that I'm an upstanding, law-abiding citizen of Durham. So he walks back to my truck, hands me my stuff and says "slow down, have a good night!" and hands me a ticket, which makes my heart sink. But upon further inspection, the ticket wasn't a ticket at all, it was just one of those warning tickets! Of course this makes me smile and let out a big sigh!

2 minutes later, driving at the correct speed of 30mph, we find our hotel, check in and hop in bed. I think we all fall asleep pretty quickly, and I remember sleeping like a bear in hibernation.

Up in the morning, register for the race, take a few pictures...you know, the usual pre-race excitement. Here's a pic of me and Heidi after we'd been numbered. Good Lord, I look really tan!

Soon after, Derek and Doranne come strolling up to register, put on sunscreen, and chat about the looks of the competition. Here we all are, ready to race.

We get on the shuttle that takes us to Port Royal for the start. At the pre-race meeting, we learned that for those doing the 4 mile swim, they'd be finishing in Beaufort, whereas those doing the 2 mile, would finish at the dock near the hospital. They said, just keep the buoys on your left, and for those doing the 2 mile, just look for an extra orange buoy that will signify where you're supposed to cut left towards your finish.

Water temp was nice, maybe 80 degrees, not too hot. Water was kind of salty - and the visibility was average (I could see my arm pulling in the first half of my pull, unlike swimming in Falls Lake, where you can barely see a fish that swims an inch past your nose).

I was feeling pretty good - the current was nice. I found that I could do breaststroke and really emphasize a decent glide like I would in the 200 Brst, and I was keeping up with those around me, who were all doing Free.

So I never saw that extra buoy I was supposed to see at the 2 mile cutoff. I ended up swimming past it, then stopping and asking a kayaker/volunteer "where is the 2 mile finish?" and they said, "Right here, go straight that way!" Oh crap! So I have to beat out this current to swim to the finish, and oh man that was tough! I had a burst of energy, and this helped push my through the current, towards the hospital dock where I'd finish. But it only lasted a minute, then my arms were just toast. And as someone who never trains for swimming, I'm not used to swimming through that pain - some lactate tolerance sets would be nice...for myself, if I swam, that is!

So I finally finish! I barely have enough strength to use my arms to climb up the ladder on the dock. I really thought I was one of the last ones to finish the 2 mile race. But since it was my first real open water race, and I don't ever train, no worries, who cares if I didn't rank well among the competition.

I took a shuttle back to the 4 mile finish and waited only a minute of 2 for Heidi and then Derek to finish. We pose for a picture, all sweaty and gross, covered in salt water slime:

When they announced the winners for the 2 mile, female age group 19-39, they said, "In 1st place, Danielle Newton from Durham, NC" and I just about crapped my pants. I was so shocked! I went up to shake hands with the promoter and pose for pictures and accept my prize.

Heidi also won 1st place in the women's 4 mile 19-39 age group, so here's a pic of both of us, showing off our prize money.

Here's a pic of us 3 being funny after the race - resting on some horse & carriage rest area.

After we got cleaned up and checked out of the hotel, we went to lunch at this place in downtown Beaufort. I don't remember what it was called, but it was in an old, renovated pharmacy, you could see the old Rx painted on the wall. The food was good. I bought the first round of drinks with my prize money, and then Heidi bought the 2nd round. We were done after that. Here we are at lunch:

After lunch, we walked along the river, which was a city park, complete with these cool swinging benches.

Then we decided to be big time dorks and videotape ourselves swinging really high on the swing, and then jumping off. This is either going to make you laugh, or make you wrinkle up your face and think, "man, they're nerds!" But I don't care what you think. I had fun doing the swim and hanging out with Heidi and her friend Karen on the 4 hour drive down there. I look forward to next year's race - I know I wasn't the only 2 mile finisher who didn't see the extra buoy on the finish.

Enjoy the video.

Bye for now, more blogging later, on all the fun I've been having.

99 Bottles of Gatorade on the wall...

2007-08-29T12:39:00.000-04:00

It's not often that an XC mountain bike race comes to the Triangle area. We've got a few 6 and 12 hour endurance races, but no "real" XC races ever since Devil's Ridge was clear-cut out of the Cane Creek Cup series. And by "real", I mean Norba/USA Cycling sanctioned. No disrespect to Happy Fun Racing's non-sanctioned Huck-a-Buck at Crabtree held every July since forever, which I've never raced for numerous dumb reasons. One day I'll race it...when it doesn't coincide with an open water swim in SC, which is my dumb reason for 2007.

So even though I'm totally out of shape and fat, (yes, I said it: "fat". What else do you call an extra 15 pounds on my 5 foot 8 frame?) I decided I would do the Race at the Reactor XC race on the Hog Run trail system at Harris Lake County Park. My only reasons for doing the race would be 1.) for fun, 2.) to support a local race, and 3.) to be an extra body in the expert women class, so that the other expert women could easily check me off in their mind as a possible contender for the top spot.

Now, since I've spent most of this year (from early April until just 2 weeks ago) in pain from a herniated disc somewhere in my lumbar spine. In addition to the herniated disc, I also had this strange pain in my SI joint which prevented me from being able to stretch my leg out flat, and keep my pelvis straight at the same time. At some points during this injury, I would flat out grab a HANDFUL of my own ass and wince in pain, grit my teeth, holding my breath for 15 seconds or more, waiting for the sciatic pain to go away. Needless to say, I didn't much feel like sitting on a bike and pedaling. When I would muster up the strength to ride, I would ride the ATT, or Crabtree, or just ride to work, all really slow. On average, I was riding once every 2 weeks. That's pretty much like not riding at all.

So now that my pain seems to have gone away, and I can stretch my leg out straight without tilting my pelvis a funky way, I want to get back on the bike. What better way to get my ass in gear than to attend a race? Yeah, that's what I thought.

So I'm all smiles before the race:

Despite the heat we've been having, I'm extremely hydrated, which is usually a very hard thing for me to achieve in August. I'm all smiles because I had just learned that I would be racing with the Sport class women, since I was the only Expert woman there. Experts were supposed to race 3 laps, and Sports, 2. So I was pretty jazzed, since being out of shape means going slower, and I really didn't want to do 21 miles of slowness.

Here I am with the 5 sport women. The woman to the right of me in the picture is Kim, a friend and riding buddy of mine. The other women to the left of me is Jill, who I've raced with before and she is very strong, especially in 6 hour races. The other women were new to me and new to the racing scene, I guess.

When the race started, I shot out like a rocket like I normally do at the start of all races. That's one thing I can still be good at even though I'm fat and out of shape! Hole shot into the singletrack! I kept my lead until the lactic acid started eeking into my brain, which didn't take long (about 10 seconds of singletrack). After that, I let all 5 of them pass me by.

I hung on to the back of the pack for as long as I could, which was like 5 minutes. Sad :(

After that, I slowed way down, got my heart rate into a comfy 165-170 zone and started to enjoy the trail. Wheee! The whoop-de-doo's sure were fun! Here's a pic of me on the upside of the big whoop on the advanced section of the trail:

I got kind of bored riding by myself, so I decided to take breaks all along the rest of the race. I stopped to see if riders who had crashed were okay, and to ask that guy "Type1 Rider" if his blood sugar was okay. I also stopped to pee, which was further proof that I was very well hydrated. I was so bored that I even started singing to myself "99 bottles of beer on the wall". I went through the song twice, then sang it a 3rd time, but changing the lyrics so that it was "bottles of Gatorade" instead of beer.

Finally I finished, and boy was I happy! Here I am sponging off the dirt and sweat and general icky-ness:

So even though I was only the expert woman, and I came in last place out of the combined sport/expert women, I won some money. Here I am at the awards presentation:

And here I am flashing my award money. Rob and I had a great lunch at Ocean Stars seafood restaurant after the race. My thanks go out to the race promoters (Middle Ring Cycles and CSH) and to everyone who raced and made it fun. Maybe next time I race, I'll be more in shape and competitive!

Banana Flavored Treats and other really healthy things to eat

2007-08-23T13:17:00.000-04:00

Lifeguarding today was a real drag. A total of 4 people came in during my shift to swim. I guess the early morning thunderstorms scared people off. Speaking of the storm, holy smokes, that was a big one that passed by this morning! It woke me up 5 minutes before my alarm clock was scheduled to go off - and my first thought was "Dangit! Now I can't ride my bike to work!" Oh well, I can ride later today.

So after I get off work, I stop by Ghetto Food Lion to pick up a few items. The usual stuff, like yogurt, fruit, tortillas, salad, flavored coffee creamer. In addition to the usual things, I picked up some stuff for the 2nd annual DAMA end-of-summer BBQ that's happening the day after tomorrow. I volunteered to bring the plates, utensils, cups and napkins. While exiting the last aisle after getting the picnic supplies, I push my cart right past a special display of Twinkies. Now, normally, I would just push on by without stopping to look because Twinkies aren't exactly a favorite snack of mine or anything. But there was a special word in that display that caught my eye: Banana. Oh Lord, give me the strength to resist things I know I shouldn't stuff down my pie-hole, the courage to walk away from Banana-flavored "foods", and the wisdom to make the right choice between artificial "food" and real, healthy, good-for-me foods.

Dangit, I can't resist, so I buy a package of special Banana-Creme Filled Twinkies. Plus, it was on sale, and those of you who know me, you know I can't resist something on sale!

I save the Twinkies for my breakfast dessert. My real breakfast is a yogurt/fruit smoothie, which is something I've been making for myself every day for the past week and a half. Today I blended blueberry yogurt, blueberries, strawberries, a banana and soy milk together for my creation. It was excellent.

So I drink my smoothie and unwrap my banana-flavor-filled-golden-cakes so they can get some air. Poor things have been trapped in that plastic wrapping for God-knows-how-long. Okay, maybe not that long, since it's a special flavor variety. I rub my finger over the top of one and I notice just how greasy they feel. Eeew. Why am I going to eat this again? Oh yeah, because it's banana-flavored, and I can't resist things that are banana-flavored.

Banana Nut Crunch cereal, Banana Moon Pie, Banana pudding, banana bread, banana-nut shake from Cook-Out, banana-and-creme flavored Quaker instant oatmeal, banana-nut flavored cream cheese, banana-flavored milk from Nesquik...holy smokes, this list could go on and on and on!

So I ready my taste buds for a banana-out-of-this-world taste explosion. Open mouth, insert Twinkie, chomp down, banana-flavored goo squishes out and I'm in heaven. Ahhh! Ain't life grand?

Gunnie is watching me the whole time, practically drooling. Check her out:

It was totally worth it. I shall never again eat Twinkies, at least in the next 3 years, unless someone offers me one of the lead contestant spots at a banana-flavored Twinkie eating contest. Which I would probably win. But I don't think I'd wanna see my eating contest results after I puke them up. That reminds me of a sort-of-eating-contest/run held every year in downtown Raleigh. The Krispy Kreme Challenge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krispy_Kreme_Challenge

Maybe I could make my own crazy athletic/eating contest combo, and do it with a banana flavored treat like Twinkies, or Moon Pies. Hmmm, I'm thinking: bike race around the Duke Cross Country loop, do 2 laps, eat a dozen Twinkies, then do 2 more laps to finish.

Anyone wanna join in on my fun idea?

I'm totally, 100% joking, of course!

Flowers and Wine - it's nice being a good teacher!

2007-08-21T21:39:00.000-04:00

So the summer is winding down towards the start of school here next week...and so goes the winding down of the private swim lessons I teach at the Duke Faculty Club pool.

I had my last lesson today with Harry (11) and Jennifer (9), who've been great. I've had them once a week for about 10 weeks. I've taught them just about everything you can for their skill level and age. It was very rewarding today to see Harry execute a pretty good breaststroke open turn, and to see Jennifer finally do a standing dive where she keeps her chin down and her toes be the last thing that enters the water. Their mom, Jin, is very nice. Almost every week after our lessons were over, she'd invite me to go to the snack bar with them and she'd buy me whatever I wanted to eat. The first time she offered, I declined, saying, "oh, no, you don't have to do that for me. I'm planning to eat at home anyway when I go home." But she wouldn't take no for an answer, so I gave in.

So today before our lesson starts, Harry and Jennifer tell me that they have something for me and that I should turn around and close my eyes while they get it ready. When I turn around, they have a big flower bundle and a bottle of wine for me. Very sweet. So I make a big deal out of it and thank them for thinking of me. They were a little wilted from the 98 degree heat outside, so I ran into the office to keep them cool.

Here they are in a vase sitting on my kitchen counter. I so rarely have live flowers in my house that I must blog this!

We're having a glass of the wine they bought, and it's really good. It's something called Buenas Ondas Malbec/Syrah, from the San Juan area of Argentina. Yum.

That's all for now. Oh wait, my bug bites are still killing me. I think we've come to the conclusion that the bugs that bit us are called chiggers. And apparently we're supposed to smear paint thinner onto the bites and it heals them. ??? I'm not sure if I'm gonna try that...sounds kinda sketch.

Agggh! Attacked by biting/stinging insects!

2007-08-20T11:16:00.001-04:00

Sorry, no pictures to post on today's blog.

But I have the worst case of itch-itis from whatever it was that bit me on my Eno River hike on Saturday! The first thing I did this morning, even before scratching the crust out of the corners of my eyes, was slather a palm-full of Benadryl gel all over my body. Ahhh, now that's how you spell relief! Then I went about my day, scratching the crud out of my eyes, putting in my contacts and only then realizing, owww, Diphenhydramine Hydrocholoride Topical Analgesic doesn't mix well into eyes. D'oh!

I hope the chlorine in the pool makes it feel better. If not, I guess I'll try soaking in a tub full of Aveeno colloidal oatmeal stuff.

Scratch, scratch....grrr!

Real men get pedicures, and they like them!

2007-08-19T09:16:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, maybe a year or so ago, Rob treated me to a pedicure. Up until that point, I think I could've counted how many times in my life I'd painted my toes, on my umm, toes. I'm just not a girly-girl, therefore, I don't go to get girly-girl things done to myself, like this.

Anyway, Rob came with me to the pedicure place and sat next to me in the vibrating chair and watched TV while I relaxed and turned my feet pretty. I remember telling Rob that someday I'd treat him to a pedicure (sans nail polish, of course) because he'd love it. If you've ever seen Rob's feet, you'd know that they're pretty yucky, and yes, if I were a pedicurist (is that their job title?), I'd be doing Rob's feet and thinking, ugh, my job sucks sometimes!

I don't mean to sound snotty, so let me explain this a little bit different. I think most men do not care much about their feet, and the look and feel of them suffers, gets crusty and calloused. Rob's feet are so calloused that he can walk on 130 degree beach sand without wincing. And for as long as I've known Rob, I think I've only seen him use real clippers to trim his toenails maybe 5 times. He prefers to tear them off, which I just shudder at when I see.

All this talk reminds me of that one Eddie Murphy movie, Boomerang, where he judges the women he sleeps with as a "keeper" if, in the morning, when he pulls the sheets off to expose her toes, a beautiful, pedicured set is revealed. I think that Sally Hansen, OPI, and other beauty companies that manufacture nail polish should try a new spin on selling product, and expanding their client-base. They should market "manly" colors and produce TV commercials that are similar-but-opposite to the Boomerang movie, where it shows a man lying in bed with a beautiful woman, and maybe they could have those little Pop-ups (ala VH1's Pop-Up Video) where it shows what the man is thinking. It could be like "Wow, she is amazing. We had such a connection. I think she could turn out to be the woman I marry." Then the woman pulls the sheets off the bottom to reveal his toes, and it shows them all crusty and gross. Then the woman storms off, thinking to herself in those Pop-ups, "How disgusting! I can't believe I let those feet touch mine last night! I'm going home to soak in epsom salts and I'm never calling him again!" Then the commercial could flash - Got Crust-itis on your feet? Take care of it with Sally Hansen's Pedicure For-Men-Only brand, available at CVS and Rite-Aid nationwide. Clever idea, huh? That's it, I'm quitting coaching....

Anyway, back to my story: I decided to treat Rob to a pedicure yesterday. We spent the afternoon together hiking on trails near the Eno River, then swimming in a small hole that looked really gross, but once we got in, we realized it was great! It was a little dirty, but it's rare to find open water out here that's not dirty, so whatever...it was surprisingly cool, given how many days above 100 degrees we've had in the past 2 weeks. Here I am checking out the water, while Rob was still on the trail, deciding whether or not he wanted to get in:

After the swim, we drove through Cook-Out and got a pre-dinner snack that was really like lunch, since we'd missed lunch altogether by hiking. I had told Rob that I had a surprise in store for him, and he kept trying to guess what it was, but I wasn't letting him. I had him drive down Roxboro Street, turn into the Wal-Mart shopping center, then directed him around to the end where the nail salon was, right next door to a Subway. Rob said, Subway...but we just ate? I said, nope, I'm treating your feet (and mine) to a pedicure, c'mon!

So we walk in and request 2 pedicures. There's a couple of women getting their nails done and they look at us. I ask one woman, "men can get pedicures, right?" and she said oh yeah, her boyfriend had gotten one a couple years ago and he loved it! I think this comment may have made Rob feel more comfortable. While the owners of the salon are busy cleaning out the tubs where you soak your feet, I'm picking out my toenail color and Rob picks up a TigerDirect.com catalog. They call us over and we sit and soak our feet for a while. Ahhhh.

They did everything for Rob that they'd do for me during a pedicure, except for the nail polish. I really think they should reduce the price a bit for a man-pedicure, but eh, who am I to argue about cost-to-value ratios with a little, old Asian man who doesn't speak English all that well and who works hard for his money? By the way, we paid $22 each for this 30 minute relaxing and beautifying treatment.

Rob's feet responded to the lavish attention by turning bright red - I wish I'd brought the camera inside so I could've snapped a picture for you all to see. When we were finished, I asked Rob how he liked it and he said it was real nice. But I doubt that when Rob goes back to work on Monday morning, when his co-workers ask him what he did over the weekend, that he'll say, my wife and I got pedicures!

Afterwards, we went home to shower off the gunk stuck to our skin from the Eno River. I gave Rob a haircut, too. Then we went to Kyle and Jess's housewarming party. We arrived 3.5 hours late, oops. By the time we got there, the only people left were Kyle, Jess and Jason. It was a fun way to spend an evening, though.

Now, to start Sunday, I'm heading to church, where I haven't shown my presence there since the month of May. I'm taking my bike with me, too, and hopefully I'll feel like riding my bike somewhere afterwards.

Durham Bulls win, and we snag a home run ball

2007-08-14T23:06:00.000-04:00

Well that was fun! I scored some free tickets to tonight's game against the Charlotte Knights thanks to Gretchen. They were cool tickets, too. They were in the picnic section out in right field. They had hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, beans, the works. Normally these would cost us $20 per person, so for us to have a fun night that ended up only costing us $3 for parking and the half-gallon of gas we burned in getting there, that's a pretty cheap night.

After we ate the free food, we found much more comfortable seats out in center field, 3rd row back, right next to the lawn seating (which never seems to be open every time we go - what gives?) There were some goofy high school or early college-aged kids sitting in front of us who were fairly funny most of the game, heckling the center fielder from Charlotte all night. He was some nobody dude who probably just moved up from double-A, and he got his first RBI in the 4th inning. Those guys were having a ball of a time "congratulating" him on his achievement. Sort of mean, but it proved okay with us since the first 6 innings of the game were a snooze fest.
In the 7th inning, some newer Bull hit a nice one out of the park, and Rob of course went to retrieve it. We had just been talking right before that about how neither of us had ever gotten a ball at any of the baseball games we've been to. So when we heard the crack of the bat and saw it flying out into the lawn seating area, Rob hops up and leaps over the fence in one fell swoop and runs about 50 yards to get it. Some of the annoying boys got up to fancy the idea of trying to get it, but "old man" Rob beat them to it.

Here's a pic of Rob as he's coming back from getting it. Look at how boyishly happy he looks!

Then, during the 7th inning stretch, we were featured on the jumbo-tron screen for about 3 seconds - yah! Sorry, no pic of that!

Here's another pic of Rob with his "lucky" baseball - if you can't read the writing on the ball, it says "Official Ball International League". Some of the annoying guys joked that he could put up for sale on craigslist and could probably get about 64 cents for it!

That's all for now. It's late and I'm tired. I better get some sleep before I coach tomorrow's big breaststroke workout.

Fun Times at Lake Gaston

2007-08-12T14:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to Lake Gaston with a handful of my swimmers, and a couple from the other local teams. There was a 1-mile open water swim called "The Crossing" that we participated in, and afterwards, we went to Bill Kerns' lake house, for lunch and fun on the lake.

Here's the link to the swim race info: http://www.lakegastonchamber.com/Text_files/THECROSSING2007info.pdf

Notice the part that says There will be prizes for the first male and female out of the water, and the most outrageous entry. Since I'm so, umm, not fast, I figured it'd be fun to have a little fun and try to win the most outrageous competition.

So I borrowed a 6-foot long inflatable killer whale that belongs to the Duke Faculty Club pool. It barely fit in the back of my truck! Then I did a little shopping at Party City and picked up some fish accessories: a clown fish pinata, a pack of 3 small inflatable fish and this gooey, super-stretchy thing called an "inside-out ball".

Later I realized I could wear the inside-out ball, pulled over my head like a swim cap! Sweet! Here's Rob wearing the ball:

On Friday night, Rob helped me put everything together into my costume which I decided to call Shark Bait. I used my triathlon belt to secure the clown fish to my back, and also to attach the rope with which I towed the killer whale behind me. Then we used string and zip ties to attach the small inflatable fish to the straps on my suit and on the back of my inside-out ball/swim cap. Here's a pic of me on the kitchen floor, modeling the clown fish attachment.

As you can see, I had to put cellophane on the clown fish pinata. I couldn't find any packing tape in the house, so I just used scotch tape. I hoped it'd work okay once I got in the water.

So Saturday morning rolls around and I'm awake at 5:45, which is an hour earlier than my normal Saturday routine, but I don't mind, as I'm excited about the swim and the fun we're going to have later. Joe, Derek and Mark Smith meet at my house and we carpool to the lake, which is a surprisingly easy 70 minute drive. I register and then get my costume ready. Once I'm ready, I take myself down to the start area and everyone is pointing, gasping Oh my! Look at that lady! Random people I don't even know were taking my picture, including 3 people from local area newspapers. Everyone agrees that I'll win the most outrageous entry. Here I am modeling my costume for the newspaper dudes:

We have to go off in 4 different heats, since the dock was really small. I waited to go off on the last heat. Going along with me was Sonia, her husband Dmitri, Josh, Mark Smith and about 10 others. During the short boat ride over to the dock, an older man sitting across from me joked that he'd use my killer whale inflatable if "he got into trouble on the swim". I smiled politely at his comment, not thinking anything of it. I had asked Heidi's friend's wife to videotape me during the beginning of the swim, as I was curious to see how dorky I looked dragging around a big killer whale behind me. It did look pretty funny!

So at the start, we jump in and we all start swimming, except for me. I felt my pinata fall off my back (it was only secured by this bungee cord net thing), so I went to retrieve it and it took me about 5 seconds to come to the conclusion that I would just hold the fish during the whole swim. I didn't want to leave it because it was part of my costume, and by dumping part of it at the beginning, it would show that I was more interested in swimming than I was in winning the outrageous costume award. So I grab my fish and start kicking, hoping to think of a way to swim while holding the fish. My thoughts are distracted by the older fellow who made that comment about trouble on the boat -- as he is flailing his arms and yelling out "Help!". I'm thinking, holy crap, this guy is freaking going to drown! I swim over to him and help push him towards the starting dock. Once I realize he's going to be okay, I swim off, carrying my fish pinata in one hand, dragging an orca behind me.

I've got a video of this start/guy almost drowning/me swimming off with orca in tow....and I wish I could post it up for you all to see, but unfortunately it's just a tad too big to upload to YouTube. I need to remember to set the resolution on my camera a little lower next time.

I swim a combination of things - for the first half, I did 1-arm freestyle. I'd take 6-10 strokes with one arm, breathing every other, and thankfully not having to sight very often, as the bridge was on my right, and a bunch of Coast Guard and other boats on my left. Then I got tired of 1-arm Free, so I switch to 1-arm Brst with a flutter kick (can't do Brst kick as I'm wearing fins - dammit!), but that got tiring real fast. Then I notice that my cellophane-wrapped pinata is starting to get water logged, so I put it on my head and the bottom of it sort of molds to the shape of my head, and yeah! My hands and arms are finally free to swim a complete stroke cycle! After that point I did a mix of Tarzan-style Free, some Grandma-breaststroke, and some sidestroke with an awesome fin-assisted scissors kick! Near the end, the current became more of a bear, and the waves were choppy enough for me to swallow more than a few mouthfuls of water. I glanced at my watch near the end and I saw that I'd been swimming for 37 minutes - my heart dropped at that point and I kicked my swimming into high gear. 3 minutes later, I'm finishing, thank God! Here's a video of my finish, which is somewhat theatrical and comedic (listen to what the others are saying about me!)

I check in at the finish area, get my finisher t-shirt, and grab a bottle of water and some sugary Halloween-sized snacks. I completely forget about winning the most outrageous entry award until a little later when I ask Heidi if she got an award for first female finisher (I think she was, not sure?) and she said she didn't see any awards being handed out. Oh well, I figure I don't care to press the issue -- I had fun swimming it, and that's all that really matters, right?

Afterwards, we go to Food Lion to grab some side dishes and beer to share for lunch. I park next to one of those awful 3-foot tall poles you see in some parking lots that help "safeguard" the shopping cart corral area. Well wouldn't you know it, as I'm backing out of the spot, I turn my wheel to avoid hitting the car parked behind me (it was a small lot), and I hear "Screeeech, bong, bonk!" Oh crap! Joe's laughing and saying "I knew you were going to do that!" We get out to inspect the damage, and thankfully it's not much. No dent, no paint missing, just a light rubbing of black rubbery stuff that can be buffed out later. Whew! I really didn't want to dent or scratch my new truck!

So we eat hamburgers and hot dogs, grilled to perfection by Bill. I love what his shirt says. Check it out:

Here's a pic of most everyone that was there for lunch (missing Erik, his wife and baby girl):

After lunch, it was time to hit the lake on the boat, the jet ski, and to lounge in the float that Bill calls "Party Island". We all took turns getting pulled on this huge float thing. My arms, tired from the swim earlier, could only take so much during this pull. We were pulled along at about 25mph, hitting wake and screaming and laughing the whole time. Here's a pic of me, Heidi and Dawn on the ride:

I took a jet ski ride with Dmitri and we hit speeds of 40mph - funny how speed on water seems so much faster than on land by car or bike! Other highlights of the day included me getting a chance to drive the boat (a feat I've never attempted, nor have I wanted to do before),

a quick 10 minute nap by myself in Party Island while everyone else was out water skiing (something I know I'm not good at, nor did I want to try for fear of falling down and further escalating my herniated disc in my low back!), a full tour of Bill's house (it has 6 bedrooms!), and a pull on another crazy float called "Wild Thing - Ski Trix". The ski trix thing was brutal! I'd love to be able to hang on for longer, but I think I need to build up some more upper body strength before I attempt it again. Here's a video of me being pulled in the Ski Trix torture tube:

The lake was great! And I think everyone who attended the swim and the fun afterwards had a great time. Here's a few more pics of the day.

and one final picture of the lake view from Bill's house. The bridge is visible, as is the other side of the Lake. Even though it doesn't really look like it, that's the mile length we all swam. We hope to make this an annual event, and maybe even try to get the organizers to join forces with us as we make this an official US Masters Swimming sanctioned event!

It was so nice to see Elizabeth Nowak, Erik Crankshaw, Martha and David(?) from the THAT Masters team, and Billy Su from RAM. It was great to finally meet Sonia's husband Dmitri, who didn't seem as socially reclusive as Sonia had led us to believe! Many thanks to Bill Kerns, again, for inviting us and for letting us know about the swim in the first place! I speak for Derek, Joe, Mark Smith, Dawn, Heidi, Karen, Josh, and myself when I say "THANKS Bill! You were a great host! Invite us over ANY time!"

Starting a blog

2007-08-12T14:15:00.000-04:00

I figured I should start a blog as a way to keep my activities up-to-date for all of my family and friends, and for myself, too. Sometimes I feel like I have such a boring, mundane life...you know, working Monday-Saturday, week in and week out. I mean, it's August already and I feel like I haven't done many fun things yet this year. But it's not because I haven't done anything fun this year, because I have, but I think I just don't remember them as they're already stored away in the long-term memory section of my brain. Just a couple years ago, I used to be able to ramble off a list of 20 or more major fun things that I did in the previous 12 months. I could describe things like how hot/cold it was, what we ate and how it tasted, the exact thing I was doing at 8:07pm on a particular day...you get the idea. But now it's different.

Maybe I do too much to remember it all now. Maybe that's what happens to you when you're finally all grown up. Or maybe I'm forgetting all this stuff from chlorine build-up in my brain -- maybe I should wash my hair more often. It may turn my hair kind of green and gross after a few days of back-to-back teaching days, but who knows, maybe it's seeping into brain and causing short-term memory loss. For example, a few weeks ago, I was reminiscing about our trip to Holden Beach, and I had to ask Rob, "When did we go to Holden Beach, and why?" Rob looked at me like I was crazy. We went on Memorial Day weekend and we went because we wanted to try out the pop-up tent trailer. Oh yeah! Now I remember. But really, if Rob hadn't told me, I would still be sitting here wondering when and why we went to Holden Beach.

So my goal is to post up my activities here, to let my descriptions be chock full of pictures and videos, for the enjoyment of my friends and family. I look forward to being able to reminisce about fun times by scrolling through my blog, without having to ask dumb questions to my husband, who gets them way too often at his job anyway.

Happy reading!