Homecoming

Look at this beautiful girl with all of her incredible friends!  Homecoming was a blast this year.  Cambrie is growing more and more confident which means all of the activities she's involved in just keep getting sweeter.  They had dinner before the dance and she learned that Finlay and Emerson make great burgers, and Eric can make a mean mock-tail.  Who knew?  They danced, had a blast and ended up at Brandon's house for the after party.  Seeing friend pics like this brings me so much joy.

 

Smiles

Are you ready for some random smiles at our house?

Cambrie earned her first stripe in Jiu Jitsu!  Her coach says he normally doesn't give out stripes as early as this, but she has been working so hard and has a natural ability for this sport.  Whenever she comes home she is radiant because practice was so much fun.  And if she's been able to tap someone new (especially bigger, stronger, older teenage boys) there's more than a little swag to her step.

Cambrie is always working on some kind of art project.  I don't often get to see what she's working on and I'm honored whenever she shows me one of her pieces.  Look at this painting of Brian May from Queen!  It's incredible!

On Sunday afternoon McKenzie walked into the office and I just fell apart in giggles.  I had no idea what she had been working on in her room and did not expect her to appear in her Piglet suit with a full face and lip mask!

Sometimes I don't think I'm very good at taking advantage of the little joys in my life. So when Daxton asked if we could go to Menchies after school, I said...yes!  All three kids who were home were shocked, but happy about it.  I loved it.  I'm going to be losing moments like this as they grow and I'm kind of not ready for that.

For reasons we can't control we have received dozens of boxes from a specific seller on Amazon.  Each box contains one (or ten) of the exact same item, a laundry carrying scoop.  We have received over 200 of them and there's not much we can do about it.  It was a mystery, then it was annoying, then it was just funny.  The boys love it because they have access to as much cardboard as they want to create with.  This particular night they made armor and weapons.  I think it is fabulous.

Surprise!  Who knew that Daxton could fit in the fridge so well?

I have fond memories of shucking corn during the summer.  Watching the boys help me with dinner just brought me joy.  It wasn't until after dinner I learned that most of my kids don't like corn on the cob.  Oh sad days!

Remember those simple joys I was talking about?  McKenzie went grocery shopping with me and asked if I would buy ice-cream cones.  I couldn't think of a single reason why not.

Road to Kona

When Ironman training really kicks into gear it is rough!  But one of my favorite workouts has become the friend picnic marathon around McKay Lake.  I bring the food and water, I run around the lake for four hours, and my friends pop in to join me throughout the run.  For some of these ladies it's the only time we can get together to run and being able to talk and laugh with them is incredible.  It's their strength that gets me through these workouts.  I wasn't on top of it enough to get a group photo (mostly because they all come at different times) but here's a shout out to Chelsea, JoDee, Heather, Aimee, Lindsay and Jen who came and shared an adventure this morning.  

Ironman training also means when you are tired and cold you may eat in the shower to get both things taken care of at once :)

Just three weeks left!  It's getting real!

Mustang Mile

Mustang Mile with these two awesome boys.  Kelton is doing Mustang Voices again and they performed the National Anthem before the race began.  The choir had only practiced two or three times before this and I was so impressed that they knew all of the words and sang it so well.  

Kelton surprised me this year and wanted to go out for the boys' cross country race.  They had a race earlier in the day for PE and he came in eighth!  I was so proud of the speed and grit he showed.  That night the boys ran for fun and loved it.  

The best part though is the Kona Ice and games after the race.  They could have stayed an played with their friends all night if we had let them!

Soccer starts

There will definitely be more soccer pics to come, but the season has begun! Here's to good coaching, good friends, good work, good games, and great memories.

 

Ironman World Championships Nice

Jeremy didn't even have time to adjust to the time zone here at home before he jumped on a flight back to Europe.  He received a spot for the Men's Ironman World Championship in Nice and wasn't going to miss that experience no matter how tired he was.  It was a whirlwind of a trip that began in him not having a room when he arrived.  There was a problem with his Vrbo reservation so tired, jetlagged, and dragging around all of his race luggage he needed to find a new place to crash.  He found some help and ended up staying in a great hotel close to the venue.  The next two day he just soaked up everything there at the venue:

The views

The local food

Ironman Village

The welcome banquet

And getting to check in for a World Championship race!

The day before the race is familiar and yet so exciting at the same time.  He racked his bike and admired all of the other speedy machines there in transtion.

Hoping for a pro sighting, if not during check in at least on race day!

He packed his gear bags.  (I'm always amazed by how much we fly with, yet on race day our piles look so small.)  We have a routine where we each check each other's piles to make sure that we aren't forgetting anything.  It's awesome having a partner to do this with.

Then after everything is racked and ready there is nothing to do the rest of the day except relax and appreciate the fact that you've made it this far.  It can sometimes be a very rough day just trying to keep things calm!

Not traveling with Jeremy to a race can be really hard.  I like to be there to support him, cheer him on, and watch him do incredible things.  He was completely alone this race which made some things a lot more challenging on both ends.  For my part I had to rely solely on the athlete tracker and read what I could from that tiny app and pics from the Ironman website.  It looked like it could be an incredible day.

  What I saw was a good swim and then a bike that started making me worried.  All of his splits were too slow.  I know it was a hilly and difficult course but things still weren't adding up.  He spent so long in T2 that I was beginning to become afraid he wasn't going to leave it.  Onto the run I watched his splits and I watched him struggle.  It was so, so hard.  I was more than relieved when he crossed that finish line but it took some time before he was able to call and more time before he was able to share what happened.  

Here are excerpts from his race report that give a clearer picture:

Well where to start. I am finally awake enough to have some thoughts. My mind doesn't hurt and i don't feel like I have been on a roller coaster for 20 hours straight. 3 almost 4 days out from the race.

I had to work almost every day since I got home from Finland. I was on a high from Finland but it was the first time I have ever not been able to adapt quickly to time zone change. I had a massive headache most days, I had to use double dose of Nyquil to even sleep for two days because I was only seeping 3-5 hours a night. SO tired I just felt asleep in the clothes i wore for the past 24 hours on the top of the bed. You guessed it back up at 4 a.m. and could fall back asleep. Did all the my workouts feeling good and happy to be there. Took a nap for 3 hours midday because I was actually tired. good time walking around and feeling the vibe there. was a cool experience. Sat ate ok. race day prep was not as good as I wanted. only could get a few eggs and limited potatoes, which is two of the biggest foods I eat day before. Night of, i usually eat rice and plain chicken, little butter and pepper sits so dang well. Because of the change of venue and timing I couldn't find rice and chicken. so once again a little off.  In hindsight i missed a few things mentally in my prep of my bike, it didn't really matter but I could tell i was forgetting things. So dang angry at the race port o johns. there were a total of 12 of them next to the line up corrals for swim start. 50 mins of waiting in line and my wave was next and still couldn't get in one. Ran down to Start, jumped in water and the 20 sec the gun went off.

Swim

I have never been beat up so much in a swim. IT was kind of fun, when most of us are 10-15 min apart in skill there are a lot of bodies hitting. the entire time was fight for position and were aren't good enough to all swim straight so many times someone is swimming 30 degrees off of the line and then we crashed over and over. I actually felt way better than Finland. My arms weren't even tried really. I managed my HR and really felt proud of this swim. I enjoyed it. T1 was un eventful and jogged to bike and go. gained 21 spots in T1 no problem there.

Bike. 

Saw a really bad crash 30 sec into bike as a guy hit a barrier brick on the ground and was laying a pool of blood. Kept going though my mind that I dont have anyone here to help if I do not make it. SO BE CAREFUL!! First hour was good. Really settled in. Sipped a little water but mostly rinsed my mouth out for first 30 min.  Funny thing happened at hour two, I was stretching my neck putting it down and my right side sinus just poured out water for 20 sec of time. yep that felt weird. Due course i only started with aero bottle of concentrated fuel and one water bottle to use for first 15 miles. problem came when at first aid station hit i got two new bottles of water and coke bottle i though was water . I filled about half of aero bottle then doused myself with water. I felt cold and got chills when the sun hit me like I was already spent. then promptly ejected my last water on the next min of speed bumps. SO coke and Gatorade for the next 90 min. I knew I was feeling off then. I tried to eat the 226 bars for solid and choked it down. here is where i knew I was in trouble. 2.5 hours in I was burping a ton. getting sick to my stomach on speed bumps. I had really worked to keep power at 190-200 with HR at 120-130ish. I started to feel really bad, so I tried to come back with lets do 210 power get HR up again from 110 and go for 130-140 for a min to see if I could get my stomach to work. The rest on in for 4 hours I ate some gatorade and three maurteen gels with some chews. I was stopping at the last three aid stations to try and poop or throw up. I couldn't do either. basically from right before the out and back section I was done. I was not digesting food and tried to really slow down for a different strategy. Luckily the downhill sections gave me some fun. I killed those. that whole safely thing, well I had fun. I had my GPX file on and saw the bends in the road. I could stay in aero a lot more than others and probably only passed by 2 people on the major descents  for the next 2 hours. 

T2

this was no longer a race but a crap fest of should I finish. I just sat there a 5 min wondering what I should do. I gagged food as best I could but just put on socks and sat there.

Run/walk a thon

i tried so hard to jog. my temp got so hot in seconds and I couldn't cool down. I only ate watermelon a cracker and sparling mineral water at each aid station. Got some salt down me. I was determined to finish for my kids. Our motto is "quit when you are done not when you are tired" I heard my youngest say it to me so that is what I was going to do. Another crap thing. NO FREAKING ICE. they were out after my first aid station. When I got wet  I shivered and in the sun I got hot. Talked with a lot of different guys. I was determined to walk with my head up and not shy away from the best I could. To quote Steve "to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift" I had nothing more to give and I would not shy away from fans cheering me on. But like I expressed before I was embarrassed I showed up like this. I knew i was stronger mentally and not as in shape for a full, but I was not that pathetic, or so I thought. If i had to make a decision right then I would never do another one. 12 hours of what I felt at couer d'Alene and I hated it. Ultimately I got some precision hydration 1500 mg of sodium down me at 3rd lap and an hour later i was not as queasy. i ran in the last few miles or so. I cried hard at about mile 25 because I was glad to finish and so many of my races came to me. I lesson I think i have missed is the lesson of Consistent training without excuses is more important. You saw the times, i tired to go to the bathroom so many times. i tried to throw up.

Yes, it was a hard, hard race and not what he was hoping for from a World Championship showing.  But the bad days are what make the good days better, and there is photographic proof that he was smiling and enjoying parts of it!  Now it's time to really recover and reset.

Madame Guillotine

"Cambrie, you don't have school today.  What are your plans?"

"Oh Matthew, Eric and I are going to build a guillotine."

"A working guillotine?"

"Yup."

"....Okay...have fun and please don't chop anything that's not supposed to be chopped."

 

Success!

(Sometimes having teenagers is just awesome.)