Things I Now Know After Doing a Sprint Triathlon

1.  Jay is sneaky.  And really, really supportive.  It's so easy for me to play the victim and think that all I do is support everyone else in their endeavors.  Well...if I don't do anything, then it's pretty hard for the rest of them to be supportive.  I was touched and a little bewildered when I saw these fancy schmancy signs waving around throughout the race.  Even thinking of Jay going near the craft section of Wal-Mart to find all of this stuff makes me smile.

The boys working on their posters after I had left on Saturday morning.

2.  Seeing these guys before the race started was a mood booster.  I was more than a little bit nervous on Saturday morning, but as soon as my family showed up, I settled down.  There was nothing left to worry about, it was time to start.

****Disclaimer****

This is the last picture where I am fully and decently clothed.  As much as it pains me and goes against my better judgement and pride to post them, I am including pictures of me that are not flattering.  By giving you advanced warning, I am hereby released from any future claims of emotional scaring.

3.  There are all types of swimmers.  I was most confident about the swim, so it helped that it was first.  When I went to pick up my packet on Friday night, each racer was given a heat assignment and I learned that I was in heat #2.  I panicked and asked the people in charge why I was in such an early heat.  Not understanding I said, "I'm not fast.  I mean, my estimated swim time might not be that slow, but that's my best event and I'm really, really slow at the other two and I shouldn't be in an early heat!"  Then, I was calmed down after it was explained to me that the heats were in reverse order, with the slowest people going first.    So much better.  I was impressed that the really strong swimmers could do it in less than half the time I could and relieved that there were people who were much slower than me.  Does that me I like to be average?

As I came to this edge after every lap, all I could hear with each breath was, "Go Lucy!  Go Mom!  Go Lucy!"  Not only was my family loud, but my two friends who were also doing the triathlon, Lori and Erin, started after me so they joined in the cheering.

I finished my 500 m swim in 12:29.

4.  It is cold running outside right after a swim.

5.  Transitions are fun and challenging.  There is an excitement present when you are trying to hurry to get somewhere else.  I was soaking wet and should have practiced getting my biking shorts and shirt over my swimsuit because it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I really did try to hurry, but I think my transition time from swim to bike was over 4 minutes.  The winner did it in like 21 seconds.  So, that's something I can improve on:)

6.  My favorite thing of the whole day was having my number marked on my left arm and my left calf.  I'm not a fan of tattoos, so I'm not quite sure why, but it was such a badge of honor to me!

 I saw Jay and the boys at the top of a hill on the bike course.

I was the only participant that had signs made for me.  At least I didn't see any others.

They really do help.

7.  I really need to work on my biking skills.  My philosophy about biking was that I could ride a bike therefore, I could do a triathlon.  As biker after biker passed me throughout the thirteen miles, I realized there is a lot more to it than pedaling.

8.  I also realized why everything I read said not to do it on a mountain bike.  It made the hardest part of the race (for me) even harder.  I was on my bike for 1:09.  That is a really bad time, if you don't know.  I'm not ashamed of it.  I'm glad I did it.  But that is a really, really slow time.

9.  While the transition from swim to bike was tricky due to different gear needs, the transition from bike to run was hardest physically.  Those muscles just don't want to go in that direction right away!

10.   It's o.k. to walk.  But I hope the next time I do a triathlon, I won't have to.

11.  Oh yeah...I want to do it again!

Jay and the boys at a park along the 5K route.   Jay actually got emotional seeing me at this point.  I could tell he was just really, really proud.  Something about doing grueling races that speaks his love language, I guess:)

I finished my run in 39 minutes.  Don't they say slow and steady wins the prize?  Well...not in the case but the slow and steady can finish!

12.  I had no idea I could finish in under 2 hours, but I think I could have had my mental game been on.  With a little work on everything, I know I can be in the less than two club next time.  My over all time was 2:03.

13.  I have great friends and family who support me.  Thanks for your calls, your messages of support, your pre-race drop-by, your help with training and your tips for doing it better next time.

Afterward with Lori, who got me there by keeping me swimming and always, always encouraging me.  We did it!

Sickness Or Health?

I have spent the week hoping to catch a bug.

The flu perhaps.

If not the flu, then maybe just a bad cold.

Surely there is someone out there with a contagion I could catch with a lengthy handshake or having them cough on me.

But I'd need a fever for it to be legitimate.

I suppose I could handle chills and a rash as well, should further proof be necessary.

However, I don't want any stomach issues.  I've vomited daily through three pregnancies to ever wish for that.





O.K.

One time.

I'd be willing to vomit one time.

Pretty desperate, eh?

You see, if I was sick....really sick....I could legitimately get out of participating in this blasted sprint triathlon I overzealously signed up to race in this Saturday.

I started swimming in February to complete an activity for a family exercise challenge.  I liked it so much I kept at it.  Another month, I tried out bike riding, an activity I hadn't done outside on a real bike as a form of exercise in over a decade.  While my reaction to that particular sport was much, much less enthusiastic (remember, the bike seat and the heel of a stiletto use the same principles of force and pressure),  knowing the old adage "Just like riding a bike" was true - you do remember how - birthed the idea of doing the local triathlon on August 7th.

"Months away!" I thought.

"Plenty of time to train!" I reasoned.

Now the confession:  I was in better shape two months ago than I am now.

I don't know what happened, specifically.  We moved, the boys were suddenly constantly around, I started sleeping in, it got too hot.  Blabbity, blah, blah.  Summer seems like an ideal time for exercise and healthy eating.  Why I haven't managed to consistently do either is not only frustrating, but devastating for a girl who is signed up to consecutively swim, bike and run in three days time.

For multiple reasons (fear of letting myself and others down, fear I'll never try again if I don't try now, fear that I'll have this failure gnawing away at any goal I set for myself in the future, plus the much more important reason that I actually think I can do it, albeit very slowly), I am going through with it.

The triathlon, that is.

Who'd have thought choosing health over sickness would cause such hand wringing?

Symbiotic Living

I live in the country.

So do lots of other things like chipmunks, squirrels and mice (and frogs and owls and raccoons and skunks and porcupines and deer and mountain lions and bears.  But I'm not worrying about all of those just now).

In spite of movies that make rodents seem adorable and talented, I prefer my space to be mine and not theirs.

(It's not like they have manners, you know)

So, I got cats.

As in plural.

They are sisters who are outside/sleep in the garage cats.

I used to feed them and clean the litter box but Sam has taken over as carer of the cats.

They are a bit antisocial (which is fine with me) but chase after lizards, bugs and those chipmunks that always ran amok on my deck.  I also haven't seen any evidence of mice since they came to live with us.

It's called symbiosis.

Meet Scout.

Meet Jem.  

Book Review - Classic #13 - Gone With The Wind

Of all the classics I've read this year, this has been my favorite.  Several have clocked in at over a thousand pages, such as this one, but this is the first whose ending came too soon for me.  I loved it so much I wanted more.  Let me tell you why.

First and foremost, Gone With The Wind has multiple levels.  I adore books that successfully pull this off.  For example, should you want a simple romance (although there is nothing simple about Scarlett and Ashley, Ashley and Melanie or Scarlett and Rhett's romances), it's there.  Want a coming of age story?  You got it.  Need social commentary?  Yes.  Want historical and geographical insight?  Chalk full of it.  Isolate this story into any of these genres and you've got several versions of a good story.  Combine them all and you have a classic masterpiece.

In short, it's really got something for everyone: man, woman, and teen.  I think that's why the movie was/is as successful as it is.  It gives bits and sometimes more than bits of most of these levels that make it accessible to nearly everyone.  In fact, it is more than fair to say that the movie is an excellent and accurate adaptation of the book.  The skeleton and many of the muscles are left completely intact.  Characters were cast pretty near perfectly to the author's description and the dialogue remains mostly unchanged.

However, much like the details of our skin and features make the man, the unabridged inclusion of the area's Civil War history, deeper character development, and more realistically nuanced plot of the book make the complete package a stunning model.

The fact that Mitchell wrote such a multi-layered book would have made me an ardent fan all on its own, but the fact that she drove along her story with main characters so fabulously flawed and unlikable (but not bad) undams my inner gush.  I mean, she takes this absolutely shallow and conceited girl and gives her strength and determination.  Which do you cheer for?  Those qualities aren't supposed to be combined!  Ahhh, but they are so you have to root for Scarlett O'Hara to succeed because you need something or someone to win within that collapsing society, even though you know she, on principle, deserves to fail because she cheats.  She lies.  She throws decency asunder.  But she survives because she's willing and morally able to get her hands dirty.  I still can't decide if I'm meant to like her or hate her.

Then comes Ashley who is profoundly more developed in the book than the pretty gentleman character we see in the movie.  Ashley is an ideal Southern gentleman.  I found it interesting that even Southerners didn't appreciate his fondness for books, music and ideas.  Even to them, his refinement as a man was less desirable than had he preferred to drink and hunt like the majority of his land-owning peers.   For those who don't know, Ashley is the man who Scarlett becomes fixated with as a young woman and idolizes to the point of fantasy to fuel most of her motivation.    Unlike Scarlett, Ashley cannot adapt either to the war or after the war.  For me, he is the face of Gone With The Wind.  A man with no marketable skills, he loves his wife but lusts after Scarlett, a distinction the very surprisingly sexually naive Scarlett does not understand (I say surprising because she was so quick to pick up on other areas of...er......business matters).  I really did enjoy Mitchell using their frustrating relationship to highlight the contrast between Scarlett and Ashley, in both their motivation and understanding.

With Ashley comes Melanie, his sweet wife, who is a good soul.  Melanie IS the kind of character you love to root for because she is smart and good and kind.  But with her good qualities comes a noticeable lack of strength.  Not moral strength, for the author gave her plenty of that, but her physical weakness keeps her from being an idealized caricature, instead keeping her withing the realm of possible.  At times, Melanie seemed...well...too good to be true but then the author would have her help bury a burglar Scarlett murdered or lie to the police about the KKK (which seems so sympathetic in this story) or ultimately confide that she knows her husband can't take care of himself.

Finally, there is Rhett Butler who, in my opinion, is the most faceted character but least understood.  Rhett, who regularly behaves badly, but for seemingly different reasons than Scarlett, mocks the values of his fellow Southerners.  He admires the scruples of Scarlett, who beguiles him with her temper tantrums and spoiled nature and continuously encourages her to be her worst self.  Unlike Ashley, he freely admits his lust for Scarlett but her naivety again plays a role in that she never acknowledges those feelings within herself and consistently rebuffs his advances in favor of her childlike affection for Ashley.   Rhett woos and woos, and in turn becomes the one person Scarlett can turn to for help, but it's never without strings attached which makes liking him complicated.  Was he just one of those men who only likes the chase or is there a deeper, kinder, more misunderstood person beneath his devil-may-care surface?  Mitchell certainly hints at this and Rhett is often portrayed as one deserving sympathy, but this side of him is never quite exposed so i don't think the reader can ever be entirely sure who Rhett Butler is.

I shouldn't have written "finally" because there are many, many more interesting and wonderful characters to flesh out this story.  The slaves, the neighbors, the other husbands, the relatives.  Even the settings become characters as I became acquainted with Atlanta and rural Georgia in a way I never have before.    All of their stories make Gone With The Wind what it is:  a fully developed voice for the side of history that usually doesn't get one - the side who lost.

There you have it.  A losing side, characters behaving badly in an era and part of the country I have no ties to and I loved it all.  I felt it all.  I saw it all.

That's good fiction, folks.

Everyone Should Have One

A Jen, that is.

My sister, who I know I used to call Jenny (because I wrote that in my journals) but is most definitely now a Jen, is truly a delightful person to be around.  Hard to believe, but there was a time when we did not get along.  Like a lot of sisters, we had different styles.  She was clean whereas I was sloppy.  She had a number of organized collections, I trashed most things I owned.

Once, when I wanted to borrow a sweater of hers, she insisted I sign a contract which included a list of charges I would incur should I return the sweater late, dirty or not hung up (I'm pretty sure I still owe her money for that).

Another time, I actually gave her a black eye after we tussled on the piano bench.  It's not like I purposely punched her, but I did swing my arm back pretty hard after she pushed me (at least that's how I remember it).

I'm sure I was just an annoying younger sister.  We are only seventeen months apart and one year apart throughout school, so we had a lot of the same friends even though we each had our own things.  Still, we loved each other in spite of it all.

It was during college, however, when my sister became my friend.  I love being with her.  It helps that we have children around the same age who adore each other. Sadly, it's a lot more difficult to gather now than when we lived two hours apart, so when an opportunity to spend three straight weeks together arose (a week in Utah for BYU football camp, a week here at my home before the family reunion began and the week of the reunion), we took it.

It all began in Provo where we rented a house together.   The mornings were spent watching our boys play football, but each afternoon, we managed to do something fun.  One of those days involved a very thorough tour of the BYU athletics facility.  We had a tour guide who took great pleasure in showing us the parts of the building that aren't normally seen by the public.  Included were the film room for the athletes, the training room with the hot and cold pools, the head coaches offices and a conference room used by the big time donors.

Can you guess what they are doing?  It helps if you read the sign behind them.

Some future players, perhaps?

Our tour guide showing off the fancy schmancy conference room.

One evening we hiked the "Y".  I'm sorry, but that is a really hard hike.  It is steep and kind of boring because all you do is zip up the side of the mountain on switchbacks.  All the murmuring stops once I get to sit on the humongous white Y.  It's quite amazing.

Cute kids.

On the way to my house, we stopped at Wilson Arch for a quick hike.  We did it in flip flops, which wasn't the best idea.

So strong!

Love my boys.  I'm so fortunate to get to do these fun things with them while their dad works hard to pay for it all.

The day after we arrived, I talked Jen into running in a local 5K with me to complete part of a family challenge we had organized.  She's in much better shape than I am, and I slowed her down, but it was a great way to start the day.  Jay had all the kids cheer us on at the finish.

A typical scene of me running behind Jen.

All done.

Part of our goodie bag included dog treats, which Sam wanted to try.  That made it a challenge for all of the kids to try one, but none of them got it down like Sam did.  Odd kid.


Our older boys have always been close, but it was really fun to see Henry and Sadie bond throughout these weeks.

Jen and her husband, Christopher, put on a rather spectacular fourth of July show in front of their house each year.  Their kids were definitely disappointed with our non-existent show, but we did get them Pop-Its to throw at each other.

Later we went to a park to watch the local fireworks show.

One evening, Jen accompanied me while I re-hiked my nemesis.  It was validating to hear her say that the end was scary.  We both got up without incident (i.e. weeping and wailing on my part).

Jen with D-town in the background.

Not many guests come with the intention of cleaning and organizing your home.  O.K.  a lot of mine seem to, but one of the reasons Jen decided to come out for so long was because she possesses talents that I lack.  Specifically, she can organize a space whereas I just fill up the space.  I wish i had taken before pics but this is an after picture of my garage following a hard day's work with Jen in charge.

We collected a lot of garbage with all of the organizing and left it outside one evening with a plan to take it to the dump the next day.  Mistake!  There are raccoons that like to break open trash bags and spread out your trash if you leave it outside.

She not only organized my garage, she organized my basement, my laundry room, the sun room and the mud room.  When her husband came, he hung hooks and pictures and accomplished in a few days what would have taken me months (years???).  She even helped me with my kitchen.  I thought I had that organized but after she pointed out the awkwardness of having my spices share a cupboard with the cups and glasses, I just let her do what she wanted to do.  It's much better now.

Before the masses came, we headed up to the local ski resort for some summer fun.

Jonas and Sam

Ansel and Seth

Owen and Jen

Christopher and Sadie.

Vroom, vroom!

Jen takes Owen on the final turn.

Like I said, everyone should have Jen.

But I'm especially glad that I do.

She Wore A Blueberry Beret

Actually, it's a beanie.  But a beanie doesn't have any fun musical references.

It was supposed to be for Henry, but as I crocheted, I noticed it seemed....well....large.

I kept giggling as I thought about the line, "Heeeed.  Pants.  Now."

I'd call myself crafty, but crafty people's projects turn out.

Still....

I crochet!

For The Love of Football

We are a football loving household. We love watching it together, cheering for our favorite teams and the boys, in particular, have really become connoisseur of formations and play calling.

When Seth had an opportunity to play youth football last fall, we both jumped at the chance. At first, he was thrilled to don pads and a helmet and be a part of a team. But, after watching practice after practice and game after game, it was made clear that the goal of Seth's coaches was not to teach the boys football skills or even to have fun, it was to win games.

Seth is tall and gangly and not overly coordinated. More than that, he is never aggressive. By the end of the season, Seth measured his own success in terms of how many balls he caught as wide receiver in his only-position-ever-played: zero.

Sadly, that was his take-away impression of playing football. That he wasn't good at it and that his coaches thought so too. He had no desire to play football anymore.

Let me be clear that I do not care if any of my children play competitive sports. Being a part of a team and developing athletic skills was a major part of both Jay's and my high school experience, but whether or not our sons participate in that realm of extra-curricular activity is totally up to them.

However, I felt determined that Seth's decision to play football again was based on more than one bad experience when he was nine years old. When my sister, Jen, called and asked if I'd be interested in meeting her in Provo for a week of BYU football camp, I didn't hesitate at all.

You betcha!

The week spent with qualified coaches who know how to lift rather than break spirits, not to mention having his cousins playing right next to him was a perfect reminder to Seth that football is his favorite sport. Sam, being younger and not having anything worse to compare it to, had a few more struggles during the week. Mostly, he hated having to take his shirt off to play "skins". My boys are overly modest.

The camp is not intense. Neither Seth or Sam developed into an all-star. But, they had a lot of fun!

Coach Bronco Mendenhall welcomes the boys and leads them in a really challenging game of Simon Says.  

Henry was actually pretty well-behaved during camp thanks to having cousins Sadie and Owen to play with.  

Seth gets filmed doing a tackling drill.

Sam learns the art of throwing a football.

The last day of camp, the boys practiced and played in LaVell Edwards Stadium.  Pretty cool!

Whack!  Look at that perfect form on the butt-kicking drill.  

Henry with #25 Corby Eason, a defensive back.

Bronco took as much time as needed with each boy for autographs and pictures.

This was definitely the favorite day of camp.

We were the last ones in the stadium in order to get this last cousin shot.

My sister got this shot of the video they played on the jumbo screen in the stadium.  Seth is shown tackling the weeble wobble at 0:28 seconds.  

Book Review - Classic #12 - Atlas Shrugged

I had to write this now, today, mere hours after finishing because I have become so lackadaisical about writing book reviews and most of the passion and emotion I feel about what I read doesn't translate well when I write about it weeks (or months) later.  With this book, I apologize in advance for trading in any organized thoughts in order to write with emotion.

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, is a heavy and intimidating novel that mixes fiction with philosophy.  Its main protagonist, Dagny Taggert,  is a woman ahead of her time who understands how to successfully run a railroad.  Her brother, Jim, heads up Taggert Transcontinental in appearance only and focuses most of his limited ability making deals with Washington that essentially cripple his own railroad and other big businesses and make Dagny's job as Vice President of Operations more and more burdensome.  He and others do this out of jealousy, frustration and a feeling that letting those who can, do, isn't fair to those who can't or won't.

The essentials of fiction are present:  characters, plot, a setting, conflict, motive and moral, but each is so narrowly defined and controlled by the author that her philosophy, Objectivism, becomes the main focus.  Her characters are presented as "good" or "bad" with nobody, not even secondary characters, anywhere in between.    Rand defends this style saying she doesn't use average people as her characters.  O.K.  I'll go along with that.

Except, after awhile, none of these people seem real.  None of them have personalities, only goals or agendas.   The "good" guys are always rational, always decent (even if they pretend to the world that they aren't) and always, always right.  The "bad" guys are always irrational, snarky, slick and shrill.  All of the "bad" guys refuse to take responsibility for any action and won't until they are assured someone else will, whereas the good guys never pass the buck, and there is no room for compromise.  Ever.  There is right and there is wrong.  Black and White.  Moral and immoral.  Good and Evil.  Capitalism and socialism and never the twain shall meet.

Moreover, in a style that seems ostentatious nowadays, Rand rarely passes over an opportunity to declare her beliefs without using a tedious monologue.   I was interested, truly, in learning more about  the author's controversial declaration that man must be selfish in order to be good,  but to shovel it to me in sixty continuous pages via John Galt's hijack of the radio waves towards the end of a very, very long book, isn't very neatly disguised fiction.  That's an essay.  If she did happen to use the much easier to digest format of conversation between two characters, the majority of the time it was structured as questions and answers, with the answers short and perfunctory, creating a feeling of barely tolerable boredom.  The book's overall feeling was one of repression and hopelessness.  No one, not the good guys or the bad guys, were ever happy.

For me, this is a seriously flawed approach to persuade anyone about anything.  Man's search for happiness is...well...what life is all about, isn't it?  Rand kept telling us, over and over again, how that happiness is to be achieved, but to devote eleven-hundred pages to tell the story of weary capitalists who could be happy if everyone else would just get the hell out of their way isn't exactly the way to seek out convert capitalists.

Overall, I cannot subscribe to the philosophy contained with the pages of Atlas Shrugged because I don't believe it actually leads to happiness.  I think it leads to a productive economy.  Oh yes, I whole heartedly agree that capitalism feeds the world.  As Atlas Shrugged implies, if the government didn't interfere with the copper industry's production, they would be able to produce more copper at less cost to sell to steel manufacturers who could then produce cheaper steel to sell to the automobile industry and railroad industry and airplane industry and on and on and on.  As Rand states, the freedom "to make money" not to have it handed to you or taken from you or passed down to you from generation to generation is one of the things that has made America great.

However, only one side of the story is told here.  Rand assumes that people with great minds always have the best motives.  Selfish as they may seem, they merely want to do what they do best without interference but without harm or malice to anyone else.  Sadly, I don't think this is true.  I think history has shown more consistently that instead of a lassez-faire economy leading to virtue, more often that economy allows those with power to become corrupt.  Rand unfairly highlights that tendency only within the ranks of the evil socialists who want to take any power and ability away from their productive rivals but never addresses what happens when a producer or businessman uses pure capitalism for his or her own evil purposes.

Still, it felt eerie to read about all of the laws and government positions created to control the economic market during this novel's fictional setting.  Just today, I read about the financial reform bill  that President Obama signed into law that will protect American consumers from the selfishness of Big Banks.  The following article on the page was how the administration extended jobless benefits, in effect promising millions if not billions of dollars to those who are not working to be transferred from those who are.  I'm not kidding, those articles would have fit into Atlas Shrugged with perfect context, not changing a single thing.  It does make one wonder how much additional strain our humongous government, with all their agencies and bureaucracy, puts on yours and my pocketbooks.  Because we pay for it all.  The goods and the government making sure those goods get to us fairly.

Finally, I'm not sure how to balance politics with belief.  The things Rand mocks are notions of humanity, sacrifice, fairness and love.  She claims to view them in any lens besides that of justice and what a person has earned is not only wrong but evil.  To love someone who has not earned our love is not love.  It's giving in to the looters.  To have compassion for someone will less ability or talent is not compassion but supporting the looters.  She made those qualities laudable and easy to digest because those in her story who did not produce, or in other words, the "bad" guys, were horrible.  They were rude, demanding, ungrateful, conniving and dishonest.  Mothers, brothers, wives, children -- it didn't matter.  The complained and expected a free ride, every one of them.  Of course it was easy to declare that they didn't deserve love or aid.   But I believe otherwise.   I am that schmuck who believes that faith, hope and charity matter. Sorry, Ayn.

I'm not even going to start about how retarded the love stories were.  Pluh-ese.  All of those men in love with the same woman but totally ok with who she eventually chooses because they love him too and their love is all so pure and rational and.....no...I can't go there.  It's too ridiculous.


This is not a mediocre book nor is it bad or great.  As a work of fiction, it has serious flaws.  As a look into the ramifications of punishing those who make our economic world spin - merely because they make money doing it - it is seriously eye opening.   Its unflinching confidence about how the world does, can and should work secures its place as a classic, for both those who love it and for those who hate it.