I am so lame. A post a year???

It's finally fall here in Juneau after a super summer. We were long overdue for some extended nice weather. I spent half of this year training for two triathlons. One an Olympic distance (1500 m swimming, 40K biking, and 10K running) and the other one was a Sprint distance (750 m swimming, 20K biking and 5K running). I finished both of them even though I had a reoccuring hamstring problem.

I'm working with a PT Morgan Humphries here in Juneau and I like her technique. She's very thorough and is trying to find out why I get injured so easily.

May 2008 Anchorage trip

It's been a while since I thought about this blog enough to enter anything in it. I was never that good at daily posts in my diary either as a kid.

I finished the triathlon in Anchorage on May 18th and had a great time. Sheila was in Anchorage while I was there and we got together with Tissy, Sarah and Rodney and we ate at the Moose. Good food, drink and friends. It looks like I was well into my second glass of wine here as I'm putting the moves on Sheila.

I took this GNT photo from the photographer's website and it's a little blurry but basically that's me biking and then running for the finish. Whoo hoo. I took 7 minutes of last year's time.

In addition to participating in the Gold Nugget Triathlon, I also attended an EPA training course on Groundwater Contamination. I have to admit that this training was better than the last course about basic chemistry however, they are all pretty tough to sit through. We are in the federal building in a room without windows and they pretty much go from 8 am to 5pm with a measly hour for lunch. I've never been good at sitting still for very long. Luckily, my coworkers Doug and Karin sat next to me and they were entertaining to say the least. Some good entertainment some bad. I had forgotten how bipolar Karin can get when she's hungry or tired. I'm always thankful when it's directed at someone else and not me. Doug and I decided that we would dress alike so we are both wearing orange fleece shirts. Karin is the woman in blue fleece. Obviously fleece is the material of choice here in AK.

Doug keeps me laughing with his quirky sense of humor. The best part of the class was when we found out that the Amazing Race was holding auditions in Anchorage on Thursday, the last day of our class. After standing in line for a few minutes I realized that the audition was really just the local TV station offering to tape contestants audition tapes for them. So Doug and I decided to go to his house and make our own. Thankfully Doug is knowledgeable about video equipment and editing tape and was able to take the tape that we made and create a pretty good audition tape for us to submit.

May seems to be my week to compete in running races. May 10th, while Ken and I were in Seattle, we ran the North Face Endurance Challenge 10K. It was the most difficult 10K I've ever ran. It took me almost two hours to run up and down some very rugged terrain. I was very impressed that Ken was able to finish 10 minutes after me. He was still getting over a cold and had no lungs whatsoever. Of course after the race, my quads were hamburger for about 2 days.

I also ran in Juneau's own version of a relay race called the Sea Coast Relay. It's only a 24 mile course split up between 5 people but relays are fun because you get to support your team mates and laugh and eat in the car before and after your own run. Ken took this picture of me at the end of my leg. I saw him taking it so I could at least try to look like a fast runner. I finished 4.4 miles in 37:09. Not bad for me. God what a beautiful sunny day. I loved it.

My team, Clean up on Aisle 4, are a fun group of women.

I think it's important that I post in this blog so I'm finally doing it. It's Friday afternoon here at work and I find it very hard to concentrate on any work. The sun is shining outside and I want to head out there and take my dog for a walk. I've got about 3 weeks before Ken and I head down to Seattle for a short Mother's Day vacation. Then I head down to Anchorage to do the Gold Nugget Triathlon. Yay, I love doing it and I really love to hang with the group of women that do it with me. Bonnie and I are staying at Tissy's and it's like a big slumber party with lots of eating and drinking. Whoo hoo. My favorite activities. I think I'm trained up enough to not really embarrass myself, well not too bad anyway. I need to slip in a couple more bike rides though. I'm bummed that I don't have any pictures from last year. Oh well, we'll take plenty this year.