Duathlon

Well, Yesterday I successfully completed my first Duathlon. I did the "short" distance course which was 2 mile run, 13 mile bike, and a final 2 mile run. The first leg of the race went fine with a total time of 23.05 minutes (an 11:33 mile/min. pace). Then I hopped upon my bike and did the next 13 miles. This was tough as there were a lot of hills and the wind seemed unbearable at times. Since winter has lasted so long, I've had to do pretty much all of my training on a stationary bike. It's hard to train for hills and wind! My time for the bike portion was 1 hour and 1 minute. My friend Sue did the funniest thing when I was on my last few miles of the bike portion. She surprised me by driving next to me for awhile cheering me on. Then they slowed down their car and shouted, "Hey, look, you're so fast you just passed our car!" That had me smiling for the rest of the bike ride back. When I got off my bike and my quadriceps felt like dead weights. I managed to begin running the last 2 miles. I did walk a good portion of the last 2 with a time of 29.18 minutes. Never in my training have I done more than a 12 mile bike and a 2 mile run. So, I'm pretty thrilled just to finish it AND have a decent overall time of 1:56:50. The amusing thing is the only part of me that's sore today is my neck. Weird!

I can't thank my family enough for their support in my training and on race day. Knowing that you were there at the race, believing in me and cheering me on meant the world to me. One runner passed me by, but commented, "You've got quite the crowd back there today!" I'm taking off a few days and will recommence training for the triathlon on Wednesday.

Here are a bunch of photos that our good friend, Scott Elder took (if you recall, Scott is the same incredible photographer who took our Christmas photos).

This is my awesome friend/training partner-Jen Elder before the race began.


Here I am returning from my first 2 miles:


Here I am returning from my biking:


Nate with Elyana watching me go!


I'm taking off for my final run, explaining to Nate that my legs feel funny, and giving Mikayla a kiss!


Here's Mikayla cheering me on with a cow bell!


Coming in for the final finish!

Potty Training Again?

Elyana really enjoys bathtime and has noticed that Mikayla always pottys before climbing into the tub. So she's started placing the potty seat on the toilet and saying, "pee pee." It blew me away that she was the instigator of potty training. I put her on the seat and she points to the bathtub and says, "bath?" I wish I had the time right now to go hard core with the potty training and I hope I'm not blowing an opportunity by not. The Duathlon is 2 weeks away now. I figured it's the same total distance as the Triathlon I'm also doing. So, if I can complete this one, I can definitely do the Triathlon in July. Speaking of Triathlons--My triathlon article is coming out on May 1st! I'm so excited about this one. I had to cut 1,700 words out to get it down to the word count limit I was asked to do--which says a lot about how much I had to say. Here's a picture of Elyana on the potty and an old favorite picture of Nate starting to potty train Mikayla at Ely's age:

Recent Mikaylaisms and Brainy Baby

Last weekend when visiting my mom in Madison, Mikayla asked her, "What does 'swear' mean?" She of course explained that it was something bad to say that you shouldn't say. Mikayla seemed confused and replied, "My mommy says it all the time." My mom discussed this conversation with me and I discussed it with Mikayla. We realized that what Mikayla hears me say quite frequently is, "I swear! You kids are driving me crazy!"

Later this week we were praying for her friend Hannah who is still in ICU. She interupted my prayers to say, "You know, God is bigger than all of us." "I know, that's so true," I replied. "Honey, do you know what that means?" Mikayla responded, "I don't have a clue."

Yesterday we were doing our monthly grocery shopping. She pointed out the letter "R." She said, "That sneaky "r!" It hides in the calendar on the names of the months at school." I think she was referring to "February." Pretty cute.

Lately, Elyana has kind of been freaking us out with her intelligence. As you know, she's always found with her little nose in a book (preferably an alphabet book). She is really "reading" them now, saying things like, "Y, Yak. R, rainbow. A, apple, etc." Recently, she's discovered the Elmo keyboard game on Sesame Street Workshop online
(http://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/games/flash.php?contentId=9495524).
Now, she is saying the letters AND the word before pressing the letter keys on the keyboard. Mikayla doesn't even find her letters on the keyboard that quick.



Well, it's spring break for Mikayla now. It's only Monday mid-morning and it's sleeting outside. We are already going stir crazy. I have to get some play dates or something lined up...

Easter Pictures

Just posting a few of my favorite Easter Pictures. We had a nice Easter in Madison. It took us all day (6 1/2 hours) to drive there due to the weather though. Also, after finding Easter eggs with dimes and nickels in them, Mikayla now has enough money in her piggy bank to buy the toy she's been saving up for: Barbie Baby Doctor. She gets a dime per chore and amazingly has $22.00. It's incredible that a 4 year old can save up that much!

Spinning Class

As some of you know I'm training for a triathlon and was recently asked to write an article about a few local female triathletes. One of the women teaches a local spinning class at "The" nicest health club in town (the Rochester Athletic Club). She offered me a free pass to her next class and to this nice health club so I can meet her and try out spinning. The catch was, it started at 5:30 AM! I'm not a morning person, but I've been wanting to try to see if I can get my exercise done in the morning because I'm at the phase of my training where I'm combining two of the three events each time I work out. It is really taking a crunch out of the little family time we have in the evening. So, I managed to get up, but was running late of course. I ran into the health club, had to sign my life away on a bunch of forms to get this pass and the guy at the counter pointed me in the direction of the spinning class. Even though I was still groggy, He CLEARLY said, "Follow this rail, go through the door, TAKE A RIGHT, go down the hallway, and through the door into the class!" Through the door was a hallway. There was a door on the left and one on the right. The one on the right looked more like a stairwell exit, but I followed his instructions, and went through it, thus setting of some alarm! Nice. What did I do? Ran as fast as I could through the other door into the classroom.

The morning did not get any better. Recently, I was feeling very confident about my training. Wednesday I swam the half mile in 20 minutes, and then ran a mile and half (I only need to run 3 for the triathlon) in 16 minutes. Well, this class brought me back to reality. I was beet red and struggling to breathe normally. I kept wondering if we would ever climb the imaginary hill the instructor keep talking about. Personally, I would avoid a hill if possible, especially, if it was one this big! I was pedaling fast because I kept thinking security would come get me at any second for setting off the alarm. Geez. Well, last night I was sitting on an ice pack and am sitting on one now as I type. The last time I had to sit on an ice pack was after bringing home our first child from the hospital. So, no more spinning class for me and I'm looking into the race course of the triathlon to see if it has any hills!

Oh, by the way, I'm confident in my upcoming Duathlon. I'm the only female in my age group so far, which means, I automatically win the "best" in my age group award. You can't beat that!

SPRING!

Well, we've turned the clocks ahead, the snow is melting quickly, and we have spring fever. Everyday after lunch this week, I've dressed the girls up in their snow suits and allowed them to go on an "adventure" walk. Kayla finds all the great puddles and shows Elyana how to jump in them (which makes her giggle every time). Elyana has to take off her mittens and touch every thing she sees. She still doesn't walk very fast yet so these excursions take forever. Also, the terrible two's are in full swing so I'm constantly saying, "No, don't walk towards that street, No, don't touch that, no, no, no!" Then, this is followed by a brief tantrum of sorts and then we can walk another foot before this all repeats. Anyway, after our latest adventure walk, the girls begged me to let them play in our sand box (which is really filled with gravel). Since they were already filthy and due for a bath, I allowed it and they played till their little fingers were red from the cold. Here's some pictures of them.






Lately, Elyana like to dump the plastic Easter eggs out of her basket and wear the basket as a hat. The other day after Mikayla painstakingly built 2 Lincoln log homes, Ely placed the basket on her head again (this time way over her eyes), and blindly plowed right over the Lincoln log homes. Normally, this would have started a fight, but Elyana looked so hilarious walking around like this and bonking into walls, that Kayla and I were just laughing really hard. Here's a picture of Elyana with her new basket/hat.

The Real Meaning of Easter

Today Kayla was talking a lot about Easter coming up. I realized it would be a great time to tell her the REAL reason we celebrate Easter. I got out her Children's story bible and read to her. She kept requesting more and more stories and we read for a good half hour. She wanted to hear about when Jesus died and so we read that also. Her response made my heart swell, "Wow, even when he was dying he prayed..."

Mikayla's preschool has a drive up drop off/pick up. Lately as we drop her off and her teacher opens the van door to get her out, Elyana gets all excited. It's pretty funny. Mikayla's teacher usually makes a comment on whatever book Ely is reading at the time (because Ely doesn't go anywhere in the van without a book in her hand). I can totally see her having her own little book club by the time she's 2! I picture her and her little friends sitting around eating goldfish crackers and talking about what they got out of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear."

I'm attaching a picture of Ely dressing up in Mikayla's fairy wings today. Very cute!