best part of my day.

Tis the season to be busy. And happy. The past two weeks have been full of family and friends, laughing, enjoying life and spending time with those I love. The insanity of the holidays has begun in my life. I love the insanity though. The gaggle of family and events and fun, it's definitely my favorite time of year.

Which leads me to the best part of my day. Really of my week. My family is in town, from my sister and brother in law and their sweet baby girl, to cousins and aunts and uncles. It's been an insanely busy few weeks. Fun. But busy, especially at work (silly jarb cutting into my blarrging time). Which is why I've not been blogging, although I have lots to catch up on and lots to share -- part of the busyness includes some home renovations and projects galore.

Not limited to, but including an overhaul of our fireplace (much bigger project than you'd think), some new kitchen additions, lots of home beer brewing (check out Big Arbor Brewing for more on that--it's a work in progress--don't miss the fact that I now have my own signature FWR beer), and just general crafty projects I've been doing to decorate the house. And all the knitting! And teaching my cousins how to knit.

All in all it's been busy and fantastic lately. Time for running and working out have been pushed to the back burner, but I'm okay with that. Although I am running in a Thanksgiving Day run tomorrow morning with my sisters, dad, cousin and Meggers. I'm learning to prioritize, there will be plenty of time for running and workouts once my family leaves. A few weeks laying low on workouts isn't going to kill me. In fact, I think it will revitalize me. For now, spending time with the people I love is far more important to me. And hopefully next week after life calms down I'll be able to share all the home updates and all the upcoming ventures, and return to my regular workouts. More triathlons, and some running races too.

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope it's a fantastic holiday for everyone out there on the interwebs, finding things to be thankful for in your life!

*i'll leave you with hands down the biggest highlight of my week so far, my sweet niece, aves. she doesn't hold still for long, this was the best shot I could get on my phone. i am so in love with this baby girl...*

my first tri.

I finished my first Tri yesterday! I had fun, but I was definitely out of my comfort zone. In true FWR form, I'm just going to get listy with my thoughts/results from the event.

LIST!
-I was nervous about the swim since I hadn't jumped in the pool in quite awhile, for more than two weeks actually. And am in anything but fantastic running and biking shape. But it all worked out just fine.

- I finished in under an hour, which deep down is what I wanted to do. OT = 54:52. The distances were a 500y swim, 6 mile bike, 2 mile run. Here was my breakdown, and yes I'm being totally shameless in posting this:  

(swim) 00:12:50  (T1) 00:03:01  (bike) 00:21:49   (T2) 00:00:03   (run) 00:17:09 

- Transitions and swimming are not my strong suit. Lessons learned for next time. I am slow at the transition, very slow. And I apparently (thanks to pictures you will not be seeing interwebs, no apologies) swim with straight arms shooting up out of the water. How I achieve this is beyond me. I'm like a human windmill, in fact its quite impressive.

- Running is obviously my strong suit so far. And seeing how I'm not particularly fast at running, this fact disheartened me a bit. I had the 4th fastest female run time, yet one of the slowest swims and T1 times and an average bike pace.

- Next time. Even though I didn't fall in love with doing a Tri (in fact I was a pretty lukewarm to the entire experience) I am going to attempt to participate in the entire Tri Cup Series. I'm not sure I'll do every Tri they offer this winter, but my plan so far is to at least do the one in December.

- I did get first in my AG, but seeing how there were all of three people in my AG I'm not sure that just wasn't plain good old fashioned luck on my side.

 *meggers and i showing off our tri pride before the race*

My indifference to the Tri probably has more to do with the fact that I am very slow to warm up to new things (and people and everything really) and that it takes me awhile to get the hang of new stuff. But seeing how I had Meggers along for the ride, and fantastic spectators in her baby Jakey and her husband... well it all helped my attitude toward the entire thing. As did the delicious coffee we went and had afterward.

At the very least I can say it was a new experience, it was fun and interesting. I met so many nice people too. I can't say I'll be a Tri junkie, I'm still pretty indifferent to the whole thing. But maybe I'll warm up to it as I go along. The series ends with an outdoor tri in the spring, which I'm considering doing. Note to self, train for the next one.

In the end, it is a new challenge, which I definitely love, and I can now say I'm an 'indoor' triathlete. I have the certificate to prove it, do I need to whip that sucker out? Because you know I will...

venturing beyond running.

So. I'm doing a triathlon. This Sunday. Uh huh. Right. It's an indoor "Triathlon Cup" at the local YMCA. Actually it's a series, they do one indoor Triathlon per month at all the different Y locations in Wichita. If you do all of them, you end up doing seven Triathlons total. They have a point system and what not, it's all very involved. And it sounds fun.

I figured why not? I am going to give it a shot, it's a new challenge and the bonus is I don't have to own a Tri Bike. Just yet anyway. It's a win-win, and something to do throughout the winter if I want to keep after it and do the entire series.

This is just a sprint triathlon. A 500 yard swim, a 6 mile bike and a 2 mile run. 

I can't say I'm nervous, even though it's my first Tri and I haven't been swimming in two weeks, but I've got the running and biking down. And hopefully I'll simply just not embarrass myself during the swim. I know I can do 500 yards, I'm not worried about that. I'm more worried about all the people being around.

No time goals for this girl, I haven't been working out very much, just sporadic yoga or biking or running here and there. I tried to start a running plan last week, I managed two runs. I've just needed a 'workout' break lately, I've been enjoying my down time. And the ability to focus on other things.

Like lots of projects around the house! And sleep! And reading! And being involved with beer brewing! And graphic design for personal use and said brewing! And cooking! And baking! And painting on canvases again! And friends and family! And learning to knit! Basically indulging my creative side at home again, something I've not done in years. I use my creative side at work a lot, but haven't taken that home in a few years. And I'm loving it.

But I'm ready to do something small in terms of racing. Something I can do with minimal training. So this is perfect. I haven't really trained for it at all, so I can't expect much. I just sort of run, bike and swim whenever, no rhyme or reason to any of my workouts. Which used to make me nuts. Now? Not so much, kinda loving the freedom of it.

The only thing I'm expecting from this is a new and fun experience. And to do my first Tri! 

lets get campy!

A week and a half ago we went on a little fall camping trip with our friends Meggers and Jeremy who just moved back to Wichita this summer. They have a 6 month old baby, Jakey. We took our dog Milo, they took Jakey and we headed to Fall River, Kansas. It's on a nice little lake, with pretty scenery, and it definitely doesn't FEEL like Kansas there.

Since we all have busy schedules and it was Jakey's first camping trip, we only went for one night. But it was so fun, and we packed in all the goodness of getting campy into our short little trip. I love camping as long as it's below 70 degrees, yes those are my nordic roots speaking. I am anything but a fan of the heat. So Edder has to wait patiently to camp until the weather is just right for this girl.

Besides some Bocci Ball, delicious Taco Soup, more than my fair share of S'mores (after dinner AND for brekkie) and infamous "eggs in a bag" for brekkie we didn't do a whole lot. But that's what camping is about. Just hanging out, enjoying being outside and eating. A lot. It was a general consensus that camping makes you very hungry. Clearly. Since I had S'mores for my second breakfast..... right.

SO. Pictures. We didn't get a ton, but here are a few!

*one of the views from our campsite*

*jakey showing his winning k-state pride while chillin' in his camp chair.... uhhhh, yeah. it was all just too much cute! just want to snuggle and kiss him. he was so mesmerized by the fire!*

 

*a lil' bit of  frambois to start our evening off right. please note impressive wood pile in the background*

*CAMPFIRE! i love them. and this is where i made and ate enough s'mores to put an entire scout troop to shame*

*after securing the campsite perimeter (multiple times), hunting wild beasts, staying alert to coyote noises, helping find firewood, chasing after the bocci-balls, sniffing everything, peeing on everything, keeping constant track of five humans whereabouts and doing the hard work of cleaning up the dinner/brekkie/snack remnants... milo crashed out*

*jakey the camo boy. we played a little bit of 'hide the baby' while in his campy camo... oh come on, you know you would too. even though his socks gave him away. and i'm sorry, but how ridiculously cute is THAT baby?! delicious i tell you. i may have had him as my mid-mornie snack!*