Carsten 16 months - 20 months

A few pics from recent months. We have been busy and not busy at the same time. Nothing much to report on the home front. We are watching our garden grow, attempting to keep in shape, and letting Carsten keep us as busy as possible.

A few trips here and there and a few visitors which has been delightful. We have a busy summer ahead of us and are looking forward to all of our trips. We are excited to see family and friends along the way the next few months!

A few

Triathlon Experience

One our training buddy, Aimee, wrote a small summary of her triathlon experience, so thought I would do the same.  First of all a big Thank You to Andrea King our tri trainer and to all those in our group who pushed and encouraged us throughout the 8 weeks of training.  We had a blast meeting new people and thoroughly enjoyed it all.

The Capital of Texas Triathlon is a qualifying event, so the number of athletes participating was pretty awesome, 361 women, 933 total.  Sunday afternoon we checked in our bikes and picked up our race packets.  Our awesome neighbors let Carsten spend the night so we didn 't have to drag him out of bed at 6am, then watched him on race day.

On race day we arrived downtown around 7am, got all our body markings, then set up our transition area.  We had some time to kill, so we mingled with friends, watched the Olympic distance athletes start their swim and just tried to relax.  Race time for me was 9:25 and for Scott 10am.  My personal goal was to finish in under 2 hours and not walk during the 5K, Scott wanted to finish and not drown during the swim :-)  We both met and exceeded our goals!  Scott swam the entire race, did not backstroke or breaststroke, he swam freestyle the entire time and did not take a break...this was a huge accomplishment, considering during our first week of training he was proclaiming, "I am going to backstroke the whole damn thing!"  I finished in 1:55:45 and did not walk and Scott finished in 2:05.

AND, the kicker....we just recently found out that the course was set incorrectly on the swim AND the run!  We swam an extra 300m and ran an extra .2 of a mile.  In total we swam 1050m, biked 12.1 miles, ran 3.3 miles.  So, needless to say we are both thrilled with our first time triathlon experience.  I can say that I would be happy to do another triathlon and next time I will be getting some skinnier tires (we both did the bike course with our mountain bikes)!  Scott is looking for a more adventure style triathlon.

Also, a BIG THANK YOU to everyone to donated to the YMCA's Strong Kids program!

It was an awesome experience and something that we were able to enjoy together.  We are looking forward to many more Saturday morning bike rides (with Carsten in tow) around Lady Bird Lake and Zilker Park!