Brianne Gaal's Triathlon Archive

Apr 15 - Miss me? :) Marty and I are at the Grand Canyon right now, enjoying a wireless connection before our bus tour (unfortunately, all mule rides were booked!). We had a great time cheering on everyone at Ironman Arizona where the conditions were absolutely brutal. VERY windy and VERY hot. Extremely fit people were reduced to walking, lying down and just plain calling it a day. Great job to everyone out there who was able to handle the elements and get to the finish line. We drove up to the Grand Canyon yesterday with a brief stop in Sedona. We're here all day and then fly out in the early afternoon tomorrow. We don't get in to Raleigh until close to midnight and I know the next few days at work will be extremely busy and tiring. And how is my training? Pretty non-existent as Marty and I huffed and puffed on a short run this morning at 7,000 feet! St. Anthony's what?

Apr 9 - I thought thought this little blurb in the paper this past weekend was ironic. The week is flying by again. I’m starting to feel like I’m getting into pretty good shape, albeit it’s on much lower volume. I don’t know where that puts me for races that are Olympic distance and over but time will tell I suppose! I hope I have enough endurance to finish strong at St. Anthony’s. This weekend we’re heading out to Tempe, Arizona for the Ironman. Even though Marty isn’t racing, we’ll still be cheering on all of his athletes who are, as well as everyone else out there. I’m looking forward to it; I always have a good time at these Ironmans. On Monday we’re driving to the Grand Canyon to spend a couple of days there and we’ll be staying right on the rim. That should be a lot of fun and even though my training, again, may take a dive, it will be worth it. I might not be able to ride my bike, but we’re looking into riding a mule down the trail!

Apr 6 - I ended up getting a pretty good 10 mile run in yesterday afternoon on the beach in and around the Wrightsville area. The baptism went well and little Cate didn't even cry that much when she got that cold water dumped on her forehead. Afterwards we headed to one Tim's sister's houses for a big feast. I NEEDED to get that run in after all that food! Then we went back over there later that night to watch the Final Four with the family. The hospitality of their family is so great and we had a lot of fun with everyone. And a special thanks to UNC for keeping me up WAY later than I wanted to be on Saturday night! This morning Marty raced in a Trysports race in Wilmington. Even though it's geared more towards beginners, there were still some very fast racers out there. I always enjoy watching triathlons and cheering for everyone. Marty did pretty good for not really training much at all over the past several weeks - and I think if I had raced it may have been a pretty close finish. Oh well ;) In other news, I'm tired of typing.

Apr 5 - We drove to Wrightsville Beach last night to meet up with Marty's sister, her husband and dad. Our niece, Cate, is getting baptized this morning and Marty is the Godfather. Tim, our brother-in-law, has a huge family so we are lucky enough to be staying in one his siblings beach houses. More family from both sides are here and we'll all be meeting up at the baptism and then after. I was planning on riding my bike beforehand, and hoping to sneak in at least 2 hours, so I got myself up early (6:45, which I think is early when you're staying at a beach house), and got completely dressed for my ride. Note to self, check weather before planning on any outdoor activities. Just as I was about to head downstairs and out to the car, I thought I heard some rain. Then thunder? How had I not heard that before? I opened the window and sure enough it's pouring out (and the Atlantic had some huge mean waves). Crap. This was definitely the only time I was going to be able to get a bike ride in. So now I need to be flexible and see if I can run instead in the afternoon and then maybe ride the trainer when we get home tomorrow night. Marty is doing a little sprint in Wilmington tomorrow morning but I'm going to sit it out and cheer. Enough blabbing, I actually could get work done as I'm sitting on the floor trying not to wake Marty.

Apr 2 - I bet none of you out there got an email from your husband while at work that said, "Hi honey, I bought a beer fridge today!" Any of you microbrew enthusiasts will want to stop by our house soon. It will be nice to have Marty's beer in a little fridge instead of the vegetable drawer. So the extra daylight we have now is so nice, especially when the weather cooperates. Yesterday Marty and I met Alisha and Anne for part of our run at Umstead, and today after work we had a great bike ride with Brooke, Nicolai and Amie. Now I must go to bed.

Apr 1 - I played a little April Fool's joke on Marty by putting a rubber band around the sink spiggot thingy so when he turned the water on it shot right at him. He thinks I'm hilarious. Here a couple of pictures from the weekend. Your's truly on the bike. Looks like I'm making a dumb face, of course. Here I am getting my award. Yes, it was still pretty cold at the awards ceremony, too. And here is a candid of Marty and Tassie.

Mar 31 - Here's my race report from this weekend for those of you who like to read all the gory details. The weather has been really crappy today so I only got a short lift in at work. I was going to run but didn't feel like running in cold rain, plus my mom is visiting so we went out to dinner which was much nicer. I'll try to get my sorry butt out of bed tomorrow morning and swim (something I failed to do today). Geez I'm boring tonight.

Mar 29 - We're up in Virginia visiting the fam right now. This morning, Shana and I did the Smithfield sprint triathlon. Today was not the ideal day to do a triathlon! When I woke up this morning and looked at the weather, the temperature in Smithfield at 10am (when the race started) was 44 degrees, with a feels like temperature of 37. Awesome. So anyways, the race was pretty good. It was freezing which I expected and it was a bit of a comedy in transition as we're all putting on all these clothes we normally wouldn't in a race like this. My swim was pretty bad; have no idea why - I felt good but just couldn't push it very hard. Luckily it was so short it didn't really matter. I got onto the bike and wow was it windy. I don't know how it's possibly, but I swear we had a headwind the entire way. I felt good and was in first by this point (as far as I could tell anyways, since it's a time trial start). Then onto the run where my feet were numb for the first mile. I finally felt comfortable the last mile and turned in a split of 18:48 which was faster than that stupid 5k a couple of weeks ago! I love these short sprints :) Shana did great and finished 7th overall and first in her age group. We did some shopping later and then had dinner at Outback which was great because I got to drink some Boag's and Toohey's New - some yummy Aussie beer :)

Mar 26 - Way to go John! Not dead last at all, and not bad for being the old fart of the meet :) Funny thing, Marty and I were killing our brain cells watching 'Epic Movie' on HBO while he swam his race. This is one of those horrible spoof movies, and the main story revolves around the movie "The Chronicles of Narnia." Marty and I bought the bootleg version of "The Chronicles of Narnia" before it came out in the theatre from some street market in the Philippines, and we watched it with John and Bron when we were in Australia. None of us really liked it, come to think of it. Anywho! This weekend I'll be competing in my first triathlon of the season in Virginia. This is a fast and furious sprint starting with a 300 yard pool swim. The weather had been looking good (70's) until I checked today and it was totally different - high of 58 and showers! Argh. The race doesn't start until 10am, but with the high only being 58, I will have to develop a good gear plan. I know in a short race transitions are important, but its the first race of the season and I don't want to be miserable :) I glanced at the entry list and have never raced against anyone so I have no idea how I'll stack up. I am looking forward to getting rid of the rust!

Mar 23 - The swim crazy Aussie's are having their Olympic Trials this week and you can bet that it's on prime time television. Our good friend John Bates has qualified for the SIXTH time!! John and his wife Bronwyn let us stay with them our first two weeks in Australia before they found us an apartment and booted us out :) They are heavily featured in our trippin '06 blogs, and came to visit us this past October. John is also an entrepreneur and is CEO of My Photo Inventory. John first qualified for the Aussie Olympic Trials in 1988, and has been back every 4 years - now that is quite an accomplishment! He's swimming the 50 meter free on Thursday (I think). This site looks like it'll be posting live results. His main goal is to not come "dead last" and we'll be cheering for him across world. Go Batesy!

Mar 20 - I had to switch a couple of my workouts around this week because of the weather, so I ended up running at lunchtime at work yesterday afternoon. It's nice to have a shower at work when I have the opportunity to take a longer lunch break. My next workout was tonight, another run, but this time with some hard efforts. Timing can be everything when scheduling, and because I ran at lunch yesterday and didn't do anything again until this evening, I essentially had a day off. My legs were definitely happy with my decision! My workout this evening was a simulated track workout. See, I don't like to do any of my workouts on an actual track anymore. I think it's because I've done SO many track workouts in my life. You tell me to hit a pace and I can hit it spot on. No problem. The thing is, I don't run track races anymore. And I was finding that even though I was having some great track workouts, they weren't translating to the road. So I started doing all of my workouts as fartleks - and usually on the rolling hills of the Umstead bridle trail. This way I go by effort and can't be worried about the pace, much like in a race. In a lot of my races, I won't use a watch at all. The feedback it can provide - positive or negative - is not something I want to worry about. I just want to race! Go hard! Keep it simple. It may be easier for me than it is for others because I've never been a slave to the numbers. I haven't even had a computer on my bike for almost 2 years now. I do think the numbers can be important, but there are also a lot of times when it's best to ignore them and just go.

Mar 18 - Talk about putting things into perspective - One of my blogging friends was in a not so serious bike crash that ended in some pretty serious injuries (broken sacrum, fractured pelvis, ribs fractured). She was on the fast track for some great racing and had been training hard core for awhile. It's a pretty big bummer, and it makes me even more mad that I've been so whiney lately about my training and racing! No more! I'm going to have fun and be satisfied with whatever the outcome - and be glad that I'm out there. I know Marit wants to be out there and it's not fair for something like that to happen - so I'm done complaining. Not much else to report - except for some more bad mothering skills I had last week with Tassie (you can read her update for her version), here's mine: Tassie sleeps in her crate downstairs, but we never lock her in, we just shut the door. She has never come out, even when the door swings wide open if she accidentally bumps it. So one night last week she would not come in the house after I let her out at night. She just kept staring at me from the deck with a toy in her mouth. Later on in the middle of the night she was all of the sudden in our bedroom! And she was all wiggly and excited...I was not. I was very annoyed and even though she ran right to the back door, I made her go back in her crate and I locked her in! Remember now, she was VERY excited and I thought she wanted to play, and she loves to play outside. So the next morning when we come down to let her out, wouldn't you know it she had some diarrhea. She was good though and did that in one corner and then slept in the other so she didn't mess herself up. I felt so bad as you can imagine! She had done exactly what she should've and was such a good girl and what do I do? I lock her in! Bad mom! Still not even close to being ready for kids apparently!

Mar 16 - It's a new day and it's time for me to gain some perspective! I don't want to be that athlete who is constantly disappointed with my results. My chip time yesterday was 18:58 and this not a bad time. Yes, it's off what I'm capable of when I'm training more, but it's certainly not sucky or anything :) I'm still happy I'm out there and able to compete and I should never take that for granted. Staying positive mentally is still a huge component to anyone's training and I apparently need to work more on that at this point in time. This morning Marty and I rode with Alysia and her friend Leigh, and then we did a short t-run off the bike. It was a nice ride in nice weather and we had a nice time ;) Last night we went up to my co-workers house for a get together because Friday was actually her last day - she is due to give birth in 3 weeks and is going on permanent maternity leave. I'm really going to miss her, especially when I go in there Monday and don't see her in the office across from me. It was nice to make a good friend so fast at someplace that I haven't even been at too long - so I'm not thinking that we won't still be good friends which makes me feel not too sad.

Mar 15 - 5K this morning - never felt comfortable, 19 flat, kind of disappointed, new course from last year that I didn't like (probably because I didn't feel good), blah. Off to a party.

Mar 12 - Today when I got home from work, Marty and I dug out our mountain bikes and hit the greenways near our house. Yay to daylight savings time and spring time weather! I am still so amazed sometimes at how lucky we are with where we live now. The greenway picks up maybe 1 mile away from our house and heads right into Umstead State Park, following a small stream the entire way. It's almost totally covered in trees and is such a different environment than what we had near our place in Orlando. The afternoons are really warming up here which is very nice, although I'm sure we will still have our handful of cold days. It is still pretty chilly in the morning, but when the high gets close to 70, you really can't complain. This weekend Marty and I are running in the Run for the Oaks 5k. Last year I ran quite fast for myself, but was in much better shape! This year is much different for me with the amount of time I have available to train and it's obviously hard to not be disappointed with performances even though I KNOW I logically shouldn't be. I think a lot of us get used to a certain expectation we have for ourselves. It's been a constant struggle for me the past few months, but I'm trying to come to terms with it and be satisfied with whatever I can do. I know that I will do my best, and my best could be much different than other performances - learning to be happy with whatever result is a work in progress. But I'll get there.

Mar 9 - Huh, I know I updated this week, but it looks in fixing the broken link to get to my links page (haha) some of my entries got lost. Too bad, I'm sure they were absolutely riveting. So this weekend was nice, and its now Sunday night which is always a bit sad since that means another week of work is upon us. Yesterday Marty and I swam then went to see the movie Juno, which was really good. We both enjoyed it even though I know Marty wasn't looking forward to it as much as I was - I think he was pleasantly surprised. Today we did a broken brick which was pretty tough (especially since it felt like 30 degrees when we started) but we both finished up right and smiling (that it was over). Marty is at Best Buy right now picking up a new controller for the PS2 our brother-in-law gave him. I'm not planning on seeing my husband for at least week now.

Mar 7 - Yesterday was so nice that I decided to blow off my easy trainer ride and Marty and I took Tassie to the local park near our house. We were able to find an area that had a large grassy field sectioned off that went right up to the lake. Tassie was beyond excited to run around like a crazy Tasmanian devil but we were not anticipating her charging into the lake to chase the geese! She could run out pretty far (up to her belly) since it is shallow for quite aways. When she was in the water, an interesting phenomenon happened – she forgot her name. We finally got her out of the water and walked a little further with her off the leash, but her excitement was too great so we had to leash her back up. Then she started doing spins. There were a lot of people at the park, with their kids and dogs, but we were the only ones with a dog on a leash who kept spinning.

Mar 1 - About a year ago, I started a contract job at a company in the area. It was not a good environment and employee morale was low. The job was not interesting to me and a guy I had to deal with a lot (although I never actually met him) named Joseph Joseph was not a nice man. After a few months there I started looking for other jobs and soon I had a couple of interviews with a company here in Cary, R.H. Donnelly. I had heard good things about this company from some friends who had lived in the area for awhile, the person who would be my boss seemed pretty great, benefits were real nice, and it was literally about a 5 min drive from our house. I had one phone interview and then an in person interview - of which I thought went pretty well. I figured I must have been pretty close to getting the job because the last person I met with went through all their benefits and things of that nature. But I didn't get it and I was pretty upset. Rejection can be hard, especially when it deals with something you really want and thought you had done a good job to get. In the end I got that contracting job at Glaxo then got the full time job offer at RTI which I plan on staying at for quite awhile. But back to R.H. Donnelly. A few months after my letdown, I started to hear that they weren't doing as good as they had thought they would with projected earnings. Back in the summer their stock was trading around $80. This week it went down to $6! I guess there is truth to the saying that everything happens for a reason. I'm glad to be at a much more stable company.

Feb 26 - I flew back into RDU early Monday morning and went right into work which consisted of meeting after meeting and trying to get through the seemingly endless emails I had aquired. I didn't get home until well after 7:00. I'm at an offsite training class today and tomorrow which is actually interesting and very helpful with my job, but it means that I'm essentially not at work for another 2 days. I'm so far behind and I finally had to admit that the girls weekend in SC was not going to happen for me. Saying I'm sad is a bit of an understatement, but the reality is I have a lot of work to do this weekend and I can't ignore it.

Feb 24 - The lack of updates have been due to the lack of internet and the lack of computer time! We finished up our camp this afternoon in Clearwater and we had a great time. We had such a fun group of people and I'm always a little sad when the camps end and everyone goes back their separate ways. Last night turned into quite a party after some lectures and dinner. We got in some great training, a 10K road race and open water swims and running. The weather was pretty good - so hot already down here! The 10K we did yesterday was soooo humid. It was ridiculous. We had all ridden very long the day before on the Suncoast Parkway and had a massive tailwind going out which of course means a massive headwind coming back in. Great practice for the handful of people who will be doing IM Arizona in April. Needless to say, no one ran the 10K very fresh but everyone survived. I even pulled out a 5th place finish and won some $$ which is always nice! The time was certainly nothing to write home about :) Anyways, now I'm at my mom's trying to catch up on everything. I fly out early tomorrow and will head right into work where I have a lot of stuff to do. It will be another busy week!

Feb 19 - Here's a picture of Marty and I finishing the duathlon together. He was in the middle of putting his arm around me at the line even though it looks like he's trying to grab my butt. I feel very lucky to be able to do this sport with him - and when we get days like these when we actually get to race together, I'm over the moon :)

So we have a website tracker and you can see what keywords get put into a search engine that are then directed to our site. Marty’s name gets searched everyday and mine occasionally (usually after a race). But seriously – who did it? Who searched Brianna Gaal? Where did you find my name spelled with an ‘A’ at the end? That is not my name! I get that all the time and it drives me insane. It’s Brianne with an E. Even at work when my name is clearly spelled out in my email, I’ll get a response from someone, “Hi Brianna” How does this happen? And why when I’m introduced as Brianne, 50% of the people will then call me Brianna? I just don’t get it.

Someone also searched ‘Brianne Gall’ which makes me laugh. My sister-in-law told me before I married Marty how I would now always have to spell my new last name. “G-A (pause) A-L. No, 2 A’s, 1 L.” She wasn’t kidding, that is exactly what happens almost everytime I spell my last name. It also reminds me of the time when Marty and I had one of our MBA classes together. We weren’t married so my last name was still Harrington. We got into groups for yet another group project (if you ever get your MBA, you will have an infinite number of group projects). We all wrote our email addresses down and one of the guys said he would just send one email out and copy everyone so we would have everyone’s ready as a distribution list. The next day or so I got the email but when I asked Marty, he said he never got it. When we went to the next class Marty asked if he had been included on the email and the guy replied, “yeah, but I had to correct your email address because I thought you had spelled your last name wrong. So I changed it to martgall@whatever.com." We were both like, what?! He thought Marty had misspelled his own last name? And yes, that dude did get his MBA. Wow, I sure am chatty tonight! Probably because I've been all alone here for the past two days. Only 24 more hours before I leave on a jet plane to head down to Florida.

Feb 18 - We're running a triathlon camp in Clearwater, Florida this week and I'm very excited to get down there. It starts on Wednesday but I'm not flying in until Wednesday night because I couldn't miss too much work. The weather looks like it's going to be awesome and it will be great to get in some solid training and open water swimming. We have I think 16 or so people signed up and it's looking like a fun group. This training will hopefully help me because the following weekend I'm going to South Carolina to meet up with some other triathletes for a mini-training camp. These girls are seriously fast and it will be tough keeping up - but it sounds like we are going to have a really great time together. I have actually not met any of them even though I have raced against a few of them - I only know them through the internet. I'm also missing the first day of that camp because of work. Work sure is getting in the way of my hobbies ;) But these girls are such studs that they have named this long weekend Camp HTFU (harden the 'freak' up!). I'm looking forward to meeting everyone and having a good time.

Feb 17 - We had a great time at Tyler's Tap Room last night with a bunch of our tri friends. Marty is the team's social coordinator so he organized the get together and I think everyone had a lot of fun. This afternoon I went for a 2.5 hr ride with Alysia - we hit some hills and both complained about how much our legs hurt from the duathlon yesterday. Now I'm hoping to get some laundry folded. Our house is an absolute mess because Marty and I are both so busy. I'm the one now trying to juggle work, training, and coaching a few people. I have no idea how you people with kids do it all!

Feb 16 - We're driving back from the duathlon right now. It was a fun, hurting time :) I felt surprisingly good on the first run and came in around 18:40 or something. I didn't think I'd be able to run that fast, but running always comes back to me quickly. The bike on the otherhand was pretty pitiful! I had no power and even though my brake was rubbing a bit, I don't think it would've made much of a difference. Time to start doing some workouts. I also realized on the bike that I haven't done a brick yet - this should be fun! My teammate JoAnna powered by me pretty early on like I was going backwards - she is so strong already! Marty almost caught me towards the end of the bike, and I waited just a few seconds in transition so we could do the final run together. I thought it would be much more enjoyable to run with him than gap him by 50 yards or whatever and run by myself. So we chatted a bit and tempoed the last 2 miles. We crossed the line together finishing with the exact same time to the tenth of a second - retaining our competitive couple cuteness ;)

Feb 13 - This Saturday Marty and I are doing a duathlon (along with several of our teammates). It's a 5K run, 14 mile bike, 2 mile run and it's guaranteed to HURT! I have not done a bike workout since last October, and I'm totally not exaggerating here. I'm looking forward to the pain, though, and it will force me to get out of my comfort zone for the first time all year. Better late than never, hah! The duathlon is in Winston-Salem, which is where Wake Forest University is (about a 2 hr drive from here). Luckily, the race is at 11am, so we don't have to get up super early. Just a little history lesson for you free of charge (you're welcome). Wake Forest University used to be in the city of Wake Forest, which is just north of Raleigh, but somewhere along the line big tobacco paid them a bunch of money to move to Winston-Salem. So now everyone gets confused about the city and university. But you won't. Have a good night.

Feb 10 - I'm feeling good! I must've had some sort of weird 48 hour flu bug - it knocked me out flat but it was over fast, thankfully. I started feeling better Friday night, just in time for the weekend. I swam very easy and slow at the Y on Saturday morning and was happy to run into a girl I swam with a few times last year. I had stalked her a bit seeing that she was a better swimmer than I was. I introduced myself one day and invited myself to swim with her. She was so nice and was training for her first half iron-distance (White Lake). We saw her and her husband at White Lake, but then I never saw her again. Everytime I went to the pool I would wonder if Kate would be there, but she never was. Now I know why - she is due to give birth in about a month and said her first trimester was pretty bad. She looked great and was still swimming quite fast (albeit in a brightly colored maternity suit!). I know so many people who are pregnant right now (but not me!).

In the afternoon I met up with some of my teammates to pick up trash around a popular road we ride on. Our team has adopted this stretch of highway and we even have a sign that says so. The trash picking up was actually fun and it made me feel like I was doing something worthwhile for the environment and others, not just myself. The sport of triathlon tends to be a bit self-indulgent and it was nice to give back. We did get mooned and a couple of the guys found some nudie magazines (and $21!) and one of our friends who happened to ride by and didn't realize it was us told me later he thought we were some prison work crew (!) It was still a fun time with the team and we were all happy we had such nice weather to do it in.

Feb 8 - I may have made some teenager's Friday night. I went to Kroger a little while ago because I really really wanted to bake something. I haven't been eating much the past two days because nothing has been very appetizing and I haven't been hungry. So I thought I may as well go with whatever my body was craving so I could get some caloric intake (of course I crave baked goods, not fruits or vegetables). So off I go, because today I can drive myself - which is not something I could say yesterday! And while I'm there I go down the beer aisle so I can pick out my Marty some tasty brew. I decide on an IPA I know he likes and proceed to checkout without getting carded (hrmph, I hate not getting carded). I wheel out of the store and put my re-usable grocery bags in the car, and then put my cart away in the cart bin. It isn't until I get home and begin to announce to Marty the beer I bought him when I realize I left the 6-pack in the cart. Doh! We head back over to Kroger but alas the 6-pack is not there. Woops. Hopefully, someone from the store saw it and brought it back inside before some young kids found it. I wouldn't want to be the one to ruin their beer taste at that young of an age. I mean, you have to start out with 'The Beast' and Natty Light before you can move up to an IPA, right? ;) I DID manage to ride my bike on the trainer this afternoon. Never you mind the stinkin' thing was telling me I was going 15 mph. And also never you mind that I had to lay down for half an hour after. Never you mind! What are you doing here anyways? Never you mind! Hee hee.

Feb 7 - This is so not fair. I'm sick - again. I was just sick like a month ago!! I've never gotten this sick so many times before; even when we were traveling the only time I got sick was leaving the Philippines, but that probably had more to do with some bad water than anything else. So I'm at home right now - luckily I have a work laptop so I can get onto the network and get things done. No training today as I can barely shuffle from the couch to the dining room table. Last night I had aches and pains ALL over my body and must've woken up about 20 times. So yesterday when I saw my boss at the end of the day (and she told me I didn't look that good), she mentioned that she thought there was mold in the building I sit in. Wait - WHAT? I'm allergic to everything - get me out of that building! The day did start off good, though, with Masters practice. At the end we were alternating fast/easy 100's and one of my lanemates had me go first because he wanted to try and catch me. Nothing like someone chasing you hard to get your butt moving, and I swam a 1:08 on the last one which is super-fast for me. He did catch me, timewise, but not enough to actually slap my feet or anything. The rest of the day spiraled downhill after that.

Feb 4 - We’re having absolutely gorgeous weather right now. Yesterday I met up with a teammate and some other guys for a 50 mile ride. This was by far my longest ride in many months, and even though we didn’t go too fast or anything, I was able to get moving in the few spots that we did pick it up. It was definitely a bit of a confidence booster – maybe I’m not in as bad a shape as I thought. It was in the 60’s and sunny – perfect riding weather. Today it’s sunny and warm and tomorrow they’re calling for record highs in the 70’s! This is what I’m thankful for living in NC – although we get some pretty cold days (relative to my Florida blood), we get these nice reprieves. And yes, it does get pretty stinking hot here in the summer, but just for a short time. That same stinking hot drags on for months in Florida. And I like that we have four seasons now – leaves changing, maybe a day or two of snow, and then spring time filled with yellow pollen (boo). Anyways, I’m definitely going to make my best effort to leave work at a decent time tomorrow so I can get a nice run in at Umstead and enjoy the warmth before our next cold front comes through.

Feb 2 - Rookie trail runner mistake #1: Bad shoes. Although I really love these running shoes (not the color - that I could do without), check out the bottoms - could I have worn a slicker sole?! No wonder I was sliding all over the place this morning. These shoes belong on the road, or at the worst, a nice easy trail. Not at a tough, wet, rocky trail. Duh.

Feb 2 - This morning Marty and I were up at 4:00am so we could meet Rob, Cid and Douglas to carpool down to Uwharrie National Forest (yes, I was also in the car, even though Marty failed to mention that in his update...). We had a nice time heading down to the race and without making any wrong turns got there very early. Marty, Rob and Cid all did the 20mile and Douglas and I opted for the 8mile. Based on my experience from The Little River run, I knew I was not a very good trail runner, so started off easy and was viewing it as a long run in a different place. You immediately climb a big rocky hill and everyone ahead of me was walking which was super annoying! I guess I started too far back. I found Joanna from the tri team and ran behind her until the first aid station (just over 4miles). I even snuck in a quick pee break and didn't waste too much time (I really had to go!). I was quite content to run behind Joanna who was setting a nice comfy pace, but decided to go ahead and run a bit harder the last part. Everyone thought that the aid station was at mile 5 - and realizing it wasn't after running hard for awhile was a bit disconcerting but I felt good so no worries. Let me tell you this: I SUCK at the downhills! They were slippery, rocky, rooty and to make matters worse, completely covered in leaves. I would scurry up the up hills and then tip toe down the downhills like a little sissy. Ah well, had a lot of fun leapfrogging back and forth with several people because of it. Lots of records were broken today because the weather was nice, but I still thought the trail was a tough one. I ended up finishing as the 4th girl (total surprise to me!). Marty and the boys did great in the 20mile, too.

Jan 29 - Today is my niece's 3rd birthday, and yesterday was my friend Bronwyn's birthday (wish I had gotten to celebrate with her in our old town Collaroy, New South Wales!) This morning I got up way early so I could get an hour on the trainer. Although Marty said he might get up with me, he promptly rolled back over and went back to sleep when my alarm went off. Then I went downstairs, fed Tassie, let her outside and hopped on the bike. Tassie looked at me and then SHE went back into her crate and fell back asleep, too. Where's the love?? So I watched one of my DVR'd 'What Not to Wear' episodes and pedaled away.

Jan 27 - Marty has been gone since Wednesday but he comes back tonight (yay!). He went down to hammer out some logistical details for the triathlon camp we're putting on in Clearwater in a month. I'm very excited about the camp and all the people who are coming to it. It will be a lot of fun and we'll get some great training in.

I've been keeping myself busy, though, so the time has gone by pretty fast. Yesterday morning I got up and swam the 3000 yard workout I had given to the Master's squad on Friday. It was a good one and I felt like I had a pretty good workout. A little while later, Alisha met me for a bike ride. We stuck around Cary and road up and down a pretty hilly section a few times for some strength work. My bike fitness is not that good right now and I knew I needed to get some time in the saddle on the hills. The time flew as she talked my ear off, which is great :) Later that night we went over to Melissa & Dave's for a belated birthday party for Melissa. On my way home Marty called me surrounded by a bunch of our friends at a bar in Orlando. He passed the phone around and I got to say hi to everyone. I really do miss all of them. As much as we like it up here in NC for literally everything, the one thing that is missing is the great group we had down there. Then this morning I went to Umstead to enjoy the Turkey Creek loop. This hilly course is great, and although I had to really work the tempo part of my workout and felt like I was running through quick sand, I managed to turn in a pretty decent time. Now I'm going to clean up and get some quality time in with Tassie. Even though she is Princess Tassie from Tasmania, she is resembling a sheep from New Zealand right now. Thankfully we have a grooming appointment set up for her on Tuesday. And by the way - Happy Belated Australia Day!

Jan 24 - I really enjoy going to Master's swimming in the morning. My lane mates definitely keep me honest - on Wednesday I was unsure about the interval for some 400's and they basically told me to shut up and of course I could do it (they said it nicer than that, but that was the gist). My times are pretty good for this time of the season (for myself). But I'm basically able to swim intervals that I was only able to swim last year when I had gotten into good swim shape. I've found that at almost every Master's practice I've been to (here and in Australia) the lanes are typically the same, and I'm always in the same one. You've got the ex-collegiate swimmers who are still pretty serious in the fast lane. Next you have ex-collegiate swimmers who haven't swum in a long time, or ex-high school swimmers. The ex-high school swimmers sometimes start off in the next lane, but they quickly get up to speed to move into their real lane. The next lane is my lane. It is the lane of people who know how to swim pretty good, but are just never as fast as the ex-collegiate or ex-high school swimmer. We're faster than most triathletes who have never swum before but not 'real-swimmer' fast. This lane is comprised of people like me who swam on summer league as a kid but then never again. Or the lucky people who started swimming as an adult and picked it up pretty easily. And the next lanes go on down from there. People can float in and out lanes, and sometimes there are more than one of these lanes, but this is the basic set-up. The lane above me will move into my lane when they want an easy day and vice versa.

I'm pretty good at seeding myself when it comes to Master's because I figured this scheme out early on. The good thing with my current lane is that we've all gotten a bit faster since starting so our send-off has gone down. It makes such a difference swimming with other people! Tomorrow, though, I'm the coach since Marty is down in Florida, so I'll be swimming by myself over the weekend. I don't mind though - I enjoy coaching, too.

Jan 22 - I was updating my site in Virginia and our friends got a nice laugh at our expense when they saw what we use for our website. See, I don’t know much about this stuff, but I’m clever enough to copy and paste and figure out some code so I can sit here and make updates, link to websites, and put up pictures. Marty started this website back in the 90’s using ftp. I think this type of html server (or is it program? I told you I don’t really know this stuff) was popular before he started using it, so it is pretty much ancient now. It’s not a simple, write an update and press a button. You have to make sure you have the correct code around the update (lots of brackets, random letters, and specific spacing). The entire site is very old school looking, which we kind of like, but really it would just be too much work to try and get everything out of this and move it to more of a blog type site. Like I said this weekend, Marty’s website was a blog before the word blog was even invented! Who else do you know was making updates before Y2K? Not me, but Marty was! One thing I wish I had was the ability for people to make comments, like I see on other people’s blogs. I feel like my page does not have any friends :) The other thing is we can’t be an RSS feed, or link to RSS feeds or whatever that is (again, not really on top of this stuff…). But someone said this weekend that they don’t even read sites unless it has an RSS feed and they know it has been updated. Hopefully, not everyone feels like that, or our site could slowly drop off the blog readers view.

Jan 21 - It was very neat to be driving back into town and see SNOW still on the ground! I don't think I will ever not get excited about getting snow since that just wasn't part of my life growing up. When we got home we both had several things to take care, not to mention unpacking and doing laundry (which is still on the to-do list). Marty mentioned he didn't feel like running early on, but around 4:30 I decided I still wanted to so I went upstairs and pleaded with him to go with me. After 7.5 years, he does almost everything I ask so after moaning and groaning a bit he got dressed :) It is pretty cold up here but it was still a nice run. About 10 minutes into it we heard a very fast moving dog coming up behind us. We both turned around - I was definitely scared seeing this large animal sprinting full force at us - but all Marty did was raise his finger with a stern look on his face and the dog literally stopped in his tracks, turned around and ran back the other way! Marty's superhero name could be Mr. Stops Dogs in His Tracks (anyone watch Whose Line Is It Anyways?) The power could really come in handy on the bike when we're on the back country roads...

Jan 20 - It's Sunday night and we're still up in Wintergreen, Virginia. We had such a great time up here with our friends - Aaron and fiancee Casey, Alisha and husband Joe, and Dave - without wife Melissa :( Marty has turned into a really great skier (family members will remember his tantrum at Whistler several years ago - he's nothing like that now). He spent most of his time over on the black diamonds. Yesterday wasn't too cold but today it was frigid! It was great skiing, though - nice groomed slopes and not much ice. Alisha snowboarded and I skied, and we spent most of the time together as we both are decent but have no desire to go too fast and do anything too stupid. So we made good partners and everyone else got to tackle the more difficult stuff. It was also nice because we haven't been able to hang out as much as we use to since we both have full-time pretty demanding jobs now. Anyways, everyone left this afternoon except for Marty, Dave and I, and the three of us went back over to do some tubing which was SUPER FUN! I felt like a 10 year old and am so glad we bought tickets. So it was a great ski weekend shared with great people.

Jan 17 - On my way home from work this evening, I decided to stop by the grocery store to get some essentials for our ski weekend (and Tassie needed more food). I figured I would be an awesome wife and also picked up one of Marty's favorite six-pack's of beer and some Purple Haze for me (my favorite beer). I said I was getting essentials, right? :) Well, never underestimate Marty in planning for a weekend - I walked in the door and he had already gotten two 12 packs! He hadn't picked up anything else, so I guess he figures bringing beer would get us through a-okay.

Jan 15 - Marty and I cheered the Giants onto victory this past weekend at our friend Alysia's house. Neither one of us are big fans or anything, but her and her husband are so we figured we'd get into the spirit. We're not going to be paying much attention to the games this weekend because we're going skiing! We're going to check out Wintergreen in Virginia with some of our friends. We went to Snowshoe last year (in West Virginia) and had a lot of fun. I'm very excited about this mini vacation, especially since work has been so busy lately.

Jan 12 - We ran in the Little River Trail run this morning in north Durham. Marty ran the 9 mile and I ran the 3.5 mile. It was 95% all single track trails which was fun and different than doing the same old thing on the road. I'm probably a bit over cautious on the downhills or the slippery parts or the parts where there are a lot of rocks or roots (okay, I'm cautious about single track trails!). I don't see the sense in falling or twisting an ankle when I can try to be more careful. I was the 2nd female and got a very useful pencil head lamp as my award. I mentioned to Marty that I get second an awful lot - whether it's in triathlons or in running races. He said it's because I'm talented but not as dedicated as the people who usually win races. Unfortunately, I guess he's right. I know I'm fairly dedicated to triathlons and running and all that, but not like the go-to person who you can pretty much bet on that they will win. And I'm actually okay with this :) The sports are a lot of fun and I get quite a bit of enjoyment out of training and competing. Anyways, we got in a swim after the race (after gulping down some Bojangles) and now we're trying to figure out what to do with our Saturday night.

Jan 10 - It's been another busy week but I have been getting in more consistent training which is good. I've been making friends with my bike trainer and I'm really addicted to Ninja Warrior on G4. I really love Makato Nagano and Bunpei Shiratori. They are amazing! And this week they've been doing the women of Ninja Warrior - and I totally wish I could try it :) Although, the women's courses are mostly about balance, and I don't really know how good my balance is. The guys obstacles are typically arm strength, and the things they are able to do are unbelievable.

Jan 7 - Tonight I met a group from the Godiva Track Club for 6+ mile run that starts right near my work. I didn't know anybody, which is a bit tough for me since I quickly revert to an introvert in groups like these, but I went out there anyways and everyone was very nice. Great little group to run with and I will definitely be back. It sure beats running by myself on the treadmill! I ran in shorts and t-shirt tonight - this weather is so weird.

Jan 6 - Nice weekend up here. It got very cold this past week but now we're back to above average temps and it should be a nice week. I didn't really notice the cold to be honest since I'm inside all day anyways. Yesterday I rode with Marty for part of his long ride. I ended up riding for almost 2.5 hours which is the longest I've done in a very long time and I could really feel it the last few miles as I limped home. Then I did a longish run this morning which was very slow. I know I have to keep chugging through this time to get back to where I'm feeling in shape again, but boy does it stink at the moment. I'm pretty much over the cold or whatever I had; still have some residiual crud every morning, but that's about it. Wow, my updates are boring.

Dec 31 - Well, I’m finally feeling slightly better. The weekend was pretty rough for me and being sick sure does make you appreciate one’s health! This very impromptu break has helped increase my motivation and I’m ready to really get back on a good schedule. Although I will continue to take it easy throughout the rest of the week because there’s no sense rushing back into things after being down and out for awhile. One of Marty’s friends from the Jersey Shore is coming down to ring in the New Year with us, but I may be bailing early depending on how I feel. I hope everyone has a safe and happy new year!

Dec 29 - This cold or whatever I have is really kicking my butt. I've been feeling downright miserable for 4 days now - dizzy, weak, nauseous, VERY tired, sore throat - everything you get with the common cold that antibiotics won't cure. Last night I slept for about 11 hours, although it was certainly not straight through. There were a number of intermissions that included a stumble to the bathroom for more medicine complete with whimpering and moaning thrown in. Marty slept in the spare bedroom. I do feel slightly better today but still plan on taking it very easy all day. UCf plays at 3:30 this afternoon in the Liberty Bowl so that will be a good distraction. Since I've barely been able to move the past few days, I've obviously not been able to workout. We took Tassie for a walk last night and it just about knocked me right out. Yeesh.

Dec 26 - Merry belated Christmas! We just got back to Cary from my sister's house in Virginia - and I seem to have caught some sort of sickness somewhere along the way. I hope it goes away quick because being sick sucks. Anyways, the past few days were pretty fun. I went to see Enchanted with my mom and niece on the 24th, and I didn't get scared and walk out of this movie :) Then on Christmas we watched the two kids open up what seemed liked hundreds of presents (and of course we played with most of their toys after). Well, Marty was glued to the X-box most of the time, but he did take time out to give me an awesome gift that he spent A LOT of time on. He went and made my trippin06 blog from last year into a book! Complete with pictures that matched up to most of the entries. It's here on Cafe Press if anyone wants it, haha ;) I think we'll work towards adding all of his updates and make one big book in the near future. It was a very thoughtful gift and I really love it. My gift to him wasn't nearly as thoughtful - just a portable GPS unit for the car since we get lost everywhere we go. Our cigarrette lighter doesn't work in the car, though, so it's a bit useless at the moment. Back to work tomorrow for me :(

Dec 23 - Last night Marty and I went to see I Am Legend. I made it through 1 hour before I had to leave. I can't handle some movies anymore - I was too scared and wasn't enjoying myself and had to get out of there! There was one other movie several years ago that I also couldn't handle where I had to leave early and wait for Marty - a Bruce Willis flick called Tears of the Sun. I will stick to comedies and dramas - too much killing and I'm out. Maybe I'm wimpy, but I like to think of myself as very empathetic and sensitive :)

Dec 21 - It's important to have goals – and it's not always going to be easy to achieve them. I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression about my previous post. I love running, biking and swimming. That doesn't mean that every workout is a party. But I know if I want to achieve something, you take the good with the not so good. Of course I don’t HAVE to do anything. I WANT to do it – but isn’t this website more fun if you hear us complain a bit? :) Like they say, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. It's not, but I know the rewards are more than worth it. And I don’t mean prizes, I mean how it makes me feel physically and mentally. Anyways, I digress.

Work is going good – it’s very busy and every question I have leads to 10 more additional questions. The center’s I’m in charge of have not had a financial analyst working closely with them for quite awhile which has led to little or no forecasts, bad forecasts and just plain overspending. The list I got today of projects I need to dive into and get control of is L-O-N-G. Saying its overwhelming is not even the tip of the iceberg. I think of the term ‘sink or swim’…and right now I'm barely treading water. I'm glad I like the people I work with, at least!

Marty finally put up an “About Marty” page. Everything you ever wanted (or didn’t want) to know about the one and only, Mad Marty Gaal is now at your finger tips. Those that have been around for a long time will remember that Mad Marty Gaal Exists in Cyberspace! was the original title of the website.

Dec 18 - Wow, you people are motivated. I’m talking about those of you who’s blogs I read – it’s something I’m thinking I need to cut down on because after I read other people’s blogs, I feel like a complete wimp and that I’m not doing enough training to compete with everyone when it comes time for the season. And I hate that. I don’t think its healthy to compare myself to other’s and then base my self-worth (consciously or sub-consciously) off of what others are doing. And of course, logically I know this, and I’m the one feeling this – you all cannot make me feel anyway – that’s all up to me and my head.

I think about these types of things often – see I love to compete. I’m a very competitive person. However, I am just not motivated to workout 15+ hours a week. 10 hours seems quite a lot when you have a job and seek a life outside of triathlon. So I often wonder why I even worry about it and that’s when I think, wow, I really need to stop reading other people’s blogs. Then I think, no, I like reading them, I just need to handle my perspective better. I don’t want to be a professional triathlete. I want to do well and I want to be happy with the result. But how can I be totally happy with my result when I know I’m not training to my full potential – but therein lies the rub. I don’t want to train more :) I enjoy training, and I enjoy working hard, but I just can’t be all into it all the time. So I read people doing 3 hour rides on the weekday, swim and run tests, and can’t even fathom trying to do that now in December. Or January, or February…but I’ve signed up for races that I want do well at so I have this inner turmoil that I need to be more focused or those races will be here before I know it and I won’t be ready. I know I’m the only one putting pressure on myself and then I have to laugh and realize how silly I’m being! It’s ridiculous that I can get all worked up about something I voluntarily do as my hobby! And then I think about some of our travels and realize how lucky I am to be in the position I’m in. I have a great husband, we live in a really nice city, I have a good job, etc, etc. Yeah, I can’t train in the middle of the afternoon if I want, but I also don’t have to worry about living in a tin shack or not being able to go to school. So then I feel guilty that I’m being so petty! It’s enough for me to say sometimes, you know, I really need to step back and get a handle on my priorities. Maybe race age group instead of elite all the time. Maybe go on an awesome bike tour somewhere instead of planning a season of triathlons. Take a trip to visit friends instead of saying, no that weekend is really important for my buildup to X race.

So that’s what goes on in my mind during the off-season. I do think it’s important to think about these things because you can’t grow as a person if you don’t. I have to realize what I want out of the sport and then be happy with my decision. I don’t know if anyone else feels that way or maybe you all are more focused in on the goals ahead. Good for you if you are!

Dec 16 - This weekend we came to Chesapeake, Virginia which is where my oldest sister and her family live. My dad flew up for an early Christmas celebration since we won't see him for actual Christmas - and it was also Haileigh's birthday earlier this week so we celebrated that, too. We went bowling yesterday afternoon for her party and had fun since none of us are really that good. My form ends up in a lunge after I release the ball and today I woke up with one sore butt cheek :) Yesterday morning Marty and I ran for an hour (very slow!) on a paved trail called the Dismal Swamp. It was pretty dismal since it was gray and chilly, but a more appropriate name might be the Boring Dismal Swamp. It's really just an old highway that is closed to traffic now that runs next to a canal.

Dec 12 - My niece turned 9 yesterday and we bought her a swimsuit from Splish. I like a lot of their suits, but this is the first time I've ever bought something from them because they are just too expensive for me. As a gift to my niece its no problem, but I have a hard time spending that type of money on a swimsuit. I'd rather get clothes, plus Inside Out gives us a good discount so I can't justify not buying tri related stuff from them.

Dec 10 - I got home from work tonight and had this urge to go out for a bit. Of course, I didn't have to twist Marty's arm at all, so we decided to Fly the Saucer in downtown Raleigh. My sister met us out and we had a good time catching up with her. It was pretty crowded in there since it was $2.50 pint night. This morning I had a good workout at Marty's master practice and I was able to get in a short run after work. I'm very lucky that we have an on-site gym at my company so I always have the option of getting a quick lift in or running on the treadmill if the weather is crappy. That was not today, though, since the high was in the 70's. I had just enough daylight left to head out on the paved trails that weave all around RTP (Research Triangle Park). Are you all enjoying the survey's Marty is putting up on his site? He showed me next week's already - he never ceases to amaze me with his creativity. So one other thing I feel like telling you all out there in internet world is the amount of leaves piling up in our neighborhood. A couple of times a winter, this big truck comes by with this enormous hose and sucks all the leaves up! It's amazing! At least to those of us who did not grow up with changing colors and then big piles of leaves on the ground. So anyways, your neighborhood gets a little notice that says the big truck sucker will come by said week - so then everyone in the neighborhood piles up all their leaves on the curb. Our entire neighborhood is lined with pile after pile of leaves and I think it looks pretty funny. Some very naughty children could really do some damage and undo a lot of people's work if they really wanted to.

Dec 8 - It warmed up nicely today and Marty and I went for an easy bike ride this afternoon. Now we're heading to meet some friends at Brixx, where Marty is trying to get his (2nd) MBA.

Dec 3 - I can't believe I'm about to write this, but I'm really enjoying swimming at the moment! I'm terribly slow right now but the master's team is really keeping it fun. It's great to have other people in the lane with you, keeping you honest and pushing you to a good workout. It goes by so much faster and everyone is so positive. I don't think I'll ever like getting up at 5:30 am to jump into a cold pool, but once I'm up I look forward to getting there.

Dec 2 - Marty and I had a great time in Orlando for the weekend. We hung out with Marty's family on Friday and then got up bright and early for the OUC races. We had pretty good weather for the race even though it got warm during the day. I paced the 5K good: 6:17, 6:13, 6:14 (19:23) and finished 2nd overall. For the 4th time! I've done the OUC 5K a total of 5 times and have only won it once. It was fun though because with my inconsistent running at the moment I felt like I could be anywhere from 19:00 to 22:00 depending on how I felt when I woke up. Par for the course at these races, the beer garden was PACKED! We saw so many people we knew and it was great to catch up with everyone. That night a bunch of our friends met us out downtown - I really miss all of them and want them all to move to NC :) Tassie also had a great time this weekend, staying with Cider and Kristie. The two doodles had lots of fun and are both very exhausted now. Tassie was very well behaved, but gave Kristie a bit of a funny scare when she jumped into the shower with her (another one of her weird habits).

Nov 30 - We're down in O-town. It was a quick 1.5hr flight into a very crowded Orlando International Airport. Then we snaked our way through traffic before getting to see our very cute niece! Looking forward to seeing our friends at the OUC races tomorrow morning.

Nov 26 - Back to work today after 4 days off. The vacation was wonderful and Marty and I did not so much the entire time. We were totally on our own schedule of sleeping in, eating, taking Tassie for walks and watching movies. I loved it. On Saturday night we went to dinner at some friends who we've gotten to know a bit through the tri scene up here. We had a lot of fun up at their house and it was nice to hang out with them. Other big news is we had to buy a new dryer and my stupid car failed the state inspection because my window tint is too dark. Even though it passed last year. Grrr. We're going to try another place before we admit defeat and fork over more money. Exciting times.

Nov 23 - We've had Tassie now for just about a year. We picked her up at cargo just after Thanksgiving at the RDU airport. I know we totally seem like the people who are obsessed with their dog, and guess what, we are. What could possibly have tipped you off? Maybe the fact that she has her own blog?! Once we moved up here I really wanted to get a dog, and so did Marty but he was wanting to wait awhile until we got settled up here a little more. But I continually looked online trying to find an affordable doodle (they are out there, you don't really have to pay $1000+ for them!). A few tears later and Marty relented and bought me Tassie.

Like most dogs, she has her own funny traits. For instance, (and I think I've mentioned this before) she is very afraid of inanimate objects. She loves people and other dogs. She loves to lick toes. She'll sit and give you her paw, but she doesn't want you to shake it, she wants you to hold it (like you're holding hands) and play with her toes. She'll stare at you the whole time. She does not sit pretty at all - its always sloppy! She definitely came out looking more poodle, but her personality is more golden retriever. She wiggles incessantly when she gets excited (which is pretty much all the time) She is very loving and sweet, but she also loves to run around outside and chase squirrels and birds. She likes to go running with us but she has no concept of pace. She sleeps in her crate every night downstairs and never makes a peep. I love her so much and want to thank Marty for being such a great pushover and buying me a puppy one year ago.

Nov 22 - Its just Marty, Tassie and I for Thanksgiving this year. We started off the morning with Inside-Out's 8K Turkey Trot. I was just not feeling it this morning but still managed to hold under 7min pace. Marty got pretty far ahead of me and then waited for me around mile 3 so we could run into together. What a nice guy. We're planning on taking Tassie for a walk in Umstead before it starts to rain and get cold. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there. I know I have so much to be thankful for!

Nov 19 - This weekend Tassie and I drove over to Maggie Valley to meet my dad, my uncle and Marty. Talk about beautiful fall leaves! Wow. The weather was pretty mild and we had good food and a nice hike yesterday morning. This morning I'm starting my new job at RTI. Wish me luck!

Nov 16 - I have been tagged by Jen Harrison! I am supposed to list 5 things about myself that 'most' people don't know (family and close friends probably excluded!). Then I'm supposed to tag 5 other people - so if I tag you, be a sport and play along :)

I am going to tag: Marty Gaal, Donna Skaggs, Kathy Frailing, Marit Chrislock-Lauterbach, and Kristy Peterson

Nov 12 - Yesterday afternoon Marty and I ran in the Old Reliable 5k/10k. I, of course, chose the 5k. 10k's are way too painful if you're not in good shape so no thank you to that. Seriously, we've been running easy and maybe 3 times a week so I was not expecting too much out of myself. I think last Thursday I suggested we do a few strides in the middle of our run so we could remember what turning over the legs felt like. Then we went and did a nice mountain bike ride on Saturday which was fun, but I figured anything in my legs at the point had now been used climbing hills in Umstead. So I started pretty far back and just wanted to cruise the first mile. There is nothing worse than going out too hard when you don't have the fitness to stay strong. I hit the first mile in 6:26 and was happy with how I felt so I decided to pick it up the 2nd mile. I got a little too excited and ran a 6:06. Uh-oh. Luckily, I didn't totally fall apart and stayed strong for a 6:20ish 3rd mile. My watch time said 19:28 for the 5K. Some dude was slowly catching me the last 1/2 mile and was then off my shoulder for a bit. He started his kick, so I started mine. Then he kicked it up a notch and my competitive spirit got the best of me (Oh no he di'int!). I mean, this was by no means a great time for me in the grand scheme of things (but a great time for me at this point in time!) and I had not run fast in well over a month so sprinting all out might not be the best idea, but this guy was not going to sit on me and outsprint me at the end. So we were in quite a battle and I was sprinting like it was the last 100 meters of a state championship or something. I did nip him at the line - so thanks for making me get out of my comfort zone sit-and-kick-dude :)

Marty ran great on limited training in the 10K, too! I guess our overall fitness is better than it used to be a few years ago.

Nov 10 - This afternoon Alisha and her husband Joe came to our house for a mountain bike ride. We headed out to the greenway that takes us into Umstead and did a big loop around the park before making our way back home. It was a beautiful day and Marty and I were bundled up like idiots (first cold weekend! We gotta get used to this stuff again). The leaves are all changing and it was so pretty in Umstead. I was definitely lagging behind the group on some of the hills which I'll blame on my bike and kid pedals, but it probably has more to do with my aerobic fitness at the moment :) I also re-sorted my closet today, exchanging my summer clothes for winter sweaters and ended up with 2 big bags of stuff that will be going to Goodwill this week. I also tried to answer the age old question of how can I possibly have a closet full of clothes (and 2 additional bags) and not have one thing to wear? Still couldn't come up with a good explanation for that one.

Nov 7 - Sorry for the lack of updates, just haven't been very inspired to write anything. Training is slow going, and when we don't want to (like yesterday) we don't. I've been running maybe 3 times a week, all easy so that should make the 5K I'm doing this weekend very slow and painful. And when we say we are going easy, we really mean we are going easy. We are not like a lot of people who will claim, oh I'm going easy or oh I haven't been training and really they have (secret trainers!). Nope, not the Gaal's - the off-season is something to behold and cherish! :) Tomorrow's Marty's birthday - happy birthday best friend! This is now the 8th year in a row that I have celebrated a birthday with my favorite guy.

Nov 4 - I just got back from visiting my family in Virginia. My mom was also up there and it was great to see everyone. This morning we went and watched my 8 year old niece's swim meet. She's only been swimming for a few weeks and I was super impressed with her ability! She won her heat in the 50 free, flip-turning and all in 45 seconds. Not bad at all! She's the opposite of how I was at that age before a swim meet - I would have myself worked up so much and be so nervous I would literally be crying the night before begging my parents not to make me do it (a little dramatic!). Thankfully, they never took me seriously and I always had fun with my friends at the meets. Well, Haileigh could not have a care in the world. I don't even know if she knew what was going on half the time - case in point, she was lined up for the girls 11-12 100 yard breastroke when her next event was the 8 & under 25 backstroke! Woops - Heather (my sister) went and got her before she actually made it onto the blocks. I remember really enjoying swimming when I was her age. It was when I got to be around 10 when all the kids started going to morning as well as afternoon practices, and all I wanted to do was run. So I stopped and will always have an uphill battle to fight trying to hang with the real swimmers. Sigh. In other news, I really missed Marty and was sending good vibes to everyone at IMFL. All OSB Multisport athletes had fantastic races! Congrats to them and everyone else.

Oct 31 - Happy Halloween! I forgot it was halloween until I walked into our cafeteria at work and saw Elvis milling around. I've been at GlaxoSmithKline for 2 months and have really liked it. My co-workers are nice, my boss is awesome, but unfortunately this is another contract position. Contracts can be terminated at anytime, and are not a guarantee for future employment. They also come without any benefits. I was hoping that down the road I would get hired as a full time employee but this recent article made me a little uneasy. Anyhow, I received a call from a company I had applied to back in August for an interview a couple of weeks ago. The interview went pretty good and I was called in for a second interview last Friday. I found out yesterday they want to hire me full time! That was certainly great news. So once again, I'll be starting a new job (on Nov 19th) which is always stressful but I'm hopeful I'll be with this company for many years to come.

Oct 29 - Our trippin06 picture page is back up - once again our server shutdown from last month screwed the page up, but Marty is pretty html savvy so he fixed it. This morning was the first masters practice at the Triangle Aquatic Center. The facility is gorgeous! There's a 50m pool (although they have it set up as two 25yd pools at the moment), another 25yd pool, and a teaching pool. The locker rooms are big and spacious and everything is just so new. The masters team is swimming in the competition pool, which means it is cold ('competition pool' is just another word for 'cold pool'). Cold for me anyways, I know all the real swimmers love it when the water temperature is below 80, but not the rest of us. I sit on the edge of the pool and debate getting in when its ABOVE 80 so this pool will be toughening me up, I guess. Or, more likely I'll probably just whine and complain and be the last one in (like I was today...). It keeps you honest, though, because you can't sit on the wall too long before getting a little chilly. Got to keep swimming. Anyways, after not swimming for several weeks, I got in much more yardage than I would've by myself and my arms were certainly tired by the end! I can't say I loved the early wake-up call, but hopefully Marty and I will get back into a routine of going to bed early and getting up early. I actually like that better, I just have to make sure I'm getting enough sleep each night - I can't survive on less than 7 hours and I prefer 8 or more :)

Oct 28 - Yesterday was an awesome Saturday. I baked 'healthy' chocolate chip cookies from a recipe I got out of the HerSports magazine. They are pretty good - certainly not as good as my real homebaked chocolate chip cookies but not too bad. They came out quite cakie - but I'll take satisfaction in knowing that there's flaxseed, whole wheat flour and a lot less butter in there. Last night we met our friends Alysia and her husband Jimmy at an Irish Pub here in Cary that we hadn't been to yet - I have no idea why we haven't been there yet because it was a great little pub! And this morning we'll be heading over to the TAC for there grand opening. And starting tomorrow morning at 6am Marty will be running the Masters practices. I like swimming in the morning and swimming with other people is so much better than by myself, but 6am at the pool 3 mornings a week may be a little much for me right now! I'll also be the substitute coach if Marty is ever away (like this Friday), so that should be fun, too :)

Oct 24 - Today while at work, I heard it - thunder! Which also meant rain, which our area desperately needs. They've started giving the countdown of how many days left of water we have if we don't get like a hurricane soon. Our town is not as bad as some others (I think I heard Durham has 60-some-odd days left?) but whenever the countdown starts, its got to be pretty bad. And of course you know the local news stations run with it and try to scare the bejesus out of you everytime. I'm sure today if I watch they'll say something like, "Yes, we did get rain this afternoon, BUT ITS NOT ENOUGH! WE'RE GOING TO DRY UP AND DIE!!!!" or something along those lines. Anyways, I like thunder, and I don't hear it that much up here. I don't like the really loud thunder that makes you scream when you don't mean to, or the very close lightening, but for whatever reason I do like the light rumbling. Probably because I grew up in Florida and every summer you can almost count on a wicked afternoon thunderstorm. Luckily, our dog is not scared of thunder. I know there are a lot of dogs who are, and seeing as she is scared of a lot of things (inanimate objects being the top of the list - luggage, balance ball, bike - she's getting better with that one at least). We think its because we live pretty close to the train tracks so she's always heard Angry Bob blowing the horn her whole life. I can talk about Angry Bob in another post - he deserves his own entry. We have Angry Bob, Nice Bob, and Passive-Aggressive Bob.

Oct 23 - Oh geez I've fallen off the wagon!! Marty and I went to lift this evening and then had plans for a very easy, short swim. The lift was good but there were only 2 lanes open for lap swimming and they already had a bunch of people in them so we bagged the swim and promised ourselves we'd get up in the morning. So instead of swimming we went to Total Wine for Marty (great beer selection there) and Cold Stone for me. Yep, that's right, I had "The Pie Who Loved Me" for dinner tonight. This is made with Cheesecake ice cream, Oreo Cookies, graham cracker pie crust and fudge. FOR DINNER!

Oct 21 - I didn't realize that my links page wasn't working. I guess it dropped off when our server shut down unexpectedly several weeks ago. Anyways, I tried to update it a bit and if I get a slow day at work maybe I'll think of some more interesting places. If you have a blog you'd like me to add, just let me know, I'm always looking for diversions :) The picture on that page was taken in Hobart, Tasmania. Neat city! We went on to do a 10-day bike tour around much of the island with Gordo and Monica and had a real nice time. I'd love to get back down there again someday.

Oct 21 - Yesterday morning I slept in and then we went for an easy bike ride in beautiful weather. I love not having a schedule for a little while and just working out when I feel like it. Later on we went to the NCTS awards banquet which was held at a restaurant in downtown Raleigh. It was fun to catch up with some of our fellow competitors, but we were surprised at how quick everyone bolted after they gave out the awards. I thought people may hang out a bit but alas, just another reminder of how our group of friends/training partners in Orlando were one of a kind. It was fine, though, as we went to our newly engaged friend's place Aaron & Casey for another dinner and catching up. Casey's in dental school and her schedule is pretty crazy, so it was nice to finally meet up with the two of them.

Oct 18 - Marty and I bought tickets to go down and watch IM Florida quite awhile ago. We went last year and cheered everyone on, and again this year, we know a lot of people racing. Unfortunately, we planned this trip before I got my new job and it turns out I absolutely can't be away from my computer on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd of every month (during the work day). There is just too much to do during that time period and the programs that I need are only open during work hours. We tried to change my ticket but it was more money and trouble than it was worth, so we paid a little extra and I have a flight I can use until next year on Delta. I'm pretty bummed I can't go down there this year. On the brightside, I'm going to take Tassie and we'll head up to Virginia to visit my sister and nieces that weekend. So that will be fun and it will keep me from being bored and sad at home.

Oct 16 - Yesterday after work we dug out our mountain bikes from the bike, I mean, hot water heater closet. Marty's had actually been used this year, but mine hadn't been ridden in over a year. And it wasn't by me, but by my sister's ex-boyfriend who gave it back to me covered in mud. I said 'wow, thanks for cleaning my bike after using it' to which I think the reply was, 'Its a mountain bike. It's supposed to be dirty.' I digress, because I promptly forgot about it. Upon seeing the state it was in yesterday, I wished I hadn't. Anyways, this mountain bike was a present from my parents on my 15th birthday, so it's 13 years old. It also weighs about what a 13 year old probably weighs, too. Marty and I were heading off to check out some of the greenways we hadn't had a chance to explore yet. Its so nice to have so many near our house. We ended up riding much longer than planned but it was a lot of fun. The evenings are cool and refreshing and it was so nice to be out there.

Oct 15 - Is this a sad picture or what? Tassie is actually doing very good - little does she know that she isn't supposed to be running around the backyard as she goes sprinting out the backdoor. Woops. I wish I could recover even half as fast as she does, and she had major surgery! Unfortunately, tomorrow I'll be putting that lampshade thing on her head since Marty will be leaving for Florida and I'll be at work all day. She managed to take one of her stitches out this morning while we were gone and I don't want to risk having her get anymore out.

This weekend is the NCTS championship race and awards dinner. We'll be skipping the race but will be at the awards ceremony, ready to celebrate. And if anyone reading this is also going, you can bet that the Gaal's will be heading to the Flying Saucer after the dinner, so come and join us!

Oct 13 - John and Bronwyn just left and I was sad to see them go. It was so great to be able to hang out with them all week after not seeing them for over a year and we had a lot of fun. We stayed in this great house outside of Asheville and got to hike and check out some of the sites before heading into town and sampling different food and brews. John and Marty went to the FSU v Wakeforest game on our way back into town while Bron and I hit the mall and then got dessert. It was nice to have some girl time with her. I really wish they didn't live so far away!

So if you've read Tassie's recent update you may have been clued in to what happened to her at Camp Canine. Saying Marty and I were angry is putting it lightly. Apparently, another dog bit her while she was there. No one saw what happened and they didn't realize it until the next morning. They then called us and said it was just a small bite, we may want to take her to the vet but they would probably just give her some antibiotics. We thought that wasn't any big deal and she was actually already on antibiotics because of a small cut she had over her eye. We were absolutely shocked when we came home and saw her. The bite was VERY bad. Bad enough that when I took her to the vet the very next morning they immediately put her into surgery and had to cut out all the infected skin. He wasn't sure why they hadn't treated it immediately and said it was not just a small bite. It was 3 inches in diameter and extended deep into her muscle tissue. Camp Canine has told us they accept no responsibility (even though the manager admitted they were understaffed and this type of thing had happened before). We totally understand that dog bites will happen but I cannot understand why they didn't take her to get treatment. So beware if you take your dog there. Its fun for them to play and most dogs love it, but apparently they do not care enough to do anything about an injury besides take your money and tell you it's not their fault.

Oct 7 - Turns out I got 3rd overall yesterday at Pinehurst. Some girl dominated and went a sick 2:07 on that course. And now an All Points Bulletin: People! If you are fast, race elite! Its much more fun to go head to head with everyone! Who cares about the silly USAT ranking? Race up front! That is all. Not that she would've been any competition, she was so far ahead. In more important news, despite being many, many minutes apart, Marty and I managed to have the exact same run split! I guess that's what happens when you train together all the time - I rather we'd done the whole run together instead - now that would've been much more fun. Then we could've crossed the line holding hands and kissing ;)

Oct 6 - Last tri of the season is in the books, and I'm pretty happy with how it went overall. Holy cow, that course is tough! I think I had one of my best swims all year as I came out with people I've never come out with before. For one of the first times ever I was in a pack and had to do several pace changes which was fun. Usually I'm by myself and just holding the same steady pace. My main competition was going to be from Anne Basso, who I know is getting in great shape for the 70.3 World Championships and was just coming off her 1st place overall (by a lot) at the Duke Half. I was definitely relieved to get some time on her on the swim since I know she'd probably come flying by me on the bike this time. The bike was hard for me - I think I've lost quite a lot of power over the past few weeks and it was hilly and windy out there. Anne caught up to me around mile 20 and I kept her insight until the end. I've always said that one of the best places to watch a triathlon is at the mount and dismount line. Well, I was the reason why today! As I did my flying dismount, my first foot to hit the ground didn't land quite straight and I almost did a somesault (with bike in hands) in front of the cheering fans who all immediately went silent. Never a good sign! I quickly righted myself, my bike and grabbed the bike shoe that had flown off. So embarrassing! Anyways, I caught back up to Anne within a half mile and once I had a good lead I put it in cruise control the rest of the race. The run has way too many steep hills to worry about redlining, or so I thought. Turns out an age-grouper from one of the later waves beat me by 15 seconds - arghh!! Sarah is way nice and was so cute when she found out - obviously she was very excited for her overall win and she apologized to me for not racing elite (she understands). I really wish she would have - I ran almost that entire run by mself; it would've been quite a race if she had been up there with me. I actually met Sarah (formerly Hunn) earlier this year at the Cary 10K and hats off to her for a fantastic race today. Anyways, now Marty and I are done and I'm so looking forward to not getting up before 6am for swim workouts the next few weeks :)

Oct 3 - Wow, my first month-end close is over. I worked a lot of hours and was completely stressed for most of it! I knew that if I could get through this first one I would be fine because next month I'll know what to expect and how to prepare better. Anyways, I have a lot to look forward to now - first, the Pinehurst olympic distance triathlon on Saturday. I guess I'm looking forward to it as I do love racing, but I'm really looking forward to being done for the season! Its been a long one for Marty and I and we're both pretty happy with how the year went. I'm hoping to feel strong but I have to be honest - my training over the past couple of weeks has been pretty subpar. My number one training partner has been very unmotivated and although I try to put on a good front, I'm totally ready for a break.

But that's not all I have to look forward to. Saturday evening we'll be heading to the Durham beerfest. That should be a lot of fun and we can pretend we're back at Oktoberfest I suppose :) But the MOST important thing I have to look forward to is our friends from Australia coming into town on Monday. John and Bronwyn, our most gracious and super-fun hosts, event planners, and all around wealth of Australian knowledge will be staying with us for most of next week. John is running the Chicago marathon on Sunday then they fly in Monday night. We're heading to Asheville with them on Tuesday before coming back on Thursday. On our way back into town, John and Marty will be cheering the 'Noles on at Wake Forest while Bron and I pick up some young college boys in some Wake Forest bars :) (John is also a former FSU swimmer, and has now qualified for the Australian Olympic Trials for like the 4th time). I can't wait to see them! They are so great and we haven't obviously seen them since we left Australia over a year ago. Way too long!

Oct 2 - I'm going through my first close at my new job and I'm mucho busy. Had to put in a 10.5hr day yesterday...the best thing about being a contractor is getting overtime.

Sep 30 - Here are the women's results from yesterday's Wilmington Triathlon.

Sep 29 - Most people at the Wilmington triathlon this morning were very impressed at our 2:20am wake-up and 2:45am rollout. And when I say impressed, I mean they thought we had a screw loose. My vote was to drive down on Friday but my penny-pinching husband thought it better to drive down in the morning. He promised to drive the entire time (which he did) and I didn't want to spend money on a hotel room with dog either, so I didn't put up much of an argument to tell the truth.

So the race, brrr! 50's and windy in the morning. The swim was confusing as it was kind of S shaped with buoys that were just 'guides.' Take your own line and hope for the best. Oh yeah, no wetsuits either (boo). LONG run to transition. Was by myself on the bike and hope I pushed hard, I tried, but its hard to tell sometimes when you're riding alone. I spent a lot of time in T2 racking and re-racking my bike a few times as I couldn't get both brakes on and have become completely paranoid about penalties up here. Can you even get a penalty for only having one brake on the rack? Finally took off only to stop and adjust the new racing flats. Then I'm out of transition and clip a post marking the chute and do one of those I'm-falling-but-still-running for about 10 yards. You know what I'm talking about. Never did hit the ground but I'm sure I got several people laughing at me. I was pretty far behind in 3rd place at this point so pushed way hard on the run. I didn't catch Chris T. until mile 2, and actually saw Stacey ahead (for once) towards the end. So I took 2nd, 1 minute behind Stacey which I'm happy with at this silly distanced race (written like a true runner :)

Sep 27 - We've toyed with the idea of getting a hotel room tomorrow night in Wilmington, but decided we're just going to suck it up and drive down in the morning. It will be a very early wake up call since the race starts at 7 and you have to be transported to the swim, but Marty will drive and Tassie and I will sleep :) We're all set with a dog sitter while we're racing (teammate Chis said her mom would be glad to watch our little princess). So I'm probably hoping for a wetsuit swim in vain, but I can still wish, right?

Sep 25 - I've had a sore muscle in my back now for almost a year. It began shortly after we moved up to North Carolina, so I attributed it to unpacking. But it didn't go away after several weeks and massages. It isn't debilitating - it doesn't keep me from working out; it just hurts. I feel it when I wake up in the morning, but not all the time so I can't say its how I'm sleeping. In fact, I try to be as ergonomic in bed as possible. I don't typically feel it when I run or bike, but I also can't say it doesn't make it worse. I mean, the tri-bike position isn't exactly very forgiving, even though I'm not nearly as aero as 90% of my competitors.

So I've just been dealing with it. I stretch it like crazy, and when it gets particularly painful, Marty will give me some massage. Funny enough, it releases when he digs into my lower back. Obviously I have some imbalances and muscles pulling in incorrect directions. My shoulders and neck are also very tight, but that's probably just me and how I hold stress. I can't help it, I've always been a worrier. I remember my grandma buying me a 'worry rock' one time on vacation. I was supposed to hold it in my hand when I worried and let the rock take my worries away. I was 8 at the time! Who knows what I was talking about that prompted her to buy me that.

Anyways, some of you may have seen my shoe rant from a couple of weeks ago. Well, I didn't go out and buy cute new shoes that would make Stacey and Clinton impressed. No, my mom was up here last week and she bought me some new Danskos - yay! When I tried them on I fell in love because they have a nice high arch which my foot craves (and it also helps with my dodgy plantar fascia). After a just a few days of wearing them, my back is also feeling better! Who knew? Of course, I can still feel where the muscle is tense if I turn a certain way, or after long periods of sitting on my butt at work, but I haven't felt it this NOT sore in so long! If I wasn't married to Marty, I would marry these shoes. Just kidding, that's just plain weird ;)

Sep 23 - We're in the car right now driving back from Athens, Georgia where we went to a wedding at the University of Georgia's botanical gardens. Marty and I got an hour run in the gardens after the wedding, which was nice, even though my legs felt tired and heavy. Then we met up with everyone and hit the downtown area which was full of bars with great college beer specials. We had good intentions of getting up this morning and tooling around on our bikes, but we stayed out a bit too late and had to bag it so we can pick up Tassie at Camp Canine in time. We're going to make an effort to ride once we get home...we'll see how that goes.

Sep 18 - I haven't been posting as often which is in direct correlation to the amount of time I have right now, not that I don't have amazing and interesting things to talk about ;) We had a fun and busy weekend with family and friends in town. It was great to have Jamie and Saidel stay at our house all weekend; Jamie and I spent many, many hours at Lockheed discussing everything under the sun procrastinating from our real work, and it was great to catch up again. We both had a lot of fun watching the Duke 1/2 while both of our husbands raced. Although I was risking some major points in the NCTS, I never once thought, "wow, I wish I was racing today" and congrats to everyone out there who was tougher than me. Today was absolutely beautiful and I headed right to Umstead from work to get a run in. It just doesn't get much better than running on trails in 70 degree weather.

Sep 13 - Bummer, I just read on the information sheet for the Duke 1/2 that dogs aren't allowed in the park. Guess Tassie is staying home alone :( I was looking forward to her having fun out there.

Sep 12 - I'm plugging away at my training. I've definitely been feeling worn out and a bit tired lately, but I think a lot of that has to do with changing jobs and starting all over again - the stress doesn't just affect you mentally! Luckily, the weather has finally broken up here! Marty and I ran in Umstead this evening and although he said I looked strong I felt like I was fighting with every hill. It did feel good to be running in lower humidity and temps. Yesterday we met up with Inside-Out ride after riding quite a bit beforehand. We only rode the first half with them before turning around coming home, then Tassie did my transition run with me. We have a special leash we use when we take her running that goes around our waist and keeps our hands free. I felt like I could've been in the Iditarod with how much she was pulling me and I'm sure a looked a little more than ridiculous trying to slow her down. She has no concept of pacing yet.

Sep 8 - This morning I went with Marty out to Jordan Lake so we could ride the Duke Half bike course, and then run a bit after. Our run was short and we did the beginning of the course up the hill. The hills in my memory are so much worse than it really is - I couldn't believe it! I guess because we run in Umstead so much now and before we were true flatlanders. Anyways, the humidity was low this morning and we both had to chuckle as I announced that I was cold at the start of the ride. Too bad its back to 90 now.

Sep 5 - I started my new job yesterday and things are going well. Its always overwhelming at the beginning because there is so much to learn and there are SO many new systems and processes that I need to know (last week) :) The girl training me could literally be in labor any second so I'm trying to retain as much information as I possibly can while she's there. This job seems very interesting and busy, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything works out.

Sep 3 - Labor Day Beach weekend by the numbers:

Obviously, we had a great time this weekend. But we'll both be glad to get back into a routine of training and good eating again!

Sep 2 - We've been having a lot of fun here on the east coast of Florida. I did some surfing yesterday - got up and everything! They said I did good but I was not so sure about the inevitable crash close to the shore, or how to navigate when there were other people out there (hint: everyone get outta my way!!!). It was fun though - the water is great and the beach was nice. We'll hang out tonight and a bit in the morning until we start our drive back to NC. One of our friends took a bunch of pictures while we were in the water yesterday so I'll be sure to post some up once we get them.

Aug 30 - I'm going into work tomorrow for a few hours, my last day with this company. They're bringing in Bojangles for breakfast for me since I've never had it; I think its health food. Then Marty and I will be hitting the road along with many other vacationers. Hopefully, we don't run into too much traffic into Florida, but you never know with I-95. This weekend is sure to be a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to a stress-free couple of days before I start my new job on Tuesday. Good luck to our teammates in Hamburg who will be racing in the world championships - go fast!

Aug 27 - Here's my race report for the Lake Norman Sprint Triathlon.

Aug 26 - Marty and I had a nice 2+ hour recovery ride with Alicia P. this morning. Marty is so funny the day after a race, Alicia and I literally dropped him on the tiniest hill. We slowed up and he tried to explain how he is old and doesn't recover fast like he used to. Is this the same guy who averaged almost 25mph on a hilly course yesterday?! He also spanked me on the run at the race - I actually estimated he probably got me by about 30-40 seconds, and that's what it turned out to be. I am glad that he seems to have his hip problem from past years in check. I think its not only because we get to run on a lot more soft surfaces, but also because he hasn't done any long course training in 2 years now.

I finally read "Once a Runner" by John Parker. A friend of ours lent it to us and I really enjoyed it. There were a lot of things in that book that brought me right back to my years running in college. The book is out of print now, so if you do want to read it, find someone who already owns. I don't think you want to spend $200+ dollars on this piece of fiction.

Aug 25 - I had a good race this morning at the Lake Norman Triathlon. I didn't have to expend too much energy at all on the swim and came out with Anne Basso. Onto the bike where I felt really good and moved myself into 1st place at the 10 mile mark where I finally caught Chris T. Unfortunately, I had a less than stellar run, but I can't complain about a win that I really wanted. Tassie was the star of the morning getting numerous compliments about how well behaved she was. She was definitely a little freaked out in the hotel room, but for her first road trip with us, I think she did great. Marty had a really good race this morning, too, so we're trying to figure out how to celebrate tonight.

Aug 23 - I got some good news today - I have another job lined up! I had a phone interview this morning with GlaxoSmithKline and will be starting a contract position the day after Labor Day. I'm looking forward to starting something new.

Aug 22 - Okay, all you real swimmers out there, stop reading right now. Seriously. I'm proud of the swim workout I did this morning and if you read it, you'll just shake your head and laugh at my slow times. But its all perspective, right? They're good for me! But I don't want to be embarrassed, go ahead and look at something else on the internet :)

So the swim this morning was not too long, just 2500 yards, but the main set was 8x100, zone 4, so fast. The good thing was that I was going to get :20-:30 rest. The first 4 swim, the second 4 pull (w/ paddles). I started my first one expecting to see around 1:20 or slightly faster, so I was very surprised to see 1:12! Well, now I guess I have to hold that. And I did - I came in at 1:11 or 1:12 for the first 4, and then when I put on my paddles I came in at 1:08 or 1:09. That is flying for me and I was super happy, if you couldn't tell! I kept the rest between :20-:30 depending on what was going on in the lane (circle swimming with some other swimmers) - wanted to try and time it so I had clear water which sometimes meant :20 and other times meant closer to :30. Now how do I translate that into the open water?

Aug 19 - I'm picking Marty up from the airport in a couple of hours. While he was running around Central Florida with his head cut off trying to meet up with everyone, I had a relaxing weekend here getting in some nice training and hanging out with Tassie. I definitely was wishing I was down there with him, though, when he called me every night from some bar with a bunch of our friends. So I had a couple of beers in honor of myself :) I'm really looking forward to Labor Day, when we'll be meeting up with some of our friends in New Smyrna Beach. Its a great group of people who are very relaxed and a lot of fun. I absolutely can't wait. Marty and I have never been able to make the Memorial Day weekend in Siesta Key, so it will be nice to finally get together for some beach days. New Smyrna has the notorious distinction of being the shark attack capital of the world - "there have been more shark attacks per square mile than any beach on earth." This is due to the way the inlet is formed there, making it a great feeding ground, while also having a very nice break for the surfers. So high surf area + good feeding ground = lots of shark bites. Note I said bites because although they say 'attack' no one has ever died there. Does that help any mom? Ha! One time in college I was over there with a friend learning to surf and I did see a shark in the water probably 10-15 feet away from us. To this day, I'm amazed at how calm I was - I merely pointed and said, 'Hey, I think that's a shark.' We got out of the water and it wasn't until much later that I freaked out.

Aug 16 - I've a had a solid week of training, and tonight on the group ride I went on, my legs were begging for mercy. Here's how my week went: Monday - 3.1k swim, 3mile run right after (ran home from the pool), Tue - lifted in the morning, Inside-Out ride in evening (stayed on the group with no problem tonight, yay!), Wed - 3k swim in the morning, fartlek run in evening on Umstead bridle trails, Thursday - evening group ride, Friday - planning on another 3K or so swim, although depending on the water temp, Alisha and I may be kicking with our caps off more than swimming, also, maybe an easy run in the evening. Saturday - long run, maybe a bike ride or easy swim, and finally Sunday - long ride (for me anyways!). So that's my training week. I figured I'd put one up there since I don't really ever do that.

Aug 15 - I've been participating in an office pool for the North Carolina lottery that has gotten quite high (estimated 181 million). This is my last time playing in the pool because it could get quite expensive if I kept going, however, Marty said I could do it one more time. Today, a lady walked by my cube and said, "I authorize you to buy new shoes if we win the lottery."

What? Have I turned into the 'bad-shoe girl' at the office? Do people reference me with, 'you know, the girl with those out-of-date-so-not-cute-shoes?' Oh yeah! THAT girl!

I wasn't sure what to say on the spot when I heard her, so I kind of mumbled something about keeping to a budget, and then changed the subject to the price of milk.

Then I proceeded to analyze how terrible my shoes actually are. See, its not that I don't have cute shoes. I have some very cute shoes. But they are reserved for short periods of time where I don't have to walk around much. Not for 8 hour days at the office. So 99% of the time, I wear my Danskos. Now these aren't exactly cheap shoes, lady! Okay, so yeah, maybe the ones I'm wearing today are hand-me-downs from my mom (a special shout-out to my mom for having the same size foot as me while always being very generous with her shoes). And yes, it is true that the other Danskos I wear were also bought by my parents, when I was in undergrad, you know, probably 6 years ago…

But lady, you don't know my feet! You don't WANT to know my feet. They are gross, and skinny, and I have ugly, ugly toes (special family distinction). I have to be careful because that pesky plantar fascitis likes to flare up if I don't have proper support. AND I have a toenail fungus at the moment (TMI! TMI!). And a few years ago, I had a plantars wart for TWO YEARS. Its gone now, thanks to Gemma and her double medicine + duct tape remedy, but this just proves that if there is an ugly foot problem, I will get it (if I haven't already). In-grown toenails? My family has not seen an in-grown toenail we haven't suffered through. My late-grandma and my dad are missing toenails because it was easier for them to tell the doctor to just take the darn things off then suffer anymore torture. That's two generations in my family that said, thehellwithit, I don't care if my toes will look disgusting, the pain of the alternative is way worse. Get rid of them.

Don't you know, lady, that yes I did contemplate wearing cuter shoes today, as I do everyday. But then I thought about that run workout I have later, and how I want to feel good and not have to worry about how my feet are hurting because I wore cute shoes. And then I thought further into the future, about that sprint race I want to rock at and how I want to wear my flats again with virtually no support and feel good while doing it. I've been meticulous about taking care of my stupid plantar fascia, and gosh darnit, I'm going to continue wearing my out-of-date, supportive shoes as long as I want! Long live the comfortable ugly shoe!

Aug 12 - We got a break from the triple digit heat and had a very nice weekend up here. Marty and I did a long easy bike ride complete with a stop towards the end at The Carolina Cafe where I had a very delicious cupcake. What? A cupcake isn't good ride food?! Seemed fine to me :) Yesterday while Marty was getting lost with Mike and Gary on their way to Bandits, I went out to Umstead and had a great long run. I woke up at 6 and at 6:10 my phone rang. It was Marty, whose race was starting at 7am sharp. "Hey Bri. Could you do me a favor? Is your computer on? Could you pull up google maps? We're a bit lost..." No surprise there, and luckily I helped them out and they made it over with not a minute to spare. Later on in the afternoon Tassie had her first swimming experience and she definitely won the Most Improved award. Everyone had a lot of fun and I can't wait to take her swimming again.

Aug 10 - Marty will be getting up at 3am tomorrow to drive over to Bandits, a very difficult olympic distance. I was not so keen on doing a tough olympic distance, especially with that long of a drive. Instead, I'll get up early (to try and beat the heatwave we have here right now) and get a good long run in. Then in the afternoon I'll be taking Tassie to a dog pond with some friends and my sister. Hopefully, Shana's dog (Carter) will teach Tassie and her friend Cider how to swim. Last night Marty and I took Tassie to the Pet Supermarket to look into getting her a doggie life jacket (are we over-protective parents or what?!). They had some, but we weren't sure of her size so we tried it on her. But since we are also stupid parents (apparently), I accidently shoved her head through one of the arm holes! I didn't even realize it - we both just stood there and said, hmm, that looks a little tight. So then I couldn't get her head out of it because it was so small, and I had to stuff her ears through and then pull hard. She is the most tolerant dog ever. She just calmly waited while I wrestled with the jacket around her head. Then when I looked at the picture it dawned on me what happened. So then I put it on her the right way, but it didn't fit anyways! I'm really looking forward to taking her. After that, alls we need to do is get her to ride a bike and she can do her own doggie triathlon.

Aug 7 - My training has been pretty consistent the past couple of weeks. I've been having trouble waking up very early this week, but maybe I just need to catch up a bit on my sleep. My next race is the Lake Norman YMCA sprint at the end of the month. It'll be important for me to do very good there so I can stay competitive in the NCTS. Big competition will be coming from fellow friend and teammate Anne Basso, who will be coming on strong at the end of the season in these races as her next big event is the Clearwater 70.3 Championships. As well as from Chris Tommerdahl, who we're all always chasing after the swim. After that, I'll do the Wilmington triathlon, which is totally the opposite type of race that is good for someone like me (1500meter swim/20K bike/5k run), and I'll finish up with the final race in the series, an Olympic distance in Pinehurst. One race I'm NOT doing is the Duke half. I have only bad, miserable memories from that race - during the race and then after the race as both years I did it, it pretty much ended my season. Not sure if I'll end up doing the Invitational race in October. I'll have to see how I'm feeling by that time. So that's how the rest of my season looks right now. By the time I get done with Pinehurst, I will have done 12 triathlons from March to September. 7 sprints, 4 Olympics, and 1 half-ironman.

Aug 5 - You know, I don't really have anything interesting to talk about. Nice weekend here and all that.

Jul 31 - Tassie gave Marty quite a scare yesterday when she jumped out the window of my XTerra. Luckily, he was in our cul-de-sac going slow, and I think he was more traumatized then she was (she wasn't very traumatized at all - she jumped right back in the car like nothing happened when he opened the door). Last night Marty and I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie - it was pretty good!

Jul 29 - It was a wonderful weekend at home. I got some good riding in with several teammates yesterday and today. Today we rode up to Chapel Hill which I had never done before. Marty and I went out to a neat little bar and grill by our house called Abbey Road and then rented a couple of movies on Friday, and we hit Marty's favorite bar in town on Saturday (The Flying Saucer, for those of you who are new). We were, of course, home by 9 or so, as we are pretty lame and like to go out early and come home early.

Jul 26 - I was very sad to hear that my alma mater (University of Central Florida) has decided to cut their men's cross country program. Add it to the list of schools that choose to cut non-money making men's programs to comply with the misused Title IX. Lets say that a school wants more football scholarships, because, we all know football is king and makes schools money (allegedly). Title IX says you must have an equal number of girls scholarships available as you have boys scholarships. There isn't a sport that takes up as many scholarships as football does for guys, so many male sports get the ax. A school can add more scholarships to a women's team, or add another sport, but its so much cheaper to cut men's cross country or swimming. I'm not saying this is actually what happened at UCF, but it is a typical scenario at many schools across the country. And I do know that UCF just built a fancy football stadium on campus, so I'm just saying...When I ran at UCF they had already cut the men's track program, and men's cross country didn't exactly have a ton of scholarship money, so I find it hard to understand how much of the bottom line it actually affected. Its just a shame. This won't bring the sport back, but if you want to share any discontent with allowing the elimination of the fringe sports, you can add your name to this petition.

Jul 24 - We had a bit of a cool front come through and since the weekend we've enjoyed some gorgeous days. The humidity has been low and the temps have been nice. Marty and I definitely appreciate summer days like this after having lived in Florida our entire lives; we clearly remember those neverending death-hot summers. We did the Inside-Out ride tonight and I sat on Marty's wheel the entire time. He looks out for me on the Tuesday ride and makes sure I don't get dropped. Thursday's are their super-hard ride which he likes to do (and the unspoken agreement is that he's not going to worry about me if I choose to go on it). Good thing I have my own Thursday night ride that I like doing instead. I've missed a lot of these group rides recently because of one thing or another, but I'm going to try and make as many as possible in the coming weeks to try and get my bike strength back up.

Jul 22 - Marty got me on the run the past 2 races, but I edged him out yesterday - yay! I don't think these occurrences are going to happen too frequently anymore, he's getting good.

Jul 21 - Phew, 3 races in 3 weeks! This bird is cooked and ready to start putting in some actual training again. We drove down, once again at the butt crack of dawn, to do a funny format triathlon. Marty had a good chance of racking up some good points for the NCTSeries and mission was accomplished. I had a lot of fun out there - its great to do a smallish race with odd distances, mixes it up quite a bit. My bike was definitely weak and I'm looking forward to putting in some bike miles over the next few weeks, something that I haven't done in what seems like a long time. I wish I had something funny or insightful to say, but its just not there today...

Jul 17 - Here's my Chattanooga Waterfront race report. Also, I put up some pictures from the barbeque and this past weekend on our picture page. Finally! I know I've been slacking in the picture department.

Jul 16 - I thought this was an interesting article about the inspiration for the song 'Hey There Delilah' that's being overplayed right now.

Jul 15 - The race went well this morning. The weather, although humid, turned out to be pretty nice, even for us late starting folks. I don't know about this river current talk we kept hearing because there wasn't any current today, and it actually was quite choppy for the last 600meters. Times were definitely slow - the bike was challenging and the run had a few annoying hills. Anyways, I finished 2nd overall so in the money! First was an agonizing 9 seconds ahead, but she went like 45 minutes ahead of me and I had no idea. I felt like I went as hard as I could but you can never stop wondering, ah what if...Really, I can't complain. Marty also had a good one, and beat me bad on the run. We both also won our age groups which qualifies us for Worlds in Vancouver next year, but I doubt we'll take them.

Jul 14 - We're in Chattanooga right now - beautiful city! We also had a great time in Asheville last night. We met up with Aaron's old roomate who was on the Elite Team last year, and he was out with a few friends at a local brewery...perfect! Fun people and nice town. Marty thought he had found heaven this morning on our jog when he saw another brewery right next door to a bike shop. So tomorrow should be interesting. The bike course is on a highway that is quite hilly, and by the time I get to the run it should be sizzling. They seeded you based on a swim time you submitted, and then within your age group. Unfortunately, my age group is the last to go off, so out of 1200 participants, I'm number 1107. That means I'm the 1107th racer to start! At the approximate 3 second intervals, this puts me starting about 1hr behind the first people. This wouldn't be a big deal, but I was hoping if I was feeling good I could sneak into the top 5 overall. We'll see how it goes. No matter what, I'm going to have a good time and race as hard as I can.

Jul 12 - Tassie is definitely part Retriever. So far, this is what she's dug up in our backyard, leftover from previous owners and buried under years of pine needles: conch shell, 2 toy balls, 2 frisbies, spiggot attachment for a hose, full sprinkler attachment for a hose...I keep telling her that buried treasure would be more useful.

Jul 11 - Here's my brief Triangle Triathlon race report. I've been resizing pictures and we'll finally have some new ones up on our picture page from our barbeque (cookout, whatever) in the next few days.

Jul 10 - The splits went up yesterday and across the board my times were 'eh'. My transitions were good, though :) I put my bike shoes on in transition because I'm just still not convinced that I'm faster leaving them attached to my bike. The girls who did leave them attached had faster transitions by just seconds (which were most definitely negated as they put their feet in and got back up to speed) so I'm still not convinced its faster for a lot of us! Here is the big news, drumroll please....Marty finally outsplit me on the run! He got me by 6 seconds this time; its very funny that we've been running so close to each other in all of these races. He did have me as a carrot though, as I was starting the first loop and he was starting his second loop about 8 seconds behind me. He said he did close a tiny bit, and although it would've been cute to run together for that loop, you'd better believe slowing down to be next to him did not cross my mind!

Jul 9 - The Triangle Triathlon yesterday was hot, fun and tiring. I felt pretty good, not great, but you can't feel at your best all the time. I wish I could've given Stacey a bit more competition but I went as hard as I could on the day, and it turned out to be way slower than her race. I think our barbeque was a big success and just about everyone from the team made it over with most of their kids in tow, as well as several other friends we've made up here. It looked like everyone was having a great time: adults, kids and dogs - the only casualty of the day was our hammock which at one time held something like 25 kids. It was a lot of fun to have everyone over and host the event.

Its been on my mind ever since I heard the news, and it sure puts our little complaints into perspective. A friend of ours from Orlando recently lost his sister in a car crash. She was my age. One year earlier, her husband died of cancer. I don't know why some people get dealt with these cards, but it sure does make me thankful for the time I get with my friends and family, and having the ability to compete and race. Don't forget to enjoy your life along the way - don't complain that this didn't go exactly right, or if only this had happened instead. Live the moment!

Jul 6 - The 4th of July ended up being a very nice day, after our swim we had some lunch with our friend Alisha, and then we hit a couple of barbeques before calling it a successful midweek vacation day. Work was super hectic on Thursday and Friday and I'm glad its finally the weekend. My sister Heather and my nieces Haileigh and Ashleigh drove down yesterday and my dad flew in this afternoon. It'll be a fun weekend with the race on Sunday (my money is on Stacey and Kristin to be duking it out, I'm hoping to be in their same time zone). The mens field is stacked to high heaven reminding Marty and I of the old days at the Coca-Cola series in Florida where getting top 10 was an accomplishment.

Last night Ashleigh was in hyper 2.5yr old form which included lots running, jumping and shrieking throughout the house. She is very cute. Tassie was so good with her, too! I'm so proud of our puppy; she didn't get too rambunctious around Ash and even when Ashleigh was standing halfway up the stairs screaming, "TASSIETASSIETASSIE!!!!" Tassie very slowly crept up and licked her, even though I know every bone in her body wanted to gallop up the stairs 4 at a time. Of course, this was after Tassie had run around our backyard (resembling the Tasmanian Devil, actually) upon everyone's arrival. At least she knows where she should go crazy and where she shouldn't. I think she slept very good last night - at 6am when I opened her crate she sat in their and gave me 'the look' she gives me when she thinks its too early to get up. Hmm, come to think of it, I think Marty gave me that same look this morning.

Jul 4 - Happy Independence Day! Its too bad Wednesday has to be the worst possible day for a holiday to fall on. It was, however, a beautiful day for a 100K bike ride which is what we did this morning. I had some chamois problems unfortunately, if you know what I mean, but still had fun. Going to hit pool at the Y in a bit for a short swim which will probably be filled with pee by that point, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. I'm also going to try and get some new running shoes as mine seem to be shot to Hades and I've re-developed some very painful plantar fascia pain. Not fun.

Jun 30 - Sometimes you have to know when to say when and just listen to your body. I like to think I'm pretty good at this as I tend to stay pretty injury-free and not too burnt out too soon. This week was one of those weeks - I had wanted to get in some real solid workouts with the highly competitive Triangle triathlon just around the corner, and then an olympic distance race we're doing in Chattanooga the weekend after, but my body said no. It wanted rest and it let me know it! So rest is what I gave it; gotta baby the body :) Today we did a good ride, though, went on a bunch of new roads (they are seemingly endless in this area, and we haven't even been up to Chapel Hill which is supposed to have a whole bunch more) for about a 70 mile ride. WHY was I doing a 70 mile ride? I didn't plan on it being that far! I thought it was going to be around 62 miles but it turns out it was a little longer than originally thought. So yup, that's my second longest ride ever (yeah, I know, I haven't ridden very far compared to a lot of you out there). Anyways, the ride was nice and steady and didn't get too hot until the very end. In other news, Marty has been busy fixing up our backyard. He's been planting, and gathering and bagging and he even bought a grill. This will come in handy for the barbeque we're hosting after the Triangle triathlon next weekend.

Jun 27 - Here's my Kure Beach race report.

Jun 26 - My niece Haileigh decided quite awhile ago that she wanted to grow her hair long so she could then donate it to Locks of Love. Today she got to go to the salon and get all of her hair chopped off! Here's a funny smirking before picture. And here she is after. She's 8 1/2 years old...what have you done lately?

Jun 24 - We had an early wake-up call this morning (3:30am!) and we were on the rode to Kure Beach at 4 with teammate Aaron Kiefer snoozing in the front seat. I was in the back with Marty's bike seat pressing into my right ear. The race was a lot of fun - it hurt quite a bit but I was able to push it pretty hard and since none of my teammates were there, I was the first female. Here are the women's results. What is really funny is somehow I still managed to outsplit Marty on both runs - but only by seconds. The first 1.5 mile run was very hard, much harder then the second, even though I only slowed down a tad on the second run. I was able to drop my heartrate on the long, soft sand run to the start of the last swim so I wasn't totally anaerobic going into the water and felt much better than I thought I would. Really fun race and a great workout to boot.

Jun 21 - This Sunday Marty and I are going to do the Kure Beach Double Sprint Triathlon. I've never done a race of this format and I think its going to be a lot of fun. 375meter swim - 1.5mile run - 20K bike - 1.5mile run - 375meter swim. I'm sure that last swim is going to be very slow and painful! We're going to be doing the 2+ hour drive the morning of as hotels on the beach right now are too expensive for us for it to be worth it.

Jun 19 - This interview of the recent spelling bee winner is hysterical!

Jun 17 - Just got back in from Orlando where I had a great time with my family. We got to the Magic Kingdom pretty much when the park opened and hit all the good rides before they got too crowded. My niece Haileigh is a lot of fun to be around and doesn't whine or complain. She's a very easy-going kid. It was also nice to see my parents and my sister Heather (although for only a brief dinner and dessert). Ashleigh, my 2 1/2 year old niece is beyond cute and was very happy to see all the disney characters - the machine has already got a hold of her tightly. Our tri clinic went very well in Lakeland - once again, great group of people. Rich Wills, owner of FITniche allowed us to host the