Forgive me readers for it has been 10 days since I last blogged

I'm sorry, I've ben a little distracted.  I am excited to announce that Monkey and I are engaged!  Yes, Ms. TryToryTri is now promised to Mr. Monkey.

It happened a week ago.  Sunday evening I came home from walking the dog to find the living room to covered in rose petals.  Monkey was in a suite and tie and down on one knee.  It was so fun.  I started crying and after he asked he hugged me and then said "does that mean yes" to which I responded "Of course".  It has been a very fun filled week full of celebrating and fun phone calls with friends back east.  

In the middle of celebrating and trying to start wedding reception site in downtown Chicago I have had a little trouble staying focused on Ironman and getting workouts in.  In fact every day last week I had champagne or wine.  How can I knot enjoy and celebrate this time right now.  I think I got 3 days of working out in last week of the required 6.  I did manage to get my long ride in which was good.  The engagement was also coupled with record high temperatures and humidity in Chicago so that didn't help the cause.

Well, Saturday, after being in engaged la la land all week I got my behind out of bed and drove to Madison for a course ride.  I actually managed to over sleep so I didn't get to Madison till 8:45.  I was on the bike by 9:00.  I was riding by myself and was just lost in my own thoughts.  I think that's when it hit me.  "It" being the moment when I realized that I'm actually engaged.  I started getting emotional on my bike.  Yes, I cried tears of joy on my bike.  It was a very special moment for me.

So training is busy, now I'm wedding planning and them tomorrow I leave town to go to Iowa for Ragbrai.  Ragbrai is a week long ride across the state of Iowa.  I'm joining mid week because I couldn't take the entire week off.  We will ride from West to east and end in Daventport.  Each night we camp (Yippeeee) and there are lots of fun stops along the way every day.  I'm super duper excited.  I promise I will post when I get back from Ragbrai and I might even give a mid week ride update from the middle of no where Iowa if I can get reception!

A future swimmer, I hope

First off, sorry I haven't posted in over a week.  Training and life has been crazy.  I won't get into to much on how life has been crazy except to tell you that my 2 1/2 year old Nephew visited me last weekend all the way from the Bay Area!  It was so much fun.  Last week I made sure to get all my big workouts (bike and runs) in during the week because I knew I wouldn't want or have time to get out and do them when he was here.  He was a pistoll, let me tell you that.  We hit up the Lincoln Park Zoo, Montrose Beach, Kuma's Corner, a block party, a regatta, Burger Fest.  Hanging out with him might have been harder than an Ironman.  His curiosity combined with lots of energy leads him to be ON all the time.  At one point he was just running in circles in a bedroom as I chased him.  He did this for 45 minutes straight.  He just found it hilarious.  The other thing is he LOVES water.  He wanted to be in the water at Montrose beach all the time.  He wined when we had to get out.  He loved when I dunked him under and always wanted to go deeper and deeper.  I'm hoping his parents put him on the swim team in a few years.  His daddy is 6'5 and his mom is 5'7.  I'm guessing that there is a good chance he will be tall.  Tall people make great swimmers.

Just saying. I can't tell you how much this kid had me wrapped around his little finger.  He is at that age where he just says the funniest things.  During the weekend Aunt T (that's me) managed to get a flat tire.  (By the way, I found myself speaking in the third person ALL THE time while he was here.  I'm not sure why we do that to little kids, doesn't make a whole lot of sense).  As we sat on Belmont ave and waited for my brother in law to change the flat he just kept saying "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh".  I am curious where he learned that phrase, and how to use it at the perfect time.

Below are some photos of the weekend:

Get Up

After getting all pumped up for training and mentally ready to start building toward being Iron, I had a rough week.  I should have expected this.  Training is full of ups and downs and who am I to expect that I could have actually go for a while without a bad training week or day.  Of course I was on an up, so a down must be coming soon.  And it did.  

Tuesday I went to my bike class, and I was ready to rumble.  I was just finishing up my warm I felt something funny with my tire,  I thought I just wasn’t calibrated right on the machine but no, I actually had a flat.   Yipee.  So I changed it and got back on the bike.  Then I had to go to the bathroom really badly.  So during the 4 minutes “easy” where we were recovering from the ride I got off to go the bathroom.  Well, in between the bathroom and my bike I slipped (yes, I love my cleats) and fell, bruising my tailbone and my ego.  I had fallen in front of 15 other athletes, yippee, I was so embarrassed that I could barely answer coach when she asked me if I was ok.  I crawled off to the bathroom where I pulled myself together.   Of course the next day happen to be one of the 10 times a year that I have to drive out to the burbs for a work meeting and the bruised tailbone didn’t do to well that day. 

Then on Saturday I was riding in Madison and I was about 5 miles into my 2^nd loop when All of  sudden I found myself in the middle of the road with my bike on top of me.  I’m still not sure exactly what happened but some how my rear wheel actually popped out of my bike leaving me to literally just fall over (while going about 15 mph).  I was thankfully with Paula, a training buddy from my Ironman group who was the best thing a girl could ask for.  For a few minutes I just sat in the middle of the road.  I was really cought off guard.  One moment I was riding, the next I was lying on the road with a bruised elbow, knee and hand.  I think she recognized that physically I was probably ok, but that I was more just freaked out.  It’s pretty scary to have your bike just fall from underneath you.  Paula told me she would do what I wanted to do.  I could turn back and go to my car, or I could keep going.  At that point a car had stopped for me and they were asking to drive me back to my car (did I mention that people in Wisconsin are the nicest people in the world, I’ve always thought this of them, and this incident only further enforced that belief

After about 10 minutes of me trying to figure out if anything was broken, if my bike was ok and if I could keep going I decided I would keep going.  I figured I was just a sore and that with time, the soreness would go away.  I had 8.5 miles to Mt. Horeb, one of the towns on the IM Wisconsin course and I would make a decision there.  I knew I could call my friend who lives near Madison to come pick me up if it got really bad out there. I told a fib to Paula, I told her that my friend lived in Mt. Horeb and if I needed I could call her to pick me up (that’s a fib ‘cause my friend lives in Fitchburg, the complete opposite direction of Mt. Horeb).  The 8 miles out to Mt. Horeb were long and slow.  My left leg was sore and really badly bruised.  Paula would slow down and make sure I was still back there.  I told her she could ditch me after Mt. Horeb.  When we got to mt horeb we stopped to use the bathroom and then I decided I was going to just ride the 13 miles back to my car instead of completing the full loop.  I was slow at that point.  Plus, my shin was so sore that it hurt to peddle on my left side.  My left elbow was scrapped up and swollen from falling on it so I couldn’t go into aero.  Then my left hand also in bad shape fromtring to ease my fall so I was up on my handle bars, everytime I went over a small crack in the road or bump it would send pain shooting up my arm.  I was miserable. 

I tried to think of happy thoughts but it was hard.  I told myself “What about Erika, she flipped over her handle bars with 56 miles left on the bike. Then she proceeded to run a marathon and it wasn’t until she had walked across the finish line till she got her stiches.  If she can do it, so can you”.  I also thought about other athletes who have bad crashes and still get through races.  The fact of the matter was though, this wasn’t race day.  I didn’t give up, I pushedf hard for a while.  In fact, that 8 mile ride took me almost on hour.  On the way back the 13 miles total took me 1:13 to complete.  I got back to my car and I just couldn’t wait to sit down.  My right leg was really super sore for the two days afterward, meaning I must have really favored that leg.  Ironically my abs were also extremely sore also.