Story time.

Now this is a story all about how my life got twist turned upside down.
Not really. 

It's a story that shows what a typical day is like for us in the Reynolds Home For Rambunctious Boys.

Tuesday Preston left for school about 12:20 and I thought to myself "we should go for a walk." It was a nice day, nice meaning under 100 degrees, and I wanted to get some steps in and Lucas had been extra whiny and walks always keep him content. Win Win Win situation. I decided we would take Louie with us too since he's putting on some weight from all the food he steals from us when we leave the house. So I got the stroller out, opened the garage, set it up and thought- I better pump up the wheels since I will have 50+ pounds of boy in here. I left the stroller and went in to look for the tire pump. Couldn't find it. Stopped looking because Jaxton had left the door leading from the garage to the house open and I didn't want Lucas out there crawling around getting all dirty. So I walk into the garage only to see the stroller rolling down the driveway across the street and starting down the block.
Ghost stroller. 

Of course Louie being all excited that he was going on a walk thought the stroller was leaving without him and took off after it. Leash-less as it were since Jaxton was chewing on the leash. Boys.
I had a breif moment where I debated in my mind do I go after the stroller or the dog? In the end the stroller won probably because it was more expensive then the dog. And in the next second I thought "wow the boys sure are going to miss that dog. we should have gotten him microchiped or something. maybe I can hang posters up for him." I snapped out of it when Louie started jumping around like he was playing leap frog with invisible players. I called him and when he saw me pusshing the stroller back into the garage he came. Of course by this time Lucas was crawling down the driveway as fast as he could. So much for him not getting dirty.
Ok. So I put the brakes on the stroller, set Lucas in it and trapped the dog between the stroller and house so he couldn't take off again and went to go get his leash. Naturally Jaxton started crying when I took it away from him because he had become attached to his new chew toy. Got the dog ready, took him to the gargae and saw that Lucas had crawled/fallen out of the stroller and was pushing it back down the driveway. Grabbed him, grabbed the stroller, put him in and strapped him in this time, Jaxton stopped crying and I put him in, got the dog attached and we were off! 

And after all this I had forgot to pump up the tires which is what started all the chaos in the first place.
Life.

The Sprint Triathlon

Sometimes I give into peer pressure. Ok, a lot of times I give into it. And one of those times was when my friend Krissa said "we should do a Triathlon". HA! No thanks. But then I sat and thought about it and thought it would be good motivation to continue on my weight loss journey & usually I enjoy the fitness events she pressures me to do, so I thought ok. Lets do it.
It helps that it was a "Sprint Triathlon" so it was only a 400 yard swim, 12 mile bike ride and 5K run.
On paper it doesn't sound that bad. It could have been a lot worse.
But doing all those things one right after the other is hard.
Like really really hard.
Probably the hardest fitness thing I've done in my entire life up to this point.

We started training for it months ago.
The running I knew would not be an issue since I had been running already on my own.
The biking and swimming were a different story. Especially since I didn't even own a bike and couldn't remember the last time I had ridden one. 

But I found a bike to borrow and we started practicing swimming.
Lets face it, as much as I might want to be a mermaid I am NOT a mermaid. Not even close.
Some people are born to be good swimmers and others are like me. Not even close. But I could do the 400 yards without dying so I figured that was good enough. And the biking wasn't at all pleasant but I could do it. 

The time passed really fast and finally it was Saturday, race day!
I was pretty nervous. Especially after getting there and seeing all these professional looking guys there who were sponsored and who knows how many other triathlons they had done. There were 241 people competing and only 97 of those were women.  They had fancy road bikes and I had a mountain bike with a grandma seat. They had expensive gear and clothing and we had matching fun shirts. 

Everything started about 7am. They had everyone line up by the pool according to what you thought your time would be for the swim. The first cone said 6 minutes the last cone said 12 minutes. The fastest I'd ever done it was 16 minutes. So I was in the back. Which I expected. No one was allowed to dive in for safety reasons I'm guessing so everyone just had to jump in. It was pretty entertaining to see these fancy athletes just jumping into the pool, some flopping into the pool. They started a person every 5 seconds or so. Good news, I didn't die! Better news, I beat my time! Funny news, a lifeguard was totally following me by the side of the pool so I must have looked like I was struggling. But I did it, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. 

Next came the bike. 12 miles is long. REALLY long. Especially after you've swam. If I ever do it again I want to use a road bike. I was peddling as fast and hard as I could and people on their road bikes were passing me up like it was nothing. So frustrating. But I did it and didn't cheat and quit after only 2 laps which I totally could have done without anyone knowing. 

Finally done, and I got off and my legs felt like jello. But it was time to run. Strangely enough this was the part I was looking forward to. Running I can handle. Even after biking and swimming. I'm not saying it was easy, I'm just saying I was so happy to be off that bike I would have run a marathon at that point. 

And then it was over.
I didn't do great.
I didn't get the time I thought I would.
I didn't beat the people I thought I would. 

BUT

I didn't quit.
I didn't cheat. 

I didn't die. 

If you are curious on my stats they are embarrassingly as followed- 

Overall 233 of 241

Female 92 of 97

Total time 2:10:24 

I'm happy its over. And I'm happy everyone got a participation medal after crossing the finish line b/c Preston told me to win a trophy.
I was going to tell him that it was a medal for winning, but then I realized it would be better to teach him that you don't always win and that I tried my best and worked hard and still did good even if I didn't win.

Now time to train for the half marathon in February!