Sahuarita Triathlon 2009

On Memorial Day Abel and I did the Sahuarita Triathlon.

Galen: I finally did a Tri! I've been saying I would for several years and now I have. Woot! I was aiming just to finish, didn't push for speed at all (I came in at 2 hours and 9 min and placed 86th out of 110 women). Something I want to be more prepared for next time around: the swim. I'm not afraid of open water; have done lots of swimming in lakes etc and I'd been swimming the distance at the gym; a slow and steady breaststroke... but when the announcer said "GO!!!" and everyone took off with their speed kickin' freestyle strokes, I tried to keep up... and within 5 min I was in serious oxygen deprived trouble, Heart pounding out of control, unable to catch my breath, and the icky realization that there was 18 feet of murky water between me and the bottom. So I doggy paddled for a bit while I caught my breath, reconciled myself to being the slowest swimmer in the lake, found my slow steady breaststroke rhythm... and finished the swim. Whew! Then the bike, then the run. Slow and steady. An interesting thing about this Tri, not only do they write your race numbers on your arms and legs, they also write your age on the back of your right calf, so as you're biking and running along you know when that person who just blew by you is twice your age. Ha!
Goal for my next tri: be a much stronger swimmer, I gotta make that jump from breaststroke to freestyle. ASAP.

Abel: Since this was my 2nd triathlon (did the st george tri a few years back), I now have something to compare this against. My training was much less on this one and therefore my expectations were as well. I usually would tell myself “as long as I finish, I’ll be happy”, but this time I really meant it. Less was better as I didn’t want to take a backward step in rehabbing my left knee. So I took a casual approach and it felt nice. I definitely wasn’t exhausted at the end. I even ran for about 1/3 of the way. I came away feeling much less drained than my last one.

More pictures are posted on facebook and flickr.

Bring Your Cell Phone!!!

Here is why you should ALWAYS bring your cell phone when hiking alone:

Yep, that's right. Because you just might run across an enormous gila monster in the trail and have no way of documenting the rare sighting to prove to everyone that you really did see it. (Instead of having to pull a stock photo off the internet.) Of course, if the venomous gila monster just happened to bite you, you'd also be glad you had your cell phone.

So, yeah. Last month I was hiking up Blacketts Ridge and suddenly in my peripheral vision I saw the slow ponderous movement of something large and low and black and pink. This movement happened to be right next to my ankle. I looked down and was staring right at a gila monster who was staring right back at me. I think we were both a bit shocked as we just stood there staring at each other (this is the point when I remember that I'm an idiot who left her cell phone in the car). Gila snapped out of it first, slowly turned tail and crawled back into the brush from whence it came. My heart-rate returned to normal levels (well, normal for having been in the middle of climbing Blackett's ass-kicking elevation) and I continued my hike.

But I learned my lesson. Never go hiking alone without your cell phone.
(Seriously. Worse things can happen than missing a photo op.)

A day in Galen's life (spring 2009)

Here's what a day in my life looks like at the moment:

Mon - Wed:
6 or 6:30 am: Get son ready for school, Help hubby get ready for work (on a good day one of us packed the lunches the night before. on a bad day, well... rush rush rush.)

7:15 Leave to drive son to kindergarten. It's a 30 min drive, which is tedious. At first I would drive him to school then drive home to try to get stuff done then drive back to pick him up, etc... and that was 2 hrs of driving in a day. Totally sucked.
Now I do things differently. After dropping off son, I stay "in town". Initially I would do all sorts of things trying to be creative with the time. But now I know what works perfectly: First I work out. Then I go to the library and draw. I have decided it's time to be an artist again, and I find I get too distracted trying to work in my home-studio. So I draw at the library for 2 to 4 hours. I no longer bring the laptop or books to read; this is me being serious about starting to draw again.

1:45 I pick up son from kindergarten and drive the long drive home.

2:30 we're home and do the whole snack and homework and play with friends thing and I also starting thinking about dinner.

5:30 or 6 Hubby comes home from work, we have dinner and enjoy the last rays of sunlight (work in the back yard, take a walk, whatever.)

7:30 to 8:30 somewhere in here we get son to bed.

8:30 to 10:30 cleaning up, hot baths, reading books, hanging out, getting ready for the next day, hubby and I may watch a show or a movie together (recently we watched all 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer together. That provided for plenty evenings of entertainment.)

10:30 Bedtime. Except lying there together we usually end up having sex.
11:30 Bedtime. For real this time.

Ready to do it all again the next day.

Oh, Thursdays and Fridays I work as a receptionist in a nice low-stress family-run office and so those have become my days to be online, catch up with friends/blogs, write blog posts etc. Today is Thursday. Which is why I am writing this post. Maybe I'll write a couple while I'm at it.
Yay.

(And, btw, I am not looking forward to summer and having this nice routine I have established be shot to hell. But o-well.)

Parker Canyon lake

It was a bit of a whim, but we decided to go the the lake this weekend. Abel found a good deal on a used inflatable kayak and the lake is only a hour away... So, there you go!

Testing out the new/used boat in the safety of the living room...

On Parker Canyon Lake.
Shadow thinks she is supposed to heel besides the Kayak...

a nap after a spin around the lake...

galen gets a turn

Day 2!! And we are at it again!

Then we packed up and went home. (tired dirty and happy.)