Triathlon, Part Two

Yep, I fell down the stairs. Cause I'm a big klutz. My right foot slipped out from underneath me, leaving my left foot behind. Because of how I landed, I hurt my knee. After a visit to the doctor, I found that I had torn my Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL). It's the muscle that runs along the inside of your knee to stabilize it. And, in case you're wondering - tearing a muscle hurts.

At any rate, after icing and nursing my injury for a week and a half, I saw a knee specialist, who told me that I shouldn't exercise or do any sports until I had no pain, which generally takes 2 to 4 weeks. Since that would take me up to about 2 weeks before the tri, I knew I wouldn't be able to do it.

I won't go into the frustration I felt about injuring myself just when I'd started to enjoy working out or about not being able to reach the goal I had set for myself. I will say, though, that it's been a lot harder not to exercise than I would have ever thought it could be. For someone who hadn't exercised in months before this whole thing, that's saying something! And, now that I've caught the tri-bug, I wasn't satisfied with just giving up.

I hit the four-week mark last night, and I am still experiencing some pain. I see the doctor on Thursday, and I'll hopefully find out if/when I can start exercising again. I suppose I should tell him that I started swimming again about a week ago...

So, once I get the all-clear from the doc, I will start training again. I've already researched other triathlons in my area, and I've decided to sign up for one in April. It's the same as the Turkey Tri, only it's not called the Turkey Tri, cause, well, a Turkey reference in April would just be weird.

Now I just have to decide if I'm going to try the mini or go for the sprint (which is double all the lengths). Hmm... I do have four months to train this time...

Triathlon, Part One

Staci informed me the other day that it’s been far too long since I’ve blogged, and, well...she’s right. So, here we go!

About two months ago, my friend convinced me to start training for a mini-triathlon.

And now that any of you who know me have picked yourself up from the floor where you’ve fallen in surprise, I will continue.

As a kid and a teenager, I enjoyed playing sports. The kids in my neighborhood were constantly getting together for football games and an occasional baseball game. I played basketball and volleyball with the youth at church and, although I was never the best player on any team, I wasn’t too bad at it.

As I’ve gotten older, however, those sports fell by the wayside. I became an average American 20-something-year old, too busy to bother with playing games and too lazy to bother with exercise. While I’d play an occasional game of tag with the nieces and nephews or football with the siblings and sometimes even go to a gym, I was nowhere near what one would call “athletic.”

Now that I’m in my thirties and I’m not invincible anymore (as all 20-something-year olds are), I’ve been trying harder to go to the gym. And (probably like most 30-something-year olds) some weeks I do really well at fitting in exercise and some weeks I don’t.

So, when my friend talked to me about joining her in training for a mini-triathlon, I scoffed. I believe my response was something along the lines of “Yeah, that would be fun… So! How’s your new baby?”

But my friend persisted, insisting that I wasn’t too old or out of shape, that it was just a mini-tri and I could do it easily. She offered to make up a training schedule that I could follow and that would fit into my busy days. Finally, intrigued by the challenge that this training would be and knowing that I needed the exercise anyway, I agreed.

The race consists of a 200 meter swim (in a pool), a 5 mile bike ride and a 1.5 mile run. It’s in St. George, UT in November, and is called the Turkey Triathlon.

I had a few challenges to overcome in order to compete in this race. First, I’m out of shape. REALLY out of shape. I weigh more than I ever have in my life, I get winded walking up a flight of stairs, and I like to eat dessert way too much. Second, I don’t have a bike, and I haven’t ridden a bike for nearly ten years. Third, my swimsuit is falling apart and (possibly most important) I don’t know how to swim. I mean, I can get from one end of the pool to the other, but I'm not very good at it, and I know I don't do it "right."

But I accepted the challenge anyway. My friend made my training schedule, and I began to follow it, using the stationary bikes at the gym until I could borrow my brother-in-law’s mountain bike, walking on a treadmill for two minutes to every one minute run, and enlisting my sister-in-law to teach me how to swim correctly. I started researching triathlons on the internet, learning about the transitions and the overall challenge of the race. And I caught it... The “tri-bug,” as one website put it. I got excited about the prospect, and I began to actually look forward to working out, which is a completely new feeling for me. For three weeks, it was starting to look like I might actually be able to do it.

And then I fell down the stairs…

Summertime

When I was young, I was always surprised about my mom’s reasons for wishing summer was over. Of course, as a kid, summer was the best time ever. Months of absolutely nothing to do except play. Which, of course, we did consistently, and never, ever got bored…

Actually, the words, “I’m bored” were outlawed in my house when I was growing up. It was a transgression on par with throwing balls in the house. If we ever dared to say the illegal words, we would be given something to do. Which was generally cleaning our room, or helping with dinner, or some other activity that every kid LOVES doing. This, of course, was meant to teach us to use our imagination. To teach us that if we’re bored, we have to figure out something to do on our own. A lesson that we learned so well that it was at least another couple of hours before we were again complaining of boredom.

Which makes it all the more surprising that my mom looked forward to the end of summer, not because she was sick of us kids (though she was), or because of the heat (though she hates that), but because it meant things would slow down.

And as I child, I thought, “Slow down?! How could anything get slower than summertime?!”

But now I’m an adult. My weekends are booked until mid-August. I have something planned every night for the next two and a half weeks. I’m so tired from lack of sleep that I’m liable to doze off at any given moment. Summer means fireworks and barbeques and hiking and going to the park and swimming and playing in sprinklers and camping and yard work and road trips and babysitting kids for others going on vacation and outdoor birthday parties and so much more.

And even though all of those things are very fun, and I look forward to them, and summer is still my favorite season by far, I now understand what my mom was saying. Fall is something to look forward to, because it’s a time of recovery from all the fun we had during the summer. A time when my schedule once more settles down (and tends to revolve around the newest episode of whatever TV shows I happen to be addicted to). A time when I actually have days with nothing planned. A time when I can catch up on my reading and I have time to visit the bookstore.

Ah…the bookstore.

But for now, I have too much to do to think about that. Bring on the babysitting and the road trips and the campouts, cause summer is halfway over and I’m running out of time to cram it all in!

Days Four and Five

Well, my pictures don't seem to be loading, so here's a blog with no pics...

Yesterday, we went to Versailles, which was incredible. I can't believe how absolutely huge it is. And the "gardens" are even bigger. Crazy.

Afterwards, we went to the Arc de Triomphe and climbed the stairs to the top. I've gotten quite the workout every day this week. I've been sore every day too... It was great, though, and we followed it up by sauntering down the Champs-Elysees. We stayed out until 9 last night, which is the latest we've made it so far (I know, pretty sad), and we even got up early this morning. Now that we're used to French time, it's time to go back to Utah time. Joy for us.

Today, we went to Montmartre and La Basilica Sacre Coeur, and then we went to the Eiffel Tower. It was crazy busy, but with our pre-bought tickets, it only took us an hour or so to get up to the top. I would definitely recommend to anyone going to get their tickets online before going. Before we went up, we had about an hour to wait, and we just sat at the base of it, enjoying the sun's first showing since we've been here and watching people. It was relaxing and very fun.

Now it's time to get ready to leave tomorrow. We have to be outside our hotel at 8:15 in the morning for our shuttle to the airport. We'll see how that goes...

Another Exhausting but Fun Day

We started off the day with a trip to the Hotel des Invalides, which houses the Musee de l'Armee. It was really interesting. We only went to a part of it, which detailed the history of French warfare between 1643 and 1871. Here's the front of the Hotel des Invalides...


Afterwards, we took the metro over to the Conciergerie, which is (among other things) where prisoners were held before being hauled off and beheaded by "Madame la Guillotine." It was a very uplifting day, as you can tell...


Just around the corner from the Conciergerie is Notre Dame. We have tickets to go up the towers, but they closed just before we got there (literally, like 10 seconds before we got there). Bummer! But we went inside and it was beautiful and amazing, of course...

After that, we went to the Ile Saint Louis to find an ice cream shop that at least two people have mentioned to me. Here we are with our ice cream below. (Well, with Casey's anyway. Mine appears to be shy of cameras...) It was delicious. I had Salted Butter Caramel and Raspberry Rose (and it really did taste like roses mixed with raspberries!), and Casey had Raspberry Rose and Dark Chocolate. Tasty! Tasty!

When we got back to the hotel, it was to discover that tonight is daylight savings in France. Lovely. We love changing times so much, we're gonna do it again!!

Paris Day Two

Today we went to the Catacombs. It's an underground crypt where they've moved thousands of people's remains to empty out the graveyards around Paris (to make things healthier). It consisted of a million and one stairs (well, okay, it was more like 130 down and 83 up), a very long tunnel, and lots and lots of bones.

Then, we took the metro for the first time to head to the Musee d'Orsay. It started pouring rain when we got to the museum, so we didn't get pictures, and they don't allow them inside, so I just have one of the metro...

Still having a blast and getting tons of exercise (as sad as it is to admit, I'm actually sore from climbing those stairs, plus the ones up and down for the metro) and eating lots of nummy food!

We made it!

After two days of travelling, we finally made it to Paris! Our flight got in at about 10:30 last night, and we finally made it to our hotel at about midnight. We were exhausted and a little overwhelmed with everything, but a good night's sleep helped a lot, and we've had a blast today!

We spent a few hours walking around the Latin Quarter, where we're staying, and we went to the Louvre. It is so much fun being here, and my French has definitely come back to me, which is a huge relief. Granted, nearly everyone speaks English here, but I have carried on at least one full conversation in French, and was told that I speak well. (Granted, the guy was flirting, but I'll take a compliment if I can get it!)

Anyway, wanted to share a couple of pics we took today (of the four million that we took...).

Crossing the Seine, with Notre Dame behind us...

Outside the Louvre...

A couple of shots of the ceilings in the Louvre. They are just as amazing as the art!

More to come as we continue to be major American tourists!!