Relaxing Saturday

 

 

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Turkey Trot 5k

I was happy with my time (22:30ish) considering I've been running a week, had both kids, and hilly course. I also won a turkey in the raffle!

Natalie also ran and did an amazing job! Setting examples for our kids as to how important exercise is. Cayle ran in the parking lot after so he could get his exercise :-) It was a perfect fall day for it and now we have a turkey to take along to Natalie's parents for Thanksgiving!

 

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On the Slide

About 2 years ago, I read an article in a parenting magazine of some sort, and the article stated the most frequent playground injury occurs when parents go down a slide with their child. Ever since then, I have been an advocate for slide safety and will not allow our kids to go down the slide with Nick or I. Nick has always mocked this idea and I'm pretty sure he doesn't keep my safety standards when I'm not around.
This past Friday, Nick and the kids picked me up from school and we had a picnic lunch at a park by the school. I gave in to Nick's peer pressure and agreed to ride down the slide with Lindy. I sat at the top for quite a while and tucked her legs in the best way I could figure out how so that she did not become another playground injury statistic.

The 1.5 second ride went well, and a good time was had by all. Except me - I was terrified (see picture for evidence). Also, please note how Lindy's left leg ended up. This is why you should not go down the slide with your child :)

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Start of The BT Epic.

Crazy how many bike riders there are!

Fall!

Man I've missed fall in the Midwest! In Colorado, fall is just so short! Beautiful, with some of the most amazing drives on earth, but only really lasts a few weeks. Starts getting cool, leaves change, then it's consistently very cold and snowing. I don't miss that! Here it started about beginning to mid October, and will last a few more weeks yet. We are just now getting down below freezing at night. Leaves are still changing and falling. It's an amazing time of year here! The best!

 

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Off season?

My schedule was different this year. Started riding/training in February like normal, but really kept it going through October for the Berryman mountain bike race. I had several breaks in that time period, but it was a very long season! By the time my last race was completed, I was just ready to get off the bike and stay off the bike! No more structured training!!!

Eat what I want, when I want! Lay on the couch. Have Ice Cream. Doritos. Candy. High Fructose Corn Syrup. Ice Cream. Pizza. Ice Cream. All the things I don't allow myself to have when training and trying to make race weight. I really went crazy!

Normally (the last 5 years) after I finish my last race at the end of August, I would begin running for a month or so, to train for the Eagle Valley X-country 5k, then kind of have some down time. This year was different since my season went longer. I did nothing for 1 week. By the time day 4 of doing nothing rolled around, I was already itching to start doing something. To begin eating better, but I kind of "forced" myself to go at least 1 week.

I have now started running a few days a week. I want to run every day, but don't want to get burnt out, or feel too structured. I'll run for a few weeks, then start plyometrics, get some other cross training with indoor soccer or basketball or something.

I'll get back on the bike a couple days a week soon, I already got the itch. Just no structure. Ride if I want, no intervals. It's so important mentally for me to have at least a few months with that lack of structure. Been walking a lot so that Cayle can ride his bike around the park next to our house. He wants to ride every day! Go figure... He say's "Dad what day is it?" Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, etc. He say's, "Oh! I like to ride my bike on ______!" I say oh, ok, lets go for a ride then. :-)

The one thing I've kind of promised myself this off season is to try to not gain weight like I have in the past. I will allow myself about 8-10 pounds, but the last few years I have finished the season weighing about 162, and then by January I'm at 178... 16 pounds is hard to lose in a few months! It never happens as quickly as I'd like it to...

After eating like crap for a week and being bloated every day and night, and doing no exercise, I have an extremely difficult time understanding how people let themselves go so far as to find this normal/desired behavior??? It just doesn't make me feel good.

 

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Jack-o-lanterns

And I don't have a pic of Natalie's, but it had 3 wiener dogs on it.

 

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