Return from Christmas...

Hi, all! Yes, the training continued during the holidays... along with some overeating and presents. : ) Christmas Eve I did a nice bike ride because, well, I didn't feel like the gym on Christmas Eve and it was a gorgeous morning. Then after gorging ourselves at the Polish Wigilia dinner I made (with a little help from the Polish Deli up the road), Christmas Day was exercise free. Angelfish & Ladybug were super excited that Santa Claus had come and we had a blast seeing how excited they were and keeping them from seeing the tree until Grammie and Papa were up and ready. They loved the doctor's kit and golfing stuff that Santa brought them, and had a great time playing with those and reading the books that Uncle Rob, Aunt Sue & Cousins Laura and Julia gave them until Nanna and Poppop arrived. And then it was the unwrapping extravanganza! They were so excited about unwrapping presents that they were unwrapping every present they could get their hands on - even if it wasn't for them! We had to stop them, of course, but it was rather cute. I think they're favorite gift of Christmas was the kitchen that Grammie and Papa got them. Every night Ladybug tells us that she's going to make popcorn (her current favorite food) for Baby Jesus and picks up the toy kitchen phone at least once and calls God. Angelfish likes to play with the blender and serve up drinks and get the boiling sound going on the toy stove. She also assists in the cooking of popcorn for Baby Jesus. The two of them are a hoot!

The day after Christmas, I did another bike ride... in fact, I pushed myself and did my 40 minute route in 30 minutes. And then followed it with a 30 minute walk (shin splints are still acting up a bit). Then we watched "Belle & the Beast" as the girls' like to call it, and played on the playground a good bit, said good bye to Nanna & Poppop when they had to head home, and tried to find a nice, fake Christmas tree for a good price. All I have to say is that the Orlando shoppers do not mess around with the day after Christmas sales - everything good was gone and the stores were a bit messy!

Saturday, I have to admit, I did not work out... the girls woke up right when I did and I didn't want to miss the time with them, so we played instead by going to Cocoa Beach. Being spoiled by the white sands of my hometown's beach, Cocoa Beach paled by far in comparison, but it was a beach and the girls had a lot of fun jumping over the waves and "building Cinderella castles" in the sand.

My Sunday workout and subsequent activity may have made up for it a little bit! Sunday I did my first 3 sport brick ever and it was hard but great! I did a hard 3/4 mile swim training (working on technique and speed drills) followed by a 30 minute bike at 95-100 RPM, followed by a 10 minute run (and I ran the entire thing) and a 10 minute walk to cool down (plus stretching of course). This coming Saturday (I'm trying to rearrange my workout week so that from now on I have Sundays off instead of Mondays so I don't miss 2 mornings in a row of wake up and breakfast with the wonder twins. I love seeing their faces in the mornings!) will be my next tri brick with a little more time spent on the bike and the run. That afternoon we went to Sea World with the girls which was fun, but definitely not a good idea crowd wise after Christmas. We won't do that again! We got soaked by Shamu which was the big highlight for the girls I think (who didn't like it at the time even though we were able to keep them dry with a poncho we bought, but like to talk about it ever since and tell us that Silly Shamu got us wet!) But we walked all over and a lot of the time had to carry one of the girls. I think the best part was the dolphin show, which Anglfish slept straight through!

Monday was my off day and I needed the recovery time! The girls for some reason got up at 4:30 am and were playing in their room and while we got them back to sleep by around 5:30 am, they were up again at the usual 6:30 am wake up. (And we had a little trauma with Ladybug pooping on the living room carpet next to the Christmas tree... I still can't figure that one out.) So, we fed them and dressed them and Mr. Darcy took them to daycare (to keep with the normal routine) and after Mr. Darcy got back we slept until 10 am! I can't remember the last time that happened... then we went to daycare to chat with the administrator about giving Angelfish especially (but Ladybug too) more mentally challenging activities since they don't want to move the girls up to the next rooms and Amanda is appearing to need more challenge. We'll have to see how it goes... if they don't want to challenge her to the level she needs we may have to find alternate arrangements. They admitted that our girls are very advanced and that their teachers commented on that, but they just don't want to move them up because there are other children older than them. I had to explain that age doesn't mean much but that mental challenge is imperative. Anyway. We'll see how it goes. Afterwards we tried to see a movie, but everything looked like fluff or bad, so we skipped that and walked around the shopping area a bit and then watched "Becoming Jane" - the (fictional) movie about Jane Austen based on some true facts that Angelfish gave me for Christmas. It was really enjoyable and I'm glad she bought it for me!

Today was back to work... so this morning I did a 40 minute bike ride and could still feel some stiffness in my front quads during the ride. Hopefully that will be worked out for tomorrow's swim run. But it was a nice ride although you can tell more people are off than at work around here because the cars were still parked at the houses or people were just leaving while I was biking. A good ride even though it was in the low 50s. Of course, it will be in the 70's later in the day. We've been wearing shorts!

That's the update. I hope all had a very Merry Christmas!

Run & Swim

Hey all! This morning I did a 20 minute run and a 15 minute swim. I was running a bit behind schedule (aka I overslept and so did Mr. Darcy and the girls) so things got abbreviated. But the good news is that I did a half mile in the 15 minutes I swam. I was pretty pleased with that.

My voice has not yet returned although it is partially back. Maybe it can't remember if we live in Atlanta or Orlando these days... the good news is that we finished the Christmas shopping and the rum cake is ready for tonight's party. Now if we can only get the presents wrapped, presents mailed and the christmas cards mailed we'd be in good shape!

Speaking of good shape, not only am I in better physical shape but I've evidently shrunk enough to wear the next size down. : ) So there's a happy side effect of all my training.

In other training news, both Angelfish & Ladybug were wearing underpants when they left for school today after they both successfully emptied their bladders from the night before into the potty! WHOO HOO! Let's hope they keep it up! Those Disney princess underpants were the best purchase I've made yet...

Tomorrow is a bike ride, so keep your fingers crossed that I will remain accident free. I feel like I need one of those OSHA signs "job site accident free for _ days" except in my case it would be "biking accident free for _ days"...

A dark and rainy Tuesday...

Well, that's how it started out anyway... oh and cold. We woke up this morning to a bit of rain and a cold front that was moving on through Orlando. It was about 50 degrees this morning and windy, but it had stopped raining when I set off on my 40 minute bike ride (I did about 8 miles... so I'm getting a little faster without too much effort). With the wind, it was a bit chilly which my legs complained a bit about until they got a little numb. I still plan to buy the long winter bike pants, but it's just difficult to pay for them because they're a bit expensive. In one of the books I read, it said that triathlons are an expensive sport because you need some gear and then get to wanting stuff that can make you faster, sleeker, etc. I've been trying to resist the urge for the faster, sleeker, but numb legs may be starting to fit into the needed gear category... but $110 for a pair of pants is a bit much, and even when you find a $60 sale pair, it's still hard to swallow. Besides, I haven't gotten pneumonia yet so I probably don't really need them that much, right? Perhaps Santa Claus will be nice to me and they will magically appear under the tree. Of course, I also asked santa for racing sunglasses that I can wear while running and biking (I feel a bit like a diva when using my normal sunglasses so I don't wear any right now and it's sunny alot here in Florida), a bigger and better workout bag, and a new travel cosmetic bag... so the odds probably are not high on the biking pants - especially after Mr. Darcy's reaction when I told him what I found on line in the biking pant arena. Oh well.

Back to the ride itself. It was really great, although I think a lot of people are returning to work (and running a bit late) today because there were more cars out and about in the neighborhood this morning. After being honked at by a car because I was riding on the side of the road and being yelled at to get on the sidewalk by the same motorist, I am even more cognizant of the fact that people do not realize that by law bicyclists are supposed to ride on the ROAD not the sidewalk... plus I don't trust people driving to pay attention (especially those on their cellphones) and not run me over! Luckily I have not had a bad experience first hand, but I have seen motorists almost hit bicyclists before. YIKES! But, I returned unscathed to the house with the sun shining but still a bit of chilliness. : )

Some good news is that my legs don't hurt today - even after running on the treadmill a little bit yesterday. YAY! I'm icing after every workout and am supposed to before bed too (I keep forgetting to do it before bed though) and am doing calf and shin strengthening exercises and more calf stretches too. So there is hope for running after all! (Which is good because it would completely stink to swim, bike and then have to walk the run!) So, there is hope for tomorrow's run and swim workout!

Some bad news is that Ladybug is refusing to use the potty in the mornings and this past weekend and yesterday wanted to only wear pullups. I'm tempted to go cold turkey with underpants and no pullups with her, but they say not to push the potty training. So, my hope is again that Ladybug and Angelfish (who is showing sporatic interest only in the potty) will be potty trained by the time they leave for college. : ) They're a hoot though. Ladybug likes to pose while sitting on the potty and asked me to take her picture the other day. Angelfish likes to poop in the potty, but evidently doesn't mind being wet because she avoids peeing in it most of the time (which tells me that just like her adversion to crawling when she was younger, it's not that she doesn't know how it's more that she doesn't want to... so we have to get a motivator for her. Too bad stealing toys won't work on potty training like it did to get her to go straight from refusing to crawl to walking in just a short period of time.) The girls are also smart enough to use it as a tactic to delay going to bed at night too. Of course, I'm happy to be blessed with intelligent children although sometimes I have to remind myself of that when I realize I'm being played like a fiddle by 2 1/2 year olds!