Look alikes

Last night we took Amanda out for dinner for her last night in KC. We wish her well as she starts a new chapter of her life in Minnesota living with her uncle's family.

We went to Olive Garden for the Never Ending Pasta Bowl. The service was slow and our waiter seemed pre-occupied but he kept our needs meet. Out of the blue near the end of the meal he looked at me and said "you know you have a celebrity look-alike, don't you." I was like "'huh?" because he really hadn't spoken a word to us other than to get our order. He proceeded to try to name my celebrity twin although he couldn't remember her name and he said the movie she was in was something about a dozen. Riley figured out that he was talking about Alyson Stoner from Cheaper by the Dozen.

Maybe there is a slight resemblance, but I don't think we look alike, not to mention the fact that I am 27 years older than her. I did think it interesting that her role in Cheaper by the Dozen kind of portrays my tom-boyish personality.

Tri #2

I completed my second triathlon of the year on August 1st, the Win For KC Woman's Triathlon. This is my favorite course and event of the year. It's the race's 4th year and my third time. Word has spread and the race sold out before June 1st. The free spaghetti dinner the night before was packed and I heard there were over 650 women participating.

Storms were moving out when I woke at 5am. I took my time getting dressed and had a light breakfast. I was set to leave at 5:30am but my truck wouldn't start so I resorted to plan-B and moved my borrowed bike and bags to the car and pulled out of the driveway a few minutes later.

The drizzle stopped just as I pulled into the grassy field to park a little after 6am. It was a chilly morning but I left the wetsuit in the car figuring there was little chance of the lake being 78 degrees or less in August.

My race number was 26 so I was allowed on the rack closest to the exit. This race is a staggered start so one person starts every 3 seconds instead of a mass start. The start order is by swim time ranking with the fastest going first, I would be the 26th to start.

Just as they were calling the pre-race meeting it was announced that the water temp was exactly 78 so I quickly rode back to the car and grabbed my wetsuit and headed for the pre-race meeting. I've been in enough of this windy director's races to know that the meeting will last at least 15 minutes. As Clay thanked many sponsors I wiggled into the wetsuit and immediately started sweating. At 7:45 we all hug the woman standing next to us and lined up for the start.

My swim felt pretty good and I passed about a dozen or so women on the way. I got out and saw my watch said 6:55. Holy Cow that was a really fast swim!! I ran up the hill passing another on the way. Once in transition I slowed to a fast walk so I wouldn't be breathing too hard on the start of the bike.

I was lucky enough to borrow the bike I'm considering buying from Epic Bikes: Specialized Ruby Expert 56cm. I took it out for a short 4 mile ride on Thursday and it rode smooth and quick. This bike is similar in quality to my current bike (carbon fiber frame and ultegra components), however it is 16 years newer and sized perfectly to me.

Back to the race ... the bike leg is an out & back and 10 miles in length with the first & last half mile on the road leading out of the park through Paradise, MO. As usual, some really fast biker women passed me in the first mile and I knew these were the die hard triathletes. I was feeling pretty good but unfortunately, the borrowed bike didn't have a computer so I couldn't tell how I was doing pace wise. As I passed mile marker 3 I tried to calculate my pace based on the elapsed time and I concluded I was doing okay. After the turn-around between miles 6-8 I saw most of my friends riding the opposite direction (remember I had a head start being #26). As I entered the park in Paradise, MO I noticed my time was nearing last year's time so I picked kicked in and sprinted the last 1/2 mile. My final bike time was 1 minute slower than last year. A bit disappointing but I blame it on not knowing how fast I was /wasn't going.

In transition I switched shoes, had a quick drink of water and took off running. I was still making good time from that killer swim leg. After about a half mile I pooped out and couldn't keep my heart rate down. This problem started about 10 days earlier and without explanation. I didn't have a monitor on but I'm sure it was over 180. I ran the rest of the 2.6 miles by jogging one minute then walking 3o seconds, then jogging 1 minute again, etc. Needless to say my run time was awful.

My final time was just one minute slower than last year. It is almost a month later and I still haven't figured out what is wrong with my heart rate. On a better note, only 4 other women swam faster than me. Two were on a team, and thus were finished after the swim and didn't have to save anything. The other two were 20-24 yrs old, so I'm impressed with this 43 yr old body of mine. The fastest swimmer was only 2o seconds faster than me and she won a Garmin fitness watch for being the best. If only would have known I would have gone 21 seconds faster!!!

This is me with the race director, Clay Myers-Bowman.

This is my buddy Christine celebrating a little too much with mimosas at the finish line festival!!!

I'm looking forward to the 5th annual Win for KC Tri in 2010!!

Disney World 2010

Our family vacation was to Disney World this year. In the wee early morning hours of August 9th we took off from KCI headed to Orlando. We touched down around 10:30 local time, had lunch in the airport and then caught the Disney Transport bus to Disney's Carri bean Beach Resort. Next to us on the bus was a Disney FANATIC. This dude moved to Ft. Lauderdale to be close to WDW. This was going to be is 196th night at Pop Disney. He knew everything about everything at Disney. I've ready about these kinds but had never met one in person. OMG.

The resort was well equiped and we could have spent our entire vacation just three. Our room was finally ready around 2:45pm so we napped and then headed to Magic Kingdom. The park seemed smaller than I remember but we still couldn't get everything in during our 6 hour stay. We did the Haunted Mansion, Tomorrowland Race track, the Peter Pan ride, Winnie the Pool, Aladdin, Stitch's Great Escape, and probably others that I can't remember. I refused to ride the Mad-Hatter's Tea Cups with Riley because they spin too much and she didn't want to ride alone. She refused to let me ride Splash Mountain alone, so I had to returned early Thursday morning while she was still sleeping. I also got to ride Thunder Mountain t00. Space Mountain was closed but that was okay with me. I didn't particularly like it 20 years ago.

The next day we went to Blizzard Beach in the morning. This is a water park with a really cool water slide: Summit Plummet is almost a straight drop for 12 stories where you go 50-60 mph. Riley was nice enough to wait an hour for me because I just *HAD* to do this. As I neared the top I was actually nervous and full of adrenaline. This is the longest, fastest, tallest waterside on record in the world! Its over in about 4 seconds and gave the biggest wedgies I've ever had in my life, but it was really cool. Thanks Riley, for riding the Cross Country Creek lazy river around the entire park 3 times while I fulfilled my need for adventure. At almost 43 yrs old, I wonder if I will ever loose that thirst?!?

Monday Night we went to Downtown Disney and had dinner at the globe Planet Hollywood. We also shopped some and played around in Disney Quest; a 5-story arcade.

We slept in Tuesday then went to Epcot. We were one of the last to get a fast pass to Soarin'. We got there around noon and our pass was for 6:15, so we spent the next several hours playing around. We created a video game starring us in Innovations. We had "Turtle Talk with Crush" from Finding Nemo. We did "Journey into Imagination with Figment" which was my favorite 20-yrs ago but it didn't live up to my memory. We watched the "Circle of Life" show which I think is the same one played at the KC Zoo's IMAX theater. We played the Kim Possible Adventure, and our mission took us to Mexico. Around 4:30 we had dinner at place in China. it was so hot that day and so we just found the first sit down restaurant in air conditioning. After dinner we made our way quickly thru the countries and finally made it to Soarin. The line was 2-hrs long so I was very happy to have a fast pass. This was the coolest ride in Disney in my opinion, and I didn't even get motion sick despite all the warnings. The world showcase was closing soon so we rode Spaceship Earth and then headed home. I though Riley would really like Spaceship earth because she likes history but she wasn't really phased by it. I enjoyed it.

Wednesday was Hollywood Studio's day (f.k.a. MGM Studios). I was pleasantly surprised by this park. we didn't get any fastpasses because Riley wasn't sure if she wanted to ride Tower of Terror and Toy Story Mania was out for the day. Our first attraction was Beauty and the Beast live on Stage, a 40-min shortened version of show. It would have been much better if it was in air conditioning. We also saw Voyage of the Little Mermaid live, Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, and Studio Backlot Tour, the American Idol Experience Finals, and Journey into Narnia's Prince Caspian. As it was getting dark, Riley decided she would ride the Twilight Zone's Tower of Terror so we got in the hour-long line. In front of us were some teens from the Dominican Republic so the hour went by quickly as we talked to our new friends. This ride ranks almost as high as Soarin in my book and despite it being a thrill ride Riley fell in love. We had to return to the park another day to ride it two more times and buy a t-shirt.

Thursday brought us to Animal Kingdom. We watched It's Tough to be a Bug, a multi-sensory show based on Bug's Life movie. We saw this show at Disneyland in 2003 an it was still just as good. Afterwards we got a fastpass for Kilimanjaro Safari and then looked around the park. It was really hot and there were few places to duck into a/c except for the souvenir shops. The Safari was nice as we saw giraffes, lions, elephants, wildebeests, and such. Afterwards we got a fast past for Dinosaur and shopped around some more. Riley discovered that Dinosaur was a roller coaster and decided she didn't want to go, so I gave her fast past to a kid from London. Fastpasses let you go to the front of the line and just as we were getting on the ride it broke. they tried to fix it for 25 min and then made everyone leave. Once again, Riley was bored waiting for me, but at least she found a cool place to sit and wait. This picture is of Riley playing the bongo's at Africa in Animal Kingdom.

Friday was our last full day. We went back to Hollywood and Epcot. At Epcot we toured all the countries in World Showcase. This pic is Riley at an pub in England with a knock off Beatles band in the background. It is really neat how everyone who works in the countries is actually from the particular country even down to the hostesses in the restaurants. I can't really say what my favorite country is there but we spent a lot of time in Japan and Morocco. I do think they should have a space for Greece.

All my days are blurring together, but one day we went to Typhoon Lagoon for a few hours one day. The wave pool there is the bomb! Every minute or two it lets out a huge tidal wave that you can surf.

Saturday morning I went to Animal Kingdom early while Riley slept in. I finally got to ride Dinosaur and I think she would have liked it. It wasn't a roller coaster but more of a jeep on a jiggley track. I also rode Expedition Everest a thrill coaster. We check out of the room at 11 and swam in the resort until we had to leave at 1:30.

All-in-all it was a good trip; tiring, but fun. I consider my parental obligation fulfilled. We went twice to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Disney Quest and we went to each water park once within a 6 1/2 day span.

Our resort was nice but big, the main area was an 8-10 min walk from our room which made it difficult to get our free drink refills or be around anything convenient. We stayed in Barbados which wasn't the furthest away! The rooms were clean and the grounds were landscaped nicely so I have no real complaints.

The transportation system is very convenient. We normally waited 5-10 minutes for a bus and the longest wait was 18 minutes. They could get crowded but I didn't mind standing up for a 10 min bus ride every now and then. Staying onsite is the only way to go, otherwise you have to pay to park in a lot a mile way and take a hot tram to the gates. The internal bus system picks you up 100 ft from your room and drops you off at the park's front entrance.

We mostly ate the fast food at Disney. $8.75 for a greasy 1/3rd lb burger and fries plus $3.50 for a soda. The sit down mediocre resaurants run about $70 for the two of us. The best Disney food we had was at the buffet at Hollywood. I'm sure if we would have gone to the fancy restaurants that require reservations 3 minths in advance we would have been more impressed. Luckily I found Flipper's Pizzaria, a local shop that delivers all day to your resort. They had good pizza, salads, wraps, pasta and sandwiches. Riley and I could eat 2 meals for $25. We ordered twice :)

Where will our 2010 vacation be to?

Addition

Back in March our church youth pastor ask if we'd be willing to host his girlfriend for the summer. Riley and I discussed and decided we have plenty of room and it would be fun to have a house guest!

Riley & I worked hard during May to clean out the spare room (Matt even helped some) and Amanda arrived May 25th car packed to the rim. Right away she fit in with our little family.

She and Matt grew up together in the small town in northwest Pennsylvania. Matt attended undergraduate school in Nashville and just finished his first year of seminary here in Kansas City. Amanda has been attending a small college in Ohio.

Before she arrived she decided not to return to her school in Ohio, but rather move to KC and got to cosmetology school. My first thought was that she was altering her future for a man .... (big no-no) but I soon learned that she was really just looking for a change in life. KC offered her the chance to get away and make anew, and Riley and I are excited to be a part of it. Unfortunately, she & Matt decided they were better off as friends.

Having her around the house is a blessing. She is a big sister to Riley and huge help to me. One of the best parts is that I've become more disciplined about eating dinner at home. It's much easier to resist the temptation for carry-out or dining-out when I know I have help at home. Often dinner is prepared when I get home and family dinners are enjoyable.

Next week she is taking Riley shopping for school clothes. This is a win-win situation because I despise this annual chore and I think those 2 girls are really looking forward to it!

In a month or so things will change. Amanda has lots of free time right now only working 18 hrs a week. She and Riley will be headed back to school and free time will be scarce for the both of them. I'll be running Riley around to her various activities and Amanda will be working in the evenings.

iNeed2Change

Our pastor started a sermon series titled “iNeed2Change” and today’s focus was Attitude. This will be one that hits home for me .

My intent when I started to blog 3 years ago was not to portray my negative side, which often dominates me. I live a pretty good life, but recently I have been in retreating deeper into my content little circle peering out at the bigger world around me with negative eyes. If I let my mind wander I naturally see the glass half empty, everything from global issues like society’s decaying morals to petty minor issues such as neighbors not treating their growing crops of dandelions.

My sister told me I need to blog more, though when I’ve felt like blogging lately, it has been a desire to convey my attitudes about things that irk me rather than how I see life positively. In addition, my life has been pretty routine lately and not exciting enough to share :) I got to work, come home, cook, clean, workout, and relax a bit by reading, playing on the computer or watching TV. Sometimes the order of these activities is mixed up a bit, but generally that is my typical weekday.

Now I don’t share my negative opinions much, but I do believe in karma. Could it be that my two accidents (toe and bike wreck) this summer have been a result of negative thoughts? Maybe when a friend confides that they don’t understand why their diet isn’t working all the while eating a bag of butter pretzels, maybe I should tactfully explain instead of sarcastically thinking “DUH!!!”

The message at church today was how to live life with a more positive attitude. Does complaining really help solve problems? Attitudes are contagious and removing negative people from your life while still showing God’s love will have a positive impact on how you see life. From today forward I am going to look for the half-full glasses. I’m happy that my friend recognizes the need for a healthy life even though the implementation of a diet isn’t successful.

Heritage Park Triathlon (5/17/09)

I’ve wanted to do the Heritage Park triathlon for a few years but haven’t. This is a short sprint tri with a duathlon run simultaneously. It is an early one usually the 3^rd Sunday in May. Many Corporate Challenge companies use this as a tryout to see who can participate in the KCCC tri a few weeks later.

This year I decided to do it since I wouldn’t be competing in KCCC. I've been running 15-18 miles a week, very little biking, and no swimming.

I got up at 5:00am in order to make the 40-mile drive down to Heritage Park for a 7:30am start time. It is near Stillwell, KS on the south side of the metro. Us northlanders often refer to this as “near the Oklahoma boarder.” The sun was just starting to rise when I arrived. There were still lots of good spots in the transition area, thankfully, because I moved my bike 3 times. While waiting in line for chips and marking my buddy, Duke, from work said the lake water was 52 degrees. The spring weather had been cold with very few days above 70 and lots of rain, but this still surprised me. I don’t think I’ve ever swam in water that cold, would I be able to breathe?

The air temperature was in the lower 50’s and it was very foggy. The duathletes were happy as this was perfect racing weather for running and biking. Around 7am I put on my wetsuit and set up my transition area. I left a sweatshirt out just in case I was freezing after the swim.

Usually I get in to swim a bit of a warm-up before the race, but this day I did not. The few (and I mean very few) that did said it wasn’t uncomfortably cold. By habit, I requested the first heat with the fast swimmers, otherwise I’d have to start 30 min later and I’d spend most of leg swimming around people. When I got to the start I felt a little intimidated with all the young hard-body serious triathlete boys. I was one of a handful of women and probably the only 40-something woman and without any muscle definition.

The 500M swim started in water and was a counter-clockwise triangle with 2-turns. I chose to stay on the dock and when the gun sounded I jumped in and moved as fast as I could to generate heat. I fell in behind another swimmer to drag and got into a good rhythm. My head started to spin after a few minutes. It probably had something to do with only training once in the past 8 months, but I was too cold to care. I just wanted out of the water. Shortly after the 2^nd turn I heard the gun start the next heat. This meant 5-minutes had lapsed and I was making good time. I popped my head up to look for the finish and decided to pass my drag and finish strong. When I exited the water my watch said 8:42 but my recorded time was 8:51 since the chip reader was closer to transition. Looking back, I noticed I was mid-pack (22^nd of 42) of the first heat, not bad for an old lady.

T1 went smooth and I got out of my wetsuit with some grace. I put on my bike shoes, ran my bike out of transition, hopped on, clipped in and took off. The course was new to me as I hadn’t even looked at a map. The first mile and a half was a long deceitful hill and I was not feeling good about my only training being the 4-mile jaunts with Buster. Once we turned back into the park the rolling hills were mostly downhill. I soon saw the lake and transition area and realized we were doing loops. In total the bike leg was 3 laps and my average speed was over 16 mph. An acceptable rate for this early in the season.

The run leg was next, my weakest link. I walked out of transition drinking some water and started to jog about 20- yds later. It was a flat and managed a steady pace. Before I knew it I hit the 1-mile marker and my watch said 9:19, a very fast first mile for me. I figured it was wrong because I felt slow and steady. The 2nd mile was hilly and I walked up a few of the hills and my watched registered 11:03 for, a total of 20:22. For the first time ever in my life, my legs were moving on their own and not wanting to stop. Round and round like bicycle wheels, and luckily, my cardio was able to handle it. I wasn't wearing my monitor but it heart rates seemed okay. As we came around the lake on the 3rd and final mile my body was getting tired but I listened to the legs. I finished the run at 30:34, a pace of 10:11 which was my fastest run pace ever for a triathlon. I can really tell that I had been training for the run.

My final time was 1:27.38 which is good enough for me. I took 28th out of 43 women and for swimming I was 32nd out of 198 triathletes. Not too shabby for an old woman. I grabbed a few bagels, a banana, and a yogurt and went and got in the line for free massages!

My next race is 8/1/09, unless I decide that my toe is well enough for one in July!

Toe trauma, no drama

My first visit the emergency room in 30 years happened the night of June 6th. After a busy morning and afternoon, I decided to go to the Italiana Fest at Zona Rosa to see some of my friends from work. We stopped at QuickTrip for a cold drink and then drove around ZR looking for a parking place. Riley said I should just park at Dick’s but I wanted a spot in a shaded garage. I found one in the garage that attaches to the only indoor common area in ZR.

We parked and walked to the doors, where I proceeded by grabbing the big glass door too fast and having it roll over my left foot. My first thought was “@#!$^* that really hurt bad!” We continued inside and I looked down and things didn’t look right. I told Riley we needed to go to the restroom where I could clean up my foot. I only made it a few steps when I heard people gawking about the bloody trail I was leaving, and then someone pointed me to the Guest Services desk where they had first aid. The lady behind the desk handed me some tissues, bandaids, gauze, and ointment and I’m sure my face looked dumbfounded. I was starting to feel light-headed so I grabbed them and sat down at a table about 10 feet away.

I wrapped the tissues around my mangled toe so the passer-byers wouldn’t see it. The guest services lady told me if there wasn’t enough paper towels in the bathroom I could hunt down a cleaning lady and she would have some. I was sweating profusely and was pretty sure that I couldn’t stand up without fainting.

Riley was a trooper and was doing everything she could think of to help me. She suggested that I call a nurse so I called my friend Heidi who I'd been chatting with earlier in the day. She is a (non-practicing) nurse and her husband, Jason, is an ER doctor. I told her that I hurt my toe and I thought the toenail had come completely off but I was too afraid to look. Jason said ER would only dress it and give me pain medication, so if I could do that myself there was no need to go. Since I couldn’t even look at it, let alone touch it, I thought a visit to a medical professional sounded like a good idea.

Next, the “first responder” for ZR showed up to help me thru my ordeal. He glanced at my foot, told me to elevate it, wrote up an accident report, suggested I go to Urgent Care but not drive myself, and was on his way. Thanks dude.

As Riley worked with the guest service lady to find an open urgent care center I called a few friends to see if they could come give me a ride. After 3 calls with no luck and discovering that all urgent care centers close at 6pm or earlier on Saturdays, I decided to drive myself two miles down the road to St. Lukes Hospital.

I mustered my strength, stood up and limped to my car, arguing with Riley most of the way that I could indeed drive okay. We made it to the hospital fine and spent only 5 minutes in the waiting room. It was 6:40pm. I notified my softball team that I wouldn’t be playing the next day because I was in the ER.

I was taken to a private room with a bed and cable TV. I laid down and put a blanket over me and Riley and I both sighed a sigh of relief. As we watched NEMO, the nurse, doctor and billings clerk came and left several times. Unable to let anyone touch my wound, the doctor decided to numbing it would be best. Yes, those two shots almost hurt more than the wound itself, but 10 seconds later I felt I could jump up and go run a 5K.

One of my softball team members texted me back and called me a pansy and said they always play with their ailments, so with the beauty of camera phones she was able to see why she needed to find a sub.

Between the doctor and the nurse they cleaned me up nicely and equipped me with the knowledge and materials to take care of my wound for the next 5 days. Riley and I left the hospital about 2 hours after we arrived and went straight to a 24-hr pharmacy to fill my prescriptions for vicodin, motrin, and cephalexin (pain and anti-infection pills).

It has been 10-days since the trauma and it is no longer an open wound. The first 2 days were painful. Days 3-7 got better and only hurt bad when touched. Now it is just uncomfortable as my nail-bed learns to exist without protection. I've continued my exercise on the stationary bike and elliptical in flip-flops. On day 8 I ran barefoot on my treadmill, my feet were sore after.

My doctor says it will take 1-3 months to see the nail start to grow, and another 6-9 months for it to come in fully. There is a possibilty that the nail matrix was damaged and it could take even longer for it to produce new nail plate cells. My goal is to participate in the Smithville Woman's Triathlon on August 1st.