Thanksgiving

The Trizones team at the Turkey Trot

Thanksgiving morning I did the 5 mile Turkey Trot starting at Waterloo Park, and Jeff and Jim mountain biked at Walnut Creek Park. I have always wanted to do a turkey trot and this is the first one I've done. I showed up pretty early since I had to do packet and chip pickup. As I was parking I ran into Cindy, nice! Cindy and I before the race

Now I had someone to hang out with right away, cool! Red, Kenneth, Coach Tracy and a few other Trizoners showed up and we did a short warm up.This dog followed Red home on her run last weekend. She decided to keep him and named him Kona, today was his first run on a leash and he did really well.

I just got these Zoot compression socks yesterday. They are supposed to keep your legs feeling fresh and help with recovering faster. The 5 mile turkey trot probably isn't long enough for them to make a huge difference, but I wanted to test them and if they felt good today, then I'd wear them for Decker. They felt great during the race and my legs still feel good now! So I'll be wearing them for Decker too.

There were about 12,000 people running so it took us about 10 minutes after the starting gun went off to get to the start. I just wanted to finish in under an hour and have a good time today. I started off and felt good, we ran down 6th Street all the way to West Lynn, not many hills on 6th, but after we turned onto West Lynn at about mile 1.5 or 2, the hills started, they pretty much continued through the race, but I didn't have to walk up any of them and I felt great the entire run. It was a lot of fun to see people dressed as turkeys and indians and pilgrims. I finished in 57:53.

Everyone from Trizones does a champagne toast after the turkey trot. I am definitely thankful to have found such a great training group in Austin.

Kenneth pouring champagne for the toast.

Coach Tracy giving the toast

Elle, Cindy, Kenneth, and Carolyn ready for the champagne toast.
Finishing my champagne

Tom and Judy came over, Jim came over, Jeff fried the turkey (sorry no pictures), we had Thanksgiving dinner (including some turkey for Connor and Katie), and then played Wii for awhile. I am still the Wii bowling champion, but Jeff and Jim kicked my butt in baseball.
Jim hanging out with Connor

Dessert was cupcakes from Hey Cupcake.
Tom and Judy enjoying their cupcakes

Iron Star

Drew and Anna took me to a really good sushi place on Saturday night and I stayed at their house. Thanks guys!

Ingrid did the Iron Star half Iron triathlon this weekend. We all went out to watch her race and cheer for her. Ingrid worked just as hard (maybe harder) for this race as the rest of us worked for Longhorn, so we were all super excited for her! She did such an awesome job cheering for me and helping me keep going at Longhorn that I really wanted to do everything I could to help her through the tough parts of Iron Star.

Kim, Ingrid's mom, Ramona, and Ingrid before the start. It was really cold, in the 40's at the start!

I was in a kayak with Nilda for the swim. It was really pretty with all the steam coming off the lake. I was really excited when Nilda asked if I wanted to kayak with her for the race. I thought that would be the perfect place to see Ingrid swim and really be able to help her if she had a tough swim.Steph kayaking into the sunrise. Chris, Nilda, Ross, Steph, and I were all in kayaks for the swim. I'm not sure it was a coincidence that Ingrid knew all the kayakers!

Ingrid's swim wave starting. Dave Rainey announced at the start and he kept talking about Ingrid. Told her to draft off people, told her to go to the front, etc, etc. He must have said her name at least 6 times. Later in the day, random people were asking us about her (we had signs with her name).

Nilda and I in her kayak
Ross got this picture of someone swimming, it's really hard to get good pictures of people swimming. That's Nilda and I in the background

Ross in the kayak

Chris in the kayak

It took us a little while to get out of the water after the swim, while we were waiting for the last couple of swimmers, Dave Rainey came over to the shore and told me "Ingrid looked great coming out of the water, she was even smiling" I was SO happy! I know she looked good when I saw her swimming, and I know she trained like crazy for this swim, but I was still a little worried about her.

Steph in the kayak

Ingrid finishing the bike! She's awesome on the bike.

I had planned to run about 8 miles while Ingrid was biking, but by the time we set up the HRTC tent, I was afraid I wouldn't finish my run by the time Ingrid got back on the bike, and I was definitely not going to miss her coming in on the bike! So I ran 8.5 miles at Town Lake this morning.

Ingrid in transition
Ingrid starting the run

Looking strong on the run!
I think this is around mile 8. Chris, Ramona, Ross, Steph, and David stayed there to see her come by. She said she really appreciated them being there and cheering for her! Kim, Matt, and I went to the finish. We were worried we would miss her finish if we stayed at mile 8 to see her.

Matt, me, David, Kim, Ramona, Ross, and Chris just after Ingrid started the run
waiting for Ingrid to finish

Jess and his son Jake did the aquabike, they both did great, but Jess (and everyone else I talked to) said the bike course was tough. Jess said this was his "I'm tired after the race face"

Steph, Ramona, Chris and Matt, just before Ingrid finished
Keren was pretty much in charge at the finish line

Of course, Kim and I brought cupcakes!
Ingrid finishing in 6:31:12!! She did an awesome job and even got 4th place in her age group!

Checking out the cupcake selection

YUM!! Cupcakes!

Dave Rainey had a cupcake too

Ingrid with Dave

Ingrid enjoying her second cupcake!

Ingrid telling us about the race
Ingrid and her mom, Ramona

Ingrid and Chris

Andrew really enjoyed his cupcake too. He swam on a relay team with Johnnie and Scott from Tri on the Run and they got 3rd place!

I finally got to meet Maggie from kickrunning

Kim and I handed out awards for Dave Rainey at the awards ceremony

Race for the Cure

Race for the Cure is a nationwide 5k. This weekend was in downtown Austin. It's a huge fundraiser for the Susan G. Komen foundation. I haven't done a 5K (outside a triathlon) since the Dixie Chicken run in College Station in 2003, so I wasn't even sure what kind of goal to set. I figured it would be a crowded race and maybe hilly, so I'd be happy with anything less than 36 minutes.

I met up with the Trizones group and I was amazed by all the pink at the race site. Some people were dressed head to toe in pink. The race tents were pink and they were giving out all kinds of pink stuff. They had pink signs to put on your back that said "in honor of" or "in memory of" so you could fill in names of people you know who have had breast cancer. I made an "in honor of" sign and put my aunt Jean, my great aunt Linda, and Hannah (a trizones athlete) on mine.

We got there pretty early so we hung out and warmed up for awhile. Then headed over to the Congress street bridge for the start. They had estimated that 24,000 people would participate, many of them walked and started at a different location. At the start we got fairly close to the front and I was surprised it wasn't really that crowded the first mile. Most of the first mile was slightly uphill, I got to the 1 mile marker at about 11:20, perfect pace.

The second mile there were a few steep uphills and a few nice downhills. I started to pass a lot of people who were walking and running slowly. It was pretty cool to see some of the guys dressed in pink with signs that said Mom or Grandma. The breast cancer survivors all wore special pink shirts, it was really amazing to see so many of them all racing, some of them were running or walking with big groups of their supporters. At the 2 mile marker my watch said 22:40 ish. still right on pace. It looked like it was more downhill at this point so I tried to speed up a little.

The last 1.2 miles went by fast. I turned a corner and there was the finish line! My official time was 33:56. I watched people finish for a few minutes and then met up with the Trizoners for pictures.

Jody is a 70 year old Trizones athlete who finished 3rd in her age group (notice the medal!) after running 12 miles on Saturday (she's getting ready for the San Antonio half marathon). Jody is really sweet and really inspiring, she started a business to keep seniors active, she teaches aerobics and other classes for seniors, she does triathlons, she rows, and she's even thinking about writing a book. I think all of us at Trizones hope we can be like Jody when we're 70!

Halloween

Nic and Melanie had a party at their house for Halloween. We all decided to dress as characters from the movie Tropic Thunder. A lot of people came in really great costumes. It was the most fun I've had on Halloween in a long long time.

Jeff as Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) He really ended up looking like him. It was all in the hair. He grew his hair out for 4 weeks so he could shave it like a balding guy's hair.

Part of the G5 dance

Jeff and me as Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) after he kills the panda

Melanie as Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) She wrapped towels around her waist so she'd be fat. She even had jellybeans. She kept saying she needed a bat. It's one of the grossest parts of the movie when he takes a bite out of the bat while it's still alive!

Nic as Kevin Sandusky, he had glasses, but didn't have them on for the picture

Jim was Useless Knowledge Man. When Jeff told me, I said How's that different from everyday?? When I saw him I realized it was tights and a cape.
BooRay the Boxer was YodaJeff's Evil Monkey pumpkinMy Haunted House pumpkinNic and Mel's drunk pumpkin