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We almost didn’t make it, with the twin runny noses going. Ella and Fiona both seemed to be coming down with something or other when we got up friday morning. Ella cleared up ok by lunch, but Fiona was a little groggy and out of it even before getting a little cough medicine (she kept waking herself up with the coughing). We decided it best to at least wait until morning to see how she was doing.

Come morning, she was a little better, but we still had our doubts for a while. Once we were up and had some breakfast though, we decided that it would be worth a try. We checked that Mike and John were ok with a possibly contagious niece, and they both said they’d tough it out. We also were prepared to turn back if she really lost it on the trip. As it turned out, the longish drive went just fine, and we showed up at camp early in the afternoon.

It was a great decision to go - the weather was perfect and everyone had a great time. Ella was totally excited to go fishing with her uncles. Mike borrowed a boat for the weekend, and we borrowed a life vest for Ella. John bought her a new (floating!) fishing pole to use. Ella had her vest on right away, badgering Uncle John to hurry up and get in the boat! Same thing the next day, after breakfast, Ella want to put her vest on and spent the next 1/2 hour standing at the shore next to the boat telling everyone she was ready to go fishing. Made her uncles proud, she did.

Autumn got in a couple of good trail runs in training for her upcoming races, both of with are also on trails. She wears a heart rate monitor while training, and it’s hunting season in Wisconsin. Both of these facts came into play when she heard some shots a short ways away while running up a small hill and her heart rate jumped about 20 beats per minute. She then decided that 2 laps was plenty enough workout for the morning.

I missed out on part of the late night campfire because we were wiped out after being up most of the night with Fiona on friday, and i fell asleep before the late-night fishing entourage returned. Everyone except John got skunked, and he only caught a couple of piddle little things. Ella loved telling everyone that she got skunked though, it was her favorite phrase for the trip. Even Fiona had a lot of fun, and the cold seemed to clear up just fine in the fresh air.

well, we just got back from the 10th annual st. paul bike classic (http://www.spnec.org/bike_classic). a 15 or 30 mile ride around st. paul. not a race (or so i had to keep reminding myself), just a laid back ride. we opted for the 30 mile route since we had just done 50 with the girls a few weeks ago and knew they could stand being in the burley for a while. the ride itself is very beautiful, going along the river for quite a ways, twisting up to lake phalen and lake como, and ending back at st. thomas along summit ave. lots of rest stops with food, lemonade, water, coffee, music. schwag included aveda lip balm and foot massage lotion!

it was also exciting because it was the inaugural ride for both my new road bike and bill’s ‘new to him’ single speed old school raleigh. we made quite the pair, let me tell ya! bill took the burley for the first 10 miles so i could play with my new bike a bit. i felt like all i needed to do was rest my foot on the pedal and i would glide along at about 15+ mph. if i really tried, i got past 20 mph with minimal effort. just a wonderful bike. no effort. well, no effort until the burley was handed over. after 10 miles of zipping along, my neck was getting strained looking over my shoulder trying to find my family. so, i took the burley just to even things out. bill is a VERY strong rider, but he’s still getting used to the single speed thing and also isn’t used to pulling the burley (which is about 100+ lbs of drag between the burley itself, the two girls, diaper bag, snacks, water bottles, kitchen sink, etc.). i’ve had the whole summer as burley puller, not to mention the fancy schmancy new bike.

of course, the last 20 miles had ALL the hills. it was fine. i had so many cheerleaders. many people i passed gasped or declared ’she had TWO kids in there!’ or ‘god, i’m getting tired watching her!’ or ‘you are doing an amazing job!’ i passed a few roadie types on one of the last hills, passed them just because once you get the momentum going with the burley, it is death to stop. anyway, bill was coming along behind and overheard one of the roadies say to another roadie ‘holy crap!’ as he watched me crank away up the hill with fiona, ella, and ‘celeste’, as we’re calling my new bike. anyway, it was a great time. we hope to make this an annual tradition for our family.

this morning i finished my second triathlon - the st. croix valley triathlon (www.finalstretch.com). this was a sprint course, similar to the brewhouse race i did in august, but everything was a little tougher. the 1/3 mile swim was in a river, not a lake. the 10 mile bike was hilly, not rolling. the run was 4 miles, not 2.5. i did much better than i expected, finishing in 1:35 - just over 10 minutes above my brewhouse time, despite the extra 1.5 miles of running. it was a beautiful day for a race - fairly cool, blue skies, slight breeze.

autumn and ella doing yoga before the race

prerace: friday was mostly a rest day. did a short brick (biking then running) in the evening (B: 15 minutes, R: 10 minutes) to check out bike, practice the transition from one to the other, and also warm up muscles for stretching. did a long stretch. finished packing. bill made a wonderful beef stir fry w/ brown rice (carbs!), green beans, corn, zuchinni. took a warm bath and had some herbal tea, but i still didn’t sleep very well. this morning i was up at 4:15am. finished packing. had some steel cut oatmeal w/ honey and banana. woke up the family around 5:15, on the road by 6am. once we were at the race start, i set up my transition area, then did some yoga, played tag with ella, then did some more stretching.

autumn’s wave (wave 3) heads out for the swim

swim: 1/3 mile. straight out and back in the st. croix river. not much current, some waves. this was my first co-ed swim. the men were much rougher than the all female wave in my first race. lots of shoving. several men were doing the breast stroke, so i had to pass them in order to not get kicked. overall, the swim was - fast. over before i knew it. still need to work on my total immersion form in race conditions (ti is the type of swimming i’ve been working on with a coach - www.totalimmersion.net/tao-ti-p1.html). it all falls apart when i’m trying to go fast. this time i was better about leaving an arm extended at all time, mainly to protect my head. this may have also allowed me to go faster.

autumn coming in from the bike

bike: 10 miles. transition from swim to bike seemed to go more smoothly. i was less flustered, probably because i’ve practiced or done transitions several times now. beautiful ride. out and back. one water station at the turn around. curvy and hilly - hard on the way out, fun on the way back! i wore my heart rate monitor and mt heart rate was around 165 for the bike. peaked at a scary 185 on the BIG hill, so i held back a bit (many ended up pushing their bikes up the hill - and i heard that many lost their breakfast at the top of the BIG hill). since i struggled on the run at my first tri, i made sure that i took the last couple miles of the bike more slowly this time to get my heart rate down around 150 before i started the run. seemed to work well. the bike also felt like it went very quickly. passed a very fit looking guy in a tri-suit riding a litespeed! almost wanted to turn and say ‘come on now - i’m a chubby mom on a ‘82 miyata! pick up the pace, boy!’, but i didn’t. he passed me up a bit later, but was in site the rest of the ride.

autumn heads out for the run

run: 4 miles. transition from bike to run went quickly. i happily wasted a few seconds running to the sidelines to give ella a kiss. she thought i was done with my race when i got in for T2, and was upset when i started to take off again. the run went along meandering paths and roads next to the river. some stretches were on sidewalk and the exhaust from the cars bothered me, but other stretches were wooded and beautiful. hr was great. peaked around 180 on a slight hill, but otherwise it was around 165-175 the whole time. looked down on mile 3 and it was 147! lowest i can ever remember during a run. when i saw it was getting around 165 i tried to pick up my (slow) pace. i was happy just to run the whole way. i have walked at least part of EVERY race i’ve done this year (5k, 8k, first sprint tri). even though this run was longer than my last tri (4 miles versus 2.5), i was able to run the whole time. i think backing off on the last part of the bike, and also having the heart rate monitor on, both helped me stick with a slow but steady pace on the run.

FINISHED! 1:35

post-race: kissed my girls & bill, stretched, drank some emergen-c sport drink, changed clothes, had an apple. we went to the awards ceremony/luau thing. afterwards, we tried to go to dq, CLOSED, and then izzy’s, also CLOSED (what, doesn’t anyone eat ice cream at 10:30 in the morning?), so ended up at whole foods market to get some celebratory post-race ice cream!

it was a fun race. i may do it again next year, depending on what other races we are doing (and i do mean WE - bill wants to do some mountain bike races again!).