22. Triathlon

Back in July I did a triathlon with Tyler.  My preparation was that I hadn't swam since January and although I ride my bike just about everywhere around town, I never rode over the 12.8 miles that the race covered.  The running I was alright on because I knew I was going to have a half marathon a month later.

I was really excited to do the triathlon.  I remember back when I was little watching the ironman on TV and thinking how cool it was.  Someday I might even want to do an ironman.  There is a lot of ground to cover between now and then though.  A LOT!!!!  I still think it would be cool.

The triathlon I did was the Oswego Triathlon.  The 2 biggest things I liked about it were that: 1) it was local and 2) it had a shorter swim than most (600 yards).

When I got there I got everything set up.

This isn't a huge triathlon.  Here is the mess of all of the bikes and stuff before the race began.

Then I went and looked to see just how far 600 yards looked.

Tyler and I were set up and ready to go with about 40 minutes to go until the start.  We had nothing to do and neither of us were interested in doing any types of warm-up exercises.  So we just spent time going between looking at our bikes and looking at the water.  We also got to see this guy:

We entered from the beach and swam 200 yards to the far pyramid shaped flotation bouy.  We then turned to the right around it and went another 200 yards to another bouy, then we swam back to the beach.  I have to admit it wasn't terrible.  I started in the way back from my group and I finished in a little over 15 minutes.  I was pleased with that time.

My first transition went fine.  I had one mix-up where I put my helmet on and then went to put my shirt on.  That didn't work so I had to take the helmet off and start over.  My transition from being in just a swimsuit to being dressed and ready to bike took me a minute and twenty-five seconds.  Not bad.

For the biking portion (12.8 miles) I was pretty strong.  I passed a few people and got passed by quite a few more.  I am not blaming my biking stamina or skill, I am blaming technology.  My bike is great for everything I need it for, but for sprint speed, it is good, but not great.  My average speed was 17.1 mph.  That's not that bad for doing it consistently for just under 45 minutes straight.

My second transition was 50 seconds.  All I had to do was take my helmet off, put my bike on the rack and swap shoes.

Last came the run.  I was pretty tired, and I hadn't really trained at all with all three sports at all over the summer.  I did the 5K in 29 minutes.  Not a record breaker by any stretch, but it is my new PR.  I guess it is my only time, but I am happy with it. My official time was 1:31:28.

I am excited about the possibility of doing another one next year!  Maybe this one again, or maybe even this one outside of Rockford.  Either way I liked the experience and would like to do it again.  It is a lot more fun than just doing a running race.  Anyone interested in doing a triathlon next year?

Also, I thought I got a picture with Tyler, but the picture taker apparently never actually took the shot that we thought we did. 

56 goals done (or blogged about)!!!!

91.Petco Park

Last week Melissa and I had the chance to head out to Southern California to celebrate 10 years of marriage.  We had a great time!  Our second night in town we went to Petco Park.

There really isn't a really pretty entrance to the park. It is in the middle of downtown though which made for a nice atmosphere making our way to the park.

Check out the right field area. 

There is a sandbox for the kids to play in.  Also, those seats have tons of leg room.  The one setback is that you have a horrible view for the game.  Some of those seats don't even have a view of the infield!  Who designed that and thought it was a good idea?

You can get to field level though.  It was a pretty cool view from there.

Here is where our first seats were:

They were nice, but we had people on both sides of us.  So we moved to the outfield below the scoreboard.

Bad team, but a fun night!

Plus, another ball to add to the display!

14. Catch Fireflies

We were finally able to make it out to catch fireflies in the yard.  I don't know what happened last year.  I didn't see any. I'm glad they were out because the kids had a really good time catching them.

We started the night off with some ice cream.

Maddie loved it!  She did awesome.  That girl loves bugs and nature.  It was so fun to see her run around in the yard excitedly tracking them down.

Charlie walked around the yard in this pose for most of the time.  We tried to teach him that you could just let the bugs land on your hand if you moved your hand onto them as they are flying.  If you are watching from afar, he looked pretty silly.

Quick stop for a family shot:

Boy did the grass need mowed!

Releasing our catch:

They definitely had a good time.

55 goals down!

41. Play tennis 10 times

I got to play tennis for the 10th time in the 1001 days last night.

Here is what the courts look like at 9:00 at night.  It is usually pretty quiet which is good because that means that there aren't too many onlookers to see the embarrassment of me playing tennis.  I am not terrible, but it would be easy to say that I play more defensively than trying to hit good shots playing offensively.  If I do that, it gets ugly.

I am happy to have friends that like to get out on Sunday evenings to sweat and hang out.  Last night's round of tennis had an added element of difficulty in that we had our guy's night out at Golden Corral.  For most of the night I was good (due to the fact that I didn't try to eat 9 steaks), but there were a few times that I was feeling the weight of having eaten the equivalent of 4 dinners.

I still plan on going out to play tennis on Sunday nights. I have too good of a time to stop doing it.

54 goals down!

42. Do a camping trip with friends

We went on a camping trip last month.  It was a really good time.  All went well on the trip and it seemed like the other families that came with us are excited about going next time.

Here's the video that Melissa put together of our trip:



I can't wait to go again.  The kids can't either!

53 goals down!

94. Go to an ESPN radio show

I finally made it out to an ESPN radio show.  That is pretty much the only radio station I have listened to for the past 10 years when I am driving by myself.  I have gotten to know the different guys on the radio quite a bit - well, as much as you can by listening to them talk about sports and sometimes about their own daily lives.

Last week I was doing one of my regular checks on espn1000.com to see where they might be broadcasting from on the occasions for when they are outside of their regular studio.  I got really excited.  As I was trying to figure out how to swing it I just decided to make it part of my errands that I ran for today.  I had to so some shopping out near Geneva (where they were broadcasting from) so I just worked it as one of the stops.  As I got closer I saw the van and started to get excited.

Here was the scene when I got in there:

The place was pretty loud.  Between conversations from people at their tables and the large speaker blasting the radio show it was an interesting mix.  I have listened to these guys so many times on the radio and never really had a picture of what they look like.  They are just sitting back and having a conversation as if they were talking to each other on the telephone.  It was pretty neat. 

At the commercial breaks they just sat at the table and let people come up to chat and to sign autographs.  It was super laid back.  Another that thing hit me as I was there was that there is a ton of time for breaks.  It felt like there was 10 minutes for each commercial break.  When you mix in commercials, score updates from all of the different sports and news updates it gets long.  That was nice today as it allowed me to go and chat with both of the guys for a couple of minutes.

Here's a close shot of Waddle talking with a little boy that was in front of me in line:

That's probably not a shot that he would have approved to get posted onto the internet, but it is what I got.  When I was chatting with him I talked about how I used to act like I was him when I was playing football at recess back in 5th and 6th grade.  He was my favorite Bear when I was little so it was pretty cool to chat with him for a bit.  Silvy was really nice too.  Both guys were super inviting and in no way at all did they act like they were celebrities or that they would rather be in the studio with no one bothering them.

Here's a picture that they were handing out that I got both guys to sign for me:

That one is definitely going up on the wall in the garage!

I am very glad that I was able to go and check them out.  If it wasn't on this list I know I wouldn't have gone out to see them.

52 goals down!

34. Ride 1500 miles on my bike

I finally got there!  When I was writing my goals I thought putting 1,000 miles would be a good goal, but 1,500 would be more of a challenge.  That works out to about a mile and a half per day.  In my quest for 1,500 miles I think my longest ride was no longer than 15 miles.  I biked many times to school and that is 4 miles each way.  I biked last summer to most of my softball games and that was about 5.5 miles each way.  I bike to the grocery store and that is about 1 mile each way.  I biked to Aurora University and that is 3 miles each way.  I biked as often as I could and I really enjoyed it.  I kept watching the odometer to see myself slowly getting closer to the 1,500 mile mark.  It definitely was a motivator to get me on the bike.  1,500 miles is a lot of riding when you are going 4 miles at a time.

As has been the norm, my students have been a big motivator to getting this one done.  I told them at the beginning of the year that I wanted to ride more times than I bike to school and there is a decent chance that will get done. 

Now I just need to set my sights on more miles to get to on the bike. (2,500 by the end of summer?) I know that there will be a lot of bike rides with this kids this summer.  Lucy had her first ride last week and absolutely loved it.

Love that girl!

51 goals down!