One Year Anniversary

Sunday was Geoff and my one year wedding anniversary - which is not really that big of a deal considering we have been together for like 10 years now! We started celebrating on Saturday evening. Geoff and I have a rule that whoever is planning our celebration has to surprise the other person with the event - ok this is always dinner but one person doesn't know where you are going. Geoff took me to this adorable restaurant in a Victorian house in the Highlands area of town called the Highland Garden Cafe. Unfortunately it had been raining all day so we could not sit in the courtyard but we had a perfect little table by a window. The highlight of the evening was me having my first red glass of wine in four months! It was fantastic. The official present for 1 year is paper so I have ordered to small paintings for Geoff. I was presented with a piece of paper from the INS saying we have to go get finger printed and photographed on Friday which is a huge deal as it is one of the last steps to us finally getting our greencards.

On our actual anniversary we had an amazing day. We got up and took the dogs to the mountains and we went on a hike just outside Keystone. The hike was supposed to be 6 miles round trip however since we drove Geoff's sports car and could not go on this horrible 4x4 road, we had to park at a different trail head and hike 2.1 miles to the start of the hike. Once we started the actual hike it was incredible! It was of course a gorgeous Colorado day and we were surrounded by 14,000 foot mountains on the back side of A Basin ski resort. The dogs went crazy smelling everything, chasing animals, and swimming. The hike finished after this crazy climb over a talus slope at which it ended at an emerald lake between several mountain peaks. The water was frigid and of course Gus and Jake did not care. They were swimming like little kids. Geoff decided that he rarely gets the opportunity to swim with the dogs so he jumped in! It was insanity. His swim lasted about 45 seconds but probably felt like 3 minutes. The dogs loved it. It was not until hike down that you realize how hard of a climb we had. Since we had only planned on hiking 6 miles not 10 miles, we had only brought a granola bar for the top so needless to say we were STARVING and delirious by the end. We were also trying to beat the thunderstorm that was making its way towards us.

As Johanna put it, "it was our 1st anniversary to celebrate and our last anniversary for a long time without having to find a babysitter."

Waiting for movement...

So somewhere between 16 and 20 weeks you are supposed to feel the baby move. Since week 15 (since our baby is of course going to be an advanced child) I have been trying to feel this.

I getting frustrated because:
A) I don't know what I am supposed to be feeling
B) If the baby is growing faster then the average baby, then why can't I feel it sooner
C) I am ultra impatient (like father like daughter)

I am now at 17 weeks and 4 days and still nothing. Whenever I feel something, it usually ends up being hunger pains... I don't think we have an ultra lazy baby because last week at the doctor's appointment it was moving around like crazy when we were trying to hear the heart beat.

Patience is probably one of the virtues that being a parent will teach me... or more likely drive me insane.

HURRY UP... please

Baby's Second Race - Rattlesnake Sprint

This morning was my second sprint tri this pregnancy. I am now over 17 weeks and still feeling quite good. The course for this race is significantly more challenging then the race a couple of weeks ago. The location can be very hot and windy at times. Johanna and I were praying that it would not be 100F today... We got our wish. We woke up and it was RAINING! It rarely rains in Denver - in fact this is the second Saturday of the entire summer that we have had rain. At first I was nervous about riding my bike on slick roads however once I got out there and it was only misting, there was no way I was not going to race.

I squeezed into my wetsuit - thankfully this will be the last time I wear that horrible thing this year. I have a hard enough time getting into it normally let alone when I am gaining weight! I felt like a cabbage roll... As we waited for the person by person swim start (5 seconds apart) it started pouring. We were miserable and could not wait to get into the water so we could warm up. The water was super choppy so when you went to breathe you would drink a mouthful of water instead. It was only a 500 yard swim so it was over very quick (~12 mins).

T1 was humorous. They had wetsuit strippers so these 2 girls about 13 years old are trying to peel me out of this rubber suit! Lovely. I then wasted time getting my jacket out of my backpack, trying to get it on, and then deciding not to wear it because it had stopped raining. Yeesh I could have been much faster there...

I finally start the bike. The course is very hilly and on the first hill I dropped my chain. I was so annoyed when the 5 ladies I had just passed, I flew past me as I fixed my chain. Then I could not get into my large chain ring. I just decided that I was not supposed to go as fast as I could on the bike - and I was ok with it. On the second half of the bike I finally coaxed my chain into the large chain ring and started to make up some time. I thought the course was only supposed to be 12 miles but according to my bike computer it was over 14 - not a big deal but still...

The run was fun actually. The course was also slightly hilly which makes it a little more interesting. My running has gotten slower since the pregnancy but I was faster on this course then the last one - I averaged 9:10 minute miles.

My final time was 1:38:22 which I was happy with. Johanna did not do the last tri with me. She and I are ultra competitive and I was positive she beat me with all the mishaps I had. We compared our unofficial times and I believe I beat her by 20 seconds :)

This is my last tri for the season. I need to figure out what to tackle next...

16 Weeks and the Pea In The Pod

In the past few weeks I have personally noticed my belly pooching out. According to all the websites I have been looking at the baby is somewhere between the size of an avocado, plum, peach, and a softball so it makes sense that something is starting to look different. I decided to get on the scale the other day and I have officially entered the next set of 10 pound increment on the scale... eek! I still fit in all my regular clothes but they are getting a little snug. I decided to go to the mall and buy some new pants. Since I don't want to wear maternity clothes just yet so I was going to just buy regular pants in larger sizes. I went to four different stores and tried on literally 20 pairs of pants. They all looked just sloppy. After walking out of Anthropologie nearly in tears, I decided to take the plunge and go to Pea In The Pod just to see what maternity clothes are currently out there.

When I walked into the store, the sales women was super nice. I told her I wanted to try on only pants that don't look like maternity pants. She said she could do that for me and promptly put 12 pairs of pants in the change room. I must say trying on maternity pants is quite the experience - some look absolutely hideous. The one nice thing is that in maternity clothes I am a size small (well for now anyway). I took the plunge and bought my first two pairs of maternity pants which was a big milestone for me - it was hard but inevitable. The next big mileston willbe wearing the pants out in public...

Now if I keep shopping at Pea In The Pod for all of my clothes, I will spend my entire clothes budget (like I really have one) in about two months! I told Geoff that luckily I didn't buy the maternity Citizen's that were nearly $200 and he said that I should save those for a day that I am feeling really crummy. I knew I married that boy for a reason :)

Baby's First Tri

This past weekend, at the end of my my 15 th week of pregnancy, I raced in the Tri for the Cure Sprint Triathlon in Denver. It consisted of a 750 yard swim, 12 mile bike, and 3 mile run. This is my fifth year of racing tri's yet it has been a couple of years since I have raced a Sprint. I forgot how much fun they are. I had a great time.

Now when I say raced this weekend, I want to clarify that I am a middle of the pack racer (I hope to place in the top 25% to 50% of my age group) so I am more of a participant then I am a racer. My biggest competition tends to be with my own head. I have not been really training for any races at all. After completing the 5430 Half Ironman last summer I have been burned out on tri's. It is not really the tri's themselves but rather the commitment of training for them. For those of you who are not familiar with Tri's a Half Ironman consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run so as you can imagine it took a lot of time to train for. Since last August, I have been running regularly, occasionally biking, and rarely getting in the pool. A month ago, one of my best friends, Barb, came to Denver from Dallas for two weeks to train at altitude for Ironman Wisconsin. During her visit, I got excited about tri's again so I decided that to sign up for a couple of Sprints this summer.

The worst part of a tri is getting up early to get to the race. I have learned many valuable lessons from one of my coaches and idols, Celeste Callahan and one lesson that I have taken to heart is that I must be at the race waiting for the transition area to open so I can get a good transition spot. On Sunday, the transition area opened at 5:30AM so I planned to be parking my car by 5AM. When you set your alarm clock to get up at 3:45AM you know you are doing something crazy especially when at one point in my life coming home at 3:45AM would not be a big deal. I was parking my car at 5:02 and as I was gathering my gear together my friend Emily was making her way to the transition area too - another good listener of Celeste. We rode our bikes in the dark down to the transition area and waited in line with all of the other smart ladies in our CWW Tri club. Emily and I got our transition spots and settled in for our race to start. It was 5:35 and I didn't start until 8AM so we had an hour and a half to spare before we had to warm up. Waiting for the race to start you meet a lot of great women and spend a lot of time standing in line for the port-a-potty especially when there are over 2500 women competing in the race. You end up hearing way more information from perfect strangers then you ever cared to know about if they were successful going to "the bathroom" or not.

Finally it is time to head to the swim start. There are 15 swim waves a head of me. Emily is in the wave before me so we wish eachother luck knowing we will see eachother out on the course somewhere. I am waiting with all the other women in red swim caps watching hundreds of women come out of the water. Being pregnant has made me more emotional so seeing the excitement and sense of accomplishment on the ladies faces as they came out of the swim made me cry. I saw another spectator crying and that made me cry more.

I am always nervous for the swim because it is my weakest of the three sports. I just try to get thru it without any incidents. With less then a minute to go before our wave start, I looked over and saw Celeste and my other coach Yoli give me the thumbs up. I was so ready. The swim started and I felt good. I had consistent breathing and focused on good stroke technique. Since I had only been in the water eight times this year, I expected my swim to be about 20 minutes but to my delight it was just over 17 minutes. I got out of the water and saw Celeste's smiling face. I yelled "It was way better then I thought!" and ran out of the water.

The T1 transition was far but all went smoothly except I could not get my arm out of my wetsuit. I was thinking to myself, "riding my bike in my wetsuit would not be easy so I better get this thing off!" I managed to get unstuck and once I got on the bike I felt very strong. That course is really fast and easy so I was hoping to average 18 mph and ended up averaging 18.65 mph which is my fastest bike speed in a race. T2 went very smoothly and I headed out on the run.

Since the pregnancy, my running has gotten slower. I have asthma so I have always had breathing problems and it is not really my lungs that hurt - my body is just slower and I think I have finally accepted that. I focused on moving my arms and legs as fast as they would take me and that was around a 9:30 mile. I was secretly hoping to pull off 9 minute miles but pushed as hard as I could and I am completely ok with it.

As I crossed the finish line the ultra competitive side of me wanted to yell out, "Hey guess what, I'm pregnant and I rocked!" however in all honestly, I was so proud of all of the women out there participating in the race that it really didn't matter. The effort it took for me to complete a Sprint Tri being 4 months pregnant is nothing compared to how difficult it was for some of those women to walk their first mile. Congratulations to all the women who raced yesterday - you are an inspiration.

Race Results
Swim 17:30
T1 04:01
Bike 38:36
T2 02:36
Run 28:54
TOTAL 1:31:40

Rank 67 out of 387 in women aged 30 to 34
Rank 381 out of 2571 participants

The Alien Inside

These pictures are from 6 weeks ago but better late then never I suppose.



On June 16th we had our first appointment with the doctor. During that visit, Geoff got to witness a womens complete physical and to our surprise we had our first ultrasound. Up until this point the whole pregnancy was a complete mystery since I was basically feeling completely normal. In the back of my head I didn't believe it was for real and I think it was the same for Geoff too. When we saw the little alien on the screen, we were both in shock. It was really amazing. You could see this little blob and a beating heart. I was more in shock when the NP said that she was going to make sure there was only one baby... the thought had not even crossed our minds!

As you can see here, the baby was measuring exactly as it should for 8 weeks and 3 days.





Our next ultra sound is on September 6th where we see the 3D ultrasound and they do all of the checks to make sure everything has formed correctly. That will be a very scary yet exciting day!