Way out of Fear Factor

Scott was invited to a Fear Factor birthday party where they ate boiled frog legs, stuck their hands in a container with live crickets to get keys to unlock teammates from a dog kennel, ate octopus, green hot dogs, licked dog food off of M&Ms, etc. Scott wasn't feeling well before he went to the party and got sick and threw up before all of the fun games happened. Maybe it was the day. His teacher in school blacked out and went to the hospital to see if she broke her arm. Maybe Scott's throwing up actually saved him from having to try all of the gross stuff. Scott's queasy about taking Tylenol. I don't think he would have fared well.

The Details of Our Lives

I believe it was Neal A Maxwell who said that God was involved in the details of our lives.

Yesterday Heidi's friend came over to play. This little girl had tried to come over on Monday and Tuesday, but things didn't work out for her to come over until Wednesday. After she had been here a while, I got a phone call from her neighbor telling me that this girl's mom had had a seizure (her first) and was now at the hospital. Needless to say, this girl ended up staying at our home for several more hours, for the most part blissfully unaware of what was going on (her dad did talk to her and tell her that he was at the doctor's with her mom).

During this time I thought about how scary it would have been for this girl to see her mom having a seizure. Watching someone have a seizure is unnerving to say the least and only after 10+ years of seeing them on occasion at the hospital have I been able to remain calm and clinical without my heart racing at the sight of uncontrollable writhing. I think this could have been emotionally damaging for this young girl. Her younger brother was with the mom during the incident and as soon as I saw him, he immediately told me about his mom shaking. Although this incident has obviously had a short term impact on him, he is pretty young and I don't think he is emotionally mature enough to imagine the worst case scenarios like his older sister would have done.

This incident brought to mind the quote about God being involved in the details of our lives and I thought about how He had helped this young girl. If she had been able to play with Heidi earlier in the week, she would not have been with us on Wednesday and probably would have been with her mom. I think we often underestimate how much God is involved in our lives and how much He watches out for us and cares for us individually.

Carbs vs Protein

Tues 5/20: Today I rode my bike for 1 1/2 hours focusing on 2 20 min intervals with my hr in the 150s-160s. I then did a 1/2 hr trail run with my hr in the 160s. I was pretty tired after my workout. I came home with just 20 minutes before I needed to pick up Scott from school and was hurrying to eat, stretch, and shower within that time frame. I focused on getting some protein to replenish my muscles and so ate a pork and vegetable kabob along with some pineapple.
By the time I got to Scott's school (a 15 min drive) I felt completely sick. I had a horrendous headache and got nauseous and started sweating all over. It was all I could do to drive back home. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. After explaining the situation to Rich, he asked what I had eaten after my workout. When I told him he was not surprised I had gotten so sick as I basically had not eaten any carbs. He said the post workout carbs to protein ratio should be 7:1. I was glad to find a simple answer and also surprised that I didn't already know this. Normally I have carbs after a workout, partly because they are so accessible-- a P & J sandwich, Cliff bars, etc. Once again I've had to relearn a basic training lesson.

I am planning to post about the Women's Tri after I get some pictures. We went with the family to TGIFriday's for Heidi's birthday dinner and had a nice time. Yesterday a paraglider crashed into the side of the mountain behind our house. We watched the rescue quite closely. From the report of other people, it looks like he had a shoulder injury, but his head was fine as he was wearing a helmet. The Life Flight and News helicopters were flying for a long time. I wondered how the little fox family was doing with all that noise. I was surprised that with all that coverage I didn't see anything about it in the Des News or the KSL website.

Meet the Candidate Night

4 the number of candidates running for district 7 of the new East side Jordan School District who came to our home.
24 the number of chairs borrowed and set up.
700 the number of fliers sent home with students from Oak Hollow, Channing Hall, and Summit elementary schools.
19 the number of guests who came.
90 the number of seconds each candidate had in turn to answer a question from the audience.
100% the percentage of confidence I will have on voting day that I voted for the right candidate.

St George Tri

The St George Triathlon 2008 will be remembered for the wind and the whitecaps and PW (personal worst) swim times. 1500 athletes were signed up for this race. I raced the Olympic or Intermediate distance (1500 m swim, 40 k bike, 10 k run).

SWIM The women intermediate distance were the 3rd wave to go after 2 waves of male athletes. It was so cold waiting to go into the water, even with a full wet suit on. We huddled and chatted until we were called up to get timed in with our timing chip. I did a tiny bit of warm up in the water. The water was so choppy that I chose to swim breast stroke for most of the swim. Someone said that they pulled 28 people out of the water. I haven't been able to verify that number, but I saw some of the men being pulled out before we even started. The water was so bad that the race directors canceled the swim for the sprint distance racers, turning their tri into a duo.
Mentally I didn't even really race the swim. It's hard to keep focused when water is rushing into your mouth and you can feel the water recede, knowing that a tall wave is coming right at you. I've never attempted an ocean tri and wonder if that's how the swim is.

BIKE I felt sluggish in transition as I tried to strip off my wet suit, but was able to get on the bike and focus. There were several spots where the wind howled as we rode, and one spot where sand pelted us just after the "Beware of Drifting Sand" sign. At the first turn around about 10 miles into the race, I turned too wide and went into the sand where I slid out onto my elbow and hip.
I thought I was doing fairly well on the bike as I didn't get passed by many women and actually passed several men. There were a few guys I played tag with-- I'd catch them on the hills and then they'd fly by me on a turn. The vast majority of my riding has been indoors and I don't have technique down. Anyway, my biking turned out to be my weak point as always.

RUN The run was 90% on the sand. I passed lots of people on the run although my time was average. I finished 23rd woman out of about 100 finishers and 155th over all out of 335 finishers. I didn't feel like I had trained enough for this race-- I still feel like I'm working on technique for the swim and the bike-- but I had a lot of fun. While I was racing I kept thinking, "I love racing. This is fun, miserable, but fun."

As I crossed the finish line, my friend was sitting in an ice bath. They had some metal tubs full of water and ice that were full of water bottles they were handing out to finishing athletes. One tub was empty and she was sitting in the ice water to help her legs. I was extremely sore and tired and decided to try it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I sat in there for a few minutes before going over to the medical tent. They painfully cleaned my wound and were debating on whether or not I would need a stitch on the cut on my elbow. I went over to Amber, a teammate who is an ED doctor, and she came over and finished cleaning it and put a butterfly bandage on it.
After the race, the wind died down, the water was calm, and it was warm enough that you actually felt like swimming.

Mother's Day 2008:
-Pretending to stay asleep long enough for Heidi and Ian to make me breakfast in bed which consisted of the heels of a loaf of bread made into a p&j sandwich and a cup of water. An 8.5 for effort and minimal mess, a 1.3 for taste.
-Sweet gifts from the kids including a framed self portrait from Scott, a pencil holder from Heidi, and a note from Ian. Looking at the presents, I realize that some of these might be keepers-- ones my grandkids will look at and hold.
-Snuggling with the kids and reading stories.
-Continuous wailing from Tanner that kept me out of the chapel when they handed out big yummy Symphony bars, oh well-- I guess it helps me keep my nutrition goals.
-A nice breakfast and dinner made by Rich, plus a weekend down to St George for a triathlon while he watched the kids.
-Spotting a Vixen and at least 2 cubs on our mountain with the binoculars.
-Feeling deep gratitude for my husband and children.