A couple BIG days!!!!

Well, a lot of things have gone on the past few weeks... I guess the biggest news is I defended my dissertation yesterday and passed. I am not technically Dr. Zack yet, but once I turn in my dissertation and get my diploma in May, then I will be Dr. Zack! :) The defnese went really well, not any questions I couldn't handle and I wasn't nearly as nervous as I was a few weeks ago when I gave a 1-hour talk at an algebra seminar.

Other big news...I had a phone interview with a couple schools and one of them liked me enough to fly me down for an on campus interview. The job process is probably the most anxious thing for me. Something new and different and something I am not used too. In a few more months though, I will hopefully have a job and not be so worried about where we might be.

One last big thing....I am running my first marathon on Saturday. Yikes! The training didn't go as well as I would have liked, so my goals changed from tying to run 3:40 to trying to run the whole thing without walking! :) (oh and breaking 4 hours). Turns out the weather isn't going to be great...at least not raining, but pretty chilly, 30 degrees to start and in the mid to upper 40's by the end. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

After this weekend I can relax for awhile!!! Yeah!!! Happy Holidays everyone!!

GO BLUE

My sister posted this on her blog...and while the game already happened it is all summed up how we grew up being Michigan fans and Bo fans. When I mentioned to Eric that he had passed away he asked "Who?" And I guess only those who were Michigan or Ohio State fans really knew who he was. It was quite shocking to hear the news and the fact that it happened the day before the game of all games was even more shocking. I must say that even though Michigan lost, they played a great game in one of the hardest stadiums to win at. Go Blue.



"So I know this is our baby blog, but I found it only appropriate to use it to address yesterday's sadness - the passing of Bo Schembechler. Growing up as a University of Michigan fan Bo was synonymous with Michigan football and a revered name in our household. He was a great ambassador for the Wolverines and coached the game with undeniable passion. He will be greatly missed, but as I'm sure he would say The Game must go on. GO BLUE!"-Krista Scott

The Search is On

I know, I know, it has been a while. I have been super busy with everything going on here in NC. School started up and I have a busy semester. Teaching 2 classes, taking 1 and sitting in on 2 more make my time precious. Plus, throw in trying to finish my thesis and publish a paper and now applying for jobs, oh and not to mention training for my first marathon, I am suprised I am even able to make it through the days.

The official job search started last week as I sent off my first two applications for October 1st deadlines. Now comes the steady stream of deadlines until mid January and then the interviewing process and then the actual hiring. I am not really limiting my search unless the school is somewhere Eric and I really don't want to live. Like neither him and I are too thrilled about jobs in North Dakota...too far away from our family and too cold for us (and too flat-not enough hiking).

Hopefully, once I get into the swing of this, things will calm down but right now I am just trying to stay afloat day after day and make the deadlines. Write the next cover letter, send off the right letters of recommendation, etc.

Marathon training is going alright too. I have absolutely no time to do anything else, so no swimming or biking, but my running is getting easier and so that is good. Going for a 5 mile run isn't long anymore and I actually have some speed and am running faster. I am currently running 4-5 days a week and 25-35 miles a week, this past weekend was my longest run ever of 13.1 miles (well I did do a half marathon in 1999 or 2000), and I ran it 10 min faster than my half marathon time then. So I was pretty pleased, right on target for the Boston qualifying time. I pick a boring (so people have said) extrememly flat course in Kiawah, South Carolina. Partly because it was good time, and close and flat. We also have friends that will be there so we will get to see them.

Anyway, back to work...The weather here is absolutely incredible, perfect running weather, not hot or humid, and since Halloween season is approaching, it is Candy Corn central at the house!!! Yeah!!!!

Last Triathlon for the year

Well, I know it has been a little while, but I have been super busy and stressed out lately. I did my last triathlon for the year a couple weeks ago up in Maryland. It was an all female race-1300 women participating in what turned out to be a pretty difficult course. Lots of hills on the bike and the run, very tough. If you care to read about the race (which I end up 11th overall and 1st in my age group), you can read my race report here http://www.elitetriangletriteam.org/scgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1156876438/

To turn things around, I officially signed up for my first ever marathon. I decided on Kiawah-December 9th. It is a bit daunting, not like training for a triathlon, since most of the triathlon races aren't long, but training for a marathon requires a lot more running. I ran 11 miles the other day and it was rough...and I still have 15 more to go! :) I'll try to update more, but now that school is back in and I am teaching two classes, taking 1, and sitting in on 2, I do not have very much time for myself-especially if you count all the time I am spending on writing cover letters, a teaching philosophy, research statement, etc, as I will be applying to jobs in the next few months...ahhhh!

Dress Shopping!

So, my friend sent me this link to another triathlete's blog about dress shopping. It is really funny, and very true. Now, I might not be as buff as this other chick, but I went dress shopping last weekend also for a dress to attend a wedding, and just about the same thing happened. I ended up buying a dress made out of strechy material, because I can't fit into anything normally...or maybe stores don't make their dresses to fit normal people! :) Anyway, here is her blog if you need some humor, since most of her blog entries are pretty funny, and she is a great writer http://elizabethfedofsky.blogspot.com, and here is her post if you feel like reading it:

"Shop ‘Til You Drop

This weekend, I had to go shopping for a dress to wear to a wedding in September. Now I enjoy shopping just as much as any other girl, but it’s limited to a few things; housewares, underwear, and food. All of which have nothing in common. For example, you will never find me standing in my underwear, wielding a spatula, and baking a cake. Along those same lines, you will never find me shopping for a dress. But there is a first time for everything, right?

With my mother along, I started at Ann Taylor, because according to my mother-in-law, the record-holding National Champion of Retail Shopping, it would be a good place to find a nice, sexy petite-sized dress. I must have looked clueless, helpless, and hopeless because upon entering the store, a woman I assume was the retail fashion support specialist gave me a look once up and down before pressing the secret button alerting any available personnel to call FEMA as the store had just been hit with a 5 ‘ 2” fashion disaster. Before back-up arrived, she quickly offered her assistance. Soon after, she led me into the dressing room with an assortment of dresses I would never wear but would have to wear because this was one of those kitschy weddings in San Diego.

“How about this” she says while pointing to some cute, dainty little black lace top with a wispy black skirt. I immediately think it would be perfect if my name was Holly Go Lightly and I was having breakfast at Tiffany’s, but I realize it is probably better to at least pretend to be interested, cooperative, and excited in the most fashionably feminine of ways.

“It’s a bustier” she added, as if that terminology meant anything to me, as if someone without a bust would want to happily accentuate being bustless and bony. I quickly point out that I don’t have much to bust-ee-up in a bustier. “Oh, nonsense,” she says and convinces me to give it a try. And moments later, to her dismay, I confirmed that yes you do need a bust to wear a bustier.

On to a halter style dress. In a perfect world, where I have perfect 34 C’s and perfect tiny little shoulders, this dress would have looked good. But after 4500 yards in the pool earlier that morning, I look like Brett Favre in drag. The retail fashion support specialist looks at me and makes a giant leap of logic, “You must workout.” I wonder what gives her that idea. Perhaps the fact that a winter’s worth of swimming has left me with the super-sized shoulders and the veins of an addict after a long night of fixing. “Yeah, a little,” I lie and wonder if they have a special section for those of us that workout. It seems like they have a section or store for every other type of person out there but what I haven’t seen is the section for Ironman, for women who have eaten their body weight in food for the week and walk around in cycling shorts and jog bras because their shoulders are too big or waists are too small or thighs are too swollen to fit into any normal clothes.

Next up, a classic sexy little black dress with a slip-like halter top in size 0P. Not to be confused with the cool clothing line from the 80’s (OP), a size 0P stands for zero petite. In other words, you are so small that you almost mean nothing to us but we had to make a size for you anyways so we figured we’d call you a zero to rub in the fact that you are too small to shop in an adult store or wear big girl pants so you best take your business Baby Gap. Despite feeling like a zero, a nada, a nothing, I take a few spins around and I’m quite pleased – it doesn’t make me look like I have the shoulders of a linebacker, or inverted breasts, or the arms a gorilla. Curious, and considering a purchase, I look at the pricetag. $158. Wait a minute, does it do something else? Is there an added feature that I’m missing? Was it not costly enough for me to stand in this dressing room surrounded by what feels like carnival funhouse mirrors under excessive and unflattering lighting as I tried on five dresses that reminded of the fact that I am too small in some places, too big in others, and in general too short for everything. File this one under “N” for nada or NO.

Disgruntled, I try to abruptly take the dress off while cursing Ann Taylor, whoever she is, and her over-priced outfits and somehow in trying to get out of the dress, it spins an impenetrable web around me. This type of superpower must be why it costs $158, I thought. Trapped in its sticky hold, I make a forceful effort to wiggle my way out but the silky layers of the dress shuffle around me leaving my arms, head, and shoulders entwined with the tiny black straps for hanging, the halter straps, and the zipper.

“Liz? Where are you?” my mom calls out from the dressing room area.

“I’m in here,” I mumble in a voice muffled under layers of sheer black fabric.

Standing there, trapped and blinded with the dress half over my head, I think to myself someone PLEASE HELP because right now I am a fly trapped in a sticky, silky web scared by the thought that a spider might crawl out of these funhouse mirrors and eat me alive and even more scared that if I can’t get out of this dress I might just have to buy it at full retail price.

In effort to get my mom’s attention, I wave one foot out from under the dressing room to signal where I am trapped in this black hole of a dress. Reluctantly, she enters the dressing room probably with her eyes half covered because how forbidden if she saw me half dressed, it’s not like I passed through her vagina 31 years ago or anything, and she unzips, unravels, and dewebs me, as I stand flustered, red-faced, and hot from trying to detangle myself free.

She shakes her head and tells me to try on the next dress. I put it on and instantly I am transported back to my childhood, standing in my grandmother’s house, looking out the window. And that’s when I realize I am wearing grandma’s curtains or tablecloths or any other over-flowered, thick, tacky linen with sweeping, swirling shapes in some horribly rustic and outdated color.

“Hey mom,” I call from the dressing room.

“What,” she says with waning enthusiasm.

“When Donna Reed realized she wasn’t tall enough to hang her draperies, she decided to wear them instead,” I say modeling the latest in fine curtain-inspired apparel.

Indeed, this was going to be a very long day. And this was not nearly as fun as shopping for spatulas.

Next I find myself in Cache, one of those cool stores that you never have a reason to go into but now that I am on this mission to look sexy and oh so stunning I had a reason to go into this type of upscale, overpriced, looks are everything store. We search through the racks of strappy, sultry dresses only to find one that might possibly fit me, if the stars and heavens have aligned in the past hour. Never mind the $188 price tag, or the fact that the dress was way too long. The crux of the problem with this dress was that it was the color of soft poo. You know, the kind of poo you get after you’ve been running for 20 miles on nothing but gels and Gatorade on a hot day. But at least I liked the style.

My mom takes a look after I step out of the dressing room. “What is that for?” she says pointing to the oversized pockets of fabric centered near my chest.

“Well, I suppose that’s where breasts would go if you had them,” I explained.

She thinks out loud, “No, I think that’s the style of the dress. It’s one of those dresses where you wouldn’t need to wear a bra.”

No bra? No way. Years of running have left the twins running in completely different directions and at this point you could pave a four lane highway between my breasts and I wouldn’t know the difference because there is so much space between them. And at the very least, I would hope they put an I-Pass along that highway because it would be nice to make some extra pocket change to put into my coffee fund.

“Let’s keep looking,” I suggest.

My feet are growing weary and my head is starting to hurt, but I am determined to cross the finish line today with a dress in hand. We push on to the petite section of Nordstrom’s to find another a fine selection of dresses suitable for the small wonders like me. I grab a few dresses, not even regarding the style, color, or size, and bring them into the dressing room. I try the first one on.

“How does it look?” my mother asks with a growing and impatient curiosity.

I step out to reveal a dress that can only be described as It’s Not Easy Being Green in color and gypsy-like in style. It looks quite nice, except for the obvious color catastrophe.

“What do you even call this?” I wonder. I find the tag and notice the dress color is called ‘pesto’. “Mom, I am wearing pesto,” I say, and we both erupt in giggles. Being Italian, pesto is something you find on your dinner plate and not on your dress.

Wondering if the dress comes in another color, we approach the clerk at the counter. She informs us that it comes in a rainbow of colors, including peacock, eggplant, passionfruit, storm, and, how boring – black. I wonder if we are talking about fancy martini flavors, the latest line of Crayola crayons, or if she has confused my inquiry with a game of things you might find your pantry. Dressless and definitely not settling for wearing pesto to a wedding, we leave the store.

As a last resort, we head to Nieman Marcus – a store filled with nothing you need but everything that rich people must want. In other words, it’s mostly empty with a few exorbitantly priced items that are totally unnecessary, useless, and not even that nice. Perusing the dress section, my mom finds a black dress, “This one is nice,” she says. I agree, it is nice, it is black and small and it might be an option but right then and there I am tackled by the price tag which just jumped out and shouted $788. In my mind, I wonder why (or how) someone would pay that much for a dress when you could have 3 aero helmets, 4 new pairs of Rudy Projects, or a new front wheel from Zipp. In fact, you could race Kona and still have money left over for a new pair of Shimano carbon cycling shoes. Or you could wear this dress. I suppose it’s a choice that most women do not have to make. And with that, we made the choice to walk out.

Three hours have gone by and I feel like I’ve pushed out 300 watts uphill into the wind, with my mom on my back. I need a gel, I need a sports drink, I need a break. I am baffled how women can do this for hours each and every Saturday. Put me on a bike and point me west for 100 miles any day – as long as it’s no where near the mall. Humbled and defeated, I walk back to the car without a dress. I begin to wonder if shopping is like working out. Will my muscles have memory? Will it get easier next time? Have I built up the endurance to handle a few more hours next week? Let’s hope so, because there’s only so many more sun-dried tomato and kalamata olive colored dresses that I can try. And besides, with all of this Ironman training, I’m likely to eat a dress called pesto if you leave it in front of me for too long.

posted by Elizabeth Fedofsky @ 8:46 AM"

Back to Work

Now that we are back at home, hopefully for a good while, it is time to get back at it. School starts Wednesday, and I wish it were later. My 6 or so weeks off seem to have flown by and I am not ready to get back into school again. I have been trying to work on my thesis a bit and it is coming along. I would say over 80% done, and all the math related stuff is done. Just editing and adding some commentary here and there.

Next up on the agenda is trying to pusblish part of it. That started today in my meeting with my advisor. Just went through deciding what we wanted to take out and what we wanted to include. Now becomes the task of actually writing it. Yeah. I have also been working on lesson plans for the new class I am teaching at Meredith- Exploring with Mathematics...a crazy mix of random math stuff. So far of the lessons I have looked at we have Venn Diagrams, Inductive and Deductive arguments, and uses of percentages... :)

Well, just a few short days left of freedom and then have to get moving again.

Sad Week

I had wanted to write up a little blog on the things I would recommend and what I would not from our trip but as usual, things got super busy....

My grandfather (on my dad's side) passed away on Sunday and Eric and I drove to the funeral which was only in Boone (3 1/2 hours away) Tuesday morning and then stayed with my whole family Tuesday and Wednesday and came home last night a little after 9pm. Then Eric received word that his Great Aunt (more like his grandmother) passed away yesterday, so we will be driving up to Buffalo tomorrow for a couple days and then driving home on Tuesday evening...a much longer drive of 10+ hours.

My grandfather was no suprise, he has had alzheimers (sp) for quite some time and in the past year, he has deteriorated pretty rapidly. He has been in a nursing home for about 2 years, and apparently got pneumonia and his kidneys stopped working. While I knew this day was going to come sooner than later, it was still a very sad day, and me being a very emotional person, manage to hold it together for the majority of the event. What was so wonderful is the fact that my dad's whole family and their spouses were together. He is one of 6 siblings and they are a bunch of fun when they are all together. They had a great time laughing and telling stories and it was so nice to see them all together.

The most Beautiful Place in America

Wednesday morning we headed to Yosemite and were there until Saturday afternoon. I think we could have stayed a week longer, it was so amazing. When we got there we had a long drive into the valley so we took a detour up to Glacier Point, an overlook down to the valley. It was breathtaking. Half Dome is completely inspiring and to see it up close was absolutely amazing. We spent a little while there, taking pictures and then took a small hike (4.5 miles) to the top of Sentinel Dome where you can get a 360 degree panoramic view of Yosemite. Just beautiful. Eric said at this point that we could go home, because it couldn't get any more beautiful then where we were.

Then we headed down into the valley and checked into our hotel. Which did not have air conditioning...ummm...haven't I already mentioned the record highs??? :) Our hotel room was over 100 and there were not windows because of the bears and animals...we did have some vents and a fan that when we were in the room could open the door and bring in some of the cooler air. We found out our first night we had to be careful and two raccoons were just about to walk into our room and Eric started yelling at them to get out.

We went on a nother short (4 mile) hike up to the bottom of Upper Yosemite Falls...I wouldn't recommend this one for the weak. It was 1.5 mile up the side of a cliff! About 2 hours of stair climbing. I felt better at altitude but the hike was tough. We made it to see the falls (the 5th largest in the word), but it was another 1.5 miles straight up to the top of the falls and we were pretty tired. We came back down and got in the hotel pool to cool off and relax a bit before heading to dinner.

Our next day we woke up early (7am), and went for our longer hike up towards Half Dome. We went up past Vernal and Nevada falls and then about a mile further before turning around. Again this hike was tought. Another two hours of stair master, but so worth it. We took the Mist Trail up and the John Muir trail back down and the falls were beautiful. The Mist trail goes right up the side of the falls so you get sprayed with water from the falls, so relaxing and we got to see some rainbows. Overall, it took us 6 hours to do the 8 miles, but we stopped for lunch at the top and hung out for a while. We tooled around the valley when we got back, watch a movie on Yosemite at the Visitor Center (air condintioned!) and walked to Lower Yosemite Falls.

On our next day we headed up to Toulemme Meadows, on the way we stopped to get a campsite for the night and did a hike up to May Lake (2.4 miles). By now we were at 10000ft and the altitude change was hard again. The lake was so blue and clear and there was still snow up there even though it was 80 degrees! After the May Lake trip we continued to the Meadows and did the 4.5 mile hike to Elizabeth Lake. By far the best hike. It was absolutely beautiful the entire time. However, when we got to the lake we got eaten alive by mosquitos...so we had to turn back sooner than we would have liked. This was the only time that the mosquitos were bad. After we got back we tooled around the meadows (FLAT and beautiful) and then headed back to camp and made some freeze dried meals and called it a day.

We woke up the next morning to 48 degree temps!! Partially because the heat wave was ending and partially because we were at 9000 feet. But it was way welcomed from the previous week of being hot. This was our last day and we went back to the meadows for a longer 7 mile hike to Cathedral Lake. This was the best place for me. The hike wasn't as beautiful as Elizabeth Lake but when we got to Cathedral lake, the scenery just blew me away. It opened up to a huge meadow and glacier rock to the side and cathedral peak in the back, just breathtaking. After our hike, we paid $4 each to shower and headed back to San Fran (took 5 hours), ate some dinner and took the red eye back home.

This was an absolutely amazing trip. Just beautiful. I don't know how we will find another place like it. It is so cool how there are so many different types of environments there, it is just unreal.

Well, this was long enough...I am happy to be home but also wished we could have spend more time.

Oh and did I mention we saw a baby black bear!!! So cool!!!

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

On Tuesday we headed up to the mountains. After being in the hot hot weather we welcomed the little relief from being up 7000ft. Eric really wanted to see the BIG trees so that was why we headed up there, and yes, they were BIG both very tall and very huge around. We saw a couple of the oldest trees and the biggest tree on earth-not by height but by volume-since it was so wide and tall. We also took a short hike to see some really cool waterfalls that took a lot longer than we thought. And then lastly we hiked up about 400 stairs to the top of Moro Rock that looked out onto the entire valley.

We set up camp at a nice campground and tried to sleep. It was just a bit too hot that night camping. The record heat was just brutal and I was too scared to have my screen open since I would be facing the open woods and was scared I might wake up to a bear in my face!! After a decent night we woke up and had breakfast and headed to Yosemite...the most beautiful place on Earth (at least as much of it as I have seen)!!

The Wineries

On Monday, we left our hotel and headed north through the traffic to Napa Valley. I had scheduled a 10:30 tour at Cakebread Cellars, a highly recommended winery. We made it up there with about 10 minutes to spare and went on the tour. We didn't go too far through the winery but the girl who gave our tour was excellent and I learned a whole lot about the entire process of making wine. I liked some of the wines here, they were very crisp, but EZ didn't really like any of them. We then headed up to Vi Sattui and walked around the grounds there and ate some lunch. We did a single wine tasting there and shared some of the wines and ended up buying a single bottle of a really sweet red wine that Eric liked the best.

We then made our way over the mountain on this crazy curvy road into Sonoma Valley and went to the last winery Kaz. Kaz is pretty different, everything is organic and they make their wine the "old" way so it is more acidic, and they specialize in reds and ports. I bought a bottle of their port and the winemaker, Kaz was there so he signed the bottle for me. Eric wasn't too into the wineries and was in a bad mood, so we didn't go to the last winery I had picked out.

We headed out on our way to Modesto and made it there right at dinner time, where we again had good ole In-N-Out!! It was super hot there, 116 was what the thermometer said, we were in the middle of a heat wave out in CA-they were having record highs and rolling blackouts from the power usage. We had a good nights sleep and headed to Sequoia National Park on Tuesday to see the BIG BIG trees!

Back from Vacation

Well, we are finally back from our over a week long vacation to California. It was a great trip. We spent the first few days in San Fran and did lots of touristy things. The first day we went into the city and it happen to be Spare the Air day-so all mass transit was FREE!!!! We wanted to take a boat ride and tour Alcatrez but the tours were booked for four days so we opted for renting big clunky mountain bikes and riding along the wharf and the across the Golden Gate Bridge, over into the cute town of Sausilito and walked around. We rode a little further before turning around and taking the ferry back to San Fran. It was a great time even though we get extremely sunburnt!

Our second day, after a long run in the heat and bright sun (even though it was 7 am), we drove around Palo Alto and walked around Standford. We only made it about an hour, since it was over 100 and it was only 10am. So we drove around the campus and the town which was really nice. Then we headed to Santa Cruz and drove up the Pacific Coast Highway 1 for the beautiful scenery. After going through the nice town of Half Moon Bay we headed back to our hotel and then went out for dinner at IN-N-OUT!! Followed by ice cream at Cold Stone, yum yum!!!!

Our third day we went back into the city and started out by walking around Golden Gate Park. Wow, it is so huge. We walked around for quite a while and then walked through the Japanese Tea Garden and the Conservatory of Flowers. Then we ate at a great Dim Sun restaruant. I had really wanted to try Dim Sun, and we tried some really different foods, that normally I wouldn't try. My favorite: Crab Stuffed Shrimp claws. Least Fav: Fried Tofu. After lunch we headed to the where the large victorian houses and did a walking tour that was in our book. Saw some huge houses and absoultely amazing views of the bay. We headed back after a long day of walking around and went to eat at a nice mexican restaurant where we got some fish tacos (shirmp tacos for me!).

Well, that was our time in San Fran...will continue later on the rest of our journey which included the wineries and hiking in Sequoia and Yosemite

Hot and Humid

The weather lately has been absolutely dreadful. I think it would be ok if it was hot, but the humidity is just a killer. I have tried to go out and run lately and even getting up in the morning when it is cooler doesn't really help. I am pretty sure though that we still have another month or so of this hot and humid weather and then it will calm down a bit. We are headed out west on Thursday for vacation and while our plans have changed quite a bit due to ez's torn calf which has canceled our 4 day hike in Yosemite, we are now spending more time in San Fran and going to do the winery Napa Valley thing and spend a day in Kings Canyon and Sequoia so Eric can see the BIG trees! :) I am really looking forward to the trip and just the chance to get away. We have a new digital (waterproof) camera and hopefully I will post some pictures after we get back!

Triangle Triathlon

This past sunday we raced here in Raleigh for our big team race. It was nice that almost our whole team was at the race. The elite female wave was deep this time so I had no hope of actually placing...in fact I finished last out of the elite women...I don't know why I raced elite this year. I think I would have been happier had I raced age group...maybe I would be a little more confident. Actually, my swim is always at the top and my bike is usually pretty good but my running is like I can't run at all.

I have actually been feeling worse and worse when I am running and Eric and I have started to think that maybe it is from my new bike. I am set up on that bike in a much stronger position where I mainly use my quads. The problem though is that I am a quad runner. So by the time I get to the run I have already exhausted my quads quite a bit. I am going to try and start focusing more on running with my hamstrings and get them developed and hopefully next year things will be a little better. After we come back from vacation Eric is going to help me with some exercises that will hopefully help me.

Anyway, if you want to read my race report you can go to www.elitetriangletriteam.com and read it there. I am glad I am done racing for a while. And I am really excited about our vacation next week!

House Shopping

So over the weekend Eric and I were kind of bored and wanted to get out of the house so we decided to go drive around and look at houses. There are a few brand new communities building in a perfect location if I end up getting a job here so we walked around in their model homes.

It was so exciting and it made both of us get really excited about buying our own house soon and it made me want to stay here in NC. I had been debating on whether or not I wanted to stay here but house shopping was lots of fun. Of course, there has to be a job here I can get, and a job I would want, and I would then have to be offered the job after applying. Then EZ reminded me that even if I get a job somewhere else we would be house shopping there too. So I guess it doesn't matter where we end up because either way we will get to have our own home soon (well, kind of soon-over a year seems soon right now).

Now Eric has been fowarding me houses he finds while he sits on the internet at work and the more I see the more I wish I just had a job already and we could find a house and start decorating it...which in my free time now that I am not working, i am addicting to HGTV and all the remodeling/decorating shows! :)

Viva La Tour!!

So yeah, the Tour DAY France started over the weekend. I have really been looking forward to it this year, no offense to Lance, but I thought it would become a great tour since he wasn't going to be there. There are some great riders and I was rooting for Ivan Basso...not just because I ride his bike now, but because I thought he could win (along with most people since he was the favorite).

On Friday I received an email from EZ stating our bikes were now worthless because Basso along with a whole lot of other great riders were being suspended for drug allogations. Really sucks. I mean this whole drug scandle that is going on is huge. Eric mentioned that a couple of the top runners are now also being linked to it as well-which if all of it turns out to be true just is a huge blow to sports in general. How can you look up to someone knowing that they are cheating. It just amazes me how many athletes might be caught up in this mess and if they did use the drugs then how disappointed it makes me (and I am sure others) feel that these top athletes can't do it on their own.

Enough of that though...still excited that the Tour is on and now that I can't root for Basso...I am rooting for good ole George Hincapie-who won the yellow jersey yesterday. I have always liked George (as long as I have been following cycling-which is only a few years), he just seems like a great person and to work so hard for Lance and now be on top is quite an accomplishment.

Should be a great few weeks of racing nontheless...I just wish Bob Roll would stop calling it the Tour Day France.... :)

Thank you Powerbar!

Being part of this triathlon team, we are sponsored by a whole bunch of different companies, one of which is powerbar. Now back when I was swimming, Powerbar only made those chewy powerbars, but now they make all sorts of different types of bars and gels and drinks. Our sponsorship allowed our team a set amount of money to spend on powerbar stuff-whether is be any of the food items, or shirts, hats, water bottles, etc. So our team split the money evenly and then we all placed an order.

Eric and I spent about half our alloted money and what we got was about 15 boxes of different powerbar bars (lots of Pria bars as those are my fav), and each box has about 15 bars in them, plus we got 3 canisters of their endurance drink mix. This is a whole lot of loot that I am sure Eric and I will go through pretty quickly. But we still have a lot money left to spend on more yummies.

I tried the Pria Strawberry Shortcake bar today and it was really good!

YEAH!!! I am DONE!!!

I finally submitted my last set of grades today for my last class so I am officially done with summer school this summer. I don't ever want to teach 3 classes in summer school again. It was just way to exhausting, both physically and mentally. There were days that I couldn't even remember what I was talking about anymore. And it didn't help that all three of my classes were completely different-College Algebra, Calculus 3, and Statistics. I mean 3 totally different classes with 3 totally different sets of students.

I can now relax a little bit. Except for the fact that my advisor wants me to finish a part of my thesis by next week so that he can have it when he goes on vacation. Other than that I need to work on putting together my resume package for applying to schools in the fall. And in a few weeks Eric and I will be heading off to Yosemite for vacation! Yeah, I can't wait!

Kure Beach

I signed up for a triathlon that was down at the beach over the weekend. When I signed up I had no idea that I would be overly busy with school work to train all that much, but oh well. This was my first triathlon I did two years ago and I enjoyed it then, so I thought I would sign up again.

The format is crazy as it is a 375m ocean swim, followed by a 1.5 mile run, 12 mile bike, 1.5 mile run back to the beach and another 375m ocean swim. Now 2 years ago when I did this race the ocean was beautiful and calm race morning. Yesterday, we got to the beach and were welcomed by lots of wind, a little sprinkling rain and huge waves and crazy undertoe. At first I thought, no big deal about a month ago we raced surf n turf and it was pretty bad their. But after what I went through yesterday, I don't want to do another ocean swim again. I was seriously scared out of my mind.

First the buoys they anchored out (kind of past the breakers) all came undone and floated away since the surf was too much. So the race director had the lifegaurds swim out and hold the buoys in place. How they did this...who knows. We were all convinced that practically everyone swam a different swim course. After the first swim and being hammered by the waves I wanted to give up, but I fought through a painful run and a pretty great bike to not give up. On my way back on the worse run ever I did not want to get back into the ocean. And actually it was way worse the second time around. It took so much energy to get out to the lifegaurds and on the way back in a got taken under by a wave just flipping me upside down underwater. When I got up to the surface gasping for air I got swept under again and flipped around-total black and very scary just hoping that I can hold my breath long enough to resurface and get some air again. It was just horrible.

I have never been so happy to finish a race. You can read the race report if you want-over at our website link on the right.

The Man Cave

The last night I was up in Michigan with the family we went over to their friends house. THey have the exact same house as my parents do except backwards (you know one of those neighborhoods where you pick the model). Well, they have remodeled their basement to be what is now called the Man Cave. My dad and a bunch of guys play poker there once a month and no joke, this place is amazing.

There is a huge bar/kitchen area with gorgeous marble countertops and they have a whole sound system set up where the computer monitor hangs on the wall and then they can choose their music (from the 12000-yes 12 thousand) songs they have on itunes. There is alos a theater room with a massaging chair which I had to test out! The theater room has two levels, so the people on the top row can see over the people on the bottom, they don't have theater sytle chairs, just nice couches and chairs-very comfortable. The projector scree is definitely the biggest I have ever seen. There is also a temperature controled wine celler (not too big but big enough). These folks are into their wines.

So while we were there they opened up some red wine. I am not a huge wine person, so instead he opens the fridge an asks me what I would like instead. My choices include just about every type of beer/malt liquor possible. So I opted for a margarita. After the first bottle of wine was consumed, they opened a second and then a third, and then a forth. I proceeded to try the peach wine cooler after the margarita. We all just hung out and talked and tried this $100 (VERY small) bottle of Cherry Balsamic Vinegar from Italy they had bought on a recent trip. The vinegar was actually really good. So 5 hours later (11:30pm), we all headed home to pack up as we had to be up at 4:30am to go to the airport.

Anyway, it we ever have a big house and a lot of money, this would definitely be a cool room/floor of the house to copy. Definitely need the massaging chair!!

Wicked

So two weeks ago I flew up to Detroit for a long weekend (not the best of time since it is the middle of summer school). Eric didn't come since it was a little too expensive for both of us to fly up there for the weekend. I flew up through DC (Regan) and got delayed...wow I don't ever want to fly through that airpoit again, what a mess. I got in late Friday evening and my parents had the fire pit going so we sat around and drank and ate and stayed warm.

I convinced Krista to go running with me while I was there since I am in the middle of heavy training and she said sure-even though she hasn't been running hardly at all. So Saturday morning we went out for a short run (4 miles for me, a little over 3 for her) and then got ready to go see Wicked.

We were going to the afternoon show since apparently the theater is in a bad part of downtown Detroit and the Masonic Temple was beautiful!! I had tried to read the book but I just couldn't get through it...just too slow for me. I read Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and thought it was great but Wicked was just a bit slow. After seeing the play thought, I could tell that second half of the book was probably really amazing. I would highly recommend this play to anyone, it ranks right up there as one of my favorites, along with Rent (and Mamma Mia). And the music was just great. The lady who played Elphaba (The Wicked Witch) was the understudy and I think she had the best voice out of anyone on the stage (and including the recording voice on the soundtrack), it was that good. I would see it again if it ever comes to town here, but definitely want to be a little closer.

My Aunt and Uncle and cousins came over for the evening and we just hung out and watch the hockey game...good times as usual. Sunday morning I convinced my sister that we could run to Jenny's Farm Stand (a little over 8 miles) and get breakfast. Actually, my mom and Ethan would drive over to the farm stand and pick us up on the way if we didn't want to go the entire time. I ran together with her for the first 4.5 miles and then I ran ahead and she ended up getting picked up while I managed to make it the whole way...this is my 3 longest run ever. My first being the half marathon I did back in 2000, my 2nd being the 10 mile run I did over a year ago...the day my knee began to hurt...so this is very good for me.

We got some strawberries and sweet cream biscuits and ate "strawberry shortcake" for breakfast...and it was SOOOOOO good. Wow, those biscuits were awesome. The rest of the day consisted of running errands (twice to Costco) and lunch with my other cousin and her husband...who might be moving to Tennessee.

I will write more about the evening (the Man Cave) another day...this is long enough!

Either way...what you should learn is to go see Wicked!!