Life has been staying really busy. With the spring (and
finally a little warmer weather), the kids activities have increased. I have
been staying busy with my training. I am getting close to the end, but it has
me worn out. I have done some 4 hour rides on the trainer and last week I did
my first 4 hour 15 minute ride outside. It was a bit discouraging when I looked
at my speed, but I did it. I did 67 miles and then had to get off my bike and
run for 45 minutes, which equaled 4 miles. And the next morning I woke up with
a cold that I have had since. I am hoping that is why my speed was off, but I
was also super nervous as it was my first time outside since fall and only my
second time outside on my tri bike, which is way different. Along with training
and running everyone around everywhere (with some wonderful help from Andrew),
I also helped organize the TriFAHL. I mainly worked on designing and ordering
the t-shirts and medals, got a few sponsors, tried to promote it some and then
stressed because the guy in charge was very unorganized and didn’t do most of
the things he said he was going to do to promote it and was not good in the
communication department 😊.
The kids are keeping super busy with spring and summer
sports starting to mix and all the end-of-school-year activities that are
starting up. I just have to add it all up-We have four doing soccer, four doing
baseball, three doing K-Life, Jackson has track and Ellie has swim team and
four dance classes. And then with the school year coming to a close, we have
all sorts of field trips (Ellie along has three within a one week time period
right before school is out), field days and other activities. Add in prepping
end-of-the year gifts for the teachers and for the kids in the classes I help, trying
to stay up on house work, grocery shopping (my kids food consumption has
increased and I know it will just keep going up as our house of boys and a girl
who eats like a boy continue to grow) office work and getting everything
outside spruced up and it has me a bit exhausted. I got to go with Lincoln’s class on a
community-wide field trip. Thankfully, we had the kind of nice day of the week.
We started with lunch at the amphitheater and some playtime on the playground
there and then we made our way to the library. After a tour of the library,
they loaded up and we headed out to the airport. They had a worker do a
presentation for them and they got to watch a couple planes take off. The
passengers getting on Cape Air were mainly older ladies and they waved to the
kids as they were getting on the plane. Then, after the airport, we headed
downtown and made the rounds. The first stop was the fire station, then the
police station, followed by the courthouse. It was quite the field trip.
Then, after the field trip I was off the Chillicothe to
watch Jackson’s track meet. He ended up doing the long jump, high jump and hurdles.
I thought we would be done pretty quickly since the start the field events
first and the hurdles are one of the first races. He was done with the long
jump pretty quickly and he got his longest distance, but we never heard how he
did overall. Then it was the hurdles…again, it looked good but not sure what
his time was. Then it was high jump, which I thought would be over fairly
quickly, but they kept having to wait on kids who were running and we were
there until about the end of the meet. It was Jackson’s first time doing high
jump at a meet and he did pretty well. He was trying to change up his form as
he was going, so he is hoping to go higher the next time. After he was done, he
grabbed his stuff from the bus, we got something to eat and then headed home.
He had another track meet in Mexico the next week. It ended
up being a cool, dreary day. Andrew and I decided to go ahead and make the trek
there even though he was only in one event. It was a big meet with a lot of
teams, so they could only send 2 kids per event. Andrew was really wanting to get a ride in,
so he left about an hour ahead of me and headed down Hwy 3. I met him in Callao
1 ½ hours later. Then we made our way to Mexico. Jackson was thankful when we
showed up with an extra jacket for him to wear while he waited for his event to
start. Despite the cold, he still had a good time and was ready to head to the
car when he was done. We ended up ordering out from Pear Tree and picked it up
on the way home. We got some extras to share with everyone at home.
Ellie, Lincoln and the twins are all doing club soccer with
a couple practices a week and scrimmages on Saturdays. Then the boys started up
baseball and had to cut soccer practice down to one night a week so they could
get to baseball practice too.
Ellie isn’t doing softball this summer and wants to focus on
swimming, which is probably best since she has been having foot pain. We
finally took her to a podiatrist and he was pretty concerned. She is very flat
footed and her feet roll in. Her Achilles tendons are already curved from it
and her heel bones sit much lower than they should. He said on a scale of 1-10,
she is at a 9 for how bad they are. And he feels like she is at a high risk for
tearing her posterior tibial tendon which holds the arch up on the foot. We had
to order multiple custom orthotics and he put her on limited activity until
they come in. And he told her that she will have to wear them the rest of her
life. And when we saw him at the triathlon this past Saturday, he mentioned
that she should really get some new shoes that were more stable and had less
flex. Ellie was excited about shoe shopping until she realized that it would
change the style of shoes she could buy a bit.
Along with their regular sports, we threw a few extra
activities in there. First we had the K-Life 3on3 tournament. Jackson, Ellie
and Lincoln all played. Jackson had a team with Joe and his cousin and cousin’s
friend. Jackson didn’t meet them until right before their game and they still
played together pretty well. There was only one other boy team in the age group
and they had been playing together for many years, so they lost to them. But
then they played a girl team and were a little hesitant at first, until the girls
started beating them. They finally decided to pick it up a bit and were able to
pull out the victory.
Ellie’s team consisted of her, Ella and Lauren along with
another friend of hers who actually doesn’t play basketball. She was a little
lost, but they had fun. They ended up playing a couple teams some of the girl
leaders put together and they made it a lot of fun for them.
Lincoln’s larger Warrior team split up into two teams for
the tournament and Lincoln’s team didn’t fare too well. They lost all three of
their games and he was disappointed about it. He had a soccer game and baseball
practice earlier in the day, so I don’t know if he was tired, but he didn’t
play with that much enthusiasm. Maybe next time.
The day after the 3on3, they had the Kirksville Criterium downtown.
Ellie and Andrew went to check out things earlier and she did a practice lap to
see how using the old road bike would work out. I thought this picture of her “leading”
the big boys up the hill was entertaining 😊.
We tried to get Jackson in the juniors race, but he was the
only one, so it didn’t happen. All the other kids did join in on the kids race.
They had about 20 kids this time, which was great. And the road bike worked
great for Ellie as she got first place. I was proud of all the kids for
tackling that big hill and finishing. The twins had to walk their bikes up part
of the way, but they got back on them and finished.
The women’s race was next and one other lady was signed up,
so I went ahead and signed up too. She had done the master’s race earlier. I
told her that I’m not too comfortable with bike races because I hate drafting
and it makes me nervous. She said I could draft off her downhill and she would
draft off me going up the hill. And she was great descending and cornering, but
I didn’t realize I had lost her on the uphill. We had 40 minutes to race and
the first few laps, I would catch her on the hill and let her get behind me,
but she would fall off soon. I didn’t exert myself too much, but with each
hill, she got a little further behind. They rang the bell for the last lap and
when I came back around, she was already on the side eating a banana. They told
her she could stop if she wanted instead of doing one more lap. I felt bad, but
she was really nice and we just had fun with it. We got to stand on the podium
and get our money and prize tumbler. We stuck around for a little while
afterwards and watch the big race-the fastest guys for a little bit. They went
for an hour, so we didn’t stick around the whole time. They were fast though
and fun to watch.
And our last event was the TriFAHL this past Saturday. Since
they allowed males this year, Jackson joined me. We had a soccer game in the
morning and then Andrew helped us get our bikes ready and took Lincoln to
baseball. Jackson, Ellie and I went to the race to see if there was anything we
could do to help set up. Someone did call a little before we left asking if I
could bring some change in case anyone needing change when registering that
day. I helped Jackson set up his transition area and he did a warm up swim
while I opted not to. He hadn’t been in the water since the summer, so it was
good for him. Andrew and Lincoln showed up a little before we started (the
twins were with my parents so they could take them to their soccer game).
Andrew and Ellie ended up being our event photographers and did a great job
getting some pictures of everyone. They had the guys go first and Jackson was
the very first one. He did a great job for having not swam a lap since I don’t
know when. We had some older guys there and they were entertaining as they
would stop and rest at the wall and float on their backs. A few minutes after
the guys finished, the girls started. They had us in age order too and it was
kind of sad to be at the back. We did have a 73-year-old lady doing it though.
I didn’t have any high expectations with the race since all of my training had
been geared towards slower, endurance paces. My swim time was actually a tad
bit faster than last year which was nice. I went ahead and ran through
transition, even though they weren’t timed. I was hoping to catch up with Jackson
on the bike even though he was at least 15 minutes ahead of me. But I never saw
him on the bike course. We did three loops that equaled 10 miles and Andrew,
Ellie and Lincoln were out there cheering us on and taking pictures. I asked
about Jackson and Andrew said he was complaining of his rear hurting. He wasn’t
used to riding on the hard seat. When I got done with the bike and went to the
transition area, Jackson’s bike was already back. I put on my running shoes and
hat and heading out on the run which was around 2.4 miles. I made it a little
less than a mile before I could see Jackson up ahead and he was walking. When I
caught up with him, I told him to start running and stay up with me. He said he
didn’t feel too tired, but had a pain under his belly when he ran. I got him to
keep running with me to the end of that street where we turned and went
downhill for the next mile. He stayed with me the whole way and we were able to
run in together. He did pick up the pace right at the end so that he could beat
me 😊. After all the lack of organization and frustration
of planning the event, it did turn out okay. Our numbers were way down and
there was some frustration at the lack of communication or organization, before
and the day of, but it was still neat to see people finish who had never done a
triathlon before and were so excited to finish. I love that part of this event.
Andrew always loves being able to take the kids out to the
ranch. They have been out feeding, checking cows, hopefully putting out the
last of the hay, playing in the creeks, burning some areas and doing a little
turkey hunting.
No comments:
Post a Comment