First Sprint Triathlon

On May 30th, 2011  I participated in my first ever sprint triathlon, the Heart of the Valley Sprint Tri here in Corvallis.  I've been planning on doing a Tri in June, the Blue Lake Sprint Tri in Gresham, with Derek and Annie.  However this spring, after coming home from my cruise, I lost interest and thought I probably wouldn't do it.

Then Lauren Ohlgren, my art & triathlon newbie friend,  pushed my motivation by doing her first two sprint tri's in May.  She was so excited about her races and spilled all her info and excitement onto me.  I was worried about losing my motivation again and wanted to do a race soon to try it out and know what it was like.  While the courage was up I paid my money to enter  the HOV s-tri. I liked that it was my "home pool" and I knew the course well.

After entering,  I had a short period of high anxiety as I realized that the race was only a week away (where the heck did May go?) and I hadn't been doing anything serious for the last 3 weeks.  The swim was 750 yds, 350 yds longer than the race I had trained for.  The bike portion was 11 miles with 6 hills and I hadn't been on my bike for longer than 6 miles in over a month and a half.  Running?!  Not so much.  I was working up to running and hadn't gotten that far yet. This course was a nice easy flat 3 miles.
 Beside the 3 "events" of a Tri, there's the "transition factor", often called the 4th component of the race.  T1 is the transition from swimming to biking and T2 is the transition from the bike to the run.  Both of these transitions are timed separately, with the goal of being as quick as possible during these changes of equipment.  There's a whole lot to learn about how to transition quickly.  Luckily for me Lauren dropped everything to give me as much information as I could stand so that I could relax some.

Before the start, with my transition area set up.  I was racer #1 because I had the slowest projected swim time.  Just for the record, I wasn't the slowest that day.  

Once settled down, I slept well leading up to the race and came to the race morning with the attitude that "it is what it is".  I was calm and ready to get it going.  Two days before the race I learned I would be in the outside pool and in the first wave, which was a relief because the laps are 50 m vs 100 m.  I would have to do 15 laps, but I could rest more often.  I needed those rests.  The swim was much harder than I thought it was going to be.  I finished in about 26 mins, which was slightly slower than I expected.  I was the last out of my pool in my wave.

Listening to the start count down (while cap).  I had only the guy at the right edge of the photo in my lane.  

T1, swim to bike.  Putting on my bike gear and drip drying.

Heading out for the ride....no rain yet!

The bike ride was an 11 mile loop up Highland Dr to the Lewisburg area and back.  I wasn't sure how those hills would feel after swimming for a half hour.  They were fine!  What's going on, this isn't that bad?  The bonus to hills is the back side where you can let it rip.  I dealt with nausea near the top of two hills, but otherwise felt great and passed 6 people.  Had a heavy downpour near CVHS, crazy weather!  Had to be careful as I flew down the south side of Highland drive that I didn't run over any painted line, else I might crash at high speed.  Came into T2 feeling good and earned a time of about 50 mins on the bike.

Back from my ride.  Hit a downpour just before the last hill back.  Feeling good though.

Took off on the "run" at a walk.  Hard to get the hips in the mode of moving that way.  For some reason my hips hurt like crazy and running actually felt better, except for the aerobic part of it.  I alternated running and walking the whole way.  I passed a couple girls, always checking to see if they were one of the 3 Athena's in my group.   I caught one of them, but not the gal who won our classification.  Candi, Lauren and the Hills were on hand at the finish line, so I ran some more.  I finished the "run" in about 34 mins.

I'm sure I'm running because I know the camera is there.

I'm glad to have it over and know what it's like.  It was a fun time and can't wait to do more.  The highlight was the bike ride, I'm ready for more of that!  I feel good about doing the race and it was fun to come in 2nd in the Athena over 40 group.  If I keeping working, 1st place isn't that far off.

Crossing the finish line!

April 12th -- Cabo San Lucas

Tuesday April 12th, 2011 -- Cabo San Lucas

We arrived in port around 0700 hrs.  Last night was down right chilly and I was not optimistic that today was going to be warm.  For my morning walk I had my windbreaker on, and was still cool, but was rewarded with a beautiful sunrise.

We had no tour planned for Cabo, just decided to ride the tenders in to port and walk around and to the beach.  The day ended up being warm and wonderful, I think because the city is protected by a bay from the wind.  

Cabo is beautiful, a nice small to medium sized town that is fairly new and sits on the golden sand beaches.  I think this would THE place to come to on the western coast of Mexico.  Water sports are big here.  Many, many, many jet ski’s zooming about.  

Many of the small boats are glass bottom boats that are for hire at the pier.

This yachat has a helicopter on the back as well as a couple of jet ski's.  Wonder who owns it? Took this picture from the tender en route back to the ship.

The rocks near Cabo as from our ship as we are departing.

Lots and lots of boats and jet ski's in the water.  As well as 4 other cruise ships.  This view is from our balcony.

We walked the shops around the pier and Dad had his picture taken at the Giggling Marlin.  He was strung up like a caught fish.  I said “No”.  What a party pooper, eh?

I recognize that marlin!  

So finally, after 16 days on the road, I see a guy walking around Cabo wearing a green hat with a big yellow “O”. It never fails, that I should see some kind of U of O wear while on vacation.  I talked to the guy, he said he’s from Nevada and is just a Duck fan, no real affiliation with them.  He also said that he’s had 3 people wanting to buy the hat from him while he’s been here.  Next time I’m going to bring some to sell!  I think.  I don’t like the idea of owning them, but it might be fun to see how much I could get for one.

We didn’t stay in Cabo long enough to enjoy the water or beach.  We set sail just after 2pm for Los Angeles.  It’s hard to believe our tour is coming to an end.  Tonight is our last formal dinner, which means one more set of clothes can go in the duffle bag.

I stopped posting the blog because we didn’t want to purchase another internet package.  The package we were buying, 250 minutes for $100, were expensive.  I averaged 10-13 mins a night by writing my blog on a word document and then cutting and pasting it in.  I check email and only responded to Randy’s email.  

The internet connection was by satellite and a lot like a slow dial-up connection, for those of you who remember those days.  I used the laptop and it was much faster, relative to the system.  Dad was using the computers in the internet center, and they were slooooow.  Once I figured the connections out, I showed Dad how to use the laptop and he sped up a bit too.  Anyway, we were running low on minutes and wanted to leave time to check in online.  

As I’m writing this after returning home, I can’t recall what we had for dinner that night.  Or any other details for that matter.  Guess I’ll end this post.

The Island Princess cruise ship

14 days on a ship, rooming with your Dad.  Don't you wonder how that might turn out?  I did.  It was fine. We are good travel companions, perhaps because he trained me (LOL).

Here are a few pictures of our room, pictures from the balcony and around the ship.  I LOVED this ship and would gladly sail on it again.

Our room mailbox and address label.

Welcome!

Dad in our room, Caribe 319, starboard side.   Life jackets on the bed as we are getting ready to go to our muster drill the first day.  Also, bed will be made into twins that evening.

See, it's all good.  The beds were made with just a comforter with a duvet cover, no flat sheet.  At first I thought that was weird, but I took to it quickly.  It ended up to be just perfect.

This was our walk-in closet.  Just to the left in the photo was a floor to ceiling shelved cabinet and farther left the bathroom door.  This floor plan worked out well.  We used the floor of the closet for storage that we wouldn't have had if the closet had been designed in a closed fashion.

Here's a view from our balcony as we are leaving port in Florida, Port of the Everglades.  The balconies below us were completely uncovered, ours was half covered.  The balconies above us were smaller (could only hold 2 chairs and a table vs 4 chairs and a table) and were completely covered.  I think ours was perfect.

If I couldn't find Dad in the Horizon Buffet dining room at lunch, I often took lunch back to the room and ate on the balcony.  The Lido deck was up 52 stairs, which I tried to take as often as possible.

This is the atrium of the ship.  If you come across this feature, that you can reach on decks 5, 6, and 7, you know you are mid-ship.  Our dining room, the Bordeaux Dining Room, was deck 5 and to the left. Guest services and the tour desk were in the area also. The ship shopping is on deck 6.  The Crooners Bar (piano bar) and the Churchill (cigar smoking) room were on deck 7.  Also surrounding the atrium on various decks were the Card room (games and cards), the Library (books for loan, quiet reading, daily suduko and brain teasers), and the Casino. Many ship activities took place here, including: formal night photos, live music, cocktail and culinary demo's (fruit and ice carving), cocktail parties.

 This is a bad picture of the "Movie Under the Stars" picture screen on the Lido deck, near the Lido pool.  Perhaps I have a better photo......

If there wasn't a live band playing on the Lido deck, there was something showing on the screen.  Sometimes it was pretty nature photos, but usually a movie or a concert.  You could easily watch a movie while swimming in the pool.  I preferred the 10 pm movies, mostly because the time didn't conflict with other activities.  You could buy candy, but a cart would come around and offer free popcorn before the movie started.  If you wanted to get up and get a refill, it was unlimited.  At the half way point a cart would come around with milk and cookies.  Wool blankets were available in case the wind caused too much of a chill.
This is the passengers vs cruise staff volleyball championship game.  I knew the lady serving.  This was taken just after we left Cabo San Lucas.

I took this picture from the Sun Deck (deck 15) looking down on the Lido deck.  This was the "Ultimate Deck Party" and cruise staff (first row from the right side of the photo) are leading passengers in a line dance.  This area is usually filled with lounge chairs and Movie screen is just barely visible at the top left of the photo.  This is also where our Zumba class was held in morning.  The railing closest to the bottom of the picture is surrounding one of the two hot tubs near the Lido pool.

This is part of the Sun deck, looking towards the hills of Acapulco.   The ship appears empty because many people are off ship on tours.  We ate lunch here this day, trying to find a breeze to cool us off.  Hot, hot, hot in Acapulco!

This is deck 7, The Promenade.  This deck became one of my favorite places to hang out.  Here you can see some of the morning walkers doing laps.  I tried to walk every day.  This deck is the only one that you can walk unobstructed around. 2.8 laps equals a mile.  I didn't count laps, just put time in.  I like this deck because it's outside, without glass panels between you and the ocean. It's close to the water which makes it a great place to look for wildlife and feel the breeze.  These deck chairs are the most comfortable and once I got one, I didn't want to leave.

Unless I'm cold, I don't hang out in the sun.  I moved from port to starboard, depending on where the shade was.

After walk on the promenade, near dawn in the Pacific.  We changed our clocks back and forward a few times.  One day on the Pacific sunrise wasn't until 7:41am.

This picture is provided by Princess, of the Lotus pool area.  It's enclosed and air conditioned.  There are lounge chairs around the outside that look out through floor to ceiling windows, lovely!  This pool also has a slight current, and 2 hot tubs.  The ice cream station is just to the left.  Ping pong tables are upstairs.

A Very Short Visit to Melbourne Beach, Florida

I'm finally catching up on photos of our trip.  I will definitely will try to add photos as I go next time.   Also, I'm going to summarize instead of narrate.  Wow, some of those posts were long.

Back to Florida: While reviewing the photos I remembered how much I liked the area.  I can't wait to visit again.  Besides the beautiful area, my Aunt Mary and Uncle Dan are fantastic people.  I loved listening to my Aunt Mary talk.  Her accent reminds me of family and time spent in Illinois, especially of my Grandma Haskins.

Getting the Hobie kayaks into the Indian River.  Sometime around 8:45am on the 29th.

Dad getting the hang of pedaling the kayak.

I really wanted to see some manatees, but this was as close as I came.

Uncle Dan and Dad heading out of the canal, into the Indian River.  This canal is a private waterway used by people who live on either side of it.  Kinda of a "alley" waterway.  While taking this photo, one of the many jumping fish almost landed in my kayak and a snake swam through the water just in front the guys boats.

Yep, life is good!

Uncle Dan, Dad and Aunt Mary on their driveway, getting ready to walk to the beach.

Dan and Mary at the beach. A very short walk from their house.

Shells were everywhere on the beach.  So many, and most of them were still whole.  I found a very large shell on the way back.  It must have just appeared, because I didn't see it the first time by.

 

Dad and Uncle Dan

Aunt Mary and Dad.  What a great day on the beach!

Cool birds (Ibis?), we don't have these in Oregon.  

A whole bunch of brown pelicans doing a fly-by

The four of us in Mary and Dan's house.

Aunt Mary has a painting studio in her house. So beautiful!

She paints beautiful paintings too.

The enclosed pool and garden is very refreshing.  Wonderful place for drinks and conversation.

I wish we could have had more time with Dan and Mary, I don't get to see my Dad's side of the family often enough and enjoy reconnecting with them.  

Back Home

I'm back home and continuing to unpack.  I took way too much crap.  Just the right amount of clothes, but the other stuff....TOOO much.

Still battling a lower GI bug, and the "non-motion" of land.   I think if the land would move a bit I'd feel better, it's almost like vertigo.  Never had this feeling before.

Anyway, I'll finish up the posts fromt he the trip and add pictures too.  I think I'll show the pictures separate from their original post dates, it will be easier to follow that way.
In the meantime, I tested out posting video's and added a monkey video to the bottom of the April 7-8th post.  Check it out.
Chris