Triathlon #1 (and some more news)...

So I finished my first triathlon yesterday and had a lot of fun doing it! I must say that 24 hrs. later I am still not sore, so I think that my training paid off! It was a 500 m swim, a 10 mile bike ride through some beautiful, rolling farmland, and then a 5K run on a wooded path. My friend Trina did it with me and for that I'm grateful!! It was fun to encourage each other and just have fun training together! Here's me happily finishing! :) It was kind of emotional...the whole time! When Mike first called out to me when I was just standing in line waiting for the swim, I almost started crying. There was a really sweet moment when two 70-80 yr. old sisters ran through the finish together holding each others' hands. I teared up for that one too! :)

Here is Trina & me at the finish line and then again with our families.

I highly recommend doing one of these. Here are some tips we learned from our first:

Things we did right:

1. Train ahead of time.

2. Practice on the actual race course at least once.

3. Do it with a friend.

4. Eat a yummy pasta dinner before the race.

And here are our reminders for what not to do when doing a triathlon:

1. Don't camp out the night before. There might just be a band across the lake from your campground that plays good tunes until midnight.

2. Don't do "extreme" camping in "severe" thunderstorms the night before. You just might wake up to a lake in your tent (as Trina's family did)...or almost have your tent blow into the lake (as we did). Around 3:30am I woke Mike up and he threw himself over to the front edge of the tent (as did I) and we stretched out as long as we could to keep the front of the tent down. Trina & Ted moved into their car to sleep sitting up. Ugh. Not the start you wanted!

3. Try not to do it 12 weeks pregnant if you can avoid it. :) Yeah, if you didn't hear it yet, or read it on Facebook last night, as of today I am almost through my first trimester with our third baby!! :) I didn't find out until I was about 5 weeks into the training, and my OB said it was o.k., so we went ahead with it. She did limit me to a heart rate of 150 beats per minute (bpm), which required me to buy the coolest Garmin Heart Rate Monitor and watch my limits. I recommend using a heart rate monitor even for regular training...it is REALLY neat -- and easy to use. The 150 bpm required me to walk most of the 5K...I had a lot of energy/adrenaline so I "wanted" to run, but obviously the baby's health was a priority over my triathlon time.

Well that's it from here! I am feeling well (I was more nauseous with this one--but I'm feeling better now and more like my normal pregnant self). Henry is convinced this is going to be a baby sister -- so convinced I'm a little worried that if it's another boy he's not going to believe it's his brother. His first words after we told him was in a high-pitched "cutie" voice: "It's going to be a little, tiny girl, who will come out wearing teenie, tiny shoes, and sucking on a little ciucio" (ciucio, pronounced "choo cho", is a pacifier in Italian). Happy times for us all!