Saturdays are a pup's favorite day

Miles loves Saturdays. First and foremost - Saturdays mean no work for Mark and I, so he knows he'll have a day filled with looking at the light reflections on the wall in the kitchen and the stairwell (don't ask, he has bizarre obsessions). By 5pm, he's sacked out on the reading room floor - who knew that looking at lights could be so exhausting?

Saturdays also mean sleeping in, a lazy breakfast together, and sometimes a run on the bike path followed by a trip to the dog park. Today was no exception. I had a "duathlon" workout - 2 mile run followed by intervals on the bike, followed by a longer, faster run. I took Miles out on the first run portion and, aside from throwing a minor fit when we didn't go into the local dog park, he did really well. He likes to run and I like it when he runs because it wears him out. We did a trip to the dogpark in the afternoon - he spent 1.5 hours running around like a lunatic, rolling around in dirt (awesome), and getting every dog and any dog to chase him, wrestle him, anything. He is a barrel of energy that rarely gets depleted.

We've had a busy past few weekends, so Miles has not gotten a bath in awhile. After today's escapade in the dog park dirt, we went straight to the Muddy Mutt outside of the dogpark to give him a good washing. He really doesn't enjoy thesebaths, especially the part where we use the powerful blow dryer on him. But he's really good, no whining or struggling. Instead, he just looks at you with sad and pathetic eyes.

Here are a few pictures of Miles - he's 10 months old now and it's so funny how big he's gotten and how long his fur has become. He's also begun "pointing" - you know, tail straight at attention and paw raised in the air. Unfortunately, he has been "pointing" at the cats - he needs to remember that cats are friends, not food.

Two years ago today...

... I became an Ironman. Technically, they didn't say "Caroline Lauver, you are an IRONMAN" at the end of the race because it was Beach2Battleship. But it's the same distance and so, in my mind, the same bragging rights. Regardless, today I'm celebrating my two year anniversary with Ironman. My romantic relationship with Ironman (we're calling it a romance because, let's be honest, we don't pour our heart, soul, time, and effort into just a fling) has lasted longer than any other romance I've had, besides the one with my husband. And I'm signed up for IMLP 2011, so Ironman will stick around my life for at least another year.

And there's no other high quite like the one of finishing your first Ironman. I'd imagine it's like the first high you get when you try a drug (not that I would know firsthand), nothing is ever quite as good. Believe me, I've tried (3x) fruitless times to capture that same high without total success. I think it's a combination of 1) only having the goal of finishing - no time goals, nothing. This is the first Ironman, it's uncharted territory; 2) doing what you once thought was impossible. Before the race, you never tried to do a race of this distance, you didn't know if you'd be able to string together all three events, throw nutrition in there, and find success. And when you do, it's the best feeling in the world.

The start to the day was perfect. Standing at the tip of Wrightsville Beach, watching the sun come up over the Atlantic just enough so we'd have enough light to swim. And the end of the day was perfect. After I gathered up a plateful of food, I stretched out on the concrete wall by the channel while Mark was getting my bike. I just looked up at the stars and kept saying over and over to myself "I can't believe I actually did it", all while smiling so much, my face hurt. I was on an adrenaline high for the next two days, hardly able to sleep because I was so happy/excited/and wanting to do another one. And I was hungry. Hungry like I'd never been before in my life. I ate everything in sight. It. Was. Awesome.

So, here's to many more years of triathlon, Ironman, and fun... and of course, the finish line high.

Back in the pool

This morning I woke up right on the cusp of it being too late for me to bother going to swim practice. But I knew if I didn't go in the morning, I would regret it later. So, I showed up about 10 minutes late, partway through the first set. Since I'm easing back into it, I demoted myself down a lane, which turned out to be a good choice since my old lane is currently full of VERY fast swimmers. 2000+ yards later, I was extremely glad I swam in the morning - I always feel better for the rest of the day, even if it's a struggle to get up at first. And even though I'm slow as molasses at the moment, I'm just glad to be back on a regular training schedule again.

In other news, this summer Mark and I bought a pasta maker. It. Is. Awesome. We haven't had boxed pasta in months - the fresh stuff is so easy to make and SO GOOD. We had some last night and again tonight with fresh pesto that Mark made and sauteed vegetables. Good, fresh food like that make it easy to eat healthy because it tastes so good. Speaking of good food, I've been reading the book "In Defense of Food." If you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend it. It will make you think twice about opening up that bag of processed "food." It will also make you question what is "real food" and "fake food." I started reading it over the weekend and tried to eat a number of apples to offset the amount of sweets I consumed in celebration of Reagan's birthday.

And now, to bed, so I can get up early and get on the bike. That is, if our house isn't blown away by a tornado tonight, thanks to the strong storms that are supposed to wallop us overnight.

Day 1

Today, after 23 days of my Training Peaks schedule saying "You Have No Upcoming Workouts," I HAD A WORKOUT! It was a short Z1 run. I. Am. Slow. It took me 40 minutes to cover less than 4 miles while desperately trying to stay in Zone 1. I suppose that means that my 5 mile run yesterday sans watch and sans HR monitor (but my running buddy Tim had his on and we finished with an average pace of 8:14) was probably done in Zone 25. Oh well, eventually the speed and fitness will come back. This isn't the end of the world.

In other news that both more interesting and more uplifting than my slow run, I spent last weekend down in Tennessee celebrating my goddaughter Reagan's first birthday! Erin (Reagan's mom) is my best friend. Four years of living together during college and dining on Easy Mac and boxed wine will bond you for life. Reagan was ridiculously cute in her tutu and pink/orange polkadot headband. Erin did an amazing job with the decorations and the food. She should quit nursing school and become a full-time party planner :).

BTW, kids as young as 3 know what manipulation is. I was watching a 3 year old try to break into the bag of hot dog buns. She told me she was hungry and just wanted the bread, no hot dog. So I stuck a bun on a plate for her and she asked me, very smoothly, for a fork and knife so she could cut it into pieces. I handed her plastic utensils and she went to town. When I asked her if she always cuts her own food, because she was doing a very good job, she says, "oh no, my mommy and daddy NEVER let me use a knife." I made sure I got the knife back before she meandered back to her parents.

I always have a good time down in Tennessee - it was fun to spend time with Erin, Reagan is super cute and I think pretty soon she's going to start remembering me. She's super smart, walking and getting into stuff, and doing baby sign language. I also got to spend the weekend with Erin and Ashley's families, which was great. It was a full house, which is the best kind of house to have.

Now it's back to reality and, thankfully, back to some regularly scheduled training!

The Offseason...

... Has been going on for the past two weeks. And I'm ready for it to be over. Well, not all of it - I'm ready for the frosting-from-a-can snacks, cupcakes, stay-up-late, sleep-in to be over. But I am not ready to spend 5+ hours on my bike on a Saturday or do 2-a-days quite yet. This week starts the compromise, which I've really enjoyed - nothing structured, but still a reason to wake up early and get moving in the morning. But the unhealthy eating - it has GOT to stop! Sweets are my downfall and I keep thinking of excuses to eat them - "oh, you're having a bbq with homemade brownies, of course I'll have some." Or, "there's a bake-off to raise money for the homeless, count me in!" Or, Mark's dad is in town and we're going out for an early birthday celebration for Mark - yes, I will eat that gigantic apple pie for dessert all by myself... Oh, it's the off-season, that means eat WHATEVER you've been denying yourself all season. But at some point, there's got a be a limit. It's not even Halloween yet, but I'm going to enact my New Year's resolution ASAP - fewer sweets, more fruits and veggies. Oh, and write those IM France and IM Wisconsin race reports before 2011...

It's been awhile...

... Hasn't it? Far too long. I have a backlog of race reports to publish (IM France, IM Wisconsin, and Halfmax Nationals), and I wasn't letting myself write in my blog until I got those things uploaded. And I'll do that. Eventually. Maybe this weekend. But I missed writing in my blog. So here's a quick post. Two Ironmans in one season was hard, but not terribly hard. I actually enjoyed the training and the racing most of the time. I suppose it was helpful that they were only 11 weeks apart, so I relied mainly on my fitness base from the first one to carry me through the second one, with just a few weeks of intense training and long hours. I would do it again. The only thing I did miss was doing more races - if Ironman makes up two of your A races, it's difficult to fit other races in there on top of quality training. Next year is likely going to be a one Ironman year (Lake Placid) so hopefully I'll be doing more races.

This season was a success, even though I didn't get the types of finish and times that I wanted at both Ironmans. I even ended the season on a high note at Halfmax, even though I was so far out of contention for Worlds, I might as well have been on another continent from the other racers. I was happy with my time, and thrilled that I finally pulled out a decent run.

And now begins the off-season. I spent much of the 6.5 hour drive home from Myrtle Beach contemplating where I would have my celebratory brunch the next day, it being the official Day 1 of the off-season (I went with Boulevard Woodgrill), what I would have (Breaded and fried French Toast), and what I would bake for dessert on Sunday (Apple pie). I'm allowing myself to go a little wild over the next few days - eat things I wouldn't normally eat (frosting - for dinner?!), stay up late writing in my blog, and sleeping in guilt-free. All necessary evils to get the mind and body ready for 2011!

France - Rick Steves Style

Paris - if only the Metro had escalators...

After a relatively painless flight, Mark and I arrived in Paris and met up with his parents at the airport. I was so thrilled to be back in Paris - the sights and smells were just like I remembered them to be. Perfection. And my French wasn't as rusty as I thought it might be. And the Paris metro system lacked escalators of any kind, a fact I sort of forgot. I also forgot how man

y stairs the Paris Metro system has. They don't have stairs just for getting into and out of a station. They also have stairs just for getting around inside of all of the stations - it's like a

labyrinth. In short, NOT the best place to be lugging around a giant bike box. The entrance and exit turnstiles added an extra element of fun to an already joyless process. By the time we made it to the hotel, I looked and felt like I had already done an Ironman. Sweaty, tired, and cranky. And just like Ironman, turns out all I needed was some good food to put me in a better mood. Fortunately, good food in Paris is just as abundant as stairs in the metro system. First meal - a savory crepe with lots of cheese. My in-laws

both got crepes too and from the looks on their faces, it was love at first sight.

Crepes in front of Notre Dame

Eiffel Tower 11pm

L'Arc de Triomphe

We all wanted to adjust to the time change as quickly as possible, so there was lots of coffee, sightseeing and NO napping on that first day. We did Notre Dame, Place de la Concorde, Champs-Elysee, the Arc de Triomphe, and wandered around the Latin Quarter. Thanks to the summer equinox (or is it solstice?), it was light out until about 10:30pm, so we really didn't have any trouble at all staying up late. 10pm really felt more like 5pm. It was rather strange - and even though I love extended daylight hours, this might be a bit too extreme for me. But it's better than the mere 8 hours of sunlight Paris gets in the winter. Sun up after 8am, and back down around 4pm. Anyway, we finished off our night with a quick jaunt over to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up.

Mark and I are pretty laid-back tourists. We'll sleep in, decide on whim what sites we want to visit, if any, and we do most of it at a leisurely pace. Neither of us are big museum people (case-in-point: we've lived in DC for 6 years and only visited 3 museums total) and what we were most looking forward to was slurping down coffee and tea in a sidewalk cafe and people watching. My mother-in-law, on the other hand (and keep in mind, I love her and think she is great), does tourism a little differently. She reads up on things beforehand, plans out a schedule of what to see, when to see it, and in what order, and she will get up as early as necessary to get it done. For this trip, she bought some Rick Steves guidebooks on France and Italy. And right from Day 1, it was obvious that my mom-in-law was a loyal Rick Steve's disciple. Rick Steves, apparently, has a nugget of wisdom for practically everything. It was borderline comical and I tried not to giggle every time I heard his name. By Day 3, Mark wanted to throw Rick Steves into the Seine. My father-in-law admitted pangs of jealously for all the attention my mom-in-law was lavishing on Rick Steves. And my sisters-in-law are tagging Rick Steves in all Facebook photos of my mother-in-law. But I'll admit it, Rick Steves did know his stuff, especially when it came to restaurants. So in the end we compromised; because I didn't want to overdo it before Ironman, I didn't do all of the sightseeing, I slept in, and I went to bed early while everyone else stayed out.

I was really tired on our second day in Paris - the jet lag had finally caught up to me. I still got up and did my run, I just got up a little later than planned. And it was COLD in Paris those first few days. I was really regretting not packing my jacket - but it was so hot in Virginia when we left, it was hard to imagine it being cold anywhere. I wore the heck out of my only two pairs of long pants and my lone sweatshirt - felt like a scruffy American tourist the whole time. I couldn't wait to get to Nice where it would (hopefully) be warmer and I could wear some sundresses without feeling like a popsicle. The second day in Paris was museum day - we did the Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre. While at the Louvre, I realized that the statue I had always thought was the Venus de Milo, actually wasn't. Shows how much I know about art.

NOT the Venus de Milo

The actual Venus de Milo

Personally, I found the non-Venus de Milo to be more impressive than the actual one, but that's just me. Next on our list of stops was Sainte Chapelle. The stained glass windows were amazing. They were in the middle of a glass restoration project where they were essentially cleaning the stained glass with Q-tips. Obviously not the fastest method, but arguably the most effective. The difference between the restored glass and the non-restored glass was incredible.

Sainte Chapelle

After warming up in a sidewalk cafe with tea and coffee, with a side dose of people-watching, we finished off the day with what turned out to be our favorite meal in Paris. We planned on going to a falafel place in the Marais for dinner, but a very nice Parisien recommended this organic restaurant in the same area. Of course right now the restaurant name eludes me, but the food was INCREDIBLE. It was all relatively local and fresh. I got the roasted vegetable dish, thinking that it was a safe dish (it was) but it would probably be boring (totally wasn't). I savored every bite of it, and proceeded to think about that dinner for the rest of the trip (until our next great meal in Nice, and then my tomato discovery in Italy...). The walk back to the hotel after dinner gave us a chance to see the city all lit up.

The weather was feeling generous (or maybe just pity for us) on our third day in Paris - we actually saw the sun, there was no rain, and I wasn't freezing cold. We had another amazing meal in the Marais - this time at a really popular falafel place. And, like always, the messiest food is often the best food. Fortunately, I managed not to spill any sauce on myself as I devoured it. Since Mark and I were already in the Marais, we decided to visit the Jewish History museum. It's this little museum hidden away among the side streets and it wasn't crowded at all - I can't say how nice it was to visit a museum where you're not competing with fifty other camera-wielding tourists to look at an exhibit. And this is the first museum I've visited where the focus of Jewish history was not sharply zoomed in on the Holocaust - it talked about it, yes, but it also had exhibits on many of the customs, traditions, and Jewish history worldwide.

Rather than go out to dinner that night, we decided to get a few fresh baguettes, some salami and cheese, and have a picnic in the courtyard of our hotel. Right around this time the Fete de la Music was getting started and a band had set up just across the street from the hotel, so we had a little music to go along with dinner (granted, all the band seemed to know how to play was "Back in the USSR" - and play it badly - but hey, it was something). We made a sunset trip to the Eiffel Tower - the Metro was packed with people going out to celebrate the Fete de la Musique and the streets were filled with partygoers and an excited energy. There were bands on the streetcorners, live music drifting out of sidewalk cafes, people playing music on their balconies - it was everywhere! There are only two occasions I've seen the French let themselves get a little out of control - the release of the Beaujolais Nouveau in November, and the Fete de la Musique in June. And when we arrived at the Eiffel Tower, there was a live broadcast of the Spain vs. whoever on the Jumbotron. Of all the nights that we had in Paris, this was the one where I was really wishing I didn't have a race coming up in a few days. I would've loved to stay out late, watch the World Cup games, and soak up the music in the streets. But I had to go to bed, especially because we were getting up early to go to Normandy the next morning. So I took some photos of the Eiffel Tower and headed back to the hotel.

Eiffel Tower and World Cup

My father-in-law is tall, but the Eiffel Tower is taller

6 visits to Paris, first jumping photo in front of the Eiffel Tower

The trip to Paris was a success! We packed alot into three days, ate our way through the city, and really enjoyed ourselves. Next was a day trip to Normandy to visit the D-Day beaches.