By jess on December 7, 2009
we should post…its been awhile…life seems to move faster than we can keep up with…but here you go….a post! And a very random post at that 
An update: Nick is one week away from the end of the semester. He is sitting on the couch right now writing a paper on Transit Oriented Development (his “planning passion”) related to malls as town-centers that are privately owned versus town-centers that are publicly owned and people’s disorientation between the two. Post-finals he is going to finish the kitchen (crown-molding and garbage disposal)….for real, can we get some pictures! its looking amazing!! In the mean time he is also working…count them…three jobs…part-time at Denver’s public transportation district, a teacher’s assistant, and a research assistant. whew!
As for myself, I am cranking away at the night shift which is a job I like but am struggling to remain afloat on this schedule. I sleep A LOT and feel hung-over the rest of the time. Can I boast about my AMAZING husband who is super patient with me??? I have two weeks left of class, Nurisng Theories, all for my MSN….this week we studied theories related to caring (yak!)…but I am loving the idea that someday I won’t have to work holidays OR weekends I LOVE being in school. New ideas, structure, writing papers. Even though after 6 hours of reading about “caring” I seriously want to vomit on myself.
Its snowy here in Colorado. We are having (at this VERY moment) the 3rd blizzard of the year. It’s not even officaly winter yet. We decided not to train for a spring marathon this year so we can get the most out of our ski season. Day off…20 mile run or 6 hours on the slopes…um, ya. We are STOKED! about ski/snowboard season!! Nick decided to become a yogi…and attended his 1st (or maybe 2nd) yoga class with me last week. Oh, it will be so fun to do yoga together!
ok…some pictures…if this whole posting this works out
1) nick, writting a paper.
2) my super cool wine rack because I LOVE wine. I have been saving wine bottles over the last several months so I can make some wine this season. I need 30 bottles and have about 22 right now. drink up!
3) I made tamales last night. A vegan recipe. Black Bean and Spinach. I used coconut oil instead of lard (because it is very good for you!!) It took longer than I thought it would. 5 1/2 hours…but they taste so good!
4) Our christmas tree. Its in a bucket of water in the basement right now. We can’t find our Christmas tree stand. We went to 3 stores tonight and they were all SOLD OUT! That’s my “job” tomorrow before I go to work…find a christmas tree stand
5) A random picture from our Halloween party at our house. The first party that we’ve hosted in Denver. In chicago we were known for having “good” parties. This one was definately “good”!! I was the swine flu vaccine and Nick was the swine flu
paper is due tomorrow!
my new super awesome wine rack!
halloween pa-tay!
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By jess on September 18, 2009
I was trying to find pictures of the triathalon today and came across this animation on the tri website. It’s really cool.
http://www.zumtri.com/race_files/HarvestMoon2009/ZumTri.html#r=60&r1=76&r2=213
(if it prompts you for race #s enter 983, click on nick’s name and then click next. the enter 982, click on my name and click next.)
Nick is the red dot and I am the blue dot. It animates the triathalon (respectively) compared to the other people in the race. But it gives a great idea of the course, how we compared with other racers and where nick was at compared to me during the race.
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By nick on September 14, 2009
We finished our half ironman triathlon. Overall I felt the race went pretty well. It was pretty much the coldest day of the summer so far and mostly overcast. Had a few worries about rain and cold during the race, but the rain held out for the most part, and then it started raining pretty hard about a minute after Jess finished.
Overall, I felt great in comparison to my first half ironman in Wisconsin two years ago. My finishing time this year was 5:14:41 compared to 6:04:04 at Racine. Jess finished the race in 6:04:54 (sorry Jess, I thought you beat the time from my first half but you just missed it by 50 seconds).
The 1.2 mile swim took place in Aurora Reservoir which is about 45 minutes from our house in east Aurora. The water was cold, so we were both glad to have our wetsuits. Compared to some other open water swims, the water here was clean and deep which made the swim a lot more enjoyable. Jess started 5 minutes before me in the 2nd wave and finished the swim in 35:52. I started in the 3rd wave and finished the swim in 31:41. When I arrived in T1, we got to say a quick hi to each other as we got our bike gear on for the next leg of the race.
We hopped on our bikes for the 56 mile ride through the rolling hills of barren eastern Colorado. For a lot of the ride we headed directly into the wind up and down some pretty intense and long hills. We both felt unprepared for this portion of the race as training levels on the bike were not what they should have been, and 56 miles is a long ways to race. The first half of the ride I was flying pretty fast, but I slowed down on the 2nd half to an overall average speed of 19.0 mph and bike time of 2:56:37. Jess finished her bike leg in 3:18:25 with an average speed of 16.9 mph.
It was a relief to get off the bike and into T2, but I was slightly worried I had expended too much energy. The legs were a bit wobbly and the feet were slightly numb. But, as I exited T2 I started passing all of those bikers that flew by me with their expensive tri bikes. Even though I didn’t feel very fast, I started clocking some miles in the low 7 minute mile pace. Maybe a bit aggressive to start the 13.1 mile run that way, so I ended up slowing down to about 7:45 or 8:00 mile pace. Even so, I still passed people quite a bit. Only 2 runners passed me on the entire run. My average pace for the run was 7:53 with a split of 1:43:12. Jess finished the run at a 9:31 pace at 2:04:29.
I ranked highest in the run, then the swim, and then the bike. Guess I need to work on my biking skills.
We are both glad to be done with training a while so we can focus on other things in life other than 2 workouts a day. While we’ve got no running or tri events planned in the future, I’m sure we’ll get itching soon to start some training.
No pictures of the race this time cause we were both racing with no spectators. But, this picture my parents took from 2 weeks ago at steamboat is pretty much the same thing. Please ignore the bulge, it is not avoidable in wetsuits.
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