Olympic Triathlon Success!

This past weekend I accomplished one of my goals on my 30x30 list. Finish an Olympic Distance Triathlon! (.9 mile swim, 25 mile bike, 6.2 mile run)

I knew I wanted to do something later in the summer so I'd have time to train after the half marathon and to make sure the water would be a little warmer. I ended up at the Park City Team Mossman Tri in Connecticut.

Originally I picked this tri as it was closer and we could probably drive out there the morning of. However, after realizing that they were starting the race at 6:30am (!!!) Alex and I decided to get a hotel in the area the night before, which was actually pretty nice. This worked out especially well as our hotel had a full kitchen, so I could cook and not have to worry about what I was going to find at a restaurant the night before the race.

Race morning ended up being almost comically chaotic as I forgot my ID and had to go back for it, we got sort of lost on the way there as the road was closed, and then I arrived as they were singing the national anthem. Crap. So much for a relaxing start. The original plan was to have Alex drop me off and then he could go back and sleep and have breakfast. However, as we pulled in, they closed the roads and he was stuck for the duration of the race. Thus, as the plan was to go back and get the camera when he returned, the only photos we've got are awesome cell phone pictures. (Neither of us have nifty smart phones, so the quality is especially high. ;-) Oh well. )



Anyhow, the race itself went really well! The swim was my first race in salt water in the Long Island Sound, and though the waves were more then I was used to, it went really quick! The bike was 5 loops of a 5 mile course. It was really scenic along the beach and was, thankfully for me, completely flat! SCORE. The run was also along the bike course, so nice and flat and views of the water. The last bit of the run was pure gumption, but I made it through and ran the entire race finishing with a time of 3 hours 25 minutes. Not super speedy, but perfectly good for me!


Cheers to Triathlons!

29.

That's a pretty big number. Last week I celebrated heading into the last year of my twenties.

In honor of the occasion, and the fact that I love making lists, I decided on a 30x30.

The first 30. I'm always scheming up new things I want to do. Often times when I'm telling Alex about all these cool things, he tells me I need to remember that I have actually already done some pretty fun things. And I shouldn't forget that. I figured this was a pretty good idea to remember, so thought I would start off my quest by listing 30 cool things I've done before turning 30.

The second 30. These are 30 things I hope to accomplish in the next year. Stay tuned, I will plan on a third rendition with the list of 30 post 30 in a year! :-)

30 awesome things DONE. (In no particular order other then my remembering them. Well, some things are probably in order. :-) )

1. Married a most amazing husband.
2. Managed to have a wedding story that involved: sunshine, hail, tornado wall clouds, and double rainbows.
3. Have kept in touch with and can still count many of the girls I was friends with in the 8th grade as some of favorite ladies. For some of you 6th grade! Wow, that's almost 20 years!
4. Lived in Spain
5. Lived in Ecuador
6. Taught English in a tiny indigenous village
7. Went sky-diving
8. Learned Spanish enough to pass for decently fluent-ish.
9. Pedaled furiously by bike to see sunrise over Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
10. Hiked to the top of Macchu Picchu.
11. Cooked an entire Thanksgiving feast on my own, from scratch.
12. Ran a half marathon.
13. Completed 5 triathlons.
14. Started a photography business.
15. Backpacked across Spain, France and Italy solo.
16. Survived a move to one of the craziest cities in the world. And learned to love it.
17. Consumed street food on 6 continents.
18. Completed a fast paced, though complete RTW trip.
19. Spent a night in the Sahara Desert.
20. Walked through the Sistine Chapel and saw Michelangelo's David.
21. Picked out fish fresh off the beach from the Dakar fish market.
22. Rode a motorbike through the Vietnamese country-side. (Rode not Drove, I let Alex do that.)
23. Got a black belt in Taekwondo.
24. Saw monkeys in Tikal.
25. Surfed in Hawaii. (Surfed is a big word here. More like stood up on a board while drifting on a ripple, however, I'm counting it. :-) )
26. Learned and now regularly practice yoga.
27. Snorkeled with sharks in Thailand.
28. Learned how to cook from scratch without a recipe.
29. Went white water rafting.
30. Went wine tasting in France, New Zealand, Hungary, California, and New York.

30 things TO DO before 30:
1. Run a half marathon under 2:30.
2. Finish an olympic distance triathlon.
3. Bake leavened bread.
4. Get a logo designed for my photo business.
5. Take more photography classes/workshops. (At least 2!)
6. Learn web design. (Basic web design)
7. Build my photo business.
8. Bake a pie completely from scratch, crust included.
9. Make apple crisp.
10. Make homemade cheese.
11. Run a 10K in under one hour.
12. Plan a 30th birthday trip extravaganza! (I have many ideas, now to buy the tickets)
13. Stay at a beach house on Long Island.
14. Get new glasses/contacts.
15. Bake something without a recipe.
16. Go fruit picking.
17. Design a better website/blog
18. Learn more about investing, and where my retirement deductions are actually going.
19. Cross country ski.
20. Make a meal from every country I've traveled to.
21. Try a new NY restaurant every month.
22. Make pasta from scratch.
23. Organize my recipe file.
24. Organize my drawers.
25. Rent a cabin on the fingerlakes.
26. Go somewhere awesome with our free AirTran tickets.
27. Have a dinner party. (This may be tricky in our little space...)
28. Get out to shoot more for fun in NYC.
29. Complete more countries for our 80 dates challenge.
30. Find direction. I'm determined to figure this out before next year.