Our favorite missing blogger returns

Eva Returns

T-4 days and counting

Till I move in with AF that is. Eeek! I'm a little nervous about it, but I'm getting better. For now, we'll be living in his one bedroom apartment (which is normal apartment sized and WAY bigger than my space has been. The only thing I'm really scared about right now is that I've been living on my own for so long, I'm used to my Laura Time where I don't have to worry about anyone else and just do my own thing, make as much mess or noise as I want. That said, the neighboring apartment is a two bedroom place with a storage closet and they are looking for Subletters. We are going to look into that and possibly move over there for the next 6 months or so while we think about where we (read I) want to buy a house. That would solve pretty much all the anxiety I have right there. I'd have a room that I could shut out the outside world and do my own thing in, and that would be wonderful :)

Lotus Bloom (like the new name BTW) asked me on my blog about AFs job situation. I actually haven't posted that on my blog, but I have told those of you that I see on a semi-regular basis. So he got offered the job in Missisauga (he currently works in cambridge (near sportsworld) and they were going to pay him more than what he was making. He hadn't got the official offer, but he went into work and told his boss... "Just so that you know, I've got a verbal job offer and next week when the paperwork gets completed, I'll be coming in and giving my 2 weeks notice". Long story short, the managers got all upset that he was going to leave and they are giving him a $9000 raise (this week will be his first pay check at this rate). His new position will be salaried instead of hourly and he'll be able to bank any of his overtime towards vacation (like on Saturday morning when he went in for 4 hours). We are both pretty excited about this since it'll mean he'll hopefully be able to save up enough over the next two years to be able to go back to school to finish his engineering degree (which he didn't get to finish befor immigrating to Canada).

Hmmmm... Other stuff? Not much. I guess most of the excitement in my life is taken up by those two points. I'm basically running/excersizing in the mornings, going to school during the day and packing at night. I'm really getting there with the packing and should be able to enjoy Grey's Anatomy and CSI on Thursday without having to pack then.

Laura Land

Hmm... Really, honestly, not much these days.

This past weekend we were in b-ville for my dad's 60th birthday. A good time was had by all. On Sunday we were at my sister's and did the Terry Fox run.

Other than that, my nights have been taken up by packing. Most of my apartment is now packed up and in a week tomorrow I'll be moving. I'm going to miss my tiny apartment :(

My Sisters Tummy

I'll post more later, but this picture is for Burger :)

Wasaga Beach SPRINT DUATHLON

So, the title says it all. Saturday was the day, that after 5 years of triathlons and a full season of training (including rides of up to 63 km, runs up to 12 km and bricks up to 40 km/5km) I was going to do my first every olympic triathlon (1500m swim, 40 km bike, 10 km run). Turns out the weather gods thought differently.

We arrived at the race site ready to go at 7:20 or so saturday morning. At our hotel there had been absolutely no wind and the pavement was dry. I was actually super excited for my race and the better than predicted weather. Not so much at the race site. The race is on the very bottom of Georgian bay. Strong winds from the north meant swells of 3-4 feet which were crashing for about the 200m closest to the shore. They announced as I was picking up my kit that the swim was cancelled and that they were changing the race to a duathlon. Every duathlon I've ever seen goes short run, bike, long run. Not so here, they had long run bike short run. So 10k run, 40 km bike, 5 km run. Joy.

I freaked out. I've never run before biking before (except running the mile to the gym to do a spinning workout, but I haven't even done that in a while). Secondly running 10K right now isn't easy so biking 40 km after running 10 km was very very daunting (not to mention having to run again) - Note: I've never done a duathlon before today. So I opted out of the olympic/international distance race and switched over to the sprint triathlon instead hoping for the water to calm down in the next few hours.

2 hours later, sure enough the swim got cancelled for the sprint as well, turning it into a duathlon as well, this one seemed a lot less daunting 5 km run, 20 km bike, and a 2.5 km run.

Run 1: My goal for the first run was to take it pretty easy and to finish in about 30 minutes (not easy long run pace, but not race pace either, my 5K best time is < 25 minutes but I doubt I could run that right now). The first 300m or so were in the sand (ick) so I started off super slowly and was definitely one of the last in my wave to get onto the pavement. The rest of the run was spent passing a few people in front of me that took off too fast and getting passed by a lot of people in the wave behind me. This put me onto a position in the bike that I've never been in before - at the end of the pack for my wave. I'm a good swimmer and am usually at the front of my wave. Finished in 28 something so faster than my plan

Bike: Yippee! fun course, there were about 3 km or so that were gradual uphill that were into the wind that were not so fun, but it made for a fast return with speeds getting up to 55.5 km/h :) I like hammering down hills. The benefit of starting the bike near the end of the wave is getting to pick people off I passed about a dozen people over the 20 km but only one or 2 were in my age group, the rest were 20-24 F. (with the odd guy thrown in). Man, if I were only a year younger that would have been a great ego boost Only one gal passed me the entire ride and she was the winner of 30-35 and in the top 5 over all. She started the race 2 waves behind me, but didn't pass until the final kms of the bike. My only problem on the bike course is that all summer I was focusing on going further and not faster so my calves were cramping a bit in protest. finished in 42 something, but my speed from my bike computer and the speed from the mats don't match so either the course was long or something wonky happened with timing in there.

Run 2: My calves knotted up in transition and I thought the run would be horrible but it worked itself out quickly. I didn't have a lot of oomph left, but the 2.5 km went super quickly and before I knew it, I was at the finish line with a bit of a look of confusion on my face. second run 12:5x (go me!)

Other thoughts - the run courses and the run in transitions were on beach and were like a death march. I hate running in sand.
- I don't understand why they had the long run at the beginning but meh.
-I didn't get to do my olympic triathlon but I did get to do something else new, a duathlon, so the day wasn't a complete waste.

I got 3rd place athena woman (ie. heavier than average), but still don't know my official times on any of it (other than the final finish time was 1:29:04 - I think I had a nap in T1 - my time was over 3 minutes! ack!)

After thoughts - I was disappointed that I didn't get to do my race that I have been training for all summer. For a bit I was upset and thought they should do the swim anyways since anyone doing an olympic race should be able to swim in that surf, but then I realized that it really is for the safety of the athletes that they cancelled it. I may be able to swim in that surf, but I'm a strong swimmer, and I know other people would be incredibly intimidated by it. I think I'll be mulling over it for a few days before I decide what to do. Next summer I want to do a Half Ironman, but I would have wanted to do an olympic race before I commit to the training. Now I don't have the experiance and being in the frigid north that is Canada, won't have another opportunity this season. I'll have to be thinking that one over.

Time for a real update

Well, not much is going on in Laura Land right now. I'm a little sick as I had a horrible cold last week. Feeling a lot better now, though I'm nervous that I ended up missing my peak training week for my tri since I was knocked on my ass all last week. I did get in a long ride and run on the weekend though when I was feeling better.

My long weekend was a day longer than planned since AF had Thursday and Friday off for a software migration at work. I took Friday off and we went to the saug for another meeting with the people he had his interview with a couple of weeks ago. He has been given a verbal offer, but has to still wait to hear the details of it (salary etc). We went to visit with his mum and aunt on friday afternoon and had a good visit with them (his mum even made my chicken soup for my cold :)). I haven't mentioned this before since I didn't know if AF would want everyone knowing, but his Aunt has applied for refuge status and it looks like she'll be here until at least January. She is fleeing an abusive (in all senses of the word - physically, emotionally, and sexually) marriage back in Iran and has next to no rights back in that country. Her biggest obstacle right now is that her mother and children do not support her decision (the children will be able to come over if her refuge application gets approved and it should since her life is in danger if she goes back home).

Saturday morning I got up early and left AF sleeping to get in my long ride. I got back when he had been up for about half an hour, so it was good timing. We picked up my dad's 60th birthday present in the afternoon and went for dinner at Red Lobster - He had never had lobster or crab before so we shared the ultimate feast platter and I think he enjoyed both the lobster and the crab and is eager to go back again.

Sunday morning I was up early again to get my run in. I felt like crap on it, but still managed to run 12 km on the hilly roads near AFs apartment. In the afternoon we took a road trip to guelph and went climbing at the gym there. I'm getting a bit better, but overall, I'm still very amateur! We are going to try to continue going on a semi-regular basis since I just bought climbing shoes the other week at MEC (they were majorly on sale and the right size!)

Monday was the laziest day on earth. We woke up late and watched a movie. started moving some of my stuff over to his apartment (ont even one car load) and then watched another movie at his place.

Today it is back to work and I'm not sure how productive the week will be. For the last hour I'll I've heard is crazy chanting and cheering outside with no end in site - ah, frosh week in Engineering (Who are we?!?!) Fun times for them, but not so good for me. Right now very loud cheering "We love EDCOM, We love EDCOM". God, can't you come up with an original cheer?

Okay, that is all I have to say for now. Enjoy your short week people!