Today I completed the portland Triathlon for the second time. It was a hard fought finish, but a finish none the less . (I have the finisher shirt to prove it!)
This was my second tri oth the season and my seond tri as a mommy. This summer I ran in 4 races by myself d then we did the West Seattle 5K as a family.
I would say tat this officially makes me a racing mama. I do have to admit though that part of me thinks that I over committed myself. but the other part of me, the part tht reminds myself that in febrary my right foot hardly works says fuckit! your foot didnt work and you are a new mom and look at what you did!!.

I think my favorite part about today was seeing my family at the transition points Its hard to disribe how it felt to have them cheering me on especially today when it was just a fight with myself some times to keep going.

Thank you Mario, my mom,my sister, and Diego.

So now i take a break, try to start doing some regular jogging again. Put that fancy Bob stroller to good use. I think that for next year I want to focus on triathlons during the summer and early fall and then think aout a marathon in the late fall or winter. I will have to see about time and finances.
oh and of course i am sure if I whip up some awesome racing outfits my time will be better. of course.

So its not like I have been writing alot on my blog about the pregnancy and stuff. It progresses and everything is good and so I just go along with it.
Today we had did the first of a two session class on Labor and Delivery. A sort of what to expect sort of class and let me tell you I am glad we are taking this class. As the instructor said, “I am not teaching you how to give birth because your body already knows how, I am just here to tell you more about whats going on during the delivery process and things you can expect” That really made sense to me.

One of the things she mentioned about the success of a birth, or I guess about how “easy” a birth is, is that studies have shown that women who are more confident in their ability to give birth that they can do it in the first place will have a “better” time with their deliveries than those who have less confidence going in. I have decided (because that’s a huge part of the confidence is at least faking it till you make it) that we are going to have a good delivery and that I am totally capable of having the birth experience I want. We are doing lots of reading, getting informed, crafting a birth plan, and for us I think that’s going to make us more confident going in to.

Though I will be confident I know that sometimes things dont always go as planned so we will plan for what we can and then take the other stuff in stride. The ultimate goal is that baby comes out healthy and that i stay healthy.

I have to say that I am really glad that I have a couple of half marathons and a triathlon under my belt because to me this is what the day of is going to be like. There is a start, and once you start you can’t go backwards so you have to go forward. You have to stay relaxed and take each leg of the experience as it comes. Some times you have to walk a bit and sometimes you have to power through. And once you hit that last leg of the tri, or the last 3 miles of the half marathon, or the baby is about to crown, thats when you know, the end is near and it will be over soon and you just have to persevere a little bit more. All your joints may hurt, you may be tired and cranky, but the end is in sight. And thats how I will choose to think of it.

I have to go now because Mario is answering questions about my netflix preferences and who knows what he is giving thumbs up to.

I would have to say that this has been such a great weekend. Its always great to spend time with friends and family and this weekend for me was like a family reunion. Betsy emailed us a back in late march early april to see if we would like to come out for the 4th of july and all the pieces seemed to fall together pretty perfectly and Livi, Anne, Steph, Emily and I were able to spend a wonderful weekend hosted at Chez Mccallon.

Night one consisted of a wonderfull grilled dinner at the house followed by college photo albums. I was starting to fade but when those albums came out and we started reliving old happenings…. good times is all I can say.

Saturday, a scrumptious breakfast and the Argentina/Germany world cup game (dissapointing match up) followed by tooling around town followed by a bbq at a friends house. This was one of the few times I wished I could partake in the drinking parts of the merriment, but as it was even being sober and out with the ladies was highly amusing (honestly not an angle I get to see it from very often).

Today was a classicly slow morning filled with a recovery routine of tv then lounging at the pool. We had dinner and came home to wait for the fire works and while we were waiting the ladies threw me a baby shower! I was so surprised and felt so loved it was wonderful. This baby already has a set of aunties who love him.

We decided to watch the fire works from the balcony which was not the greatest of views, but I was happy being with friends (plus that meant we didn’t have to try and get anywhere and back). We later ended up watching the boston fireworks display on tv and I have to say, the consensus among the group was that boston had the superior light show. We has been able to see the dc show on tv as well so it was a fairly even comparison.

I would never have guessed 15 years ago when I went away to college who I would meet or what hijinks we would get up to but I am so glad everything went the way it did because I have a group of people with whom I share a very unique set of experiences with and who speak the same language I do, although they are far more poetic about it than I. I am glad college ended and more glad that the best part of the experience lives on in my relationships with the people who found me there.

Tomorrow I fly home, back to my house and hubby and puppy and kitty. It will be great to be home (I get to watch my sciency shows at home without the cruel mockery of my bffs which is why I love mario even more). It will be much cooler and I will carry with me memories of sophisticated conversations and civilized behaviours