Splash N Sprint Triathlon

Been training and looking forward to this day for a few months now. Originally I was really nervous about the swim. So that kept me encouraged to get in the pool more. Which in return helped me feel more comfortable. Friends from work who have done triathlons before were getting me mentally prepared for the swim. So I felt ready for it on the day of.

A few days before the race Top Gear had some free registrations they could provide the team if they wanted. Since I was already registered he went to Timalee (who also is on the Top Gear Team) and signed her up. She was a good sport to do it on such short notice.

This is Timalee and I bright and early in the 6am morning setting up our transition area.

 I had a whole check list at home to make sure I wouldn't forget anything.

 Top Gear was there to help us (and others) out if we needed a quick fix.

 Timalee's husband, Rolynn was there being our cheerleader. He was so nice to take my camera and take pictures of me and Timalee.

So here is the start of the race. Everyone is all lined up along the pool in the times that they can swim the 350m in. I stood in the 7 minute area. When the buzzer went off we all watched as the swimmers jumped in one by one, every 10 seconds. I wasn't feeling nervous, but my adrenaline was sure was going. I was grateful to a guy that I was standing by (who I had met earlier that morning by the Top Gear Tent) who we chatted while we were waiting our turn to go. We both were feeling the same way anxious-adrenalin-shake. As each person was getting in the pool we'd pick up on some techniques.

Then my turn came. With my swim cap and goggles on and ear plugs in (I know this is dorky but it helps me TONS) I was ready to go. Once I jumped in I felt great. Just stayed focused on breathing and staying calm. The 350m is 14 laps. Once I got to one end I had to go under the lane dividers and swim the opposite direction. And repeat that, weaving back and forth through the whole length of the pool.

Near the middle I got stuck with this one guy. We had the same pace. So I just kept right on his heals. Literally I would hit his heals with every stroke I took. I wasn't doing it on purpose. I just was there. Couldn't go any faster to pass him and I didn't want to go any slower. I later talked to Brett (who is the manager of Top Gear and has done several Tri's himself) about getting stuck behind that guy, and he said that actually it was good that I was there because I was kinda drafting off of him. So that worked out to be a accidental strategy.

 I get out of the pool and run to the transition area. I was feeling awesome with how well the swim went. I was so worried about people swimming over me. But it worked out. I had a few pass me but it wasn't a big deal.

 Here I am getting into my biking stuff. Brett taught me a trick how to put my socks on over my wet sticky feet which helped out the transition much better.

 Then I was off. The bike ride was probably my favorite part. It was a really easy 12 mile ride. My bike felt great, Thanks to Top Gear. They tuned it up for me and have been working on getting my bike fit perfectly to me. We have a few more kinks to smooth out, but my ride is feeling so much better than it was before.

 It's kind of hard to see, but this picture is of me transitioning into running.

 And I head off to the 3.34 mile run. Before the race I wasn't at all worried about the running, but this leg turned out to be the hardest one for me. I don't know if it's because by this point I am just gassed, or if my legs are just not used to the transition for biking motion to running. Because the whole time my legs felt very heavy and were cramping. But I didn't let myself stop. I had to fight through it. Talk about a mind over matter moment I had with myself. It took everything I had to just keep moving and to keep a fast pace. It didn't help that the last 2.0 miles were uphill. A kind of hill that I like to call a false flat. It's deceiving because it looks flat, but really you are pushing against a slight incline.

 Right before the end...probably about 0.3 left is when it came to a downhill right into the finish line. Oh man I was a thrilled when I hit that hill. I tried to push it as much as I could. Then I see my dear friend Harmoni with a poster screaming at me "GO GO GO" and that just gave me this push to floor it to the finish line. I gave it everything I had left. My legs were screaming at me but I barrel through.

 We all got a finishing medal that they gave me right as I crossed the finish line. The coolest part about the medal is my brother Tyson designed it. He does the graphic designing for the race posters, t-shirts and medals. So I was excited that I got to have one of his medals.

 Jesse made it there with the boys ten minutes before I finished. He got off a shift in Ogden that morning and made it just in time. When the boys saw me they came running up to me with such proud smiles. It made me feel really good to know I'll always have my boys as my fan club.

 We finished! And it was great!

Jesse and the boys hung around for a bit to find out my time. I finished with a time of 1:16:12 which put me in second place in my age division. I was totally stoked. My goals for this race were to finish, have fun and get a baseline time to improve on. So to place for my first triatholon felt really good.

Happy 8th to Us!!!

This year our anniversary celebration was very low key due to our busy schedule. Our anniversary is on Tuesday May 7 and Jesse has shifts both Monday and Wednesday, with School on Tuesday night. So we decided to go out the weekend before. I made dinner reservations at Market Street Grill. I hadn't been there before and it had been years for Jesse. Since I love fish now and so does Jesse, I thought it would be good to try it out. Plus I had a gift card, so why not?

Everything we ordered was really yummy. And what I loved was that all the portions weren't HUGE. And fish isn't super heavy on my stomach. So we left feeling perfectly full.

Over dinner I gave Jesse a letter that I wrote him and ANOTHER wedding ring. Ring #5. Haha. At this point giving him another ring was more of a joke. When I pushed the box across the table and placed it in front of Jesse, he just started to laugh. This one I had our names Etched into it. From far away it just looks like a design, but up close it reads "Ashley & Jesse". 

It was opening weekend of Iron Man 3. Funny thing, the past two Iron Man movies have come out on our anniversary weekend and we saw them for our anniversary date. And when I heard the third one was coming out again on our anniversary weekend we just had to go. It's Tradition Now!

It was a very simple night, but it was just nice to be together. With how things are lately it's hard to go out on a date. So I was just grateful for the chance to be together.

In the letter I gave Jesse I wrote 8 reasons I love him to go along with the 8 years of marriage we have under our belts.

Eight Things I love about you…

1.   Sarcastic, Comical and Easy-Going Attitude

You have the ability to make everyone around you laugh and feel comfortable. Very few people can do that and because you are like that people are drawn to you and like you.

2.  Tall, Dark and Handsome

This may seem worldly, but I love your handsome face, strong muscles and your gentle hands. I feel safe when I’m with you.

3. Hardworking/Never Give up

You are probably one of the hardest working men I know. Not just at work, but in the yard, in school, with the boys, with me. You put your mind to something and you do it. You have the endurance and fire that most people don’t.  

4.Great Daddy

There is nothing that brings me more love and happiness when I see our boys climbing on top of you, wrestling with you and just having so much fun with you. The giggles and smiles that come to their faces when you are with them is priceless. They love you so much and look up to you a great deal. I’m grateful they have you to be that man figure in their lives.

5.  Handy Man

Seriously so grateful that I can ask you to fix something and you will know how to do it, or at least figure it out. It’s a reassuring feeling when I have clients talk about having to hire someone to fix the smallest things around the house. You are my man for hire.

6.  Very Patient

This one is HUGE for me. And I honestly don’t know how you do it. The many times you have put up with my crazy girl moments and haven’t thrown in the towel, make me so grateful for your Patience. The many times the boys are driving me mad, you step in and calm the situation and help me feel better. You are amazing. I need to learn the more and be like you.

7.  Team Player

I love that you are at my side and as a team we can tackle anything that is thrown at us. You are ALWAYS there for me. And it is such a comforting feeling to know that I will have you there for the rest of eternity.

8. Family is Everything to You

One of the biggest things that I fell in love with you at the beginning was your love for Family. You talked about your mom with such admiration and love. She was a big example to you and the fact that you knew that and wanted someone in your life just like her, frankly scared me to death because I didn’t know if I could live up to that. So I hope that I have and will forever to better myself for you and our boys.

Our Future Firefighters

Today I finally got the pictures of the boys at the Fire Station. They turned out pretty cute. Here are a few of my favorite ones....

I think this is my absolute favorite. You can just see how excited they were being there.

They are certainly two very sweet boys that can give me so much joy and frustration in one mix. I love them so dearly. The more I look at their cheesy grins and mischievous eyes, my heart can't help but swell with LOVE for them. I get that motherly urge to want to squeeze and bite them (I never understood that when I was younger, but now I do). They keep the desire in me to always better myself as a mother. I pray that I can be all that they need me to be.

Steamin' Clean

Gosh, It's been a few weeks. Nothing too exciting has really happened. Just the usual day to day stuff. I guess you know nothing too exciting has happened when I want to post about my new steam cleaner. I'll consider it an early Anniversary present. Thank you Jesse. Haha.

 

Anyway, if someone would have told me 10 years ago that I'd get this excited over something that could clean my house, I'd call them crazy. But now I'm the crazy one.

 

A coworker of mine from hers to work a few weeks back to clean her station. And I got talking to her about it and asked her if it cleans grout lines out well. And she said it would. So I went onto Amazon (my go-to website for everything) and I found this one on sale.



You see, our kitchen floor is just this beautiful travertine tile. But the grout lines had literally turned black from all the dirt and grime. Nothing I tried would clean it. Until NOW.... It came over the weekend and Jesse had to test it out on one grout line (he was sceptical it could work as good as my coworker said). And he was surprised. That one grout line was tan again.

Monday and Tuesday I spent alot of hours cleaning the house. Toilets, Showers, Sinks,  Floors, Stove top.. you name it I cleaned it. Cleaning had never been this fun.

But I had to take pictures of the kitchen floor because it made the most transformation and took the most time. I'm a little bummed that the pictures didn't show how dirty the grout lines look. But hopefully you can get the gist.

Dining Area Before:

 After:

Just that area took me and hour and a half. Skimming the floor inch by inch. On all fours. So I stopped for a bit and didn't finish the rest of the kitchen until the boys were asleep in bed. But this picture shows the difference of where I hadn't cleaned as to where I had, Unreal Right?

Kitchen Floor Before:

 After:

OH it's just so BEAUTIFUL again. It looks brand new. You could eat off that floor it's so clean. Seriously! The hot steam also sanitizes on top of cleaning. I love my new toy.

Legacy Duathlon

Saturday I had the opportunity to do my first ever Duathlon. My cousin, Timalee, had registered for the short course then found out she could get a free registration, so she transferred her original registration over to my name. So I just traded a haircut for it (I love my job for that reason). The short course was run 1.5 miles, bike 20 miles, and then run 1.5 miles again. Nothing big. But I thought it would be fun to go participate in.

 

The morning of it was really cold and super windy. So waiting for the race to start was rough. I arrived there around 7;30 to set up my transition area, then waited around with Timalee, her hubby Rolynn and their friend Ryan and his wife Sarah. When the race started at 9am they were letting people one at a time go ever 15 seconds. Being in the short course I was closer to the back of the line, so I didn't get started until about 9:45.

 

When I started I just had it in my head to do the best that I could do. And to enjoy the opportunity to race.

 

Along the course they had some photographers. Which I was grateful to because I didn't think to take any pictures. And it would obviously be tough taking pictures while I was racing anyway. haha.

 

The first run was great. It felt good to finally get going. I was keeping a 7:20min pace. Then when I got back to the transition I transferred into my bike shoes, helmet and adjusted my GPS watch to biking setting.

 

It felt awesome being on my bike. This was pretty much the first time really riding this season. Since the wind was blowing north and I was was riding north it gave me a nice little push. But once I hit the turn around point I had to go against the wind. Then I wasn't loving the wind so much. My quads were toasty. But I kept pushing and kept a steady pace.

 



 After 12 miles I returned back to the Transition Point and got back into running mode. This was a weird feeling going from biking motion into running. My legs felt like wet noodles and almost like they didn't know what to do. So my pace at first was a bit slower than the first run. But after a few minutes I was able so pick it back up and get to the 7:20 pace. My left IT Band was feeling a little bit tight along with my right shin... but it wasn't enough to slow me down.

This picture is right before I went across the finish line.

 I finished with a time of 1:04:13. I had no clue if that was a good time or not. But I didn't really care. I had to hurry off to work. My first client was at 11:30 and it was about 10:50 when I finished the race. So by the time I loaded up my bike and gear I left around 11. I rushed home with no time to shower and changed my clothes. So yes I went to work with my numbers written on my arms and legs, looking kinda grungy.

I get to work and about a half hour later I noticed I had missed a call from Timalee. She left me a voicemail telling me that I took 3rd place in my age division. And since I wasn't there she had to go up on the podium for me (she's the one on the right).

On her way home from the race, Timalee stopped by the salon and she brought me my medal.

If you can imagine I was on a total giddy high. I couldn't believe that I had placed at the very first Duathlon I'd ever raced in. I went out to do my best and the fact that I placed just excited me.

I later found out that in all the women that raced in the short course I was 5th over all. A total of 44 women raced and I was number 5?  Seriously?

I then get a text from Timalee telling me that Top Gear wants me to be on their Tri Team. Could this be happening? I felt like a little school girl all giddy with excitement.

Being on the team will give me the opportinity to do the triathons through out this coming summer. This is going to give me some awesome goals to strife for and chances to grow. I'm totally stoked! (I'm going to have to really work on my swimming skills)

When I got home from work that night, Ryker saw my medal and asked if I won the race? I said yes (sort of) and he was so happy for me. He kept telling me how proud he was of me. What support. I love that he's so enthusiastic.

I'll post more about the Tri Team when I learn more of what it all entails. But for now I'm just really excited and wanted to share.

Taking advantage of the days off

This last week Jesse had Monday through Thursday off. So we decided it would be fun to take the boys to the Dinosaur Museum. I  love that we get to do this now. Taking time to be together during the day. Ryker doesn't have preschool on Tuesdays so we thought that would be the perfect day to go.

 

We drove separately to Jesse's school. We left his truck there so that Jesse could go to school right after the museum.

 

I had never been to the museum and I was pleasantly surprised how good of a museum it is. 

 They had a sandy area with water and little dinosaurs where the kids could build up the sand to make islands or barges.

 I was happy to see that they provided waterproof aprons for the kids.

 The skeletons were really fascinating. The thought of these huge creatures roaming the earth is pretty dang cool. I've always wondered if they were around before Adam and Eve were put in the Garden of Eden? I'll add that to the list of questions I have when I get to the other side.

 Sometimes... this kiddo just cracks me up. Look at this cheesy pose. He's just hilarious.

 Another cool thing that they had were these huge magnetic puzzles. Since Ryker loves puzzles he just had the greatest time. I am always impressed with his puzzle skills.

 Like always, Cy wants to be doing what Ryker is doing. I really like this picture.

 Another hands on exhibit was a sand pit with dinosaur bones to be uncovered. They had brushes they could use to brush away the sand to discover the bones. If we would have let them, these two boys would have been in there all day.

 Jesse and I sitting back and watching the boys. I love, love, love that we could spend the day together. This man makes me so happy. I don't know where I'd be without him. He truly is my other half and we make a great team.

After the museum we went to Wendy's to get a late lunch and then had to take Jesse to school. It'll be nice when school will be over so that we can have him for the entire day of his day off. But for now we will take what we can get.

Easter Sunday

Jesse worked a shift yesterday and he got home around 7:30 this morning. My plan was when he got home is when I'd hide the eggs in the back yard. Around 6:30 I woke up naturally (kinda hard to sleep in since my body is used to getting up early every morning). I thought since I'm up I'll at least put the Easter Baskets together. Then I went back to bed to wait for Jesse to come home.

 

Next thing I know Ryker comes down stairs to tell me...

 

"Mom, the eggs are still in the fridge. The Easter Bunny didn't hide them."

 

Oops.

 

I made up some silly excuse that the Easter Bunny must have been busy, but he'll be back to hide them before daddy got home. I then text Jesse to fill him in about the Easter Bunny's "mistake". Ha. He said he'd hurry and hide them when he got home if I put them outside for him.

 

I did that very thing. And when I got the text from Jesse that he was home, I read a book to Ryker so that he wouldn't have the random urge to look in the backyard.

 

When Jesse came inside Ryker went running to him and told him all about the Easter Bunny forgetting to hide the eggs. He went to the fridge to prove his point...BUT... they weren't there. The "Easter Bunny" had snuck in and hid them. Phew! Close call.

 

That Easter Bunny needs to pick up his game. Next year he'll be better :-)

 

In their baskets they got a new church outfit along with a few polos and a Camelbak No Spill Water bottle.

 



 He was pretty stoked about his Easter Basket...

 ...and of course Cy was too.

 Then we were off to hunt for eggs.

 Ryker was so sweet by helping Cy.

 He seriously loves the chickens. Now that we are having warmer days there isn't a day that go by that he doesn't want to play with them. And once Ryker is out there, Cy is too. It's a pretty funny site to see Cy carrying a chicken around.

 Once our egg hunt was over we all got ready for church. I wanted to get a picture of our little family in our Easter outfits. But it took several attempts. Cy kept saying cheese with a weird face...

 ...haha not sure why Cy is tipping his head back. At least he is trying to smile.

 Then he finally makes a good face and then Jesse and I weren't looking at the camera. Oh well. Close enough.

 Two handsome boys amongst the pretty daffodils.

I was so grateful for the beautiful warm weather. It was perfect for this Easter Sunday. How fitting is it that we celebrate our Saviours resurrection while the earth seem to be resurrecting as well? This time of year is so refreshing to see everything come back to life again after a long dead winter.

 

During church today we had combined Relief Society and Priesthood and we talked about the Resurrection. I enjoyed the lesson. It's always a good reminder the sacrifice and suffering that the Saviour did for all of us. He was alone so that we don't need to be. He has felt how all of us feel.

 

I'm grateful to my Saviour for providing the atonement for all of us. There is nothing better than having that in our lives. Giving us the chance to always change and become better. Having Him as our strength so that we will NEVER be alone.