Ok, I love Spinervals

It might be the atmosphere-gathered with 10 or 12 fellow tri geeks in the cramped confines of our local bike shop-it might be the constant barking of the coach to push harder, reminiscent of my days on the hardwood and turf, it might have been as simple as Trimama needed a morning out-but I loved Spinervals. Actually it is probably a combination of the three-in that order of influence. Good to see Chris drag himself from his warm bed and join us-he laid the pedal down with ease, barely breathing at 120 rpm, while Trimama sounded like she was going one on one with Ali (the daughter). See, it's hard to not have a game face when you are bringing smack down to the Spinerval coach. Speaking of game face, if you've followed my blog you remember this pic from the finish of my first open water tri, last June. I was obviously exuberant-which is a rare emotion in the nordic states-so the photog snapped my picture-probably for scientific evaluation. The next thing I knew, my pic was on the front page of the local paper, the banner of the results page of the race and therefore posted on the counter of my local tri shop. They liked the fact that I was sporting their "flames" in a race sponsored by the competitor. So, to this day my pic hangs alongside the autographed pics of the pros and other biking folks like Greg Lemond. Little did I know how thorough the phot og was that day-seems there were several pics of the Trimama, including one "game face" photo, which is now Aaaggghh available to every person who picks up a copy of Midwest Multi sport magazine, is it too late to move to northern France? I hear face transplant patients get to keep their voice. Ok, given a circulation of about 20, it's not People, but it is local-I sort of prefer annonymous.
Go ahead, cue Carly ....You're so vain.....-I'm done now.

Standing Long Jump, the 7 almost 8 year old just demonstrated how you can convert an "F" on a paper to an "A"- I suppose that might serve him well at some point in his life-the point in which he has become infinitely smarter than his mother and is able to pass that deception under her nose. Good grief, if he gains that degree of saavy he'd better be able to avoid the "F" altogether.

Turns out Soapinator made state as an alternate. She is praying for someone to get sick. Allow me to explain, or at least remind you that this is the child I had to throw into the pool the first few races of each of the first few meets. Turns out she loves swimming. Who would've known? I am fairly certain that by the time I understand this evolution of, protest everything mom and dad want you to do, even if it is fun, until you think it is safe to find it fun because you don't think mom will notice the change and might even call you on it, the phase will have passed. I think in the end elementary kids just want you as a wall behind their backs so they know they have somewhere to run and hide if things don't work out so well. They will go out on a limb if they know 1) they have no choice and 2) they have no avenue for failure. In our house you only fail when you refuse to try.

Know this: mom is smart enough to know when an "F" has been converted to an "A".

I'm not going to comment on the mom of the 7 year old who said that if her daughter wasn't finishing first or second in the races there was just no point to being on the swim team.

This is a family blog.

2500 yds in the pool today as follows

300 w/u 300 kick w/fins 300 pull
300 3 stroke breathing 300 1 stroke rt 300 1 stroke lft 2X300 pull n/s 100 cool down

followed by 4.5 miles on the 'tonka speedway where 18 laps=1 mile

2.5 at easy, fat burning (striving for 70.3 weight) 9 min miles followed by
2.0 8:30 miles

stretch/cool down

If you haven't done so yet-remember the podcasts of "throughth3wall.com" and "trigeekdreams.com"

Trimama out.