Other May highlights

We all went out on Mark's sailboat on Mother's Day - I got to steer for a while and Stephen turned the boat around and sailed it into the harbour. Then Stephen went on a mountain biking trip at Lake Tahoe - a great time was had by all! And Dana and Dave moved into a gorgeous apartment in Santa Monica. We're looking forward to the house-warming. Here's the PHOTOS

Redondo Beach Triathlon

Hooray! I finished my first triathlon! Overall, the race was harder than I thought
it was going to be, but I finished with a time that I am happy with. I was shooting for one hour because that was about the median time from last year. I finished 1 hour and 5 minutes.

They have not posted the split times for each event, but I'm pretty sure the swim and transition is what slowed me down. I made some errors in the water that cost me. First of all, I decided to swim on the outside of the pack since there really isn't a whole lot of time that can be made up in the water unless you are a ridiculously good swimmer. Staying on the outside would let me focus on a good long stroke and my pacing. Unfortunately it also allowed me to veer way off course. And back in gain. And off course again. So I think I added quite a bit to the distance. Then the other error I made was to really kick it into a fast sprint swim to the beach when I rounded the last buoy. Again, I maybe gained 30 seconds by sprinting the last 100 yards but I left myself completely worked over when I got out of the water. And tried to run up the sand beach. Then up the stairs. Then uphill up the path. Then uphill up the parking lot to get to my bike. I thought I was going to pass out and I'm sure that cost me more than the little time I gained finishing the swim so hard.

The biking went great and Josh's bike let me pass up all kinds of people.

Thanks Josh!

The run was a little harder than I was expecting and I never seemed to get into a good running/breathing rhythm. By the time I got around the first mile I thought I would be able to pick the pace up, but it just didn't happen. And I wasn't physically prepared for the hills. I should have trained more hills and longer distance running.

But I still managed to get in close to the median time. And I don't think I slacked off anywhere in the race so I'm personally satisfied.


The best part of the race was seeing Orla and Cliona after I ran up the steps from the beach. I thought I was going to die but seeing them made me smile. It was the low point of my race but it turned out to be the happiest memory.

Update:
They posted the split times, and like I thought the transition from swim to bike was a time killer. Also, there is definetly room for improvement with the run time. Here is the link to the times: Redondo Split Times.

Soccer Class

We signed Cliona up for soccer class for the summer. The class provides a soccer outfit (pink of course) complete with shin guards !! That was a little alarming - I mean, is my 3yr old really going to need shin guards ?? Well, no as it turns out. Not at all. There are plenty of mini-soccer balls for all the girls. Yes, that's the other funny part. Her class is all girls and the coach wears the same outfit so it's all very cute! Week 1 was awesome. During 'warm-up' coach Lindsay gets the girls to pretend they are airplanes and then asks where they want to go. Up pipes Cliona, not needing to be asked twice 'Texas' - to visit her Grandma and Grandpa of course!! Then the girls work on various soccer skills - dribbling, trapping the ball under their foot, kicking and of course scoring a goal. It was week 2 when they did the scoring drill. The girls had to dribble to the center line, around a cone and then back to score a goal. After Clio scored she lifted both arms in the air and shouted 'Yay'. It was classic - I wish I had got it on camera. Then week 3 Clio decided she didn't want to go to soccer class. When I asked her why, she said it was because she wasn't good at it. Can you believe it? I was not expecting that at all. Stephen suggested we have a soccer play date and Cliona loved that idea. I had thought maybe over the weekend but for some reason Clio thought the class was a play date. I suppose you could call a soccer class a soccer play date. Anyway by merely changing the name, she was delighted to go!

So in general it's going really well. The warm up is definitely her favourite part. Sometimes she finds the dribbling drills frustrating and will either pick up the ball or call on me to come and help. I'm hoping that as her confidence and skills grow she will need me less and less on the pitch but I know that as soon as that happens I will miss being needed.