Woman of Steel Triathlon

So...for "FUN" Jennie and I decided that we would do a Triathlon together in 2009. The result: The Women of Steel Triathlon in American Fork, UT. After 4 months of training, I woke up early on May 16th and tried to eat a healthy, protein-packed breakfast to fuel me for the race. I was so nervous that I only ate a half of a peanut butter and banana sandwich and a glass of water before heading out the door.

We got to the the race early and set up our transition areas. Then we got our bodies marked with our age on our calves and our bib number on our arms. After that I spent the next hour in and out of the bathroom trying to "calm my nerves". If you've raced before, you know what that means! :)

Soon the time came and I we lined up for the swim. With 600 contestants, it took over a half hour before I even got my turn in the pool, and let me tell you...it was the craziest 8 minutes and 31 seconds that I've ever experienced in a pool!

I jumped in 12 seconds after the person in front of me and started to swim. After about 3 strokes I ran headfirst into the legs of a 52 year old woman. (I know this because our legs were marked with our age). I quickly tried to pass her on the right only to find that there was already someone there passing between the lady and the on-coming swimmers in the same lane. Unfortunately, they were evenly matched and I was faster than them both so I spent about 2 minutes getting my faced kicked behind them before we all reached the wall at the same time and I quickly kicked past them.

Finally I felt like I had space in the pool and I started to swim hard to make up for lost time, when all of the sudden another lady behind me grabbed my leg and yanked me backwards whilst propelling herself forward! Quite the strategy! Too bad for her, she panicked when she got past me and had to stand up in the pool. I passed her...again...and swam my last lap to the wall. I popped my head out to make sure I was in the right place just in time to have my butt grabbed and hoisted out of the pool by a NEW lady who had crept up behind me! Wow! I nearly fell out of my swimsuit in front of EVERYONE! exciting times!


After picking myself off the cement I started running to the transition area. I was more tired than I thought I would be and was shaking pretty hard. I dabbed myself dry and started getting dressed for the bike ride and everything seemed to be going well until I tried to pull my shorts on. I had stuffed a big Maxi pad in them earlier to create padding to protect me from the bike seat and it didn't seem to want to stick any more. There were tons of people staring over the fence at me while I pulled my shorts on and off 3 times only to find that the pad had popped out each time and adhered to some part of my leg or shirt. I finally gave up, ripped it out, and decided to bike without padding!

The first part of the 13 mile bike course had two horrible hills on it. One small one to trick you and then a huge one to kill you. I made it up both with burning legs and then picked up speed on the flat part. Soon came the downhill and I peddled the whole way down, matching the speed of the cars on the road! At the bottom of the hill I turned the corner and then!!! Started up the evil hills for the 2ND time! This time was rough. Almost all the bikers were walking and my legs were shaking so bad that I almost got off and walked as well. I felt like it would have been faster. But then this super buff Lance Armstrong lady sped past me and yelled "You go girl! You're working this hill!" HAHAHAH! She was the one working it but that's all I needed to keep pushing. I made it up and then down again and started back to the transition area again after 55 minutes and 19 seconds on the bike.

When I got into the dismount space and went to jump off my bike I found out that I couldn't lift my leg any more. I biffed it in front of everyone and lamely tried to use my hands to pull my leg over my bike so I could officially dismount. Then some dude yells "Yeah! Run to the transition area. You got this!" ...hmmmm...nope....no running...can't feel my legs...bad idea...

Needless to say, when I dropped off my bike and started the running portion, I was NOT running! The course took us right back up the same horrible bike hills and I decided to walk the whole way up! Then this lady who was walking with me said "K. We're gonna start running at the second hill and when we get to the stop sign at the top of the hill we're gonna cheer for ourselves!" She was crazy but I listened and when I reached the top I cheered! Then we walked the flat part for some recovery since we were planning to run the whole second half of the course. When we got to that point, my friend cramped up and though I wanted to wait for her she told me to run as fast as I could to the finish...So I did. I walked/ran the 3 mile course in 37 minutes and 34 seconds. Not bad for walking half!

So here are my finishing stats:

Estimated Swim: 8 minutes 30 seconds. Actual Swim: 8 minutes 31 seconds
Estimated Transition One: 5 minutes. Actual Transition One: 4 minutes 52 seconds
Estimated Bike Time: 1 hour 15 minutes. Actual Bike Time: 55 minutes 19 seconds
Estimated Transition Two: 5 minutes. Actual Transition Two: 1 minute 21 seconds
Estimated Run: 40 minutes Actual Run: 37 minutes 34 seconds

Final Finishing Time:1 hour 47 minutes 39 seconds! Yeah. I ROCK!

May in Pictures

So much has happened this month and I promise to fill in the details later, but until then, enjoy the month in pictures!

Kevin walked through the screen door to our patio (5th of May)

Kevin, Naomi, and Brooklyn went camping with the Young Women of the Woodridge 1st Ward (8th and 9th of May)

Naomi and Brooklyn visited Utah from the 10th to the 20th of May. We hiked Battle Creek Canyon with Jennie, Sarah, Noa, and Liz on the 12th.

Sarah and Naomi took Mason, Maile, Brooklyn, and Noa to the Hogle Zoo on the 13th.

Brooklyn ate Japanese food and loved it on the 15th of May.

Naomi and Jennie completed their first Triathlon on the 16th! (More to come on that)

Jake got back from South America on the 19th and visited Naomi on the 20th of May in Kaysville! Then dropped her off at the airport to go back to Illinois.

In the mean time, Kevin fixed this Secretary for Naomi! Woohoo!

And camped with the Michigan Hanks Family!

On the 21st, Brooklyn and Naomi went to support Kevin while he ran a 5K with members from his office as well as over 17,000 other Chicagoans!

On the 22nd, Becca, Taber, Teya, and Brinley visited us till the 24th when they were forced to leave due to...an unpleasant epidemic.

Sunday the 24th, till today and onward...Kevin, Naomi and Brooklyn got the "barf your guts out for 5 days" disease... Yep! It's been that CRAZY!

Well, thats about it. Wish us luck!

When Worlds Collide

I remember it well; I woke up from a fitfull night's sleep on the corner of Greene Ave and Cypress Ave in Brooklyn, NY.  It was the dumb ice cream truck that kept me up all night.  To this day I can still close my eyes and hum the tune that kept me up all those many long nights as a new missionary.  Missionary work is tough, and it's demanding in so many ways.  Believe me that when I say that laying down in bed after walking around for 12 straight hours is one of the sweetest joys in life . . . and conversely getting up again in the morning can be an acute struggle in self-mastery, especially when someone thought that they could sell ice cream at 2:00 AM.  

I woke up on that Saturday, and when I picked up the ringing phone the last person I ever expected to hear was Jane Fjeldsted.  Mrs. Fjeldsted's voice is one that I know very well, as she is the mother of a couple of my best friends: Isaac and Lauren.  They are some of my favorite people on the planet, and were good friends of mine all during high school and college.  Isaac played the Trombone next to me for five years, and was my room mate for the first years of college.  And Lauren was always good for going Rock Climbing with me, or going to the park to toss a frisbee around.  And the day that I finally finangled her into playing Risk with me (an accomplishment that took years) She hands down destroyed me... Ugh I couldn't even hold on to Australia.  They're great people! 

Anyway, Mrs. Fjeldsted informed me that the whole family was in New York for a family vacation and wanted to know if I could have lunch that day!  I tell you, when you become a missionary, you enter a completely different world.  New people, new places, new routines, new habits etc.  It's quite the jolt when your previous "life" connects with your current one, and it can be quite a blessing.  That's how it was for me.  Nothing could have brought a smile to my face that day than to see my best friend!  I dragged my companion out the door and walked the mile or so to the Panaderia on Forest and Grove St.

With the Fjeldsteds outside of our Ridgewood 

Chapel in Brooklyn, NY, May of 2002 

Now we fast forward to today when Naomi and I follow a great job opportunity to another of our nations largest cities: Chicago.  Again, new place, new faces, new routines and smells and challenges.  A new life! And again I get completely suprised by a Fjeldsted as we're still pretty new to the Chicago scene.

It was last Sunday, and I took my little daughter Brooklyn (just because my time there was tough doesn't mean I don't love the place!) from Naomi so that she could teach her Sunday School lesson to the Young Women.  Now the last person in the world that I would have expected to see sitting in a chair next to Naomi was Lauren Fjeldsted Allen (I'm not the only smart one with the idea of getting married!)  It took my mind a few moments to fire the right neurons and collide those two worlds again, and after a few " uh... what the?! ..." I finally managed to say hello!

Turns out that Lauren's Husband, Chad Allen, has a brother who I know fairly well!  Eric Allen lives about 3 miles from our house, and co-teaches a Sunday School class with me in our local Ward.  In the 4 months that we've lived in Chicago now, I've gotten to know Eric and his wife Jenny, probably the best out of anyone.  And because the two Allen boys look absolutely NOTHING alike, I would have never thought to connect the two.

It was definately a suprise, and as we all surmised, one whale of a coincidence! We all got together last Tuesday night for some Giordano's pizza (drool...) and some of Jenny's home-made breadsticks (even more drool...)  We had a great time hanging out and laughing with them.  Well, I guess not all of us were happy . . . we did force our little Brooklyn to stay up with weird people until 10:00 PM.  Poor girl was cranky and tired!

With the Allens, April 2009. Why is it that I ALWAYS look like a midget around the Fjeldsteds?

 

Lauren's Words Verbatim: "Here, I'll squat down so you don't look so short!" Sigh.

I still can't believe that Chad and Lauren were so thoughtful as to fly all the way out to Chicago just to see us! Isaac, Heidi, what's the holdup? I expect to see you two out here soon as well!

P.S. While it is rather fun pointing out all of the similarities between the two random events, I must point out one very significant discrepency.  That is while my former fellow missionary and companion Elder Warner was a stud ... I made NO allusions of similarities between him and my current companion, Naomi, who is infinitely better looking.

Elder Warner Vs. Mrs Hanks? ... No contest really!

Good Idea...Bad Idea...

Good Idea:

Eat apples dipped in peanut butter for a healthy snack!

Bad Idea:

Stir the excess peanut oil into your peanut butter with electric beaters before scooping it out of the jar.

Lesson Learned:

The jar will spin with the beaters if you don't hold on to it, thus, causing your peanut butter to spray wildly all over your shirt, pants, floor, spice rack, counter tops, oven, cutting board, microwave, flour containers, juicer, magic bullet, radio, and telephone...leaving little to no peanut butter in the jar for you to eat.

Chicago's got a waterfall! . . . sort of

So someone at work told me about this really cool Forest Preserve pretty close to our house that's got some pretty neat trails, so I went to check it out this weekend and jogged around it. Turned out it was so cool, I took Brooklyn and Naomi to it the next day!

I had never seen anything like these forest preserves before moving out to Chicago, but they're pretty cool places. Dupage County (where we live) has a whole bunch of them spread out all over the place, mostly just big plots of land where home developers aren't allowed to touch. They're anything but "pristine and untouched" plots of nature, but I suppose I am living in one of America's largest Metropolis areas, so I'll take what I can get.

Anyway, on a map of the park, there was this huge star next to a big circle that was labled "Waterfall Glen". Apparently these falls are a pretty big deal. I found out that it's a man-made waterfall, and was built by the CCC back in the 1930's. (this is the same organization that built the Lake Bonneville trail that runs along the foothills of the mountains in Utah, of which I have frequented many times). The falls are a big enough deal that this entire park is named after them! So Naomi, Brooklyn and I took a Sunday afternoon walk and went to see them.

Coming from the Mountains of Utah, this waterfall MAY look tiny and of little consequence, but after being here for 3 months, we were simply happy to get even this much of "nature" into our system . . . even if it is man-made.

Brooklyn's favorite thing to do on walks: gather sticks. She actually carried these all the way to the car, all the way home, and even halfway to our apartment, at which point they were discarded to make room in her hand for some sweet looking rocks. Seriously...you should have seen those rocks!

Ah yes, we practice this face in the mirror. This was after we were both totally soaked!

Semi-peacefull environment!

The only reason I'm holding Brooklyn's hand is because she kept wanting to dive face-first into the water. She succeeded at this several times before Dad wised up and kept a leash on her! Oh, and this girl is rediculously good at making friends with strangers.

-sniff- I'm so proud of that girl, I couldn't keep her out of the water!

She kept picking up rocks and throwing them back in the water. It was actually pretty fun.

Take a look at Naomi's good lookin' haircut! OOhwee, she's hot stuff!

Before the secret got out and it got so crowded! It was an AWESOME Sunday afternoon.

Just Because I Could...

I chopped off all my hair! And it was awesome!

Projects, Spring, and a Crazy Baby!

Recently our downstairs neighbor started doing a little spring cleaning before he moves out at the end of the month. He's about 87 years old and hates to throw things away so he's been giving all his stuff to us. We don't like to throw things away either so, naturally, we fixed his stuff so it would work for us. Here are a few pictures of the things we made this last month:

These are some pillows I made for our couch out of an old sheet and an old skirt.

Kevin planted some blueberries on our deck. They look like twigs in dirt right now but hopefully you'll be able to tell that they're alive pretty soon.

This is one of the things our neighbor gave us. It was painted gold when he brought it over, but Kevin did some work on it and now it looks like a beautiful antique.

Our neighbor also gave us this ugly lamp. I cut out all the electric stuff and turned it into a vase. I'm not sure the proportions are right just yet so I might have to make the hole bigger and get some thicker, taller, reeds.

These vases from our neighbor use to have fruit painted all over them that matched the painting on the left (that he also gave us). The big one was orange and the little one was green. I painted them both black and then gave them a winter tree and bamboo painting instead.

In some other news...It is finally looking like SPRING here!!! Here are some pictures I took of the view outside our bedroom window:

Last but not least, what fun would our blog be with out some videos of Brooklyn. This first video was taken while Kevin and I were watching "Chuck" and eating dinner. Brooklyn was supposed to be eating too...

Ever since Brooklyn started walking she has been afraid of the bathtub. I think its because she always wants to stand up and move around while she is bathing but then she slips and it scares her. This video was taken while I was trying to bathe her. I had just put her in the water when Kevin started recording. The video is quite mild compared the the fit she threw when I started using soap!