Sooke International Triathlon Press Conference

1st post-surgery race TODAY!  More details to come, but here is the press conference, enjoy!

I'm MARRIED!!!

Wow!  What a time we've had the last few weeks!!! Randy and I got married in Cozumel on June 26th!  We had about 30 family and friends down there with us to celebrate all week long.  Then, we were in Colorado Springs for less than 36hrs before heading to Oklahoma for a reception over July 4th weekend.  It was so awesome to see so many people in Bricktown and to be able to share our special day with family and friends.  Its been a bit of a whirlwind since being home...hopefully I'll get my blog updated with all of our adventures!  But most importantly, I wanted to post some wedding pictures.  Yep, they've been a long time coming...but with over 3,000 digital photos to sort through, its been a bit overwhelming to say the least.  We had an awesome photographer in Cozumel, and we just got our 'official' wedding photos from her: yeah, the pics are great!

Our wedding ceremony ended up being perfect...mainly because I had my perfect guy standing at the end of the aisle...and because we got to say 'I do' to each other...ya got me for a LIFETIME baby!!  About an hour before our ceremony, the rain became a torrential downpour!  Hurricane Alex was named a tropical storm...and it looked like we were going to be doing option 'B' for the wedding.  Option 'A' was down on the beach right at the ocean's edge...but there was no way that was happening.  Especially with the dark sky and sheets of rain.  However, option 'B' turned out to be perfect for us.  We were under a thatched hut that sat up above the ocean...you could look out and see the ocean through the storm and could hear the waves crashing up on the beach.  Tati, our photographer, has been photographing weddings in Cozumel and never had it rain during a wedding ceremony, let alone POUR down rain.  We figured it would wor for us, after all I basically grew up in a pool and love being wet, so why not on our wedding day too???  And most importantly, we were more than happy to be getting married!!!!  After the ceremony we took some pics in the lobby and then had our reception dinner.  It was on a covered patio out on the beach and the food was delicious...followed that up with some dancing and fun!  What a GREAT night!!!!

Enjoy the pics!  First up, Randy and Amanda pics...but don't worry, more to come!!!

Training with Mr. Bailey

Well, I'm one week post surgery, yeah!  I'm slowly coming around and its amazing how much better I feel already....which made me realize how bad I was actually feeling the past few weeks.  I was able to start walking last Friday and that means I acquired a new training partner: Mr. Bailey!  Competitiveness must run in the family because yesterday he was pushing the pace like crazy.  Then my competitiveness kicked in and we were walking faster and faster and faster...enough that my shins were sore today :)  Who'd thought that I'd ever get sore from walking?!  Then Mr. Bailey proceeded to show off for me in the pool.  I think he knows I can't get in the water quite yet and enjoyed making me jealous!  But since I am the treat giver, he knows not to get me too upset. 

Mr. Bailey must have had the time of his life yesterday, because I woke up to a hyper lab puppy licking my face and not letting me get anything done until we went on our walk.  And today we set a PR on our 'course'...yah, not an athlete at all?! 

All in all, recovery is going smoothly.  Had to get some internal stitches, so my recovery period will be a bit longer than originally expected.  Hoping to be on the trainer tomorrow and maybe try out the pool too.  Can't tell ya how excited I am to be swimming...I think this is the longest I've gone without swimming since I had a cast on my leg when I was 8 years old!  Starting to feel like a beached whale :)

Well, I gotta get going, Mr. Bailey wants another treat!!! Better go spoil him some more so he'll be set to go in the morning.

Attack of the Gallbladder

This weekend is a HUGE weekend of racing! With REV3, Kansas 70.3, Mooseman 70.3, Hawaii 70.3 and I’m sure a few other races too, it seems like everyone will be racing, and that is what I WANT to do too. But unfortunately, I won’t be able to. Instead I’ll be getting ready for surgery on Monday. Yep, you read that right: SURGERY! 

I’ve been having trouble for the past 2 weeks with my gallbladder, kept hoping it would just resolve itself and I would wake up and the pain would be gone…no such luck! (found out that doctors make the absolute worst patients in the process :) )  Training has been hit or miss during this time which has been driving me nuts. Since it’s a huge part of my job as a professional athlete to deal with and manage pain…its been quite frustrating to not be able to do anything about this pain. And I am pretty sure I have a high pain tolerance, so when I am having 9 out of 10 pain, something is definitely wrong!! Another part of my job is listening to my body, and since its yelling at me now…I need to get this taken care of ASAP! I’ll get it out of the way so I can bounce back even stronger than before and back up my National Championship Title with an even better title…World Champion sounds good to me :) And since my SUPER-A Priority race of 2010 is coming up in just three weeks…my wedding!!! I don’t want any trouble down in Mexico.

Good LUCK to everyone racing this weekend!