No news is....

Things are going GREAT...
Things are going WELL...
Life is BUSY....
Life is Good.

The new year has brought some fantastic things into our lives. For starters TN Multisports is off with a bang! It is so much fun to meet so many new people, with different goals, different visions, but all loving the team environment that surrounds them.

And, as always, getting a few laughs along the way.

Like, if you forget your shoes, then you wear Lieto's shoes!

We are also loving the new cycling kits.

(Can you guess his cadence?)

(How about what he is watching...for the billionth time?)

I have adopted new training buddies...they have yet to discover they are in for the long haul. It sure kicks the FUN factor in training up a notch. A year ago you would have NEVER found me in the pool at 5:30a.m., but somehow this girl has managed to get me there. And this girl always has a smile on and never has an excuse to miss a workout, so our three bike rides a week together have been stellar. Hopefully they don't fire me anytime soon ;)

For 2010 the "trouble" kitty has started behaving better. We actually sleep at night now and she has been taken off all her medications. So she got herself a new toy. She just can't get enough of the little cut out in the top platform.

(No, she has not had too much catnip)

We have decided to work on eating in a bit more (goal is 3X a week). Don't worry, Puerto Vallerta will not go out of business. We invested in a nifty crock pot. You would think we gave birth to a child, as we had more comments on FB about the crock pot than when we announced our engagement. When Mark mentioned it had a remote I believed him. I thought "genius" now you can ride the trainer and just send remote signals to cook. Really, from the looks of it, wouldn't you believe so too?

(digital!!!)

We now have 3 cook books (crock pot ones specifically) and email recipes galore. We are now taking recipes for 2011!

Two Left Feet.

I may have officially come up with the best excuse to not do a run EVER, and I did not even put any thought into it, really, brain was not even slightly turned on, literally!

You see we (meaning training buddies), had some grand plans of "getting IT done" this weekend. IT= super long bike ride, not a gorgeous ride outside with the sun beating down our backs, nope, not us. This bike ride was on the trainers in a room of approx 300 sq feet, with 7 sweaty athletes. And the boys had the luxury of getting to ride in front this week, so no television viewing for us ladies. Each half an hour on the nose, we debated whether to keep going, but there is something about being able highlight 100% of your schedule in a week, so we kept those legs a turnin'. Following this non-moving scenery ride we were to escape this room to challenge the winds and cold with a 1:30 run.

And then....

it happened....

while we were in the midst of a speedy transition....

the most genius plan ever....

that is, if you don't really want to run....

Yep....

Two left feet!

Thank you K-Swiss for the amazing shoes, I love them! However, when you have more than 2 or 3 pairs of the same kind, it gets this girl a little confused.

Yes, I was not "hard core" enough to do the run with two left feet, we will save that for my dancing. I ventured home, leaving the last remaining training buddies for the day to also contemplate "the run". However, 30 min later we messaged each other to make sure everyone was finishing up the workout...just with a little longer transition time than expected.

PS: TNM athletes...this is not an excuse for you :)

Teresa Nelson

Sometimes just a name will get 'cha a little excited. My name, however, does not have much of a ring too it. Yeah, you get the Mother Teresa comments here and there and Nelson, well is Nelson, common, common, common. Might as well be a Webb! Ha!

So the owner of AdventX, John Colver (who just did a 50K trail run BTW) sent over a few shots while in BC...

(And I love a good breakfast...at least its not a pig roast joint)

Yep, Teresa's Cafe! Here is the kicker, check out the street name that THEE cafe is located on:


Now that was enough to make me smile. You think Oprah has a cafe on a street name Winfrey (I think not)...folks, you are in the eyes of the famous! :)

12K's of Christmas

Not sure what prompted me to participate in this event, maybe the holiday spirit, maybe all the team members participating, maybe just for the fun of a really tough workout. It happened to fall the day after the "forever" long swim practice. And on top of that we rushed to the White Christmas play at 5th avenue that was beautiful, then dinner, then over to watch the Kona Ironman 2009. As if all that wasn't enough to get into the holiday spirit we were up bright and early Sunday to do the 12K's.

(Can't resist a super fun group like this one!)

Last year we showed up for the race but the snowy winter and the icy streets caused the race to be cancelled, that really doesn't happen much around here.

I missed warming up, well if you count running around trying to find a bush to avoid port-o- potty lines then I warmed up, but not true get the heart pumping and ready to race warm up. Kirsten and I arrived to the start line about 3 minutes before the gun. Then it just happened that several other TNM athletes were in the same place, so there was more chatter than race focus, but truly that is what C, or D, or E races are for right?

Within 10 steps I was TIRED and hungry. Not a good feeling to have when you are climbing the first mile or maybe it was 3/4 of a mile. Truly I don't know, I just know that from the start it was not going to be pretty. So I put my "happy" face on and just ran. I cheered for my friends, I smiled the pain away, and the "good" angel helped me fight off all the "bad" angels thoughts of just wanting to drink a gallon of water, snuggling up in a blanket and eating everything in sight. Those prior days events had me wiped out.

(happy face!)

After nearly an hour'ish (I mentioned it was super hilly right?) the finish line was near, those last miles were flat and fast...for most...for me I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. I truly did have fun. Fun seeing everyone, fun looking at crazy costumes, Santa didn't pass me like he did in Las Vegas, and joy of just getting a workout done and checked off the list. Even better it was a PR because I have never done this race nor a 12K so I will take it and just be more prepared next year.

(run away Santa and his wife - Kevin!)

What a challenging course though, and a reminder that hills, hills, and more hills are a necessity to my training in 2010. I guess I need to chase this man around a little bit more ;)

Here's to looking up and getting there a little bit quicker in the future!

TEN GRAND.

Ten Grand was a gift to myself this Christmas. I could only wish it was in $$, but nope, 10 buckaroos in the pool. Laura had a grand plan to organize the FAMOUS swim set of 100X100. Believe it or not 25 crazies RSVP'd to the event. We swam at an outdoor 25 yard pool and it rained the entire time, only noticed at the start and finish though.

(Type A'ers)

We all went into it a little apprehensive. My goal was to make 75 of them. I had the horrible sickies and only started swimming again the week of the event. So on Tuesday I did 2,000, Wednesday 3,000 and then Friday 5,000 in prep for the event. The workout was broken into sets of 100's and we took a 5 min break around 55 and 80. Let me repeat that we took a much needed, could not live without, survival 5 min break around 55 and 80.

The average send of for our group was 1:30-1:35. By number 70 I was a bit loopy. A little giggly and feeling a little out of sorts. Good thing we had coffee on hand. Shots of coffee after each 100 never hurt anyone right? Then at #80-ish, or so it was a mad dash to whatever food we had in store!

(So out of it!!! Notice the coffee on deck!)

Upon completing 100 a few swimmers/triathletes (not including myself) decided that wanted to make it a full 10K. Excuse me? What? an extra 936 or so yards.....hmm...I did a little math, that is nearly 20 more minutes. No thank you....I was out...and chowing and still giggling at the craziness of it all.

(Yeah! We did it all!)

Sad thing is, I will be back again! Thanks everyone who swam, watched, provided food and drinks, and for organizing. Exactly what I needed to get into the holiday spirit...sorta :)

Got the BOOT.

Friday December 18th marks the day that Mark gave me the boot. We had dinner plans and Mark decided we should open some "early" Christmas gifts because he had a hunch I would want to wear my gift that night. He pulls out a box of Frye's boots that I was hoping Santa would bring. I open them up and slide them on and click my heels around a bit on the kitchen floor. Mark asks me to take the boot off and starts feeling around in it, thinking maybe he left the recipt in the shoe (wink, wink). Then he looks through the boot box on the counter and says..."oh, the card, there is a card under the tissue there". I reach over and lift up the tissue and there is a ring, no not another Tiffany silver ring that I lost in previous posts, but a REAL ring. I just looked at him and with a little swelling going on in both our eyes he proposes.

(self portrait of my new ornament)

We then went out to dinner at La Rustica (amazing Italian restaurant in West Seattle) where Mark planned for a few of our close friends to join in on the celebration. Connie, Jeff, Christina and Darin. Thanks for sharing our special night with us!

Some additional highlights of the night:

The cat scratched at the door during the proposal so we ended up laughing off the tears.

Mark decided to purchase himself an engagement gift. A new watch, just so he would "always remember this day every time he looked at it".

It was all so real, so normal, and a day we will never forget.

And to Mark....looking forward to a lifetime....love you lots!

Hair Love.

I was super lucky this year to not have any major medical issues, however, it was at some costs. This year it was at the cost of my hair. New medication and n I was peeling a dead rat out of the drain on a daily basis. I have been cleared of these meds since September and am finally seeing some regrowth that isn't making styling very easy, but I will not complain....soon I will have a full head of locks again.

May 2009= Super THICK braids:

October 2009= Super SKIMPY braids:

December 2009= No Braids (cuz no racing), just some MAJOR flyaways:


Here's looking forward to new hair and hopefully a skin color change too!