Hitched

Well, its finally over. The anchor has been dropped and I am off the market. Kelly and I tied the knot on the 15th. If you haven't heard our story I'll give a quick recap. Kelly and I grew up down the street from each other. Our families are friends and I have been friends with her father ever since he would let me have a beer with him when I was 17. Kelly is a little over four years younger than I am so we never thought of dating for obvious reasons growing up. Kelly went to college at Gustavus in St. Peter and I went to MN State down the road in Mankato. Other than me giving her a lift to her dorms once we still never considered dating.

As time went by I got heavily involved in triathlons and she went on to Medical School. Between working full time, training and having all married friends I was out of options in the dating scene. Kelly was under the same gun with all her studying and time commitments with school. Somehow we both got on Eharmony about the same time and were matched up on her second day and my second week. Kelly didn't show picture on her profile so I had no idea it was the Kelly from down the street but I did like her profile so I asked to see a picture. When I "nudged" her for a picture Kelly nearly fell of her chair. At first she thought giving me a chance would be weird but thankfully her stepmother told her that she was a fool if she didn't give me a chance because I was such a nice guy. Then one evening I got a call from her father Pete. We made some small talk and then he passed the phone to Kelly. I knew something was up and sure enough Kelly informed me that we had been matched up on Eharmony. We went through the match process and started dating. I new after just two dates that this was someone that I could definitely see being my wife. A year later we were engaged and two years later we are now married.

The week of the wedding started out cold with endless bouts of rain but the weather turned perfect just in time for the big day. Kelly did a fantastic job with planning and everything went off without a hitch. So much so that I don't even have any good stories about close calls.

The wedding day actually started as any usual Saturday as I had to get some mileage in before the honeymoon and with the Liberty Half Ironman only a month away. I hit the lakes for a 13 mile run and then had to pack for the honeymoon. After that it was off to mow the lawn as it was already long and would not get mowed again until we got back on the 24th. Kelly was not excited about me cramming everything in at the last minute but in the end everything worked out perfect and I go to the hotel to get ready right on time.

On the way to the hotel I stopped of at the tux shop with one of my groomsman to pick up his tux and my jacket that they had to resize. According to their sizing I apparently lost 35 lbs since they measured me in February. While there I realized that I had forgot black socks or any socks for that matter. Fortunately the good people at the Wedding Shoppe were willing to sell me the finest pair of socks five dollars can buy and off we went.

First it was picture time. Holy crap! I though our engagement pictures took a long time. I haven't had perma grin like that since I bonked in a Marathon in Iraq and all my muscles seized up making me look like the crippled joker. Our photographer was a woman named Chloe and her husband. They are the awesomest photographers ever! Totally fun to work with. We got so into the pictures we were almost late to our own wedding. Luckily we knew that they wouldn't start without us.

The ceremony went off without a hitch. Kelly and I had both the reception and ceremony at Black Bear Crossings on Como Lake. Incredible place and they were super awesome to work with and had by far the best wedding food I have ever had.

Then it was time to let it all hang out on the dance floor. I will say I am not a huge dancer but get a couple of drinks in me and things can get interesting. Even after the long day I was able to dig deep and relinquish any self respect I had and bust a move ... or two. I haven't seen such disregard for a dance floor since that kid tried a front flip on dancing with the stars and landed on his face. Below is a picture of myself and my long time friend and now father in law dancing. He actually paid $1 to do it. Later I even had to busted out the electric slide. Everyone was into it and we had a blast.

Once the night was done Kelly and I headed back to the hotel were we immediately fell into a deep coma. Wake up was at 6:45 as I still had a little packing to do and there was still present opening to be done. Then onto the airport at 11:00 for our flight to Switzerland. If I have one piece of advice to give you for jet lag it is called Dramamine. I slept nearly the whole flight there and then used it again for the first two nights. Awesome stuff.

Good Result at Alexandria

Last Saturday officially kicked off the tri season for me with the Chain of Lakes Triathlon. This was a short course with a 600 yard pool swim, 12.5 mile bike and 2.8 mile run. If the weather was better I was hoping to take a crack at Matt Payne's course record last year. I don't think I have my swim down enough yet but I might have been able to make up the difference on the bike. Instead I was greeted with 25-30 mph sustained winds and 40-50 mph gusts. The temp was also in the low 50s and I was not feeling motivated.

Before the race I believed that my toughest competition was going to be Ross Weinzierl. I met Ross before the race and we immediately hit it off. Ross is an ultra nice guy and I enjoyed hanging with him before and after the race. I knew if I didn't hit the swim he could jump all over me and we ended up being in the same lane so we could race close to each other.

The pool swim made me nervous as I am not very efficient at flip turns and have only done a circle swim once. I don't like swimming in cramped pool lanes and this was going to be even worse than I am use to. I was shooting to come out of the water at 9 min which is what I can do consistently during training. The week prior I went down to Mankato and did a swim seminar with the MSU coach and his staff. They really did a great job breaking things down for me and totally revamped my stroke. I have been using Duane Dobko who has shown great results as well but I seem to have fallen off what he has taught me lately. The problem was when I went to train with the new stroke the next day I nearly drown. I was not use to it and still needed practice. Luckily I was able to get it somewhat by the end of my session but still did not have a warm and fuzzy. I felt strong at the end of the swim in Alex and felt if I had a week to build my confidence I could have shaved 30 seconds or so. No matter as I hit my goal time.

I did take a little extra time putting on arm warmers, gloves and a breezer to keep me warm. I was almost too warm but felt strong on the bike regardless of the wind. I may have been in my small ring for a short time but probably wouldn't have effected my time due to the wind and I was still near max output. I did wait too long to get out of my shoes and didn't get to stand for very long on my pedals to get the legs ready for the run. It was apparent that I still have a few winter cobwebs in need to dust off.

The run felt good on the verge of great. I started off slow as I was working against the wind and my legs were still a little sluggish from the bike. All of a sudden I realized I was getting a little complacent with my pace and started picking up my knees. As soon as I did the stride felt great and I was moving. At the turn around on the run I came across Ross. He gave my a friendly high five and we both gave each other a "nice work". I always worry about being caught from behind and Ross was moving pretty good. For some reason it always looks like everyone else is moving faster than me on the return. In the end I was able to hold off Ross by about a minute and a half. Ross certainly didn't go without a fight. Ross is young and only going to get faster.

After the race Ross and I went for a cool down run and shared horror stories of the bike portion. I personally have never raced in such horrid winds before. When we got back I will admit I was expecting to see my name at the top of the results only to find someone named Sam Janicki above me. Who the F*&% was Sam Janicki? Whoever he is destroyed me by over two minutes. Most of that was on the swim but I only took him by 10 seconds on the bike and he took me by 19 seconds on the run. I unfortunately didn't get to meet or congratulate him on his performance. After doing a little research I found, as far as I can find, that he has only done two other triathlons. At Buffalo last year he placed 129th and at the Collegiate National Championships he placed 68th. Neither performance would show that he was even close to capable of such an outstanding race. If this was no fluke this kid is going to be the next Devon Palmer or Sam Hauck. I look forward to meeting him at Buffalo and hopefully will be able to keep up a little better.