the week in pics

Thanksgiving week in pictures:


Belle stood by Papa's pocket most of the week and has probably gained 10 pounds in pupperoni's. Santa Ana's were here at the beginning of their trip which meant warm beach weather.

Bri's smoked turkey. She was delicious!

Papa taught the dog to climb trees, because she needs to do that right? (notice the pupperoni's on the tree)

We FINALLY convinced my dad to try sushi. After many bad looks at us he agreed and I nearly peed myself watching him and apple attempt to use chopsticks.

Apple had to use a fork, but she ate it!!

Bri and I bought one of the biggest trees we could fit on the car. A 9 footer. Luckily my dad was here to help put it up for more comical entertainment. Typically this involves much swearing, it was at an all time low....BOOOOOOOOOO!

We did a bunch of workouts this week, swam on Friday, ran on Saturday because it was monsooning here and rained for the first time in over 160 days! Oh and it was windy as hell so our ride was changed to a run through the lagoon. Bri ran 5 miles with me and therefore could not walk on Sunday. I went to the bike ride along the bike path with my team. Something one should not do....ride up an on ramp to the I-5 thinking it was the parking lot. .....OOPS! SUCH an airhead sometimes!

On a more serious note, today was a very difficult day at school. A teacher passed away in her sleep Sunday morning. I feel so badly for her family knowing how close she was to her daughter and especially for those at school who were extremely close to her. You just never know how much time you have here. My heart goes out to her friends and family members.

oh I almost forgot. I decided to make the dog wear my goggles for our fundraising letters/holiday cards which will be going out this week. But hey bri wouldn't let me buy her the super cute $60 red holiday dress I saw at the store.

negative nelly

negative nelly much?! So I met my friend LG at the pilates studio at 6am thinking i'd get a good workout in since dad and apple are here for the week. Welllllll lets just say I was not super positive. The workout is hard, its different everytime which is a great thing, but I went sour at the end. It was aggravating that the instructor who is super sweet and helpful HAD to help me for just about every move. I was all done and so were my abs. At the end it was like a verbal diarrhea "I hate this, I hate everything about this. This is too hard. I am not made for this. This sucks" you get the picture. Pretty sure I said it all and felt so bad about it after as the sweet instructor tried to lift my ego a bit and tell me I just needed to go to the technique class to learn the correct ways to doing some of the tougher moves. I just need a body transplant honey! I seriously spend the whole 45 minutes trying not to fall off the machine and breaking my neck.

Onto better things its Thanksgiving! AND I have family here! AND we all went out and bought a bunch of pies without telling the other and currently average one whole pie per person!!!!

Gotta squeak in some workouts this week but lets face it, its all about eating and wearing elastic waist pants. Luckily the Santa ana winds are here which means unseasonably warm weather so we are off for some fun in the sun!!

A new reason

Every year when I sign up for a new event with the LLS I know that I am going to meet even more people with the disease. What I don't expect is to have friends be diagnosed. This year our fight against this disease is even more personal. Our friend Keri from Boston, whom has been Bri's co worker/friend for years was recently diagnosed with b-cell lymphoma. This type affects mostly women in their 30's. How many 30 year old women do you know? The face of leukemia and lymphoma is not just the little kids, its your friend, your sister, your wife, your gf, your cousin, your coworker, your aunt, your neice and the list goes on... Keri is keeping an extremely positive outlook and attitude towards this and has already started treatment. I hope and pray that around the same time we are crossing the finish line in Hawaii that she is crossing her finish line and will be cancer free. I know that her journey with this disease will fuel our desire to train and fundraise so that this disease will be DUNZO!

If you want to do something about it. Go to our fundraising page and make a donation:
http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/lavatri10/jmerrill

We also have a fundraising portal set up. This means that anytime you do online shopping you can go directly through our portal and find pretty much anything you are looking for and each site offers a certain percentage that goes directly to our fundraising.
http://jbmerrill.mytnt.org/

On the training front things were pretty quite, a few early morning rises to get on the bike. Yesterdays training was all about safety on the roads so we practiced that going back and forth on the quiet roads before our ride next weekend along the coast. Today we will be running the trails at our house and preparing for the arrival of Al and Apple for thanksgiving week!!!! Which also means I gotta get some shit done around the house! Happy Sunday!

TT Tuesday

Busy busy week we are back in action baby. Monday night we had our first swim. It is definately getting cold at night and although the water was warm it was frickin freezing getting out of that pool. We did some time trials and gosh darnit I am frigin slow at swimming. Can only get faster from here on out. I did a 2 minute 100 yards. Not only that but I felt like I was dying. I was swallowing the water from Bri's wake but still. We have to cover the pool up when we are done which takes about 20 minutes and SUCKS. I try the whole time to not end up underneath the covers where I will die of a panic attack. Somehow I always end up on one end by myself while 6 people pull from the other end. I was spent after the workout and then the frigin pool covers so I could not even get out of the pool (its really high up) so I had to have to guys pull my arms up (yes I think bri was already in the showers at this point..along with most of the team argh!) and I got pool rash all along my stomach...AWESOME! We went out for some team bonding and its going to be a great training season.

Tonight was another time trial at the track. We met up and had to set up a few lights since it was pitch black at the track. Always fun. We did some warm ups about two miles or so and then did some ab workouts, then we were all lined up and off and running. Fortunately I had done a bunch of track workouts last season so I can kind of gage my energy so that I can pull off a negative split and basically go balls out the last few laps. I always like to finish a run or race or whatever really strong so that I feel competitive for at least a few minutes. Its fun even if you get passed the whole race if you do that you will no doubt finally get the chance to pass some other people. I got in the zone and ran my buns off and did a mile in about 8:50 mile pace. COach will do some crazy data collection and project what our 10k 5K and various other K's are for training purposes. Already learning quite a bit this year and given the fact that it is a shorter distance I am really going to try to push my limits and "race" and not just "finish" like all my other previous races.

The rest of the week is still kind of up in the air for me. BUt it will no doubt involve some form of swim, bike, run, yoga or pilates and htat just about covers it!

Schooled yet again

Well smack my ass and call me judy cause Brian whooped my apple bum today! Last week I rode behind him on the bike, and that was okay. I know the last few times we swam he was faster (although I am sure I could go longer). And today the one part of the tri I thought I would have on him due to his bone on bone knee situation, the run, he again was in front of me most of the time. Granted I am trying to work on my base building and staying below 75% of my heart rate which means oh so very slow, but he was running around a 10-11 minute mile. Well okay then! We did a bit of a run walk because he was dressed rather warm for the hot sunny day it turned out to be. I better hope that his age group starts way behind me the day of the race because it would be amazing to finish together. There are a bunch of couples on the team which leads me to think that those who "tri" together stay together,,,,hahah GAY!!(and i do not mean that in an offensive way). It was pretty awesome to run with him today though, hard to believe that after I dont even know how many years, four maybe, that we have never gone out on a run before. Oh how times are a changing!!

If you would like to donate to my cause please visit the webpage:
http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/lavatri10/jmerrill

I also am trying to create my webpage on the TNT portal. What this means is that if you do any online shopping, you go through my portal and anywhere from 5-30% of that goes directly to my webpage for fundraising at no extra cost to you! They are even adding some restaurants to this as well. What better way to stay out of the malls and do some online shopping and help raise money towards a cure! Will share that with you as soon as its up and running!

playing catch up

Okay trying to play a little catch up here. We moved to our new digs this weekend. Here are some pics!

and yes we realize how small the tv looks in this giant room, I am lobbying for a 60 inch.

The TNT kick off was last night and it is going to be a great group of people. It is just amazing that there are 4 honored teammates on the team who either have or have had a blood cancer, and are training along with us for Lavaman. I will make sure never to complain in front of them.

Since we had today off Bri and I set out for our first bike ride together. We fortunately live about 2 miles from the 101 which is some of the best biking around. We set out for an easy 12 or so miles. Bri was looking strong and was totally acting like he knew IT ALL. Good luck to his mentor, I was just trying to keep him from ending up on someones windshield but he apparently "learned it all in gym class" or some shit like that. It was a beautiful ride but we must remember in the future that the 2 miles back to our house from the 1o1 are some INTENSE hills. We are certainly going to get some good hill training done in this neighborhood.

We are loving north county so far and have already tried out a few restaurants in the area. Plenty of space for visitors!

We officially begin training this Saturday and lets just say I am a wee bit out of shape. I went to a 6am pilates class tuesday morning and I have never ever shaken like that in my life. It was slightly embarassing but more amazing to me. I felt like I had some control but then I would look at my legs and they were quivering. It was one of the strangest feelings I have ever had while working out. Not sure if it was the early morning, dehydration or just being totally out of shape that did it to me. Pilates Sculpt is now offering two morning sessions which will be great for me so I can still work it into my schedule once the tri training starts. I also have to incorporate yoga into the schedule. I had to go back to the ENT this week for him to once again tell me that i am "stressed." This so called "stress" gave me a giant ulcer on my tongue (yes it felt wonderful and was tons of fun to speak and eat all week) and my TMJ to spike up again. Sooooooooo I have to be better about being proactive on the yoga and what not because I dont even know i'm stressed until my body completely breaks down.

Thats it for now! Happy Veterans Day!! And Happy 58th (yes i calculated it was 57 and my dad called to inform me that my math skills sucked)birthday to my mom!

11/11 make a wish

Happy Birthday to my mom! In honor of her I would love to raise a bunch of money for this years event, the Lavaman triathlon in Hawaii.

Please visit my site to read this years letter and possibly be my first donation of this season!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/lavatri10/jmerrill

Week 1 on the ranch

Last chance workout! Get those hands OFF the goddamn treadmill!!!!!!!

Fatty McButterpants week 1 on the ranch

I tried to flare my nostrils as much as possible and yelled alot. Brian cried alot

"Unless you faint, puke or DIE I DON'T CARE KEEP GOING!!" Jillian the trainer