Geese are Mothers Too....

Mothers Day morning, prior to visiting with my mother and mother-in-law, I was out for a run on a beautiful day - sun shining, birds singing, only noise was my feet pounding the pavement. Easy to get in a zone on a run like this. I was less than a mile from home when I heard the hissing...

To digress a bit, if you've ever been chased by a goose, you know that is actually quite a scary experience. Courtesy of growing up across the street from a pond with regular goose habitants, I have had the joy of being chased by a goose. When a large bird starts coming at you and hissing, you turn and run, because who knows what the bird will do. Then you remember this experience forever and aim to avoid it.

At any rate, on this beautiful morning, my run got interrupted by this goose hissing. When I looked up, about 20 yards away was two adult geese with three baby geese. After running immediately into the center of the road and safely past before returning to the sidewalk, avoiding the chasing and re-surpressing the childhood chasing memories, I started thinking about the hissing goose. Here she was, on Mothers Day, doing what she had to do to protect her babies - nature's rawest form of what it means to be a Mother.

The encounter got me thinking about my own mom and moms in general. The day a woman has a child, their whole outlook on life changes. Nothing else really matters besides the safety, health, and happiness of their children, and daily they will task themselves with preserving these basic things that their children will likely take for granted. My encounter with this mama goose reminded me of how much my mom has done for me - a constant source of love and care, a cheerleader, a listening ear, and a friend. Happy Mothers Day, Mom. I love you!

And, to the mama goose, Happy Mothers Day. Sorry I scared you and your babies. :)

April 2010 Totals

Swim - 22,600 yards; 7 hours 20 minutes
Bike - 286.2 miles, 17 hours 14 minutes
Run - 97.6 miles, 14 hours 36 minutes
Total - 39 hours 10 minutes

April has been an interesting month. The first full month of Ironman training - and I'm currently 12 weeks into my 30 week training program - can't believe I'm over a third of the way there! I have managed to do nearly all of my planned workouts, even though I'm dealing with commuting to New York, working a ton, and keeping the house clean while its on the market (amongst the normal day to day life tasks).

Our NY office is smack dab in the middle of Times Square - quite the tourist hotspot. Luckily, I'm staying at a Doubletree Hotel a five minute walk away (chosen mostly for the delicious cookies they freely give out). I've been swimming at a YMCA about a mile away, biking at a NY gym I joined which has spin classes every morning and is a block from my hotel, and running in Central Park, which is about a half mile away. Running in central park is AMAZING. There are tons of people running and biking (they close the streets of the park in the morning and bikers use the park roads to do a 16 mile loop), and of course the park is beautiful (and a bit hilly, good training for Madison). So far, the hardest thing about working/training there is finding food to eat - I'm still getting used to having to go to the store/restaurant to eat any time I'm hungry, and to be honest, there are not alot of "fast casual" chains (Chipotle, Cosi, Corner Bakery, Potbellys, etc) near Times Square (most restaurants are either sit down or whole in the wall type delis) so I haven't figured out an eating routine yet. Snapple and Sbarro's are also extremely ample in NYC! So funny the differences!

I had a surprise my first week in NY - I got a call from Rob on Wednesday on his way to the emergency room with abdominal pain. Turns out he had an emergency appendectomy! I made it home as quickly as I could, but missed his surgery. I was able to work from home for the rest of the week while he recouperated and he is back to his regular routine, but still scary to get a call like that from halfway across the country! So glad he is feeling better!

Today was definitely a milestone day in my IM training. I rode the loop of the IM bike course. I was already nervous since it is considered one of the most difficult IM bike courses. Add to that, the fact that it was 37 degrees, raining/sleeting, with 20 mph headwinds. I was wearing four long sleeved shirts and never was warm. The first five minutes of the ride, all I wanted to do was turn around and drive back home to bed, but once my fingers thawed out (my feet never did), I had the crazy thought that the experience wasnt as bad as I expected....I was also happy to find out that although the course is hilly, it wasn't as hilly as I expected it to be and the outdoor rides I've been doing in Barrington are pretty representative of the terrain. The course is also absolutely gorgeous, yet another surprising observation I had given the terrible conditions. Who knew that beautiful wooded winding roads existed in the midst of the central Wisconsin farmland??!!

IM training observations of this month:

1) Although this is more hours per week of training then I've ever done, the variety of activities means that my muscles haven't been getting as sore as they do when I'm marathon training

2) Hopefully this means that I will be less injury prone....

3) I love biking outside (as long as its not 37 degrees/raining/windy)

4) I haven't lost any weight yet, mostly because I have decided all of thsi training means I eat whatever I want (and I don't have time to go to the grocery store) - Portillos, DQ, pizza - I love it all.

5) Although I haven't lost weight, I can definitely tell I'm getting leaner - which is really my goal through this process - to be more lean and fit.

On to May - hopefully this freezing cold weather will turn into pleasant spring weather for some enjoyable outdoor rides!