For you Kev!

Ok, son, this is the gray paint in the kitchen, most of the time I like it, sometimes I'm not sure. Maybe the cabinets are a little too yellow for the gray. And the countertops have to go, but then I may as well just re do the whole kitchen. I guess it will wait. I would have put this on this morning for you, but if you look very closely by the front sink you might be able to tell the dishwasher is new. Yes, today we had a project. I got 1 new dishwasher, I will get a second one for the island when life slows down a bit. I like the dishwasher, I have given up on expensive dishwashers and bought the same one that we have in the condo, I'm on my second load of dishes and it's doing a great job. You can't tell in the picture but it's stainless and yes the other one is still white but I'll get to it eventually.

The nook, I haven't found valances that I like yet, maybe I'll get a chance to make some, maybe not (Vineman training starts Monday, great excuse right!)

I really like the new dining room paint, I really hate the dining room carpet, I was thinking as I moved Kyle's new bike out of the picture, how much carpet we could have bought with the money we spent on bikes this year! Do you like the anniversary flowers dad got me? Can you tell what the vase is?

The laundry room, the pic's a little dark but so are the walls. Really it doesn't look quite this dark, I like it especially with all of the white cabinets on the wall you don't see.

The new floor in Brad's room.
Thanks for getting all that wall paper stripping started, and thanks to Brent for finishing it, it was a lot of work! I hope you like it.

Random fun pictures

Christmas Eve at the temple with Brent

Bri and Sarah too

Christmas

Craig made a book for me celebrating my Ironman!

Craig's Christmas present--thanks Kev!

Nana's angel on my tree.

The dining room getting painted while Craig and I were out of town!

These are from last month, but just got downloaded today, thanks guys for being there.

Big brother teaching little brother what you can do when it rains in Southern California.

Christmas 2010

Blogging from (Craig's new) iPad would seem simple, convenient, fun and of course would have that cool, cool factor. Well you see it seems you can't really blog easily from blogger without an app. So here goes my first try with blogpress, let's see if we can get a picture or two in here.



Brent's Santa present--How did Santa know?





Yahoo we had Brian and Sarah here with us, we are happy to share them with the Kenison and Cannon families. Although when it comes to meals what do you vote bland tamales at the Wright's or raccoon, beaver and python at the Cannon's? No I'm not kidding, check Bob C's blog.



Ok this has a story and video to go along with it. I'll see if it works.


Brad's longboard is looking like another trip to the ER soon. Santa!

REVIEW OF BLOGPRESS: Now I am typing from the regular computer. Blogpress was fairly simple for a non-IT savvy first time user. Things I couldn't figure out without an investment of too much time were posting a video, I think I may have to take it our of iphoto first, don't know, maybe not. I could go to a screen to center pictures although I didn't, but not find a screen to center text. I'm not saying it's not there, just that I didn't find it on my first post. I like things that are intuitively easy. I also wanted to post a link to Bob C's blog and wasn't sure how to do that, so if you are interested here is the ultimate brave foody's blog link. I also could not delete the spaces between text and pictures. Someday I think I may take a class on real blogging.

Go, Fight, Win!

We laughed, we cried, we loved, we hugged, we told stories, we prayed, and did I mention there was joy, always joy in the knowledge we have of the plan of salvation.

We love you. Keep fighting!

A Reason to Whine

The morning after IMAZ I had the option of going down to Tempe Town Lake and registering for 2011 IMAZ. No way...I was not going anywhere near that park. IMAZ sells their slots first to the currently registered athletes on Saturday (no thank you, I had enough to think about with the 2010 race looming). Next you can go to the park on Monday morning, the volunteers have priority registration, following the volunteers anyone onsite can register. Open slots are then put on active.com at 12:00 noon. It was a little after 12:00 as we were driving home I began to reconsider, maybe I will do IMAZ again in 2011..............too late, it was sold out! So, here it is my 2011 albatross (something that causes deep concern and anxiety) Vineman full, a trip to wine country to do what? These are my deep concerns about Vineman: 1) It has a 16, not 17 hour cut-off 2) It's in July, in California, the run could be killer hot 3) The bike course looks spectacularly beautiful, but I did love that flat Beeline! Training starts January 1 with Don Fink's "Be Iron Fit" plan. This plan calls for a yet to be determined oly in May and 1/2 the first week of June. And as for my current training plan...........does wallpaper stripping and painting count, I haven't been to the gym lately and have eaten my weight in See's candy.

I am sad to report the tree is still in the bucket in the garage!

But we are making great progress!

The house has been a little overwhelming, thank you to Brent for all of his continued hard work. The floor they put down in Brad's room looks amazing and is done except for the base shoe. The kitchen paint is coming along and we had a little miracle...in the midst of all of our mess my friend Lisa sent me a message, "I am bringing you dinner." No..no...no! Lisa did not even know what was going on at our house and while I was at Home Depot buying more paint, base shoe, a light cover (ha, broke this one too!) nails, and who knows what else, dinner showed up at our house. Thank you so much for the yummy spinach lentil soup, rolls, salad and cookies we are so appreciative. Our goal is to be done by Thursday, Craig and I are leaving on Friday for a little quick trip to Provo to visit Grandpa.

Kevin-Look What You Started

Kev decided awhile back that the blue plaid wallpaper in the laundry room and the little bathroom had to go. Bless him, he didn't know what he was getting into, how long ago was that-some months anyway, he got the stripping done but not the paint. Now since Brent is home for a few more weeks he asked if I would like him to finish the job. Yay! The laundry room and bathroom are now painted and look really great. I would post a picture but there is still a little more clean-up to do, so I will get that up soon. In the meantime while I have slave labor at home it seemed like as good a time as any to get that new floor put down in Brad's room. Tee hee, again Brent volunteered and he and Craig are hard at work as I type:

I think the box said this was a five hour job if you were inexperienced-we're now going on about 12 hours and there's quite a little bit more to be done. It will look really good when it's done. And maybe I should think of something extra kind and nice to do for them. So I have been stripping more wallpaper, the yellow in the kitchen is almost gone except for some places I can't reach even with the ladder, and the dining room is about half done. I will never again in my life have wallpaper, what was I thinking. I never really even liked it that much, I am almost positive that when the decorator showed up with it, it wasn't what I ordered. Oh well, as soon as its done Brent said he would paint for me this week and I will see what I can do to put Brad's room back together again. Needless to say the entire house is a disaster! We have a busy holiday time ahead of us with Brent's farewell and Christmas and lots of work. The Christmas tree is sitting in a bucket of water in the garage, soon....soon....the tree must go up.

Sarah's internship placement

See: The Wright Way
:)

Ironman Arizona Race Report

Ok I think I've finally calmed down enough to write a coherent race report. What an emotional weekend, a years worth of training coming down to one day. A day that could go any which way, depending on so many factors that you do and don't have control over. I was finally ready or not to do it.

4:00 am Alarm went off, it didn't matter, I was awake, I probably got more sleep than I thought I did, but it felt like I was awake checking the clock every 10 minutes. Ate toast and a banana, diet coke and a started on a bottle of water.

5:00 am Craig and Brent drove me down to Tempe Town Lake, our hotel was about 3 or 4 miles away. I almost started crying in the car, it was so overwhelming that I was on my way. Brent kept pumping me up with lots of positive comments, trying to keep me calm, he did a good job.

5:15 am Checked on my bike, filled by bottles, took trash bag covers off the seat and bento box

5:45 am Met Kate, we decided to start together, and got our wetsuits on

Brent took this picture of the lake, shortly before it looked like ............

This....the age group start, do you see me? Look close, I'm the one in the black wetsuit and the lavender cap.

7:00 am We are off. The water was cold, I heard anywhere from 59-61, I had a neoprene cap under my race cap and was glad I did. You hear a lot of horror stories about the washing machine swim starts. I started way in the back. I was afraid of not making the cut-off time. I had two hour and twenty minutes to finish the swim and not a second longer.

8:51 am The swim wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I just tried to stay clam and keep going. If I ever do this again, I will definitely be braver and start a lot further up. Check out the clock, I made it! 1:51! I knew I made the cut off but honestly I didn't see that clock, I didn't see a clock until I came out of T1 and it was 2:02. WooHoo I had bought myself a half hour of time.

Craig-I think he was in a state of disbelief-I was out of the water!

Well for some unknown reason blogger won't load my pictures, so I will just finish this and add pictures later.
The bike mount area
Out on the course

9:02 am Next up, a long day on the bike, it's a three loop course which is great 'cause you get to see your family often. I started out strong on the bike course, but it didn't last long, it rained, hailed and the headwinds were ferocious. The good thing about the wind was that it was a tail wind on the out which is a false flat and a headwind on the downhill, Even though it was downhill sometimes I was only going 10-12 mph, it was a tough wind. I ended up with a 7:17, I was hoping for less than 7, but still had banked a little more time for the run. Some good advice I got from BMc: eat, eat, eat. And I did, I ate even when I wasn't hungry, and drank more Ironman Perform than I ever want to drink again in my life! Another piece of advice from me. I really stressed over what to put in my bike special needs bag, the only thing I wanted when I got there was my DZNuts Bliss (the she version of DZNuts). The volunteer got it out of my bag for me, I said close your eyes, and the rest of my ride was saved!
The bike finish chute-happy in an understatement

4:30pm Bike done, oh happy day! I now had 7 1/2 hours to finish this thing, I knew I could do it. I also knew that I would have to run, I wouldn't make it walking. I decided only to walk the aid stations and pretty much stuck to my plan, I walked a few uphills. The aid stations were incredible especially the police one, it couldn't help but make you smile every time you came through.

I kept going, it wasn't fast but it was forward progress, my Garmin went dead about 1/2 way through which was probably a good thing, it slowed me down more.
Kyle was at this aid station when I got there, My next comment to him was, "I hate Gu"

I didn't realize what was happening but I began to list to the left, have you ever seen anyone finishing a marathon or ironman bent over to one side, well that was me. I thought it must be something going on with my back after a long day of breathing to one side on the swim, staying aero as much as possible on the bike and running. I learned when I got home that is was brain hyperthermia. I was so happy to hit the last loop, but still at my pace that would mean two hours! I just kept going.
10:49pm Kyle met me at the cut-off for the finish line, I asked him how far it was. At the St. George Marathon you see the finish line a long time before you actually run through. He kept saying it's right there mom. Someone walking through the area said only 300 yards, really you're that close, at the last corner a lovely volunteer met me, saying something to the effect of Melinda, there it is, it's the finish line you did it, Mike Reilly is waiting for you, Chrissie Wellington is waiting for you. I was still running listing to the left, Mike Reilly saw me and said that is truly mind over matter and told the crowd to go crazy to bring me in.
I have never heard a finish line so crazy, and loud,thank you, thank you. They were incredible, I tried to stand up straight for the picture but I don't think I was very successful.
Finally crossed the line I wouldn't walk across the day before.

I was in at 15:49 and as soon as I crossed the line I was in Chrissie Wellington's arms getting a huge hug. Wow, the world champion, she had just set a new world record that day and she was at the finish line to greet me. I am her biggest fan, what a kind, wonderful, genuine person, she is very impressive not just as an athlete, but as a person.
Don't ask me what I went through for a medal, a t shirt and a hat!
Craig was just happy I was alive!

Thank you to all the volunteers, they were incredible, they would do anything to help you! Thank you most of all to my family for putting up with me for the past year. I was up early and off to the gym, Craig made breakfast and lunches for the boys, weekends were long rides and runs. My family never complained they picked me up after long runs and bike flats, encouraged me when I got discouraged and believed in me. They made sure I had great equipment, they wouldn't let me fail. On race day, they were there cheering for me all the way. I have pictures of Craig with tears in his eyes when I came out of the swim. The boys met me on every loop of the bike to cheer me on. The run course is three figure eight loops and Craig, Kevin, Brent, Kyle and Brad were always somewhere cheering for me. I love you all.

Day 3

This was really last night, Kev and I on the way to the mandatory meeting.

WooHoo the world's greatest support crew is assembled!  Thanks guys, how lucky am I?

Brent spelled Wright wrong on purpose so I would notice it--yeah right, I think that boy spent too much time in the backcountry!

Practice swim, met up with Kate, we had a great swim!

Bags checked, bike racked, let's do it!

Day 2

Part of my support crew arrived this morning.

Love row 42, I think I can find it--I know I can find it
it will be the only bike left in T1.

I drop my bike off right here tomorrow.

The finish line, I refused to walk across it today.

I am working on my transitions bags, decisions, decisions especially what to wear, it's supposed to rain, that changes everything.  Long sleeve, short sleeve, swim in tri kit or speedo, jacket, no jacket, running tights, shorts or stay in kit?  Hmmmm, I don't know.  Today was a fun day, we picked up Kev at the airport this morning and Kyle, Brad and Brent will be here soon.  I walked around the expo, had a very cool laser treatment done on my shoulder (darn swimming) went to the mandatory meeting, Yep I think I'm ready.