The Active Family Travels: Storming Seattle

Question: How much luggage does it take for one mom and two kids to go to Seattle for five days?

Answer: A LOT!

The problem is this: We stayed with my sister in Seattle for five days, but in that time:

- Asa went to a two-day dance intensive with some of the nation's top choreographers. Result: three bags of dancewear and shoes.

- Mackenzie wanted us to visit the Shudokan Karate dojo in Mercer Island. Result: Two bags of karate gis (those funny white outfits) and belts.

- I wanted to fit in a bike ride and run with my sister, who is also a triathlete. Result: One bike, one bag of biking gear, one suitcase full of cold-weather biking and running clothes.

- We wanted to go visit a Wing Chun Kung Fu school while we were there. Result: more athletic wear.

Oh yeah, and we wanted to go out for dinner and visit friends while we were at it. Result: Pack nice clothing and shoes. And I had to feed my teenage son for five days. Pack lots and lots of food and snacks.

In the end, it's a very lucky thing that we still have a mini-van. You could've mounted an invasion of a small country with less stuff than we packed in that van. I'm just glad my sister was not overwhelmed when we landed in her entryway with our massive amounts of gear. But the upside is this: hubby and I have accomplished one of our goals: we've raised active kids. Kids who are engaged in life, and fit in body. If that takes a little more equipment, cargo space, and planning, not to mention lots of fresh food, so be it.

Countdown to Ironman, Week 15: Hawaii 5-0, or is that Hawaii 4-6??

We've been here in Hawaii just a bit over a week. Sure, it's vacation, and it's been great to just be able to swim out in the ocean most days, except for two when the flooded rivers dumped a ton of yucky mud into the ocean and made it more or less unswimmable. But mostly I've been using this time to do a run focus, ramping up my running mileage to 34 miles in the last week, which is about double what I've been running. Unfortunately, I should've thought to bring something other than my Vibram Five Fingers along, since all of the running is on pavement and I'm not used to cranking out that many miles on hard surfaces without any cushioning. 

Fortunately for me, my feet have taken the challenge well, and I haven't had any problems running all that mileage in the Five Fingers. My only hitch while exercising here is that I hurt my back surfing a few days ago, I bailed off of a wave when another surfer and I were on a collision course, and while my body was twisting one direction, the wave sent my torso in another. Ouch. I probably wouldn't even have noticed it at 25 years old, the last time I surfed, over two decades ago! But now at almost 46, yeah, I notice. My back has been sore and tight since, but fortunately hasn't bothered me while running.

But that just brings me to yet another one of those "this is why I train" moments. How cool is it to be able to just get on a surfboard on the North Shore of O'ahu (granted, not during the winter big wave months) and have the strength, flexibility, balance, and stamina to surf for 2.5 hours?? When you train your body in all-around fitness, not just endurance  but all of those other components as well, you can go out and do whatever it is that you want to do. And right now, with the crystal clear waters and reefs right off of our balcony, that looks like an hour or two of snorkeling...hang loose.

Countdown to Ironman, Week 27: Have a Plan for the Holidays

Do you feel at the mercy of the holidays? As if it is inevitable that stress, travel, inactivity, bad food choices, and overindulgence are simply going to fall on you like a load of bricks that you can't do anything about?

Having a plan for the holidays can make the difference between dreading them (and the inevitable aftermath: most Americans gain a couple of pounds of weight each year, and most of that is gained during the holidays) and enjoying them (complete with some of grandma's holiday fudge and a candy cane or two).

Here's my plan for the holidays, feel free to share any tips you have for de-stressing and boosting health during the holidays.

Stress: Stress during the holidays often comes from a clash between expectations and reality. Expectation: a big pile of presents under the tree. Reality: Paychecks for many are shorter this year and we have to stretch them farther. Food alone has eaten up 10% more of our yearly budget than it did last year.

Cure: Set the stage for expectations that match your available reality. When our kids were little, we told them that Santa brought one (yes, that's ONE) toy to every boy and girl. So that has been their holiday expectation every year: one present. Yes, even in today's overconsumptive society, this is possible! We also give them a book on Christmas eve. That's it, the extent of my Christmas shopping is one gift for each child and a stocking stuffer for my hubby.  For relatives, we give gifts of animals via Heifer Project or of microfinance via Kiva.org. This removes the stress of finding a sweater that will never be worn by an aunt that you don't know well enough to shop for.

Stress: Travel. No doubt about it, holiday travel is stressful.

Cure: We try to mitigate the stress and often danger of traveling at busy times by going at off-times, visiting relatives in the week before Christmas instead of on the actual day itself. The kids really love to have a mellow "just family" Christmas at home with no expectations other than staying in our pajamas all day. We have been quick to see the wisdom in this, and now enjoy a relatively stress-free holiday.

Stress: Inactivity. You're at the relatives house, you don't have your familiar fitness equipment or routines. It's easy to sit around all day yakking and staring at a TV screen.

Cure: Don't be afraid to be the Exercise Wacko of your family. Let's face it, every family needs an eccentric or two, why not step forward and fill those shoes? The easiest cure: bring your running shoes and head out the door for some routes that are out of your routine. Or go to a local high school track and run enough intervals to burn off a plate of pumpkin pie. Engage the active family members in a holiday hike, or a walk around the blocks with the best holiday light displays. I have also been known to bring my bike and trainer and set it up in the living room along with my laptop, headphones, and a DVD or two.

Stress: Overindulgence

Cure: Remember that the first bite is the best. An old friend used to joke around about having the "first and most satisfying" bite or sip of something. But there's big wisdom in that. Try this: open an ice cold Coke. Take a sip. Savor it. Now take a few more. By the 10th sip, it's really just not that good, is it? Try it with a cookie or some fudge or anything else. You'll see that it's true. So take that first sip or bike or two and throw the rest away. Yep, you heard me, starving children in China be damned, throw it away! I hereby give you permission to waste or discard food (surreptiously if need be) this holiday season. Think of this motto: Waste, not Waist. I'm not saying don't enjoy it. By all means, do. But when it truly stops being enjoyable (which is usually sooner than you think), just don't eat another bite.

I was discussing this with a friend yesterday who has been eating paleo this year and we both realized that on Thanksgiving, we didn't overeat. We ate a reasonable plate of food with a little bit of everything, but found we didn't need to take seconds or thirds. We were satisfied, a state that many people find it hard to achieve. Practice Satiation. It gets easier.

The Scent of a Memory

I could smell the cable car before I even saw it. What does a cable car smell like, you might ask? Something like a forest fire, but not quite. The famous San Francisco cable cars use pine tar on their cables for lubrication, and when the grip is holding the cable, it melts and then vaporizes. Also, the brake shoes used on the cars are made of Douglas Fir, and have to be changed every few days. The brakes are literally smoking as they stop the cars on those amazing steep hills of The City By the Bay. The smell is unmistakeable. For several years of my young life, I lived in the Bay Area, and this unique aroma was obviously burned into my brain at an early age.

My teenage son looked at me quizzically when I said "I can smell a cable car", and then we heard the characteristic "ding ding" and the car rounded the corner. He was enjoying the newness of the city, but I was reveling in the familiarity of the sights and sounds. We didn't do too much touristy stuff while we were there (although the mandatory stop at Ghiradelli square wasn't missed). He wasn't interested in crowding onto the tourist-clogged cable cars, so we walked all over the place. From Fisherman's wharf to the Cable Car Museum, down through Chinatown, and then the following day through The Presidio and Golden Gate Park, with a long stop at the Legion of Honor (a wonderful art museum that's home to over 40 Rodin bronzes, a good selection of paintings, and ever-changing traveling exhibits).

I think a lot of tourists somehow pass over this museum since it was fairly empty, despite currently hosting The Lod Mosaic, an amazing 50 x 27 foot Roman mosaic from around 300 A.D.  Mackenzie is a big Roman history buff, so this was an exciting thing for him to see. Lucky for me, he likes art museums and suggested we visit the Legion for the Roman mosaic and their traveling exhibit on Dutch and Flemish painters.

Every year, he and I get a little mom-son trip together when my daughter Asa stays at my mom's house for a week of acting with the Missoula Children's Theatre. This year, she ended up as the lead role of Mary in their production of The Secret Garden, which she was, of course, terribly excited about. So we dropped her off with a big fat script to memorize, and a week of excitement with grandma (they got to see The Young Dubliners in concert, for one thing). In years past, we've gone camping but this year he wanted to do something different so it was off to California's central hub on a road trip. I guess I figure if a mom and her teenager can hang out together for a week long roadtrip, then we must be doing something right. Truth be told, he's an easy traveling companion and a fun guy to hang out with. Yep, I'm a lucky mom.

My Smell-O-Vision tour of my childhood followed me back to my hometown of Jacksonville, Oregon, where a nighttime thunderstorm and downpour scented the entire countryside. I took a trail run through the oaky hills near town and was overwhelmed by the heady scents revealed by the rainy evening. Unfortunately, there's one weed that grows there that smells something like funky teenage boy feet (not that I'd have much experience with THAT smell, ha ha). But except in those areas, the air was thick with the smells of oaks and lichens, wild honeysuckle and rabbitbrush. Every moment on the trail took me back to my childhood spent wandering through these hills on Pooh-like adventures with friends.

Then our weekend was capped off by watching Asa in the Secret Garden performance. They did a great job (not that I'm biased or anything), and the role of Mary was pretty well suited to her dramatic personality. Being on stage for her is like being in a lake for me. It's where she lives and breathes and shines, so I love to watch her and just soak it all in.

After all of that, it's good to be home again, although the rain seems to have followed me here. Maybe that's a good thing since I really should be spending the day cleaning and unpacking, something I'd find harder to do if the weather was better. I'm left with the memories of another great trip and of amazement at the people my kids are becoming.

It was hard to say goodbye to the Golden Gate. Driving across it and looking back always seems kind of bittersweet to me since I love San Francisco so much. But in reality, I'm a country mouse, not a city mouse, and it's nice to be away from the traffic and the hustle and bustle of the big city life. It's good to be home.

My Triumph Over the Worst Hotel Pool Ever

There are a lot of bad hotel pools out there. The competition is fierce, but folks I think we've found a winner in the San Jose Hilton at the Convention Center. Measuring in at just over 3 feet deep its entire length, with a width smaller than my armspan, and a length of about eight or so yards. Special features include a knee-busting concrete shelf that runs half of the length of the pool to teach anyone foolish enough to attempt a breaststroke or two a lesson. To enhance your swimming pleasure, the wall to the right blocks most of the sun through most of the day, so you can freeze in the shade instead of being refreshed.

Mackenzie and I are taking this week to toodle around central California, and included a stop-over in San Jose where we took in the Museum of Technology. We got to stay a night with hubby who was in town for business, hence the Convention Center hotel.

Most people, faced with the ridiculousness of this pool might've thrown up their hands in despair and given up, but not I. Since this is the one upper body exercise I can do with my arm, I'm loathe to give up so easily. I managed to eek out 1000 yards in this disgrace of a swimming pool, counting three lengths as one 25 yard length of a real pool. For those of you who are counting, that means I swam 120 lengths of this silly little body of water just to get my 1000 in. It's crazy-making, I tell you.

My point however, if I had one, is that we can let circumstances get us down, or we can soldier on. The people who are successful at maintaining fitness are the ones who get their workouts in regardless. They are the businessmen I saw in the tiny fitness center lifting weights, and the folks who take the morning walk regardless of the weather or the setting of an alarm. And yes, the ones who swim 120 lengths of an eight yard pool.

Tourism On Two (Running) Feet

The best thing about being a runner when you travel is that you get to go and see a city on your two feet as a non-tourist. In most places, a person jogging is fairly inconspicuous (although I've definitely been places where that was not the case, and in fact once when out on a jog in Palau, everyone who passed me kindly stopped and offered me a ride!). But most of the time if you head out on an early morning run, you see the city as it's waking up, kind of like seeing your spouse across the breakfast table. Nothing spiffed up or fancified, just the real sense of the place.

You can also reconnoiter any areas you might want to revisit later, or discover hidden gems. Once in Rome, I found this great little DaVinci museum tucked away in a courtyard entrance, and it had wonderful hands-on models of many of his inventions that my kids loved. On another trip, a Yorkshire morning yielded a rainbow that arched over the dales, flocks of sheep guided by anxious border collies and an older gentleman dressed head to foot in tweed.

This morning's jaunt from downtown San Jose originally took  me along a riverfront path, but construction detours forced me to head out into the city instead. I ran past the gorgeous Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, and discovered the Museum of Technology before heading down to the UCSJ campus. Some times, its a little weird to be a woman out on my own running in a strange town, and this is where I'm grateful for some good situational awareness and a little martial arts training as well. Occasionally on traveling runs, I've ventured into areas of town that were better left unexplored, and once I even had a police officer kindly escort me to a better street in New Orleans. But in general, I've never felt particularly threatened when running, perhaps because I'm obviously carrying nothing of value, or maybe because I'm a moving target who looks like she can take care of herself. For me, it's worth it to be out there seeing the real side of any city, not just the parts that appear on a tourist map.

If you like to travel and want to run, I've found that the concierge or information desk at many hotels have running maps already printed up, or can give you good information on where to head for a pleasant route. Then all you need is to remember to stick your watch and shoes in your suitcase and you're off for an adventure. Personally, I also think it helps to enhance your navigation skills when you have to keep track of foreign landmarks and compass directions in an unfamiliar place, so it's a good workout for your brain as well as for your feet.

Traveling Paleo: Eating Well On the Road

Does this photo look familiar? Have you ever ended up at the "breakfast buffet" of a hotel you're staying at, only to stare at rack after rack of empty bleached white carbs? Eating well on the road is not always easy, but it can be done with a little planning and healthy decision-making.

We recently spent a week near Disneyland since our daughter Asa was dancing in the mouse kingdom with her dance team. The team families all stayed together in one hotel, and this is essentially what the breakfast looked like. Let me tell you, this stuff was so bad that my teenaged son actually took one bite of a donut and left the rest of it on the plate. Usually he eats so much we have to stop him from actually eating the plate ala the Cookie Monster.

Ironically, there was a sign over the only one section with anything that I would touch for breakfast at all. It had exactly this: hard boiled eggs and fresh oranges. The sign said "Healthy". At least they knew what they were talking about! Too bad there weren't a few more options under "Healthy" (the sign appealingly suggested a variety of fruit that never materialized), and maybe they should've had a sign over everything else that said "Massively Unhealthy".

Luckily, we were only a block away from my favorite breakfast stop while visiting Disneyland (yes, I admit we've gone there often enough that I have a favorite restaurant): Mimi's Cafe. Though it's not the cheapest food in town, for a couple bucks more than the sludgy McNasty Meals down the street, you get real eggs, veggies, avocado, and fruit. Those of you who live in the southern half of the U.S. may already be familiar with Mimi's, but since there's none located in the northern half, I'd never been to one before arriving at Disney for the first time. Getting Paleo-friendly fare there is as simple as saying "I'll take an Avocado BLT omelette, please substitute fresh fruit for the muffin, potatoes, and juice. And for dinner, they had some nice "petite" sized meals (read: normal portions instead of overblown American portions), and I had an awesome little sirloin and salad that was delish.

Eating well on the road often boils down to being unafraid to ask for substitutions. Restaurants notoriously fill up our plate with the most worthless (read: cheap) calories: bread, potatoes, rice, pasta. But usually for just a buck or two more (if that), you can substitute more vegetables, fruit, or a salad. This makes even an IHOP or a Denny's into a place that you can eat reasonably well. Sure, it's not a grass-fed free-ranging organic bonanza, but compared to one of these babies...

...it's downright health food.

Topping the List of Cool Events I Wish I Could Do

Online friend Allison Kaplan Sommer (check out her very interesting blog on "Motherhood, the Middle East, and life on the cultural fault line between U.S. and Israel"  AN UNSEALED ROOM) just did the Sea of Galilee Swim, which is apparently in its 57th year and is the largest amateur sports event in Israel. It's either a 1.5 or 3.5 k swim in one of the most historic bodies of water in the world. Doesn't it look beautiful?? So it's definitely way up there on my list of things I'd love to do (along with visiting Israel of course). Alas, this recession thingy is disrupting all of my plans to be a world traveler and to take our kids adventuring to places like this. That and the fact that I am a couple of chapters shy of my book proposal, on my way to being a famous author, you know? Yes, I know you don't get rich by being a famous author, unless you're like JK Rowling or something. But a girl can dream...

I'm Not Sure if That Was the Way to Taper

So I've read plenty on tapering, and even written up a Tapering Guide myself. You'd think I'd be smart enough to follow it, right? Well.....um.....

I spent my last week in Reno, in a very very nice VIP tent provided by Dassault (makers of the wonderful Falcon jets), eating from really tasty buffets. They even brought in a Haagen-Dazs ice cream cart every afternoon just chock full of goodies, and I cannot tell a lie... I didn't stop at just one Haagen-Dazs bar a day.

So let's see, who tapers by training almost not at all and overeating sinfully rich desserts? Well, that would be me. Okay, I did go running, and I did do laps in that ridiculous hotel pool. And maybe if I'm really lucky, the altitude of 5,000 feet gave me a little burst of the altitude training that elite athletes do and will hand me a few more red blood cells for race day.

But other than that, this is what I spent my week doing: eating, enjoying the hotel hot tub, and watching really really really fast cool old airplanes fly twenty feet overhead doing five hundred miles and hour. It may have messed up my taper, and I guess I'll know how much come race day. But just hearing the roar of the engines on planes like this Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was well worth it.

Fitting It In, Hotel Pool Style

We just got back from the Reno Air Races, a fantastic experience (can you beat sitting out at the pylons while planes like Corsairs, twin-engined Hellcats, and P-51 Mustangs zoom just over your head at near 500 mph???)! While in Reno, we went running a couple of times in the very early morning before heading out to the races. The air was quite chilly and the altitude was definitely a factor (almost a mile high, wheeze, wheeze), and the strip of casinos isn't a running route I would normally pick. Without my bike, I tried to fit in my workouts as best as I could. Of course I didn't want to go five days without swimming, so you know what that means.....

The Hotel Pool (cue dramatic music).

You've probably been there before: traveling for business or with your family, wanting to squeeze in a swim workout, faced with The Hotel Pool. Maybe it's kidney shaped, or round, maybe it's only three feet deep, maybe it has a staircase that spans one end, preventing turns. It's always a challenge. This one was at least rectangular in shape (that's a bonus), and the staircase didn't reach ALL the way across, leaving me a narrow strip of wall on which to turn (I'll count that in the "plus" category too), plus it was saltwater (niiiiiiice). But it took me six, count them six strokes to get from one end to the other. This, as you might imagine, made for some very vexing lap swimming.

My motto however is Just Get the Workout In, so laps I did, probably hundreds in all (I didn't count, that would've been too depressing) and after awhile I just found my rhythm, got in the groove, and got the swim done. So instead of looking as bad as it might've with the vacation thrown into the mix, my first week of taper looked rather reasonable. I bookended the time I was gone with bike rides, so I got at least two into the week, three relatively short runs, and three forty-five minute sessions in the 12 yard hotel pool left me with a decent workout schedule for the week. That and all the airplanes I could ever hope to watch!

Running With Giants

One of the best things about being a triathlete is that wherever you go, you interact with the local environment. You're out running at dawn when the shopkeepers are opening up, or you're biking through the fields and waving to farmers, swimming in a pristine mountain lake, or trotting through a grove of enormous trees that may have been standing since Julius Caesar walked the earth. You're never just a tourist when you're an athlete, because when you're out there doing your sport, you're part of the everyday life of a place. In some places you may stick out like a sore thumb, places where running or biking for fun and exercise just aren't common. But in other places, being in your running shoes or on your bike lets you see the scenery from a completely different angle.

On my camping trip with my son last week, I got to do some amazing trail runs. My favorite was an hour and a half run on the Hiouchi trail and Mill Creek trail in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods on the California coast. You really can't ask for a more awe-inspiring place to move your feet. The trail winds along the Smith river, turning away to meander through groves of giant redwoods. At one point you even run right through the middle of a burnt-out redwood tree, big enough you could make a small home inside. It was one of those runs where you never want to turn around, never want to stop. As my watch read :45 minutes, I reluctantly slowed and made my feet point back in the direction of camp. Luckily Mackenzie had a thoroughly engrossing novel to read and was happily ensconced in a camp chair while I enjoyed my traipse through the ancient forest.

Quick Update

I spent the last week starting at my Mom's house in Southern Oregon and then on a week long camping trip with my teenage son. Lots of fun and lots of opportunities to get out in new places, especially some great trail runs (can you beat trail running among the giants of the coast Redwoods? I think not!). Photos to come!

Workin' It Out On the Road

Our family is still up here in Washington, we came up for a family reunion and especially to be with hubby's brother who is still deeply grieving. Although the sadness is there, there's also the joy of seeing family and getting to spend time with people you don't see very often. A real emotional roller coaster this week for sure. Whenever I travel, I try to find ways to slot those workouts in, and especially when things get intense I find that I need that pressure release valve more than ever.

Running is of course the easiest activity on earth for the traveler, so the well-worn running shoes are the first thing to get packed. The family reunion was at a lake, so the swimsuit and goggles were a no-brainer as well. Although the lake was full of waves in the afternoon that kept the kids having fun jumping them and body surfing, the early mornings were like polished glass and so clear I could see the individual leaves on the kelp-like plants growing up from the bottom (is there such a thing as lake kelp? I don't know what that stuff is.)

The bike got thrown on for good measure, though I've only used it once for some CFE-prescribed hill repeats. This morning I payed a visit to a local Crossfit gym as a visitor and got my butt handed to me by the "Deck of Cards" workout (weighted back squats, power cleans, power snatch and push press according to suit, and the number dealt by the card... yes, an entire deck...wow!). I'm hoping I can manage a run tomorrow morning before we head for home tomorrow a.m.

Back in the Land of Low Tech

I'm at my mom's, with a dial-up connection after a week in the hinterlands of no-tech, low-tech seems almost fast. Funny how speed is all relative. I didn't do a ton of actual workouts this week. I brought my jumprope and a mat and did some bodyweight exercises when the killer mosquitoes weren't trying to eat me alive. Did you know that when you start sweating, it sends some kind of pheromonal signal to the entire mosquito population of the lake/wetlands you're camped next to and they arrive en masse and take battle formations over your body? I seriously look like I've got a case of the measles. I did get three runs in, and one amazing swim (wait until you see the photos I took of the lake, it seriously is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I've swum in a lot of beautiful places), and Mackenzie and I took the kayaks out for four days, plus hiking around the Lava Beds National Monument, in caves, around Captain Jack's Sronghold.

All in all, we had enough activity to keep me feeling great, enough downtime to devour three novels (can't remember when the last time I did that was!) Mackenzie worked his way through the first several of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. We brought my guitar, which Mackenzie is learning to play and we bought a couple of cowboy hats just because that's the kind of corny folks we are. Our camp rule was that you had to be wearing your cowboy hat to play the guitar by the campfire. Plus, it kept my head from burning. I forgot to bring my running hat though and I'm here to tell you that cowboy hats don't work well for running. At all.

Today I get to see Asa in the play she's been rehearsing all week (the Missoula Children's Theatre production of Jack and the Beanstalk) and then we're headed for home.

It's Been Awhile!

We just got back on Tuesday (morning, about 2:30 am, ugh!) from our Italy trip. I've started typing up my daily journals from the trip, and putting the entries (with photos of course, I think I only took about 4,000 of those!) up on my Blue Skies Blog. It was definitely the trip of a lifetime.

I did haul my running shoes all the way over there, with the idea that I'd take an early morning run in Rome, maybe down to the Circus Maximus (jet lag nixed that idea, unfortunately) or somewhere along the way, but realistically we were just too busy! So I hauled those running shoes back home and did go for a jog on Tuesday, and probably will hit the pavement again today.

The second week of our trip was the biking portion, and that all went amazingly well (even if you count in the times we got lost and the times we had to push the bikes and trailers up the steep hills of Tuscany!). We biked 165 miles that week from Asissi to Firenze (Florence) with all of our gear. The kids were real troopers, even on those unexpected side trips and detours. They were very excited to get on the bikes each and every day and see what the day would unveil to us. We cycled through vineyards where the grape harvest was in full swing, and ate lunch under shady olive groves.

Everyone in Italy was extremely friendly and helpful when we were on the bikes. The drivers were amazingly courteous (American drivers, please take note!) Even on narrow windy roads, a truck or car would follow us for miles at our 15 mph until they could safely pass, with nary a honk or unfriendly attitude. Though they drive very fast (compared to here) and seem to take road signs and lane lines with a much more liberal interpretation, the drivers there are very aware of everything around them (scooters zooming around the edges of the lanes, pedestrians stepping out, cyclists on the roads). We got loads of people slowing down and shouting out Bravo! or Complimento! out the window to us. A far cry from many drivers here who will just see how close they can come to you without knocking you off your bike.

One regret I have is that on the last day of our vacation, we were in San Giovanni Valdarno and that morning they were having a bicycle race on the "strada bianca" or white gravel roads of the area. There were six racers staying at the same place we were, loading up on pasta the night before. There were race options from 38k to 200k, and I would've loved to have seen it. Well, truth be told after cycling on all of those roads with the kids on the tandems, I was about burning up with jealousy for those bike racers, I wanted so badly to snap my fingers and have my own trusty bike appear, get on it, and roll out over those beautiful hills and valleys myself! Maybe some year I will go back...

But for now, we had an excellent time. I'll be putting up our detailed experiences on my other blog, and the kids are definitely hooked on bicycle touring, which was one of our goals in this whole thing. We are thinking that next summmer we may tour down the U.S. west coast on the tandems. We could easily haul our camping gear as it wouldn't weigh any less than the luggage we were hauling there (even though we managed to fit all of our clothes for four people for three weeks into two carry-on sized suitcases!)

Training Rides

Not quite as sexy as my race bike but this has been my ride for the last few weeks. We're almost ready to head to Italy with the kids and our bikes, and we've been out rolling through the local hills with the kids on the tandems (only resorting to pushing them up a hill once so far). Those of you athletes with young children... there is hope! It all started with a Burley trailer, then a tag-a-long bike, then we got them their own little two-wheelers, the training wheels came off and away they went. They've biked around town with me for years, replacing car trips to dance classes or homeschooling events. They've both competed in fun kids triathlons. Now they're ready for the ride of their lives.

We've got directions, books, maps, and a brand-new GPS. We've got spare tubes, tires, chain links, and brake pads. I've had Italian lessons loaded on my iPod for every run, walk, or quiet moment hanging out the laundry for the last two months. We're as prepared as we're going to be. And on Saturday we roll out of here for three and a half weeks in Italia. Wow!

Jonesing For A Swim

I needed to swim tonight like a junkie might need a fix after a week of going straight. I love biking, I like running, but swimming is my habit and when I get as stressed as I was today, I need my fix dammit. So although my to-do list was ten feet long and growing, I took the time to get in the pool and now I feel almost sane. By 6:00 am tomorrow morning, we'll be headed for the airport to Atlanta to the FIRST World Robotics Festival. We've got five kids, two robots, a ton of spare parts, research project presentations, pit table decorations, team t-shirts, trading cards and give-aways, and of course the kids' iPods, Nintendos, laptops, books, and other assorted paraphenalia. I don't think Hannibal carried this much stuff across the Alps, and he had elephants for pack animals. We only have a couple of parents to do the job. Wish us luck, and cross your fingers that the hotel has a good pool. I'm gonna need it!

How to Train, Get Filthy, and Have a Good Time

A friend and I have been planning a week's camping trip to the area around the John Day Fossil beds with our kids for months now, and we finally got the time to do it. The kids had a blast digging thundereggs and finding fossils, and we all got very dirty, dusty, hot, and tired. It would have to be the hottest week of the year (106 in the shade, of which there is not much in the desert).

But, like the faithful triathlete I am, I took my bike, wetsuit, and running shoes along. Unfortunately, I didn't take into consideration how many gravel roads we'd be traveling on. My bike got more than filthy, and there just aren't that many bike shops in the middle of nowhere. Or, 50 gravel road miles from the middle of nowhere, which is where we were. I did stop in a small store and get some WD-40 and clean up my chain and cogs as best I could. The nice part is that I got to swim in the John Day river and in beautiful Walton Lake, at the top of the Ochoco mountains (4500 feet of elevation does something to your breathing in your stroke though!). I had also forgotten the wonderful hospitality of Central Oregon drivers. Almost everyone who passed me gave me a wide berth on the road, and most waved or tipped their hats to boot. I got to run by all of the fire crews and helicopters (much to my husband's distress, since we were out of cell phone range, we were camped in the middle of several big fires), and take a bike ride to the Ochoco summit. It doesn't get much better than that (even if I was beyond filthy by the time I got home).