goodmorning nebraska

October 17th, 2007 | family, friends, fun, good stuff, morning, moving, road trip | chris | 0 comments

for those who didn’t know, nebraska is flat. that said, we are very excited to be leaving it behind today. yesterday we traveled the 680 miles through iowa and nebraska. to be honest, the drive really wasn’t all that bad. it took us 10 hours including a few stops. going through eastern nebraska was beautiful as we watched the sun set.

had a lot of time to think and chat. still can’t believe this is happening. as we finished putting things together and wrapped things up in iowa it was truly amazing how much our friends and family stepped in. i realized that these people actually meant it when they said “let us know if you need anything.” my parents and my sister coming monday night and doing a blitz clean/pack. thinking about it, i realized how much my family and friends want to see us happy. even though they don’t want to see us go they would rather see us happy. they take in our dog and go completely out of their way to make sure things work out for us.

we’re very grateful for the friendships we have in you all. thank you.

we have a long road ahead today. kimball, nebraska to ontario, oregon. last night we entered mountain time and today we will enter pacific time. so for all of you in the midwest, we will be two hours earlier than you. 11 hour drive today.

stay tuned. mountains, here we come.

thanks joe.

July 23rd, 2007 | alaska, beauty, friends, fun, morning, vacation | chris | 0 comments

it’s 6am here and we are just waking up with some oatmeal and granola.  in 30 minutes the owner of the hostel (joe.  he’s an extremely nice guy who is as strange as he is nice) is going to drive the three of us downtown anchorage so we can catch our bus to denali.

it will be around 5 hours on this bus, but i’m sure we won’t be short of things to see.

here we go!

the midnight sun

July 22nd, 2007 | alaska, beauty, crazy, midnight sun, morning, vacation | chris | 1 comment

we made it. we are currently staying at arctic adventure hostel in anchorage, alaska. we flew in at about 11:15pm local time (2:15am central) and the sun was still around. the flight was so crazy because we left chicago around 7:30 as the sun was going down and the entire way we chased the sun as it tried to set. it finally went down around 1:30am local time and rises two hours later at around 3:30am. crazy. eating breakfast this morning we have already met some amazing people. a couple from chicago, via romania and toronto, and a young women from north carolina. very interesting and down to earth people, all with something similar about them. i’ll come back to that when i have a better idea of what i’m talking about.

anyway, today we are unpacking our gear (which thankfully made it with us as it was checked into our flight) and getting ready to leave early tomorrow morning for denali. we are going to find our bus stop, visit a local market, eat some seafood, and visit an REI. anchorage seems to be a very dull dull place. hopefully we’re wrong about that assumption.

i’ll try and post once more before we take off tomorrow, if not, it will be about a week from now. stay tuned for pictures and stories. i’m sure we will have a few to share.

Hy-Vee World Cup Triathlon!! – post-race

June 18th, 2007 | bike, family, morning, triathlon | chris | 0 comments

Hy-Vee World Cup Triathlon 2007

What a weekend! We had a full day of racing yesterday from my race in the early morning to watching the Men and Women’s Pro races in the afternoon. All day in the sun! You can see the pictures from all three races here.

My race was great! The course was beautiful, the weather was perfect, spectators all the way from the start to the finish, it was just a blast! I really didn’t train too well for this race, but mostly just wanted to enjoy it. I found myself taking it all too seriously last year and luckily was able to back off and enjoy being able to race again.

The Pro races were unbelievable to watch. This race was unique not only because it was a World Cup race in Iowa of all places, but that the prize purse was so huge. The winners of both the men’s and women’s races received $200,000 and an H3 Hummer. These athletes do this for a living. In order for them to receive this same amount, they would normally have to win 10-12 races. The cash given out at this race was HUGE! It made for quite the specticle. They started out at Gray’s Lake, did their swim-to-bike transition there, then rode to the capital building where they did 6 laps downtown, followed by 4 laps running. Watching their transitions was amazing. The would literally go from swimming to biking and biking to running in less than 10 seconds. It was amazing. My first transition time yesterday was one minute and nine seconds. I that’s not too bad for me. My second one was at about 45 seconds. Either way, these people could jump off their bike and put running shoes on faster than anyone I’ve seen. Not only that, but they would do each leg of the race so fast and with such strategy. It was a blast to watch.

So check out the pictures from the race!!

hy-vee world cup triathlon

June 12th, 2007 | bike, morning, triathlon | chris | 0 comments

Troops & Trihawks 2006this week will be my first race of the season.  this time last year i had already done 3 races, so i’m more than ready to be out on the course this year.  i’ve decided to chill out a bit this year so i can enjoy racing again.  and i have been.  training is a bit more laid back than the last few years, but i am enjoying it much more.

so anyway, this race is going to be a big one.  it’s actually a world cup race meaning that there will be professional triathletes from around the world racing in des moines this sunday afternoon.  it’s extremely exciting!  they currently have over 1600 athletes registered.

we will leave friday and do packet pick-up and the pre-race meeting hopefully that night.  then saturday we’ll check out the course, transition area, finish and all the other stuff just so sunday isn’t such a shock.  we’ll be much more prepared that way.  then, O-dark-thirty we will get up and be at the transition area by 5am.  set-up transition area and start the race at 6am.  before most of you will be awake on sunday morning i will have swam 1500 meters, biked 25 miles, and ran 6.2 miles.

thankfully deeann’s parents will be feeding and housing us for the weekend at their place in des moines.  very grateful for that!

all in all, i’m very excited to be racing again and look forward to letting you know how the weekend goes.  if you’re at all interested, check out www.multisportjunkie.blogspot.com to see how my season last year went.  it’s an old blog that i kept up throughout the season last year.  i won’t be updating it this year, but it’s always nice to look back and see how other races went.

« Older Entries